The Friday Men Call “Good”

A few years ago I received an invitation to prepare a Tre Ore (“Three Hours”) reflection for my parish on one of Jesus’ “seven last words” from the cross. If you are not familiar with this tradition, here is a brief explanation: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=36926 It was a great, and somewhat terrifying, privilege to be asked to offer a reflection on this solemn occasion.

To maintain sure footing during my preparations, I turned to works by Pope Benedict XVI (Jesus of Nazareth (Part Two), Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (Ignatius Press 2011)); Fr. Richard John Neuhaus (Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross (Basic Books 2008)); and C.S. Lewis (A Grief Observed, reprinted in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (Harper One 2002)).

Our Easter Triduum in the year 2020 is certainly unlike any in recent memory, with our churches locked and our communities unable to assemble. If you are unable to find a Tre Ore service to stream, or if you prefer to read and reflect on your own, I offer you this meditation, and I pray that it enriches your Good Friday contemplations.

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The sixth word: “It is finished.”

We read in the 19th chapter of John, verses 29 and 30:

There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.

What “is finished”? From one perspective “it” is indeed finished; from another, “it” will never be finished.

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The catechism tells us Christ’s death on the cross is “the fulfillment of man’s salvation.” 

Or, put more simply, in the cross . . . is life.

“It is finished” means that what was proclaimed at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan – “behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” – has now come to fruition. In a manner known only to God, “the sin of the world” has been taken away. 

Sometimes it’s useful to go back to the source. In this case, it’s the Greek word “tetélestai,” used by the Gospel writer John, and translated into English as, “It is finished.” Examining this word, Pope Benedict XVI has written,

“[Jesus] has truly gone right to the end, to the very limit and even beyond that limit. He has accomplished the utter fullness of love – he has given himself.”

Or, in the words of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus,

“Now humanity can never again be alienated from God. . . . Humanity, our humanity, is eternally one with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. God has invested his very being in the human project, and therefore it cannot finally fail.”

In this most important sense, then, it is truly finished. God himself took on our flesh, bore our sins, and died for love of us.

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Which brings us to the flip side of this, the sixth word from the cross . . . the sense in which it will never be finished as long as human life endures.

It is difficult to ponder the cross. The temptation is to hurry past the crucifixion, to focus on resurrection . . . and the glory of eternal life in which we hope to share.

There is, however, no Easter without Good Friday. If we profess Jesus as “Lord,” then these words are for us:

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

How do we “take up” our crosses in imitation of Christ, and not run from them?

For help, we return to St. John, and the Greek word “tetélestai.” Pope Benedict writes:

“[A] further meaning of this same word [is] consecration, bestowal of priestly dignity, in other words, total dedication to God. . . . The Cross of Jesus replaces all other acts of worship as the one true glorification of God[.]”

The death of Christ on the cross is an act of worship.

How do we as disciples take up our crosses as an act of worship? What does that look like?

When the great Christian apologist C.S. Lewis was left shattered by the death of his wife Helen, he did not at first take up his cross willingly. His writings initially expressed rage and estrangement from God. But soon he looked back and wrote this:

“The notes have been about myself, about [Helen] and about God. In that order. The order and proportions exactly what they ought not to have been. And I see that I have nowhere fallen into that mode of thinking about either which we call praising them. Yet that would have been best for me. Praise is the mode of love which always has some element of joy in it. Praise in due order; of Him as the giver, of her as the gift. Don’t we in praise somehow enjoy what we praise, however far we are from it? I must do more of this.”

In other words, he should have worshipped. Praising God, even in affliction. Being still, acknowledging in all humility that God is God, and we are creatures. We are led to say, with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, “yet not my will but Thine be done.”

Ultimately, we are called to trust. We can do nothing else, but thanks to what Jesus finished on Good Friday, we can do this knowing that we are known, that we are loved, and that we are never abandoned.

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G.K. Chesterton on Sheltering in Place

Staying home with little to do but housework (and that, best avoided!) does have its advantages. For a while I have had sitting on my bookshelf In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton (D. Ahlquist ed., Ignatius Press 2011). Chesterton is not a quick read for me. His writing is dense and clever, and if I’m not paying careful attention, his wittiness and meaning will wash right over me without penetrating. So, now is the time to spend some time with GKC.

I didn’t have to get far in the book this afternoon before Chesterton proved his timelessness. His observations from the 1905 essay “On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family,” could have been written this week about those of us stuck at home in our maybe-not-entirely-harmonious households:

The common defence of the family is that, amid the stress and fickleness of life, it is peaceful, pleasant, and at one. But there is another defence of the family which is possible, and to me evident; this defence is that the family is not peaceful and not pleasant and not at one.

[. . .]

The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. . . . The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us.

[. . .]

If we were to-morrow morning snowed up in the street in which we live, we should step suddenly into a much larger and much wilder world than we have ever known. And it is the whole effort of the typically modern person to escape from the street in which he lives. . . . He says he is fleeing his street because it is dull; he is lying. He is really fleeing from his street because it is a great deal too exciting. It is exciting because it is exacting; it is exacting because it is alive.

It is “exacting” to live together in close quarters, around the clock, without coming to blows. Chesterton is riffing on what is now the old adage, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.” More:

It is a good thing for a man to live in a family for the same reason that it is a good thing for a man to be besieged in a city. It is a good thing for a man to live in a family in the same sense that it is a beautiful and delightful thing for a man to be snowed up in a street. They all force him to realize that life is not a thing from outside, but a thing from inside.

We are “beseiged in our cities” by a germ, if not by an army. Maybe this experience will help us grow in compassion and patience. May we all realize more than before that life is a “thing from inside.”

“What is truth?”

As promised, and in preparation for Good Friday, the text that follows is excerpted from Pope St. John Paul II’s Good Friday 2000 meditation on the First Station of the Cross – Jesus Is Condemned to Death, wherein Pontius Pilate asks the revealing question, “What is truth?”:

“Are you the King of the Jews?” (Jn 18:33).
“My Kingdom is not of this world; if my Kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my Kingdom is not from the world” (Jn 18:36).

Pilate said to him:
– “So you are a king?”
Jesus answered:
– “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”
Pilate said in answer:
“What is truth?”.
At this point, the Roman Procurator saw no need for further questions. He went to the Jews and told them: “I find no crime in him” (cf. Jn 18:37-38).
The tragedy of Pilate is hidden in the question: What is truth?

This was no philosophical question about the nature of truth, but an existential question about his own relationship with truth. It was an attempt to escape from the voice of conscience, which was pressing him to acknowledge the truth and follow it. When someone refuses to be guided by truth he is ultimately ready even to condemn an innocent person to death.
The accusers sense this weakness in Pilate and so do not yield. They relentlessly call for death by crucifixion. Pilate’s attempts at half measures are of no avail. The cruel punishment of scourging inflicted upon the Accused is not enough. When the Procurator brings Jesus, scourged and crowned with thorns, before the crowd, he seems to be looking for words which he thinks might soften the intransigence of the mob.

Pointing to Jesus he says: Ecce homo! Behold the man!
But the answer comes back: “Crucify him, crucify him!”
Pilate then tries to buy time: “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him” (Jn 19:5-7).
He is increasingly convinced that the Accused is innocent, but this is not enough for him to decide in his favour.
The accusers use their final argument: “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself a king sets himself against Caesar” (Jn 19:12).

This is clearly a threat. Recognizing the danger, Pilate finally gives in and pronounces the sentence. But not without the contemptuous gesture of washing his hands: “I am innocent of this … blood; see to it yourselves!” (Mt 27:24).

Thus was Jesus, the Son of the living God, the Redeemer of the world, condemned to death by crucifixion.
Over the centuries the denial of truth has spawned suffering and death.
It is the innocent who pay the price of human hypocrisy.
Half measures are never enough. Nor is it enough to wash one’s hands.
Responsibility for the blood of the just remains.
This is why Christ prayed so fervently for his disciples in every age:
Father, “sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (Jn 17:17).

http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2000/apr-jun/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20000421_via-crucis.html

Cardinal Pell Released

The Scapegoat, William Holman Hunt / Public domain

 

This Holy Week, the theme of “truth” comes to us cloaked in judicial proceedings, from today’s headlines to the Good Friday Passion liturgy. God is very interested, indeed, in the cause of justice:

You have been told, O mortal, what is good,

and what the Lord requires of you:

Only to do justice and to love goodness,

and to walk humbly with your God.

Mi. 6:8. Fittingly, Micah chapter 6 is styled as a legal case brought by God against His wayward people. Justice is one of the Cardinal Virtues, yet it is so very hard for us to adjudicate in this life because we often don’t love goodness, and we really, really don’t walk humbly with God.

Word came today that Australia’s Cardinal George Pell has been released from prison after having had his 2018 sexual assault convictions unanimously overturned by that nation’s highest court. He has steadfastly maintained his innocence throughout two trials, the first resulting in a mistrial:

He was alleged to have sexually assaulted two choir boys while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996.

[…]

While Cardinal Pell was, for many, the face of Catholicism in Australia, and was much maligned after an Australian government enquiry revealed decades of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and other institutions, Cardinal Pell insisted that his ordeal should have been limited to the allegations against him.

“My trial was not a referendum on the Catholic Church; nor a referendum on how Church authorities in Australia dealt with the crime of peadeophilia [sic] in the Church.”

“The point was whether I had committed these awful crimes and I did not.”

https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/with-conviction-overturned-cardinal-pell-speaks-the-only-basis-for-justice?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_i4QN9OH_m5jeCxgvKItHbVvaWUmXiimdJHjzkA9oHquNY2E8h1cgIn0qSSB9ka1ofeH8MRCE1uUGjEOBNjPd6cKrbVw&_hsmi=85955213

Pell’s administrative culpability, if any, in the wider sex-abuse crisis was not theoretically the focus of the proceedings, as it does not appear he was on trial in his official capacity (the case on appeal is styled “Pell v. The Queen”, not “The Archdiocese of Melbourne v. The Queen”). However, the article suggests that the prosecution was, in fact, intended as a “referendum on the Catholic Church.” Notably, in 2013 “police in Victoria opened Operation Tethering, an open-ended investigation into possible crimes committed by Pell, despite there being no accusations or criminal complaints against him at that time.” Moreover, the circumstances of the abuse ultimately alleged at trial strained credulity, per the High Court. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-george-pells-abuse-convictions-overturned-by-australias-high-court-66750 In short, the justices concluded that, “With respect to each of [Pell’s] convictions, there was . . .a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof”. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-07/george-pell-high-court-of-australia-full-judgment-summary/12128468

Even so, a former Australian Prime Minister was quoted as “tweeting” today that the High Court’s ruling calls into question whether the country has “learn[ed] as a nation from the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse”. That sounds an awful lot like using Cardinal Pell as a proxy for the wider Church. https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/cardinal-george-pell-walks-free/

Which brings us to the concept of the “scapegoat.”

The “scapegoat” was the animal used by the ancient Israelites on the Day of Atonement to “carry off all their iniquities to an isolated region [in the wilderness].” Lv. 16:22.

It now appears that the truth of the accusations against Cardinal Pell was less important than who Pell was – the most prominent prelate in Australia, dispatched to the wilderness of prison, “scapegoated,” for the iniquities of the Church as a whole.

This disregard for the truth led to injustice, and a man wrongfully imprisoned (in solitary confinement at a maximum-security facility, no less) for more than a year.

While the Pell story played out over the course of years, playing fast and loose with the truth these days can have instant repercussions and lead to an online “flash mob.” Several commentators have noted the scapegoating mechanism at work in the recent fiasco involving students from Covington Catholic High School, who were wrongfully and very publicly accused of disrespecting a Native American and a group of African-Americans at the 2019 March for Life. After a media firestorm of denunciations, it became clear that the students were actually the targets of abuse, not the perpetrators. Several of the students have since sued major media outlets; there has been at least one settlement. https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-covington-nick-sandmann-settlement

Bishop Robert Barron says that watching the abuse of the Covington Catholic students play out online called to mind the scapegoating theories of the late French philosopher René Girard. In Girard’s telling, per Barron,

most human communities, from the coffee klatch to the nation state, are predicated upon this dysfunctional and deeply destructive instinct. Roughly speaking, it unfolds as follows. When tensions arise in a group (as they inevitably do), people commence to cast about for a scapegoat, for someone or some group to blame. Deeply attractive, even addictive, the scapegoating move rapidly attracts a crowd, which in short order becomes a mob. In their common hatred of the victim, the blamers feel an ersatz sense of togetherness. Filled with the excitement born of self-righteousness, the mob then endeavors to isolate and finally eliminate the scapegoat, convinced that this will restore order to their roiled society. 

https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/the-internet-and-satans-game/6002/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_term=twitter-barron&utm_content=the-internet-and-satans-game&utm_campaign=article

Based on his reading of Girard’s book I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Novalis 2001), Rod Dreher also sees the philosopher’s scapegoating theory vindicated in the Covington Catholic story:

Since [the book’s publication], the “radicalization of contemporary victimology” has produced even more of exactly the effects he said they would produce. And orthodox Christianity has become even more marginalized and despised, precisely because the post-Christian left needs a scapegoat upon which to blame the sins of the world. It is hard to come up with a more perfect scapegoat for this pseudo-religion of radical victimology than a group of white male pro-life Catholics from the South, wearing MAGA hats.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/rene-girard-covington-catholic-boys/

We finite creatures do not have the omniscient mind of God. To arrive at judgments, especially those that will impact our fellow human beings, we require evidence which must be tested and scrutinized. It requires courage not to place blame, especially when that blame would be emotionally satisfying, when the evidence is lacking or doesn’t show what we want it to show. So often our courage fails; we lack goodness; we are not humble before God.

The bottom line is this: A concern for the truth (which the “requisite standard of proof” is supposed to safeguard), according to Australia’s High Court, would have spared Cardinal Pell a conviction for sexual assaults he almost certainly did not commit. A concern for the truth would have prevented media outlets from falsely accusing the Covington Catholic students of harassment. The Levitical scapegoat was an animal consigned to the wilderness to assuage the guilt of others. Persons deserve better.

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As horrible as Cardinal Pell’s ordeal was, he did finally get to walk free. And it is important to remember that on the Day of Atonement, the scapegoat, banished to the wilderness though it was, was not sacrificed. (Lv. 16:9.)

This Friday we commemorate the sacrifice of Christ for the salvation of the world. The readings for the observance include Pontius Pilate’s infamous question, “What is truth?” Jn. 18:38. In my next post, I will include Pope St. John Paul II’s reflections on this scene of Jesus before Pilate, drawn from his Good Friday Stations of the Cross of the Jubilee Year 2000.

 

 

A follow-up…

… to the previous post. Subverted author Sue Ellen Browder has a new book out, Sex and the Catholic Feminist: New Choices for a New Generation (Ignatius Press 2020). If you follow this link to the book (https://www.ignatius.com/Sex-and-the-Catholic-Feminist-P3564.aspx), you will note another link marked “NEW!” in red in the upper right-hand corner of the page. That will take you to the “FORMED Book Club,” a free service (I’m 99% sure) that appears to be a joint venture between Ignatius Press and the Augustine Institute. There will be a video discussion about Sex and the Catholic Feminist on Tuesday, April 7 at “10 am PST”, or as the old TV announcers used to say, “at 1, noon Central, 10 Pacific.” (As an aside, I hope they mean PDT because we are now on Daylight Saving Time).

I have not yet purchased the book, but I look forward to watching the discussion!

If you are not familiar with the FORMED platform (https://formed.org/), it is a truly amazing resource, delivering a wide range of authentically Catholic materials to your computer or mobile device. From the website:

“FORMED provides the very best Catholic content from more than 60 organizations to help parishes, families and individuals explore their faith anywhere. Supporting thousands of movies, children’s programs, ebooks, audio, parish programs and studies direct to your browser, mobile or connected device.”

I encourage you to sign up if you haven’t already. Many, many parishes and dioceses have granted their members free access to this outstanding resource; just follow the sign-up directions on the site to see if yours is among them.

More on Truth — Cautionary Tales, Both Ancient and New

All week, the theme of “truth” has leapt from the pages of the Mass readings. In Monday’s reading from Chapter 13 of Daniel, two vile “elders of the people” try to force Susanna, “a very beautiful and God-fearing woman,” to have sex with them. When she refuses they falsely accuse her of adultery and try to have her stoned to death. Daniel interrogates them separately, and he proves their lies because their stories don’t match. (Fun fact: This “Rule of Witness Exclusion” is still used in courts today. For example, in US Federal Courts, Evidence Rule 615 provides that “At a party’s request, the court must order witnesses excluded so that they cannot hear other witnesses’ testimony. Or the court may do so on its own.” State courts have their own versions of the rule.)

In Wednesday’s Gospel, Jesus states, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (Jn. 8:31-32.) In the case of Susanna, the truth set her free quite literally. But we know that damage from lies can also be spiritual. Serious lies, distortions, and manipulations not only damage the soul of the deceiver, but they also keep the recipients from living in the truth, and can plunge them into despair, consign them to ignorance, or even cause them to sin, all great evils. He Who is Truth is our spiritual guardrail, if we would only take Him seriously and follow Him.

Catch and Kill

Which brings me to a very contemporary version of Susanna-and-the-elders, which has been playing out in New York City and Los Angeles. It has much to tell us about our media and the shaping of “truth.” As most everyone has heard, superstar movie producer Harvey Weinstein is now serving a 23-year prison sentence following his February convictions in New York for “rape” and “criminal sex act” against an aspiring actress and a production assistant, respectively. Though only currently convicted on two counts, he has been accused of mistreating many women over the course of decades. But it’s his manipulation of the media to protect himself and punish or silence his accusers that should give us all pause, because we all consume media, and we all seek the truth.

Journalist Ronan Farrow won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for his The New Yorker magazine articles exposing Weinstein’s predations. He revealed that actresses and assistants, including some well-known film stars, feared retaliation – industry blackballing, lost job opportunities – for opposing Weinstein. In his magazine articles and in his follow-up book Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators (Little, Brown and Company 2019), Farrow revealed Weinstein’s media manipulation techniques: circulate negative rumors and plant disparaging stories in the media, branding a woman who rejected him as “difficult” to work with or otherwise tearing her down; and/or, have a media outlet run by someone friendly to him “catch” a woman’s story by paying for exclusive rights to the account, then “kill” the story by refusing to publish it – the “Catch and Kill” of the title. (Farrow makes clear in his book that Weinstein is neither the inventor of, nor the sole beneficiary of, “catch and kill”.)

Which raises the question: What is in the news, or in media more broadly, and why is it there? And, is it true, or does is just “sound” true? Conversely, what isn’t there that should be?

“Truthiness” Is No Laughing Matter

Back in 2005, late-night comedian Stephen Colbert was looking for a word. The word, he later told The New York Times Magazine, had to be “sublimely idiotic” to fit with the bombastic alter-ego persona he would debut that night on his new show. The term he coined is “truthiness,” and it has had staying power. It even appears in some dictionaries, defined as “the quality of seeming to be true according to one’s intuition, opinion, or perception, without regard to logic, factual evidence, or the like[.]” https://www.dictionary.com/browse/truthiness But “truthiness” isn’t new. In fact, one alternative term for it might be “propaganda.”

Of course, propaganda is as old as mankind itself (viz. the Garden of Eden). And we err if we think ourselves too smart or too well-informed to fall for it. Pondering the topic of “truth” and its manipulations has prompted me to re-read Sue Ellen Browder’s powerful memoir Subverted: How I Helped the Sexual Revolution Hijack the Women’s Movement (Ignatius Press 2015), wherein she writes about the lies — the propaganda – she told as a women’s magazine writer in the late 1960s:

The 1960s’ women’s movement . . . grew out of a genuine cry for justice. . . . The 1960s’ sexual revolution was an altogether different matter. . . . [T]he sex revolution was based largely on “half truth, limited truth, and truth out of context.” (fn) That is to say, the sex revolution was fabricated largely from propaganda. I know because I was one of the propagandists who helped sell single women on the notion that sex outside of marriage would set them free.

Effective propaganda is subtle and emotionally appealing, and she notes that “[a]s a form of withheld truth, propaganda can be 90 percent true. It’s the deceptive 10 percent that gets you.”

One of the most devastating things Browder reveals is how the tireless, truth-twisting efforts of one largely unknown man, Larry Lader, a “master propagandist,” changed the course of U.S. history. Lader’s singular focus was the legalization of abortion, and Browder describes his 1966 book of the same name as “a convoluted blend of fact and fiction so intricately interlaced only an extremely well-educated and diligent historian could pry the two apart”; furthermore, much of the legal “history” of abortion in the book was flat-out invented. Nevertheless, Lader not only “grafted abortion onto the women’s movement but five years later [his work] became a legal pillar for the Roe v. Wade decision.”

“Truthiness” is no joke.

I encourage you to read the book. I guarantee it will shock you.

Some Thoughts on Truth

It’s really striking how themes suggest themselves, then pop up everywhere I look. Since at least the turn of this new year, the theme I can’t shake is that of truth.

Of course, grounding the entire concept of truth is Jesus’ statement, “I am . . . the truth[.]” Jn. 14:6. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has an extensive section on the topic of truth — ¶ 2464 and following, “Living In the Truth”. To find and to know the truth is not optional. A disciple of Christ “consents to live in the truth,” and must “abid[e] in his truth.” ¶ 2470.

The modern assault on truth has been well-rehearsed elsewhere. In this and posts to follow, I would like to highlight some books and other materials that have shed a fresh light on reality for me, that upend some of our culturally received “wisdom,” and that have expanded my understanding.

One book that did that for me, in spades, is Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time, by Sarah Ruden (Image Books 2010). Ruden is a classicist who comes out of the Quaker tradition. In Paul Among the People, she has translated ancient texts, and she juxtaposes their descriptions of the society in which St. Paul lived and wrote against his epistles. She thus sheds new light on — and explodes myths about — his writings.

Here’s just one example: In 1 Cor. 11 Paul says women should pray with their heads veiled and men with theirs uncovered. This sounds horrible and sexist to the modern ear. BUT, Ruden points out that this might just be Paul exhorting the Corinthians to radical equality. How can that be? Here’s the answer she offers:

"Acts and the epistles strongly suggest that unattached women were among the early churches' most active and respected members; and would Paul or his deputies have thrown out a known prostitute from a gathering, as long as she was not there on business? . . . At the very least, there must have been among the Christians women with pasts. . . . It was against custom and perhaps even against the law for them to be veiled. . . . [But] all Christian women were to cover their heads in church, without distinction of beauty, wealth, [or] respectability[.]"

And so, contrary to common misconception (“Paul hated women” — haven’t we all heard it?), we have Paul treating all Christian women as one, “without distinction” as to social status. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free [and many prostitutes were slaves], there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Gal. 3:28 (NRSV).

How about them apples?

The Most Important Day of the Year

Did you miss it? I mostly did, because its full significance was not known to me.

I’m referring to March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, a date so packed with meaning that I find it staggering. But I didn’t have a full appreciation of it until very recently.

More than a month ago I read an article by our local Ordinary, praising the book Annunciation: A Call to Faith in a Broken World, by Sally Read (Ignatius Press 2019). It’s not often that a successor to the Apostles writes an extended commentary on a new book, and he had my attention. Read is a poet, nurse, and one-time atheist whose conversion story is told in the memoir Night’s Bright Darkness (Ignatius Press 2016). Her prose is lyrical (as befits a poet) and not unlike that of the late British mystic Caryll Houselander (The Reed of God). Annunciation is an extended love-letter to Read’s young daughter; as it unfolds it unpacks the spiritual treasures of the encounter between Mary and the Archangel Gabriel, detailed in Luke 1:26-38. As Read writes, “The Annunciation is an invitation to a deeper relationship with God for each and every one of us.” Her book, which I have almost finished, is a winsome companion along the path toward that deeper relationship.

I set Annunciation aside for a few weeks. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic confined us to our homes, leading to a quiet and isolated celebration of the Solemnity of the Annunciation on March 25. I confess that the celebration did not make a tremendous impact on me at the time. Still, this site launched the following day, and its first two posts were informed by the Annunciation.

Over the weekend, I belatedly encountered an article about Italy’s celebration of the first-ever “Dante Day” — March 25. According to the article, this date is neither the date of the poet’s birth, nor that of his death. Rather, it is the date the poet enters Hell in Inferno : Good Friday.

Good Friday? I thought March 25 was the Annunciation? Clearly, there is much about this date to unpack. According to the National Catholic Register, citing The Spirit of the Liturgy, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI):

  • Jewish tradition held March 25 to be the date of Abraham’s sacrifice;
  • March 25 was also regarded as the date of creation (as in, “Let there be light”);
  • Because early Christians followed Jewish tradition, they also found it “fitting” that March 25 should be observed as the date of Christ’s conception, and subsequently observed also as the date of His crucifixion.

Read the whole article here: https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/italy-marks-first-dante-day-under-coronavirus-lockdown 

I have also learned that we needn’t reach all the way back to 14th century Italy for a literary appreciation of March 25. For example, in The Lord of the Rings, what many regard as the greatest work of fiction of the 20th century, and a work deeply informed by the author’s Catholic faith, J.R.R. Tolkien tells us in an appendix that on March 25, “Gollum seizes the Ring and falls in the Cracks of Doom. [This date also sees the] Downfall of Barad-dûr and passing of Sauron.” Thus does good triumph over evil, and Middle Earth is saved.

One final note: For those of you who use the Magnificat devotional magazine, you will see that today’s saint (the daily “Saint Who?” feature) is Saint Dismas, “The Good Thief” (Lk. 23:39-43), whose feast day is . . . March 25.

Entertainment, edification, both?

Why do you read? In particular, why do you read fiction?

As my school years recede ever-farther into the distance, my consumption of fiction has narrowed. These days, I read mostly police procedurals and mysteries in my free time, especially if they are set in a milieu unfamiliar to me (it’s like travel without the hassle or expense!). I find such stories to be relaxing and entertaining — if they aren’t too “real” and graphic.

And that’s why the question — why read fiction? — presented itself to me as I read this article in Crisis Magazine: (https://www.crisismagazine.com/2020/flannery-oconnors-catholic-mind). It is another encomium to Flannery O’Connor, an author widely lauded in Catholic circles (http://staustinreview.org/2018/03/06/misfits-mystics-flannery-oconnor-friends-2/; https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/blog/the-vocation-of-flannery-oconnor/18676/). Invariably, her champions describe her work as “grotesque,” “dark,” and “violent,” though they admire the ways in which she uses these qualities to bring spiritual truths to light. Those are the very qualities, however, that make her work off-putting for me. I had to put down A Good Man Is Hard to Find, and Other Stories. The characters and situations were too dark and, I must admit, frightening.

Perhaps I’m turning away from the Cross when I turn my back on stories that reveal life in all its ugliness. In police/detective fiction, the protagonist is seeking justice and usually finds it. Not so in the real world or in more realistic works. I find, however, that I don’t have to go looking for crosses to bear; the ordinary course of living supplies ample opportunity to take up my cross and follow Jesus. Whether I do so well, or at all, is another matter.

In the end, it’s a matter of taste. I have found great spiritual truths in the fiction of C.S. Lewis and Michael D. O’Brien, among others. Whose fiction draws you closer to God?

Remember, O man, you are dust….

Saint Jerome, 1537. Found in the Collection of Art History Museum, Vienne. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The skull in this portrait of St. Jerome is an example of a “memento mori,” a reminder of death. The memento mori was once a fairly common trope in art, as this article from The Art of Manliness website explains quite nicely, illustrated with a variety of examples. https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/memento-mori-art/

As I write this, the entire world is in the grip of the COVID-19 [novel coronavirus] pandemic; 526,044 cases have been reported, and 23,709 people have died around the globe. Even if we do not wish to think of death, circumstances compel us.

We who claim the name of “Christian” must face trying times, and the prospect of death, with hope. This second of the “theological virtues” is that “virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶1817. That this pandemic is raging on during Lent does not seem like a coincidence.

Despite the cultural shroud of silence that surrounds the issue of death, we all want to know how to approach our own end with grace and dignity. In his review of Nicholas Diat’s A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life (Ignatius Press, 2019), Matthew C. Nickel, Ph.D. writes that the “monks serve as models, and we would do well to turn off the news and listen attentively to their stories.” https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/03/25/a-time-to-read-nicolas-diats-a-time-to-die/

This volume will definitely go on my reading list.

h/t Joyce G.