Rejoice Not When Thine Enemy Falleth

The car radio was set to the BBC when I left work, and it was a few minutes before the announcer repeated the headline, "Osama bin Laden is dead."  The news was so unexpected and shocking that I'm surprised I stayed on the road.

"Bittersweet" isn't quite the word to describe my reaction to the announcement.

I remember well that Tuesday morning.  All of America shared in the horror of that dark day.  But ten years later, this jubilation over one man's death disturbs me, too--even a man as hate-filled or destructive as Bin Laden.

Whooping crowds gathered outside the White House and at Ground Zero in New York chanting "USA! USA!" at the news.  A friend on Facebook posted that Bin Laden's body should have been dragged in the streets.  A morning news anchor wished that, rather than having been burial at sea, his body had been thrown off a high building.

This is not the Christian reaction.  In fact, to me these celebrations are eerily reminiscent of the sight of Muslims shrieking with joy over the American deaths of 9/11.

Worse, this man’s death and the following elation came on the very day we celebrated the beatification of the great John Paul II who publicly forgave the man who tried to murder him.  In these days when politicians and citizens are saying, "You don't pick a fight with America!  We will hunt you down and bring you to justice!  There is a sense of unity again!" perhaps it would be good for America to remember the blessed pope's words:  "Do not think that courage and strength are proved by killing and destruction.  True courage lies in working for peace."

There is only one man whose death we should rejoice over:  the God-Man Jesus Christ.  What would this world look like if, coming out of the Easter Octave, people were even half as exultant over the death and resurrection of the Savior of Heaven and Earth?

Scripture instructs me not to rejoice or be glad when my enemy falls (cf Prov 24:17).  My Lord calls me to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me (cf Mt 5:44).  This is a hard saying, but I must accept it.  So this is why I am so uncomfortable with the reaction of my countrymen--many of whom insist America is a Christian nation--at the death of Osama Bin Laden.

May God have mercy on his soul.

May Christ's grace remake us all in His Image.

Born Again

During the summer I am immersed in Protestantism while at work.  Some of the college students that come to the Y are new Christians, and it's not uncommon for them to share the story of when they were “born again.”

We Catholics don't talk like that.  We hardly know how to answer the questions “Have you been saved?” or “Have you been born again?”  Yet if we have been baptized, the answer is “yes.”

The memory book I received as a college graduation gift contains a Polaroid of my baptism:  Mom and Dad hold me over the small baptismal font; my godparents Patti and Randy crowd around as the priest blesses me.

I don't remember this at all, but that doesn't matter.  Though a personal emotional experience is absent, the grace of the sacrament is the same.  I didn't need to know exactly what was happening at the time, because my parents knew and because I would come to know.

The same was true of circumcision in the Old Covenant.  Every male child of Israel was incorporated into the Chosen People through circumcision, which was a sign of the covenant with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  And the decision to do this was not the infant's, but the parents'.

In this way, circumcision foreshadowed baptism of the New Covenant.  And since baptism is a sacrament—a physical, tangible way that God makes Himself present for us to experience—it truly incorporates us into the Body of Christ.  And unlike circumcision of old, it also washes us clean of sin and brings us into a new spiritual life to share in Christ's Resurrection.  This is what St. Peter means when he says “Baptism...now saves you” (cf. 1 Pt 3:21).

My parents' love brought me into their earthly family, and three weeks later that love combined with their love for God brought me into the spiritual family of the Church.

Twenty-nine years ago today, I was born again of water and the Spirit (cf. Jn 3:3-5).

Resurrexit Sicut Dixit

Tonight, through the liturgy of the Church's solemn vigil, God spans time and space to bring us the grace of that holy night when Christ rose triumphant over the grave.  It is in the dead of this night that Death is destroyed.  And we are there at the tomb to see it empty.

Tonight the Church's great proclamation of the Resurrection, the Exultet asks, What good would life have been to us, had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

This is the Good News that gives all things meaning.  God the Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, came in the flesh, lived among men, suffered and died for them, and took up His life again.  Our pain and suffering has meaning because He Himself suffered.  Our death does not spell the end of our life because His death did not spell the end of His Life.

Yet there are still people who have not heard this joyous news.  Even now they do not see what good life is, that their God poured out Himself in sacrificial love so that their sin and brokenness could be healed and their death could be overcome.

These are not just poetic words; this is no myth.  He is risen as He said, and He comes to us as the Eucharist--His true Body and Blood, resurrected and glorified--to share His abundant life as He said.

The New Adam

In the beginning God created man and saw it was not good for him to be alone.  So God brought forth to Adam all the animals on the earth, and after naming them, Adam saw that none were a suitable partner for himself.  So God put Adam into a deep sleep, opened his side, removed a rib, and fashioned from it woman as a bride for Adam.

On Good Friday, God saw that it was not good that man should live burdened by sin and separated from the love of the Trinity.  And so seeing that the law of Moses was not a suitable path for man's salvation, Christ offered Himself in love on the cross, on the hill of Golgotha where tradition says Adam was buried.  And during the "deep sleep" of death, Christ's side was opened by a lance, and through the blood and water that flowed out, Christ the New Adam fashioned for Himself His own bride, the Church.

God created Eve to complete Adam; God created the Church so that He could complete man through relationship with Himself.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo

The eighth day before the first of January, eighth day of the lunar month;

innumerable ages having passed since the creation of the world, when in the beginning God created Heaven and earth and formed man in His own image;

many more centuries after the flood, when the Most High placed His rainbow in the heavens as a sign of the covenant and of peace;

from the migration of Abraham, our father in faith, from Ur of the Chaldeans, twenty-one centuries;

from the exodus of the people of Israel out of Egypt, led by Moses, thirteen centuries;

from the anointing of David as King, about one thousand years;

in the sixty-fifth week according to Daniel’s prophecy;

in the year of the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;

from the founding of the city of Rome, seven hundred and fifty-two years;

in the rule of Caesar Octavian Augustus, the forty-second year;

the whole world being at peace:

Jesus Christ, eternal God, the eternal Father’s Son, being pleased by His coming to consecrate the world, by the Holy Spirit conceived, nine months having passed since His conception, in Bethlehem of Judah was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.

Above is the Proclamation of the Birth of Christ (this is a literal English translation of the Latin), which may be sung at Midnight Mass.  It puts the Incarnation of Jesus in the context of both salvation history and secular history.  It acknowledges that God did indeed, really and truly, enter into His Creation in an great outpouring of Love.

The Ancient of Days, the Great I AM, the infinite and omnipotent God of the Universe united our human nature with His own divine nature, taking on the humility and weakness of a poor, powerless babe.

That infant was born in Bethlehem, a town of no great stature or importance, a town whose name in Hebrew means "house of bread."  He was laid in a lowly manger, the feeding trough of stable animals.  So we see that even in the circumstances of His birth, the Word Made Flesh wished to draw us near to Himself through the Eucharist.

As truly as He came as a little child so long ago, He humbly comes to us now as the Bread of Life, true food and true drink.  His divinity "incarnates" bread and wine, transubstantiating it into Himself, and then when we receive His Body and Blood, He begins to transform our very selves into Himself.

Magnificat's Christmas Eve meditation was A Christmas Prayer by Ian Oliver, and I was particularly touched by this verse of the poem:  "If God can lie down in a cattle-trough,/ is any object safe from transformation?"

A blessed and holy Christmas to you.  Receive the Eucharist, receive Christ born anew in your heart and be transformed.

Now Thank We All Our God

Thanksgiving is a curiously American holiday (though it is also celebrated in Canada): a sort of amalgamation of harvest festival and holy day.

The early inhabitants of New England, the Pilgrims, were themselves a curious bunch.  The group who saw the ceremonies and feasts of the Church of England as extravagant and unscriptural--who even went so far as to ban Christmas--spent three days feasting and recreating for what we now call the First Thanksgiving.  The celebration was in response to God's blessing of a bountiful harvest of that year juxtaposed against the scarcity and harshness of the previous winter.

I wonder how those Puritans would react if they saw how we celebrate Thanksgiving today.

We in America hardly know scarcity and want, especially when it comes to food.  And nowadays, when most everything in our culture must be expunged of God and religious content, we are reminded to think about "the things we're thankful for."  (Interestingly, one of the things we're not thankful for, if popular culture is any indication, is family; for what is more dreadful than having to endure a sit-down dinner with the people who know us--and annoy us--the most?)

Thankfulness requires a relationship.  It is the acknowledgment of something received.  So the Thanksgiving holiday must be ordered to another, someone else, a person.  This can and should include family and food, though it should ultimately draw us to the Three Persons in One God, from Whom all blessings flow.

We Catholics have the Eucharist, the greatest reason to give thanks:  the Word Made Flesh gives the world His Body and Blood as true food and true drink, so that we may be feast upon the Lamb of God and receive His Abundant Life.

We truly have much to be thankful for.

So Great a Cloud of Witnesses

I've been neglecting some things recently, this blog included.  The issue of neglect came up in my Confession last week, when the Lord revealed to me that I've also been neglecting a devotion to the saints.

This wasn't entirely my fault in the beginning.  There was hardly any mention of the saints during my religious education or even at home.  There were no statues in church of the saints (save one--and only one--of Mary).  If I had ever paid attention to the words of the Roman Canon, Eucharistic Prayer I, when it was prayed during Mass, I doubt I would have heard the invocation of all those names of the apostles and martyrs.  After all, it is optional to invoke those saints during that prayer.

But I'm an adult now, and I am responsible for my own ongoing religious formation.  So just as I was responsible whether or not to accept as an adult what little I was taught as a child about Christ and His Church, so am I responsible for strengthening my relationship with the Lord and growing in a deeper understanding of the Faith.

I also realized that I know who Paris Hilton, Jon and Kate are, but I barely know Denis of Paris, John of the Cross or Catherine of Siena, let alone Athanasius, Elizabeth Ann Seton, or Polycarp.  Which group should have more influence on my life?

So during the past year or so, I've been trying to develop my devotion to the saints.  I've begun to invoke a different saint's intercession during daily morning and evening prayer.  In fact, praying the Liturgy of the Hours (or in my case, Magnificat), has helped me appreciate the rhythm of the Church's life and introduced me to more saints than I could have imagined.  I also have my own patrons:  Andrew, who is both my middle- and Confirmation namesake, and Anthony of Padua, finder of lost items.

These are all good practices, but I could do more.  For instance, I only know snippets of a few saints' lives--whatever I've gleaned from homilies, books and articles, and websites--which is very little.  So at some point, I'd love to get my hands of a copy of Butler's Lives of the Saints.

Imagine growing up without siblings, neighbors, grandparents, or friends teaching you how to behave in the world and toward other people.  A devotion to the saints is important because they are the community of believers who teach us how to behave in the Kingdom.  Their lives are schools of instruction.  They show us what it means to love Jesus with whole heart, soul, mind and strength.  We ask their intercession because the prayer of the righteous has great power.  They show us our own heavenly destiny if we only abandon ourselves to the Lord

All you holy saints of God, pray for us.

An Arm-and-a-Half Embrace

Mom's brother, my uncle Bob, died three weeks ago.

The Parents and Brother had just arrived for their Estes camping vacation that Saturday. They'd put up their tents in the rain that night; the weather for the week was forecasted to be cool and rainy. And the next morning, since they were incommunicado, I was the one who was contacted and then had to tell them about Bob's death.

We drove up to Wyoming Wednesday morning. It was a 10 hour drive to Lovell, where Bob lived, near the Montana border. We arrived at the motel--the same motel we stayed at when we visited Bob in 1993 on the way home from our camping trip to Yellowstone--an hour before the memorial service and then met up with some of the other family members.

Uncle Bob was cremated and placed in a little black box at the front of the funeral home, and in the back was a table covered with pictures of Bob with friends and family, which was helpful considering there was no body to view. One picture in particular stood out to me: Bob held Grandma Anderson in an enormous arm-and-a-half embrace. The picture was taken within the last year or so, and they both had beaming smiles. A loving mother and son, both of whom have now left us.

One of the unfortunate things that I've seen happen recently at funerals is the immediate canonization of the dead. For example, at the memorial service, one of Bob's former co-workers made the remark, "We know he's in a better place, and now he's got his lost arm back." But this thinking is foreign to the Gospel or Church teaching.

First, the dead don't have bodies; that won't happen until the Resurrection of the Dead when Christ comes at the end of time. But more importantly, we can't know with certainty the destination of a soul; it's presumptuous to assume that someone has gone straight to heaven. That only happens if someone dies loving God perfectly. We can't judge the hearts of men (only their actions), and we must persevere to the end in order to be saved, Christ tells us.

However, not only the Jews who believed in the Resurrection but also the early Church Fathers taught that it was good and holy to pray for the dead, that those who did not love God wholeheartedly may be purified, perfected in love and holiness, and enter into heaven. That's why I pray for my deceased loved ones on Monday mornings and Friday evenings and at every Mass in which I participate.

May the host of angels greet Bob and carry him to the arms of Our Loving and Merciful Savior.

In Thanksgiving for the Gift of Life

I celebrated my 28th birthday last Sunday in usual fashion, with a fine cigar and a glass of whiskey (scotch this year; in the past, it's been bourbon). I perform this ritual alone, after dusk, out in the cool of the summer evening, when I am able to sit with my thoughts.

That isn't always a good idea. A couple years ago I was feeling uncharacteristically sorry for myself--the effects of a quarter-life crisis, among other things--and the occasion's particular vices did not help the situation. For the most part, however, it is a positive tradition; I reflect upon the previous year's blessings and give thanks to have lived so long.

Sometimes my mind returns to that November night when I could have lost my life. And so I'm intentionally conscious of this gift more frequently that once a year on my birthday.

Every morning, my very first prayer intention is, "In thanksgiving for the gift of life." Regardless of how lonely I am, how few things are going according to my feeble plans, or how deep in self-pity I may be, I'm always grateful to have been awakened by the radio and opened my eyes to the dappled sunlight through the bedroom curtains.

There is great joy in the details of life: the shimmer of melting ice mixing with scotch; the rolling wisps of smoke rising in the breeze; the dry sweetness of ponderosa. The delight of making a beautiful girl giggle; the scar on my mother's chin; curling up with a dog on a carpeted floor. The bread and the wine.

I exist because of the selfless love of my parents; I recognize the selfless love of a Creator who has touched the tiniest speck with His Beauty so that we might know Him; and my life has meaning when I share, however insignificantly, in that selfless gift of Love.

Anyone Who Has Seen Me Has Seen the Father

When my married friends announce their first baby, there's one thing--other than congratulations--I usually share with them. And it usually makes the expectant mother cry.

When I graduated from college, I received as a gift a memory book Mom put together full of my birth announcement, hair from my first haircut, and photos that spanned my life so far. But Dad's contribution to the album has become my most prized possession.

Tucked into one of the plastic photo sleeves was a six-page, handwritten letter on yellow legal paper. Dad had scrawled it out late the night following Father's Day, 1981, nearly two weeks before my birth. I never knew it existed until I received the memory book.

It's a pretty simple letter. In it Dad introduces himself and Mom (and admits doing so is a little corny), and tells a bit about where they are living and working, about Grandma and Grandpa Naser, and even lists the names they were considering for me.

The thing that struck me the most--the thing that made me cry when I first read it--was that even before he felt me kick inside Mom, before he'd seen me or even knew whether I was a boy or girl, he loved me.

It's doubtful he intended it, but Dad's letter showed me a glimpse of what fathers are meant to be: reflections of God the Father. The Father pours Himself out completely in love, holding nothing back, and that Love is fruitful, life-giving and unconditional. That's the calling of earthly fathers--admittedly a lofty one--but it can only be achieved by grace poured out by the Father Who loves infinitely and wishes to share His loving Fatherhood.

So pray for that grace, fathers, that you may be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Love ya, Dad.

The Night of Nights

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a redeemer!

We proclaim these word tonight in the Exultet, that great Easter hymn of praise.

Many Christians believe that God had created a perfect creation in Eden that Adam and Eve then ruined in their sin of disobedience. If only they had not taken the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil!

Not so. The proclamation of salvation history at tonight's Mass tells us the truth. God, in His infinite wisdom, actually created the world this way. He knew that the Fall would occur, and yet He went forward with this plan.

It was done out of Love.

We were created finite beings with finite minds. The Lord revealed Himself to us little by little, in ways that we could grasp. Then in the fullness of time, He plunged into history as Jesus Christ to show us Himself in His entirety--the Trinity of Love. He created things this way in order to give us the freedom to accept His unfathomable Love, so that we might come to know Him in the most intimate way possible.

After the Fall, God placed an angel with a flaming sword to guard the Tree of Life in order to prevent Adam and Eve from eating of its fruit, which would have condemned them to a sinful immortality. The Church Fathers saw the Cross as the Tree of Life, and the crucified Jesus its fruit. Now that His Death and Resurrection has opened again the way to the Tree, we may now eat of its fruit, the Eucharist, and have eternal life.

This is the night when death's power was destroyed. This is the night when Satan was crushed. This is the night when Love rose triumphant, glorious, eternal.

This is the night the Lord began the work of the New Creation.

The Price of Love

The night before He died, one of the most important things Christ taught the apostles at the Last Supper was that the greatest expression of love one can show is to lay down one's life for another (Jn 15:13).

This definition is not how the world usually defines love. Sometimes it's defined as sex, sometimes an affinity or liking, sometimes satisfaction.

But the Lord teaches us that love is not a feeling, but rather an action. He defines it another way when He reiterated the Great Commandment: "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mk 12:30). Love is the complete emptying of self and giving over to another, the beloved.

Today He shows us how much He loves us.

I've been attending the Good Friday liturgy for several years now, but last year was the first time I'd ever heard the Reproaches. It is an antiphon and verses sung during the veneration of the cross, and it reflects upon the goodness the Lord did throughout salvation history, paralleled with what we did to the Lord on Good Friday. It is a disturbing look at the extent of God's love, and our denial of that Love.

Lord, help me to love You more.

Do This in Remembrance

Tonight we begin the Holy Triduum, the Church's shortest liturgical season. You might also call it the Church's longest liturgy.

We begin and end every Mass and other liturgical celebrations with the Sign of the Cross. That action serves both to call upon the Trinity to sanctify our prayer and signal our passage from kronos (chronological) to kairos (sacred) time. Now notice that the Mass of the Lord's Supper begins with the Sign of the Cross; it does not occur again, however, until the end of the Easter Vigil.

So I like treat these days with the same solemnity outside of church as I do within. That means no TV, no music, little to no work or errands, and a focus on silence, Scripture and prayer. Perhaps you could try that, too.

Tonight also marks the commemoration of the establishment of the Holy Eucharist and the ministerial priesthood. Jesus, who humbled Himself in becoming man in order to teach us and die for us on the cross, further humbles Himself in coming under the appearance of bread and wine.

It is fitting then that, like the Jews who consumed the sacrificed passover lamb, we are commanded to consume the sacrificed and resurrected Lamb of God who gives us life. It is also fitting that the Lord calls some men to share in His Priesthood in order to feed and strengthen the universal priesthood of all believers. If the Eucharist is the Heart of the Church, then the ministerial priesthood is the skeleton, whose purpose is to protect and support the Body of Christ.

This night is so rich in liturgical symbolism, but one of the most powerful parts of the evening for me is the procession to the altar of repose for Adoration. Here we sing hymns (the haunting Pange Lingua is my favorite) and keep watch with the Lord (Mk 14:26, 34).

Our souls, too, are sorrowful because, unlike Peter, James and John, we know what has happened and how we ourselves have contributed. And so the time with the Lord in Adoration--at least an hour, as He asked of us (Mt 26:40), though I prefer longer--is a special time of resting in His Presence, allowing Him to lovingly gaze upon us.

It is also the opportune time to reflect on the death that we celebrate tomorrow.