Father Peter Cameron on "FAITH AND THE HUMAN DRAMA"

FAITH AND THE HUMAN DRAMA

One reason why man lives bereft of the meaning of life is because he has nothing to inspire him to search the depths of his self so as to discover the truth of his human ‘I.’ To a great degree, this is the responsibility of the theatre in the Church.

By Peter John Cameron, O.P.



Twenty-four hour television on one thousand and thirty-four different channels... a dozen new movies every month offered by way of the local cineplex... thousands of movies available on video cassette, DVD, pay-per-view, or via the Internet...

Yet Broadway tickets that cost one hundred dollars or more still are sometimes impossible to get.

Why has the art known as theatre never gone out of existence? What is it about the theatre—so integral to human experience since the dawn of history—that keeps it from becoming extinct? Why is it that theatre manages to reach the human heart in an indispensable and indefatigable way?

According to John Paul II, ‘The basic human drama is the failure to perceive the meaning of life, to live without a meaning.’
According to Pope John Paul II, "the basic human drama is the failure to perceive the meaning of life, to live without a meaning." In other words, for so many the sense of destiny has not been awakened in them. One main reason why the human being lives bereft of the meaning of life is because he has nothing to inspire him to search the depths of his self so as to discover the truth of his human "I." For the person who confronts the evidence of his own existence comes face to face with three key truths about the human "I": first, I didn't make myself; second, I have desires that I did not give myself and that I cannot delete which are infinite in their scope; and third, I live with the expectation that I will be happy—the certainty that I have been promised meaning and fulfillment in my life.

This awareness of the fundamental facts of my existence provokes three correlative and urgent questions in my soul:

1) If I did not make myself then who made me? I say "who" because my awakened self-awareness summons up in me a certainty that my Maker is in some way like me and that I am in relationship with my Maker, that is, my Maker had a reason for making me.

2) Because of my desires there is something about me which is infinite, which leads me to ask: Is there some One who is infinite who gave me these desires and who wills to satisfy these otherwise insatiable desires?

3) Who can meet my expectations for happiness? Every attempt on my part falls short and leaves me disappointed. If I am sure that I have been promised fulfillment, who put that promise in me in the first place? Because I am convinced that the One who made that promise alone can make it come true.

These three questions combine to form the one great and Ultimate Question, namely, What is the meaning of life? At the point that this question is posed, reason begins to operate at its most optimal level. The "I", animated, aware, and perhaps even anguished shares in the Passion of the dying Christ on the cross who cries out: "I thirst!" The human "I" itself is thirst... thirsting to know its meaning, its mission, its purpose, its destiny. The zenith of reason's power is an awareness of its own limitations. Yet, while reason cannot provide an adequate answer to the ultimate question that it raises, reason does arrive at the perception of a Mystery beyond itself... a Mystery that is a Presence that corresponds to the most urgent longings of the human heart.

This surmising, this judgment on the part of reason is an act of imagination that calls out for imagination. And this is where theatre comes in.

In his five volume work entitled Theodramatic, Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote:


The task of the stage is to make the drama of existence explicit so that we may view it... Where existence is directly interpreted as theatre, the 'I' must be understood as the role...It continually delivers man from the sense of being trapped and from the temptation to regard existence as something closed in upon itself. Through the theatre, man acquires the habit of looking for meaning at a higher and less obvious level... Theatre's intrinsic function [is] to be a place where man can look in a mirror in order to recollect himself and remember who he is....In the theatre man attempts a kind of transcendence, endeavoring both to observe and to judge his own truth, in virtue of a transformation... by which he tries to gain clarity about himself... Theatre is no sinful illusion but the necessity of, and pleasure in, seeing oneself portrayed by another; in this 'mask' the 'person' both loses and finds himself. (17, 173, 20, 86, 12, 122)"

In some concrete way, the act of coming together as an audience tears out of us the nothingness that afflicts all people.
So we can say that the human heart craves the theatre because the human heart lives waiting for something that will reveal the meaning of being human. For some reason, something deeply rooted in the human soul compels it to look to the "imitation of human beings in action"—which is how Aristotle defines tragic drama in the Poetics—in order to discover a clue about its destiny. Theatre in the service of the New Evangelization seeks to engage reason on this level.

Of course, the great challenge to theatre committed to such a mission is how to stir people out of their anesthetized lives... how to motivate people to break through the crust they have allowed to form over their day to day existence. To do this, theatre must penetrate to the precise core of what people care about. It must respond to a lived question. It must attract and compel on the deepest level of meaning. It must interact with others at the point in which life begins to spark and flame. Otherwise, theatre remains at best merely an irrelevant distraction.

For this reason, according to the great novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder, the author of the beautiful American classic play Our Town, the best strategy for creating compelling theatre is to represent dramatically original sin. Wilder wrote:

Gazing deeply into the problem of mankind's agonized straining under the problem of original sin [one should place] on the stage not a discussion of original sin but a living, suffering example of original sin. That's what the theatre's for. That's what the theatre is. It has a far more glorious function than the lecture hall and the discussion forum: it is where you show the human situation. (The Enthusiast: A Life of Thornton Wilder, p. 313)

Because what is original sin? Original sin is the claim that we can identify the total meaning of life with something that we can comprehend and control... something we can measure, manage, and manipulate. Original sin attempts to identify God with some idol by choosing something that we ourselves understand. The impulse of original sin is to attempt to identify the answer to the ultimate question of life with a particular aspect of our self.

Thornton Wilder insists that a "discussion" of original sin will not suffice; what is needed is a dramatic experience of original sin. Because "showing" the human situation in turn perfects the human situation.

Theatre's Connection with Culture

In this respect, the integral link between culture and theatre becomes clear. Gaudium et Spes tells us that the human person "can achieve true and full humanity only by means of culture." But what is the key to a Gospel understanding of "culture?" One theologian who dedicated his long priestly ministry to generating the Church's notion of culture was Monsignor Luigi Giussani. Monsignor Giussani was the founder of the ecclesial Movement Communion and Liberation. An outstanding hallmark of the charism of Communion and Liberation is its devotion to culture. Giussani writes:


We define culture as the critical, systematic development of an experience. An experience is an event that opens us to the totality of reality: experience always implies a comparison between what one feels and what one believes to be the ultimate ideal or meaning. Culture works to unfold this implication of wholeness and totality which is part of every human experience. (The Risk of Education, 133) Culture is that from which man draws... inspiration for his way of behaving... in the affirmation of the ultimate aim of what he does, that is to say, his destiny. (1998, p. 14)

Theatre is an event in which experience thrives, for as Giussani writes, "true experience throws us into the rhythms of the real, drawing us irresistibly toward our union with the ultimate aspect of things and their true definitive meaning" (Risk, 99). Authentic theatre yearns for nothing less.

One of the most influential modern theorists of theatre whose ideas revolutionized theatre—ideas that continue to hold sway in the theatre to this day—was the French actor and playwright Antonin Artaud. Although Artaud had little use for faith or religion, he nevertheless professed:

The true purpose of theatre... is to express life in its immense, universal aspect, and from that life to extract images in which we find pleasure in discovering ourselves... When we speak the word 'life,' it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach... [The object of theatre is] to express objectively certain secret truths, to bring into the light of day by means of active gestures certain aspects of truth that have been buried under forms in their encounters with Becoming... The public is greedy for mystery.

Theatre in the service of the evangelization of culture aims to be an experience in this fullest sense.

The Encounter with the Actor

The best strategy for creating compelling theatre is to represent dramatically original sin.
Why is the theatre an appropriate way and place to propose original sin? The simple and most compelling answer is because of the presence of the actors. I have always been struck by the fact that in John Paul II's first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, in the very first paragraph of that document, he wrote, "God entered the history of humanity and, as a man, became an actor in that history." Since the pope was himself once a theatre actor, I cannot help but to think that the Holy Father chose that term consciously and deliberately, fully mindful of all its implications.

Several years ago, the pope wrote these words: "Man never stops seeking: both when he is marked by the drama of violence, loneliness, and insignificance, and when he lives in serenity and joy, he continues to seek. The only answer which can satisfy him and appease this search of his comes from the encounter with the One who is at the source of his being and his action." Or to put it in other words, the only thing adequate enough to shake us out of our self-satisfaction by which we measure and manipulate reality according to some self-appointed, self-referential idol is a Presence: the Presence of Jesus Christ the actor in history.

As Giussani expresses it, "That for which the 'I' is made and for which it does everything is a Presence... It is for a Presence—through which the human being is made, and by which he feels made, and is aware of being made: the presence of Christ...—that he lives and does everything (Risk, 1999, p. 32). The Italian theologian Father Stephano Alberto adds:

All the delusion of our limitation, all the apparent non-keeping of the promise in our fleshly existence, all the desire that decays into utopia and censures the hope because of the burden of our limitation and our pain, finds an answer: it is a Presence, a human Presence. God did not answer the demand for meaning with words, but with a presence.

Look at it this way. When you go to a Broadway play, and you sit down in your seat and open up your playbill, what is the one thing that you dread the most? You dread one of those little square pieces of paper falling out of it. Why? Because those little paper inserts indicate that an understudy is going to be substituting for an actor at that performance. And we're disappointed. But why? The role is still going to be portrayed. Yes, but we came to the theatre not only with the hope of encountering this character but also this specific actor. Because somehow we are convinced that the flesh and blood presence of this particular actor has the power to give life to a given dramatic role in a way that effects an incomparable encounter. We go to the theatre to experience an encounter—not an encounter only with an "idea", but an encounter with a personal presence that corresponds to something primal and vital in the human soul.

In the words of von Balthasar, "the analogy between God's action and the world drama is no mere metaphor but has an ontological ground: the two dramas are not utterly unconnected; there is an inner link between them" (p. 19). Theatre in the service of the evangelization of culture recognizes and takes full advantage of the "sacredness" of acting as a participation in God's chosen method of salvation—the Father sent Jesus Christ the actor into human history.

Von Balthasar notes that "theatre owes its very existence substantially to man's need to recognize himself as playing a role." And Christ, who reveals man to himself, as actor reveals the contours of the role of the human "I" in the human drama.

For me, one of the seminal writings on the theatre is an essay by the late, great American playwright Arthur Miller entitled Tragedy and the Common Man which he wrote as a foreword to his classic play Death of a Salesman. I find the essay monumental because of the innovative and unflinching way that Miller accords the noble status of the tragic hero to the common, ordinary human being. This was something unthinkable in the opinion of Aristotle and others of his ilk for whom only kings and the high born could be apt tragic heroes. Arthur Miller observes something that gets definitively confirmed in the coming of the Son of God at the Incarnation.

Arthur Miller observes something that gets definitively confirmed in the coming of the Son of God at the Incarnation.
The human condition in many respects resembles tragedy formally understood. What is it that fuels tragedy? Miller posits that it is "the underlying fear of being displaced, the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world. Among us today this fear is as strong, and perhaps stronger, than it ever was. In fact, it is the common man who knows this fear best." This fact is what makes the common man "as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were." For, he says, "tragedy is the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate himself justly." In the process, "tragedy enlightens—and it must, in that it points the heroic finger at the enemy of man's freedom. The thrust for freedom is the quality in tragedy which exalts."

Miller well understands that the only thing that can loose the hold original sin has on us—what makes us fearful of being torn from our chosen image of who we are in the world—is a heroic presence. He says, "The tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing—his sense of personal dignity." In this perspective, the celebrated "tragic flaw" of the tragic hero is not so much a defect as it is a conviction that results in dire consequences. Miller says that "the 'tragic flaw" is the hero's "inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status."

Through the exceptional presence of a talented actor who portrays the human compulsion to evaluate himself justly, we the audience can face the presence of the tragic hero in ourselves and, with great courage, take up that role in freedom. Theatre in the service of the evangelization of culture seeks to promote tragic heroes of just this sort.

Language: the Medium of Theatre

What is the medium that theatre employs in order to accomplish its end? The medium of the theatre is language. Christ comes into the world when the Father speaks the Word. In a removed but real way, theatre acts to carry on that Trinitarian utterance. Before all else, plays are meant to be heard. In a unique way, language is ideally suited both to divine self-communication and to theatrical catharsis. For as Cardinal Ratzinger noted, "the conversation between people only comes into its own when they are no longer trying to express something, but to express themselves, when dialogue becomes communication." Or as Giussani puts it, "the true motive of communication is affection."

As a young man actively involved in a drama project known at the Rhapsodic Theatre, Karol Wojtyla clearly understood and embraced this dimension of language and strove to reconceive theatre according to it. He wrote:


The fundamental element of dramatic art is the living human word. It is also the nucleus of drama, a leaven through which human deeds pass, and from which they derive their proper dynamics... Drama fulfills its social function not so much by demonstrating action as by demonstrating it slowed down, by demonstrating the paths on which it matures in human thought and down which it departs from that thought to express itself externally.


As part of his reflection on his Golden Anniversary of priestly ordination, Pope John Paul II wrote that "the word... is present in human history as a fundamental dimension of man's spiritual experience. Ultimately, the mystery of language brings us back to the inscrutable mystery of God himself." Theatre in the service of the evangelization of culture recognizes this crucial truth about language and harnesses it to its fullest effect.

Presence and the Audience

There is something else absolutely indispensable to theatre that we have to consider, and that is the presence of the audience. Movies can play in an empty movie house to the detriment of no one (except maybe the owner of the movie house!). But the performance of a play in a theatre with an absent audience would cause great sadness to the actors; in fact, it would probably be impossible. For there is a symbiosis between audience and actors that is integral to the theatre experience. But the presence of the actors to the audience is just as vital as its inverse. Why?

Christ, who reveals man to himself, as actor reveals the contours of the role of the human "I" in the human drama.
As Giussani observes, "Meaning is a connection that you establish when you step out of yourself, move out from the instant, and place yourself in a relationship" (RS, p. 118). There is something wondrous, maybe even mildly miraculous, about an audience leaving the comfort of their own homes to come to a theatre. And I cannot help but believe that one reason why they are willing to make the sacrifice to come to the theatre is because of this dynamic identified by Giussani. Becoming an audience is a little way of experiencing belonging. I think deep down we know that we need to step out of ourselves in order to establish meaning. I think deep down we are convinced that we need to place ourselves in a relationship—even as one as fleeting as the performance of a play—in order to gain the connection which is meaning.

In some concrete way, the act of coming together as an audience tears out of us the nothingness that afflicts all people—what von Balthasar describes as "the sense of being trapped and closed in upon ourselves." Why else would we happily consent to sit in the dark with so many strangers and there "willingly suspend disbelief"—to use Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous phrase—toward what is played out in front of us? And the answer is because the event of theatre is not about make-believe but rather about belief-making.

Conclusion

In his Letter to Artists, Pope John Paul II wrote:

In situations where culture and the Church are far apart, art remains a kind of bridge to religious experience... Art is by its nature a kind of appeal to the mystery. Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, artists give voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption... The Church is especially... keen that in our own time there be a new alliance with artists... I appeal to you, artists of the written and spoken word, of the theatre and music... I appeal especially to you, Christian artists: I wish to remind each of you that you are invited to use your creative intuition to enter into the heart of the mystery of the Incarnate God and at the same time into the mystery of man.

John Paul II reminds us that "unless faith becomes culture it has not been really welcomed, fully lived, humanly rethought." To a great degree, this is the responsibility of the theatre in the Church.



May 26, 2005


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PETER JOHN CAMERON, O.P. is a Dominican priest, Editor-in-Chief of "Magnificat", and the founder and director of the Blackfriars Repertory Theatre. He is an award-winning author of more than a dozen plays.

Blackfriars Repertory Theatre is a revival of Blackfriars Theatre, a theatrical apostolate founded by Dominican Fathers Urban Nagle and Thomas Carey in 1940. Fathers Nagle and Carey together ran the only rofessional level theatre sponsored by a Catholic organization in the United States, and the first religious theatre ever tried in New York City. The stated mission of Blackfriars Theatre was to produce “plays of artistic merit which reflect the spiritual nature of man and his eternal destiny.” Blackfriars Theatre closed in 1972, and it is regarded as the American stage’s “oldest continuous Off-Broadway theatre.”

© 2005, Peter John Cameron, O.P. All rights reserved.

The Drama of the Paschal Mystery: The Source and Summit of the Holy Triduum

The Drama of the Paschal Mystery: The Source and Summit of the Holy Triduum

Imagine if we had the opportunity to share the bread and wine that Jesus shared with his apostles on the night before he died? An article in our local newspaper on Good Friday seemed to beg such a question. Accompanying the article was a photograph of an annual Last Supper pageant where actors dressed as apostles were seated around a table while one of the actors portrayed Christ. In the course of the rehearsals those in charge of the annual drama had a revolutionary idea to have the actor portraying Christ not only distribute the bread to the “apostles” but also the entire congregation. Imagine that? And by so doing, some believers may have actually thought they were encountering Christ in a uniquely special way, having the opportunity to receive the actual body and blood of Christ during worship.

Interestingly throughout Christian America this past Holy Week and Easter Season the media reported on many churches where innovative Biblical pageants were performed for various congregations. One might critique these staged quasi-worship productions and point out that the Paschal Mystery is not simply about the distant reality that Jesus suffered and died and rose long ago, but allow us to momentarily reflect upon them as such.

In one such drama called “the living last supper” the audience (as one reporter [erroneously or correctly] called the congregation) was allowed to come forward and receive “communion” from the actor portraying Jesus. In what was regarded as unusual, the audience participated through ritual movement and singing. One of those in attendance at this living last supper said, after witnessing the drama, that through the show they learned that Jesus had instituted the sacrament of Holy Communion at the Last Supper.

In light of this comment, one of the pastors said serving communion in such fashion is a great means of involving the audience in the drama, yet he was adamant in pointing out that he and his congregations certainly do not recognize Jesus himself in it [the communion bread]. Those involved admit it is an interesting experiment of sorts, especially for the one portraying Christ, and claim that the drama of it all “does what words cannot do.”

But isn’t this what liturgy is supposed to do? Isn’t that the understanding of sacrament? Through the sacramental liturgical ritual the past is made present and we actually encounter the risen Christ. In a word, the liturgy does what mere words cannot do.

On some Good Friday pageant services worshippers come forward and dedicate themselves to the Lord in front of the actor portraying Christ crucified on the cross. On Easter Sunday more churches stage productions to mark the holiday [holyday?] and afterwards parents bring their children up on stage to have their pictures taken with “Jesus.” Isn’t there something terribly shallow in all of this? Have we cheapened Jesus to breakfast with the Easter Bunny? And doesn’t this risk reducing worship to a mere stage production?

The evidence seems to show that those who are either deprived of the Liturgy and ritual or reject them altogether will eventually create their own. Unfortunately what has replaced liturgy is often a weak imitation of authentic worship. Granted, many of the actors take their roles seriously, and prepare by prayer and fasting in preparation for Holy Week, but then again, all Catholics, for millennia have been encouraged to fast and pray to mark the Lenten Season.

What I find fascinating about all these accounts is that what is being described comes close to traditional Catholic devotions such as the rosary and the Stations of the Cross and the liturgical celebrations long associated with Holy Week, Holy Triduum, and the Mass. In several of these pageants, Jesus’ mother Mary is being portrayed even if not all the scenes are explicitly Biblical. Yet many of these denominations decry personal Catholic devotions and the formal public worship of the Catholic Liturgy.

So how do these nice remembrances where we have to blow our nose and wipe our eyes apply to us now? Do they truly transform us or do we simply recall a past event and leave it at that? What is the practical application of such performances or productions in the world? Or do these productions – although unintended – merely entertain and draw us ever more in upon ourselves? Have we reduced worship to only a matter of what we are getting rather than to whom it is we are offering our sacrifice of praise and worship?

For Catholics, the heart of the entire liturgical year is the Holy Triduum whereby we plunge ourselves into the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ through Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, but the purpose of these events is to propel us forward in service to all. There must be a connection between the Christ event and our lives here and now; the Paschal Mystery is to be lived not simply viewed or observed. If we follow Christ, we too will experience passion, suffering, sorrow, and death itself. Experiencing the Paschal mystery allows us to live the questions of faith, rather than requiring faith to answer all the questions of life.

During the mass we share the story of salvation and gather around the altar and do once more what Christ did the night before he died. Together we do not simply piously recall the events of the past, but instead we participate in them, renew our covenant with God, stand in his presence and share in his Spirit and give thanks; hence the term “Eucharist.”

In the Second Vatican Council’s document Sacrosanctum concilium, the bishops declared, “At the Last Supper…our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood…in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet ‘in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us’”(SC 47). As Lumen Gentium of the same council reminds us: The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” Indeed, as the Catechism states, “by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all” (CCC 1326). Sacrosanctum concilium reiterated that of utmost importance in the celebration of the liturgy, “full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit” (SC 14).

It could well be argued that the faithful’s communal celebration through word and ritual brings about the sacramental reality. We believe that liturgy teaches us theology. In the words of the theologians, this is Lex orandi, lex credendi: the way we pray is the way we believe.

Sociologists who study ritual tell us that ritual reveals (makes present), orients (directs us toward the revealed reality), and unites (all are oriented toward the revealed reality together). It would seem that Catholic Liturgy does exactly that: it reveals God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, orients us toward Christ and his kingdom vision, and unites fellow believers into the Church for a common purpose, namely the furthering of the kingdom.

On the other hand, the Easter pageants in question appear to fall short of their purpose. Jesus did not say “act” like me in a “staged” way; rather he called upon us to be authentic disciples. “Do the will of my Father,” “If you love me, keep my commandments,” “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him,” “I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you,” “Remain in me, as I remain in you,” “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,” “Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father,” “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven,” and “Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother,” are some passages that immediately come to mind.

By participating in the Holy Week services of the Triduum, we do not attempt to go back in time for Christ makes himself present to us now! Our task is not to lose ourselves in first century Palestine, but rather immerse ourselves in our own broken world. How are we to wash one another’s feet today, how might we recognize the bruised, stripped and crucified body of Christ in my immigrant neighbor, a homeless stranger, Iraqi refugee or the forgotten peoples of Darfur?

On Holy Thursday we abide by the Lord’s command of “Take this and eat, this is my body, we obey His command of “love one another as I have loved you”, vow to wash the feet of our neighbors, and we keep watch with Him in his hour of agony; on Good Friday we see the Son of Man lifted up from the earth to draw all men and women to Himself and behold the heart which so loved the world, his pierced side pouring forth water and blood revealing the portal to the Church; and on the Easter Vigil we are warmed by the new fire, illuminated by the light of Christ, enlightened by the Word of the Father, regenerated in the baptismal waters, strengthened in the anointing of holy chrism, nourished in the body, blood, soul and divinity of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and sent forth on mission in the power of the Holy Spirit to restore all things in Christ, bringing order to the chaos of our world. This is no mere stage show; no, this is drama in its highest form.

So on Easter morning we don’t merely pose for a picture with a theatrically sweetened Jesus, but rather we partake in communion with Him, in Him, and through Him, and as such are drawn into the heart of God, called upon to serve others, united to his suffering, plunged into his death through the waters of baptism, and resurrected through the Word and Sacrament, efficaciously surrendering ourselves to a mystical communion with all believers and abandoning ourselves to Divine Providence.

Imagine the dramatic possibilities now. That’s the kind of Easter I’m talking about.

Resurrection of the Body key to Christian Belief

In the past year there were several reports that polls claimed that a majority of Christians do not believe in the "resurrection of the body" on the Last Day. For the Christians who may have forgotten the teaching of the scriptures and the Apostles' Creed, the "resurrection of the body (flesh)" means not only that the immortal soul will live on after death, but that even our mortal body will come to life again.

St. Augustine said in the fourth century, "On no point does the Christian faith encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body." However, many people today focus only on the spiritual life of the human person after death. But the Christian faith believes that the mortal body will rise to everlasting life on the Last Day. In John 5:28-29, Jesus says, "Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation."

In John 11:25, Jesus declares, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live." Then Jesus restored Lazarus to a physical life.
After the Resurrection, Jesus physically appeared to his disciples in this manner (as recorded in Luke 24:24-43): "(The disciples) were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, 'Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.'" And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them. "Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have."

St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:13-17, wrote: "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. ... And if Christ has not been raised, then empty (too) is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. Then we are also blasphemers, because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins." Finally, as if there is still any doubt, Paul, in Romans 8:11, reiterated, "The one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies."

So, contrary to popular opinion, Christ has been raised, and we, too, await that day with certain hope that, together with all who have died in Christ; we, too, will rise with him on the Last Day. Christians believe – or used to believe – that what happened to Jesus in his Resurrection from the dead will also happen to them in the resurrection on the Last Day.

HOMILY FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR B 2009

HOMILY FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR B 2009

We typically do not see holy cards, paintings, statues, or stained glass windows depicting Jesus armed with a whip of cords, flipping over tables, and releasing sheep and oxen while cleansing the temple. In fact, the whole scene makes some people very uncomfortable. We have this image in our minds that religion must be nice and polite, that Jesus must never offend anyone and be sweet and well-mannered.

Many Christians certainly can’t allow for Jesus to experience any human emotion. But this is not true to the gospel, is it? Jesus was fully human. He knew love, joy, anger, sadness, and even betrayal and the pain of death.

Yet when it comes to religion, or more properly, the exercise of our Christian call –making real our baptismal promises and living our faith in Jesus - well, now, for some, that’s a bit much.

Yes, there is something dreadfully jarring about the gospel – we are called to reach out to the loveless and to confront hypocrisy. Jesus jolts us out of our complacency and calls us to pray for our enemies and do good to those who hate us. His Word compels us to disturb the status quo that allows the least among us to barely survive.

There is something aggressive about Lent. We fast, we give alms, we pray more fervently. We are called to live more simply as we reflect on the reality that many others simply live from day to day. The Lenten fast is often a battle, indeed a struggle – and we know that Lent began with Jesus being tempted by Satan in the dry wilderness of the Desert.

There is something terribly excessive, surprising, startling about Jesus. His words of "Do not think I have come to bring peace" and "Your enemies will be those in your own household."

The Passion and death of Jesus are violent. His arrest, his scourging, the crowning with thorns, his carrying the cross, his falling under the weight of the cross, his crucifixion, being nailed through his hands and his feet, and being pierced through his heart are all very violent acts. Yet in this startling violence is our peace.

As St. Paul wrote: “Christ crucified, is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” A crucifix is a startling image. Jesus states: Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?

If we allow the words of Christ to change our lives, that might render a holy, but violent upheaval in our lives. When Jesus cleansed the Temple somewhere someone began sawing the lumber for his cross.

What tables of hypocrisy or self-righteousness might we overturn if we seek to include the outsiders? Or what trouble might we “whip up” if we dare to love our enemies? What release will we provide for the poor and downtrodden if we proclaim and live the message that the “least among us are the greatest.”

Jesus built a church based on the faith of His disciples. He promises to Simon Peter that “The gates of the hell shall not prevail against it.” We as Christians, living the kingdom of God, should be pounding down the gates of hell’s demonic kingdom with our prayers, our sacrifices, our alms. We must be on the offense – again called to a holy fervor. We cannot sit idly by while Satan does his business. We are called to be a people of justice.

In the book of Revelation, Jesus condemns those who are lukewarm. Just as the violent in our world commit violence with great fervor and sometimes glee, we must pursue justice and act with mercy mightily with the same amount of vigor and enthusiasm for good.

And how might we flip the cultural tables and clean the secular temples of our society today? Try following the Ten Commandments. Wow! Talk about messing with a system!

Honoring one God? Not multiple idols? Keeping God’s name and Jesus’ name Holy?! Honoring and keeping Sunday Holy? Committing to at least weekly community prayer? Some non-Catholic churches have even canceled Christmas and Easter services because many people are too busy to come to church on that day.

Thou shall not kill? We are called to respect all of human life? Consider the unborn human persons? Consider the elderly worthy of respect? Care for the poor and less fortunate? Comfort those in prison? Those in hospitals or those with terminal illnesses?

Honor the gift of human sexuality? Cherish marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman? Welcome the gift of children lovingly? And not regard children as mere products or pieces of property considered a right for anyone to have or own?

No stealing? Lying? Swearing falsely? No coveting others and coveting others successes or belongings?

People may think that the truth of orthodoxy is either completely wrong or completely safe. But it is neither wrong nor safe. One may call the truth politically incorrect or call it dangerous, but don’t call it safe or boring.

There never was anything so dangerous or exciting as the truth of orthodoxy. To say that the Eucharist is the body of Christ is too much for the world, yet Jesus said: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man you will have no life within you.”

The Church has never taken the lame course of saying or doing the popular. The church, for instance, is not going to change its teaching on what makes Christian marriage or suddenly change its stance on the dignity of all human life – born and unborn.

In fact, being a disciple of Jesus is not respectable in our culture. Oh, being a Christian on the side is okay. The acceptable kind of Christianity that some embrace is one that never allows Jesus’ teaching to actually change his or her lifestyle or behavior. There are Christian churches today that bribe their people to come to church with pizza, games, prizes. How pathetic. They even teach a personal Jesus that does not claim anything as true – only what is true for each believer is true. How convenient.

It’s always easy to go along with the crowd, to just give in to the cry of the mob. Today there are those who reject sound doctrine for teachings that “tickle their ears,” in St. Paul’s words. Today we can imagine those who want to redefine marriage or even redefine what a human being is or debate when a human being becomes a human person.

Yet Jesus calls us to a sacrificial lifestyle that gives God the glory. We must abandon our own ideas that excuse our sinful behaviors or attitudes.

Yet today many Christians only come to church to worship – if they will even call it that – if it is convenient or if it makes them feel good or if they get something out of it. What they call worship is often cheap entertainment. One must agree that’s a lot easier than actually committing oneself to the lifelong task of continual conversion and growing into the image of Christ.

As an example, we can recall that slavery was once fashionable throughout the world. So was the idea that certain groups of human persons were inferior and had a duty to the rest of humanity to stop having children. And just sixty years ago many Germans systematically set out to eliminate the entire Jewish population. In our own time, there have been certain tribes in Africa that have slaughtered their neighbors simply because they spoke a different language and had different facial features.

One day – I pray – future generations will look back on our own time and judge us harshly for the way that the unborn are considered nothing – even though medical science proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that human life – human personhood – begins at the moment of conception.

The difficult thing is to be true to the orthodox teachings of Christ. And we might have to upturn a few tables of the self-righteous or worldly-wise. We may be called to clear out the disastrous thinking of those who want to tone down the teachings of Christ or render the Ten Commandments merely the ten suggestions and call them multiple choice, or worse, making the teachings of the church optional, nothing more than a cafeteria offering of a little of this and that.

May we allow Christ Jesus access into our hearts, into our lives, into our temples. May he cleanse us from our sins, release us from all distractions, whip our rebellious attitudes, and run out the tempters and temptations that lead us away from the Cross of Christ; for we know that the Cross is the way to the Resurrection and Life. Amen.

Ash Wednesday Lenten Message

Ash Wednesday Gospel: Matthew 6:1-18.

On this first day of Lent, we hear Jesus exhort his followers to give alms and do deeds of mercy, pray – both personally and communally, and to fast.

The gospel passage we heard tonight is from the heart of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew recollected the body of Jesus’ teachings from the Sermon on the Mount and gives a beautiful summary of the teachings of the Kingdom of God.

I might note that after His teachings in chapters 5, 6, and 7, he then goes on to detail many of Jesus’ miracles – the Signs of God’s Kingdom in our midst (Healings and life restoring miracles; miracles of nature; inclusion of outsiders and society’s throwaway people; love of enemies; confronting hypocrisy and religious legalism; and emphasizing that the Least are the Greatest). Then in Chapter 10 Jesus calls his disciples – as well as us – to go and do likewise!

But for tonight we will focus on Matthew chapter 6 where Jesus comments on almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. You will immediately notice that Jesus does not say “if you give alms” “If you pray” or “If you fast”; but he says “when you give alms” “when you pray” “when you fast.” It is not an option. These are required perquisites of the Christian life.

What is it to give alms? Besides giving monetary gifts to the needy and poor as well as to the church, we can give our time and talents to others. In fact, there are some – even here – who may be hungering and thirsting, but not for food or water, but rather instead they are hungering and thirsting for kindness, compassion, companionship!

As for prayer – Jesus tells us to go to our inner room. Wherever that might be – here in our room, or in the chapel, or deep in our heart, we are alone with God with our personal prayer. Yet Jesus then gives us a community prayer as well: the “Our Father”. We also need to worship together as community.

We need to ask ourselves how we have communicated to God. In our lives, we know that we need to communicate with others. If we fail to communicate with our friends, then our friendship will likely die. So it is with God. We must pray. And if Jesus himself prayed, He who is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, then certainly we frail human beings need to pray. And we pray personally and communally.

Finally – fasting. What is fasting? What does it mean to fast? In most accounts, it is to abstain from food or to eat very little or abstain from certain foods, especially as a religious discipline. But in a deeper religious sense, it is the act or practice of abstaining from certain things that might keep us from God; and the period of such abstention or self-denial is called a fast.

Then we ought to ask ourselves: what is keeping each of us from Christ? It could be a number of things: television, radio, music, gambling, computer games, food, drink, or whatever else blocks our relationship with God. Therefore we ought to fast from those things as well if they are indeed keeping us from a deep relationship with Christ.

As Pope Benedict XVI said: “Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person. Quite opportunely, an ancient hymn of the Lenten liturgy exhorts: “Let us use sparingly words, food and drink, sleep and amusements. May we be more alert in the custody of our senses.”

Appropriately, allow me to close with the words of Pope Benedict XVI given to us for this Lenten Season: “Dear brothers and sisters, it is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the complete gift of self to God. May every family and Christian community use well this time of Lent, therefore, in order to cast aside all that distracts the spirit and grow in whatever nourishes the soul, moving it to love of God and neighbor. I am thinking especially of a greater commitment to prayer, lectio divina, recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and active participation in the Eucharist, especially the Holy Sunday Mass. With this interior disposition, let us enter the penitential spirit of Lent.

“May the Blessed Virgin Mary, accompany and support us in the effort to free our heart from slavery to sin, making it evermore a “living tabernacle of God.” With these wishes, while assuring every believer and ecclesial community of my prayer for a fruitful Lenten journey, I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.”