You know, two weeks
ago, I used this precious space to tell you something that you could have
learned from any number of sources, including the local newspapers – that there
was an exhibit of Marian art and imagery at a museum downtown. That’s not something I usually do, but every
exception has its reasons.
In this case I not
only wanted to inform you of the opportunity to enrich your experience of our
faith and culture, but to emphasize what a rare opportunity it is to find such
a sacred treasure presented in a place that is otherwise so secular. If you had read a review in one of the local
newspapers, you would have found it laden with deconstruction and dissent from
a critic who is consistently and explicitly hostile to the faith.
As I finish my
morning poke at the local paper, this is on my mind. For the hostility to the faith that animates
you and me and our community is consistent, but rarely explicit. It is like the atmosphere we breathe, the
very environment we inhabit. In fact, I
am convinced that in many of its advocates, it is even unconscious.
Predictably, this
question of thought and ideas is revealed in the reality of language. The words the chatterers use, the goals they
espouse, the virtues they extol; all of them betray a certain mindless acceptance
of jargon and slogans that have been made to sound hopeful and exciting, but at
best are empty and meaningless, and at worst, toxic.
The language of the
faith is rich and full of life. Remember
the great feast we just celebrated: And
the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.
Words matter, and the Word is the greatest matter of all.
Like the Marian
aspect of our salvation that is so beautifully and truthfully on display in
that exhibit, there is a straightforward humanity and reality to the faith we
have received. All that is good, true,
and beautiful participates in and leads to our relationship with the one God
living and true. But if this is so ubiquitous
as to pervade the world around us, why is it so rare to find it recognizable,
much less celebrated?
Cynicism, sarcasm,
and irony are the common coin of our social discourse today. Willfully deployed or not, they cover over
the goodness that is in us, around us, and for us. In our society overflowing with riches, this
novel and synthetic poverty claims more and more of us every day.
What is the
antidote? What program, protocol, or
process can we implement at the highest level, or the grassroots, to break the
bonds of deprivation of the living, and malnutrition of souls? We must not only speak, but we must work to listen to Word of Life.
In the midst of the
confusion and rejection of the crowd after He had asserted unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you
have no life in you… Jesus said to the twelve, "Will you also go
away?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have
the words of eternal life.
A
voice crying in the desert is not what
you’ll find on your doorstep (or web browser) every morning. So what I have to offer you here is quite
clearly not the same as what you hear all about you. Instead I must strive to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them. Before you put it aside in your cabinet of religion
and other curiosities, ask yourself: Where
do you turn for your transfusion of hope? To whom do you go for the Word of Life?
Monsignor
Smith
