The consolations of Februarsophy

(With apologies to Boethius) or, a Rhapsody in Bleak

The snowdrop is a modest flower,
blooming low to ground, and casting down its gaze.

If ever there were a month that elicits yearning for consolation, it would be February, the month that wears both crowns: shortest, chronologically; and longest, experientially.  One of my favorite comic strips yesterday had its two high-school-boy lead characters grappling with this very burden.  Is this the 39^th or 46^th of the month? asked Pierce; February, you’re killing me! groaned Jeremy.  

February can seem to go on forever, as we tire of winter and yearn for spring.  The days grow longer, but the cold gets stronger, a friend’s mother said.  This leap year, we have even one more day of it – though not a 39^th, much less a 46^th.

And yet.   There are signs throughout the bleak month that God’s mercies are not spent, and it is precisely the bleak backdrop that makes them stand out for us to observe, and marvel.  Sunrise and sunset times are not abstractions for daily Mass-goers; already now, there is light in the sky before the 6:30 Mass, and it is still bright after the 5:00 ends.  Like a freight train beginning to move, the lengthening of days began imperceptibly back in midwinter, but now picks up speed to an encouraging pace, as we added fifteen minutes of daylight at both ends of the day just in the first two week of the month.  Soon enough, it will be barreling through the equinox.

Sundry bulbs send up their shoots in response to the sun, though the chill make us disbelieve they know what they are doing.  The tug-of-war between light and cold shows by the rectory doorstep, where the hyacinths emerge crazy early, nurtured by the sun-warmed bricks on the south-facing front wall; yet the Lenten rose (hellebore), burgeoning and blooming right on time, is flattened by an overnight freeze. 

Father Novajosky rejoices to be able to begin his daily walks earlier and earlier, bundling up at first and warming as he goes.   February sun brings welcome brightness without the withering wrath of summertime; barren woods reveal their stark structure.  The still-low sun sends its now stronger light to raise sharp contrast, that even bare bark reveal its beauty.  The sunlit call of open fields and hilltop vistas is an invitation to relish and delight, not a lure to immolation for all who dare leave the protection of shade. 

Ash Wednesday this year clove the month in two; but annually and more digestibly, two great days divide it into thirds, the gift of two great men; the births of Lincoln and Washington reminding us both of what we have received as a nation, and of what we are capable.  The 12^th and 22^nd are still always on my mental calendar, heedless of the printed ones, as I find more fruit in remembering them than just generic “presidents.”   And speaking of the 22^nd, even when Lent starts this early, the liturgical calendar gives us the Chair of Peter to celebrate, unshakeable greatness that Christ built up precisely where He was thrice denied.

Snowdrops cling to the anonymity of the crowd, springing up
not in isolated splendor, but rather huddling together
in random and irregular patches.

Yet a civic holiday is a welcome respite, too, and I took a page from Fr. Nova’s book to walk in some woods along a path I had never tried.  And mirabile vistu, there I found snowdrops, the earliest of early bloomers, before even the crocus come.  Though I hear it can be domesticated, it is most delightful in the wild, where it springs up in inexplicable and unexpected patches, just when you think all is dead and dry.  Vigorous and delicate at the same time, the snowdrops announce that even February need not be fatal, much as the start of Lent promises us of our sin.

In desolation, the tiniest gift is an abundance.  This is the wisdom, the delight, and the consolation to be found for all who have eyes to see, standing out against the bleak backdrop that is February.

Monsignor Smith

Mel Who?

You hear of him at Mass all the time, because his name in is the Roman Canon, when the priest says:  Be pleased to look upon these offerings with a serene and kindly countenance, and to accept them,
as once you were pleased to accept the gifts of your servant Abel the just, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith,
and the offering of your high priest Melchizedek, a holy sacrifice, a spotless victim.

Maybe you recognize his name from Psalm 110, the famous “Dixit Dominus” (The Lord said to my Lord): The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, "You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek."  From the harp of David himself, this statement has such enormous significance that is expanded in the letter to the Hebrews, of which we hear a great deal during Holy Week:  We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:19-20)

This New Testament text points back to the story of Abraham, when among the many difficulties he encounters in following God to the fulfillment of His promise, Abram’s kinsman Lot and his family and possessions are taken by an enemy.  Abram raises a force to rescue him, and after defeating the enemy, and while returning with his kinsman and all the goods from his victory, Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!" And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. (Genesis 14:18-20)

This is the first time in Sacred Scripture that anybody is called a priest.  He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. He is without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest for ever. See how great he is! (Hebrews 7:2-3)  Jesus is the perfect and eternal high priest; the author of Hebrews wants us to see the connection.

Saint Cyprian of Carthage stated outright what you should be discerning from these same texts when he wrote in about 250 AD:  In the priest Melchizedek we see the Sacrament of the Sacrifice of the Lord prefigured, in accord with that to which the divine Scriptures testify, where it says Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. And he blessed (Abram).  That Melchizedek is in fact a type of Christ is declared in the psalms by the Holy Spirit, saying to the Son, as it were from the Father: “Before the daystar I begot you. You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”

Over the past few weeks, between the harangues about the Appeal, I have spoken of tithing, that is, offering to God one-tenth of everything.  That’s a word not often used in our time, or in our churches.  Where does this come from, some medieval churchman looking to fund his grandiose plans?  Some megachurch preaching a “prosperity gospel?”  Rather, it originates with Abram before he was even Abraham, in the book of Genesis of all places.  You know, “In the beginning.”  

What is the offering of your high priest Melchizedek, a holy sacrifice, a spotless victim?  Melchizedek … brought out bread and wine.  Melchizedek is the first priest, and a type and promise of the great High Priest Jesus Christ.  Abram was heavy laden with spoils from his great victory, And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.  

Monsignor Smith

Beyond basic accounting

Among the rosary chapels in the ambulatory of the Basilica,
the mosaic for the fourth Sorrowful Mystery clearly juxtaposes
Christ carrying his cross with Issac carrying the wood for his own sacrifice.

Would you rather that God tell you personally what you are to sacrifice this Lent?

Sacrifice.  Oblation.  Expiation.   Progressively these words are less familiar, less intelligible, less often heard.   Sacrifice; that one we might understand.  It is something you give up in order to obtain a different, better thing.   We may “sacrifice” desserts in order to obtain a slimmer figure, or “sacrifice” time at home to obtain advancement at work.   Such transactional understanding reflects our economic and commercial dispositions, describing a quid pro quo between parties that are otherwise equal, or peers.  Sacrifice, then, is the price one pays.

This price-paying takes on added significance when someone other than the one paying receives the benefit, such as the supreme sacrifice our military personnel have made for the freedom and prosperity you and I enjoy.   Sacrifice can kill you.  Yet even that undeniable sacrifice does not carry the full weight of the term that we use in the context of our actions before God.

Expanding our vision to include not only our peers and equals, but also our creator God, sacrifice is what we owe and offer to God because He is God, not because He will owe or grant us anything in return.  It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion. Catechism of the Catholic Church  No. 2099.   As St. Augustine observed, Every action is a true sacrifice that is done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness.  This clinging to God changes us as we enter the communion of holiness; and we participate in blessedness, which equates both to happiness and to holiness.

Abram’s sacrifice of Genesis 15 illustrates this clinging to God, Who, desiring to form His own special people among all the idolatrous nations, chose Abram for its head and called him by this name, which means father of many nations.  When Abram bemoaned his childlessness, he responded to God’s instructions and brought (God) all these (a heifer three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon), cut them in two, and laid each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. … When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I give this land…”  

But the clinging to God is taken to its height in Genesis 22, when God commands the re-named Abraham to sacrifice his late-obtained and only son, Isaac.  When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.  But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I."  He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." 

As explained to us in Hebrews 11, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; ... By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, … He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead; hence he did receive him back, and this was a symbol. 

The sacrifice of Abraham points directly to the sacrifice of the only begotten Son of God, Jesus, which is transactional in the sense that it obtains at the expense of His own life, life and freedom for someone else (you and me).  More than that, Jesus clings to God in doing His Father’s will.  

Jesus’ offering the sacrifice specified by the Father, His obedience in offering Himself, should make us wonder, what is the sacrifice that God asks of us?   The short answer is, that very sacrifice:  nothing more nor less than the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.  Will it kill us?

Do not tremble in fear.  Because we are bound into Christ’s body by Baptism, we do offer this very sacrifice when we participate and partake sacramentally in the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, the sacrifice of the Mass, both offering and receiving Jesus’ self-offering in our Communion.  This relieves us of the need to offer ourselves in bloody sacrifice, yet at the same time it bestows on us the ability and obligation to bind our own, lesser sacrifices into His one effective sacrifice.  Amidst our daily actions, we cling to God in communion of holiness.

Calling to mind Abraham and all our forebears in faith, ask yourself what would you sacrifice for the health, for the very life of your children?   How would you respond if God Himself were to ask you quite individually and specifically for some sacrifice that in appearance would cost you their lives, or your own?  Then, in the light of this awareness, reflect on what God, through His Church, actually does ask you to do during Lent.  

You need not offer God the price of your life, nor of your sins.  He has paid that bill and exceeded its cost in expiation of all your sins and mine, grave and small.  You need not redeem the lives of your children and loved ones by sacrificing to God something that you otherwise need to survive; their redemption and ours is already purchased.  But how will you, in this season set apart for the purpose, cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness?  Let go your grip on whatever else you cling to, whatever lesser good, and take hold of God’s promise of mercy in faith.  Though it will not kill you, this is a true sacrifice.

Monsignor Smith

Don't miss the boat

Thar she goes

Sea travel has faded from our lives much like train travel, though both were at their times the normal way to cover great distances.  This did not diminish the drama of boarding and sailing, with its slow-motion separation and setting out for the open unknown, and similar scenes played out on railroad platforms as well.  Automobile and air travel are the most common now, and neither offers parting travelers nor those being left behind that stage for farewells.  

Boats and ships are still around, though not used for getting from point A to point B so often anymore.  Just up I-95 from us is the Maryland Cruise Terminal, where people board ships to depart and then be returned to their starting point.  They can leave their cars in the parking lot there to await their return.  On a recent visit to Fort McHenry, as I approached I had the chance to see a cruise ship docked and boarding, then watch it set out to sea past the fort while I was touring there.  The parking lot for that cruise line was full of cars, an indication that a cruise was underway.   

Right here in Four Corners, we have a ship that most people do not notice.   The long part of a church where all the people assemble is called the nave, which is the Latin word for ship.  The universal church is referred to as the Barque of Peter, or Peter’s Boat, in yet another nautical reference that calls to mind Christ climbing into Peter’s boat to preach to the crowd on shore.  It is also reassuring to remember the Peter and all the disciples were safe during the storm when Christ was in the boat with them.  

The ship reference is not only to past moments recalled in the Gospels, but also describes a reality in our moment.  We can find safety no matter the raging tempest about us when we remain in the vessel with Christ aboard, that Peter steers, and we our need for a vessel arises because we are on a journey, from where we are to where we want to be.  The ship of the Church carries us through the perils of life and across the boundary of death into new life, and as such delivers us to our destination.  Having our lives conform to the Church and her teaching, participating in the sacraments that fill us and re-fill us with divine life, is how we remain “on board” this ship.

When we enter the passenger section of the ship of Saint Bernadette, the nave of our church building, it is a participation in the larger life of the universal Church, but it is also a journey in its own right.  More like a cruise than crossing the seas, we set out knowing we will return to the same place from which we set out, but also knowing that like all travel, this will change us.   We are borne to the presence of the Living God, and we cross the threshold of Heaven to enjoy the Communion of the Holy Trinity.  After this blissful visit comes the call “All ashore,” and we must debark once again into this valley of tears.  

Aside from a few parishioners who are driven to Mass by family members who deliver them to the door, there is not even a perfunctory farewell from those who remain ashore.  Does anybody see you set off for Mass, and then return?   Is there anything in your manner, in your words upon your return that would make them wish to travel with you?

Our parking lot provides a wealth of information, as I have recently discussed here, and the large number of cars here indicates a ship has set sail filled with travelers on Sundays as well as Holy Days that are unknown to the uninformed.  Does that arouse curiosity or interest, I wonder?  

When the rains came and lifted the ark that Noah had built to the derision of his neighbors, how long did it take for them to regret that they had failed to join him?  Our God has a history of providing the vessel that will save His people from destruction.  It is good to keep this in mind as we board our own, local rescue craft.  There will always be perils and storms, but we know in whom we have put our trust.   And even though we more commonly cover distances by airplane or automobile these days, we know that our best hope for our biggest trip is to remain in the boat.

Monsignor Smith