Whoa… time to rein in the horses of celebration! Nine days of solemnities in a row, Easter and its Octave plus the Annunciation on Monday, more if you start with the Vigil on Holy Saturday, which of course we did around here. Not only at Mass with Gloria and Sequence, and the Liturgy of the Hours too, but also throughout the tasks and respites of the day.
My festive lunch with priest buddies on Easter Monday, and splicing the mainbrace with friends that evening, some glorious meals in the rectory and out as well, all with dessert and extra delights we might ordinarily eschew; all this, and the beginning of baseball. I confess it’s been hard to slow the wagon, taking a funsize bar from the jar on Carol’s desk each time I pass, and pretty decent dinners here in the Holy House even on Tuesday and Wednesday. Perhaps no dessert this time…or maybe just a little less.
These feasts are our culture, as much as our fasts, and both are rooted in our worship of the incarnate God, with the Church and in the Church. Culture’s root is cultus, or cult, as in the worship that gives structure to our days. Our feasting is not merely an extension of our liturgy but part of the same fabric. It is not simply good to have a culture; it is essential, that is, life-giving; of our essence, to have the culture. To step away from the particular (and occasionally peculiar) givens of Catholic culture invites in an anti-culture that does not give life but rather deforms and disfigures it.
Culture warrior is a pejorative pasted primarily by ideologues of secularism on us who have the culture, the worship-based life and understanding of who we are and what we are for that the fullness of faith has given us. We fight because we must fight, not against their silly constructions and poisonous destructions, but to embrace and live the mystery revealed to us and in us. It is always a fight to live in the light of the living God, but as you might suspect, on the side “of the angels” there is help to be had in that fight.
One of the attributes of the Holy Spirit poured into us, good measure, shaken together, and overflowing into our laps is robur ad pugnam, that is, strength for the fight. This help from God long predates the foolish and feckless assertions of the so-called science-based regime that is merely the modern manifestation of age-old materialistic hubris at the service of raw will-to-power. The living God knows better than we the inclination we mortals have toward enslaving ourselves, and others along the way, to our aspirations of lordship over creation. He drops sacramental worship into the world like a lifeline for us to grasp and wind around our flailing arms lest we drown in a sea of self-serving like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
The sacramentality of our salvation is not limited to but rather begins with the Sacraments of which we have seven. That is, God uses things we mortals can see and touch to make present realities we would otherwise miss. Because of the beauty of Creation, and the beauties of our own creations, we know that life, human life, is beautiful even when that beauty is hard to discern. The human body as we have received it is not some adjustable, external costume for us to don, disguise, and doff at will, but rather the place where grace and glory erupt and endure. We know what wombs and wounds are for, and we rejoice to recognize that they are indispensable to God for our redemption.
We, like God, use tangible things, things we receive, treasure, and save; things we invent, create, and enjoy to show and share our love with one another. God is good; Christ is risen in the flesh, and we have in our bodies a share in life eternal. Maybe we should give the horses their head for a while longer on this road we travel.
Monsignor Smith
