Catastrophe

 

End of the Line

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”  Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus!  (Rev. 22:20)   Thus ends the last book of the Bible.  This is the end, not only how the story ends.  Somehow this is also our desire, the desire of the Church, of “all the saints” (Rev. 22:21) Why would we desire the end?  

The end is the coming of the Lord, the final setting things right that will bring God’s justice and God’s mercy and bring an end to the murder, mayhem, sin, and shenanigans that come with the rule of men.  Confronted with all that is wrong in the world, we raise our eyes and pray, Come, Lord Jesus!  Come fix this mess; repair what is broken.

We take this language from the rhetoric of our time, which resorts often to claiming things are broken.  Our justice system is broken.  Our education system is broken.  But men are not machines, and human society is organic not mechanical.  Cars and computers break; human beings fail.  We fail early and often, and every program of human design requiring human participation will reflect this shortfall.  “It” is not broken; we are fallen.

At the beginning of our life, we expect and become better – stronger, smarter, bigger, wiser, more and more capable of more and more marvels.  We mature and identify what needs improvement about ourselves, and by focusing our attention and our efforts, maybe even obtaining help, sometimes we can turn our weakness into strength.  

Sometimes, however, we cannot modify ourselves this way; our best and repeated efforts fail.  This happens not only in extraordinary efforts like achieving a record in pole-vaulting or learning to write poetry in Chinese.  Sometimes our recurring failures are basic, like doing our job or loving our spouse. 

In a high-speed, high-functioning society, this sometimes magnifies unsatisfactory results to the level of catastrophe.  In any one human life, such failure is catastrophe.   Hence our prayer, Come, Lord Jesus!  Get me out of this mess. 

Standing honestly before the Lord, however, we realize that He did not promise to “fix” what is broken around us.  With time and grace, we object less to what is wrong with the world and more to what is wrong with ourselves.  We lament our failures, our inabilities, our disabilities we cannot repair or reform.  We grieve the damage we have done and the opportunities we have squandered.  Into this irreparable mess steps Jesus, God’s Word become flesh.

Recall that at Cana they were desperate.  They had no wine.  Jesus provided the best wine, which they never would have enjoyed if their inferior wine had lasted.  They would not have known Jesus was there, much less learned what He is here to do.  When all our efforts fall flat, our best and our worst, that is when God’s work occurs for us.   What happens after our failure is better than if we had never failed in the first place; our success would not only have been insufficient, but also catastrophic.

God comes to where we fall.  Christ is the sun that comes with healing rays (Mal 3:20a), rejoicing only the injured and disabled, the chill and the sick.  For any and all who stand athwart their world in triumph, that same sun is blazing like an oven (Mal 3:19).  

Wounds and weakness are where God happens, where our rescue happens.  To turn away from catastrophes of our own making is to turn our back on the Lord who comes.  To look at failure and fault and reject the people who “allowed this to happen” is to reject the good wine that only comes when we turn to Christ in desperation.  God fills empty vessels and empty hands.  

We are not broken in need of fixing; our best efforts and our world are not broken waiting for us to repair them.  We are wounded, unable to rescue ourselves from the deadly field where we have fallen.  We await a savior.  

What He brings when he comes to save us is better than anything we can imagine, much less achieve.   He comes with His gifts and his grace and makes us glad we fell, glad we failed, happy to have been helpless.  It is a mistake to ignore or avoid our desperation.  We can and should go there, stand precisely there, and call out:  Come, Lord Jesus!  Do not wait for, much less wish for, the end. 

Monsignor Smith

Rot not

Souls being rescued from damnation by a rosary

The Last Judgment, Michelangelo Buonarotti (detail)

He deserves to rot in hell. 

That is strong language, but not as uncommon as one might hope.   Hell is the last of the Four Last Things, and it is the BAD one – the very worst thing there is, in fact.  Fire and torment, deprivation and devouring, all of these things have described hell.   Also permanent, endless, and inescapable.  Eternal.  It is so bad we are inclined not to think about it.  If we do think about hell at all, to think that perhaps it may exist, we cushion the impact by asserting it is a possibility for a tiny few, and certainly it is not terribly likely for us.  Maybe we can invoke hell as the destination for somebody who has really, truly, and totally displeased us:  He deserves to rot in hell. 

The Scriptures are redolent with insights into hell, and Our Lord Himself mentions unquenchable fire, and where the worm does not die, a place worthy of every painful effort to avoid. (cf: Mark 9)  Maybe it is some sort of mental self-defense mechanism that we are most likely and best able to think about hell for other people.  Jesus wants us to think about hell, at least some of the time, and not only for our enemies.  So let’s split the difference, then, and think about hell for someone else – whom we love.

How about a friend?   A dear friend, somebody who has been good to us, somebody who has depended on our help with important things.  We look on that friend with eyes of love and desire our friend’s happiness.  But we know our friend well enough to know that all is not right, all was not right when the great Game Over came calling and ended all choosing and doing, when death arrived.  Picturing our fond friend suffering the consequences of some very bad actions or attitudes can make us desperate.  We can dismiss hell and its criteria entirely, or by some mental dishonesty exempt our friend from merited hell.  Then our Lord reminds us that hell is real and is not fungible.  Do we listen?

Picture a son or daughter, grandma or grandpa, suffering the consequences of his or her own worst actions.   Grandma or grandpa?  No way!  My son, my daughter?  I would rather die myself than let that happen to one of them.  Once we start thinking this way, our whole attitude begins to change.  We cannot change or eliminate hell.  We cannot change our friend or eliminate choices made and doings done.  What remains?   We remain, or, the rest of our days remain for us, and this is our field to achieve change.   

The Lord God looked on every mortal life with this same horror at merited destruction, and changed not the mortals but rather changed Himself, becoming mortal flesh and blood in His only Son.  And rather than see us suffer each our proper punishment He chose rather to die Himself, lest it happen to the ones He loves.  This is how rescue is achieved, and for all who have eyes to see it is an invitation to participate in that rescue.  

We must think about hell enough to realize it is the danger which will destroy the ones we love unless they be rescued.  We must identify and acknowledge the danger in order to desire and participate in the rescue.  Moved by thoughts of hell for someone we love, we recognize that in the power of the cross we are not helpless even in the face of death.  And to do this for someone who has hurt us?  That is what they call “next level.”

To choose and embrace a suffering, a sacrifice, for the benefit of another is to obtain release, partial or even total, from the very hell that is their purchased prize.  Our puny sacrifices, our fervent but frankly pathetic prayers, our grief and petition toward this purpose more than any other transport us to the company of Christ Himself as He hung upon the cross.   Looking at the faces of the crowd that demanded and participated in his death, He acknowledged they deserve to rot in hell.  But His love for them, for us, gave Him to resolve I would rather die myself than let that happen to one of them.  

Monsignor Smith

Contention

 

It is a standard joke among seminarians that someone have a devotion to Saint John Lateran.   “Lateran” is in fact a family name, but it belongs to the Basilica, not to Saint John.  The Saint John in question is The Baptist, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth.   The name “Lateran” originates with the family whose property was given to the Bishop of Rome by the Emperor in the fourth century.  What that Pope and his successors built on that property is a grand basilica that is the cathedral of the diocese, a spiffy ancient baptistery (8^th or 9^th century), and a residential and administrative palazzo.  There, the newly elected Pope Leo XIV was ceremoniously “seated” in the cathedra, or bishop’s throne, on May 25.  

After last weekend’s double-header of All Saints and All Souls (with the Halloween warm-up act), again our regularly scheduled Ordinary Sunday (the 32^nd) is displaced by a feast.  We mark the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, celebrated universally throughout the Church as she is counted the “Mother of all churches”.   It is good to remember the importance of sacred places and that the buildings themselves serve a symbolic and sacramental purpose in addition to a practical one.

This detour might take our attention off the usual focus for these last weeks of the liturgical year, which we call the Four Last Things:  death, judgment, heaven, and hell.  We wrap up the year with the reminder that everything Our Lord Jesus has been trying to teach us all these weeks has not been How To Be A Good Person, but rather the very matter of life and death. 

That we have this reminder in November is helpful, as we might otherwise be distracted by other contests and lose sight of real battle.  The World Series is not the only sporting championship that is decided in November; there have been several others on our own back field.  The real on-field drama is our daily contest against sin, and consequently death.  Our opponent the devil, a roaring lion, prowls about the world seeking someone to devour.  (cf. 1 Peter 5:8) In that contest, there is no way to challenge the call if it go against us.

November is also our month for electoral contests, which have even more hype than sports and are invariably billed as the potential End of the World.  We who are near to the Lord realize that the End is in fact near, but it has nothing to do with who gets elected to any office and everything to do with our being elected to the flock that Christ the Good Shepherd has chosen.  In fact, we know that as far as this world goes, we are just passing through, because our true citizenship is elsewhere. (Php 3:20) 

But just like sports and election seasons, coming to the end can focus the mind wonderfully and draw forth extra effort and enormous drama.  November is the month where we open our eyes to the real drama of our salvation and realize that it’s not over ‘til it’s over.  Yes, the victory is already accomplished, but our effort is indispensable to securing a share of the sweet fruits of that victory.  I am not talking about a tickertape parade, much less four years of executive authority.  

So even as we have many examples before our eyes of the simple statement Game Over, we have a chance to focus on the big Game Over that comes for us all.  Yes, it’s dramatic language, but that’s because this is the authentic drama that requires our full attention.

Meanwhile, we have the opportunity to draw near to Him Who is the Victor over sin and death, and receive from Him grace, mercy, and peace that will endure to everlasting life.  He is to be found exactly where He promised he would be, at a sacred place near you, where this week we commemorate the dedication of a more distant sacred place, Saint John Lateran. 

Monsignor Smith