R is for Rex

Not so much on Fridays, but many Tuesdays when I am praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, I am taken back to another Rosary on another Tuesday.  It was April 19, 2005, and the Cardinals had entered the Sistine Chapel for a fourth round of balloting.  The assisting priests who were masters of ceremonies or confessors or, like me, personal assistants to cardinals, maybe a dozen of us, had retired to an adjacent chamber where security personnel managed their countermeasures.  Once everybody was thoroughly briefed on what to do when The Moment Came, we settled down restlessly to wait.  

This was our third session, and we had already discovered the limits of activities available to us.  One possibility was to pace in the grand Sala Regia, with or without a rosary.  Since nobody else was at this task in the moment, I started back and forth on the inlaid marble floors of that frescoed hall, now otherwise vacant, where the Popes, seated on a throne erected for the occasion at one end of the expanse, customarily would receive the corps of diplomats every New Year.  Back and forth past the sealed doors of the Sistine Chapel, I prayed one of the most recollected and fervent rosaries of my life.  

The Sorrowful Mysteries seemed supremely well suited to what transpired on the other side of that door, as one man underwent the agony of the call to the exalted burden of the Papacy while I thought of Christ’s Agony in the Garden.   The Scourging at the Pillar seemed all too apt a herald of the reception he would face in the world from critics and unbelievers and false friends alike.   The Taking Up of the Cross and the Death on the Cross both echoed clearly in the prospects of the prospective Pontiff, but it was the Crowning with Thorns that rang most vividly true that day, and the same Mystery that takes me back when I pray it in these days.  

For the Crown with which the Pontiff would be crowned would be like the one imposed on Christ in his sorrowful yet glorious Passion.  Not only because I knew that the then most likely candidate and soon to be revealed new Pope neither desired nor sought the office to which he was to be raised, but also because of the very nature of Christian governance was I confident of the Christological resonance.  

Looking back on the nearly eight-year reign that followed, while accomplishment, glory, and joy come readily to the mind’s eye, it is not hard to see the suffering that the great office brought upon its occupant.  This is how it is to serve by governing, by reigning, in love.

Not only ecclesial or pastoral governance reveals this dimension, but also secular or civil, and merely human, responsibility guarantees an element of grief when exercised in fidelity to love, embodied in Christ Jesus.  The impossibility of making everything right and good for the ones who depend upon your leadership can bring frustration or resentment, but are better consigned to humility and compassion.  A painful awareness of one’s own shortcomings, inabilities, and sinful failures can summon authentic sorrow.  Any father or mother can recognize this element of the indispensable role they exercise in the lives entrusted to them.  

This past week we celebrated the feast of Saint Henry, eleventh-century King of Bavaria and Holy Roman Emperor.  The eleventh century was a horrible time in the history of Christendom as expectations of a world’s ending at the millennium gave way to a resignation to steady deterioration in all that guided, governed, or gave life.   But Henry built and bettered as best he was able and set the stage for a flowering of civilization and faith and learning that would come in the centuries to follow.  He saw the good fruit of his effort not while he labored, but rather only when he entered the glorious always instant of God.  

Perhaps because the fight for throne and crown is on in earnest now do I think to reflect with you on the nature of Christian governance.  The grasping for power is never out of season, not now, not ever nor anywhere.  But to reign with Christ, who bestows a crown of governance to us each and all who are baptized into Him Who is Priest, and Prophet, and King, is to see the folly of such self-promotion.  The higher the office, the heavier the crown and the sharper the thorns.  Pray for all who bear authentic and faithful responsibility for lives and souls; pray for all who have the burden of Christian governance.  At least, but not only, on Tuesdays.

Monsignor Smith

 

Parch

 

NOT the front campus of our parish, but
there IS starting to be a resemblance.  Just sayin'.

Twice in two nights, the skies grew dark, trees swayed in the quickening wind, distant thunder rumbled, and I brought in the flag from the doorway.  Twice in two nights, my mother texted from twenty-five miles west, It’s raining!  Twice in two nights, the windows clattered with the solid sound of driven precipitation, and there was a rattle from the roof.  And twice in two nights, even as all this happened, the sun broke through to evening brightness again.  We got nothing.  Oh, wet pavement, sure; damp leaves, but dry ground beneath the trees.  Very dry, parched ground.

We need rain.   It seems we need it more here, in our zip code and on our campus, than they need it even nearby.  Those storms that missed us did not miss everybody.  A few weeks ago, I was visiting up near Saint Patrick Church in Norbeck, and as I left the weather broke.  I drove homeward along the Inter-County Connector in monsoon conditions that threatened to sweep all vehicles from the road.  I entered Woodmoor and found the pavement bone dry wherever there was tree cover.  Sigh.

Fr. Novajosky returned from his walk through Sligo Creek Park the other commenting on the fallen leaves that were crunchy underfoot – in July.  This bodes not well for a beautiful autumn!  

My preoccupation has been the trees I planted eighteen months ago, having thrived through their first year but still young and vulnerable.  Mr. Anthony Dao, who sees to the care of all our things, takes his barrow and bucket to water them several times a week.   Clearly, he need not spend his time mowing the brown lawn.   He took advantage of that respite to take a week’s leave, during which I made several trips to the struggling dogwood opposite my door to tip the refreshing contents of my largest pasta pot.

We Catholics know that we cannot control the weather, but we know who can.  We turn to the Lord God of all creation for help now just as much as in earlier times.   All our understanding and all our tools give us not one help to make the clouds water the earth!  So, we pray.   

This is the collect of the Mass that begs for rain: O God, in whom we live and move and have our being, grant us sufficient rain, so that, being supplied with what sustains us in this present life, we may seek more confidently what sustains us for eternity. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.  This prayer is attributed to Saint Isidore the Farmer and is also the collect of the Mass for his feast day, May 15.

It is good to know what we can control, and what we cannot.  Our helplessness before necessities turns us to our true help in what we need most, the One who loves us and saves us.  Our needs help us recall our great and lasting need.  Gerard Manley Hopkins, the nineteenth century English Jesuit priest and poet, made the link even more direct in his poem, 'Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend'

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend 

With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. 

Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must 

Disappointment all I endeavour end? 

    Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, 

How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost 

Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust 

Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend, 

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes 

Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again 

With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes 

Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain, 

Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. 

Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

Likewise, the all-powerful has used this powerlessness of ours to remind us of our need for Him in all things, as when He imposed a three-year drought on Israel to draw them back to Him from their infidelities.  Let us watch for His help now with the same eager certainty that Elijah showed when that drought came to its promised end:

And (Elijah) said to his servant, "Go up now, look toward the sea." And he went up and looked, and said, "There is nothing." And he said, "Go again seven times." And at the seventh time he said, "Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising out of the sea." And he said, "Go up, say to Ahab, 'Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.'" And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. (1 Kings 18:43-45)

Monsignor Smith

On trust, or: The case for informed skepticism

There is a dilemma when one finds that what he had been told is not true.  A flash of anger can surge from the conviction that he had been lied too, or a flush of embarrassment surround the awkward recognition of having fallen for falsehood.  Which is worse, misplaced trust, or gullibility?

False information or instruction can spring from a range of circumstances.  Outright mendacity is one of them, of course, as the false information is a lie intended to deceive for reasons known to the liar.  But misunderstanding, misapprehension, or misremembering, all common human failings, can lead one who does not intend to deceive to pass on a bad bit of information.  

What is saddest, I think, is when the untrue assertion is made with a clear conscience by people who accepted as true something that was presented to them by people whom they trusted, whom they had no reason not to trust, and whom they were forced to trust because there was no alternative.   This is the result when parents, teachers, leaders – people who carry authority and responsibility – share as truth something that is false.  

Yes, this can be a long chain of deception, as the parents and leaders received bad information from those who had responsibility for them, perhaps even over several generations.   How to respond when a falsehood like this is discovered?   Is it wrong to blame the false teachers, or should one excuse them since the lie did not originate with them?  Where is the origin?   Where is the malice?

When a widely-accepted falsehood is discovered to be false by one who had accepted it or by many, the question arises: where did this originate?  In error, or in mendacity?  Rather than rage against the injustice, a careful (and charitable) person will examine its provenance, following backward the steps by which it was handed on, whether over time, across generations, or over distance, throughout a population. It would be unjust to blame someone for sharing false information if that person had received it in good faith, unless due diligence or even cursory critical examination would have revealed it to be false.  Not only honesty but also charity demand that the source be identified even if the motive cannot be fixed.

When questions of great truths arise, as Catholics we know and can examine the authorities, the sources, to ascertain what is true.  We can compare what someone presents us as true with, for example, The Catechism of the Catholic Church.  We can then, in turn, examine that same Catechism for truth and accuracy by shining on it the light of greater authority: Scripture and the Tradition savored and reflected in two millennia of handing on the totality of Divine Revelation.  These are conveniently referenced and indexed in the back of the Catechism, in case anybody wonder, “Where did they get this?”  But there are also the sources themselves, published, available, and studied.   Of course that’s a lot of time, research, and effort, which is why we prefer to go to somebody we can trust to present these things to us truthfully, and with understanding.  “Father, what does the Church teach about this?”

But in more mundane matters outside the deposit of faith, more commonly discussed and less commonly checked, how do we know?  What can we do to check current events or history, personalities and biographies, medical opinions and diagnoses?  Whom do we trust, whom do we believe?  Does anybody have that level of authority?

In these matters, the amount of time, research, and effort to verify everything we want to know is staggering and maybe even impossible.  We prefer to go to somebody we can trust; in fact, we need people we can trust to tell us the truth.  We need somebody who will neither originate lies, nor hand on lies he received.   

These are important questions to ask when we discover the falsehood of something that we had believed to be true, along with many other people, even most people.  Where is the origin?   Where is the malice?   While we may not be able to correct or reprimand the originator, at least we can avoid everything that comes from that source, and all information or advice based on that falsehood, and warn others.

The first step is identifying whom we can NOT trust.  The Father of Lies is at work and has many helpers. Which is worse, misplaced trust, or gullibility?  You know the old maxim: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Monsignor Smith

The image is a detail of Francesco Sassetti and His Son Teodoro, ca. 1488, portrait by Domenico Ghirlandaio.

 

The kings of the earth gathered

The Imperial months are here.  Named for the two Caesars when up to that time months not merely numbered had been dedicated only to gods, Julius and Augustus were not shy to include themselves in that company.  The calendar was not the only thing they changed forever.

Julius Caesar took power to himself at a time when the venerable but sclerotic republican government of Rome could no longer respond to the needs of the vast polity that was still growing in power and complexity.   Augustus, a favored protégé who was at best a distant cousin, emerged from the chaos that followed the assassination of his predecessor and humiliated the group that had thought it was doing the nation a great favor and returning it to more virtuous leadership.  Under this new absolute monarch, the empire would achieve its apogee in size and power, a political order that would stabilize for centuries vast swathes of the world.  Within this august and Augustan order, in one of its many conquered and assimilated petty principalities, from an obscure line of kings, Jesus was born.  The angels cried Glory.

Funny, isn’t it, how the politics of the moment can distract everybody alive from what is most important?  The trappings of current governance still distract and dismay despite the abandonment of crowns and gilded chariots, castles and courtiers.  Power itself is so shiny that it can attract and hold the attention of a population regardless of whether the persons crave it for themselves or depend upon it for survival. 

For all that Julius and Augustus did to shape lives, nations, cultures, and the world order, their greatest achievements and largest legacies are tiny and circumscribed compared to what that one distant child sleeping in a feed trough would do.  But to look at this simply as an event of history, a moment from time past, is to forget that that tiny child is still hidden from the eyes that gleam with the reflected glory of political power, and still very much at work in this world.

As sclerosis burdens and even seizes the great republic, as its vast machineries pursue projects both petty and personal; as the diminishing contents of its treasuries are flung to the clamoring crowds like gold from a passing carriage; as the order that has provided prosperity frays at the edges and is evacuated at its center; as combining tribes prop up new princes ready to rally their masses to strike at the distracted sentinels of the masters; all of this clatter, all of these symptoms fail to diagnose the  great reality that is unfolding.

In the palaces where power dwells and the towers from which the populace is directed, the truth has been cast aside as unknowable, the way abandoned for expediency and efficiency, and even life itself smothered, shredded, or snuffed as an unreasonable burden.  But though the empire be governed by darkness, the light shines undimmed in small places.

In the sultry and vacated days we enjoy, who is preoccupied by the flashing of imperial powers and the rumble of imperial aspirations?  The thunder remains distant of great battles in the east – near, mid, and far; there are reports of rival potentates posturing, thrones tottering, dynasties dissolving.  But look; July is delightfully quiet, and every Washingtonian knows nothing important ever happened in August.  

The great drama of political potencies can fascinate and alarm, but the great work of this time and all time plays out in every single soul.  The deceiver and his minions have achieved much where they are permitted and preferred, but the gentle one who achieves victory through defeat is still at work.  Resistance remains and resurges, yet the true Kingdom is close at hand, this month, even today.

Only One provides peace and alone offers safety.  The Imperial months are upon us; stay awake.

Monsignor Smith