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
