A Homily on Cana

For the most part, these Monday digests are thoughts about the homily of the day before.  However, since yesterday’s Gospel was on the Manifestation at Cana, I couldn’t resist digging up an old homily which I heard some years ago.  It is a wedding homily, as the reader will discern; but I have removed the personal elements, and I think the meditation on marriage that remains is worth the read.

St. John tells us that the first of Jesus’ miracles took place at a wedding in the small town of Cana in Galilee. There are many lessons to be drawn from this—but the first and most obvious one is that a wedding was important enough to Jesus for him to be there. And he was not there just as a guest: he saved the day. The wine had run out at that wedding. The wine which had been produced by human effort—growing the grapes, picking them in season, crushing them, fermenting the juice—this wine was depleted; it had run its course and was gone. Jesus was asked to do something, to intervene. In order to produce more wine, he converted ordinary water into wine, a wine of superior vintage and quality. And so he turned what could have been a moment of embarrassment for the bride and groom into a moment of triumph for them. His presence at the beginning of their married life together was a source of relief and of joy—and ultimately was the promise of good things to come in that marriage.

This couple wants Jesus to be present in a special way here at their wedding. All the affection and good will of their friends means a great deal to them—but that is the human wine, a wine which ultimately is depleted. They want our Lord’s presence so that, as at the wedding in Cana, he may provide the good wine, the gift of his grace and blessing.

They realize that it takes three to get married—not a man, a woman, and a photographer, but a man, a woman, and God. In a few moments, during the marriage ritual, you will hear the words, “What God has joined, men must not divide." What God has joined. For ultimately, it is God who joins the couple in marriage here this afternoon. God joins them in married love because, He, God, is love. He is not just a great master of love, he is the personification of love. He is a family of three persons who live only for one another—none of whom has a private life apart from the other two, no separate “space.” The only differences among them are the relationships which distinguish the way in which they love one another: a Father, a Son, love personified in the Holy Spirit. This family life of the Holy Trinity is shrouded in a great mystery, as, I suppose, all great love is shrouded in mystery [Eph 5:32].

We too are all called to a love such as this, to this kind of selflessness, to make a gift of ourselves in love. In fact, as Pope John Paul wrote in his first letter to the world, we “cannot live without love. [We] remain … incomprehensible for [our]self, [our] life is senseless, if love is not revealed to [us], if [we] do not encounter love, if [we] do not experience it and make it [our] own, if [we] do not participate intimately in it.” [RH10] St. Augustine wrote: “Our hearts are made for God and they cannot rest until they rest in God.” Hence if human love is to begin to satisfy the human heart, it must imitate God’s love. To love as God loves, to make a total gift of our self to another as God does is, strictly speaking, unreasonable—indeed, humanly speaking, impossible, for why to love one can allege no cause [Shakespeare, 49]. But it becomes possible and reasonable with God’s help and grace—the good wine of Jesus.

Love comes from God [1Jn4:7]. Consequently, when love seems to be running low in our life… when one kills the spirit of love with a perpetual dullness [Shakespeare, 56]… in addition to whatever objective human difficulties there may be, the problem at bottom is—always—that we have not been turning to God to draw upon his help, to seek the good wine which he alone provides to enable us to love. […] And the solution, above and beyond whatever human means need to be taken, ultimately is to turn back to God and to pray to ask help to learn once again to love—to forgive and to give of oneself anew. And thus “kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, / Still constant in a wondrous excellence” [Shakespeare, 105].

Finding love, falling in love is the most significant thing that can happen in the life of a man or a woman. Love enables us to overcome impatience and unkindness and selfishness; it transforms our tendency to be boastful and conceited and rude. Being loved frees the heart to love, to run the risk, the adventure of love. It brings the joy of discovery and at last the freedom to escape the selfishness of selflove. Discovering true personal love opens the eyes of the heart toward the discovery of God. And so it often happens that although God is Love, the Great Lover and source of love in us, and the one who leads us to love, it often takes falling in love to be led to God and be transformed by God. The world looks different to a person in love, and that person look different to the world. There is a difference in the eyes, in the look, in the voice, in the demeanor. The Song of Songs reminds us, “My lover belongs to me and I to him.” It has been a great joy, a wonderful thing for all of us to see this couple fall in love and witness the transforming effect their love has had upon them—and on others. Such a love grows without growing old and without coming to an end. Our prayer today for them is that their love may never die—fortis est ut mors dilectio [Song 8:6]—which we might translate: “Love is stronger than death.”

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Coming to marriage as a bright and mature couple, the bride and bridegroom have experienced the challenge of love and perhaps already the cost and even some of the pain of love. Hence as you pledge yourselves to one another here this afternoon, you come with a love that is strengthened in the forge of loyalty through suffering and hardship. “O benefit of ill, now I find true / That better is by evil still made better, / And ruin’d love when it is built anew / Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater” [Shakespeare, 119].

The road ahead which you walk together to discover God’s love in your lives is, in reality, a double boulevard, each side of which bears a different name. Your avenue, Bridegroom, is named “Bride.” And yours, Bride, bears the name “Bridegroom.” You will grow in love for one another as you learn to discover God coming to you in each other. Like most streets, with time and heavy traffic there may appear potholes, and the street will need some repair… “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments; love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove. / O no, it is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken; / It is the star to every wand’ring bark, / Whose worth’s unknown, although his highth be taken” [Shakespeare, 116].

Welcome God when he comes to you with his cross in the challenges and difficulties, as well as when he comes to you in the bliss of shared happiness and joy—and perhaps most especially when he comes to you with an infant’s face, in the mystery of a new life and love in each of the children he may send you.

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As a reminder of these fundamental truths upon which your love will grow, you will carry with you your wedding rings. In times of old, a ring was the sign of royalty, the mark of a king and queen. It bore the royal seal and was a stamp of authority. For you it is also a sign of the authenticity of your commitment to each other and a reminder of the aristocracy of loyalty in love to which you are called.

Your rings are a circle—the perfect form of unity. Like the ring, your love is always beginning anew with every act of love and service, with every moment of forgiveness; and this should have no end. It must ever continue and develop, for love, like every living thing, dies when it ceases to grow. Thus, you will learn to love not once for all, but continually, not taking one another for granted, but always winning each other through newly found details of love and affection and service.

Your rings are a link—the bond of union and fidelity and mystery. This link integrates joy and suffering, which must always go together in this life, to help you grow in integrity. With the years of your fidelity to one another, your love and awe for each other will grow, you will know each other better, and yet each to each will be evermore a mystery.

Finally, your rings are a crown—the crown of the promise of children, which are a token of God’s confidence in you as parents, and the reason for continued courage in bringing the mystery of new life into the world.

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Concluding, I would like to remind all of you here that this is also a moment of grace for you who have come to witness this marriage and give the couple your support. I hope you will indulge me for a moment and forgive me for drawing this parallel, but for those who attend—that is, all but the persons who are most intimately involved and the focal point of the ceremony—coming to a wedding is, in many ways like attending a funeral. You stand on the sidelines witnessing a significant moment of transition in the life of a loved one. A funeral moves you to think of the life and history of the deceased person, to think of the eternal reward to which the person is going, and ultimately to reflect upon your own life: Where you are going, where you have been, what you are living for.

So also, at a wedding, you are not mere spectators, passive participants at the pageant of others’ love. This is a moment of grace for all of you, an invitation to reflect on your love, on your capacity to love, how you have loved, the challenge of giving yourself in love, the love in your life—and for many of you, the love in your own marriage. And it is also a moment in which God gives each of you a grace to grow in your capacity for love and fidelity. That is God’s gift to you for your generosity in coming here this afternoon to witness and support these pledges of love to each other before God at the beginning of their married life.

And this afternoon that gift is a very special gift, for I think I express the sentiments of all of you here when I say that this is a special wedding for a very special couple, and for all of us. As those of you who are older look upon this handsome couple you will find your own love rejuvenated; those who are younger will find an inspiration. “Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm: fortis est ut mors dilectio. This couple, with their example of love and kindness, of loyalty and faithful love, will be an example and encouragement to many of their friends and peers—to lead them to God and to teach them how to love, with a love that goes beyond the grave.

Let me end by reminding you that Jesus’ first miracle took place at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, where he transformed water into very fine wine, and thus came to the aid of a young couple on their wedding day. Jesus was at that wedding because his mother Mary was there. He interceded to help the couple at her request. Mary is also present at this wedding. We ask you, Mary, to intercede here today and forever that your Son may bring the good wine of his grace and his blessings upon this couple.

“Because there was no room for them at the inn.”

Those words, some of the most poignant in all of Western literature, words which have inspired countless treasures of music and iconography and devotion, may be a mistranslation.

That is the suggestion of Ian Paul, an Anglican theologian who argues that the Greek word kataluma which St. Jerome rendered diversorium and most English Bibles translate “inn” may well mean simply, as it does elsewhere in the Gospels, “upper room.”

… the actual design of Palestinian homes (even to the present day) makes sense of the whole story. … most families would live in a single-room house, with a lower compartment for animals to be brought in at night, and either a room at the back for visitors, or space on the roof. The family living area would usually have hollows in the ground, filled with straw, in the living area, where the animals would feed.

—mangers, that is, which would provide a natural place to rest a baby.

Paul provides a few other reasons, aside from the philological one, as to why the traditional picture of the Holy Family alone in a stable or cave may be lacking in historical accuracy: most notably, the hospitality customs of the Middle East would have made it nearly impossible for St. Joseph not to have been received by some of his relatives.

Read the rest at the Register.

Beaten to a Pulp

We interrupt our usual Monday morning considerations for something equally literal.

Scene: Subway, inside a Walmart in a midwestern city

Time: 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning in Christmastide

As customers pass by, their thin plastic bags wishing against parkas and jeans, two black men sit in Subway.  One of them is asleep, the other one talking on his cell phone in a firm, intense, though not a loud voice.

Man: … I’m telling you, he was beaten to a pulp.  You’ve gotta understand that.  People just don’t know.  He was beaten to a pulp.  You ever seen a lamb, slaughtered?  That’s just what he was like.  He was beaten.  None of the people standing by … they didn’t do anything, nobody lifted a finger to stop them, they just let it happen.  He was beaten, man, beaten to a pulp.  All beaten and bloody.  That’s just what it was like.  You’ve gotta understand.  He was beaten to a pulp, so bloody … all his face and everything were so bloody you couldn’t even recognize him when you saw him.  You couldn’t recognize him.  That’s how badly he was hurt, and he was beaten.  And he was just like a lamb, that’s how they slaughtered him, like you kill an animal, he didn’t do a thing, didn’t lift a finger.  … You ever seen the Passion of the Christ?  That’s what it was like.  You see it, you see when they beat him, they’re taking flesh out of his back, I mean digging the flesh out of his back.  They beat him, and he got up again, and that’s what he did, and they beat him to a pulp.  … That’s what he was, he was both God and Man, but see as he was Man he was beaten to a pulp.  That’s what I’m telling you.  He was God, but he was also beaten.  When you see him, you are not going to know him, because he was beaten to a pulp …

No one else notices; and after about fifteen minutes of this, his conversation concluded, the man gets up and leaves behind a clean napkin on the Subway table.

Spiritual Childhood

"... We must conclude then that the Divine Master was particularly anxious that His disciples should see in spiritual childhood the necessary condition for obtaining life eternal.
"Considering the insistence and the force of this teaching it would seem impossible to find a soul who would still neglect to follow the way of confidence and abandonment, all the more so, we repeat, since the divine words, not only in a general manner, but in express terms, declare the mode of life obligatory, even for those who have lost their first innocence.  Some prefer to believe that they way of confidence and abandonment is reserved solely for ingenuous souls whom evil has not deprived of the grace of childhood.  They do not conceive the possibility of spiritual childhood for those who have lost their first innocence.
…
"Any such thought as that of reassuming the appearance and helplessness of early years would be ridiculous; but it is not contrary to reason to find in the words of the Gospel the precept addressed alike to men of advanced years to return to the practice of spiritual childhood.  During the course of centuries, this teaching was to find increased support in the example of those who arrived at heroic Christian perfection precisely by the exercise of these virtues."~~Pope Benedict XV, quoted in Boylan, This Tremendous Lover, ch.17.

"Unless a man be born again …"

In the Desert a Highway

At Mass yesterday, Father drew the familiar connection between the Old Testament injunction, repeated in the New in the Sunday Gospel, to “make straight in the desert a highway” (HST, Handle Standard Translation) and our need to prepare our own souls to receive Christ this coming Christmas.  That the Bible has a personal as well as a historical and a communal application is, of course, no news to any Christian.  But something from Father’s emphasis struck me this time: we are to make straight our lives, yes, by clearing away any impediments that stand in our souls preventing Christ’s passage; but the area we are making straight is a desert.

The soul and barren land: here is an old pairing indeed.  John goes into the wilderness, the Fathers into the desert; seed is dropped on rocky ground; the dark night of the soul; sicut cervus desiderat ad fontem aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te deum … etc., etc.  Behind all the pairs, one way or another, stands the idea of the utter poverty and nakedness of the soul before God.

A comforting idea, actually.  It’s that moment when, as you face the dinner party with mild social anxiety and the stress of too much to do, the host says, “Just bring yourself.”  Of course, you’ll haul along a bottle of wine or a batch of muffins to show your good will, but it is a comfort to know You don’t need to bring anything.

It’s alright to be a desert.  You are one, whether you know it or not.  You don’t need to bring anything—just to strip a few of the cacti away.

God's Ocean

At Mass yesterday, Monsignor quoted saying: “God’s ocean is so big, and our boat is so small.”  He called it as “a prayer,” which initially struck me as an odd description.  But in a way, it is precisely the sort of prayer of which the Old Testament, especially the psalms, are full.  Sometimes, of course, when we acknowledge God’s tremendousness, we do so as a preface to requesting something of Him: Grant us this or Spare us that.  But sometimes the prayer of God’s largeness is just that: an acknowledgement that He is big.  It is the sort of thing one must have well implanted in one’s psyche before one can appreciate the fact that He became small.

And of course, while the prayer of greatness may be a prelude to the prayer of petition, it works the other way around also.  A prayer of petition is, ultimately, only answerable by an exercise of God’s greatness, either in righting the situation about which heaven is stormed, or in resolving that situation into its place in the sea.  In either case, whether the petition is answered with a “yes” or the “no” which widens perspectives, the thanksgiving tends towards that acknowledgement of God’s tremendousness, the tremendousness that is so great that to voice it gratefully “is itself [His] gift” (Common Preface IV).

And the Lord answering Job out of the whirlwind, said: Gird up thy loins like a man … Behold behemoth whom I made with thee, he eateth grass like an ox.  His strength is in his loins, and his force in the navel of his belly. He setteth up his tail like a cedar, the sinews of his testicles are wrapped together. His bones are like pipes of brass, his gristle like plates of iron. He is the beginning of the ways of God, who made him, he will apply his sword. To him the mountains bring forth grass: there all the beasts of the field shall play. He sleepeth under the shadow, in the covert of the reed, and in moist places. The shades cover his shadow, the willows of the brook shall compass him about. Behold, he will drink up a river, and not wonder: and he trusteth that the Jordan may run into his mouth. In his eyes as with a hook he shall take him, and bore through his nostrils with stakes. Canst thou draw out the leviathan with a hook, or canst thou tie his tongue with a cord? Canst thou put a ring in his nose, or bore through his jaw with a buckle? Will he make many supplications to thee, or speak soft words to thee? Will he make a covenant with thee, and wilt thou take him to be a servant for ever? Shalt thou play with him as with a bird, or tie him up for thy handmaids? Shall friends cut him in pieces, shall merchants divide him? Wilt thou fill nets with his skin, and the cabins of fishes with his head? Lay thy hand upon him: remember the battle, and speak no more. Behold his hope shall fail him, and in the sight of all he shall be cast down. (Job, 40:1-2, 10-28)

The King of Blah

There are worse hymns than “The King of Love my Shepherd Is,” a text based closely on Psalm 23 (or 22? the DRV has ruined my sense of psalm numbering for life).  The old text is indeed a gem:

1 The King of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness faileth never.
I nothing lack if I am his,
and he is mine forever.
2 Where streams of living water flow,
my ransomed soul he leadeth;
and where the verdant pastures grow,
with food celestial feedeth.
3 Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed,
but yet in love he sought me;
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me.
4 In death's dark vale I fear no ill,
with thee, dear Lord, beside me;
thy rod and staff my comfort still,
thy cross before to guide me.
5 Thou spreadst a table in my sight;
thy unction grace bestoweth;
and oh, what transport of delight
from thy pure chalice floweth!
6 And so through all the length of days,
thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise
within thy house forever.

Unfortunately, the text they gave us on Sunday was … well, not bowdlerized or demasculinized but certainly dumbed down.

1 The king of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness fails me never;
I nothing lack if I am his
and he is mine for ever.
2 Where streams of living water flow
a ransomed soul, he leads me;
and where the fertile pastures grow,
with food from heaven feeds me.
3 Perverse and foolish I have strayed,
but in his love he sought me;
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me.
4 In death's dark vale I fear no ill
with you, dear Lord, beside me;
your rod and staff my comfort still,
your cross before to guide me.
5 You spread a banquet in my sight
of grace beyond all knowing;
and, oh, the wonder and delight
from your pure chalice flowing!
6 And so through all the length of days
your goodness fails me never:
Good Shepherd, may I sing your praise
within your house for ever!

Is it really so difficult for modern churchgoers to understand words like “celestial” or phrases like “transports of delight”?  Does the occasional “thee” or “-eth” burn the ears of our modern Puritans?  (Indeed, I’m astonished that the word “perverse” escaped the censor’s snip.)  Oh, those old fashioned words wouldn’t be relatable.  Pardon me.  That’s why we read two-year-olds books with only a two-year-old’s vocabulary and grammatical structure: so the toddlers can “relate” to their entertainment.

All sarcasm aside, here is a lovely polyphonic setting of the psalm by Bach.  And if Bach isn’t quite to your taste, CPDL has a setting by Hassler, if only some kind soul would record it!  I think the words are appropriate enough for Thanksgiving, no?  And also for funerals.  Thus we hit all the end-of-November stops.  You may thank me when we meet … later.

Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt, BWV 112 (Johann Sebastian Bach)

Bach Gets His Apocalypse On

More on the cantata (BWV 90) here; lyrics here.  "A horrible end will carry you off, you sinful scoffers …"

Enough said?  Enough said.

Forgive and Forget

I once heard a solid old Jesuit preach a homilette—one of those small sermons that crops up right after the prayers of the faithful or just before the final blessing, when Father remembers he forgot something—on the topic of the phrase “forgive and forget.” This phrase (which some incautious parish committee had inserted into the prayers of the faithful) was, the good priest pointed out, problematic. Forgiving is not the same as forgetting, and to suggest that the two are necessarily paired is dangerously misleading.

Yet the conflation of “forgiving” with “forgetting” is all too common. One of the issues, for example, with much of the current official response to the scandal of the Viganò letters, is that mere apologies will not suffice to set things right. Get the laity to grasp how sorry the hierarchy is for their errors of judgment, and all will be forgiven; obtain forgiveness, and everyone will forget that the letter was ever written. That, at least, seems to be the thinking in some corners of the hierarchy.

But the misapprehension is one that colors all of public life. Once upon a time, the worst thing that could happen to a person was that their private sins be found out; the most embarrassing punishment was to be placed in the stocks where all your neighbors could see you and learn (if they didn’t already know) what you had done. Today, in the pillory of Twitter and Facebook, many people outed for politically incorrect or morally abhorrent behavior rushes to stock themselves, hoping that a suitable quantity of abject groveling may leave them with some semblance of a reputation.

Read the rest at the Register.

Homo Erectus

My long-running obsession with justice and judgment (fed by the current dissertation chapter) has made the words pop out everywhere; Scripture, of course, is full of the ideas.  And in mulling over the Hosea reading mentioned in my last post, it occurred to me that the obsession may appear a little grisly to anyone not writing an academic chapter focused on the topic.  “Justice” brings to mind such disturbing phrases as “the justice system” or “Justice Kavanaugh”; our ear catches at a word and surrounds it with the auras of other words with which we are used to hearing it matched.  Nor is it of any help if our mind interposes the more apropos phrase “a just God,” for it is generally uttered these days in doubt or mockery or, at best, when trying to lay doubt and mockery to rest.  Justice sounds like a sham; and if it dares enter our heads to think of real justice, most of us (we tell ourselves rightly) tremble.

I think it need not and ought not to be that way.  The Hosea reading suggests that there is a sort of incipient “justice” we human beings should cultivate in our lives on earth; if we do that, we need not fear when Divine Justice rains down.  But I think one can go farther than the cryptic metaphors of the Old testament prophet.  His image of our justice springing up to meet Another’s coming down, with its insistence on the perpendicularity of the arrangement, calls to mind another common translation of whatever biblical word is being rendered in English as “just”: upright.

Just, upright, erect.  The former two are synonyms, as are the latter two, although the first and the third do not share a common meaning.  But with good reason Hosea calls up the image of grain growing erect towards the sky: there is a coordination between standing erect and being just, an inherent symbolism that is not a merely human invention.  The etymology tells the story: the thing that we call just is also called being upright; to be just is our birthright as human beings, and what distinguishes us from other animals; it is no terrifying external imposition; it is as natural to us (in one sense) spiritually as walking erect is physically.  We stand erect because that is an image of how we ought to stand internally: upright.  To be upright, that is, pointing up at the sun, is natural for flowers that draw from its rays their strength.  In an upright human being who does the same, we say briefly and without comprehension that he is “just.”  What we really mean is that, like the sunflower, he stretches naturally towards the Sun of Justice from which all the rectitude of his nature comes.

Justice Up and Justice Down

I have been thinking a bit about the odd ending to the reading from Hosea earlier this week.

Sow for yourselves justice,

reap the fruit of piety;

break up for yourselves a new field,

for it is time to seek the LORD,

till he come and rain down justice upon you.

The first line, taken by itself, sounds semi-Pelagian: as if we can somehow make justice happen by ourselves.  The last line, taken in similar isolation, sounds quietist, as if God will do all the work making justice take place.  It is also, depending upon one’s spiritual temperament, a trifle terrifying; for the scrupulous, “justice” can be a frightening word.

The point, as with any quasi-paradoxical lines from Scripture, seems to be that there is an essential both-and going on.  We ought to plant justice in the same way that we plant seeds: not as if we can make corn grow, but knowing that (weather providing) corn will come of our planting.  What we do may not be just in any perfect sense—certainly we are not justified by our own efforts—but it is necessary for justice to come about, just as the kernel is not the ear of corn, but is (assuming a natural order of things into which God has not chosen to intervene with a miracle) a prerequisite.

And of course, the fact that justice rains down could be terrifying or splendid, depending upon what is there in the field to meet it.  If our little “justice” is poking its head up, the Justice that comes will be refreshing and life- and abundance-giving.  But if we haven’t planted any seeds at all, then we shall at best be like those ladies who forgot their oil.  In any case, the story told here is, like so many of the ones in Scripture, one of cooperation: justice up and Justice down.  One hopes to be congruent in the end.

Who's to Judge?

At Mass recently we heard a famous passage, recognizable even to many a non-Christian.  Pope Francis has riffed on it, and it is a familiar element in the arsenal of moralists of the ilk of retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.”  (Matt. 7:1-5)

The common interpretation of the passage assumes that recognizing that an action is bad is identical to “judging.”  According to this interpretation, it would be “judgmental” to inform the alcoholic that his addiction is compromising to himself and his family!  The absurdity of that reading—obvious in the case of such an example—makes for an easy target; and it is healthy to occasionally remind ourselves and our friends that fraternal correction is not per se wrong.

But that is only a negative interpretation; what the passage does not mean.  It does not mean that we should gloss over sin.  But on the other hand, it clearly refers to a real problem (why else would the Holy Spirit have seen to it that those particular words were recorded?).  And I suspect that, as with much of the Gospel’s advice, the words hit closer to home than most of us would like to acknowledge.  Arguing about what the words mean for our current politico-social debates is safer than considering how they apply to our day-to-day lives with family and friends.

Read the rest at the Register.

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/feingold/whos-to-judge

Secondhand Temptation

In an examination of Guardians of the Galaxy II, one of the Marvel franchise’s more recent movies, I spent some time discussing the movie’s failure to portray a convincing villain, a failure which damaged the story as a whole.  If the villain in Guardians had been able to more effectively sell his masterplan to the hero (instead having to resort to hypnosis), it could have been a much better film.  A hero who has to make good intellectual and moral choices using his full capacities is a more interesting and on some level a nobler character than one who acts merely instinctively.  A villain who can almost convince a sound man to follow him is more interesting and on some level more useful character than one who is easily refuted.

Since the screenwriters had time in this case to make the villain more effective (they had only to change a rhetorically weak speech for a strong one), I assumed that the screenwriters were simply unable to write convincingly villainous rhetoric.  Upon further consideration, however, I wonder if that was the only thing, or even the main thing, holding them back.  It is at least conceivable that some of them had ethical scruples about portraying a villain whose tempting is nearly effective.

The problem with a good, solid temptation scene is that it operates differently upon different viewers or readers.  Even the story of the Fall in Genesis has this imperfection: I’ve known non-Christians to genuinely feel that God’s test is tremendously unfair to Adam and Eve.  In the Gospels, Christ refers to that sort of spiritual blindness using Old Testament references to those who lack “eyes to see, and ears to hear.”  Nor is the blindness always spiritual: during the latency period of childhood, which lasts from about age five to twelve, there is generally a diminished ability to comprehend and process certain adult knowledge (a diminished ability which, incidentally, ought to be respected).  And of course, there is always the question of intelligence pure and simple: the annals of history are full of evil men who rose to prominence in part because people were simple enough to believe them.

When it comes to literature, there are plenty of examples in which right and wrong portrayed subtly have led to confusion.  Evelyn Waugh’s masterful and very Catholic novel, Brideshead Revisited, is adored by numerous secular critics only because they fail to see its Catholicity.  Waugh, writing from the point of view of a narrator who is (for most of the story) not Catholic, is too subtle for his advocacy of the Faith to be grasped by many readers.  A still more grave example of this phenomenon is Milton’s Paradise Lost.  Milton asserts rather grandly near the beginning of his biblical epic that he intends “to justify the ways of God to man,” an intention which even a minute scholarly knowledge of Milton’s life and opinions supports.  But over the centuries since Milton wrote, scores if not hundreds of readers have felt (in the words of William Blake) that Milton was “of the Devil's party without knowing it.”  Milton has been rolling in his grave ever since.

This gives the writer a conundrum that is not faced by other creative artists.  If he is called, as some writers are, to write simple stories, stories that deal with good and evil on a level that a child can understand, then there is little or no danger that he will tempt readers beyond their strength.  But if he is called to produce anything more complex—if it is part of his secondary vocation to reproduce moral conundrums with anything like the complexity they sometimes have in real life—then there is always a danger, almost the inevitable danger, that some of his readers may (to paraphrase Blake) take the devil’s side without his intending it.

Read the rest at the Register.

To Live Is to Follow the Light

Christians throughout the world recently celebrated the feast of the Epiphany, some on the traditional date of Jan. 6 (the “Twelfth Night” of the twelve days of Christmas) and others on the nearest Sunday (this year, Jan. 7).  In many cultures, Epiphany is a little Christmas.  Just as Dec. 25 commemorates Jesus Christ’s manifestation to his own people, the Jews, so Epiphany commemorates his manifestation to the gentiles, in the person of the wise men whose arrival is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew.

The wise men or magi, sometimes called “kings” in reference to Old Testament prophecies of kings of the East visiting the Messiah, followed a star which led them to Bethlehem, to the house where Jesus lay.  They had some knowledge of astronomy, enough to know that the star was unusual; and the astrology to which the ancients gave credit led them to believe that this astronomical phenomenon heralded the birth of a new king of the Jews.

Still, they must have felt there was something more to the strange light than that.  After all, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar (as tradition names them) were not Jews themselves, and the Jewish people were not prominent in world affairs.  Why did the magi care about the birth of a new king in a minor foreign nation?  The star boded something more, suggested some ramifications personal to them, or larger than what they admitted to Herod.

Perhaps one indication of what they expected, or at least what they found, lies in the gospel for the earlier epiphany.

The Gospel for Christmas Mass during the Day does not come from the infancy narratives, but from John: “In the beginning was the Word …”  As John continues, clarifying the relation between the Messiah and God as one of identity, he adds the following:

“All things came to be through [the Word], and without him nothing came to be.  What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race.” —from the USCCB readings for the Mass for Christmas Day.

John explains the Word’s creative role in terms of two fundamental things: life, and light.  Unfortunately, this is one of the many places where translation confuses.  The USCCB translation says that “What came to be through him was life,” but the Douay-Rheims has the more familiar “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”  This is a straightforward translation of the Vulgate, which reads “In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum.”

Read the rest at the Register.

Life

John 1:4:

“What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race.”

—from the USCCB readings for the Mass for Christmas Day.

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

—from the Douay-Rheims.

“In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum.”

—from the Vulgate.

“εν αυτω ζωη ην και η ζωη ην το φως των ανθρωπων.”

—from the Greek.

The precarious word here is “en” which, like a lot of Greek prepositions (and for that matter, English and Latin ones) is slippery in meaning.  It could stand for in, by, or with—and probably a lot of other things I don’t know about.  Jerome, obviously, chose to translate it “in.”  I suspect the USCCB translation is relying on the other meanings, especially “by”.  “By him was life” sounds very much like a clumsy or idiomatic way of saying “By his power, life came to be” (or, as the official translation says with more circumlocution, “What came to be through him was life”)—and this is especially true in the context of the preceding verse, where “He” is described as responsible for the making of all things.  So—with apologies once again to Jerome—“in him was life” is kind of weak sauce by comparison.

Why is this interesting?

Well, what does it mean to say that the Word of God, Who Is God—now incarnate as Jesus Christ—made life?  (Think for a moment about the curiosity that is life on the merely biological level, of its inexplicability; think too of the thing that we mean when we say “Now that’s really living life.”  This “life” is Divine in origin.  Explains quite a bit, doesn’t it?)

And further, what does it mean to say that the life that God created is “the light of men”?  (Light is that by which we see; it is also that by which we live, physically—not just because our sun happens to be hot and light coincidentally, but also because E=mcc and so forth.  That by which we live is also that by which we see; that by which we see how to live.  Is it too much to find in this line the seeds of the notion of natural law?)