Lent and Easter Archives - Page 2 of 4

March 25, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter, The Liturgical Year

Gabriel’s Annunciation and Mary’s Renunciation

Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us!” (Isaiah 7:14)

Gabriel’s Annunciation

There’s something that doesn’t seem to make sense at first in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 1:26-38). Here’s the scene. God sends the Angel Gabriel

to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.

The angel brings incredible news. He greets the young woman as “full of grace,” and tells her that she has “found favor with God.” He then goes on to say:

Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.

Now, it’s no surprise that her first reaction isn’t “Great! Thanks for telling me!” But what she does say is, in its way, even more surprising:

“How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”

Do you see the disconnect? She doesn’t object that she’s an insignificant maiden and that her child couldn’t possibly “be called the son of the Most High.” Nor does she express any surprise at her offspring ruling over the House of Jacob as the heir of King David. Her first response is “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man.”

A Different Life

**The Wedding Procession of Mary,** by Giotto, 1303

It’s not what we would expect. The Evangelist has just told us that she’s “betrothed to a man named Joseph.” A young woman who’s about to be married would expect to conceive a child, especially back in the day when there were no contraceptives, and no Planned Parenthood to “take care of” an inconvenient baby. And yet, it’s not the exalted future predicted for her child, but the very fact of conceiving a baby that concerns Mary.

Scholars have traditionally seen this apparent incongruity as consistent with the perpetual virginity of Mary. Her response makes sense if she has taken a vow of virginity, and her betrothed has already agreed to live “as brother and sister” with his wife. Such a commitment would indeed seem to stand in the way of conceiving and bearing a son.

Gabriel’s Annunciation, then, means that Mary has a very different life ahead than what she planned for herself. God’s messenger is offering all the tribulations of motherhood without the compensations of a full marital relationship with her child’s father. But that’s not what troubles Mary. Compare her response to what Ahaz says in the first reading from Isaiah. God instructs Ahaz to ask for sign. Ahaz answers, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!” Mary, in contrast, doesn’t refuse: she just doesn’t understand.

Gabriel is happy to explain further:

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.”

Mary’s Renunciation

After that, satisfied that bearing this son is God’s will for her, Mary completely turns over her own will. In response to Gabriel’s Annunciation she replies:

“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”

The Vulgate Latin Bible renders Mary’s answer: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum. We call this response”Mary’s Fiat,” from its first word, fiat, “let it be done.” Mary willingly gives up anything and everything she has planned for herself, in order to follow God’s plan. Because of the completeness of her surrender to God, we consider her the model Christian believer. As Pope St. Paul VI put it, she “displayed the perfect form of a disciple of Christ” (perfectam Christi discipuli formam expressit).

Today’s feast is called The Solemnity of the Annunciation. But in addition to Gabriel’s Annunciation, it also entails a Renunciation on the part of Mary. That is to say, when Gabriel announced God’s plan for her, Mary freely renounced all her plans for herself. All generations call her blessed (see Luke 1:48) precisely because her renunciation opened the door for the Divine Savior.

Making Mary Our Model

Mary’s renunciation also gives us a helpful way of looking at the disciplines of Lent. We give up things we want, things that may even be good in themselves, to train ourselves in renunciation. At some point God will make his plan for our lives known to us. When he does, how much better if we can follow the example of Christ’s Blessed Mother and say: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.

March 22, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter

The Spirit of Lent: Two Choruses from Handel’s Messiah

The Spirit of Lent

**Flagellation of Christ**, by Michael Pacher, c. 1495-98

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5-4)

Capturing the Spirit of Lent

The Spirit of Lent is penitence and sorrow. If I may state the obvious, penitence and sorrow are not a lot of fun. Rewarding, salvific in fact, yes . . . but not a cause for joy until later, when we realize their fruits. Not surprisingly, composers creating music for Lent need to make music that’s moving and beautiful, but at the same time appropriately somber.

As we saw in a previous post, George Friedrich Handel originally composed his oratorio The Messiah for Lent. Much of the music, however, is far too sumptuous for this most penitential of seasons, which is why we have come instead to associate Handel’s greatest work with Advent and Christmas. Nevertheless, the sections of the oratorio dealing with the Passion and Death of Christ powerfully capture the spirit of the liturgical season leading up to the Triduum and Good Friday.

Grief and Healing

**Christ Carrying the Cross**, by El Greco, c. 1580

The selection below is a good example. The first part is the chorus “Surely he hath borne our griefs,” a musical meditation on Isaiah 53, verse 4 and the first part of verse 5. Handel’s libretto, following the King James translation of the Bible, reads:

Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

The second piece completes verse 5. In a haunting fugue, the chorus repeats the line: “and with his stripes we are healed.”

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find a clip on Vimeo containing both of them, although “With his stripes” comes immediately after “Surely he hath borne our griefs” in The Messiah. There are good performances of the two togeher on another platform. Sadly, Google owns it, and I reject Google and all its works and empty promises. Well, as Hannibal said before leading his army across the Alps, Aut viam inveniam aut faciam! (“I’ll either find a way or I’ll make one”). I made my own video and posted it to the Vidyard platform. The music is a perfomance by AD LIBITUM Orchestra and Chorus. The images are Christ Carrying the Cross, by El Greco, painted c.1580, and the Flagellation of Christ, by Michael Pacher, c. 1495-98.

March 20, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter

You’re Standing on Holy Ground

God said, “Come no nearer!
Remove the sandals from your feet,
for the place where you stand is holy ground. (Exodus 3:5)

The Burning Bush

I was fascinated by the image of the burning bush when I was a little boy. I was also intrigued by God’s demand that Moses remove his sandals. What exactly is “holy ground,” I wondered. How was this dirt different from the dirt twenty feet away?

The meaning “holy” is well worth considering on this 3rd Sunday of Lent. What does it really mean? The word “holy” itself comes from an Old English word which means “separated” or “set aside for God.” The synonym “sacred” is derived from a Latin word which means the same thing. Both are used to translate the Hebrew word qadosh, whose literal meaning, according to the Ancient Hebrew Research Center, is “set apart for a special purpose.” The ground upon which Moses meets God is separated from ordinary ground, and so Moses needs to leave behind his ordinary footwear before he can stand on it. He mustn’t bring the worldly dust into the sacred precinct. He needs to meet God on God’s terms, not his own.

Sacred and Profane

While we don’t take our shoes off before we enter a church, the same principle applies to us as well. Our churches themselves are holy ground, of course. They are formally consecrated, which comes from the same Latin word as “sacred.” They are set aside for God’s purposes. The same is true of the Mass itself. It’s an action that’s set aside, separated, from the usual events of our lives. The priest wears clothes for liturgical worship that he doesn’t wear anywhere else (and the rest of us don’t wear at all). We hear music that is different from ordinary music (or is supposed to be). We also use a distinctive language.

You can see this reality, by the way, in the word “profane,” which originally meant no more than “not sacred.” It comes from the Latin words pro, in front of, and fanum, shrine. When the presiding priest was sacrificing the victim at the altar, the unconsecrated people remained outside of the sacred precinct. They were literally in front of the shrine, pro fanum, rather than in it.

Lent is Holy Ground

The season of Lent is also holy ground. It is time set aside for a special purpose. Lent prepares us to relive the passion and death of Jesus, just as Moses’ time in the Sinai is preparing him to face Pharoah and the events of Passover. And just as Moses leaves behind his sandals, and along with them the dirt of his everyday life, we also need to leave something behind. That’s one way, at least, of understanding the sacrifices and deprivations of Lent.

*Sacred Space: blessing a new altar rail at St. Joseph Church in Macon, GA (https://unavoceofga.blogspot.com/2015/01/altar-rail-installed-at-latin-mass.html)*

There’s another message for us here, as well. The purpose of religion isn’t to put God to work for us (as if such a thing were even possible). Religion is intended to reconnect us to Him (religio = “a binding back”), not the other way around. All the things that are “set aside” for God’s purposes (sacraments, sacramentals, sacred space, sacred music, sacred language) are meant to draw us out of ourselves and into His orbit. A sacred space tells me I’m no longer on my own turf. Sacred language tells me that I’m no longer in my own world. Sacred liturgy takes me out of myself. It’s not about bringing God down to my level, it’s about lifting me closer to him.

Take Off Your Sandals

And so it is with the Lent. When we shed some of our worldly pleasures or pursuits during the penitential season, it is to remind us that we need to set aside our wordly disposition as well. “If you do not repent,” Jesus tells us, “you will all perish as they did.” (Luke 13:5) After all, we’re standing on holy ground.

March 14, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter

Fear and Hope: Confutatis and Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem

Fear and Hope are the twin themes of the “Confutatis and Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem.

**The Last Judgment**, *by Michelangelo, 1536-1541*

If thou, O LORD, shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope . . . (Psalm 130:3-5)

Fear and Hope

Fear and hope power this short musical piece. While it’s not strictly speaking a Lenten composition, Mozart’s Requiem Mass, which he was still completing at the time of his death, lends itself to the penitential nature of the liturgical season. This excerpt (“Confutatis and Lacrimosa”), part of the setting for Thomas of Celano’s great hymn Dies Irae, looks ahead to the Final Judgment. Here, Mozart’s music powerfully complements the words of the hymn: we can almost feel what it’s like to be unworthy sinners approaching the Throne of God to throw ourselves upon his Mercy (which, indeed, we are).

I didn’t choose the clip below because it is the most polished performance on the web. Instead, I liked the way this ensemble captures Mozart’s vivid dramatization of the struggle between fear and hope. The male voices and the pounding, insistent strings in the “Confutatis” section powerfully evoke our fear of damnation. The plaintive female voices in the “Lacrimosa” express our hope in God’s mercy and the promise of salvation.

It’s a short piece. Take a couple of minutes here in the second week of Lent to meditate on the Drama of Salvation along with one of the great musical masters, Wolfgang Mozart.

Latin and English Text

Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis,
voca me cum benedictis.
Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis,
gere curam mei finis.

     When the wicked are confounded,
     and consigned to bitter flames,
     call me among the blessed.
     I pray humble and downcast,
     my heart worn down like ash,
     take up the care of my end.

Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus,
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.

     That day,full of tears,
     when from the ashes shall arise,
     Man, the accused to be judged.
     Have mercy on him, therefore, O God,
     faithful Lord Jesus,
     grant them eternal rest. Amen

March 13, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter, The Liturgical Year

2nd Sunday of Lent: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

2nd Sunday of Lent:

2nd Sunday of Lent: What is the Goal?

One of the first things a new teacher learns is that you need to start with a clear idea of where you want to end up. If we’re not clear on what we want our students to learn, then our efforts will be misdirected and wasted. When we plan our lessons, we choose activities and resources that are most likely to bring our students to that outcome. Not only that, we need to stay focused on that outcome as we progress through the lesson.

But that’s not all. I remember very clearly my first day as a teacher some three and a half decades ago. One of the religious brothers for whom I was working told me: “Always remember, take your students where they are right now, then bring them up to where you want them to be.” We need to start with the real world, not our ideal reality. We need to recognize the true state of affairs.

Look to the Stars

Today’s readings do something of the same thing. In the first reading from Genesis (15:5-12, 17-18). The Lord has taken Abram, who is elderly and childless, out to show him the stars.

“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.

Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”

God also promises Abram the possession of the land in which he is living, to which he has come as a dispossessed stranger. Abram asks the Lord:

“O Lord GOD,” he asked,

“how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

God directs him to offer up a curious sacrifice which involves cutting the bodies of the victims in two and leaving a space between them. Having done so, Abram waits patiently for God to act. His patience is rewarded by a supernatural breaking through of Divine Power when a fire appears and passes between the split carcasses of the animals. This manifestation of God’s power is a sign to Abram that his patience will be rewarded.

The Transfiguration

The Gospel reading for the 2nd Sunday of Lent also involves a breaking through of the Divine Promise into the world of the here and now. Luke describes the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mt. Tabor (9:28b-36). The glimpse of the Glorified Christ, accompanied by Moses and Elijah, is a powerful promise to Peter, John, and James of a much greater reality toward which they are working. But here we also see a warning: the Glorified Jesus is talking to Moses and Elijah “of his exodusthat he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.” That is, his Passion and death. The Transfiguration is not a reality, yet, for Jesus’ disciples. There is still the Mystery of the Cross.

The first and last readings remind us of the objective, the “where we want to go.” The second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians (3:17—4:1), reminds us of the reality from which we’re starting out:

For many, as I have often told you

and now tell you even in tears,

conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Their end is destruction.

Their God is their stomach;

their glory is in their “shame.”

Their minds are occupied with earthly things.

The God of Our Stomach

That is, to some degree, all of us. We all face the temptations of the “god” of our “stomach,” which represents our appetites, not just for food, put for earthly pleasures, possessions and powers. If we let those things be our gods, and therefore set our goals, our end can only be destruction.

St. Paul offers us instead the divine objection we see more vividly in the other readings:

But our citizenship is in heaven,

and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He will change our lowly body

to conform with his glorified body . . .

The disciplines of Lent are intended to give us a concrete reminder that we need to say “no” to the god of our stomach. The few brief weeks of the penitential season represent the brief span of our life here in this world. Today, when we are still near the beginning of our Lenten journey, we are reminded of the glorious goal that lies at the end . . . if we persevere. We need the patience and faith of Abram, and we need to keep our eyes on the prize.

March 11, 2022 iacobusm Faith and Sin, Lent, Lent and Easter

Let’s Keep the Confessional Open

spes in domino confessional

The Seal of the Confessional?

What’s wrong with the picture above? At first glance it looks like a confessional of the sort you used to be able to find in any Catholic church. A closer look reveals that the doors through which the penitents were accustomed to enter have been replaced by plain panels. There’s no way in for those who might wish to confess their sins.

Fortunately, the church which houses the sad looking retired confessional above does still offer the Sacrament of Penance. More often, in fact, than many other Catholic parish churches. I’ll return to that in a moment. I include the picture above because it’s a graphic illustration of much that has gone wrong in the Church over the past half century. Not only have we de-emphasized confession, we’ve closed down, boarded up, and often even removed the visible evidence of its importance in the life of the Church. No such thing could have happened unless we had first lost our sense of Sin.

The reality of Sin is a foundational concept in Christianity. It goes back to the very beginning, to the rebellion of Satan. The Church has traditionally understood (quite reasonably) that the sooner we turn away from sin, and toward God, the better. That’s why one of the Precepts of the Church is to “Confess your sins at least once a year.” We also had a concrete reminder of the importance of confession, the confessional. This distinctive structure was usually in plain sight, often prominently visible in the nave of the church building. Every time we entered the church it was there, urging us to bring our sins to the Lord.

Traditional Wisdom

**The Confession**, *by Giuseppe Molteni, 1838*

Unfortunately, in the decades after the Second Vatican Council much of the institutional Church has forgotten its traditional wisdom. We seem to have lost the understanding that, just as we are both body and soul, we need concrete things, images, sacramentals, and sacraments, to help us apprehend spiritual realities. Isn’t that, in fact, at least part of the reason for confession? God could simply forgive any and all sins any time we ask for it in prayer, but instead he tells us through his Holy Scripture: “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16) There is a reason that the Word chose to become Flesh.

Our leaders do not only seem to have forgotten this fundamental feature of traditional Catholicism. They also seem to have forgotten, or to be ignoring, something even more important. Too many bishops and priests seem reluctant to warn of the dangers of sin (unless it’s abstract and politicized “systemic” sin). When they mention confession at all, it is often under the kinder, gentler sounding name “reconciliation.” This term emphasizes the happy reunion at the end without reference to the hard work of first acknowledging and repenting of our sins. It’s not wrong, but it’s only part of the story, like Easter without the Passion. Consequently, confessionals sit abandoned, often used as storage closets, or sealed off, or removed altogether.

The Confessional Strikes Back

That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are signs of improvement. I can’t say I’ve done a systematic study. It could be the churches I’ve been hanging around in more recently. In any case, I’m seeing much longer lines at confession today than I was thirty years ago. To tell you the truth, there was often no line at all when I first came back to the Church in the early 1990s. Now I can no longer count on getting into (and out of) the confessional quickly.

There are two things in my experience that go along with greater numbers of penitents. The first is priests (and bishops) who talk about sin and confession often. When the teachers in the Church don’t mention a teaching, many people naturally assume that it’s just not that important (see: contraception). Nobody likes to think about sin, sin in general, but most especially our own sin. We’ll avoid thinking about it if we can. We need reminders.

The other factor is availability. Just as placing confessionals clearly in public view sends a message, so does offering (and publicizing) frequent opportunities for people to confess. The churches that offer confession for only half an hour on Saturday afternoon still don’t seem to have long lines. The churches I know that set aside more time (in one case, an hour each on Saturday and two week nights. The cathedral church in our diocese offers confessions twice on Saturday, and after every weekday morning mass) are never lacking penitents. At any of those times, plan on getting there early or you risk a long wait. It has happened more than once that I have been left waiting when father had to leave to say Mass.

Don’t Fear the Confessional

spes in domino penitents — *Penitents waiting outside a traditional confessional (catholicherald.co.uk)*

You might have noticed that priests who are too young to have been formed during the full flowering of what Fr. Richard John Neuhaus used to call the “silly season” in the immediate aftermath of Vatican II tend to be more forthright in talking about sin and in emphasizing sacramental confession. The pastor of the church that houses the sealed off confessional pictured above is one of these young, enthusiastic priests. He’s not responsible for closing it up. He does, in fact, offer confession several times a week in a clearly marked room where we can confess behind a screen. I’ve never been the only person in line there.

Where does this bring us? Lent is a time when we pay particular attention to our own need for repentance. We might also want to give some extra encouragement and support to those bishops and priests who are not afraid to remind us of the dangers of sin and the need for sacramental confession. There are some clerics who are afraid that talking too directly about these “negative” topics will drive people away from the Church. We should pray that the Lord gives these men the courage to be bolder in speaking the Truth. We can also point to real life examples of priests who draw more people in precisely because they are willing to talk about sin and repentance.

Sin is a reality. If that weren’t the case, Christ had no reason to suffer and die on the Cross. If we don’t need salvation from sin, then Christianity is pointless. That promise of savation from sin is the reason why countless martyrs have willingly given their lives over the past two thousand years. We shouldn’t be afraid to proclaim it as loudly and as often as we can. Let’s keep the confessionals open.

March 6, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter

Music for Lent: When Jesus Wept

I just ran across the beautiful Lenten song “When Jesus Wept” just within the past week, although it has been garnering more attention in Catholic circles in recent years (my sons tell me they sang it in choir at their faithful Catholic college). It was published in 1770 by American composer William Billings. The melody is quite simple, but when sung as a four part round, as it is here, it takes on a surprising depth and power.

The words are also simple:

When Jesus wept, the falling tear
in mercy flowed beyond all bound.
When Jesus groaned, a trembling fear
seized all the guilty world around.

The song takes its inspiration from John 11:35, the shortest verse in the Bible. It reads, in full: “Jesus Wept.” Jesus has just arrived at Bethany, and he has learned that Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, has died and been buried.

We could fill pages with discussion of the implications of this brief verse. I’ll limit myself to one observation. It has always struck me that Jesus knows that, in just a few minutes, he will raise Lazarus from the dead and restore him to his sisters. Nevertheless, he weeps, he cries real tears and feels real sorrow. He experiences the fullness of human sorrow, just as he will soon experience real and excruciating pain and anguish on The Cross. As Scripture reminds us, “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)

“When Jesus Wept” nicely captures both the human reality of Christ’s sorrow, and its divine implications. The tears falling from the flesh and blood eyes of Jesus “in mercy flowed beyond all bound,” his human groan of sorrow seizes “All the guilty world around.” In like manner, the breaking of his mortal body on The Cross will be the means by which he eternally conquers Death itself. That’s not a bad thing to keep in mind as we take on the austerities of Lent, ans as we encounter suffering and temptation in our own lives.

The classical vocal ensemble Quire Cleveland sings “When Jesus Wept” in the video below. It was recorded live at St. Peter’s Church in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, April 6, 2014. The painting in the video is “Jesus Wept” by the French artist James Tissot. It is one of 365 watercolors illustrating the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus that Tissot made in the 1880s and 1890s following the artist’s late-in-life reversion to Catholicism.

March 5, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter

1st Sunday of Lent: Call on the Name of the Lord

**Christ Tempted by the Devil**, *by John Ritto Penniman, 1818*

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

(from “Do not go gentle into that good night, by ” Dylan Thomas)

The opening lines of Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” are the voice of a young man urging his father to fight back against imminent death, to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Most of us, I think, when we reach our later years have the wisdom to understand the situation a little better; my own octogenarian father remarked recently, in reference to this poem, “but I don’t want to rage against the dying of the light.” But again, the narrative voice is that of someone much younger (Thomas himself was in his thirties when he composed it).

All the same, there’s something universally human about the refusal to “go gentle into that good night.” We want to be masters of our world, and we want to leave a lasting legacy behind us when we do go. We want, as the Roman poet Horace put it, to erect “a monument more lasting than bronze.”

It’s a forlorn hope. As Thomas’ poem points out, all of us, the “wise,” the “good,” even “wild men,” learn at the end that our “frail deeds might have danced in the green bay” . . . but fell short of our hopes. As Ecclesiastes says, all is vanity.

The Good News, as Christians know, is that while our ambitions for ourselves might be vanity, our lives and even our failures in this world are not in vain. That is, if we turn our lives over to God, and join our failures to the suffering of Jesus Christ.

That’s the message of the First Sunday of Lent. Our Gospel reading today, for instance, is Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the desert (Luke 4:1-13). The Devil offers Jesus the same temptations of mastery that attract all of us: feeding our appetitites without restriction (“command this stone to become bread”), exercising power without limit (“I shall give to you all this power and glory”), and, in short, doing whatever we want without suffering consequences:

“If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down from here, for it is written:
            He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,
and:
            With their hands they will support you,
            lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

Jesus, however, has “taken the form of a slave” (Philippians 2:7), and accepts human limitations. He refuses all the allurements of Satan.

The example Jesus gives us, of rejecting the mirage of mastery in the here and now, and instead relying on God his Father, sets the agenda for the Season of Lent. The austerities of Lent are intended to teach us that we don’t need the things we think we need: none of those things can save us. That applies even to our religion, if we behave as if religion is there to put God to work for us, rather than to lead us to God. Notice in the quote above how the Evil One cites Holy Scripture, Psalm 91 (which is also our responsory psalm today), in his effort to separate Jesus from His Father.

Jesus, of course, knows that the images of Angels guarding us aren’t a promise that God will protect us from the natural consequences of our actions in this world. And haven’t we all seen, over and over again, that bad things happen to even the best people? The best person of all, in fact, Jesus Christ, although sinless, was sentenced to an excruciating death on The Cross. We see the fulfillment of Psalm 91 in The Resurrection, God’s promise that for he “who [says] to the LORD, ‘My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust’” God says “I will be with him in distress; I will deliver him and glorify him.”

The message that we need to detach ourselves from reliance on the world in order to put ourselves under God’s protection is a major theme in the other readings as well. In the Old Testament reading we find Moses reminding the Hebrews how, when they were bound in hopeless slavery to Pharaoh, God “brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand and outstretched arm.” (Deuteronomy 26:8). St. Paul, in the second reading, tells the Romans that

if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

*Detail from the Ghent Altarpiece, by Jan van Eyck, c. 1430*

St. Paul tells us we need to turn to The Lord with everything we have, inside and out. It’s no good just to say the words, nor is it sufficient to have good intentions without putting them into practice. Both body and soul need to be working together.

In a similar way, the sacrifices of Lent are intended to strengthen the movement of our hearts away from the world, and toward Jesus Christ. Those who confess that Jesus is Lord, and believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead, do not, and cannot, “rage against the dying of the light.” The light of this world is only a passing reflection of the true light of Heaven, where there is

no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut by day–and there shall be no night there; they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. (Revelation 21: 23-26)

That’s what God promises to us, on the far side of the temptations of the Devil and forty days in the desert. We can’t do it alone, but if we “Call on the name of the Lord” Jesus is there with us.

March 1, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter

Remember That You Are Dust – But That’s Not All

Rameses II — *Image from https://ramsesthe2accomplishments.weebly.com/monuments.html*

“In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)

“Remember, Man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” I remember how deeply that solemn admonition impressed me when, as a young child, I first consciously participated in the observance of Ash Wednesday. So much of the meaning of the Scriptures and the Liturgy was beyond the reach of my young and unsubtle mind, but I understood this: I would die someday, and everything else I could see and touch would pass away as well.

That’s one of the essential premises of the Christian Faith: the impermanence of our lives in this world, and along with that, the ultimate futility of that world itself. That’s not a uniquely Christian insight, of course. The 19th century poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, for example, in his sonnet “Ozymandias,” writes of the ruined statue of an ancient king, its fragments half-buried in the sand. On the pedestal passers-by can still read the final, ironic, boast of the long-dead ruler:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

*Alabaster Roman* **Cinerarium** *(funerary urn) for holding ashes of the dead*

One of the ironies here is that, as an unbeliever, Shelley himself could hope for immortality only through the survival of his body of work, from which this poem is by far the most well remembered today, two centuries after his death.*

The image of dust and ashes goes back much further than the early 19th century, of course. Decades before the birth of Christ, the pagan Roman poet Catullus wrote a poem in remembrance of his dead brother. The poem begins:

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem . . . .

Traveling through many nations and across many seas

I have come, Brother, for these offerings, so that I might

endow you, at last, with this gift for the dead,

and address (in vain) your mute ashes . . .

We might even say that the recognition of the transitory and unsubstantial reality of this world is a universal: there are entire religions (Hinduism, Buddhism) in which the highest goal (at least as some adherents tell it) is complete escape from the material world.

Christianity is not one of those religions. Ash Wednesday is not the end of the story. We don’t see the world as illusory or evil: after all, when He created this world, God said that it was good (Genesis 1:31). But it is, after all, just another created thing, subject to corruption and eventual annihilation. God created it as a place for us to build our relationship with Him. The problem arises when we direct toward the creation the devotion due only to the Creator. That’s why we need to detach from the world, and yet at the same time search for God in and through the world.

Saint Agnes of Bohemia Gives the Grandmaster a Model of the Church from the Altarpiece of Niklaus Puchner (1482)

As it happens, we see a good real-life example of the Christian understanding of how it all works in the life of St. Agnes of Bohemia, whose feast is usually observed on this date, March 2nd (this year St. Agnes’ feast is superseded by the observance of Ash Wednesday). I invite you to read my full post on St. Agnes HERE. Briefly, She was a daughter of the King of Bohemia, a niece of the King of Hungary, betrothed to another king for a time, and was eventually sought out as a bride by the Holy Roman Emperor himself. She rejected it all.

Agnes rejected it all, but again not because the material world is evil. She didn’t seek to escape into the nothingness of nirvana, or starve herself to death like an Albigensian parfait. She chose a greater King as her husband, Jesus Christ, and showed her devotion to her husband by working to build his kingdom on Earth:

Agnes spent the rest of her life using her worldly position to further the Kingdom of Heaven. She founded hospitals and convents; she helped settle the recently founded Franciscans and Poor Clares in her kingdom (and established a deep long-distance friendship with St. Clare herself); she established a male military order, the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, whose primary mission was nursing; she joined the Poor Clares herself, and eventually became abbess.

St. Agnes didn’t consider life in this world as ensnarement in vile matter: rather, it was the ground on which she cultivated her relationship with her Lord and God.

This is the same Lord who “became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). He sanctified human flesh, but at the same time called us to a destiny beyond the dust from which our bodies are composed.

“Remember, Man, that you are dust.” The words of the Ash Wednesday liturgy are not simply telling us that we come from mere matter: they are reminding us that God has so much more in store for us. It’s a call to lift our eyes from the dust, and look to Heaven.

*He might be even better known as the husband of Mary Shelley, author of the novel Frankenstein.

Full texts of Shelley’s “Ozymandias” and Catullus’s “Multas Per Gentes”:

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

___

Catullus’s “Multas Per Gentes” (poem 101)

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
     advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
     et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem,
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum.
     heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
     tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
     atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Traveling through many nations and across many seas

I have come, Brother, for these offerings, so that I might

endow you, at last, with this gift for the dead,

and address (in vain) your mute ashes,

inasmuch as Fortune has stolen you, yourself, away from me.

Alas, poor brother, unfairly taken from me,

Now nevertheless receive these things, which, in the ancient custom of

our parents have been handed on through sad obligation as a

death offering, along with abundant brotherly weeping,

and for eternity, brother, good bye and farewell.

February 28, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter, Sacred Music

The Drama of Sin and Repentance (or not) From Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Music Monday)

**The Last Judgment**, *attributed to Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516)*

The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire! (2 Peter 3:9-12)

Hell is a real possibility for all of us. It’s not a happy thought, but it’s an appropriate introduction to today’s Music Monday selection, our last musical offering before Ash Wednesday. It’s not really sacred music, but it is very relevant indeed to the Lenten themes of sin, repentance (or not), and damnation. This is the finale* of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni (a.k.a. Don Juan), one of the most powerful scenes in the history of musical drama.

First, a little context for the scene below. Don Giovanni is a serial abuser of women. According to his servant Leporello, he has sexually exploited precisely 2,065 women in five different countries (and that’s just during the time of Leporello’s service). Earlier in the opera Giovanni had crept into the bedroom of an unsuspecting young woman, and killed her elderly father, the Commendatore, who had come to her defense. In this final scene, the spirit of the Commandatore has come in the guise of his memorial statue from the nearby cemetery to visit Don Giovanni. The ghost of the murdered father is here to offer the licentious Don one last chance of repentance before his final end.

Samuel Ramey (front) as Don Giovanni, Kurt Moll (back) as the Commendatore

Pentiti!– “Repent!” the ghost insistently demands.

Don Giovanni, unwilling to surrender his pride, every time answers a defiant “No!” Finally, a host of demons arrives to haul the wicked old sinner off to Hell.

In Don Giovanni’s last moments we see in dramatic form the situation that we all face. As St. Peter tells us in the passage at the top of the page, God wishes “that all should reach repentance.” St. Paul likewise assures us that our Lord “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:4) God makes His offer of salvation to all, even to so prodigious a sinner as Don Giovanni. At the same time, we need to accept God’s offer by turning away from sin, that is, we need to choose salvation by repenting. Note that St. Peter also says, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins,” (Acts 2:38), and St.Paul reminds us that ” the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) Don Giovanni makes his choice for sin and death . . . forever.

Repent and believe the Gospel!

The clip below is from one of my favorite productions of Don Giovanni, performed in Salzburg in 1991 with Samuel Ramey as Don Giovanni, Kurt Moll as the ghost of the Commandatore, and Feruccio Furlanetto as Leporello. (Please pardon the slightly fuzzy visuals – there are better reproductions on other platforms, but we don’t link to those)

*There is an additional scene after this in which the surviving characters discuss their futures, which was almost never performed in Mozart’s day.

https://vimeo.com/196825301