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What Do you say to a God who permits bone cancer in children? Ask Chiara Badano

 

 

Blessed Chiara Badano (Davide Papalini / CC BY-NC 2.0)

 

“I’d say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’” he began.

“’How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault . . .It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil.

     The quote above from actor and public atheist Stephen Fry appeared in my post earlier in the week on the Feast of the Presentation (“The Presentation: Sufering and Joy“). Fry had been asked what he would say if, by chance, he should find himself face-to-face with the God he had rejected.  I responded that, to an atheist who believes that there is nothing else beyond this world, physical suffering is the worst thing that can happen, but faith in Christ offers us so much more.  Faith can bring us joy, “sometimes in the face of intense suffering, sometimes even through [our] suffering” if we join our pain to the suffering the Christ. I had offered the example of a relative, one of my father’s sisters, whose radiant faith “allowed her to be a support to everyone else as she lay dying of cancer.”

     One might observe that I didn’t address Fry’s point about the suffering of children in particular.  My aunt, after all, had lived a full life, and died at a time of life where we expect that our end is near.  My immediate answer to that objection would be to offer the example of child saints who joyfully accepted death and suffering for the sake of Christ.  The twelve year old martyr St. Tarcisius, for instance, who gave his life to prevent the desecration of the Eucharist by a Roman mob, or his twentieth century Chinese counterpart Little Li, killed by communists for her Eucharistic devotion.  The fourteen year old St. Dominic Savio, whose death was probably brought on by pleurisy, also comes to mind.

St. Tarcisius (myfirstcommunion.com)

     Fry mentions bone cancer specifically, of course, as an example of suffering that is especially intense and lingering. It’s a curious thing, but just this morning when I was researching a different topic, I came across an account of Chiara Badano, who was beatified by Pope Benedict twelve years ago and whose cause for canonization is ongoing.  Eighteen year old Chiara died in 1990, having suffered for two years . . . from bone cancer.

     Our atheist friends might call that random chance, but it happens that Chiara provides a real life answer to Stphen Fry’s hypothetical question.  The key is the role of faith in her life. Chiara deepened her faith through involvement with the Focolare movement, which her family joined when she was nine years old. When she became ill a few years later, that faith transformed her suffering, and her suffering informed her faith. She echoed St.Paul’s assertion that “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body” (Colossians 1:24), saying: “there’s only one thing I can do now: to offer my suffering to Jesus because I want to share as much as possible in his sufferings on the cross.”  As was the case for St. Paul, and for the aunt I mentioned above, her suffering wasn’t pointless at all, but was offered for the benefit of others. Focolare’s account of her life recounts what happened when friends went to visit her in the hospital:

“At first we thought we’d visit her to keep her spirits up,” one of the Gen boys said,
“but very soon we understood that, in fact, we were the ones who needed her. Her life was like a magnet drawing us to her.”

This is the transformative power of faithful suffering.  If we let him, Christ can transform our suffering into a powerful force for the good of our fellow men and women.

     Not only that, there are rewards for the sufferer as well. Our faith teaches us that when we join our sufferings to Christ’s, we never suffer alone.  Before she died, Chiara described what happened during one especially painful medical procedure:

When the doctors began to carry out this small, but quite demanding, procedure, a lady with a very beautiful and luminous smile came in. She came up to me and took me by the hand, and her touch filled me with courage.
   In the same way that she arrived, she disappeared, and I could no longer see her. But my heart was filled with an immense joy and all fear left me. In that moment I understood that if we’re always ready for everything, God sends us many signs of his love.

Blessed Chiara Badano

     The Stephen Frys of the world will dismiss Blessed Chiara’s account as fantasy, but no evidence will convince those who choose not to be convinced.  The evidence is on Chiara’s side. The evidence is not only in her words, but in the testimony of her friends and relatives whose lives she enriched.  The evidence is in her abundant joy in the face of excruciating physical suffering.

     In truth, even the most ardent materialist will admit that suffering, at least in some cases, may be worthwhile: the pain we experience to condition our bodies for an athletic endeavor, for instance.  Most will even concede that taking on hardship for others can outweigh the suffering involved, as in the case of a parent who sacrifices for his or her children, or even a soldier who trades his own life for the protection of his fellow citizens. How much more worthwhile when the reward is eternal joy, not only for ourselves, but for those whose lives and spirits are uplifted by our sacrifice?

     Bone Cancer is a terrible thing, and it’s hard for us to see the suffering it causes, especially in children. But the power of Christ is much more powerful than even the worst suffering this world has to offer. Just ask Blessed Chiara Badano.

O Father, fount of everything good, we give you thanks for the wonderful testimony of Blessed Chiara Badano. Filled with the Holy Spirit and guided by the radiant light of Jesus, she believed firmly in your infinite love, and wished to return it with all her strength, surrendering herself in complete trust to your paternal will. We humbly beseech you that you may also grant us the gift to live with you and for you, and ask you, if it be your will, for the grace… through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

(from Blessed Chiara’s prayer card)

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A Musical Evocation of Chaos by Joseph Haydn

   Ancient of Days, by William Blake

 Last week’s musical selection was “The  Heavens are Telling” from Joseph Haydn’s masterpiece, an oratorio called The Creation. There are three parts to the oratorio as a whole. The first part deals with the creation of the heavens and earth, and inanimate things such as light, water, land and plants.The subject of the second part is the creation of the animals.  The third part is a celebration of our first parents, Adam and Eve.

Haydn by Guttenbrunn
Joseph Hadyn, by Ludwig Gettenbrunn, 1791-1792

     The selection we heard last week came from the end of part one.  Today we go back to the beginning, not only the beginning of The Creation, but the beginning of time, the beginning of everything: the Chaos before Creation itself. Haydn’s overture is a musical evocation of that Chaos.

     Interestingly, the Chaos section may not sound quite as chaotic to us as it did to audiences at the end of the eighteenth century, accustomed as most of us are to dissonant, syncopated music. This is nevertheless a powerful musical experience, all the more so when we listen with the Biblical account in mind. The sense of order underlying chaos also makes me think of some of the current ideas in physics.  Consider, for instance, this sentence that I cribbed from the Wikipedia article “Chaos Theory”:

Chaos theory states that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization. 

     We can take both Haydn’s overture, and the discoveries of modern physics, as a reminder that God sees the order underlying the appearance of chaos, always and everywhere.

The clip below features a performance of “Chaos” from Haydn’s The Creation by the Palomar Symphony Orchestra directed by Ellen Weller, with a rather interesting video by Kali Coogan.

 

 

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Newspeak and the Word of God

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel– not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.  (Galatians 1:6-8)

 

 

From the film 1984 (1956)

Big Brother is watching.

     The all powerful totalitarian state in George Orwell’s novel 1984 uses the comforting, familial image of “Big Brother” to mask the ugly reality of its absolute control. Big Brother uses many tools (such as constant surveillance) to keep and exercise his power, but the most effective is language. By tightly controlling the language, Big Brother can control the way his subjects think. Just as the image of Big Brother himself is a fiction, words and phrases serve, not to convey meaning, but to hide real meanings in favor of whatever content the state chooses to give them.         

    This language that is intentionally designed to deceive rather than inform is called Newspeak. A character in the novel named Syme, a lexicologist, explains that, as Newspeak develops,

The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of The Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like Freedom is Slavery when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

     Again, making things mean their opposite is not a side effect, it’s an intentional strategy, a way of achieving the end goal of controlling how people think and, ultimately, doing their thinking for them.

     Orwell had long been concerned about the manipulation of language as a means of thought control.  Several years before 1984 came out he published an essay called “Politics and the English Language” in which he explicitly examines the topic.   He discusses at length the way in which vague and abstract language is especially suited to confusing and deceiving one’s listeners or readers:

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer . . .

 

“The great enemy of clear language 

is insincerity.”

-George Orwell

 

“But,” Orwell adds, ” if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” Lying language leads to poor reasoning, or “not thinking,” as Syme put it.  People who can’t think need somebody else to do their thinking for them: that’s why Newspeak is so loved by demagogues: “Political language−and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists−−is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

     Orwell is trying to avoid the appearance of partisanship in this last quote.  He had in fact always considered himself a socialist, but learned to hate totalitarianism while serving with the “republican” (i.e., communist and anarchist) forces in the Spanish Civil War (he gives a vivid account of his experiences in Spain in his book Homage to Catalonia). In this case, his phrase “with variations” covers a lot of ground. It’s true that politicians of all sorts will abuse the language in order to manipulate the electorate.  True totalitarians are something else altogether: they’re not interested in simply winning elections, they want everything.  They want to fundamentally transform entire societies.

     And that is why language has become so controversial, including everything from gender pronouns, to which words constitute “microaggressions” and “cultural appropriation,” to symbolic language like flags and statues.  A word such as “marriage,” whose meaning has been clear for thousands of years, now somehow means something completely different, and you’re a “hater” if you insist on the historical meaning.  When language trumps truth, the masters of the language get to decide what’s real and what isn’t.

     Sadly, that’s the way it is out in a world that has forgotten God.  There’s really nothing to stop those who have power from imposing their will on those who are less powerful. “”You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them,” Jesus tells his disciples, but “It shall not be so among you.” (Matthew 20:25-26).  That’s why it’s so discouraging to see what’s happening to the Church in Germany. I wrote last year that the so-called “Synodal Way” that the German bishops are travelling looks like nothing so much as a straight road out of Christianity. It hasn’t become any better since.  The most recent news is that the German bishops have given their blessing to an initiative called “#OutInChurch — For a church without fear.” Among other “demands” the initiative insists that “Defamatory and outdated statements of Church doctrine on sexuality and gender need to be revised on the basis of theological and human-scientific findings.” Among other statements of support, one German bishop notes approvingly that this document represents “a courageous step by 125 queer employees of the Catholic Church from all over the country.”

     This isn’t the language of the Gospel . . . at least not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not only the initiative itself, but, even more alarmingly, the statements of the Heirs of the Apostles in Germany speak the language of a “different gospel,” as St. Paul calls it, the false gospel of the Sexual Revolution and of the impossible campaign to reshape reality according to human desires.   

     The corruption and abandonment of the traditional language of the Gospel didn’t start with the Synodal Way in Germany.  In “Politics and the English Language” Orwell creates a “modern” translation of a well-known passage from Ecclesiastes that would be hilarious if it weren’t so troubling:

 “I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well−known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.”

Among the various shortcomings of Orwell’s “modern English translation,” the most telling is that, as he puts it, “The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.”  He points out that

The first sentence contains six vivid images and only one phrase (“time and chance”) that could be considered vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its 90 syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first.

 

 

“Lord, I am not worthy . . .” Christ and the Centurion, Paolo Veronese, 1571

    Does that ring a bell?  It does for me.  When I was seven years old the first official post-Vatican II translation of the Mass was introduced.  I had been hearing a temporary, fairly literal, English translation of the liturgy for as long as I could remember in my short life (I never heard the Mass in Latin until many years later, when I had children of my own).  I recall becoming slowly aware that something was different as the Mass progressed until finally, just before the adults were to go up for communion, the congregation intoned “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you  . . .”  At that point an outraged voice in my head screamed out: “What happened to the roof?”  I didn’t understand anything about principles of translation, abuse of language, or any of the rest of it.  All I knew was that we had been saying “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,” something I could picture and hold on to, and now that familiar image had been replaced with empty words.

     That’s the problem with concrete images, for the idealogue.  Things we can see and touch, hear and smell, have a meaning of their own independent of the idealogue’s intention.  If you want to change the Church, if you want to change the beliefs that have animated Christians for two millennia, you need to take away the concrete images, the traditional words, and the familiar actions that embody the traditional understanding of the faith.  When you take away “the roof” you don’t merely take something solid and turn it into something malleable, you hide the scriptural source of the liturgical prayer.  You cut the connection to the Roman centurion who says to Jesus: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed” (Matthew 8:8). You erase the memory of the military officer who has the power of command, but confesses that he himself is “under authority” (Matthew 8:9), and that his authority is of no account compared to the authority of Christ. You replace the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a different gospel.

     That’s one of the things that’s most alarming about Traditionis Custodes, last year’s papal intervention severely restricting the Traditional Latin Mass (you can read my discussions of the pope’s letter here and here).  Where is the urgent need to separate the faithful so forcefully from the things that have embodied the faith for generations of believers, going back to the early centuries of the Church? Why the fanaticism of those such as the cardinal archbishop of Chicago who have gone beyond the strictures of pope’s letter (I suppose we could call it “The Spirit of Traditionis Custodis“)? Cardinal Cupich has even banned saying the post Vatican II Mass ad orientem, that is to say, the traditional manner in which the priest faces the altar rather than the congregation. It is noteworthy that the same prelate has taken a much more benign approach to liturgies that deviate sharply from the rubrics of the Mass in order to promote homosexuality and other politically fashionable topics. This, too, looks a lot like a different gospel.

     Words are important.  It was not random choice or whimsy that led St. John to begin his Gospel with an extended meditation of Jesus Christ as the Eternal Word.  John’s apostolic colleague St. Peter, who went on to become the first pope, tells us: “First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”  We don’t get to make it up: our task is to preserve and pass on what we have received.  

     Anything else is a different gospel.

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Sacred Music With an Edge – “The Heavens Are Telling” from Haydn’s The Creation

 

Do you want to talk about living on the edge? “Few composers can boast on their curricula vitae,”  wrote R.J. Stove in Catholic World Report a few years ago, “a deliberate and successful avoidance of gelding. Haydn could.”

     Indeed he could: it was only through the timely and forceful intervention of his father that the young Haydn avoided joining the ranks of castrati before his voice changed. Stove cites this particular biographical detail to illustrate that Haydn’s life, and by extension his music, had some acquaintance with the sharp edges of his world. And yet, the composer who was honored, emulated, and imitated more than any other during his prime in the late 18th and early 19th century, and who was teacher, mentor, and friend to those two gigantic musical Bad Boys Mozart and Beethoven, has all too often over the past two centuries been dismissed for his lack of edginess.

     That verdict is more a judgment on the shallowness of our age than it is a true assessment of either the depth or power of Haydn’s music, not to mention some of the sharper circumstances of his life.  I started paying closer attention to Haydn after I ran across Stove’s article, and then found his judgment confirmed by others (as in this assessment of the composer by Richard Wigmore).

     It’s true that Haydn’s public persona was placid and genial, unlike the mercurial Mozart and the turbulent Beethoven, and much of his music pleasing and inoffensive to the ear of the casual listener.  A closer study, however, reveals an inventiveness and feel for drama that gives him no cause to be ashamed in the company of his better known pupils.

 

 

Haydn (at the keyboard lower left) at the first performance of his opera L’Incontro Improvviso, 29 August 1775, by Pietro Travaglia

     The Creation, an oratio first performed in Vienna in 1799, is perhaps Haydn’s greatest work.  He was inspired by performances of Handel’s oratorios which he attended while visiting London. Naturally, he to compose an oratorio of his own.  For a great work he chose a grand subject: God’s creation of the universe. He built his composition around a libretto by Gottfried von Swieten which draws on Genesis, the Psalms, and John Milton’s epic of The Fall, Paradise Lost. Within the bounds of an old, established genre the composer finds new ways to express the drama and wonder of creation.

  The excerpt below is a good introduction to Haydn’s magnum opus. It is from Part I, scene 4 of The Creation, a piece called “The Heavens are Telling.”  The text is based on Psalm 19, which begins “The Heavens are telling the Glory of God.”  The music is performed here by The Academy of Ancient Music, with Christopher Hogwood conducting.

 

Psalm 19

2The heavens declare the glory of God,

 and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands.

 3Day unto day conveys the message,

 and night unto night imparts the knowledge.

4No speech, no word, whose voice goes unheeded;

 5their sound goes forth through all the earth,

 their message to the utmost bounds of the world.

6There he has placed a tent for the sun;

 it comes forth like a bridegroom coming from his tent,

 rejoices like a champion to run his course.

7At one end of the heavens is the rising of the sun;

 to its furthest end it runs its course.

 There is nothing concealed from its burning heat.

 

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The Drama of Salvation: Agnus Dei from Mozart’s Coronation Mass

Sacrificial Lamb Josefa de Obidos
                    Sacrificial Lamb, by Josefa de Obidos, 1670-1684

   Catholic Christianity has been blessed with a vast array of artists of every sort whose manifold talents have brought glory to God. There are poets as different as Dante Alighieri and Gerard Manley Hopkins, we have Carravaggios and Michelaengelos in the visual arts, and there are a whole list of Catholic composers including Monteverde, Vivaldi, Haydn and countless others.

     There is no other artist, however, Catholic or otherwise, quite like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  He was a child prodigy who showed off his keyboard skills on a tour of the noble courts of Europe at six years old and who composed his first symphony at eight.  Before his death at thirty-four years old he had produced over six hundred major compositions in which he displayed mastery of every major musical genre of his time, including both sacred and secular music.

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Mozart at the spinet, performing selections from ‘Don Giovanni’ for the first time to a small company, 19th century illustration by Edouard Hamman (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek)

Mozart’s musical brilliance, unfortunately, did not carry over into his personal life.  He was not a good manager of his personal affairs, and his family always struggled financially. Also, while he always considered himself a Catholic, his relationship to the Church was at times rather complicated.  Nevertheless, Mozart seemed to have a deep and personal understanding of the allure of sin and the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.  This intuitive grasp of the drama of salvation and damnation permeates not only his religious music (particularly his Requiem Mass, which remained unfinished when he died), but even secular works such as the magnificent opera Don Giovanni, which concludes with a band of demons hauling the wicked old sinner Don Juan off to Hell.

     The clip below features the Agnus Dei from Mozart’s Coronation Mass in C major.  The composer finished the Mass on March 23rd, 1779.  It was performed at the crowning of Holy Roman Emperor Francis II in 1792, and became a standard feature of coronations over the next century (from which it derived its nickname).

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Featured image top of page: The Sacrificial Lamb, by Josefa de Obidos (Josefa de Ayala), c. 1670-1684 (Walter Museum of Art)

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St. Catherine of Alexandria, Patroness of Modern Women

Here in the United States, today is our national celebration of Thanksgiving Day, intended (originally) as an occasion to thank God for our blessings. In the Universal Church it is also the Optional Memorial for a very intriguing Saint, Saint Catherine of Alexandria.  There was a time when she was considered one of the Great Saints, but we hear of her much less today-  about which, more below, but first let’s take a look at her story.

St. Catherine of Alexandria

     For a full account, see here.  I’ll provide a brief sketch. Saint Catherine, we are told, was a beautiful princess born of pagan parents.  She was possessed of a superior intellect, and applied her talents in the study of the sciences and philosophy.  When she became a Christian, she betrothed herself to Christ in a Mystical Marriage, and used her formidable intellectual prowess in defense of His Church.  In this way she came to the attention of the Emperor Maxentius, who enlisted a small army of philosophers to refute Catherine’s arguments.  Not only did they fail, but some of them were converted by her.  The enraged emperor ordered the young woman to be imprisoned and tortured, in the midst of which she gained even more converts, including the emperor’s own wife.  After executing his wife (along with all the other converts) Maxentius tried to win over Catherine with an offer of marriage.  After she refused (already being married to the King of Kings), she was condemned to be tortured to death on a spiked wheel.  When this implement of torment was destroyed by the mere touch of the Saint, the emperor finally ordered Catherine beheaded.  He body was brought by angels to the monastery on Mt. Sinai that now bears her name.

     For a long time St. Catherine was one of the most well-known and honored Saints.  The story of her martyrdom was widely told, and she was popular as the patroness of single women; she was also one of the Saints who spoke to St. Joan of Arc.  Today, however, many Catholics have never heard of her.  Her feast day was removed from the Liturgical Calendar in 1969, although it has returned more recently as an Optional Memorial.

     There are no doubt a number of reasons for St. Catherine of Alexandria’s loss of prominence, but one of the more important (possibly the most important) is the fact that there is no historical record of her life until several centuries after the fact.  While we can’t deny, of course,  that some pious traditions and stories are clearly fantastic, to conclude that we must therefore reject anything handed down by our predecessors in the Faith that falls short of the sort of documentary evidence required by modern historiography is to concede too much to a materialistic worldview.  There is certainly no evidence that that St. Catherine is a fabrication, and in doubtful matters I’ll throw my support to Christian tradition.

     St. Catherine’s lower profile is also unfortunate because she has so much to say to women in our world today.  She is the embodiment of the sort of “Christian Feminism” that St. John Paul II described in his Apostolic letter Mulieris Dignatem and in other places: while she is able to equal accomplished men, she does not seek to supplant them, and she does not lose sight of her essential femininity.  Notice that she finds her fulfillment in her spousal relationship with Christ, and her miraculous deeds are a result of her absolute trust in Him.  Her later namesake Catherine of Siena, who was a diplomat and advisor to Popes, was also known for her Mystical Marriage to Christ, and was like her in that even when she went toe-to-toe with men on their turf, she didn’t pretend to be one of them.  

St. Joan of Arc

I find the connection to St. Joan of Arc instructive here as well.  I don’t see St. Joan as a precursor of modern feminism, as she is sometimes depicted.  She is really much more like the Old Testament Judge Deborah.  In Chapter 4 of the Book of Judges Deborah takes the reins of the army unwillingly, only after her general Barak tells her that he won’t lead their troops against their enemy Sisera without her.  “I will surely go with you”, she replies, “nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (Judges 4:9).  As a result, not only does Deborah receive credit for the victory that should have been Barak’s, but Sisera himself dies at the hand of another woman, Jael, who drives a tent peg through his head as he sleeps.  Likewise, when Joan of Arc takes up the sword, it is not to assert that women should behave just like men; it is a rebuke to the men who have been failing to do that which they have been called to do.

     There’s a lesson here.  Today’s radical feminism is to a large degree an overreaction to a genuine failure to show due respect women and their appropriate role, but feminism has taken a cure that is worse than the original ailment: it denies the essential nature of women by attacking their maternal and nurturing mission.  At the same time, a major result of the so-called sexual revolution has been to reduce woman to a mere object of desire.   As a consequence, women are, in important ways, less respected than ever.  St. Catherine of Alexandria has a lot to say to such a world.  She puts her trust completely in Jesus Christ, and so she trusts in the gifts he has given her, including her femininity. Therefore, she can be as strong as any man, without surrendering her womanhood.  She is not deterred by threats, seduced by bribes, and can’t be broken by the worst this world has to offer, because the Lord is her spouse.  She commands the respect of men, and invites the emulation of women.  What more could we ask of a Great Saint?

Featured image top of page: The Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine of Alexandria, With Doge Francesco in Adoration, by Tintoretto, 1581-1584

 

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Christ is King of the Universe . . . and our hearts

     What a fool I was – when the Berlin Wall fell forty years ago, I naively thought that the apotheosis of the state into totalitarian forms of government was fully and finally exposed as an inhuman, deadly fraud. In my innocence, I was sure that all such attempts to put the minutiae of every individual’s life into the all-powerful hands of bureaucrat-gods had sputtered and died from their own absurdity, never to return.  After all, the totalitarian states of the twentieth century had almost all gone through the entire cycle of rise, decline, and fall, and were now residing in what one of their authors so eloquently termed “the dustbin of history.” Of the few remaining, Cuba and North Korea were so transparently disasters that nobody (it seemed) could see them as models, and China appeared to be following Russia and the communist states of Eastern Europe on the path of democratic reform.

West Germans celebrate the unification of Berlin atop the wall on Nov. 12, 1989. Stephen Jaffe/Getty Images

     Yes I and many others had deceived ourselves.  Who would have guessed that despite the millions murdered and starved in the 20th century, and the manifest failure of every single attempt to invest god-like power into human governance, the totalitarian impulse would still hold such appeal, even growing appeal, in the third decade of the 21st century? Who would have predicted that even here in the United States, Cradle of Liberty, powerful financial interests and leading media entities would join with ambitious political forces to form a totalitarian syndicate that would make Mussolini proud?

Benito Mussolini (Photo by Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

      Speaking of Mussolini, the Italian fascist dictator was certainly on the mind of Pope Pius XI in 1925 when the Roman Pontiff introduced the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, which we celebrate this Sunday.  Pope Pius added the feast in order to counter growing totalitarian movements in Europe and elsewhere, and to remind Catholics that their Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ, not the Volk, and certainly not whatever Duce happened to have grabbed the reins of power at a given time. The Solemnity of Christ the King says to the self-anointed powers of this world what Jesus says to Pontius Pilate: “You would have no power over me unless it had been given to you from above” (John 19:11)

    Sadly, despite the eclipse of most of the prominent fascistic and communist governments by the end of the past century, the totalitarian impulse and the idolatry of the state continues, albeit in a rather less homicidal form (for the time being).  For that reason this feast day is as relevant now as it was a century ago.

The celebration of Christ the King is also relevant on another level, in a way that applies to each and every man and woman who has inhabited this Earth (with two exceptions) since Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden. In Quas Primas, the encyclical with which he established the Solemnity of Christ the King, Pope Pius XI says:

. . . If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls . . .

“You would have no power over me unless it had been given to you from above” (John 19:11)

Jesus Before Pilate, Second Interview (Jésus devant Pilate. Deuxième entretien), James Tissot,1886-1894

  

    Pope Pius reminds us that there is Someone who really does have a claim on every aspect of our lives and even ourselves, and it’s not the state.  More important than the fact that Christ reigns over the world is that he reigns in our hearts . . . if we let him.  All of us, even those who have consciously sworn off looking for messiahs in politics or government, fall into idolatry from time to time: how often have I pinned my dearest hopes on some passing thing, such as a new job, the next tax refund, or even some ridiculous new gadget to add to my collection of equally ridiculous gadgets? If I’m not careful (and, honestly, sometimes I’m not), I can find these seemingly innocuous little idols setting themselves up on the Throne reserved for Jesus alone.  

     On this Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, we do well to remember that only Christ is the Lord of men, only Christ can be the Master of our hearts: Inquietum est cor meum, Domine, donec in te requiescat, “my heart is restless, Lord, until it rests in you”.  

Featured image, top of page: Christ Surrounded by Musician Angels, Hans Memling, 1480s






		


		
			
 





	

		

					

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Things Old and New: Berthier’s “Laudate Dominum”
		

		

			

Jacques Berthier





     The Twentieth Century is known for many things, but beautiful art, whether in the visual arts or music, is not one of them.  There are nonetheless some lovely creations hidden among the experimental and the transgressive and the deconstructed offerings cluttering the past century.  You can hear one of those sparks of beauty in the clip below:  “Laudate Dominum,” composed by Jacques Berthier.





     Berthier, who died in 1994, wrote extensively for the Taizé Community, a non-denominational Christian community founded in France by Roger Schütz (more commonly known as “Brother Roger”) in 1940. Despite his community’s monastic character, Br. Roger was himself a reformed Protestant, and the first Catholic member of Taizé didn’t join until 1969.  Fourteen years before that, in 1955, Br. Roger asked the Catholic Berthier to compose some music for the community. Music has always played a  dominant role in Taizé worship, as explained on the group’s website:





Singing is one of the most essential elements of worship. Short songs, repeated again and again, give it a meditative character. Using just a few words they express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole being. Meditative singing thus becomes a way of listening to God.





     These songs are generally drawn from scriptural sources. “Laudate Dominum,”  for instance, is a meditation on Psalm 117.  This is the shortest of Biblical Psalms, consisting of only two verses:





[1] Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes,





laudate eum, omnes populi. 





[2] Quoniam confirmata est super nos misericordia ejus,





et veritas Domini manet in aeternum.










[1] Praise the LORD, all nations!





Extol him, all peoples!





[2] For great is his steadfast love toward us;





and the faithfulness of the LORD endures for ever.





Praise the LORD!










     Berthier picks up and repeats the first Latin line of the Psalm, punctuating it with an exultant “alleluia!”:





Laudate Dominum,
laudate Dominum
omnes gentes! alleluia!





Taizé songs are often rendered in a meditative, chant-like drone.  “Laudate Dominum,” however, is a is characterized by a joyful, rhythmic vigor.  In the music and in the interplay of voices we hear echoes of an earlier era of sacred composition.  This is a far cry from “On Eagles Wings.”







“Meditative singing thus becomes a way of listening to God.”





Taizé founder Br. Roger Schütz with Pope St. John Paul II







  





     One of my aims in this blog is to preserve and share some of the beautiful treasures of Christian art and music.  Not all of them are the product of earlier generations.  Our Lord tells us, “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52). Surely Berthier’s “Laudate Dominum” (first published thirty short years ago) is one of those new treasures.





Featured image top of page: “The Assumption of the Virgin”  By Francesco Botticini, 1475-1476














Laudate Dominum · Taizé · Jacques Berthier · DR

Joy on Earth

℗ Ateliers et Presses de Taizé

Released on: 1999-11-22





Artwork: “The Assumption of the Virgin”  By Francesco Botticini (1475-1476)

		


		
			
 





	

		

					

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St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Spiritual Warrior
		

		

			

What can one say about St. Thérèse of Lisieux?  I was tempted not to say anything, expecting that the blogosphere would be filled with an abundance of inspiring and insightful commentary on this wonderful Saint, an expectation that has not been disappointed.  St. Thérèse , however, has a way of getting what she wants, and she is very reluctant to take “no” for an answer (just ask Leo XIII), so who am I to refuse?  I can at least add a brief comment or two to the (well-deserved) tributes to The Little Flower.





One thing that strikes me is how well St. Thérèse complements St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose fascinating story I used to explore at great length with my adolescent Theology students.  St. Ignatius urges us to “Find God in All Things”, which is one of the major themes of his Spiritual Exercises and Ignatian Spirituality in general.  St. Thérèse, it seems to me, takes that a step further and asks us to then serve God in all things.  That is the essence of her Little Way: we can do even something as (apparently) trivial as, say, sweeping the floor “For The Greater Glory of God” (Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam, or AMDG, a favorite motto of St. Ignatius and the Jesuits).







With her Little Way St. Thérèse is a strategist, a general, for each one of us in the Spiritual War that rages in our heart and mind between the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of Satan.  







 





    It is in this way that St. Thérèse is a soldier.  Not a literal soldier, of course, as St. Ignatius had been; rather, with her Little Way she is a strategist, a general, for each one of us in the Spiritual War that rages in our heart and mind between the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of Satan.  The Devil is in the details; inattention in little things can lead to self-centeredness in little things and, given just how many little things there are, can mean a lot of time focused on ourselves.  Self-immersion leads to selfishness, which is an invitation to the Evil One to move in.  It’s best not to yield an inch of ground to the Enemy and, as The Little Flower has shown us, save it all for Jesus.  Perhaps then, God willing, we can, like St. Thérèse, spend our Heaven doing Good.





Photos of St. Thérèse as St. Joan of Arc taken by her sister Céline .

		


		
			
 





	

		

					

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Vittoria Aleotti: Io v’amo vita mia
		

		

			

    The claim that Christianity has historically been used as weapon against women, a tool to keep them down, is a falsehood, a smear against the Church.  The charge misses the point, first of all, because Christ didn’t come to offer anyone advancement in this world, but to draw all of us, women and men alike, deeper into the life of the Trinitarian God.  But even on its own terms the accusation is false.  Nowhere else anywhere in human history (up until the last couple centuries) could a woman who was not heir to a throne aspire, solely on her own merits, to the sort of influence wielded by a St. Catherine of Siena or a St. Theresa of Avila. The greatest Catholic Saint of all, the Blessed Mother, is a woman.





   While it is true that such women were not the norm, they were more common than one might think.  The Venerable Bede almost offhandedly relates that the Northumbrian monastery in which the famous 7th century singer Cædmon lived was part of a dual male/female establishment; both convents, housing men and women alike, were presided over by a woman, St. Hilda.  The arrangement seems to have been fairly unremarkable.





      Given all that, it should come as no surprise that the creator of the beautiful piece below, composed in an age when music was a mostly male domain, was a consecrated nun.  Her name was Vittoria Aleotti, and she was an Augustinian sister who lived from c. 1670-1740.  In addition to her talents as a composer, she was also known as an accomplished organist. In the video below the Green Mountain Project Chant Schola performs her musical setting for “Io v’amo, vita mia”. 





Featured Image: “Song of Songs”. Woodcut after a drawing by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (German painter, 1794 – 1872) 1877














Io v’amo, vita mia, Vittoria Aleotti (c.1575-aft.1620)





Green Mountain Project Chant Schola





Jeffrey Grossman, chamber organ





Hank Heijink, theorbo





Behind Convent Walls with TENET Vocal Artists:





January 4, 2019 Kirkland Chapel at the Fifth Ave Presbyterian Church





Text in Italian:





 Io v’amo vita mia Volli sovente dire, Ed ardo ahi lasso. Chiuse la voc’entro le labbi’Amore E vergogna e timore. E mi cangiar d’huom vivo in muto sasso. Amor, ma se tu vuoi Ch’i miei martiri Io pur taccia e sospiri, Tu dilli à lei che mi consuma e sface E le riscalda il sen con la tua face. 





English:





 “I love you, my life,” I often wanted to say, and “I’m burning for you.” But my voice was within the lips of Love, and shame and fear changed me from a living man into a dumb stone. But, Love, if you want me to stop my suffering and my sighing, tell it to her who consumes and melts me, and ignite her heart with your appearance.