Sacrifice Archives - Spes in Domino

April 13, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter, The Triduum

Christ Came to Serve – Holy Thursday

Christ Came to Serve – The Mass of the Lord’s Supper

**Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples**, *by Giotto. c.1305*

“It is enough.”

He said to them, “But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one. For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was reckoned with transgressors’; for what is written about me has its fulfilment.” And they said, “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” And he said to them, “It is enough.” (Luke 22:36-38)

I often find it easy to identify with Peter and the other Apostles when they are slow to catch on to what their Master is saying. Take the passage above, for example, from Luke’s account of the Last Supper. There’s an almost comical quality to their too literal understanding of Christ’s sword imagery. I picture Jesus shaking his head, with just a hint of a wry smile, as he says “It is enough.”

And yet this is a very serious moment. It represents the Lord’s last instructions to his closest associates before he goes out to meet a horrifying death. And later that same evening, Peter uses one of those two swords. Int the Garden of Gethsemane, he mutilates a man in the gang that has come to arrest Jesus. Nobody smiles at that.

“But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one.” (Luke 22:36)

St. Peter Cuts Off Slave’s Ear, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, c. 1300

“Lord, do you wash my feet?”

In the passage below from John’s Gospel, one of the readings at this evening’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we see something very similar:

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.

He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.”

Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not every one of you.” (John 13:3-10)

Pride and Humility

When he takes on the servile task of washing the Apostles’ feet, Jesus doesn’t simply speak. He acts out his message, in the manner of an Old Testament prophet. He is showing the Apostles through his example that the purpose of their office is to serve, and not to exalt themselves. As Christ came to serve, so must they.

But look what happens next. Jesus notes that Peter does not understand what his Lord is doing. Peter, in turn, confirms it with a curious mixture of pride and humility. He is indignant that his Master should lower himself in this way! Jesus tells him, in effect, that this is the price of discipleship. At this point Peter, thinking that now he gets it, goes to the opposite extreme: in that case, wash everything! As in the passage from Luke, Christ seems, in effect, to shake his head patiently and move on.

The Power of the Holy Spirit

**St. Peter Preaching in Jerusalem,** *by Charles Poërson, 1642*

There are many other examples like these in the Gospels. All too often, Peter and the other Apostles just don’t understand. Then, when they think they finally do get it, well, no, they still don’t understand. And yet, these are the men Jesus has chosen to carry on his mission.

This tells us something about what it is to be human. None of us can figure it all out on our own. We need the Power of the Father, the Saving Grace of Christ, and the Guidance of the Holy Spirit. That’s why the Peter we see in the Acts of the Apostles is so much more consistent and confident. He has experienced the Power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (see Acts chapter 2). The Peter we see after Pentecost is much more believable as the Rock upon whom Christ will build his Church (see Matthew 16:18).

Christ Came to Serve

The washing of the feet also points to the much greater events that are about to unfold. Christ’s death on the Cross was a servile and degrading form of execution. Roman citizens, St. Paul for instance, underwent the more dignified penalty of beheading with a sword. Christ’s self-sacrifice was the ultimate act of Service, because it was all for us:

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

Who can blame Peter for finding that hard to accept? But eventually he does accept that Christ came to serve, through God’s Grace. I pray that I also, in the commemoration of Christ’s Passion and the glory of his Resurrection, find the grace to understand and to accept His service to me, and to follow his example in my own life.

The Triduum & Easter 2022:

https://spesindomino.org/2022/04/14/is-it-i-lord-good-friday-2/

https://spesindomino.org/2022/04/15/something-strange-is-happening-holy-saturday-2/

https://spesindomino.org/2022/04/17/have-a-blessed-easter-jesus-christ-is-risen-today/

April 5, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter

Legions of Angels, the Adulteress, and Christ’s Sacrifice

**Christ and the Adulterous Woman,** *by Nicholas Poussin, 1653*

“Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matthew 46: 53-54)

Legions of Angels

Many Years ago I taught in a (more or less) Catholic high school. One day a certain student wanted to know how many soldiers were in a Roman legion. Around 6,000, I answered. “Well,” he offered, “Jesus said that if he asked, his Father would send him twelve legions of angels.” I acknowledged that he had (see Matthew, 26:53). The student’s face then broke into a huge grin as he blurted out, “That’s a whole lot of angels!”

I wasn’t sure at the time, and I’m unsure still more than two decades later, what my student was getting at. Was he making a joke of some sort? Did he really admire Christ’s power to command the hosts of Heaven? I do know that Jesus was serious. His point wasn’t the exact number of angels he could summon. Now, I’m sure that the number twelve is meant to correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve apostles, etc., but that’s secondary. Christ’s immediate point was that he had all the power he could want. He had the power to save Himself . . . if he chose.

How Then Should The Scriptures Be Fulfilled ?

**The Arrest of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane**, *studio of Giuseppe Cesari, c.1600*

It will be helpful to look at the context for the comment about legions of angels. Jesus’ affirmation of his authority over angelic armies comes during Matthew’s Passion Narrative. He is in the Garden of Gethsemane with his Apostles. At that moment Judas arrives, “and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people” (Matthew 26:47). Judas identifies Jesus with a kiss,

Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matthew 46: 50-54)

Jesus surrenders willingly to the violent mob, not because he can’t free himself, but because he chooses to surrender. He allows the crowd to take him, knowing that it means an agonizing death by crucifixion.

The Passiontide

This is a good time to talk about the Passion of Jesus, by the way, because we are now in that part of the Liturgical Year that we call the Passiontide. This is the last two weeks of Lent, when we focus our Lenten observance more explicitly on the suffering and death of Jesus. The transition to Passiontide, unfortunately, is no longer as obvious as it was when we called the Fifth Sunday Passion Sunday. The TLM still follows the the traditional practice; in the ordinary form, however, Passion Sunday has now moved one week later to combine with Palm Sunday.

While it may not be as obvious as in the traditional arrangement, the liturgy is still pointing us more directly in the direction of events of the Triduum. Consider the Gospel reading for this past Sunday, the Woman Caught in Adultery from John’s Gospel (John 8:1-11). As in the Passion narrative we have a violent mob, eager for blood. The difference is, here Jesus does frustrate the crowd’s murderous designs, and he does it without so much as a single cohort of angels.

The Guilty And The Innocent

**King of Sorrows,** *by William Burton Shakespeare, 1897*

That’s not the only difference between the two passages. Isn’t it interesting that the woman Jesus saves really is guilty: she was caught in the act. Jesus himself, on the other hand, is totally without sin, and yet he allows himself to be taken. In fact, it is because of her sin (and mine, and yours) that Jesus surrenders his own life.

That doesn’t make sense, without the eyes of faith. But of course, “the wisdom of this world is folly with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19). And in fact, that surrender of his own innocent life is an act of power greater than anything the “wisdom” of this world can imagine. All the legions of angels together can’t match its power. For the sake of sinners such as the adulteress (and me, and you), Jesus Christ conquered Death.

Yes, Christ has freed us from death. The freedom he purchased for us by his own free choice, however, has a purpose. After he tells the woman, “Nor do I condemn you” Jesus adds, “Go and sin no more.” Our liberty in Christ isn’t license. He didn’t suffer and die on the cross in order to enable us to continue our lives of sin. He gave us freedom so that we, too, might freely choose the good. It’s an awesome gift, and an awesome responsibility.

This coming Sunday we will celebrate Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. Over the week that follows we will relive the events of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. Let’s remember that, if he chooses, Jesus can ask his Father for twelve legions of angels. Instead, Jesus chooses to suffer and die: not because he’s guilty, but because we are.

April 4, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter

Have Mercy – Lotti’s Miserere (Music for Lent)

**David Penitent**, *by Albrecht Durer, 1510*

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to thy steadfast love;
according to thy abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions. (Psalm 51:1)

Have Mercy

And what transgressions they were! King David had used trickery and deceit to send Uriah the Hittite to his death. He had, in fact, murdered his loyal soldier in order to hide his own adultery. Tradition tells us that David composed Psalm 51 as an expression of sorrow and repentance for the wicked deed. We often refer to the psalm as the Miserere (“Have mercy”) because that’s its first word in the Latin Vulgate Bible.

It seems natural to associate King David’s great psalm of repentance with the penitential Season of Lent. As it happens, many composers have written musical settings for the Miserere. The most famous musical treatment of the psalm was composed by Gregorio Allegri in the 1630s. I have posted various performances of Allegri’s Miserere over the last few years (most recently here). Last year I also posted the lesser-known (but still powerfully beautiful and moving) setting by Pergolesi . I’m continuing that tradition this Lent by sharing yet another setting for the Miserere, this one by Antonio Lotti.

Lotti the Man

Lotti may not be well-known today (at least to those of us who, like me, are not music history experts), but he was (it seems) an important and influential composer and teacher in his day. He lived from 1667-1740. He spent his entire musical career (except for a brief period in Dresden from 1717-1719) at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice as a singer, organist and, eventually, maestro di cappella.

Reliable information about Lotti the man is somewhat spotty. Biographical accounts over the years have contained some documented factual information, with a healthy admixture of less reliable “oral tradition.” For example, biographers have claimed that Lotti influenced the music of J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel. All we know for sure, however, is that Bach and Handel both had copies of Lotti’s Missa Sapientiae. While it’s a reasonable guess that they admired his work, there’s no direct evidence of influence.

There’s also an 1854 biography by Francesco Caffi, which tells us that aspiring musicians sought out Lotti as a teacher. He lists Domenico Alberti, Benedetto Marcello, Giovanni Battista Pescetti, Baldassare Galuppi, Giuseppe Saratelli and Jan Dismas Zelenka as students. And maybe they were. Zelenka, at least, also owned a copy of Lotti’s Missa Sapientiae.

The Music

There’s one thing we know for sure about Antonio Lotti. He composed beautiful and moving music. His Miserere, for instance, in which the combined voices of the chorus powerfully express the sorrow and penitence of King David. In the clip below László Matos conducts Prelude Choir Budapest in a performance of the first section of Lotti’s Miserere.

March 28, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter

Our Goal is the Resurrection: Ain’t No Grave

Our Goal is the Resurrection

Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning;

exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast. (Introit for the 4th Sunday of Lent)

Spes in Domino Our Goal is the Resurrection

Our Goal is Almost in Sight

Why rejoice in the middle of Lent? Isn’t Lent a solemn and penitential season? And haven’t we banned Allelu . . . um, I mean the “A Word” until the Easter Vigil? What’s up with Laetare Sunday?

Good question. Yesterday’s mass opened with the introit at the top of the post, which comes from Isaiah 66:10. The first word of the introit in Latin is laetare, “rejoice,” for which reason we have long called the fourth Sunday Laetare Sunday. On this particular Sunday a priest may wear rose colored vestments (which can look suspiciously like pink to those who are not in the know). It does seem out of place in the middle of Lent.

The primary reason for the (admittedly, subdued) theme of rejoicing on the fourth Sunday of Lent is as a reminder of where we’re heading. We have just passed the midpoint of the penitential season. The Church is reminding us that our goal, the joy of the Resurrection at Easter, is almost in sight. Don’t lose hope!

A Distant Glimpse of Heaven

As always, we can find other levels of meaning. We can look at Lent, for instance, as representing our time of exile in this world. Here we “dwell in the world, yet are not of the world,” as the Letter to Diognetus puts it. The joy-tinged reminder of our goal that we encounter on Laetare Sunday is like the promise of Hope that we find in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The flash of rose against somber purple is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). It’s a distant glimpse of Heaven amidst the gloom of our fallen world.

I chose today’s musical selection with that idea In mind. This is a little unlike my usual music posts. Ok, it’s a lot unlike my usual music posts. A gospel song with banjo, guitars, and mandolin is a clear contrast to the usual classical pieces. Kind of like the difference between bright rose pink and dark purple. In any case, I like the evocative way this song expresses our longing for Resurrection and for the Presence of Jesus as we experience the darkness that surrounds us in this life. Not only that, it really rocks.

Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down

This performance is from the Southern Gospel Revival Series. Jamie Wilson sings lead and plays the banjo. Courtney Patton, Drew Kennedy, Ben Hester, Marty Durlam, and Jesse Fox are the backing musicians.

[feature image at top of post from pixabay.com]

https://vimeo.com/45880435

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 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.

February 25, 2021 iacobusm Faith and Culture

Steyn, Spong, Kempton, and The Passion Of The Christ 2021

Where were you on February 25th, 2004? Well, we might not remember the exact date, but most of us (except the youngsters) will remember the event. On this date seventeen years ago Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was released. That year Ash Wednesday fell on the 25th of February, and Gibson intentionally timed the release of his film, a cinematic depiction of the last 24 hours of the human life of Jesus, to coincide with the beginning of Lent.

It’s hard to overstate the impact the film made at the time. It remained the largest grossing non – English Language film of all time (all the dialogue was in Aramaic and Latin) until 2017, when it was overtaken by something called Wolf Warrior 2 (your guess is as good as mine). It sparked quite a bit of controversy, as well as some substantial discussion, about antisemitism and violence in films, and about the meaning of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The film was also credited with bringing many Christians back to a closer embrace of their faith, and with bringing some non-Christians to conversion.

In 2014 critic Mark Steyn marked the tenth anniversary of the release of The Passion of the Christ with an update of his original review from 2004, which he has apparently continued to update since. Reading Steyn’s resurrected review helped me pull together various stray thoughts in my mind, which resulted in a blog post I called “Steyn, Spong, Kempton, And The Passion of the Christ”. I suppose if Steyn could republish his piece ten years later, I can repost mine after seven (it is Throwback Thursday, after all). More to the point, the issues raised are still as relevant, if not more so, as they were seven years ago. My (only slightly updated) post is below:

Sometimes there is a certain event that perfectly crystallizes important social trends: such was Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. We may forget ten years later [now 17] the magnitude of the film’s impact. Last week Mark Steyn marked its ten year anniversary with an updated review [here]. While I disagree with some of his points (more on this below), Steyn does a good job of capturing the movie’s social and spiritual significance, while at the same time recognizing some of its artistic weaknesses. His most incisive observation is that the controversy sparked by the movie was “not between Christians and Jews, but between believing Christians and the broader post-Christian culture, a term that covers a large swathe of the media to your average Anglican vicar.” There’s a lot packed in to that brief quote, including a recognition of the sad reality that a very large part of that “post-Christian culture” is made up of people who claim to be (and very often think that they are) “believing Christians”. Among protestants the two groups break down to some degree along denominational lines, although even the most “progressive” churches have some members who adhere to a more traditional Christian belief and practice; in the Catholic Church we’re all thrown in together, which tends to keep things lively.

*Jim Caveziel as Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane; Satan (Rosalinda Celentano) in the background.*

One of those devout, traditional Christians in a denomination that was much less so was the late left-wing journalist and commentator Murray Kempton, who was an Episcopalian. I remember reading one of his columns at least a decade before The Passion came out in which he was comparing Catholic Cardinal O’Connor, then Archbishop of New York, to Episcopalian bishop John Shelby Spong of Newark, New Jersey. As I recall, Kempton had less than kind words for co-religionist Spong, who had made himself a darling of the cultural elite by publicly doubting the Resurrection and by dismissing orthodox Christian morality. At the same time, the columnist lavished high praise on the Catholic Cardinal, with whom he doubtless disagreed on many points, but whose determination to teach without apology the faith as received from the Apostles was undeniable. I don’t recall the Kempton’s exact words from a distance of more than twenty years, but I have retained a very clear recollection of his assertion that a man who could not affirm the most essential Christian doctrine had no business being a bishop. To Murray Kempton, it was a matter of integrity: be what you are!

Murray Kempton and Cardinal O’Connor are no longer with us, but John Shelby Spong, it seems, lives on. The now-retired Episcopal bishop was a major focus in an article published in the Washington Post on Holy Saturday [2014] which assures us that “The Gospel Story Of Jesus’ Resurrection Is A Source Of Deep Rifts In The Christian Religion”. You may wonder exactly what “Christian Religion” they’re talking about. After all, belief in the Resurrection is, and always has been, the absolute minimum requirement for being a Christian. St. Paul says that if Christ didn’t rise from the dead we are the most pitiful of men (1 Cor. 15:19) – and he had never even met Bishop Spong. The Resurrection has always marked the rift between “The Christian Religion” and everyone else: on one side you’re a Christian, on the other you’re not. In any case, Easter has become an annual occasion for the secular press to celebrate self-proclaimed Christians who deny the divinity of Christ, or the latest hyped-up claim that such-and-such archaeological discovery “proves” that Jesus had brothers, children, wives, etc. Why should they care? Because the Church and believing Christians are all that stand between them and the “progressive” program of re-making the world in the image of whatever passing notion appeals to them at the time.

*Mel Gibson’s Satan: he, she, it – who knows?*

Which brings me back to Steyn’s review of The Passion of the Christ. One of his criticisms with which I disagree is his take on Gibson’s Satan. Steyn dismisses him (Her? It?) as “a cross between Nosferatu and Jessica Lange in All That Jazz”. I don’t actually disagree with that description, but where Steyn sees it as a misstep, I found the creepy androgyny of Gibson’s Evil One (played in the film by actress Rosalinda Celentano) to be a particularly astute touch, especially for a 21^st century audience. Non Serviam! “I will not serve!” is the essence of Satan; Lucifer’s refusal to be what God made him to be lies at the heart of his fall. His refusal here to be either male or female is a brilliant counterpoint to the creation story in Genesis: “Male and female he created them (Genesis 5:2)”. It also, of course, aptly reflects the refusal by so many in our world today to accept this basic truth about human nature, not just in our sexual relationships but even in our very bodies. Which, in turn, brings us back to Integrity, which is, after all, about much more than telling the truth: it is about being a fully integrated whole, about truly being who you are.

This is where Steyn, Spong, Kempton and The Passion of the Christ all come together. While The Passion was a big hit among the believing crowd, there are nevertheless any number of reasons why a devout Christian might not like the film. Its effect, however, has been to cast a bright light on the growing divide between enduring Christian belief and the Spirit of an Age that more and more is succumbing to what Cardinal Ratzinger, just before he became Pope Benedict XVI, called “the dictatorship of relativism”, an age in which integrity has been conquered by ideology. The late, great Richard John Neuhaus used to say that “When orthodoxy becomes optional, sooner or later it will be proscribed.” In the decade [now seventeen years] since the release of The Passion of the Christ, the wisdom of those words has become ever clearer. St. Ignatius of Loyola describes two armies facing each other, Christ’s and Satan’s; there’s no middle ground. Eventually, we all have to be who we truly are, and choose our Master, our Commander: which one will it be, Christ or Satan?

February 18, 2021 iacobusm Lent and Easter

What’s Up With Chocolate and Lent?

The last thing we need is conflicting messages, don’t you think? Especially when it concerns the State of our Souls. Imagine my dismay, then, when I came across two different signs at two different churches telling me to do opposite things to observe Lent. What’s up with that?

I first published this Throwback Thursday Blast From The Past on March 6th 2016.

To Give It Up Or Not . . .

What’s up with the chocolate? As I was driving home from work last week I passed a church with a signboard out front that said, “Lent: Give Up Chocolate, Not Hope.” I kept thinking about it all the way home, both because I think the folks who put up the sign were trying to make an important point, but also because they were (inadvertently, no doubt) undercutting their message at the same time (I’ll explain how below). I had decided to write about it, and took a picture of the sign on my way to an event at another church (neither was my parish church). When I got to the second church, as I was running through my thoughts on the first sign, I saw another sign, or really a notice on a bulletin board in the hallway: “Don’t Give Up Chocolate For Lent.” Hmmm . . . one tells me to give up chocolate, the other says the opposite. Well now, should I or shouldn’t I? What’s a Good Christian to do?

Lent Is A Season Of Hope

I should mention that the first sign appeared outside a non-Catholic Christian church, but I think that the good point it was making is perfectly Catholic, that is, that Lent is a Season of Hope. I don’t mean hope in the secular sense of the word, which often refers to little more than desperate wishful thinking. Christian Hope is the confidence that, however bad things might be in the here and now, we know that Christ will triumph in the end. The sacrifices and penances of Lent actually serve to reinforce that Hope, by helping us to detach from our hopeless reliance on the things of this world (pleasure, power, politics, money, and even family and friends – not to mention comfort foods like chocolate), so that we can instead attach ourselves to our Lord and Savior. The best sacrifice is when we give up something good, because even the best things in this world are insufficient. Our own best efforts are insufficient without God’s help. I remember reading somewhere the observation that Jesus, God-Made-Man Himself, was put to death through cooperation between the leaders of the highest religion and the officers of the most advanced government the world had yet seen. That was no accident: “Unless the Lord has built the house, they labored in vain who built it” (Psalm 127:1). The small austerities of the penitential season serve, at least in part, as a reminder that we don’t really need things, but we do need Christ.

Body And Soul

That’s where I think sign number one is in danger of sending a mixed message. To my ears, at least, it sounds almost dismissive of the idea of sacrificing something concrete for Lent, as if it’s saying, “If you insist on giving up something go ahead, but it’s not really important; all that really matters is your interior disposition”. Again, I don’t know if that’s what’s intended or not (one can only say so much on a roadside signboard); I certainly hope not, because while the interior disposition is all-important, the external action helps to form and direct it. We are both body and soul, and as Christians we worship God made Man, so our faith is incarnational and sacramental. Unlike angels, who are pure spirit, we need to apprehend abstract realities through physical signs. As a result, giving up something without the proper interior disposition is pointless, but maintaining the proper disposition without reinforcement from the world of created things is, in the end, contrary to our nature, and therefore very difficult (which is why Jesus gave us a visible Church and Sacraments).

Maybe I Shouldn’t Give Up Chocolate . . .

Here’s where the second chocolate sign comes in. “Don’t Give Up Chocolate This Lent” is the slogan of Catholic writer Matthew Kelly’s “Best Lent Ever” program this year. His website explains:

Lent is the perfect time to form new life-giving habits and abandon old self-destructive habits. But most of us just give up chocolate. Then, when Easter arrives, we realize we really haven’t grown spiritually since the beginning of Lent.

Lent is not just about giving things up, like chocolate. Lent is about doing something—something bold to become a better husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter, friend, neighbor, etc.

I don’t think that Kelly is actually opposed to giving up chocolate per se: in his book Becoming the Best Version of Yourself, he relates (very powerfully) how he broke his own chocolate addiction, and uses that as an example of how we can let things other than God become our master. Breaking free of addictions and idolatries in this way is, in fact, the purpose of the traditional Lenten sacrifice. In promoting The Best Lent Ever, however, Kelly is using the giving up of chocolate to represent something else: here it represents the very different problem of going through the motions of a nominal sacrifice without really experiencing anything deeper.

What’s A Person To Do?

It’s interesting that both slogans are using apparently contradictory messages to make the same (good and true) point: that giving up chocolate (or coffee, or watching sports, or whatever) is not enough, that truly experiencing what the Season of Lent is meant to teach us requires much more. They both also have the effect of seeming to trivialize the value of such sacrifices. To be fair, Kelly’s program offers plenty of other concrete ways of living out Lent, such as daily meditations, inspirational videos, etc. The slogan catches the eye precisely because it is so contrary to expectations. The problem is that many more people, unfortunately, will probably see the slogan than will look into the program. Let’s hope it doesn’t encourage people to forego Lenten sacrifices altogether.

As I said before, what’s a person to do? Perhaps there’s no way to fit the both/and nature of a good Christian observance of Lent into a catchy slogan. Is there some pithy way we can say “Lent: Give Up Chocolate to Remind Us That Our Hope Is In Christ Alone”? Or, “Don’t Give Up Chocolate For Lent If It Doesn’t Help You To Grow In Christ, but do give up something that does”? However that may be, chocolate is not the issue: we can, in good conscience, either give it up or not. Whether we participate in Matthew Kelly’s well-received program or follow some more traditional Lenten devotion, however, we should observe this most important penitential season both in body and in soul: let’s allow the Word to become Flesh in our own lives.

Note: Matthew Kelly did continue to use the chocolate line for at least a couple of years after I first wrote this post, but I don’t see it on his website this year (I can’t say whether it’s included in some of his other materials). He instead has the slogan “It’s not what you give up this Lent, it’s who you become”, which expresses the point he seemed to be trying to make before, but without getting embroiled in the Chocolate Wars.