You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

He's making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

Do you know how much trauma that song caused me as a child?

The thought of Santa Claus was enough to send me into convulsions.

Because, well frankly, I was an evil child.

I was usually naughty and frequently crying or pouting.

So, this time of year was always fraught with danger

The very sight of Santa Claus in a department store or mall would send me howling

Forget about cute little pictures.

To me, Santa was an unwanted voyeur on my little life of sin and I resented him and his list

To top it all off, when I was about six, I asked my mother exactly how SC knew all about the lives of children, and she told me quite frankly that he was a friend of Jesus and Jesus gave him all his information.

Now I was afraid of Jesus too.

So Santa and Jesus were inextricably bound up in my tiny brain as conspiring enemies, out to get me.

The time before Christmas was a time filled with danger

I was thinking about the reading today, and my age old fear of the advent season.

Of course, there is some menace in the Gospel.
After all, John the Baptist isn’t exactly the kind of fellow your granny would have invited to tea.

There is a danger in these Gospel readings that somehow over the years we have sanitized into saccharine little images of sanctity that better suits our domesticated versions of the divine reality

But in essence, JB was a political agitator, something of a terrorist, a religious fanatic, more akin to the reckless, almost suicidal denizens of a terrorist cell than the kindly seminarians, priests and religious of southern Indiana.

There is danger here, in going out to the desert, in listening to revolutionary thought, in daring to call out Divine names, in threatening cultural upheaval

And in the other Gospels of advent as well, Subversive prophecy of political agitation, unwed motherhood, political refugees. Mountains being leveled, valleys filled in, the landscape of the human condition transformed by violent means

Coming full circle and confronting my childhood fears, I wonder if we have not robbed our faith, particularly our advent faith of some of its raw energy, by making it well nice instead of naughty

Perhaps we have scrubbed everything up in hopes of domesticating God.

Perhaps we thing we can tame the almighty a bit by painting him in pastel shades and putting him under the Christmas tree, tinseling him up, lighting him in twinkling lights

When in fact the message of the Gospel is a message that should probably make us a little paranoid.

Because he sees us when were sleeping
He knows when were awake
He knows if we have been bad or good

So be good, for goodness sake

But also take the reality of God seriously
A reality that does threaten our complacency
Our very idea of the good and the nice
Our comfortability with ourselves and others

Advent is a time for stirring the pot, shaking the branches
After all Jesus said: I have come to light a fire on the earth and how I wish it were already blazing.

After all Jesus said: I have not come for peace but for division.

Jesus said: The day is at hand when we will have to take up our swords

And perhaps we need to hear that message

A message of renewal kindled deep down, in the recesses of our guts, at the heart of this community and Jesus in his advent, in his violent coming among us, is that message.

Even as the world is turning its jaundiced eye to the holy night of peace ,the little town of Bethlehem sleeping insipiently in the glow of the golden aches and blue light specials, we recognize that we do not live in a world of peace

But a world of war
of violence
of hatred
of threat
of death
of lack of respect

And so words of peace and pacifism, gestures of hope, signs of kindness become contradictions

Our pacifism is violence to a world of violence
our goodness, threatening to a world of sin
our kindness, all of which we learned on the knees of the savior, or better yet on our knees before the savior, are DANGEROUS to a world of fear mongering, materialism, and apathy.

His passion and our passion engendered from his passion are the world’s only hope, and its greatest enemy.

Perhaps advent is more dangerous than we thought for we, sisters and brothers are the inheritors of that menacing danger announced by the wild man of the desert, we are the people of that passion

And here is the place of that passion. And this is the community of that danger and we are its representatives for the world flooded by the waters of indifference and pain and crimes of the heart and sin.

A voice cries out in the wilderness prepare the way. It is our voice, our collective voice strengthened by the body of Christ.
And so ….
We had better watch out
and be prepared for some danger and some grace

Here is the last lecture from my Trinity course this fall

When I was eleven years old, I had a life changing experience, although I did not realize it at the time. Every Saturday afternoon, I went with my best friend in the whole world, David E. to the matinee at the Tivoli. The fun of going to a matinee when you are eleven years old usually has little or nothing to do with the quality of the film. In fact, I really don’t think the Tivoli was in the business of showing films at all, at least to eleven year olds. Rather, they showed movies. Movies are essentially different from films in that movies are entertaining and you don’t have to “process” them much. Likewise, going to the movies was fun. You could sit in the balcony and subtly drop “old maids” on the unsuspecting patrons below. You could serendipitously shoot soda from a straw at the heads of the women in front of you. You could consume junior mints until you puked. It was fun and the movie had little to do with the whole business.
However, if the movie was any good, that was certainly a bonus. On any given Saturday matinee at the Tivoli, you could usually count on movies from one of three basic genres. First were the westerns. In the early seventies, these usually involved Clint Eastwood riding around the desert with a menacing expression of his face and not saying anything. Not very interesting. Second were the war movies. These usually involved a great deal of yelling, blowing things up and masculine feelings, that is to say stoic sorrow at the death of your best buddy. These films generally were interesting from the standpoint of the violence, but even stoic emotions made eleven year olds uncomfortable. Third were the horror movies. These were the best. Horror fascinates the eleven year old male mind because, in general, it is his prevailing reaction to the rapidly changing world around him. Masculine enculturation, however, does not allow for an appropriate reaction to existential horror, so the theatre must fulfill its Aristotelian destiny and be the prepubescent locus for catharsis.
This particular Saturday was serving horror at the Tivoli. The film was called Theatre of Blood. What could be more promising than that? It was guaranteed to be a cathartic buffet. What it served up, however, was a bit unexpected. O there was the usual blood, gore, black comedy and mayhem that one expects from horror movies, but there was another nagging “something” going on in this one. A bit of plot explanation is now in order.
Theatre of Blood stars the inimitable Vincent Price as an old Shakespearean actor named Edward Lionheart. Edward is an actor of the “old school,” that is to say, melodramatic, over the top, and excessive. In other words, he was a ham. Now there is a great tradition of ham acting that pervades the history of theatre from the time Plautus trod the boards until the century just passed. But ham acting’s time had passed for Edward’s public and as a result he was flayed alive by the British critics (I forgot to mention that this movie was about English people) who were looking for a new approach to old classics. In the critical mind, therefore, Edward’s King Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, etc. were relics of a past age, one that was hoped would never return. Edward’s career was ruined by critical denunciation.
However, ham actors never die and Edward Lionheart was no exception. Rather than peaceably retire to the old actors’ home, Edward decides to exact revenge on his persecutors. (For the eleven year old, this is where the fun began.) One by one, the spiteful critics were lured into an old theatre and murdered (and here’s the kick) according to the plots of Shakespeare plays. Thus, one critic gets stabbed like Caesar. One is beheaded, after the fashion of Cymbeline. Another has his pet doggies served to him in a casserole a la Titus Andronicus. It was all great fun, and of course, you didn’t need to get the Shakespeare bits in order to enjoy the spectacle of stuffy old English people getting chopped up and mutilated. David E. and I left the Tivoli that day filled with a great sense of having accomplished something. Our own violent emotions were somehow curbed in light of Edward’s excesses. Lacan triumphed again!
For weeks after that Saturday afternoon, however, I was left with a certain uncomfortable sensation. I had noticed that while David and I “oooed” and “grossed” in all the right places, other people in the Tivoli, that is to say unsuspecting grown-ups who had (obviously) mistakenly come to the Saturday matinee, thought the movie was funny and entertaining in a completely different way. They laughed in places we did not. They were able to anticipate certain ends that took us by surprise. It was almost as though they were watching a completely different movie, or at least one showing simultaneously to Theatre of Blood. In the days after my matinee experience, I began to think about that “other movie.” It was as if there were some inside joke or some dimension that my unfocused vision could not see. All that Shakespeare business alluded me. There was more there than met my eye.
Fast forward thirty years. Last summer, I was in London doing research for a paper I was writing and I happened to notice in the news that there was a play at the National Theatre titled: Theatre of Blood. Could it be the same story as my haunting matinee? Curiosity got the best of me and so I purchased a ticket and went to that night’s performance. It was indeed the same story, only this time transferred to the stage, filled with grand guignol stage devices, fake blood and frank camp. This time I got all of the Shakespeare bits. I thoroughly enjoyed all the inside jokes about theatre and actors. Furthermore, at the end of the play, there was a kind of coda, a scene not in the movie that gave a final twist to the proceedings. Let me set the stage a bit. Old Edward is down to his last critic. The young man is strapped into a chair and is about to be blinded with hot knives, like Gloucester in King Lear. Of course, there has to be a last dialogue. When the critic asked Edward why he was killing his critics, the old actor responds:
Because you have done the theater to death. This stage used to be a place of drama, of excitement. It was a place where people could be frightened, where they could fall in love, swoon and cry out in support of heroes. It used to be a place where drama was wedded to life, the real life of men and women, not some abstract life that no one lives, no one cares about. You have made it a place of ideas, of theories about the theatre, about life. Now it is cold. Now it is for the elite and not the masses. Now it is dead as you are soon to die. You are the murderers of dreams and thus your own nightmare, a living theatre, proves to be your end.

Of course, all of this is very interesting, at least to me, but readers might be asking around this time, “Why the nostalgia, Denis?”
Over the years I have come to think of Theatre of Blood as an iconic event in my young life, the moment I was awakened to meaning, to depth, and to the vagaries of plot. Two summers after my matinee experienced I made the decision to convert to Catholicism, abandoning the somewhat flat narrative devices of my fundamentalist evangelical upbringing for meaning in the theatre of blood of the Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church there was more than met the eye. In the Church there was drama rather than endless monologue. In the Church there was history and depth of experience stretching back across the centuries. In the Church there was the possibility of loosing oneself in a project of epic proportions.
Now, of course, I see the Church from a different perspective, no longer as an awestruck child looking up at a much larger and more mature parent. Today, as a theologian, I see the Church with a more jaded academic eye and I wonder. What is the condition of the Church today? What is its “theatrical” status? Any number of people in the Church today will try to express that in the aftermath of the hypercritical last decades of the twentieth century, something has gone missing from Church life. Some call it transcendence, some mystery. But we might as well call it drama. Here, I do not mean drama in the sense of something over the top, or even false. Rather, I mean drama in the sense of the Greeks, something that is significant to life, a vehicle of ultimate meaning and catharsis. Has the Church ceased being a theatre of blood? Has the influence of critics analyzed and assessed the Church until it has become little more than an idea in some people’s minds and not a very good idea at that. Have we probed, dissected, studied, and didacticized the Church to death? Have we explained away all the symbols, all the mystery? Have we individualized faith and psychologized faith until there is no longer hope for the Church to suffer the messiness of community? Have we transmogrified the heat of a theater of blood into the coolness of a theater of ideas? Have we anthropologized faith until we have nothing remaining but a desiccated specimen of what once was?
If this is the case, theologians must bear some of the burden. Like Lionheart’s critics, in our insatiable desire to make the Church respectable in the world of modern thought, we have made compromises. We have wedded ourselves to alien spouses, unsympathetic philosophical systems, social theories and psychological ideologies. In giving a rather esoteric lecture in Belgium a few years ago, I asked my audience how a certain feature of postmodern theology might play out in parish life. The mostly Flemish group seemed stunned by the question. What could theology possible have to do with what old people did in church on Sunday? When pressed a bit, one member of the group tentatively suggested that if there was a problem of assimilation of theological ideas in parishes, the answer might be that more churchgoers should be studying Heidegger. How out of touch can some theologians be with the living reality of the Church? The critics seem to have done to death the theatre of blood.
There is dissatisfaction on the part of many younger Catholics with the seeming disjunction between thought and practice. How can this tension be rectified? How can we understand the almost complete dismantling of Catholic culture in the past fifty years? Needless to say a great deal of that culture needed to be rethought, but once it was gone, what arose to take its place? Are we living in the aftermath of a deconstructed Catholicism which is struggling to reclaim its dramatic hold on the lives of the faithful?
Where is the drama in the Church today? Or we might more appropriately ask where the passion is. When I was a seminarian, I had a classmate who left the seminary. From all outward appearances, from all his behaviors and skills, he was an ideal candidate for priesthood, intelligent, well-spoken, and sensitive to the needs of others. When we talked about why he was leaving the seminary, he told me he did not have the passion to be a priest. Passion is an essential element for priesthood, those who are configured in persona Christi. Passion is necessary if we are to remain engaged on a daily basis with the thousand mendacities that the priest must confront. If we do not have passion then we cannot be very effective icons of involvement in the life of the Church. If we have no passion, can we expect to be able to engender it in the lives of the faithful?
One aspect of the lives of younger Catholics in the Church today is a renewed sense of drama. Young people today tend to view religion as an all or nothing proposition. If they are involved in Church, they tend to be totally involved, to see the Church as an all engrossing theatre of blood. They tend to be more emotionally engaged with the Church than their parents. Abstractions are not unimportant to them, but as Cardinal Newman once remarked, no one ever died for a syllogism. All of this is not to sound too anti-intellectual. God forbid. There is no greater need in the Church today than quality catechesis at every stage of life. However, we must have a living context for quality intellectual pursuits in the life of the Church. All theology must be pastoral or at least move fairly quickly to the pastoral. All critical thought must lead us to the Mystery rather than attempt to explain it. Theology must transform and inspire us to deeper involvement, to see the wonder of the Church as central to our lives because it touches profoundly upon the Real. Theology must expand our faith rather than contract it. Again, as Newman said, all of theology must give evidence to life and growth. Then we are in the context of the theodramatic. If our faith is ultimately not about the engagement of abstractions or the perpetuation of social values, but a perichoretic dance with the Holy Trinity, then we must move, we must engage, we must risk everything. The Trinity calls us to be a people of involvement, involvement in the messiness of one another’s lives, a theatre of blood. But that is dangerous, in that being caught up in the movement of God, we may likely loose our selves, or more likely find our true selves in the imago Dei
If only we could somehow re-discover our matinee selves. If only we could see through the eyes of wonder that we employed as eleven year olds. If only we could reclaim the sweat and blood, the genius of a faith whose sanguine reality comes to us so palpably as we gather at the altar. Then undoubtedly we would experience a new evangelization. Then undoubtedly we would know God as Father, Son and Spirit in the interpenetrating reality of life.

The very air is vibrating with the eschaton in these days

The wind whirls the crackling leaves about our heads

The mournful farewell of the migrating birds wings away

The stark remnants of harvest, sentineling the fields

The trampling of deer hooves

The tapping of keyboards

The acrid smell of burning leaves

The very air is vibrating with the end times, the waning days, the last things

It is a deciduous season

On this Solemnity of Christ the King we have caught the liturgical year on a burning day

Today we grasp the image of Christ stepping forcefully into a world of decay and degeneration.

Do we need to be told that our world is imprisoned within the confines of a mercenary mercantilism, a pernicious pecuniary possessivism, a bastion of blatant bigotry?


Can we not see the illness around us, gaunt specters of neglect, of normlessness, of inattention?

Can we not witness for ourselves the hunger of the masses, the hunger for food, for a modicum of decency, for respect at the basest level, for affection of the most minimal kind?

Can we not hear the empty rhetoric of choice and freedom which clang across the landscape of our national condition, cutting like naked swords into the most intimate confines of human safety?

Can we not feel the chill of nakedness in our bones as so many men and women and children die in the streets of starvation?

Can we not taste the debilitation of human dignity in our brothers and sisters brought low by addictions, and mental illness and simple hopelessness?

Can we not understand the spiraling parameters of life in a deciduous season?

And not only our world, ourselves

Do we not know what it is like to feel hopeless, unloved, unwanted?

Do we not hear the echoing in our hearts, reverberating the cry for a need to belong, to be a part, to be one and not even know what the one is?

Do we not understand the raw nakedness of spirit, the hunger for home, the imprisonment of self-doubt?

And like the sheep and the goats, we sometimes feel separated from our true selves, longing in the acrimony of the waning days, a deciduous season, for the path to a common pasture, a new horizon.

And that is what God gives us

Like the phoenix rising from the ashes of despair, we too know the joy of new birth.

That is the good news of fading days

For even as the air vibrates with the finality of the last days, the first days are already engendering themselves in the loins of Creation.

In the midst of decay and denegation, a tiny heart begins to beat faintly in the womb of a woman whose audacious yes whirls around us like the wind, and calls the birds home and renews these days with the promise of child cries echoing down the corridors of time. Child cries that ring like the triumph of the King of Kings.

Just as we are ending, we are beginning and thus we become entangled in the great cycle of Grace, God’s infinite plan of judgment and reconciliation, division and reunion

Just as the sheep are separated from goats, they are summoned back to the one flock by the call of the infant shepherd cascading across the hills.
Calling us to a new world, a new life, a new vocation, a new day.
and so

In the midst of a deciduous season, we look for a brighter promise

A day when division is unknown and we can collapse into the apocotastasis of pure beatitude.

And in that new day, vibrating like the air on the heels of the eschaton

our lives will be made radical and those of our brothers and sisters will be renewed in a benevolent storm of grace, then we will see one another clothed in glory and light in the blush of a daybreak rising over the chill of a winter’s night. We will see one another in the awesome reality of coming to be.

And our spirits will soar on the wings of eagles above the calculus of daily hunger and the starvation of the world, and we shall mount the heights of holiness, in the charmed arête of godliness. We will be saints. We will have a clear vision of the world above the clouds of doubt, the thunderheads of despair.

And our minds will invent new plans, conceive new qualities, break down prison walls, engage new images, dream new dreams of vibrant wind and devastating light. We will be new born in an advent of peace, a season of conception, we and all around us.

And our souls will hover and shimmer, rising above the earth like a shining host, like a glistening drop of wine, like a man risen from the dead standing among the stark remnants of harvest with a look of triumph on his crowned brow and we will experience the purest love of God in the communion of this altar.

RECTOR’S CONFERENCE
NOVEMBER 5, 2008


THE PARABLE OF HUMAN FORMATION, THE PARABLE OF CHRIST
In the convocation address that began this school year, I remarked on several aspects of formation drawn from the thought of John Henry Newman. Today, I would like to continue these reflections by way of an examination of Newman’s understanding of Christology and the way in which Christology informs the task of human formation in a seminary and school of theology. Newman’s understanding of the event of Jesus Christ comes by way of his appreciation of the idea of parable, and so, I will begin the reflections today with a short definition of parable.

THE CHARACTER OF PARABLE
A parable is defined in Aristotle’s Rhetoric as an example ( or a type of proof. The parableis, at its root a comparison or an exposition of a relationship between two terms. One of the defining qualities of a parable is the presence of “multiple meanings [which] lie hidden within the complexities of a narrative, and these challenge or provoke the recipient to interpretation. Parables are lures for interpretation and also revelation of the very process of interpretation itself.”[112] Parables create tension by their very nature, and therefore, their interpretation takes on a quality of multivalence, even infinite interpretability. At the heart of parable is a creative tension that is, ultimately, irresolvable.In Newman’s estimation, God must be understood like a parable. God is not a subject to be exhausted by human discourse but an immeasurable invitation. “He, though One, is a sort of world of worlds in Himself, giving birth in our minds to an infinite number of distinct truths, each ineffably more mysterious than any thing that is found in this universe of space and time.”[121]

THE PARABLE AND INCARNATION
The parable is also profoundly associated with Christ for Newman; it is inculcated within the very heart of the Christian mystery. Jesus not only told parables, his very being was a parable. The Incarnation can be understood in Newman as a parabolic encounter in the following way. Christ is realized (that is, made more real to us) in the context of Christian belief as being God and a Human Being. This juxtaposition does not seem to lend itself to intelligent explanation. Rather it affords the opportunity, not of knowing or understanding or comprehending the Incarnation as a fixed horizon upon which to focus or a determined vantage point from which to originate and thereby reducing it to the formulaic, even the idolatrous, but for entering into a relationship with the limitless horizon of the Incarnate God. The Incarnation reveals the reality that cannot be perceived at first sight. Newman states it this way in his Christmas sermon of 1835:
He came in lowliness and want; born amid the tumults of a mixed and busy multitude, cast aside into the outhouse of a crowded inn, laid to His first rest among the brute cattle. He grew up, as if the native of a despised city, and was bred to a humble craft. He bore to live in a world that slighted Him, for He lived in it, in order in due time to die for it. He came as the appointed Priest, to offer sacrifice for those who took no part in the act of worship; He came to offer up for sinners that precious blood which was meritorious by virtue of His Divine Anointing. He died, to rise again the third day, the Sun of Righteousness, fully displaying that splendour which had hitherto been concealed by the morning clouds., and He rose from the lowly manger to the right hand of power,—raising human nature, for Man has redeemed us, Man is set above all creatures, as one with the Creator, Man shall judge man at the last day.

Things are not what they seem to be and this engagement with mystery, realized not as that which cannot be known, but that which is infinitely knowable is, for Newman orthodoxy. Heresy, on the other hand, is the reckless attempt to alleviate the tension of the parable, to solve the problem, or to define the mystery of God. Falling back heavily (or even lightly) on one of the constitutive terms of the parable, God or Man compromises our ability to perceive the reality of the Incarnation which is the precarious yet dynamic and fruitful balancing on the edge of the parabolic knife, the meeting point of the two terms.

PARABLE AND CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
This central insight into the parabolic nature of the reality of the Incarnation fanned out, for Newman, into other areas of discourse within the context of the Christian mystery. The tension that defines Jesus, the God-Man, remains the focal point and the model for other parabolic discourse in the life of the Church. For example, doctrinal formulations are parabolic because they unveil the generative energy of the Incarnate Word. This parabolic dimension impinges on the heart of the understanding of inspiration in Scripture. It touches on sacramental theology, the nature of Church life, education and religious life. In other words, the parabolic tension in the life of the Church reflects the central mystery of the Church, the parable of Jesus. Of course, this model has ramifications for the specialized discourse that engaged Newman for almost sixty-five years, the discourse of preaching and theology. In this scheme, rather than solving problems and providing definitive answers, preaching and theology must somehow promote the inherent tension found at the dynamic heart of Christianity. The task of the preacher/theologian in this model becomes the encouragement of fertile tension in order to advance an ever-deepening and profound relationship with the person of Jesus. It is the encouragement of a lack of completeness and a resistance to all calcifying factors within Christian discourse. It is the insistence on the position that all “answers” are in some way provisional, and growth and change in the individual and in the Church are essential for the preservation of the central mystery. In the Oxford University Sermons, Newman proposes of the Christian that: “His Saviour has interpreted for him the faint or broken accents of Nature; and that in them, so interpreted, he has, as if in some old prophecy, at once the evidence and the lasting memorial of the truths of the Gospel.”[141]

NEWMAN AND THE POETIC REALITY OF CHRIST

Newman’s Christology is predicated on the maintenance of that largeness which is demanded in the parabolic encounter and which therefore transcends the scientific, historical question. The parabolic tension inherent in the central principle of Christianity is that of the poem of the all divine and the all human. Scientific and historical questions analyze, dissect and define, whereas poetic discourse is enhancing, inviting, and broadening For Newman, the nature of all religious discourse was ultimately poetic. It invites. Newman even applied this poetic nature to the discourse of theology, particularly the creed. The creed was ultimately a poem and in viewing it as poem, it was possible to re-imagine the theological discourse of the early Church. In order to perceive the poetic nature of the God-Man, Newman insisted on a return to the patristic sources of Christology, to the thought of Nicea, St. Athanasius, St. Leo the Great and the Council of Chalcedon. For Newman, the tensile definition of Chalcedon, describing in parabolic terms the historical reality of Jesus, at once Jesus of Nazareth and the eternal Christ, was the matter of Christianity, its sole point of reference, its teaching, its worship, and its life. And, as the destiny of the human person was to fall into the reality of Christ, just as it had fallen into the reality of sin, thus, the Incarnate Word, defines the nature of the human person.

HUMAN FORMATION AND CONFORMITY TO CHRIST

Newman’s reflections upon the particular nature of the event of the Incarnation give us insight into the nature of human formation. The goal of human formation in the context of a Christian community of faith is clear. It is the goal of St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, “He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”
The natural development of the person is to be more like Christ who provides the model of humanity in the context of Christianity. We fail to realize our authentic humanity if we fail to recognize the call of St. Paul in the letter to the Corinthians. We fail to recognize our full potential when we insist upon living into the reality of the Fall of Adam and its attendant ills. Human formation becomes then the foundation of all Christian formation, as Pope John Paul tells us in Pastores Dabo Vobis. “The whole work of priestly formation would be deprived of its necessary foundation if it lacked a suitable human formation.” . “The priest should be able to know the depths of the human heart, to perceive difficulties and problems, to make meeting and dialogue ways to create trust and cooperation, to express serene and objective judgments.” He can do this because he has conformed his life to the parable of the Incarnation. This theme is not unique in the thought of the late Holy Father. It is rather one that pervades twentieth-century theology, the search for the authentic meaning of the human person in an age when false and indeed homicidal understandings of freedom and choice permeate the landscape of a culture littered with the debris of death. We see the traces of this renewed emphasis in anthropology in the work of the theologians of the Nouvelle Theologies, its outlines in the writings of Pope Pius XII, and its elucidation in the thought of the Second Vatican Council. Modern Man wishes to know himself, and the consistent message of the Church is that this knowledge is only possible through and with Christ. Furthermore, we realize our complete humanity not only by conformity to the behavior of Jesus, what would Jesus do? But also through the modality of Jesus. How is Jesus in the world, in what manner does he present himself? What is his dynamic quality?
Newman’s reflections and those of Pope John Paul II in Pastores Dabo Vobis, help us to understand the Christological dimension of human formation. I would offer three insights that come from these reflections that may provide an adequate guide to looking at the question of human formation, whether that is in the setting of a seminary, a parish, a presbyterate or a diocese.

THREE CHRISTOLOGICAL INSIGHTS INTO THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN PERSON

The first Christological insight into human formation in the thought of Newman follows from Newman’s understanding of the doctrine of the Incarnation. Our profession of the Rule of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon unveils a richness to the Christ event that extends beyond the apprehension of the physical person of Jesus of Nazareth. Perception of the Jesus of history is perception of the Christ of faith. Things are not what they seem to be by way of the senses. Through the senses, Jesus is a Jewish itinerate preacher of a certain time and place with messianic pretensions, the historical Jesus. His execution is a barrier to the full realization of his being. St. Paul elucidates this point with his insight that “we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.” There is more to the cross however than meets the eye. From this Christological insight we discover the central principle of Christian existence, the presence of a sacramental imagination. The sacramental imagination, by which we discern the reality lurking behind and beyond the physical species governs the life of faith. We celebrate it daily in the Eucharist. As priests, we announce it in the Holy Mass: Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi. We make this audacious announcement while having the impunity to hold what to the eyes of sight appears to be a mere piece of bread, a cup of common wine. The sacramental imagination proclaims with boldness: things are not what they seem to be. There is more here than meets the eye. This boldness is drawn from the energy of the simultaneous presence of the Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith. As we proclaim this reality with such boldness, we also realize that it extends beyond the action of the altar to the world, indeed to the whole world. The Eucharist as source and summit, both feeds and gains momentum from the action of the sacramental reality of Christ in the world, indeed in the most mundane aspects of the human condition. This is the pastoral instinct of the priest. The implementation of the sacramental imagination in daily living, in daily pastoral care is his license to make the bold pronouncements of the liturgy. The priest looks at the strengths and weakness of the flock and proclaims, there is more here than meets the eye. He gazes upon the troubling and troublesome parishioners and knows, there is more here than meets the eye. He understands that this paradox is the bread and butter of discipleship, his constant challenge, his most ardent desire, and his greatest aspiration. Again we look at the definition of parable mentioned earlier. One of the defining qualities of a parable is the presence of “multiple meanings [which] lie hidden within the complexities of a narrative, and these challenge or provoke the recipient to interpretation.” Our human formation depends upon our ability to transfer the parabolic insight of Christology into the daily narrative of the Church. We look upon our fellow human beings in the context of parabolic narrative. We search behind and beyond what is presented by the context of frail humanity and realize that the folly of their crosses, the scandal of their lives are not their ends anymore than the cross with its fearsome presentation exhausted the reality of the living God present in the person of Jesus. There are multiple meanings in every life. That is pastoral care. But, human formation also depends upon our ability to turn the generative power of this insight, that there is more here than meets the eye, upon our selves. We must not reduce ourselves to our daily failures, our momentary lapses, or the internal scandals that appear, perhaps only to the inner eye of our imagination. The sacramental imagination is self-perception and sometimes the greatest pastoral care is that which we must offer ourselves. Pope John Paul remarked, “Pastoral study and action direct one to an inner source, … an ever-deeper communion with the pastoral charity of Jesus.”
The second Christological insight for human formation drawn from Newman is that tension is the only way to growth. The Incarnation, as the central principle of our faith and our living is a tensile reality. It tugs at the mind and the heart with contrariety. This tension, central to the orthodox expression of faith becomes the very engine, the energy of the life of the Church. One way of understanding this necessary complexity, this tension is in the realization of emotional maturity. The immature person seeks facility. The immature person is completely self-referential. The immature person is simple. The immature person is a kind of Arian, a psychological heretic. Often, perhaps all too often, this immaturity is expressed among priests as a kind of narcissism. My opinion is the only one that counts. I must have the last word in every conversation. Only my needs need to be met. The inability to see ourselves as part of a larger world, a greater good is the essence of narcissism. Some scholars see the prevalence of the narcissistic personality at the core of the Church’s scandals surrounding sexuality. A less dramatic form of narcissism is a kind of clericalism that seeks privilege, entitlement, or even profit from the total gift of vocation that God has given to us. We cannot build our egos by way of the gift of vocation. The narcissistic personality sees the needs of others as intrusions on his or her fulfillment, or more sinisterly, the means of his or her fulfillment. The narcissistic personality cannot find a place in formation because he does not perceive the need for formation. He has all of the answers. One thing, however, is very clear. The Church has no need for any more narcissistic priests, deacons or lay ministers. There is no room in the Church for the completely self-referential, the guru, or the alternative formator. Why? Because the narcissistic personality thinks he has all of the answers and sees no value in the pursuit of discipleship at all. Emotional maturity is the ability to see my needs and the needs of the other as complimentary. Bound together on a common journey of the discovery of God, the pastor and the parishioner find common hopes, common frustrations and common dreams in the tensile engagement with the God who is beyond all understanding. Earlier this year, the Holy See issued a document on the use of psychology in the formation of seminarians. That document listed some of the qualities of emotional maturity that seminarians must demonstrate. They bear listing here:
• A positive and stable sense of identity
• A solid sense of belonging
• The freedom to be enthused by great ideas and to realize them
• The courage to make decisions and stay faithful to them
• The capacity to correct oneself
• An appreciation of the beautiful and the true
• Trust
• Integrated sexuality
Emotional maturity implies the ability to continually rethink and reform assumptions, ideas and conceptions, to suspend judgment, to seek beyond the eternal, “I”. Emotional maturity is the ability to change one’s mind as one grasps the every deeper, ever broader, ever wider reality of men and women who are images of God, the God that cannot be reduced to the mirror image of my preferences, my opinions, my goals. This maturity invariably evokes tension in the person, but this tension is the vibrating heartstring of an intense, intimate relationship with the divine and human Christ who invites us into the life of God himself. As Pope Benedict says: “Fellowship in the Body of Christ means fellowship with one another.. mutual acceptance, giving and receiving on both sides.”
The third Christological insight for human formation is the necessity of the development of the poetical sensibility. We live today in a culture defined by utility and popularism. Newman referred to the popular as the fansical and defined it as that which engaged the person for a moment, in a defined aspect of the personality but was not ultimately fulfilling by way of its simplicity. We might refer to this same reality as popular culture, a life lived in the top forty, the newest fad, or the latest celebrity. The utilitarian is defined by Newman as that which is narrowly perceived to fulfill certain needs in the human condition, but only on a provisional basis. We live in a culture that promotes both of these values. Gabriel Marcel defined the two pursuits of the human mind as problem solving and mystery seeking. The problem solving man seeks solutions, the mystery seeking man seeks inspiration. Inspiration is neither utilitarian nor popular.
The paradox of modern humanity is that while we live in a culture that presents utility and the popular as ends, we are still possessed of human hearts that long for the expansive horizons of the poetic, even though we no longer have the language to talk about it. This is pastoral leadership’s greatest challenge and its greatest opportunity. Newman insists that religion is ultimately, to use his expression, poetical. It requires time and devotion to fully begin to appreciate its gifts. It requires a lifetime of engagement that extends beyond the top forty, the up-to-date, or the relevant. It realizes that the cult of immediate relevance is the death of God, whose mysteries cannot be fathomed in a thousand “readings”, “hearings” or “sightings”. Pope Benedict has remarked: “Faith creates culture and is culture … It tells man who he is and how he should go about being human.” When we know this we have attained true humanity. And so, the priest must necessarily seek the expansion of cultural horizons, finding meaning in the arts, in literature and in other expressions of the human spirit that transcend the utilitarian and popular mentality. The priest, as pastoral minister, must understand popular culture, but he must not live in popular culture. He must not see the bounds of culture in the ephemeral and the passing. Learning to view art, to listen to music, to experience drama, to read literature and poetry is necessary because it trains the mind, the heart and the spirit toward the transcendent. It gives the priest depth perception, encouraging him to guide his life, not by that which is temporary but that which infinitely engages. In learning to appreciate art and poetry, the priest learns to look for the art and poetry in the mundane, daily tasks of spiritual and pastoral care. In learning to look at art, he learns to look at the world as potential rather than finality. In learning to read literature, he seeks the imaginative horizons of the page in the nursing home patient, the sick, the dying, the student, the homebound and, indeed, himself. Again the Holy Father has remarked: “All sacred images are, without exception … images of the resurrection. History is read in the light of the resurrection and for that very reason they are images of hope, giving us the assurance of the world to come.”
The inculcation of the poetic sensibility leads us to prayer. Prayer, likewise, in our cultural understanding can be highly utilitarian. How often does the priest hear: “I am frustrated, my prayer is not working.” Yet the object of prayer is not utilitarian fulfillment but an immersion in the depths of the life of God. It is communion with God. It takes time and does not necessarily yield immediately gratifying results. Prayer is a commitment to the poetic and parabolic life of God, one that expands over time and draws the person of prayer into the folds of a relationship that cannot be exhausted by first acquaintance. Prayer familiarizes us with the parabolic God and makes us love him, and in loving him, loving the Other and ultimately (yet paradoxically, firstly) our true selves. The ability to love, truly love, unveils the mystery of God who is love in the actions of the human heart. We experience this love, this poetry, parable, this prayer most profoundly in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by which we offer true immolation to the lies which plague modern man as surely as the lies of the serpent plagued our ancestors in faith. As the fragmented pieces of the Host are re-gathered in the body of the Church we fulfill the prayer of Christ, that they may be one. We find once more that original unity of self lost in the Fall. We discover once more our profound oneness with God. We become One by becoming more like Christ, we become truly who we are by conforming our life and our MODE of being to his. The Eucharist then forms the ultimate parabolic parameters of human formation. It tells us who we are.
These are challenging insights. However, equipped with these insights, we have the raw matter of living a full life, the only kind of full life, a life in union with Christ and in union with the source of our being, the Holy Trinity. With these insights we have the potential to understand more profoundly the powerful longing that churns within us. With these insights about Christ, we can see clearly who we are amid the encircling gloom of social maledictions, the swirling fog of a culture of mendacity. With these insights we know who we are, who we truly are within the context of the lies that sometimes cloud our senses both external and internal. The realization of these insights is, in essence, the parabolic project of our seminaries, our schools of theology, our parishes, our dioceses, our institutions. We can, in this context, only rely upon the light of God revealed to us in the face of Jesus to continue to enlighten us. Perhaps we can find no better words to formulate our prayer than those of Cardinal Newman himself:

LEAD, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet: I do not ask to see 5
The distant scene,—
one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on! 10
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till 15
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since,
and lost awhile.

The Lord be with you
May Almighty God bless, you, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Mary Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.

This past weekend the earthly remains of Cardinal Newman were transfered from his original resting place at Rednall to the chapel of St. Charles Borromeo at the Birmingham Oratory he founded almost 150 years ago. In the context of the tributes offered to the greatest Catholic theologian since St. Thomas, Birmingham Archbishop, Vincent Nichols called him "a terrifying thinker for his great clarity of mind." Below is the text of the homily preached by the postulator of Newman's cause, Fr. Paul Chavasse:

[A] great and holy man is honoured today. We keep this Sunday as the Feast of All Saints and in doing so we honour all the holy men and women of every age and place now with God in Heaven. This celebration therefore teaches us, if it teaches us anything, that holiness is what we are all called to show forth. It is not the preserve of the few, not even the vocation of the many; it is the call given to us all without exception. The Gospel we have just heard tells us of the Beatitudes – it lists for us the graces and virtues, the attributes and behaviour we must manifest if we are to be recognisably on the way to being holy. Hearing the Beatitudes on this feast should make us reflect as to whether this is a description of my life today. Is it a more accurate picture of me today than it was this day last year? Do I at least recognise in it a list of the things I struggle to be, want to be, with Christ as my guide and with His grace transforming me? If we take our Christian vocation seriously, if we truly want to become what Christ calls us to be, then the Beatitudes must forever remain the foundation charter for our lives. We should not say: "This could be me" but "This will be me", even if not completely here on earth, then at least after Purgatory has done its job and I am with God in heaven. We do know of course that even here on earth there are those who show forth the life of the Beatitudes to a high degree. Cardinal Newman himself wrote of them as the ones who "have set up a standard before us of truth, of magnanimity, of holiness, of love". They are "raised up to be monuments and lessons, they remind us of God, they introduce us into the unseen world, they teach us what Christ loves....". In 1991 the late Pope John Paul II recognised that this was true of John Henry Newman himself, and, in declaring the Cardinal "Venerable" - that is "able to be venerated" - he was saying that this great Englishman had indeed lived the Beatitudes, the virtues of the Christian life to an heroic degree. Not to perfection, of course not, but to a degree quite out of the ordinary – that is what a hero is – and that his example is worthy of being imitated by us. "A Saint in the making" who already calls others to aspire to a similar state of life.

Some may say that this role of Cardinal Newman rests on all his life's work: his writings, his sermons, the encouragement and advice he gave to others in his letters, his tireless work for educating the laity, his service of the poor here in Birmingham – the list goes on and all of it is true. We don't need physical remains in order to be inspired by a man like that. And yet: despite it all the human heart still longs for the visible, for that special tangible reminder of the one who has touched and shaped our lives for the better, whether it is Cardinal Newman or someone else whom we love or hold in veneration – how we will treasure that particular photograph, that special letter, and, yes, that lock of hair. But that said, it is as well that the Church's process does not depend on the presence of the physical remains of those she advances as her canonised saints. Those of us who were present at Rednal just a month ago, when the Cardinal's grave was opened, will never forget the range of emotions through which we passed: Bewilderment that the "shallow grave" reported in 1890, should now be eight feet deep; frustration that foot after foot of earth revealed precisely nothing; worry that perhaps after all and incredibly we might be in the wrong spot; shock at what little was eventually found, and then at the end and most strangely, a sense of the rightness of what had transpired, a feeling of peace, peace of mind that after all Cardinal Newman's fondest wishes had actually been fulfilled. That experience shows too that even after 118 years since he died Cardinal Newman still wanted to teach us a lesson. What is it?

It is surely the lesson the month of November speaks to us about: it is the lesson that our common end, be we who we may, is death and decay and the dissolution of all things. The month begins with All Saints and All Souls: we will all be swept up into that great mass of all the faithful departed, and we hope to become, sooner or later, one with the saints of God. But November ends with the Feast of Christ the King – to remind us who it is we must love and serve, to remind us whose is the Kingdom to which we truly belong, to remind us whose gentle and all persuasive rule calls us from the transitoriness of this life to the glory of the life of the Resurrection. That path to the Kingdom is not always easy: as Cardinal Newman himself wrote: "All God's providences, all God's dealings with us, all his judgments, mercies, warnings, deliverances, tend to peace and repose as their ultimate issue ... after our souls' anxious travail; after the birth of the spirit; after trial and temptation; after sorrow and pain; after daily dyings to the world; after daily risings unto holiness; at length comes that 'rest which remaineth unto the people of God'. After the fever; after weariness and sicknesses; fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness; struggling and failing, struggling and succeeding; after all the changes and chances of this troubled unhealthy state, at length comes death, at length the white throne of God, at length the Beatific Vision." The lesson we must learn is that, as the Cardinal also said: "He knows what He is about", and that life's trials and difficulties, its joys and its beauty all have the object of shaping us to be friends with God, to be at one with Our Lord: this is the aim and purpose of life. That is what John Henry Newman put into practice his whole life-long; it is what he taught others to do, it is what he is calling us to do today. Cardinal Newman has left us but few earthly remains as focal points for our devotion, as if, and quite explicitly, to point us to that higher goal – as a son of St Philip should – to lead us away from himself and, as he put it in his hymn to St Philip, "towards the bright palace where our God is present throned in high heaven." That is what we would want for us as for himself, and the poignancy of his all but empty grave speaks loudly of it.

Saint Meinrad celebrated the ordination of twelve of our seminarians to the Order of Deacon on Saturday. It was a beautiful day in every way. Archbishop Daniel presided and was assisted by Bishop Duca of Shreveport and Bishop Shnurr, recently appointed as co-adjutor archbishop of Cincinnati. The twelve men were a great image of the Church. They were all young, vibrant men of faith. It was a great joy to see their families and friends, those who have supported them through countless crises and triumphs. They all looked justifiably proud. The festivities began on Thursday with a new tradition at Saint Meinrad, the rehearsal dinner. The deacons-to-be where hosted by the rector for a nice intimate dinner. It was a wonderful time for some fellowship and breathing before everything got underway. On Friday the bishops arrived as did the families. Parties and dinners were breaking out all over the hill. We also had a period of community adoration to observe the solemn events that would unfold on Saturday. The day itself dawned beautifully, the sun shining brightly on a crisp autumn day. A breakfast hosted by the rector was held for the ordinands and the visiting bishops. The ordination lasted two full hours. The music was glorious. The archbishop's homily urged the ordinands to consider the prostration as a sign of their future ministry to be men of humble prayer. Solemnly they came up one by one to receive the imposition of hands and to receive the prayer of consecration. At the end of the liturgy, the new deacons were applauded in front of the abbey church by all the clergy present. A beautiful lunch followed for over 300 people. Later that evening there was a hog roast at the unStable. On Sunday, families began drifting away so that by Sunday night we were back to normal, except that we had the grace of twelve newly ordained men in our midst. This is what Saint Meinrad is about, the transformation of lives for the service of the Church. This is what we have been doing for almost 150 years. We are so proud of these men and all our seminarians and deacon candidates and lay students who will offer themselves for service to the Body of Christ. While I am proud to be the rector of Saint Meinrad on days like last Saturday, I am equally proud to be the rector on ordinary days as we experience here the daily miracles of formation, conversion and discipleship. Ad multos annos to our new deacons.

This is the homily for the Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Love God
Love neighbor

There is a deceptive simplicity in today’s Gospel injunctions.

There is nothing here that we do not know
We know the commandments.
But do we know how to practice the commandments?

I want to tell you the story of a priest.

Fr. John Leonard Ogelsby was the first priest I ever saw in my life. Everyone called him Father O.
I was 12 years old and my parents took me to see this man because I had a crazy idea in my head that I wanted to abandon my Baptist faith and become, in my mother’s words a Roaming Catholic.

My parents, who were at their wits end as to what to do with me thought that taking me to a priest would be a kind of shock therapy to get the idea of becoming a Catholic out of my head. It obviously didn’t work.

Fr. Ogelsby was certainly not a flashy man. He was a bit hefty, bald, with bulging eyes. He always wore what seemed to be the same crumpled suit, frequently streaked with chalk as he loved to teach. He knew everyone in his large parish, He had been in their homes. No matter what was going on he was there. Carwashes, bake sales, school plays, ballgames. He knew everybody’s names, he knew who their people were. He knew what troubled them. He knew what made them laugh.

He faithfully celebrated mass, preached fairly mediocre homilies, prayed his rather worn-out breviary, tirelessly visited the sick, went regularly to the nursing home, and went into every classroom in the school everyday. He took the time to talk to the secretaries, the janitors, the cafeteria ladies.

He always had his wallet open, in car door open, his office open. On his rare days off he liked to fish. He kept a record of every one he ever caught in a little notebook

For 70 weeks, count them, I went every Thursday after school to his office and he gave me instructions in the Catholic faith. I think I might have known more about the bible than he did. He didn’t seem to mind. He patiently talked to me, wrote on a little blackboard in his office, treated me like a grownup, took my faith seriously, showed me his books, sent me cards for my birthday. He also loved my parents, loved them so much that he did not stop pestering them until they too took instructions and became Catholics. He took care of my father as he was dying, coming everyday to the hospital in spite of being pastor of the largest parish in the diocese.

He was a wonderful priest. He was never a monsignor, never worked in the chancery office, was never considered for a post at the Vatican, and was certainly not bishop material.

He was a priest who was simple and who knew two simple things. Love God, love neighbor. He knew that.

He died last week at the age of 88. He was a priest for 58 years. He touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. He changed my life forever and I never once told him how important he was to me. I never once said “thank you.”
Jesus knew something about human nature. He knew that we liked to have things put fairly straightforwardly, sometimes.
The commandments are often best practiced when kept simple and when they are anonymous.

The novelist, George Eliot, writes these lines at the end of her novel, Middlemarch. I paraphrase a bit for Father O.

“the effect of his being on those around him was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

Homily for Sunday, October 5, 2008

It seems like I spend my whole life moving crap around.

The other day I came across my photo album
And opened it up to the first leaf
I found staring me in the face my two-year old self
Fat face
Fat arms
Bald head
Only slightly toothed
Mouth open
And I thought, O I haven’t changed that much

And the expression on the face
Pure joy
Pure laughter
Pure happiness
Pure wonderment

And then, strangely enough, a singular thought flickered across my mind

I wonder what happened to him?

OF course, my answer is the answer of all of us

The simple fact that life happens
In today’s Gospel we are reminded of the simple topsy-turviness of living.
That in the vineyard of life thinks go awry, the natural order is upset, But what is interesting is that today’s Gospel is not so much the exception as the norm.
Wachovia is taken over by Wells Fargo
Economic hardship
Fortunes rising and fortunes falling

In the vineyard of living, life happens
And it happens precisely because it is life

Life
Dirty diapers
Teething
Wobbly legs
Life

Playground battles
Punching and punched
Names called and calling
Life

First loves
Broken hearts
Returned class rings
Life

Too many drinks
Too many pills
To many blindsiding self-discoveries
Life
Too many changes
Too many novelties
Too many discomboulations
Life

Broken homes
Broken families
Broken dreams
Life

Sickness
Poverty
Pain
Life

Forgetfulness
Lack of control
Forgetfulness
Life

Loss, too much loss
War
Death
Life

Life happens as it must and then sometimes we confront our two-year olds selves in the midst of so many transitions, and changes and we wonder

What happened to the two year old
What happened to the …

Pure joy
Pure laughter
Pure happiness
Pure wonderment
Pure innocences
When did the wicked tenants take over my vineyard

Life can become like a burden or even a hazard
Like a great weight upon our shoulders
Like Sisyphus’ rock

We all know that
And then we hear the words of St. Paul:

Brothers and sisters:
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Who has not known what life really is
Who has not experienced the real disappointment that reaches out beyond the pettiness of daily irritations
Who has not endured loss in this community
Who has not seen the destruction the storms of life wrought
Who has not lamented the pain, the unaduturated pain of living?

Have no anxiety at all
Everything will be made right by the appearance of the owner

Because
whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious,
if there is any excellence
and if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.

Then the God of peace will be with you.
And what is that peace
The peace of knowing that
That God cares
That God is involved
That God is there
That God forgives
That God finds us beautiful
That God overlooks
That God wants us
That God died for us in the vineyard of Calvary
That God is God and nothing else is God

That life not only happens, but that it matters, it matters.

And when we know that, we can confront anything
Even our two-year old selves laughing at us from the pages of a near forgotten photo album

Even the mirror that every morning wearily announces a new day
Filled with frustration
Disappointment
Heartache
Violence
Pain
Anxiety

And
Pure joy
Pure laughter
Pure happiness
Pure wonderment
Pure friendship
Pure community in this place

Because Christ is Christ
And God is God
And we are his
He will not leave us to the wicked tenants
But he comes to us daily in the vineyard of this seminary community
To feed us at this table
To give us love in our brothers and sisters
To tell us the worst joke we have ever heard
To send us a note – I’m praying for you
To laugh at our foibles
To share his life with us in the beauty of creation
The shrouding mist hanging over a shy autumn morning
Broken leaves
Bells ringing
A procession of academic peacocks
He comes To make us children again

Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Guard it completely until we abandon this vineyard and
mount the starry heights of Zion realizing that we tread on stairs of adamant engraved forever with the legend “Life happens”

The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah are his cherished plant; and we will live.

We can live
And we can suddenly laugh again with slightly toothed two-year old open mouths
Sing, crying aloud, raising the triumphal hymn
All the way to God.
All the way to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the vineyard
Happy are those who are called to his supper.

This weekend we celebrated my inauguration as the fourteenth president-rector of Saint Meinrad. What a humbling experience! The work that went into this weekend and the love and goodwill expressed by all who were here was a true blessing, not only to me but to our school. Of course, our seminarians rose to the occassion beautifully as they always do. What good men we have! What patient men! It is such a blessed gift to know that I can look at our men and know that the future of the Church is in good hands, it is in excellent hands, holy hands, intelligent hands. Father Mark used to say that we had the best seminary and the best seminarians in the world. It is true and I am so grateful to God that I am the pastor of this community.

Below is the inaugural address.
Inaugural Address
Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
October 4, 2008
Saint Meinrad School of Theology

Archbishop Daniel, Bishop Steib, Fr. Archabbot, Reverend Fathers and Deacons, Distinguished Trustees and Overseers, Representatives of universities, colleges and seminaries, Faculty, staff, seminarians and students, honoured guests. Greetings in the Lord and many thanks for your presence here today as we celebrate this inauguration, this new era in the life of Saint Meinrad School of Theology

Today we inaugurate the tenure of the fourteenth president-rector for this school of the Lord’s service, Saint Meinrad School of Theology. We are privileged to do so in the presence of three of my predecessors, Archbishop Daniel, Fr. Eugene and Fr. Mark. My only other living predecessor cannot join us today, but we must be somewhat understanding, since Fr. Theodore is 107 years old. Each of these men, in his own way has contributed to the legacy of Saint Meinrad creatively, faithfully, productively. Each of them has also realized that Saint Meinrad is more than the vision of a single person and so, I hope that today is more than the inauguration of one person, but as all inaugurations must be, the opportunity to renew the charism of an institution, the spirit of a place, and the mission of a school that has served the Church for almost 150 years. In those years, Saint Meinrad has fearlessly risen to meet the challenges that the Church has faced in good times and in not-so-good times. Saint Meinrad has responded to the needs of the Body of Christ in countless large and small ways so that the mission of the Church, the evangelical mission of Christ, might be perpetuated to the ends of the earth. Saint Meinrad has given thousands upon thousands of ministers to serve in places far and near to literally millions of men and women. It has weathered a great civil war, two world wars, two ecumenical councils, a great depression, the social upheaval of the sixties and thrived. What more can Saint Meinrad do? What more can it be?
I would like to begin my address this afternoon with a short reflection on the physical properties of sandstone. I know it seems like an odd beginning, but I hope it will make some sense, like so many things in life, if we merely look around. What are the properties of sandstone? The first one we might mention is that it is one of the most rapaciously absorbent building materials available. Everything soaks in. Building blocks of sandstone are etched with the rivulets of thousands of tempests and turmoil. For one hundred and fifty years, these sandstone walls have soaked in rain and hail, soot and dust and about a million stories. If these walls could talk! They would tell the stories of young, impressionable boys who were tossed off a wagon or a bus at the bottom of the hill and cried their first few nights away in a strange place. They would tell of adolescents struggling in the wee hours of the morning into a black cassock, or perhaps into the role it represented as they headed off for silent hours of recollection. They would tell of discoveries of the deepest secrets of the human heart, its most impenetrable longings, its confusions, discernments and debilitations. They would tell of triumph, of glory, of achievement, of anointing. They would conjugate a billion Latin verbs and a thousand lives. They would laugh and weep, rejoice and scream the limitless expressions of real men and women whose lives have been transformed. They bear scars, these walls, real scars. Sandstone absorbs and remembers.
The second property of sandstone is that it is malleable. You can carve it into anything. It yields to the tools of formation. It can be transformed into strong foundation blocks or beautiful sculpture. It is subtle and can be changed. It seems almost to change of its own volition over time. It can be made into anything. The walls of this school have endured fire and flood, hurricane and winter snow and they have given. This school has expanded to include every kind of person under the sun. It has embraced people of countless cultures, myriads of ages, complexions, temperaments and intentions. It has taken all of them in because sandstone is malleable, it changes with the times and the needs of the Church and the World. It becomes one thing for one generation and something else for the next remaining all the while resolutely itself. Sandstone shifts with the times. It is malleable.
Finally, sandstone is beautiful. It is beautiful because it is absorbent and malleable. It bears its scars well. In fact, it scars become a remarkable facet of its fabric. The walls of this school bear the unmistakable patina of experience, of hard knocks, of gentle caresseses. The sandstone of the walls of this school are etched, richly etched with the unmistakable palimpsests of idealism, promise and hope. It is the idealism of youth, the promise of the Church, the hope of Christ’s cross.
The history of this institution is written in its walls, an absorbent, beautifully aged, malleable history. But these walls do not stand as bulwarks to a formless, ideal past. They stand rather as the prow of a great ship sailing confidently into the future. We build upon the past, we honour the past, we are distinguished by the past, but the past is gone and Saint Meinrad exists for today and formation today, education today is not without its challenges. Inundated as we are in the utilitarian vision of education and, indeed, of life, we must take pause in the face of a past filled with so much bold idealism, so much promise, and so much hope. In our modern world we may often despair of what has been. We may lament that the great legacy of the Church is dead. We may decry that its message will fall on deaf ears, that, at least in Western culture, we no longer have the means of hearing the Gospel, much less of living it out. Or, if we are to hear the Gospel, it must, necessarily be a perverted Gospel, a commercialized, sanitized and soundbit Gospel. In spite of these cultural sirens, Saint Meinrad, firmly grounded in its past, remains committed to a set of truths that we have relentlessly pursued these many decades. It is these truths we must take into the future. It is my prayer, indeed it is my pledge, that the future of Saint Meinrad is solidly built upon these foundational truths, truths that we, their bearers, must now enunciate for a new generation.
The first of these truths is that people want to hear the Gospel and they want to hear the whole Gospel. In spite of what we may be told, the clarion call of faith is not dead, nor does it sleep. The ears of humanity are tuned to hear its faint signals against the ever increasing uproar of its foes, the din of so-called civilized, cyberized existence. In the recesses of the human heart there is a yearning for meaning that only Christ can give. The challenge of preaching and teaching the Gospel message today is not so much the indifference of its hearers as the lack of fortitude in its preachers. As ministers of the Gospel, we give up, we despair, we count our weakness as loss. In fact we need to attend to the true voice of conscience that cannot be stilled in each of us and hear in that voice the cry for and of the unspeakable name of God, the name that leaps across the plains of generations and through the cacophonies of history, the name that utters its forceful syllable against the violence of wars, both external and internal, the name that is now, in the fullness of time manifested in the blood-stained face of the saviour, in his searching eyes, in his patient voice entreating, admonishing us to do this, do all of this in memory of him. Flannery O’Connor once remarked: For the deaf you must speak loudly, for the blind, you must draw big pictures. People want to hear the Gospel, they are dying for it and we must be willing to believe that call if the work we do here is to make any sense at all. This must be our primary value, the source and sustenance of our mission, our daily bread.
Why? Because this Gospel is the Truth. The great folly of the post modern world is the perversion of Truth in radically devolving particularities. Truth cannot be determined by science alone. Truth cannot be established by economic legitimation alone. Truth cannot be sustained by language games alone, nor can it be merely the distillation of a social engagement that will inevitably rapidly degenerate into a sociological contagion. Rather, his Truth is firmly established in the heavens and it dictates to the earth, to quote the psalmist. Cardinal Newman remarked that people will never be satisfied with anything less than certainty. People want to hear the Gospel and they want to hear the whole Gospel
The second value we represent is that people want something challenging. They want to know that their life’s quest is meaningful. People will devote themselves to a task if they recognize in that task the ultimate concern of the great adventure. People want to do something serious with their lives. Even in a death-dealing culture, there is a respect for life, a respect for the modicum of self-respect that cannot be robbed from us by commercialism and consumerism. As Pope Benedict has said: “The knowledge of Christ is a path that demands the whole of our beings.” People want to engage the fullness of living in the paths they pursue. The intensity of our mission is a product of the intimacy of what we encounter in the Eucharist, nothing less than the living God. As the Holy Father has also noted. “The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation. More than just statically receiving the incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving.” As Christ gives himself in the Eucharist, completely and without compromise, so we are inspired to give all at the risk of compromising our understanding and appreciation of the Eucharist. We want to be challenged and Saint Meinrad, to be true to its mission, must be a place where people are challenged, challenged to be disciples, men and women of the Eucharist, challenged to move beyond the mendacity of daily irritations, challenged to be saints.
The third value that we embody is the value of community. The culture of unrelenting secularity devolves into the culture of isolation, of the human person’s increasing per-occupation with his personal loneliness. The long loneliness of the human condition ended with the sacrificial act of Christ on the cross, his blood draws us into a corporate reality. We are for each other. We cannot exist without each other. As the late Pope John Paul remarked: we are made for one another, created for one another, bound for one another. Father Von Baltahsar repeatedly remarked that the great fundamental lie of modern humanity is the loss of belief in the corporate subject, the erroneous belief that we can do it on our own. As he said in his work In the Fullness of Faith, “The loss of ability to participate in the corporate subject signifies the direct loss of Catholic instinct. Where this instinct is absent, people settle for what can be known within the parameters of the world.” If there is a message that Saint Meinrad must continually proclaim it is that we are not alone. The bonds of this community, in good times and in bad, in joy and sorrow, hope and despair, teach the world a mighty lesson. These sandstone walls engulf us in a profound reality. We are here for each other, we are part of one another because we are part of Christ, brothers and sisters untied in a common hope, not sojourners bound on other journeys. We cannot witness this value by words alone, it must be witnessed in the very fabric of our being here, woven, knitted, quilted together into a might tapestry that convinces everyone who steps on this holy ground that love is still possible, that the witness of the disciples together in one place is still possible, that unity of heart and mind is still possible, that compassion is still possible.
If these are our values, then to what will Saint Meinrad commit itself in the coming years? First, we commit ourselves to the loving formation of each person who comes here. Vivified brains or ambulatory hearts are insufficient in themselves to fulfil the great task before us. We must be people of clear heads and holy hearts. The task of ministry must touch every fibre of their being. Saint Meinrad must be a place where people leave better than when they came, regardless of the outcome of their formation. Saint Meinrad is a place to form ministers who likewise respond to the whole person, the whole community because they themselves are whole beings. Human formation is the bedrock of what we do. As Pope John Paul remarked in Pastores Dabo Vobis, If our human development is neglected or disregarded, then “the work of formation is deprived of its necessary foundation” The minister who is intelligent without emotional maturity is no minister, the minister who is good and kind but unable to explain the basic tenants of faith is no minister. Priests, deacons, lay ministers today are those who can bring the often disparate strains of the song of postmodern man into harmony. The minister today is a harbinger of harmony. We can accept nothing less.
Second we commit ourselves to formation as a way of living. Saint Meinrad is not a place to prepare ministers. It is a place to be ministers. It is not a place to train future disciples. It is a place to live discipleship. We are already into the work of ministry when we step on this hill. We learn to live with one another, put up with one another, take care of one another, love one another. We learn that the first lesson of ministry is to be here. We learn to be truly present to one another, to uphold one another, to appreciate one another. This is a school of charity. This is a school of consideration. This is a school of mercy. This is a school of being for the other.
In this regard, we also commit ourselves to the pursuit of intelligence. The obligation to be intelligent, is, as Lionel Trilling has noted, a moral obligation. In Christian ministry it is even more so. Saint Meinrad has been blessed through the years with excellent faculty members, men and women fully committed to the Gospel and to preparing quality ministers for the Church. That is a gift from God. As Archbishop Sheen noted in The Priest is not His Own: “The intellect of the priest is bread to the hungry and drink to the thirst. Our faith is the satisfaction of the soul’s desire, not the didactic presentation of a syllogism. The intellectual must meet the pastoral if true theological education is to take place. Cardinal Newman remarks:

This process of training, by which the intellect, instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study or science, is disciplined for the sake of others, for the perception of its proper object, and for its highest culture; it is the standard of excellence.

Third, and most significantly, we commit our selves to prayer. The truth of all this frantic action only comes home in the intimacy of a life inundated with prayer. Prayer is our communion, our living breath, our blood. It connects us to the source of who we are, as Fr. Guardini remarked: “Prayer creates that open, moving world, transfused by energy and regulated by reason. Behind it is the history of all cultures, interwoven with humanity. It is an arch of the sacred room of revelation where the Truth of the living God is made known to us.” Prayer is our way of life and unites all of the varying actions of our lives together into a living edifice, a solid wall of stone, stone that is malleable, absorbent and beautiful. I cannot lead this school except on my knees. Our staff and faculty cannot do what they do, except on their knees. We cannot learn except humbly on our knees. We will be a community on our knees, in perpetual adoration of the source of our being, in fundamental thanksgiving for the gifts we have received in every heartbeat, in every word spoken, in every act of love. If we can do that then we will fulfil the goal of our existence. As Helen Keller once said: “It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.”
Finally, in all of these things, we commit ourselves to excellence, the Greek virtue of Arete. Excellence in all things is our goal and our guide. Excellence in the great arcs of formation and in the minute details of daily existence. Excellence, in our context cannot be accidental. It is purposeful and driven. It must be the reason for our living. Each person here, no matter what role he or she may fulfill, is called to fulfill that role with integrity and excellence. Excellence that is habitual, continual, and purposeful fulfills in us as individuals and as a community of faith a sense of self-esteem worthy of the dignity of the sons and daughters of God. Mediocrity, half heartedness, a spirit of the mundane have no place at Saint Meinrad. We are called to nothing less than the excellence of sanctity, growing in holiness and fulfilling our destiny in Christ. In this pursuit we cannot doubt that the great legacy of the Church is alive. We can be assured that the message of the Gospel will fall on anxious ears, that, we will have the means of hearing the Gospel, and living it out in the daily joys of discipleship.
Why? Why to all of this effort, all of this commitment? Because the Church deserves the best priests and permanent deacons and lay ministers The Church deserves intelligent, healthy, creative, prayerful, loving ministers. The Church deserves ministers who can work with them and for them in evangelizing our world about the Good News we preach. And when the Church has quality ministers, the faithful are enriched, built up like living blocks of stone, strong and beautiful, able to weather the vicissitudes of these tumultuous times, stones of living faith built into a solid temple. That is Saint Meinrad.
Twenty years ago this summer a 25 year old man drove up this hill. He was young, energetic, a little scared, thin and had lots of hair. He was trying something, trying his vocation as a priest. He was unsure, nervous but also full of hope. It didn’t take long for the blessings, the mystery of Saint Meinrad to take hold in that young man’s life. He lived within these sandstone walls. He prayed, he learned, he worked, he cried, he argued, he became frustrated, he was consoled, he pleaded with God, he laughed, he made friends for a lifetime and he became attached to a place, Saint Meinrad, a place that was ultimately not only a school and a place to learn the skills of ministry, but a home. He was transformed by Saint Meinrad. Saint Meinrad made him the man he would become. Twenty years later that energetic, scared, thin and hopeful young man has become the fourteenth president-rector of this School of Theology. But my story is not an unusual story, in fact, my story is a story I hear every day.
One of the great privileges of my new work is to hear how Saint Meinrad has made a difference, a REAL difference in the lives of so many men and women around the world. It is a privilege to know that we are still preaching the Gospel, that we are still providing the challenge of people’s lives, that we are still doing that in the cradling boughs of community life. It is a privilege to have you here this weekend, not to celebrate the fourteenth president-rector, but to celebrate our school, our alma mater, this unique and holy place called Saint Meinrad. God bless you for your presence and your patience. Pray for us as we pray for you each day. God keep you. Mary, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.

[This evening, our brothers in Fourth Theology, made promises in anticipation of their ordinations as deacons next month. We continue to pray for them. This is the homily]

But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace to me has not been ineffective.

Brothers and sisters tonight we hear the word of God in a deep and poignant way as we observe our brothers who will soon be transformed by their ordination to the diaconate. Tonight they make promises that they intend to keep for life.

Keeping a promise for life is a rare enough commodity in our world today. Every day we witness, many of us first-hand, the ephemeral nature of families, marriages, religious vocations. We see the struggles our brothers and sisters around us make in keeping commitments. We all know something of both the statistics and the real human toll those statistics take.

But these men are here to make promises, nevertheless. They stand here tonight; they place their hands on the Book of God’s World. They sign their names on the altar. It is an impressive moment, an everlasting moment in a transitory world.

Perhaps they need a warning, or encouragement, or some sort of fervereno.
Perhaps they do, but I have no such warnings for them tonight.

What I need to say to them, I have already said to them, so tonight I would like to address some challenges to us, all of us, concerning the act they undertake tonight.

What are these men doing? Tonight they are taking the final definitive step in joining their lives to a greater purpose. For years, they have pursued the sometimes flighty specter of vocation. They have studied, prayed, been formed, talked to spiritual directors and counselors, ministered, they have cried and laughed and relaxed and labored and, well frankly, also complained, fought, grumbled, procrastinated, doubted and shirked responsibilities. They have, in other words, been fully human and yet, tonight, they are proposing to unite that humanity to God’s will in a bond that cannot be broken. They propose to become deacons and then priests and there is no more exalted calling to which they respond because there is no greater need in the world than the need for what they will give in their future ministry. Can they do it on their own? No …
But by the grace of God they are what they are,
and his grace to them has not been ineffective.

Look to these men, because, tonight in a public act they are asking us to look to them.

Look to these men and see in them icons of God’s love, his love poured out in the sacrificial offering of Christ. Look at their frail and winsome personalities and see the torn body of our Lord. Look at their embattled spirits and see his life sweated in the blood of Gethsemane

Look to these men and see in them the possibility of an eternal commitment, of a lasting promise, of a reversal of all the sad history of brokenness and the bitter pain wrought by infidelity.

Look to these men and find in them your inspiration and hope, If you are a seminarian, seek to be what they have become. In their promises, they are pledging to be your guides and mentors, to offer you an example of what is possible.
For by the grace of God they are what they are,
and his grace to them has not been ineffective.

Look to these men and seek in their faces God’s promise, God’s fidelity, God’s pledge of eternal presence. See in them your own dreams for they are bearers of the dream of all humanity. See in them the joy of Christ instead of the bitterness and rancor of the world. See in them the peace of God rather than the eternal strife of the spirit, see in them love. They want to be ambassadors of love in a hate strewn landscape. They are loving men, we all know that. But united if God’s love they become more than what they might have been.

Look to these men and see the Church, its ancient history and its ancient wounds professed in words that echo down the corridors of time in every human language. I believe in One God.

Look to these men and see all our brothers and sisters who hunger for dignity and bread, who labor under the yoke of tyranny, who are beset by violence, who are besieged by terrorism, who are controlled by addictions, who are torn by every kind of ism. See the worn eyes of the starving mother cradling her child, see the broken hands of the migrant worker unjustly paid, see the tired feet of the fleeing refugee.

See God in them because by their promise tonight, that is what they want to show.
That there is something more important in life than the passing flotsam and jetsam of seminary politics.
What an amazing vision and so it is good that
by the grace of God they are what they are,
and his grace to them has not been ineffective.

Tonight these men make promises for life, they are icons for us but I challenge all of us here to also make promises to them. Perhaps our deacon promises should be less about what they do and more about what we do.

Let us make an oath of fidelity to them, an oath to hold them accountable in every way for the promises they make. An oath to scrutinize their actions for any vestiges of half-heartedness or hypocrisy

Let us make a Profession of Faith with them, faith that they can be what they have been called to be, that they can persevere, that they can be beacons of faith, hope and love in a darkened world. And faith that we will love them, stand by them and support them.

Let us bond their Declaration of Freedom to our own as each of us, in his or her own way, continue to pursue the King of Love, the Prince of Peace, the Spirit of Joy, the God of Wonder with open hearts, clear minds, and grateful spirits

And let us promise to stand with them and
Give thanks to the Lord for he is good
Eucharistia
Give thanks to the Lord for he is good

Brothers and sisters, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, in calling these men, these frail, sinful, amazing, heroic men who stand before us tonight to proclaim with us ...

But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace to me has not been ineffective.