Conference II – Spring 2013 In the opening conference for Lent, I spent a great deal of time on the infancy narrative of Saint Luke, using Pope Benedict’s exegesis to advance our understanding of not only the Gospel, but hopefully, our lives in the Gospel. I hope you have had the opportunity to read through at least some of the pages of the Holy Father’s book. It is a short book filled with wisdom. It is a book that provides us with some particularly powerful reflections for our vocations in this Lenten season by focusing as it does on the common vocation of humanity, the call to fulfill the will of God found in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Today I will turn to the consideration of the Gospel passages from St. Matthew which likewise tell the early story of Jesus in a paschal cast. Matthew’s Gospel begins with the genealogy. He is intent upon establishing the Davidic connection, but beyond that, the connection back to Abraham indeed to the whole of Israel. By contrast, St. Luke, in his gentile context, wishes to connect Jesus through his genealogy with Adam and Eve, the first parents. Matthew is a Jewish Gospel filled to overflowing with references to the prophets, of which Jesus is the fulfillment. Matthew’s genealogy however, goes beyond the formal structure in mentioning the roles played by women. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and the wife of Uriah, known from the Old Testament as Bathsheba. These women share a common trait, not usually introduced in genealogical genres; they are problematic from a sexual point of view. These women introduce a sort of twistedness to the narrative, the kind that might have been seen as inherent in the rather radical situation of Mary and Joseph. God writes straight with crooked lines and while the names of many women of the Old Testament have disappeared (we do not know for example the name of King David’s mother) these women continue to inspire generations because of their role in the history, but also because of their being real broken people that God has used in his divine plan. We know Mary and Joseph’s situation, but I daresay their contemporaries did not and undoubtedly winked their eyes at this singular couple. In keeping with St. Matthew’s theme of Jewish heritage, in his Gospel, the annunciation is made to Joseph. The angel’s message begins with an important imperative: Do not be afraid. I daresay it is a message we need to hear in these days. In these days of transition in the leadership of the Church, naturally we become a bit anxious. What will our new pope be like? What will the character of his pontificate be? These are questions that effect us not only as a Church but in another sense as individuals. Certainly our anxieties about the larger Church are present, but we deal everyday will other fears as well. We deal with the fear of not fitting in, of not living up to the realities of formation. We deal with the fear of failure in our vocations. We live with the fear that we are not communicating well. We live with the fear of transitions. The message of the angel to St. Joseph is also a message to us: Do not be afraid. In the opening conference I said these words about St. Joseph. Perhaps they bear repeating today in this context: The love of Joseph was so profound and intimate it offered to the child Jesus the basic needs of bodily and spiritual care. The love of Joseph was a self-less love, a love that put the needs of the body of Christ before his own needs and in that as well he offers us an important example. We see that love of Joseph in this image powerful and intimate as it is. Joseph is strong Joseph is tender Joseph is nurturing The infant is accepting The infant is in need The infant depends upon the foster father. The infant is Christ and Christ is the Church and we are Joseph We are Joseph, although in the Gospel of St. Matthew he goes about his work and never opens his mouth. Unlike St. Luke, the Gospel does not focus on the words and actions of Mary and Joseph. Matthew’s Gospel focuses, rather ironically on the non-Jewish participants in Jesus’ birth narrative, the magi. The Holy Father focuses a good bit of attention to these central players in the drama. The “three wise men” (we do not know how many there actually were) are an ambiguous lot. Pope Benedict points out that there are four distinct meanings of the word magi in the Biblical world. The first refers to the Persian priests of the religion of Zoroaster. In this context, we have St. Matthew following a Lucan paradigm of having “the nations” acknowledge the birth of the newborn King. This understanding of magi was well known in the ancient world. Even Aristotle speaks of the ideals of the magi as possessors of universal knowledge. There are, however, other meanings of magi in the New Testament. More generically, magi are the possessors and users of supernatural knowledge. More concretely they are magicians. Finally, they are also deceivers as seen with the case of the magus in the Acts of the Apostles. Pope Benedict favors the first meaning, but the other meanings, that is the Gentile world of priests, officials, charmers and, yes, some charlatans might have made their way to Bethlehem to see the child foretold by the star. Of course, the magi brought gifts. What wise person would not under such auspicious signs? The gifts represent so much. Gold, the sign of empire and kingship. Frankincense the sign of divinity. With these two images, St. Matthew is drawing the incarnational paradigm together. He is human and divine. With the third gift, myrrh, however, he is doing something else. He is connecting the infancy narrative to the passion narrative because myrrh is the embalming ointment. In Matthew chapter 26 verse 7 we read: a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at the table. This anointing, again a presentment of the burial is already itself prefigured in the born to die scenario of St. Matthew’s infancy narrative. In St. Matthew’s Gospel the wise men also make a very important stop in the court of King Herod, announcing their purpose to him. Pope Benedict speaks of the troubled nature of the court at this time and indeed of the very disturbed nature of the people of Israel. Herod was, at best, a puppet king. He could barely stand, without significant compromise against the powers of Rome, much less on his own accord. He was threatened. Matthew’s point in bringing the magi to court is to demonstrate Herod’s weakness. Even these pagan philosophers know you are on your last legs, Herod. And so it is. The King of Kings will rise like a star and supplant, not only Herod, but Augustus as well. Like those of Herod’s time, like even Herod himself, we can often become entangled in the maudlin concerns of petty political authority. We are wrapped up in whether or not this or that political entity will gain power or lose power. What does Matthew propose? An infant stands at the center of human history. That infant will grow to manhood. He will suffer and die. He will rise again. He will ascend. He will return and he will shame the powers of this world with their petty concerns. The thrones of the mighty he will put to waste. Do not place your trust in mortal men, mortal men in whom there is no help. Place your trust in the infant of Bethlehem. In his Angelus message last Sunday the Holy Father asked an important, indeed a central question: During the decisive moments of our lives, and in fact at every moment, we are in front of a crossroads: Do we want to follow the I or God? The individual interest or the true good, that which really is the good?" This is what St. Matthew proposes. A number of years ago, Abbey press produced a Christmas card that said: Wise men still seek him. How true. The wise still seek him, in fact such a quest is the marker of wisdom. How can we have any wisdom if the source of wisdom is not the root of it? In this seminary, an institution devoted to higher learning and to the exploration of faith, we must mark that our true wisdom and only wisdom comes from God. But it also comes through the ministry of human beings. We can be and should be devoted to intellectual pursuits, but often true wisdom is found not in books or in the conversation about books, but in human warmth, in kindness, in the desire to and the sacrifice to walk a thousand miles to look upon the face of Truth. True wisdom comes in small things, in the shaking of hands, in the small smiles of acknowledgement. Brothers and sisters, there is gold in goodness, there is precious incense in words offered up in support and praise for another, there is priceless balm in simple acts of love that sooth the ache of mortality, the sting of death. Our only wisdom comes from seeking him to the point that all other pursuits are mere traversals of the desert of dissolution. Wise men still seek him; please let it be so with us. Out of Egypt, I have called my Son. The last pericope of the infancy narrative in St. Matthew’s Gospel involves a typically Matthean connection, the relationship between the journey of Jesus and the journey of the historical people of Israel. St. Matthew’s Jesus needed to go to Egypt so that, like his ancestry before him he could be called back to the Promised Land as the Savior of History. As Pope Benedict remarks, the purpose of this event is to unlock the meaning of the entire event. St. Joseph, once again a dreamer listens to the voice of the Lord. Once within Egypt, he hears God’s voice again. The obvious implication is twofold. On the one hand, Joseph is merely an instrument of the will of the Father. On the other hand, the Father is concerned that all of the prophecies relating to Jesus should be fulfilled. Out of Egypt, I have called my Son. The country in Biblical terms is the image of slavery, the image of the human person, represented initially by the other Joseph who was created good, who was a true human person. This Joseph in his progeny has been enslaved just as the human person has been enslaved. Egypt is not only a place, it is a condition. It is the human condition, born good but made corrupt by a slavery to sin. Moses is the new Joseph-in-reverse. He calls his people out of Egypt through the hand of Moses. He calls us out of Egypt by the leadership of Jesus. There are many kinds of slavery. Of course we know the evils of physical slavery, slavery of the body, a slavery that even in our advanced world has not been completely eradicated. There are other types of slavery, more subtle and thereby, in some ways, more diabolical. Some are enslaved by their passions, some secret and some more obvious. We are enslaved when we live a life of secrecy and hiddeness. We are enslaved when we find ourselves reined in by actions and behaviors that are beyond our control. We enslaved when we devote too much time to meaningless activities at the expense of broadening the freedom of our minds. We are enslaved when we obsess about trivialities in our lives or in the lives of our facebook “friends” at the expense of acknowledging the real issues which inundate us daily. We are enslaved when we become, through our own actions creatures of comfort and mindless entertainment. We are enslaved when we obsess over our hurts and pains and fail to realize the worlds of other crumbling around us. There are many kinds of slavery and all of us are subject to them at various times. But there is no slavery more insidious than the slavery of one who thinks he or she is free in the exercise of enslaving sin. Brothers and sisters, Moses came out of Egypt. Jesus came out of Egypt. We are invited to come out of Egypt, not through our own actions but through the saving power of the one who has made the journey himself, the infant never subject to the slavery of Egypt who rescues us from that same slavery. The pope points out that the image of Egypt in Matthew’s Gospel is a paschal image. It is tied to the Jewish Passover, the Seder, and the remembrance of where we were so that we can celebrate where we are. It draws the reader of Jesus’ youth into the drama of his Passover; a Passover soon to be lived out in the Gospel itself, a Passover soon to be relived in our movement through Holy Week and Easter. The past and the future are conflated in the infancy narratives, in the passion narratives, in the Jewish narrative and in our narrative. We are a people obsessed with the past, but in a rotten way. William Faulkner once said, “the past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past”. True words for a post-Freudian, post-Salinger culture. We lock onto the past as a way of explaining the present. We hook onto things in our youth in order to explain our current inadequacies. We are obsessed with reading the genograms of determinism. The conflation of past and present in the Paschal Mystery however tells us something significant. We are all products of our past, our hurts, our injuries, our sins, our habits. We are never reducible to our past. There is a future. Out of Egypt I have called my sons and daughters. Back in my day in the seminary, we didn’t have YouTube, or facebook, or whatever. We did have our little viral videos however, but they were harder to disseminate. One such viral video that hit the seminary community in my formative years was from an old show that most of you have never heard of. “Designing Women” Like the “Walking Dead”; a group of us watched it every week. In the show, one of the characters, Charlene, is about to give birth to her baby on New Year’s Eve, 1989. While her friends are supporting her in the hospital they encounter an old woman who is dying, Minnie Belle Ward. As the characters talk to this icon of the Twentieth Century, Minnie Belle says many profound things, but the most profound is this: “Ain’t nobody, nowhere, living no dream life.” In all my years of priesthood, this is one of the most enduring lessons I have learned, and it was wrought from a sitcom. No one is living a perfect life. No one is living a dream life. And yet we are told that we should be, that we can be. Every human life is filled with joy and sadness. Every life is a complicated life. Every life is mixed. Every human life is encrusted with gladness and happiness and with misery and pain. Every one of us had a traumatic childhood, a difficult adolescence. We must acknowledge that, embrace that, and use that. We must move over our pain to the joy of Israel, the joys of the resurrection. Our personal Lents become conduits for our future happiness, and they become, for us, the instruments by which we can unite our hearts with the many broken hearts we will encounter. If we can move beyond our personal Egypts, there is a story to tell, it is a story of hope and perseverance. It is a grand story. It is a divine story. Out of Egypt I have called my son. Brothers and sisters let us get out of Egypt. Let us use this Lent to set aside all of those binding forces that hold us fast to the slavery of selfishness and self-centeredness, and self-doubt. Let us use this Lent to put away the crutches of our crippled natures and walk with every growing strength into the bright promise afforded us in this time of passing over. I go back to the question I asked at the beginning of Lent: What do you plan to be when you come to the other side of Egypt? Perhaps more importantly we might as: Am I prepared for what the Lord is calling me to be on the other side of my personal Egypt? Brothers and sisters we move forward in this Lenten season, filled with triumphs and setbacks. We move forward to that moment of glory when we shall at last penetrate the darkness of the purgatorial cloud in which we reside and see God in the company of his saints, including that Most Gracious Lady upon whom we cast all of our cares.

Humans, Christians. perhaps especially Catholics need occasions. We Catholics like a little spectacle, a little sense of being special, a little ceremony and Lent is just such an occasion. And all of us who have been at this for a while, know for what it is the occasion. This is the time for change. Listen to the readings: Blow the trumpet in Zion! proclaim a fast, call an assembly; Gather the people, notify the congregation; Assemble the elders, gather the children It’s dramatic! It’s powerful! It’s stupendous, but is it meaningful? There is no doubt, historically, liturgically, presently, that the Church has set aside Lent for one purpose, our improvement. To what end? I remember a few years ago when I was a junior in the monastery. Abbot Lambert gave a stirring pre-Lenten conference on purging. It was inspiring. All of the juniors rushed to their cells and started chucking out extra clothing, books, artworks, linens, pillows, everything. The monastery give away shelf creaked from all of these Lent-purged goods. And then, day by day, the things started disappearing. Cells became repopulated with extra clothing, books, artworks, linens, pillows, everything. There was a bit of exchange, but I would wager, no net loss. Is that Lent? A bit of exchange, no net loss. Isn’t that often the case? We have the best intentions, but as we plough, or perhaps more accurately shuffle through the forty days and forty nights, well, we learn. But what does the Church teach us? It teaches us that: Lent is a time for renewal, for bringing into sharp focus our Christian commitment, even the commitment of those of us who are already quite immersed in the life of faith. Lent is a time for becoming better, becoming different, becoming more perfect, becoming more generous. It is a time of more, not less. Lent is a time for new hearts, and new lives, and new attitudes Lent is a time for something, namely our old habits and sins, to fall away, and for that new creation, which is the life of Christ, to be enkindled in us. Brothers and sisters, We need occasions and today we stand on the threshold of another Lent. What will this Lent be for us? Will it be mere tokenism? Or will it be a time to truly probe at the heart of my condition? Will it be a time of pious lies? Or will it be a time to firmly tell the truth about myself to myself? Will it be another silly season? Or will my life be truly transformed this Lent into the glory of Easter? Will it be nothing? Or will it be something, or perhaps everything, or perhaps life altering? How about or? Can we see this season of Lent as it was seen in the ancient Church, as a time to change our lives completely To live for Christ in the glory of his coming among us in so many ways To live for the Church in the fullness of its teachings To live for this community with a spirit of hope and forbearance To live each other in a meaningful attitude of love, of brotherly love and charity To live with our co-workers in a spirit of respect and kindness. Working together, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says: In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. Now is the acceptable time for renewal. That is the radical day of salvation, a day that is here. It is now. Brothers and sisters, I propose that Lent is a radical season. Touching at the radix, the root of our experience. It is a season in which everything must change, everything must grow, everything must be rethought. It is a season of expectation in which the promise of resurrection really exists. Do we expect to rise on Easter as transformed, radically transformed people or do we expect to just go back to the damnable malaise of a conventional faith? Let us begin this Lent with radical hearts, radical for grace, radical for conversion, radically ready to be fed first in this Eucharistic banquet, and then by the banquet of a life, fully lived.

Today brothers and sisters, we stand near the threshold of another Lent, another Holy Week, another Easter. More than in our fall formation term, the Spring term replicates for us the dynamics of formation in the liturgical season. We witness in this term the challenges of a life of holiness in our Lenten struggles. We witness the unfolding of our ordained lives in the reality of nature’s reawakening. We witness the glory of Easter joy in the Rite of Ordination celebrated in the context of this community during the Octave of Easter. We witness the passing of days in graduation and we hope for a new horizon, a bright tomorrow as we anticipate the coming Holy Spirit in Pentecost. The paschal mystery that unfolds for us so palpably in these coming days is the same mystery we have just celebrated in the solemn rites of Christmas, Epiphany and the baptism of the Lord. The mystery of the Lord is one, celebrated in a myriad of ways. In my conferences this semester, that is, in the second set of conferences for the Year of Faith, I would like to try something bold. I would like to elucidate a kind of twisting motion in our comprehension of faith. Our Holy Father Pope Benedict recently published a book completing his consideration of the life and ministry of Christ. The latest book deals with the earliest years of the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh, recounted in the so-called infancy narratives of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and in a more mystical way in the prologue of the Gospel of St. John. In the conferences, I want to connect the thought and reflections of the Holy Father with our own experience in the season of Lent, as well as what we are anticipating in the season of Easter and beyond. The Incarnation is the singular event in human history. This is a truth I believe about which we do not need to be apologetic. The coming of the Word made Flesh, the Splendor of God’s fullness is something that has changed the world. Repeatedly in the Gospels, beginning with the infancy narratives, we are confronted with a rather decisive image of the sovereignty of Jesus. Jesus is Lord. He initiates by his breaking into the kronos of human history a new reality, a new order. We are likewise called to a specific agency in that order. What do we expect that our faith will yield, even those of us called in this most specific way to life and service in the Church? Do we expect to have but a little influence, a little change, a minute remuneration, the perpetuation of a small vision? Or do we expect revolution? I think the Holy Father is holding out a significant truth in his reflections on these Gospel passages. Expect revolution. Expect the world to change. Expect your lives and your spheres of influence to be transformed. Expect to pour out your lives in generous service to the truth of the Word. Brothers and sisters, we are not here to make our lives more comfortable through the application of what we might perceive as the soothing salve of the Gospel. We are here to die if necessary to make the world the Kingdom of Christ, just as He died to make the world a better place. Do we have this courage? Do we have the courage to read the narratives of Jesus’ birth in light of the full revelation of the suffering, dying and rising Lord, rather than the insipid, commercial twinkling lights of Christmas trees? This ideal leads us to the insight that the celebrations of Christmas are celebrations of the whole event of Jesus. What do we encounter at the crib? Pope Benedict comments that “the child stiffly wrapped in bandages is seen as a prefiguring of the hour of his death; from the onset he is the sacrificial victim.” This close connection between the birth and death of Christ is highly significant. How do we view the paschal event? Do we see it as merely the happenings of the last week of Jesus’ life? I think not. We see it rather has his reason for being, a reality proclaimed powerfully in the infancy narratives. He was born to die. We see it in the swaddling clothes. We see it in the cave in which he was born, a cave that likewise will receive his body in death. In this context, “the manger is seen as a kind of altar.” Pope Benedict goes on to connect the manger with the thought of St. Augustine for whom Christ is the true bread come down from heaven. He makes himself food for us. “Thus the manger becomes a reference to the table of God.” As the pope points out, there is no direct reference to the presence of animals in this scene in St. Luke’s Gospel, except for the passive reference to the manger. However, our thoughts go to the ox and ass, which are mentioned in the Old Testament prophecy of Habakuk: “In the midst of two living creatures you will be recognized.” (Habakuk, 3,2). The ox and ass in primitive symbolism represent the Jews and the Gentiles. Here in the crib they bow before the Lord, but there is also another danger, the danger that, because He is in their feedbox they may devour Him. And they will in the end. Humanity will first consume the Son of Man in the conflagration of the cross and then, by his will, in the Holy Eucharist. The whole world, ox and ass, will recognize the Savior. What do we encounter at the crib? An interesting take on this question can be found in the paintings completed by the early renaissance painter, Fra Angelico, for the friary of San Marco in Florence. Very famously, the painter carried out a series of small frescos for each cell in the friary, illuminating each one with a mystery of Christ’s life. In the fresco depicting the birth of Jesus, He is shown born in a cave with a rectangular feedbox sticking forward into the pictorial space. Jesus is lying on the ground in front of this arrangement, quite alone. Mary, Joseph stand far away. They do not seem to know what to do with the newborn King. He is isolated and alone, representing his ontological reality. In the second fresco, there is a change. The cave is now devoid of its stable qualities. The “feedbox” is now the tomb awaiting the Savior who has been newborn on the cross. The women no longer stand at a distance; they are cradling the body of Jesus who, in the repose of death, is in the same position as the infant in the nativity scene. Fra Angelico understood the close connection between the birth and death of Jesus, the Man, the God born to die. The unknown of the cave, the manger, the tomb is reconciled by the presence of Christ, whom we too can embrace, can make an intimate part of ourselves. There is only one reason for his being born among us and that is to die at our hands. There is only one reason for Him to die at our hands, and that is to be reborn among us and draw us into his life, draw us more intimately and deeply every day. When we authentically celebrate the birth of Jesus, we celebrate it every day. Every day Christ is born for us and every day he suffers and dies. Every day the angels announce his birth, and every day they cower at his death. Every day is Christmas and every day Holy Week and Easter. It is impossible to imagine the meaning of one without the other. How does St. Luke employ the meaning of the birth of Jesus in a paschal cast? The Holy Father goes on to address the question of the shepherds in St. Luke’s story. The shepherds are the first to hear the Good News of Jesus birth? Who were they? On the one hand, they stand out as inheritors of the mantle of David. The shepherds are, like the Messiah, in the line of David. Yet, shepherds in Jesus’ time had a different reputation, standing as they did on the fringes of society. They were suspicious to the Pharisaical order because the nature of their profession prohibited them from fully observing the Sabbath. They are “fringe” people, nomads and wanderers. Yet to these the angels announce the message. These are the ones who will first go to adore the manger-born child. This is a prefigurement of the Savior who came not to save the righteous but sinners. Again, the shepherds provide a nescient clue to the future career of Jesus. Jesus has come to save those outside the law, a message that could not have been lost on St. Luke’s gentile audience. Jesus, from the crib, reaches out to the disenfranchised. The pope goes on to speak of the hymn sung by the angels to the shepherds. “Glory to God in the Highest and peace on earth to men of good will.” This is the first hymn of the incarnation. Angels have appeared to shepherds. The highest to the lowest. Like the annunciation scene, angels have come to employ the lowest of the earth for the greatest of tasks, the heralding of the new King. This is the economy of salvation as told by St. Luke, as imagined by God in Christ. God and humanity are connected in a great act of the divine will. The lowly of the earth are made heralds, angels. The divine/human connection is formed in a baby lying in a nearby manger. The muteness of Israel symbolized in the father of John the Baptist, Zachariah, is sung forth in the new dispensation, which includes shepherds, and oxen and asses, and gentiles, and the lowly of the earth, and us. Once they receive the message, the angels do what Mary did – they make haste to go. This is the common theme of St. Luke. Discipleship moves just as the infant John leapt in the womb of his mother, Elizabeth. Once we have incorporated Good News, like Mary and like the angels, we must do something about it. We must go with Jesus; we must go with Him all the way to Jerusalem, the cross and beyond. The infant Jesus becomes the man of sorrows. The warmth of Christmas is recast in a negative light if we can welcome the infant with joy and yet fail to welcome with equal fervor the man of sorrows. We have not celebrated Christmas if we have not welcomed the man of sorrows. We have not understood the meaning of Christmas if we have not understood its telos, its goal and end. The same thing can be said of us. We have not understood the priestly life if we think of it only in the rosy glow of ordination. If you think things are difficult for you here, believe me, brothers, there is a great deal more to come. What does the man of sorrows teach us here? There is sorrow in the world, but it is not what we perceive as sorrow. I do not want you to be formed here to be what the English call a swot. The Church has no need for any more little boys pretending to be little men, little boys who need external props to shore up their lack of manhood. Brothers, there is nothing wrong with lace, but if you are depending upon lace to give life to your priesthood, there is no priesthood there. Priesthood is authentic manhood. Priesthood is a willingness to face the world’s real problems and real issues and we are able to do this because we have faced the real problems, real issues and real sorrow in ourselves. We must be prepared to have compassion on the world, to suffer with the world, which comes not from clever disguises but from a true and sincere contrition before God for our sins. It comes from a desperate truthfulness about my brokenness of uniting myself with the sufferings of the crib and the cross. It comes from finding in myself the poverty of Bethlehem. It comes from sharing myself with the lowly of the world. It comes from knowing that the true vision of life does not come from a privileged place at the altar as much as from the broken, blurred vision of the altar seen from the cobblestones of the streets of Jerusalem in the way of the cross. If you are only concerned with how you are to dress and what you are to do, grow up and see how much the world needs the bleeding Jesus, anticipated in the infant Jesus. Learn to suffer with the majority of humanity and then you will have learned the truth of the priesthood you hope to exemplify. There is danger in our midst, but not what we perceive as danger. Satan has a way of working with us. Think of us as the proprietors of a theatre. Satan is the impresario. He shows us a play about ourselves, a puppet show. It is simple. It has only one theme. We are, however, engrossed in the show. We believe the show. We believe that there is no reality but that which is in the show and, while we are engrossed in this fantasy, he burns down the theatre around us. Ask yourself this: How obsessed am I with a single sin? Does most of my penitential reflection consist of one thing? If that is so, Satan has triumphed. He has not triumphed in our sin; he has triumphed in convincing us that we are reducible to that sin. Satan loves reduction. He loves one faceted-ness. We are sinners, but in many ways. We are also holy in many ways. We must learn to balance the sin and the holy to see our lives lived out in the entire theatre of life and not merely as a play that a crude director wishes to show us. The danger that exists among us is not what we do, it is not even in what the world in its corrupt secularism compels us or encourages us to do. The danger that exists among us is our ultimate belief that we are reducible to one thing. It is not so. The instinct of holiness is that there is more here than meets the eye, especially in me. The real sin that Satan wants to compel in us is hypocrisy. He wants to show us that we pretended to be something that we are not. He wants to convince us that we are not good and holy, because we do X or Y. Brothers and sisters, we ARE hypocrites. We know that. We do not deserve what we have been given. Can we accept being forgiven? Satan wishes to instill in our hearts the reality that we cannot be forgiven, that sin is unforgiveable, when, in point of fact, there is only one unforgiveable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, Satan’s ultimate triumph, that is, to place our despair in his hands and abandon hope. The message of Christmas, living as it does in Lent and Easter, is that hope is always alive in our belief that things will change, that we are not reducible to this or that. There is also promise in our world, but perhaps not what we as yet perceive as promise. The joy of Christmas enlightens the sorrows of Lent, but it also anticipates the greatness of Easter. What is the greatness of Easter? It is the uniting, little by little, our increasing, daily increasing, holiness with the paschal joy of Christ. The greatness of Easter is in finding ourselves not having endured the rigors of Lent, but of seeing the rigors of Lent as something that brings us further along, a little further along in sharing his triumph. Inch by inch, we creep forward such that our lives begin to mirror the arduous journey to Bethlehem or the way of the cross. We find in our lives our own events of Incarnation, our own stations of the cross. We pour ourselves out, year by year, in the oblation of self-gift so that we can be remade in His Image, the crib and the cross, our spiritual infancy united to his spiritual triumph and, by grace, eventually to our own in the joy of heaven.

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels. Well, I suppose there is a kind of entertainment in the Gospel today. My grandmother had a saying when commenting on a particularly insalubrious establishment. She would say: I wouldn’t be caught dead there. Undoubtedly the same is true of St. John the Baptist in today’s Gospel. Think how far the court of the decadent Herod is from the desert of John the Baptist, that singular prophetic voice crying in the wilderness. On the one hand, we have Herod, the puppet king married to his brother’s wife. Herod the instrument of the Roman Empire, selling his own people for the value of entertainment Herod the Jew whose very existence made a mockery of the Law of Israel Herod the traitor, the schemer, Herod the duplicitous Herod the tragic end of the Davidic line, a line soon to be redeemed by its Maker, by the living God, by one not soiled by the temptations of the world. Herod who represents the fall of Judaism in such graphic terms so that we ask: Is the wilderness rather Herod’s court, that den of lasciviousness where even in death his voice cries out as a sign of contradiction. And John John the faster, John the baptizer, John the fearless preacher, John the last prophet, John the stranger to comfort, John the man of boldness, John the counter cultural sign With this outrageous scene we encounter in today’s Gospel, we see the obvious, the blatant contradiction that a life of the flesh and a life of the Spirit portend. Brothers and sisters, no matter what we may think, no matter how many passes at compromise we have made, we cannot live in two worlds We cannot inhabit the wilderness of John, a wilderness that casts into stark contrast the meaning of our lives, of our life and death, we cannot inhabit that wilderness of sanctity And the richness of Herod’s court, a richness lived out in the luxury of materialism We cannot live a life of asceticism, of prayer and denial, a life shown to us in every page of the Holy Word of God, a life of intimacy and closeness with Christ, with the almighty Father, with the Holy Spirit. We cannot live that life and enjoy And the base seeming richness of a cyber life, a second life, a pretend life We cannot live as authentic men and women of the Gospel And live into the damnable compromise of the world, a world devoid of God, a world dancing itself into oblivion. We must not. The life of St. John the Baptist was poured out on the sacrificial stone of compromise. He refused to compromise and it cost him his life. But even in this grotesque scene, it is apparent what is the horror and what is the angel entertained unknowingly. How far can we go? How far will we go with Christ? Perhaps it is a question we must ask, standing as we do on the threshold of another Lent. My grandmother would never have been caught dead in some places. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps that is the way we must go. Why can’t the words of the letter to the Hebrews be our motto for living: Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.

From a tiny seed, a giant tree takes its root. Indulge me a little as I reflect upon my recent experience with our fourth year seminarians in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. We went there almost every day for mass. In entering the church, who would not be overwhelmed? The grandeur of the late Renaissance and baroque art complements the profound historical significance of the place, resting as it does over the humble tomb of the Prince of the Apostles. Everywhere in the world’s largest church the glint of gold and silver, the interplay of marbles and exotic stone from around the world, swirled together into a symphony of design. Even today one moves through the expanse of the place in awe of the mind of man. My favorite spot however is not the great baldachino of Bernini or the tombs of the popes, or Michelangelo’s youthful masterpiece the pieta. It is rather at the very end of the Church, resting before the altar of the chair, Bernini’s almost embarrassingly grandiose reliquary for the humble chair of Peter. As you enter into this area there are two steps made of porphyry, a purple stone. They are remnants of the old St. Peter’s built in the fourth century by the emperor Constantine. They are worn down. They are many times repaired, plugged, patched. Two simple steps, but if those steps could speak. Those steps are almost 2000 years old. Over those steps have walked hundreds of popes, barefoot and sandled, slippered, smelly and humble, gilded and grand. They have stepped up over the centuries to speak the words of the Holy Eucharist, to fulfill the office of the fisherman, to make present the very body of Christ to a world barefoot and sandled, slippered, smelly and humble, gilded and grand. And this is the Church Over those steps have entered countless cardinals and bishops and priests, with pure hearts and divided hearts, ready to serve and reluctant to serve, mirroring the greatness of the Church and its challenges, glittering and velveted, then marbled, encased for eternity in stone. And this is the Church Over those steps have walked countless saints, men striving to serve in the aura of holiness, a holiness that comes from pure hearts and un-divided loyalties more than it comes from great talents or gifts, except the gift of authenticity. Wrapped in mantles of black cloth and white cloth, grey cloth and brown cloth, or shirts, pants, dresses, togas, striped uniforms. And this is the Church Over those steps have walked millions of nameless servers, forgotten by time but remembered every moment in the heart of God, boys and men who have given their lives to the Church, who have carried the cross and the book, who have handled the burning coals of incense, who have poured the water, all the while burning and pouring out lives of anonymous service to the People of God. Boys with pimples and cassock pockets full of rosaries and candy and pictures of secret girlfriends who have never looked at them. And this is the Church On those steps have knelt millions of men and women and children, knelt in anticipation of a breaking out, a breaking in of the King of Glory in their midst, a quiet, a momentary encounter with the Lord of Lords under the clever disguise of bread. They have wondered, and doubted and believed and doubted and wondered again and doubted again. And this is the Church On those steps have knelt millions of pilgrims, sinners unworthy to approach the mystery but getting close, seeing it, nearly touching it with their eyes, a prayer on bended knee, bending the indentations into those steps, indentations in the heart of penitents. They are renaming sins that get transformed down the centuries, sins old and new, sins somehow encapsulated in the soreness of knees. And this is the Church Over those steps, on those steps have passed the whole history of the Church, caught up in glory and the contemplation of the painfully mundane, which in retrospect may be glory And this is the Church Those steps are the Church. But there is more, for the Church is not merely the remembrance of things past. There is more. The Church enshrines the past, honors the past, glorifies the past, but it does not live in the past. It lives for the future. In the future, over those steps will pass popes and cardinals and bishops and priests perpetuating the reality of Christ among us, holding out his arms to future generations, hearing once more the ancient cry go up: “Tu es Petrus” In the future, over those steps will pass words spoken in languages unknown in Italy, perhaps unknown today, languages that speak in their common Babel of the crowds a word, a Word, the Word. In the future, over those steps, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will continue to pass on his way, turning over in wind the pages of human events and careening himself from those steps into more modest places, tents and huts, little chapels in the mountains, storefront churches in big cities, perhaps yet unnamed and maybe, more and more hidden places, persecuted places, places where the grandeur will not stand, but the greatness of Christ will shine forth in lives, in words and in the Sacrament of Truth. Truth in the face of lies. Today we stand at the threshold of the future, a new semester. Brothers and sisters, let us step up to the task. Let us step confidently knowing that the work we do here is the fulfillment of the divine will. Let us step courageously knowing that the same Lord we encounter here will fulfill our needs, which in His Grace, sufficient for us, become also our desires Let us step boldly into the future of the Church, confidently building on the past but finding there the same food for the journey that the Lord of Journeys holds out to a pilgrim people gathered expectantly here every day. Let us step with humility over and into the footprints of those heroes, those saints who have forged a mighty path for us and have made that path smooth by their feet passing over porphyry steps into the very throne room of the Almighty. Let us step out in faith today and every day. And let us remember the words of today’s Gospel, the parable of the mustard seed. From the most humble origins, greatness can emerge. We build on a mighty heritage, we stand on the shoulders of giants, but the future is in our hands, our humble hands, let us in our privileged time of formation here reach out and grasp that future confidently and without fear, for God has promised all of these things to us. From a tiny seed, a giant tree takes its root.