1. Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception


    Over the break I went to the movies to see The Theory of Everything. The title was quite promising.

    The movie starred Eddie Redmayne and I have always liked him. It also had Felicity Jones. She seems like a nice, quiet person. She probably isn’t after all she is an actress.

    The movie was about Stephen Hawking.              

    Seemingly he knows everything, or at least the theory of everything, but I have known for a while that he does not because he does not believe in God. The movie was very well made. Eddie and Felicity didn’t disappoint, but I found it a bit depressing because it seemed to have at its core an essential lie, the falsehood that you can fail to acknowledge the supremacy of God and still find the truth.

    Today we celebrate the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. It may seem a rather esoteric festival, a theological peculiarity, particularly in light of the earthiness of this season, the earthiness of a poor couple wandering the earth in search of home, the hominess of the King of the Glory silently insinuating himself into the womb of a poor Jewish girl.

    The solemnity today may seem rather theological in the raw sense of the word, if we don’t have a pretty firm image of St. Ann and St. Joachim, the old couple whose life was incomplete without the little girl who would be their destiny and the destiny of the nations and the ages.

    Today we celebrate a spark, a moment in time when the world was changed forever.
    Today we celebrate something different. Today we celebrate not something that was. Today we celebrate what will be. Today we celebrate more, we celebrate what we have become.

    What have we become? What do we want to become?
    We want to be good, but sometimes we find it to be a struggle.
    We want to be holy but sometimes I can’t resist temptation.
    We want to be healthy, but I love Chicago’s pizza.
    We want to be smart, but I absolutely cannot read for more than five minutes at a time without groaning.
    Groan away, for today we celebrate a gift that leaves Mother Earth groaning, humanity groaning, angels groaning, hell groaning.
    That gift of God brothers and sisters is the heart of the theory of everything. It is everything. And it is so simple. And it is so complete.

    During this season of the year, I like to meditate on my favorite Christmas carol. I know it’s not quite time yet but I love it and we never sing it in this country. It’s not even in our books. It’s called “In the Bleak Midwinter”.

    The words are by the Victorian poet Christina Rossetti. Her brother was the famous artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but you don’t need to know that. Here are the last two verses. To me, they capture this season perfectly.

    Angels and archangels
    May have gathered here
    Cherubim and seraphim
    Thronged the air
    But only his mother
    In her maiden bliss
    Worshiped the Beloved
    With a kiss

    What can I give him?
    Poor as I am
    If I were a shepherd
    I would bring a lamb
    If I were a wise man
    I would do my part
    Yet what I can I give him
    Give my heart

    Brothers and sisters in light of the mystery, can we like Ann and Joachim, can we like Mary, can we open our hearts, can we give our hearts?
    Can we put aside any petty differences we have?

    Can we blush with embarrassment at the revelation that God’s time and our time, kairos and chronos have become so intertwined in a single act of fiat that we are forever treading clouds, treading the treadmill of eternal reunion that has yet to happen, will happen, is happening?
    Can we see we see in the stare of this one and that one, can we see in their stares, through the streaking tears which speak of temporality. Can we see in our brother’s and sisters’ stare the fever of pure wonder, a fever that we pray from which we may never be delivered?

    Can we see in the bread and wine, can we see in the beauty, the comeliness of the bread and wine, the soul of humanity and the substance of divinity written embryonically as the devil’s nemesis, the precious virgin of Nazareth?

    Can we can? Will we will? Will our wills will?
    Will we find out not too late that it’s not about scraping and wrangling? It’s not about your taste or my lack of taste? It’s not about any of that stuff we think is so important, so limitlessly dire.

    It’s about a simple spark, a moment in time in which everything was changed forever.


    Will we turn our lives over to God like Ann and Joachim did, like Mary did, like the baby Jesus did?

    Brothers and sisters, will this day mean anything or is it merely the theory of everything that intrigues us?

    Will we fly on snow clouds up to the throne room of the heavens and look around and think: This looks like a sandstone room. Will we see our brothers and sisters here, the teachers, the staff, the cleaning folks, the visitors, the cooks? Will we see them doing their jobs and blush to have stumbled upon angels unaware? Will we give our hearts, freely to God, freely to one another, those known and unknown?

    I know that the fellow in The Theory of Everything, Stephen Hawking, might know everything. He might, I don’t know him. But this I do know, if he doesn’t believe in God, he knows nothing of significance.

    I saw another film over the break called Cloud Atlas. I read the book a while back and at first I thought I liked it and then I thought I didn’t and then I didn’t know which means it was probably a great  book. I saw the film and it was a roller coaster. I don’t recommend it and I really highly recommend it. It is about what happens when you finally give in and leave “godding” to God. It tells a long story about realizing that you are caught up in a drama that you didn’t write and that’s also ok.

    It’s about how we meet mystery in the cold of a bleak midwinter and realize that a bed of straw looks a great deal like revelation. And then we are embarrassed at how the turning of the universe, its tuning, its truth is caught up in an old man and an old woman and an unexpected girl who had no power whatsoever and all the power there was, all the power there ever was caught in a moment in time, in the piercing act of one immaculate conception.

    The author of Cloud Atlas said it well: There ain’t  no journey that don’t change you some.

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  2. Advent Week One - Monday

    We are just inside the door of Advent. Today we stand on the threshold of a new liturgical year and at the end of a formation term. Some people believe that new years are the time for making resolutions. This does not always work so well. Not that resolutions are not important, they are. It’s just that the so often these kinds of resolutions fail to pan out, and then we lose hope.

    And yet Advent is a season of hope. The majestic first reading today sets the tone:

    From Zion shall go forth instruction and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

    There is so much hope in this season of dreariness, a hope that rings out in the darkness like bells before buckets on street corners. It is a season of hope.

    Advent also seems to me to be a season of power, retiring yet potent power.

    I have the image of Mary, so young and frail braving the desert sands to go to Bethlehem to fulfill the kingdom of this world which has surreptitiously become the Kingdom of God and it started very small.

    It started small, but it is a season of faith in smallness.

    The centurion in today’s Gospel surprisingly knew that. He knew he needed only to get a nod, a movement of the Divine hand or will to accomplish untold miracles. He had faith when the faith of those around him failed. That faith cured his servant.

    I think this centurion is very interesting.

    One, it is very interesting that it comes in the Gospel of Matthew because the Gospel of Matthew is all about the Jews. It is interesting to me that such faith should be found not in a Jew in Matthew but in a gentile. When I think about this centurion I have to ask myself: Is this Roman official going to show up later in the Gospel? Is he going to be casting lots for Jesus robe? Is he going to thrust his lance into the side of Jesus? Or is he going to be the one to offer testimony: Surely this man was the Son of God? Is he going to turn out better or worse because of what the Lord does for his servant today?

    The second thing I find interesting about this Gospel is that Jesus has some power in this passage. Jesus has power and you know sometimes I think we forget that, or we try to second guess that. Jesus has power

    Every day we say our prayers. Every day we pray for Jesus to do this or that. We say we have faith but you know, when push comes to shove we begin to question.

    Jesus, are you going to help me out here or not?

    Jesus I’m waiting. And we begin to get a little cynical about it, a little hard-edged about it don’t we?

    But I want to say one thing today, one thing on this first Monday of Advent:

    Jesus has answered your prayers already. Jesus answers your prayers the moment you ask him to, just as he did for this centurion in the Gospel today.

    Jesus has already answered your prayers and the question of the day is: Are you ready to receive that answer?

    Maybe you are, but I wager that if you are like me, you are not.

    Jesus intends to answer your prayers and do it right away, just as he did for this centurion.

    Jesus intends to answer your prayers but sometimes he needs to get us ready to receive that answer.

    Jesus has already provided us with what we need, but are we ready to receive it?

    Jesus has answered your questions, but can you hear that answer, can I hear that answer mired as we are in the mud of our own self-interest.

    I can tell you this: Jesus is going to answer your prayer, but the real prayer that we have to offer is this.

    Lord, let me know your will and let me do your will. Thy will be done. We pray it every day but we don’t believe a word of it and we don’t think we want it. But Jesus has answered all your prayers, all my prayers, now let us mature in the faith, let us rise to receive the answer our God has so richly provided

    Truly Advent is a season of hope, a season of power, a season of faith, but …

    I think Advent as a time of preparation, as a time of expectations remains foremost a questioning season even in the face of miracles like the one we have in today’s Gospel.

    In this season, in the darkness that surrounds us, in the depths of hopelessness, things begin anew and the earth itself asks questions, we ask questions.

    Who is the king of Glory, the Lord the valiant in war?

    We ask: Who?

    Who is powerful in this world? Will we ever see that person? Will that person move through the shifting sands of time as obscurely as the babe of Bethlehem?

    Who is the most important person in my life? There is only one right answer.

    Who holds the key of life and …

    And we ask: What?

    What if I could fly?

    What if I could get up in the morning?

    What if folks just dumped their wallets and purses into the Sunday collection?

    What if angry people could pray, even in suffering rather than looting and stealing?

    What if God is like Boutin?

    What if God has a Ciganero blanket?

    What if virgins had children?

    What if voices cried in the wilderness?

    What if the Lord of Glory ruled the world from a throne of straw in a stable?

    What if you were my brother and you were my sister and we were all connected even over time because we have one Father?

    What if

    And we ask: When?

    When Lord will you heal me of this affliction?

    When will I finally discover who I am?

    When will the Chicago Cubs win the World Series?

    When will my parents respect me as a grown up?

    When will I be free of caring what my parents think?

    When will we see him face to face?

    When will the Lord come again?

    When is today?

    And, of course, we ask: How?

    How can my life be transformed by a man who lived 2000 years ago.      

    How can the main course from Tuesday’s dinner ingeniously reappear as both soup and desert on Thursday?

    How can an angel fit into Mary’s tiny house?

    How can God become a little boy?

    How can I become a little boy so as to see the greatness of God and angels?

    How can I continue to ask the important questions of hope, power, faith?

    How can I not only stand on the threshold but walk through the door.

    The Lord has an answer for every one of these questions. He has an answer to every prayer.

    He has called the nations to receive that answer and the answer is found for us in the ironic dialogue of the cross, the centurion’s weapon. Horizontal and vertical is his way and he hangs right there in the middle.

    What can we say? We can say in the face of all these questions. Thy will be done.

    We can say that or we can speak the words of that Roman official. We can say:

    Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed

     
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  3. Reflections for December

    I have a lot of odd images in my mind, that (fortunately) never make it into the public sphere. In this month of December, I am thinking about babies. Contrary to most folks, I do not find babies “cute”. In fact, I really do not know what “cute” means. I find babies mysterious. Not mysterious in terms of where they come from. I do know that. I find babies mysterious because no one really knows what they are thinking. Sometimes we think we do, for example, when they want to eat, or go to the bathroom. We know that, seemingly. But what about those odd grins, those suddenly bright eyes? Some cultures believe babies have a different sight or sense than the rest of poor mortal humanity. Entire mythologies have been constructed about babies. I love them and I find myself more intrigued as I get older, after all I am approaching (or have approached) grandpa age. In this month of December we are awaiting a baby. We also celebrate, in gleeful tandem the conception of that baby’s mother, Our Lady.  Rather than being a month of winding down, that inevitable slouching toward temporal oblivion, December is a month of gearing up. We are looking forward as much as we are remembering the long passed. December is full of Mary and Jesus. It is also full of Isaiah the prophet, of John the Baptist, the forerunner, of John the revelator, of Holy Innocents.  In December, I often think of the Holy Innocents. Undoubtedly as in their own day they get swept away in the tide of Messiah fever. I am sure they didn’t mind being swept away. They had somewhere better to go. One of the odd images that crowds my mind is that of the innocents. I think of all those babies in heaven wearing golden diapers and in their nursery countless others who seemingly never counted either. I think of the 54 million innocents killed by abortion so that parenthood could be “planned” and their parents could have a “choice.” December is the past and the future. We must acknowledge that the coming of Jesus was fraught with danger in the coldest month of the year. We must also acknowledge the very bad job we had and have of receiving him. We must acknowledge our sin in standing by in these past 40 plus years of legalized abortion and doing very little while these innocent souls and their confused parents were caught up in a whirlwind because God never forgets. If December is the month of expectation, I cannot wait for the day when I arrive in heaven.  There, tumbling out of the nursery will be all of these babies. Perhaps in heaven they won’t seem so mysterious. Perhaps above they can talk, those who never had voices while they briefly sojourned this earth. What will they tell? Perhaps they will tell their privilege in being ever like the Lord of Glory who comes to us in the mystery of a newborn baby, born of poor parents in an obscure place. Perhaps they will tell of their finally being wanted by God who is often as mysterious as baby. Perhaps they will offer us, finally, some true insights on the meaning of December’s hopes and dreams in the shadows of night. Perhaps they will. I know they will.

     
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  4. My Weekly Reader

    I started the month of November with Charles Taylor, A Secular Age. It was hard going but most definitely worth it. It is one of those books that require you to go through the paragraphs twice and then, move on.  I tried reading a little commentary book that someone had given me but I became more lost in the commentary than in the book, true of Scripture, true of Taylor. The very complexity of Taylor led me back to Cloud Atlas, a book I read several years ago. The book is by David Mitchell. He has a new book out called The Bone Clocks, which I have not put on my wading boots and read. Mitchell is obsessed with time. Cloud Atlas follows a number of characters from the 1700s until sometime in the far distant future (they are reincarnated). Ultimately I balk at the metaphysics but the book is really about redemption more than anything else. It mediates on how sometimes an act has consequences, both positive and negative over a long time. I then decided to try the film and somehow it worked out easier on film. If you get a chance to read Cloud Atlas, run, but read it while running. Speaking of the hard-to-read, I went to Mississippi with a group of seminarians. We had a grand time, or at least I did. The purpose was to visit Square Books in Oxford, a very worthy pilgrimage. We also went to William Faulkner’s place in Oxford, Roanoke. Let me tell you, there is nothing in the world I love more than Southern literature. Like Flannery in the Catholic mode, Faulkner’s writing has a heat in it (some would say an insanity) that comes from humidity. So decided to re-read for about the fifth time, Sanctuary.  I didn’t feel up to Snopes. When Popeye and Temple and Harace showed up, I remembered what “home” was. I think William Faulkner fought with his Southern roots. He certainly kept re-inventing himself, but breeding will out as they say down yonder. The trip to Oxford was glorious not only for Square Books but also lunch at the Atlas, chicken and dumplings and turnip greens and of course, pie. When I got weary of Billy, I turned to the other great Mississippi standby, Eudora Welty. Delta Wedding captures every southern cliché possible and there is nothing wrong because Mississippi cultivates clichés. I read through Delta Wedding and then looked at the autobiography. One thing I have always thought about Eudora Welty is that, unlike Flannery, or Walker Percy, or Thomas Wolfe, or even Faulkner, I have never really known what Welty was up to.

    I went to Texas for Thanksgiving armed with various tomes of the South to keep me company as Thanksgiving was lived out. My mother had other ideas. We had a Madea marathon. If you don’t know about Madea, don’t worry. I now possess the collected video works. The problem with Madea is that after hours and hours of watching and listening, she starts to get to you. Again, if you don’t know what I’m talking about … run. After Madea, I re-read, Why I live at the PO by Eudora. I saw and understood. The next thing for me was a book Taryn recommended called The Dog of the South by Charles Portis. If I could have afforded to give up my head I would have laughed it off. The book is all about crazy people in Arkansas. I was glad to know they had their share as much as Mississippi. On Saturday, I flew to New York for an oblate meeting on Long Island. Coming home from the meeting, we passed through Great Neck and I thought about the Fitzgeralds.  I really, really don’t like The Great Gatsby, but I understand that the light is still burning. I might have liked to see the light.
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Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB

Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB, is president-rector of Saint Meinrad School of Theology in St. Meinrad, IN. A Benedictine monk, he is also an assistant professor of systematic theology. A Mississippi native, Fr. Denis attended Saint Meinrad College and School of Theology, earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1989 and a Master of Divinity in 1993. From 1993-97, he was parochial vicar for the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Memphis, TN. He joined the Saint Meinrad monastery in August 1997. Fr. Denis also attended the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, where he received a master’s degree in theology in 2002, a licentiate in sacred theology in 2003, and doctorates in sacred theology and philosophy in 2007.

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