A Dream Come True – homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent

The Dream of St. Joseph. Artist Anton Raphael Mengs

In 1997, my little sister, Mary Ruth, died. She was 42 years old. About 3 or 4 months following my sister’s death, my mother had a very vivid dream in which my sister visited her. Mom explained to me that this dream was not like most ordinary dreams. It was very real with all her bodily senses engaged: sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. In her dream, mom said she went to visit my sister, Mary. She knocked at the door of this building, and a beautiful woman with long, brown hair answered the door and invited my mother in. My mother told the woman that she was looking to visit with my sister. The woman smiled and told my mother that my sister was busy at the moment and asked her to take a seat in the waiting room. My mother settled down in a chair. After a little while, the beautiful woman invited mom to go with her. They went down a hallway and entered a room. On one end of the room was a window that allowed people to observe activity in another room. The beautiful woman told mom, “Come, look at your daughter.” My mother gazed through this window at my sister, Mary, sitting on the floor and playing with some little children. My sister’s appearance was transformed from the way she looked when she died. Gone was the gauntness and the pain that used to be etched into her face. Her face was vibrant, her eyes sparkled and she laughed as she played with the children.  Her body was no longer bent over and painfully thin from her illness, but was now healed and healthy, my sister moving about with great ease. Alongside my sister was a young, bearded man. The beautiful woman then led my mother back to the waiting room. After waiting just a short while, my sister came into the room accompanied by the beautiful woman and the young, bearded man. My sister went up to my mother, kissed her and hugged her and told her, “Don’t worry about me, mom. I am very, very happy.”  At that point, my mother awakened from her dream, the heaviness and grief my mom had carried since the death of my sister, was gone.

Dreams are important to human life. Dreams are the one thing in which all human beings have a share. Many ancient societies and cultures believed that it was through dreams that the gods communicated to human beings. We find the prominence of dreams in the Hebrew Scriptures. It was one of the ways by which God interacted in human life. Jacob had a dream in which he saw angels ascending and descending a ladder reaching to the Heavens. God repeatedly blessed Jacob in this dream. Jacob interpreted the ladder to represent the number of exiles the Jewish people would suffer before the Messiah would come, and the number of angels, the number of years passed before the Messiah would come. In a dream, Jacob wrestled with an angel from God. Following that dream, Jacob was renamed, Israel, meaning “I wrestled with an angel from God and survived.”

Joseph, the son of Jacob, was well known as an interpreter of dreams. The prophet, Daniel, interpreted the dreams of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Dreams figure greatly in the gospel of Matthew. In today’s gospel we hear of Joseph being very troubled by the news that Mary, the woman to whom he is engaged to be married, is pregnant. He tosses and turns not wanting to expose her to shame and suffer the consequences of his society imposed upon women who got pregnant outside of marriage. He finally decides to quietly break off their engagement to be married. It was then in a dream that Joseph encountered the Divine. An angel from God reassures Joseph that Mary’s pregnancy did not result from some wrongdoing. Rather, the child with whom she was pregnant was the culmination of the dreams of the Jewish people going back to the time of Adam and Eve. Within Mary’s womb was the Son of God, the Messiah, who will fulfill the hope and the dream of countless generations of Jewish people. Joseph, reassured by the angel, takes Mary as his beloved wife, and agrees to raise her child, the Messiah, as his own son.

When something for which someone hopes happens in that person’s life, we generally say that that person’s “dream has come true.” Jesus, the Emmanuel, God with us, is humanity’s dream come true. The dream of Jacob came true with the birth of Jesus. The fulfillment of the Jewish people’s dream came true with the birth of Jesus. Everything told Joseph by the angel in his dream came true. The “dream” did not end when Joseph awakened. The dream, Emmanuel, God with us, did not end when Jesus died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. The dream of Emmanuel, God with us, continues to be fulfilled in our lives today.

It seems that it is often in our darkest hours that the realization of Emmanuel is the most profound. Jesus did not abandon my sister as she suffered those long 26 years of chronic illness. Jesus did not abandon my mother and father as they watched their daughter suffer and waste away from her illness and then die. They had a profound experience of Emmanuel during those years. It was the knowledge and experience of God being with them that sustained them during the hardships of those years.

The dream of Emmanuel, God with us, comes true. The dream has come true for my sister, Mary, who is now healthier and happier than she ever was when she walked this earth. The dream has come true for my mother, who saw her sick daughter returned to full health and at peace with God.

When I asked my mom, what she thought about her dream, she said, “Mary is finally healthy and happy again. And you know what?” “What?” I replied. “I think that beautiful woman is Mary the Mother of Jesus. And, that young man with the beard is Jesus.” I said, “I believe you are right, mom.”

This dream with the happy ending never ends. This dream comes true time and time again. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, now and forever.

The Incarnation of Jesus and the Human Ghetto

Icon of a dark skinned Jesus. Artist unknown.

I have lived in the White Ghetto all of my life. Only briefly, for the first two years of my life, did I live in a multi-racial/cultural neighborhood in Chicago. Aside from the pictures that my parents took of me during that time, I remember little to nothing of that time (Ironically, my first and only memory of that time is that of coming home from the hospital as an infant and being passed among the neighbors in the apartment building in which my family lived. I was less than receptive to all the attention given me, especially that of Harold Burress who smelled of tobacco and beer.) Whether it be the suburbs of Chicago, the white neighborhoods of St. Paul, the rural communities of southwestern Minnesota, or the Czechoslovakian town of New Prague, I have lived in the White Ghetto all my life. I do not know the intentions of my parents as they chose homes when we moved from place to place during the years I was growing up. However, it has not been by design that Ruthie and I have lived and raised our family in the White Ghetto. It has been primarily driven by where we found our employment.

When immigrants first came to our country, many ended up living in ghettos. While there were some ghettos to which society assigned them, many of these were self-created. Being in a strange land with customs and language different from where they had come, people lived together in order to preserve the comfort of a common language, culture and traditions, and for reasons of protection from the prejudices and violence they encountered in this new land. Within St. Paul itself are neighborhoods labeled “Frog Town” where the French community settled, “Swede Hollow” along West 7th Street, where, obviously, those of Swedish descent lived. Rice Street and Maryland Ave was where the German immigrants settled. West St. Paul was where the Latino immigrants congregated and so on.

Many Catholic parishes were built to address the needs of these nationalistic ghettos, hence the Irish went to the Irish church, the Italians to the Italian church, the Germans and the Polish to the their specific national churches, and so on. God forbid that an Irish family worship in a German Catholic church! Intermarriage between Catholics of different nationalities was frowned upon. And a Catholic to marrying a non-Catholic was downright scandalous. In such cases, the only place allowed in which a Catholic and non-Catholic could be married was in the rectory.

Overtime, these nationalistic barriers were softened and eliminated altogether as second and third generations of the original immigrants intermarried with people from other cultures and languages and settled into the melting pot that is the United States. While this is a generalization, in Minnesota, we have new ghettos, formed with those of white European descent clustered together in areas of our cities, suburbs and rural communites, and ghettos within our cities, suburbs, and rural areas in which people of color are clustered. While American society has progressed in which people of all races and cultures are intermarrying producing children of multi-racial ancestry, there has been in the last 20 years a reestablishment of hardened racial divide in our nation.

During the last election cycle, this racism, especially among the white community, has shown to us that the racial and religious prejudice that has scarred American history is just as alive and as horrendous as it had been in the past. The enabling of racial bigotry through the inflammatory rhetoric of Trump and a great number of the hardcore, right-wing political conservative segment of our population has brought to the light of day the deep, dark underbelly of racial bigotry present within what we thought were trusted businesses, municipalities,  law enforcement and other areas of our society.

The danger of living in ghettos self-imposed and imposed upon a group is that one begins to believe that the cultural values, religion, and customs of the ghetto are superior to those outside the ghetto. Without the interaction and intermingling of race, culture and customs, whereupon a person discovers and values the many blessings that each race, each culture and each religion brings to the human family, the person is prone to be fearful of anything that is different from his/her own race, culture, and customs. We have heard the Social Darwinism of alt-right bigots claiming that with the ascent of Trump to the presidency, White culture reassumes its rightful place in society, where it should dominate all the “sub-races, sub-cultures, and sub-religions.” This is a grave sin against humanity and a grave sin against the Incarnation of Jesus!

Jesus, the Logos, the Word of God through whom all humanity was created, was born into the human race as a person of color, a brown-skinned, Palestinian Jew. His parents were brown-skinned Palestinian Jews. The “master race” that dominated politically all of Europe at the time of his birth were Romans. Yet, God chose the Palestinian Jews of Judea, a conquered race enslaved to Imperial Rome as the race into which Jesus was to be born. Were we to leave the Incarnation of Jesus here, limited to his ancestral, racial, and religious heritage, we would be guilty of Social Darwinism, too.

The Incarnation of Jesus must impress upon us that it was not just to the Jewish race that the Word of God was chosen to be born. Rather, the Incarnation of Jesus shows us dramatically that in the birth of Jesus was a uniting of the divinity of God to all of humanity. The Incarnation is an action by God by which all of humanity shares in the divinity of God. No one race nor one culture is superior to the other. All races, all cultures are divine. At the creation of the world, all of humanity bears the likeness of our God, who created us. In the Incarnation of Jesus, God putting on the flesh of humanity, this likeness extends to all of humanity a share in the divinity of God. The Incarnation of Jesus shatters the artificial ghettos that the races of humanity have constructed about ourselves. The Incarnation of Jesus rips apart the falsehoods the races of humanity have raised about their own superiority over other races and cultures. The Incarnation of Jesus tears from the heart of humanity the sin of prejudice that defiles the human soul and blinds us from seeing and honoring the divinity of God present in all peoples, cultures, and races!

If we are truly to celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus this Christmas, we must call upon the Christ Child to free us from the Ghettos into which we have placed ourselves, and compel us to mingle with, honor, respect, and rejoice in the divinity of God present in all peoples, cultures, and races.

 

 

On flags and symbols …

memeIn recent days, Trump has suggested that people who desecrate the United States flag should be stripped of their U.S. citizenship. Of course, as in many areas of government, he is ignorant of the Supreme Court ruling that states that the Constitution protects such an action under the 1st amendment’s freedom of speech. As always, the rancor that has arisen over the issue is great. I am sure that it was not the intent of the government that the United States flag be used as a bikini top enhancing the bosom of some buxom young woman, and yet, one sees the flag displayed in this way, often on female models at car racing events and on beaches down South. Somehow a scantily clad woman in a Stars and Stripes bikini doesn’t offend people. The bottom line is that a flag is a symbol.

A symbol points to a reality or a deeper truth that lies beyond them. Hence, with a religious Icon, it is not the painting of the Christ that one stops to admire. Most Icons are very two dimensional and for the most part as art are not the most attractive in terms of composition and color. The purpose of the Icon is NOT the painting. The Icon is to draw the person looking at it to the deeper truth, the deeper reality of God’s mystery that lay beyond it. In Catholic liturgy we use many symbols within the liturgical space (altar, ambo, gospel book, vestments, and painted images throughout the church), but we differentiate the symbols from the Signs, e.g. the Word of God spoken, the consecrated bread and wine that is the Body and Blood of Christ. A Sign becomes the end itself, hence we reverence the Word spoken from scripture as that of God’s, and the bread and wine consecrated as the Body and Blood of Jesus.

Flags in whatever configuration or color they may be are just symbols of the reality that lay behind them. The United States flag points to the deeper reality of the Constitution, as the author of the Meme is trying to point out. If someone in battle dies for the flag and not for the Constitution of the United States it is suppose to symbolize, then their perspective of what the United States is and what the Founding Fathers meant the United States to be is askew. I do not advocate destroying a flag just as I do not advocate the destroying of a religious Icon or symbol. However, the mere destruction of the symbol does not destroy the reality or the mystery that symbol is meant to represent. While I will honor our war dead on Memorial Day, our Independence on July 4th, and our laborers on Labor Day by flying the United States flag, I generally fly the Earth Flag outside my home most other days of the year.

the-earth-flag
The Earth Flag, designed by John McConnell

The Earth Flag, designed by John McConnell, is actually a picture of Earth taken by NASA and placed upon deep dark blue field. This flag, meant by its creator, is to be a symbol of protecting Earth’s environment. For me, it is a symbol of a deeper mystery of who the humanity and all creation truly are, universally created by God. The curse of the Tower of Babel has inflicted upon our Earth the notion that only a particular culture, a particular language, a particular way of life is the ONLY one that is important. It has been the cause of war, and of genocide. For me the Earth Flag is a symbol of whom we must become in order to fully be that which God intended us to be. We need to see one another equally as children of God, regardless of our national origin, the color of our skin, the religion we practice of lack thereof, and the language we may speak. We need to evolve in becoming, for lack of a better term, Universalists.

We have encountered Universalists in our lifetime. Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, the Dhali Llama, Mahatma Ghandi, Mary Jo Copland, Pope Francis 1, Cathy Heying, my own wife, Ruth, are people I consider Universalists. They transcend their own country of origin, their own language, their own religion and see all people equally as one. Ruth works with a multi-national, multi-cultural staff as a nurse at the State Veterans Home in South Minneapolis. As one of the Ethiopians on staff pointed out to her, “you are color blind.” He went on to explain that Ruth sees and treats all people equally with respect and dignity. Ruth is a Universalist. I believe that all of my children are fully on the way of becoming Universalists. If only all of humanity would aspire to become the same, then symbols like national flags would be obsolete and the curse of war and genocide that has gutted humanity for ages would finally cease.

Advent Anticipating the Second Christmas

advent-candlesAll around us the retail world is already celebrating Christmas. Whether we walk through the stores, listen to the radio, or turn on the television, we are being bombarded with Christmas images, and innocuous Christmas songs that range from Frosty the Snowman to chestnuts roasting on some mythical fire. Even when we try to Christianize this season, with such platitudes as “Jesus is the reason for the Season,” that is not necessarily accurate either. Why? Because it is the Season of Advent , not the Season of Christmas. We are people awaiting with great anticipation the coming of the Christ, not of the past, but the Christ of the future, the second coming of Jesus. It is this joyful anticipation of Jesus’ second coming that sustains us during the dark times in our lives. It is the knowledge that when Jesus comes again, he will bring to all humankind the peace, the joy, and the love absent in our present world. At his second coming, Jesus will bring to our Earth the fulfillment of God’s reign.

During Advent, we draw parallels between the era of past anticipation with that of our present era of anticipation. Like Israel of old, we long for Jesus to enter into the darkness of our humanity, to bring wholeness to our broken world, to heal the divisions that exist within ourselves and outside of ourselves. Pregnant with this hope, we do not just sit around waiting for the second coming to happen. As a very pregnant Mary brought the presence of Christ within her womb to her cousin, Elizabeth, so, we, too, need to bring the presence of Christ within ourselves to others. This is why when we express the mystery of our faith at Mass we sing, “We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection, until you come again.” At every Eucharistic liturgy we remember that we are a people of anticipation. However, ours is not a passive and static anticipation. The Body and Blood of Jesus  which we receive at Mass, compels us to go forth and bring the presence of Christ to others until that time when he, himself, will come again in glory.

May the Season of Advent be more than just the mere decorating of our homes with lights and garland, and the making of special treats reserved for this specific time of year.  May our Advent be a time when we prepare ourselves for the Second Christmas, when Jesus returns in glory.

Living unsettled.

dcp_0026
Photograph I took of Niagara Falls (the Canadian Side) in 2002.

Foreword: This is a short reflection about the Christian state of being, that of being “unsettled,” that I posted this morning on Facebook (being reposted in the form of this blog).

Like very many in our nation, I have been feeling “unsettled.” When one reflects on the Christian faith, feeling unsettled is a feeling Jesus instills in those who follow him. The disciples of Jesus were unsettled, having given up their lives of comfort and complacency in order to follow this itinerant Rabbi. Jesus himself told his followers that he didn’t come to bring unity but division. Images like “baptism of fire”, nobility being cast out while the lowly rise to power, those well fed going without, while the poor and the hungry finally eat and drink to their fill. God takes all of creation, including humanity, and turns it inside out. The prophet, Isaiah, goes on and on about how the normal comfort and complacency of the world gets destroyed by God for a brand new paradigm, the paradigm God intended before humanity under the influence of Sin, mucked it all up. If we are feeling unsettled, then we are in the place we should be as Christian disciples. If we are feeling self-righteous … well, the first couple of phrases of “Santa is coming to town” just might be apropos, “you better watch out, you better not cry.”

 A wonderful prayer written by Francis Brienen expresses this natural way of being Christian.

 “Wilderness is the place of Moses,

a place of no longer captive and not yet free,

of letting go and learning new living.


 Wilderness is the place of Elijah,

a place of silence and loneliness,

of awaiting first steps on the path of peace.


 Wilderness is the place of John,

a place of repenting,

of taking first steps on the path of peace.


 Wilderness is the place of Jesus,

a place of preparation,

of getting ready for the reckless life of faith.

 We thank you, God for the wilderness.

Wilderness is our place.

As we wait for the land of promise,

teach us the ways of new living,

lead us to where we hear your word most clearly,

renew us and clear out the wastelands of our lives,

prepare us for the life in the awareness of Christ’s coming

when the desert will sing

and the wilderness will blossom as the rose.”

Giving homage to the King who washes feet – Homily for the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

unknown_artist_-_christ_washing_the_feet_of_his_disciples_-_wga16276

When my kids were young, and use to come home after school and watch cartoons. My sons were big fans of He- Man, and the Masters of the Universe. He-Man looked like a blonde, long haired professional wrestler on steroids. When his alter ego, Prince Adam, who was a bit of a wimp, sensed that the evil Skeletor was going to cause trouble he would whip out this magical sword, raise it to the heavens and shout, “I’ve got the power.” Lightning would hit the sword and the wimp would be turned into He-Man, Master of the Universe, who would then ride his battle tiger to go and fight Skeletor. Whenever I hear the name of this feast, Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe, this cartoon series comes to mind. The images we learn when we are kids stick with us for a lifetime. As children we are programmed to think of kings in human terms, people who lord power over others. Kings are not on the same level as their subjects. With the exception of Good King Wenceslaus, many kings have been ruthless, cruel men.  Jesus, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, challenges us to redefine what a king really is. 

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus never refers to himself as a king. He will refer to himself as Son of God, or Son of Man, depending on the Gospel. Many times he refers to himself as servant, an image that appears prominently in the Isaiah. In John’s account of the feeding of the 5000, Jesus runs away and hides from the crowd because they want to make him a King. In the Passion of John’s Gospel, while being interrogated by Pontius Pilate, Pilate says to Jesus, “So, you are a king,” and, Jesus replies with some disdain, “It is you who say that I am a King.” Jesus is the complete opposite of a human King. Unlike a human king, Jesus’ relationship with humanity is a power with relationship. In the Incarnation, when he was conceived within the womb of Mary, he let go of his Godly nature to become one with our human nature. He became as you and I in all things but sin. Jesus shares his power with us. At baptism, when we were anointed with sacred chrism, through, with, and in Jesus, we became priests, prophets, and kings.

St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians writes, “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

For Jesus, the meaning of the word, King, means that of being a servant, a slave. Jesus further emphasizes this at the Last Supper by getting down on his knees at the feet of his disciples and doing the work of a slave, that is, washing their feet. The One through whom all in the Universe was created, gets down on his knees and becomes a slave to the very people whom he had created. Jesus concludes this action by saying to his disciples, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” If we wish to give homage to Jesus, King of the Universe, we are required to drop to our knees and wash the feet of others.

 Pope Francis exemplifies this so very well. He has said, “No,” to the old trappings of the Papacy, with all the rich, golden vestments, and has adopted a much simpler dress. He has shunned the luxury of the papal apartments and lives in the simple guest house of the Vatican. He takes his meals in the same cafeteria as all who work at the Vatican. On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis washes the feet of not just Catholic men, he washes the feet of refugees, Muslims, Hindus, men and women. So often in the past, Popes have often been referred to as the Supreme Pontiff, Sovereign of the Vatican, Successor of the Prince of Apostles. The one title that has rarely been applied to past Popes is Servant of the Servants of God. Pope Francis is the Servant of the Servants of God. Pope Francis truly has taken the words of Jesus to heart, and is living them.

 To live our baptismal vocation to be priests, prophets, and kings calls us to wash the feet of others. To be Servants of God and authentically wash the feet of others calls us to leave our comfort zones to do things we are not comfortable to do. To wash the feet of others requires us to take risks. Mary Jo Copeland, answered her vocation to serve the poor and the homeless by starting Sharing and Caring Hands. Daily, she and those who volunteer with her, are on their knees washing the bleeding, sore covered feet of the homeless and providing for their needs. Mother Teresa answered her call to be a Servant of God took a risk and left her religious order to begin her ministry to the dying poor Muslims and Hindus of Calcutta. Cathy Heying, the highly educated former director of Social Justice at St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, went back to school to learn how to be a car mechanic. Because many of the homeless live in their cars, she wanted to provide low cost car repair to the poor and homeless. She is now a licensed car mechanic and has begun a non-profit ministry called The Lift Garage that provides affordable auto repair to Minnesotans of limited means. These people are three examples of those called by God to take chances, to leave their comfort zones and enter a realm of uncertainty to become Servants of God. Washing the feet of others for them is just not a figure of speech. It is an action.

 As an ordained deacon, one of the most powerful moments in the entire liturgical Church Year is getting down on my knees on Holy Thursday and washing the feet of those I have been assigned by the Archbishop to serve. Because of all the hip replacements and now a knee replacement, strict restrictions by my surgeon prevents me from getting down on my knees any more. There are others among us today, who have similar physical restrictions. However, there are other ways to wash feet. Within the Pastoral ministry of St. Wenceslaus alone, there are many who figuratively wash the feet of others by serving at Hope House, Loaves and Fishes, and the Dorothy Day Center. The same can be said for those who visit the homebound, who volunteer as BeFrienders, or at Mala Strana, or the hospital. As I speak, we have those who are serving the poor of Le Sueur County in the Adopt a Family program. Washing the feet of others is not limited to just pastoral ministry, but is inclusive of all other ministerial areas of our parish and the community at large.

 If we truly wish to give homage to Jesus the Christ, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, on this Holy Solemnity, we must, as St. Paul wrote the Philippians, have the same attitude as Jesus, who did not lord his Divinity over others, but became a slave out of love for God and us. As all of us, throughout heaven and on earth, get down on our knees and confess to God the Father that Jesus Christ is Lord, let us do so by serving Jesus the Christ present in the person at whose feet we are washing.

pope-francis-feet-washing-easter-story-tablet
Pope Francis washing feet on Holy Thursday. (photo NY Daily News)

 

 

Dante’s Inferno, The United States Descent Into Darkness

gustave_dore_inferno1
On the evening of Holy Thursday, Dante finds himself lost in a forest, thus begins his descent into Hell. Illustrator – Gustave Dore

When I was a senior at St. Bernard’s High School, in St. Paul, one of the required books we had to read for literature was the first part of Dante Alighieri’s great trilogy, The Divine Comedy. Mr. Kolbinger, my literature teacher, a critical thinker himself, had us read as well, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, some pretty heavy reading for this blue collar high school along Rice Street, St. Paul. Critical thinking always requires book reports and papers, and Mr. Kolbinger made sure there were plenty of those.

The Divine Comedy is divided into three books, namely, The Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise or Heaven). In the Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy, we encounter Dante on Holy Thursday night, lost in a dark wood. Unbeknownst to him, it was the beginning of his descent into the maelstrom of Hell. To his rescue comes the Roman poet, Virgil, who will guide Dante safely through the 9 circles of Hell.

I was thinking about this in the wee hours of Wednesday morning as the election results were being counted. I thought and still do think that on Tuesday, November 8th, the United States began its own descent into the darkness. There have been many scapegoats suggested upon which to blame this disastrous turn in our nation’s history. In my own anger and depression following the election, I have been as guilty as the rest in this regard. Yet, I believe there is a greater evil that has laid quietly underneath the surface awaiting its chance to strike at the heart of the United States. I have known of this evil since 1985, when first I read the book, Habits of the Heart, a critical and scientific study on American individualism.

Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swindler, and Steven Tipton conducted this study on the four types of American individualism. In their study, they noted a tremendous swing from the individualism that formed the United States, Biblical and Republican, to the individualism that has a strangle hold on our nation today, Utilitarian and Expressive.

What is the huge difference between these two groups? Biblical Individualism and Republican Individualism extoll the virtue of the good of all over the good of the individual. Biblical individualism, commonly known in Christian circles as St. Paul’s image of the Body of Christ, states that the needs of the entire body comes first, followed by the needs of the individual. Republican individualism, not to be confused with the political party, was a model created by Thomas Jefferson and best expressed in John F Kennedy’s words, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” In both of these individuals exist to serve the needs of the many. In serving the needs of the many, the individual will find his/her own needs being met.

Both Utilitarian and Expressive Individualism hold that the needs of the individual, outweigh the good of the many. Utilitarian Individualism is in many ways is best expressed by Libertarianism. A Utilitarian individualist does not believe in helping any other people other than him or herself. Pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, making one’s way, and the hell with anyone else best describes this kind of individualism. Utilitarian Individualism is about acquiring power and destroying anyone who gets in the way of that acquisition. The vice of Greed exemplifies this Individualism.  Expressive Individualism puts the needs, particularly the sensual and comfort needs of the individual primary over the needs of the many. This is best expressed in the feeding of oneself to the exclusion of those around one who may be starving. The hoarding of wealth and the acquiring of all creature comforts from housing to cars, to all the creature comforts that will satisfy all the senses is contained within this individualism. The vice of Gluttony best exemplifies this Individualism.

What the author of Habits of the Heart noted in 1985, was that the citizens of the United States were falling away from healthy individualism, namely, Biblical and Republican, and descending into the nightmare of unhealthy individualism, namely, Utilitarian and Expressive.

gustave_dore_-_dante_alighieri_-_inferno_-_plate_4_dante_meets_virgil
Virgil leads Dante into Hell. Illustrator – Gustave Dore

In The Inferno, when Dante and Virgil cross the river Achelon, they come to the entrance of Hell, over which is a sign with the words, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate” (Abandon hope all ye who enter here!). Passing through this entrance Dante descends with Virgil through the levels of Hell, namely, Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery. As Dante takes this terrifying journey he becomes self-aware of his own sin, of his own rupture in his relationship with God, who is love. With the exception of Limbo, the first circle of Hell, a Heaven without God, reserved for Old Testament patriarchs and prophets, and Greek and Roman philosophers and all those (including Muslims) who lived selfless lives, the sins of the following circles of Hell have one thing in common; those entrapped in eternal damnation were consumed in their own individualism without any regard for the plight of others. In other words, Dante’s Hell is filled with those who lived Utilitarian and Expressive individualism. They are damned by their own greed and gluttony. At the lowest level is treachery, where Satan and the worst of the worst are trapped in ice. Satan’s own pride has encased him in ice. He is depicted with three heads, the great bat shaped wings fan the lowest circle all the more frozen. From his six eyes flow pus, tears, and blood. In each of his three mouths are the worst of all traitors, their legs sticking out of each mouth, as Satan gnaws on their bodies. The worst of the worst is Judas Iscariot whose head is being gnawed upon for eternity.

In Dante’s Hell, the punishment that is inflicted upon the damned for eternity matches the harm they caused while they were alive. This is the stuff about which nightmares are made. From entrails of the living damned being devoured by animals, to heretics being burned alive in their own graves, Dante fills in with great detail what happens to those who do not love as God loves. No longer recognizable as human, the damned live in the horror of a sub-human state.

gustave-dore-hell-2
The punishment of the gluttonous was to wallow in filth, slime, and putrescence as a cold, putrid rain falls upon them for eternity. Illustrator – Gustave Dore

Long before Dante’s allegory of Hell, St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, described the humanity, after the fall of Adam and Eve, as sub-human. This sub-humankind was consumed by selfishness, self-centeredness, self-indulgence, a narcissism that had little to no regard for anyone else. St. Paul harangued the Christian Corinthian community to not fall prey to the sub-humans around them. The selfishness, self centeredness that was destroying the community around them was destroying the celebration of the Eucharist. St. Paul very pointedly told the community that the selfishness of the Corinthian community was robbing the Eucharist of its efficacy, so much so, that those perpetrators of this selfish behavior were guilty of murdering the Body of Christ to the same degree of the Romans who crucified Jesus. St. Paul went so far to say that when these perpetrators ate and drank the Body and Blood of Jesus, they ate and they drank their own damnation.

Beginning with the 1980’s, the United States started a long descent into the sub-human darkness that St. Paul saw in Corinth. The exultation of the self over the needs of the common good, the pursuit of possessions and money over relationships, the elevation of greed as a virtue, greed as an admired trait, began then and this creed of an unhealthy individualism has strangled all that has been good out of our nation. The human community in the United States has gotten so self-involved that the greater good of the totality of the human community is ignored if not condemned. It has altered the meaning of the “American Dream” from the possibility of all citizens to live lives that are fulfilled and free from the worry of hunger, poverty and homelessness, to mean acquire as much power, wealth, and goods for one self and to Hell with everyone else. The only thing that holds any importance is if it benefits the individual, screw all the rest.

The whole of this election cycle has been a choice between a healthy individualism in which the good of all is foremost, and a perverted individualism in which only the individual is primary to the exclusion of all others. Americans made their choice and elected the epitome of this perversion of individualism, perhaps electing the very image of the electorate themselves. The unimaginative, the greedy, and the gluttonous have been convinced, like the rubes of old time snake bite remedies, that the all the problems of the world are fixed in the person they have elected, and that each one of them will be far better off individually. It would be tragic if it were it not so horribly pathetic.

gustave-dore-hell-3
Dante and Virgil speak with Pope Anastasius II as he is burned alive in his tomb. Illustrator – Gustave Dore

The circles of Hell to which Dante confined those guilty of the many sins of Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery still remain and are still destructive of human society and the Church.  It should be noted, that the many condemned to Hell in Dante’s story included among them politicians of Florence, his home. However, Dante made equally sure that among the damned were a great number of clergy, including bishops, cardinals, and Popes. As St. Paul noted to the Corinthian community, the Church is as vulnerable to Utilitarian and Expressive individualism as the rest of human society.

St. Paul writes in his theology of the Body of Christ, that the needs of the totality of the Body of Christ, far outweigh the needs of the individual part of the Body of Christ. Unless, we, as Catholics, and as Americans begin to live this meaning of healthy individualism, in which the needs of the many outweigh the need of the one individual, we will pass through an entrance over which hangs a sign that say, “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here!” Our society will be destroyed, and the allegorical vision of Dante Alighieri’s Hell will become a living reality.

gustave_dore_inferno34
The lowest circle of Hell where Satan resides. Illustrator – Gustave Dore

Allen Ginsberg’s “America”, and America in 2016

allen_ginsberg_1979_-_cropped
Allen Ginsberg, 1979. Photograph by Hans van Dijik.

I received the most wonderful liberal arts education at the College of St. Thomas in the early 70’s. With the exception of the head of the music department there, my professors were exemplary. During my freshman year, I was fortunate to have a class in poetry, taught by an Irish poet in residence. His class was not just about Dickinson, Frost, ee cummings, Longfellow, and Yeats, though, we certainly studied those poets. He liked to shake things up and introduced me to the contemporary poets, numbered among them was Allen Ginsberg. The Ginsberg poem we studied was “America.” The poem was written in 1956 when the Cold War with the Soviet Union and China was just escalating into madness. The opening line of the poem is, “America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.” In the poem, Ginsberg reveals the myths we have built up about our country. He strikes at those myths with questions and statements peppered throughout the poem. “America when will we end the human war?” America when will you be angelic?” “America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.” “My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I’m a Catholic.” (Catholics were politically discriminated against in industry and politics at this time in American history. Incidentally, Ginsberg was raised Jewish, and died a Buddhist) “America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?” “America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.” The last lines of the poem are:

America is this correct?
I’d better get right down to the job.
It’s true I don’t want to join the Army or turn lathes in
precision parts factories, I’m nearsighted and
psychopathic anyway.
America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
(from “Allen Ginsberg: Collected Poems, 1947-1997”, HarperCollins e-books)

At times like these it is a comfort reading poems from Allen Ginsberg. Especially in his early poems, when, as a young man, he learned from experience the myths he was taught about our country were myths, and not truths, the outrage that is, at times, brutally expressed is an outlet for my own outrage. I am a child of the 60’s. I have seen and experienced my nation being torn asunder by the lies of politicians. It makes no difference whether it was LBJ and the Democrats, or Nixon and the Republicans. I have seen the city of Chicago go up in flames along with so many other cities over injustice. I have seen a president, his brother, and a holy leader, shot down in cold blood, the latter set up by J Edgar Hoover, who was the head of the FBI. I have seen soldiers fire live rounds into unarmed students at a college campus in Ohio. I have seen treachery and debauchery.

All these things that Ginsberg expresses in the 1950’s, occurred again in the 60’s, the 70’s, the 80’s, oddly, not in the 90’s when Clinton was president, then came back with a vengeance from 2000-2007. Growing up cynical of all authority, I should not be surprised by the turn of events from last week. Perhaps, I am naïve, but I keep hoping that my cynicism is based on false data. Yet, these hopes keep on crashing down. However, one cannot remain in this stasis of disbelief and cynicism. It is time to once more acknowledge, that Americans are their own worst enemies. As the character Pogo expressed succinctly in the comic strip of the same name, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” It is time, once again, to fight against injustice, tired though I may be. In the words of Allen Ginsberg, “America, I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel,” once again.

Back to where we belong – a reflection on the gospel for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

picture-179This past weekend, Ruthie and I, and our family were up in Two Harbors for a family get together. Ruthie and I went to the 4:30 pm Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Two Harbors, having the wonderful pleasure of actually worshiping in the same pew together. Initially, when I read the gospel earlier in the week I remembered an Ollie and Lena joke that I won’t repeat here. As the priest was homilizing on the gospel this was the reflection that came to my mind.

When the comedian, Woody Allen, was doing stand-up, he had an observation about death that I still enjoy to this day. He remarked, “I am not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

As our gospel readings wind down to the end of the liturgical year, we begin to reflect on death and our life’s journey. Each liturgical year, we accompany the paschal mystery of Jesus, his life, his death and his resurrection. In doing so, however, we are not merely observers of some historical personage from a long time ago. The flow of the liturgical year and the scriptural readings that accompany that flow are meant to engage us in reflecting on our own life’s journey as we journey with that of Jesus. This merging of our life’s story with his began the moment we were baptized into his passion, death, and resurrection.

The gospel for this weekend calls us to confront our own mortal condition. We are going to die, whether we, like Woody Allen, want to be there or not. We generally avoid thinking about our own demise. Plain and simple it is just too depressing. However, the shortness of our human life is a reality we have to confront.

In Psalm 89, the psalmist writes, “To your (God) eyes a thousand years are like yesterday, come and gone, no more than a watch in the night. You sweep us away like a dream, like the grass which springs up in the morning. In the morning it springs up and flowers: by evening it withers and fades.” A little later in the psalm, it is written, “Our life is over like a sigh. Our span is seventy years, or eighty for those who are strong. And most of these are emptiness and pain. They pass swiftly and we are gone.  … Make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart.”

Acknowledging that the time we have on this earth is so short, forces us to think about how we have lived our lives. How have we used the gifts we have been given? In what way has God’s Kingdom been advanced in the world by our presence? Is the world better off for us having lived, or would it have been better had we never had been born? Have we used the time we have had, wisely? Will the lives we have led been deemed worthy to attain to the coming age, where we will become like angels?

the_vision_of_teilhard-de-chardin

All of these questions, and many more, remind us that we are living in the end times, the “eschaton”, when Jesus will return in glory. If this makes us uncomfortable, well then, we should be uncomfortable. Perhaps, we should begin to rectify our lives, to reform our lives.  Unlike so many others who run from death in fear, let us embrace death after having had a lifetime of preparation. Let us be good stewards of our short time on earth. Let us be good stewards of the gifts that God has given us, sharing those gifts with others in need. Let us be faithful servants of the God who loved us into creation, and will love us into recreation at our deaths.

Conversion, a process in becoming. A homily for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Listen to these words from the Book of Wisdom which we heard in the first reading. “For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.” Listen to them again. “For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.” Do you believe them?  Do you believe that God loves you so greatly? Do you believe that God loves you so tremendously much? It matters not if we are not perfect. God doesn’t require us to be perfect in order to love us. God loves us just as we are. These words  essentially say that God does not make junk. God does not create evil, God only creates good. The fact that God created us says that we are good. I find that incredibly comforting and reassuring. What God is asking of us is to fully become that which he created. In other words, we could be even better.

I know we have some educators numbered among us today. As a former educator, it was my intention to pull from each student their greatest potential. I didn’t want my students to slack off and to just get by. I wanted them to excel to the fullest of what they could do. I believe that that is the intention of all educators, to challenge, cajole, and to pull the best they can from their students. This is what God wants from us as well. God wants us to live fully the person he created us to be.

This is what the Gospel story is illustrating for us. Zacchaeus, is a tax collector. Many Jewish people considered him a traitor because he was collecting taxes for the Romans, their enemies. On top of that, Zacchaeus was also over taxing the people and keeping the extra money for himself. He heard that Jesus was passing through town and wanted to catch a glimpse of him. Because he was so short, he decided to climb a tree in order to get a better look at Jesus. So here is Zacchaeus perched in a tree like a bird as Jesus walks below him. Jesus looks up and tells Zacchaeus that he is going to be spending time at his house.

As crooked as Zacchaeus might have been, Jesus did not look upon Zacchaeus as a traitor, or as cheat and a scoundrel as did the others in Zacchaeus’ community. Jesus looked up and saw a child of God who wasn’t living up to his full potential as a child of God. In the words and in the eyes of Jesus, Zacchaeus was stirred to become a better person, to live more fully his human vocation as a child of God. He climbs down from the tree and tells Jesus that he will give half of his fortune to the poor. And, to anyone whom he had cheated, he would repay them four times the amount he cheated them. What Zacchaeus was experiencing was what we call a conversion.

Conversion means to change. We use that word in many different ways. If we go to a foreign country we convert our money into the money of the country we are visiting. We convert inches and feet into centimeters and meters. Spiritually, we are called to change ourselves, to convert our way of living right now into becoming the person God created us to be.

This conversion is not a one time occurrence it is something that happens over and over again in our lives. It is something that we want to experience daily. Some days will be very good, and other days, not so good. The wonderful thing about conversion is that there is always another day in which we can change our lives for the better.

And what is the ultimate upside to conversion? It is what St. Paul expresses in his letter to the Thessalonians. He writes so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in us, and we in him.
We always must work on our own personal conversion so that when people see us and visit with us they encounter in us the glory of Jesus Christ. Living a lifetime of conversion, we will lead us to that for which we were ultimately created to become, the living and breathing incarnation of Jesus to our world.