This is the Night

There is much to complain about in the world.

Just go on Facebook. Plenty there to keep you frustrated for hours.

Here are some troubling statistics I found:

          ·      9 out of 10 Catholic couples seeking marriage in the Church are cohabitating.

          ·      82% of Catholic couples think contraception in morally acceptable.

          ·      80% of couples don’t believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

          ·      Over 50% of Americans endorse homosexual unions.

          ·      Nearly 40% of all births in America are out of wedlock.

          ·      Over 4000 babies are killed each day through abortion.

… and so on and so on, in saecula saeculorum. Don’t get me wrong, there are battles to fight and work to be done. But the Easter Vigil tonight reminded me that in all our doing, we often forget what is done. As candle light slowly filled the church tonight, the Exsultet reminded me very simply:

This is the night


when first you saved our fathers:


you freed the people of Israel from their slavery


and led them dry-shod through the sea.



This is the night


when the pillar of fire destroyed the darkness of sin!



This is the night


when Christians everywhere,


washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,


are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.



This is the night


when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death
and rose triumphant from the grave.

Yes. This is the night. Death has lost its sting, and hell its victory. Love has conquered sin and slavery. The victory is won. And though we may go back to the grind on Monday, frustrated by rainbows and red equal signs, hypocrisy, poor legislation, and empty pews…

Take a moment. Smile. Breathe in, breathe out.

Christ is risen. Alleluia, Alleluia. 

What the Mass tells us about Traditional Marriage

My older sister recently relayed the staggering statistic that nearly 82% of Roman Catholics think artificial means of birth control are “morally acceptable.” Startling, but perhaps not surprising given the culture swing. Here’s the more surprising statistic: nearly 80% of Catholics deny the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

            Of those who assert any sort of correlation between these two numbers, most would likely praise the technology and rationalism of today for solving overpopulation and dispensing with medieval superstition. We’re smarter now, that’s all.

            This “smarter now” mentality allows us to doctor and redefine things that have always been one way. Why? Simply because we can, because we’re enlightened, because in a cost-benefit analysis, we can now get more for less—more toys for less money, more sexual pleasure for less responsibility, more fun at “church” for less offering. Our modern technology allows us to “get inventive, creative, imaginative”—after all, are these not the three virtues of our modern educational system?

            Now, I’m all for kids (and adults) being creative and imaginative, but are there certain things in life that are preserved from creativity? Certain things about which we should not be inventive, but should just let be? The Church thinks so. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, she states:

If from the beginning Christians have celebrated the Eucharist and in a form whose substance has not changed despite the great diversity of times and liturgies, it is because we know ourselves to be bound by the command the Lord gave on the eve of his Passion: “Do this in remembrance of me” (1356).

The very heart of the liturgy—the Eucharist—the Church explains, is not up for discussion, not open to opinion polls, not looking for fresh creative minds to analyze how we can get the most Jesus for the least effort on our part. No. The Church recognizes that the liturgy is not our gift to God, but God’s gift to man. How prideful and fallen man is to think he can “improve” or “spice up” something ordained by God for all of time, something divine in its very nature.

            The Church also thinks that marriage is not open to opinion polls, and for the very same reason. Again hearkening to the Catechism:

In his preaching Jesus unequivocally taught the original meaning of the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning… The matrimonial union of man and woman is indissoluble: God Himself has determined it: “what therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (1614).

Both the Liturgy and marriage are ordained from the beginning and redeemed in Christ. Thus we cannot be imaginative, creative, or inventive with either. They need no “spicing up” from new technology or fresh insights—God needs no improvement.

I used to sketch when I was little, and often gave my parents and relatives framed art for Christmas of birthdays. I recall once giving my little sister a sketch of mine. I had drawn it, perfected it for her, and given it as a gift. She loved it. The next day I saw the picture lying on the kitchen table. She had added colors to my black and white masterpiece! As you can imagine, my response was far from “Thank you for your creativity. It needed a little reform, a fresh perspective, a spicing-up.” I thought it was already perfect. She, of course, did not alter it out of spite. But at that age, she didn’t understand the nature of loving gift—that you accept the gift for what it is, you do not change it to fit your fleeting wants.

Unfortunately, we have received the Liturgy and marriage in the same manner. God, who knows our deepest desires, has given us these truly perfect gifts—they could not be better. We have received them and begun to add our own “colors” because we thought that the gift was lacking. And when those colors bored us, we added more colors until the picture lacked color altogether and became the dark brown hue of poorly blended pastels. Creativity with a gift given in love is not “reform” or “redefinition.” It is self-interested manipulation, which ends in destruction of the gift.

            John Paul II, in his Theology of the Body, writes:

Thus liturgical language, that is, the language of the sacrament and of the “mystery,” becomes in their [spouses’] life and living together the “language of the body” in a depth, simplicity, and beauty hitherto altogether unknown… conjugal life in some sense becomes liturgy (117b. 6).

We must reorder our understanding of the liturgy in order to reorder our understanding of marriage (and vice versa). The two are inseparably linked. In the  Liturgy, Christ the bridegroom and His bride, the Church, become one flesh upon the altar of sacrifice. This is why Churches often have baldacchinos above their altars. They are canopies over a marriage bed.

            In marriage, likewise, the bridegroom and bride become one flesh, offering themselves freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully upon the cross of the marriage bed. Thus when the Eucharist ceases to be really Jesus, when we demote him to a symbol, or worse just a piece of bread, we degrade the work of our Savior—Jesus does not humble himself freely, does not offer himself totally, does not give himself faithfully, does not bear fruit. When we lose this understanding, how can true Christian marriage make any sense? Spouses cease to humble themselves freely but instead embrace a sexual hedonism. They do not offer themselves totally but embrace a contraceptive lifestyle and mentality. They do not give themselves faithfully and instead indulge in pornography and fantasy. And therefore, they do not bear fruit.

            We have forgotten how to receive gift. There is no cost-benefit analysis, no manipulation. Only receptivity, only fiat. And when we forget how to receive gift, we decide to change the gift to fit our wants and hedonistic desires—we reduce the liturgy to a sentiment and matrimony to a civil union. We reject the Real Presence and instead embrace the fallacies of contraception and homosexual unions. “Traditional” marriage, like the Eucharist, simply is. It is not open to opinion polls. It is open to obedience, to fiat, to the joy that surpasses all understanding. Only in the fiat do liturgy and matrimony become truly “creative”—bearing life to the world.  And this life, which God has ordained for us, let no man put asunder.

A new--and doubtless very different--St. Francis

In his 1981 book After Virtue, Alisdair MacIntyre addresses the abandonment of an Aristotelian ethics in our modern society and the startling effects of this abandonment—philosophical inconsistencies on both sides of the line, utter relativism, and the fallacies of fact, protest, and rights. While his overall treatise has its triumphs and failures, perhaps his most memorable line is stamped upon the conclusion of his piece. He addresses the time in the sixth century of the “fall of civilization,” the age when the barbarians stood ready to destroy Christian civilization. At this time, a figure by the name of St. Benedict arose. He did not, however, go out and fight the forces that awaited, but instead pulled back and radically revolutionized monasticism, writing what is now considered The Rule of St. Benedict and preserving the treasury of the faith until the storm passed. MacIntyre, eerily, compares the age of Benedict to our very own, and concludes his piece with the prophetic words “We are waiting not for Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.”

            Whether one agrees with his conclusion or not, MacIntyre has hit upon a very key feature of human history. The Church emphasizes that history moves not in a “progressively” straight line (simply from point A to point B), nor does it move in a circle with no destination. History is not cyclic, but cyclonic. It moves as a spiral—directed to an end, but nevertheless reaching that end through seemingly repetitious stages. The Church emphasizes this view in Her understanding of Scripture—that the David of the Old Testament is seen again in the New, under a “new and doubtless very different”, and in this case a much perfected, form, namely Christ.

            So, where is our modern age in this cyclonic history?  Are we, too, mirroring a previous age in a new but doubtless very different way? Perhaps MacIntyre has places his finger upon our times.

            In the first 1200 years of the Church, three figures arose who are arguably the most impactful (or in the least the most popular today) in the history of the early Church—St. Paul, St. Benedict, and St. Francis. St. Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles, a model of evangelization, teaching the heart of the faith through his travels, letters, and sermons. His impact is unparalleled, as evidences in his place in the New Testament. He revealed how to bring the faith to the world, how to be another Christ.

            In the centuries that followed, St. Benedict arose. His period I have already addressed—one of danger to the heart of the Church, one in which he was not so much evangelistic but catechetical, preserving and explicating the teachings of the Church.

            Then, in the thirteenth century arose St Francis, that radical witness to poverty and discipleship. In a time of clerical unrest and Lateran reform, Francis answered God’s call to “rebuild my Church.” And he did. He is known (in addition to his popularized love for animals) for his love of the nativity, his love of the cross. He loved the little ones, the poor, the downtrodden—and he lived like them and with them, giving up a noble life and the very clothes off his back.

            Perhaps in this final figure, we can find our place in Church history. In my life, I have seen the new Paul. He was a man who travelled to over 127 countries, wrote 14 encyclicals, and revealed how to bring the faith to the world, across boundaries that haven’t been breached in centuries. He was the late Holy Father John Paul. The fact that he bore the name of the Apostle to the Gentiles I find neither ironic nor coy, but fitting.

            And now, perhaps, you can see where this is going. When MacIntyre first published After Virtue in 1981, we were, indeed, looking for a new St. Benedict. Three decades later, we realize that he has already come. Our pope emeritus, Benedict XVI, who took his name from the Benedict of the sixth century, was not the radical evangelizer that his predecessor was. He focused on internal renewal—explicating the faith in a “Year of Faith”, renewing and preserving the liturgy, and emphasizing catechesis as a weapon against the tyranny of relativism, which he condemned so frequently. He preserved the body of faith, and he did so with humility and dignity.

            Upon Benedict’s resignation, we have seen a new papa arise—Pope Francis. Though we have seen hints of his mission—dressing simply, riding in buses, living like and with the people, celebrating Holy Thursday Mass at a juvenile detention center—we know not where his papacy will lead. But in his first week, we have seen where he would like it to. Francis is not the philosopher like his predecessors (though we should not shortchange his intellect in the least). He is a man of simplicity, of poverty, of radical witness to the person of Jesus Christ. He is a man who preaches the gospel, only “when necessary” using words.

            Our time is one in which the Church is in need of renewal, of rebirth, of “rebuilding.” Perhaps our new St. Benedict has come and gone, and perhaps we have come under the servitude of a new St. Francis, though it is still too early to tell. What we can know, however, is that the Church is in an age of radical witness, of love for the nativity, love for the cross. We must look outward, while ever looking inward. We must be a Church of poverty, of littleness, of charity. The Church is returning to her roots, and in doing so ever moving forward—“ever ancient, ever new” in the words of St. Augustine. And this ancient newness we now embrace. We are waiting not for the prophet of tomorrow, but instead are called to live out the Gospel today, in new—and doubtless very different—ways.