On the Feast of Blessed John Paul: Memory and Identity

In June of 1979, John Paul II made his first papal pilgrimage back to his homeland, Poland, then governed by a Soviet-controlled puppet regime. The “Polish” authorities found themselves perplexed by the dilemma. Obviously, to refuse the pope entrance to his own country would prove catastrophic for international public relations. Simultaneously, however, no one lacked knowledge of the new pontiff’s charisma with the masses and opposition to communist regimes, least of all the Polish people. In a correspondence between Edward Gierek, the Polish Party Leader, and Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet party chieftain, the latter cautioned, “Take my advice, don’t give him any reception. It will only cause trouble… Tell the pope—he’s a wise man—he can declare publicly he can’t come due to illness.” Yet after Gierek expressed the impossibility of either proposal, Brezhnev conceded, “Do as you wish. But be careful you don’t regret it later.”[1]

            Thus began John Paul’s pilgrimage to Poland—a pilgrimage in which he set the stage for a quarter-century papacy. People saw for the first time on an international stage who this man was, and how he would lead the Church into the third millennium. Volumes have been written on his role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, his emphasis on the dignity of human life, and his monumental efforts toward ecumenism. Yet it was less his deeds and more his manner which moved the hearts of so many—least of all the young. He neither scolded nor scoffed, neither romanticized nor despised. Rather, he reminded people who they are.

         Memory (anamnesis) lies at the heart of the Church. Pope Francis’ most recent encyclical calls our present culture one of “massive amnesia.” “The question of truth,” he adds, “is really a question of memory, deep memory, for it deals with something prior to ourselves and can succeed in uniting us in a way that transcends our petty and limited individual consciousness.”[2] Man possesses a primal knowledge of and orientation toward the true and the good. This is the foundation of natural law, of Paul’s indictment of the pagan Romans (Rom. 1:20), and of the Church’s (new) evangelization. Joseph Ratzinger wrote:

            This anamnesis of the Creator, which is identical with the foundations of our existence, is the reason that mission is both possible and justified. The Gospel may and indeed must be proclaimed to the pagans, because this is what they are waiting for, even if they do not know this themselves.[3]

Man is fundamentally oriented toward truth because at the dawn of his being stands Truth himself. God’s free act of creation and his subsequent announcement that “it is good” renders all creation ordered to Himself—the Good and the True. Consequently, man’s existence is neither a diminution toward nothingness nor an idealism toward the perfection of history. Man’s existence is a reditus, a return to the Creator. Man finds himself naturally oriented to turn back, to conversion, which is a turn to the depths of being, to that which is prior to himself.

        Thus, never can the philosopher or theologian posit that we live in a “post-Christian” era. “Every age is a Christian age,” the French Dominican A.G. Sertillanges wrote. Christ dwells in every age in the sacraments—Mother Church’s treasury of memory. Each Sunday we hear “Do this in memory of me,” and we remember not some distant past, but a reality present in our time. Only through memory can we rediscover our true identity and that authenticity for which all our subcultures long. Memory breeds authenticity.

         When John Paul stood before the crowds in Poland, he proclaimed in so many words, “You are not who they say you are. Let me remind you who you are!” Only through memory would the Polish people realize that they could not be defined by a recent history of political and social distress. “It is impossible to understand this city,” John Paul spoke in his famous homily in Victory Square, Warsaw:

… that undertook in 1944 an unequal battle against the aggressor, a battle in which it was abandoned by the allied powers, a battle in which it was buried under its own ruins—if it is not remembered that under those same ruins there was also the statue of Christ the Saviour with his cross that is in front of the church at Krakowskie Przedmiescie. It is impossible to understand the history of Poland from Stanislaus in Skalka to Maximilian Kolbe at Oswiecim unless we apply to them that same single fundamental criterion that is called Jesus Christ.”

To remember who we are is to remember Christ, for “The exclusion of Christ from the history of man is an act against man.” Memory always reaches for that constant, Christ, who stands at the apex of history while the world turns (Stat crux dum volvitur orbis). In the Incarnation, God remembered his people, and thus his people remembered their God. The whole of their history leapt to the fore as they looked upon the face of their long awaited hope—“he has remembered his holy covenant.” The person of Christ refreshes anamnesis—the person of Truth persists from “generation to generation.”

        Brezhnev was right after all. John Paul did "only cause trouble"—or in the words of our current pope, “a mess.” Poland was never the same. Her son had returned, and he brought not only Peter but Christ. And when he concluded his Victory Square ho

mily with the words “Let your spirit descend and renew the face of this earth,” even the memory of the Soviet block stirred.

       John Paul II—the Great Liberator, the Great Evangelist, simply the Great? On this his feast day, I would like to posit another title to his list: The Great Reminder. John Paul understood the heart of evangelization to be the habitus of memory. He reminded the Church who she was in the tumultuous decades of the late twentieth century. He reminded her through his sermons, his travels, his forgiveness, his love. Most importantly, however, he reminded her for two hours every morning when he knelt in front of the tabernacle. “Here is your hope,” he proclaimed in silence, “Here is He for whom your hearts long.” This was how he responded to the chants of the Polish people—“We want God!”—in June of 1979. May we likewise respond to the chants of our countrymen today.

           

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[1] George Weigel, Witness to Hope (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1999), 301.

[2] Francis, Lumen Fidei, ch. 2, n. 25.

[3] Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, 92. 

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.