St. Joseph the Great

St. Joseph’s solemn feast is today! It’s a day of exuberant and Lent-defying celebration for the whole Church, especially as Pope Francis celebrates his Inaugural Mass. And it’s a special joy for men everywhere who have the distinct privilege of being fathers, yes!, but also of being guardians of God’s beloved daughters.

St. Joseph, Spouse and Abba

St. Joe rocks. Foster father of God’s Son and spouse of the God-bearer.

When I ponder the fact that he bore the fearsome role of being the earthly image for Jesus of the heavenly Father, it fills me with wonder and awe. When Jesus first said Abba, he meant Joseph. And, as with all fathers, the vocation of Joseph was to provide for Jesus as seamless a transition from father to Father as possible. Joseph was a craftsman, working by the sweat of his brow and teaching Jesus the dignity of doing the same. He was a just man, a man who walked in dark and pilgrim faith, the protector of and provider for his family and a man of humble silence.

All that said, what stands out to me most, especially in our time, as most remarkable is that he was placed as guardian of his bride’s God-sealed virgin chastity, which he secured, no doubt, by the furious virtue his own heroic chastity. The joyful burden that this must have placed on him to love the Tota Pulchra, All-Beautiful woman in purity of body and soul must have been immense.

But his singular call to such manly virtue toward the Virgin Mary is by no means unique to him.

All men are called by the eternal Father to guard women’s chastity by guarding first their own, and here I mean *chastity* in the broadest sense of placing one’s red-blooded erotic desire in service of the full truth of human sexuality as it exists in its God-given meaning. And for men, this can be a cause for great, great heroism. In fact, I am absolutely convinced that men who commit themselves to this work of chaste-guardianship can become, though much prayer and fraternal support, great saints of post-modernity in suffering its often great demands in the face of a super-eroticized culture.

Here I would also add that men who indulge in pornography, extra-marital sex, abusive/using sex or contraception have gravely compromised the guard-post God entrusted to them and have failed to be men of St. Joseph. To such men the Church of Jesus Christ, son of Mary, says: repent and pray fervently to this patron of heroic chastity!

And yes, obviously women have their own distinctive, essential and unique role in this guardianship of chastity, but as it’s St. Joe’s day I am speaking of men, as a man.

Last thought

St. Teresa of Avila had a special devotion to him, and argued that Joseph, the man of listening silence, was a special patron of the “interior life,” that life of seeking God in the deepest center of our heart. And let me also recommend to you Bl. John Paul II’s inspiring Apostolic Exhortation on St Joseph here.

I’ll let St. Teresa finish my thoughts today:

I wish I could persuade everyone to be devoted to this glorious saint, for I have great experience of the blessings which he can obtain from God. I have never known anyone to be truly devoted to him and render him particular services who did not notably advance in virtue, for he gives very real help to souls who commend themselves to him. For some years now, I think, I have made some request of him every year on his festival and I have always had it granted. If my petition is in any way ill directed, he directs it aright for my greater good.

Holiness or Criticism? I choose Franciscum.

Henri De Lubac once wrote that the difference between St. Francis and Martin Luther is the difference between a reform aimed at holiness and a reform aimed at criticism. In choosing Bergoglio, the cardinals seem to have opted for the former. — John Allen Jr.

What an insightful remark. And let me say that in a time where these two reform paradigms loom large and vie for dominance in our Church, I for one am glad to see in this case the saint prevailing over the cynic. Though both have a role.

Bergoglio chose St. Francis of Assisi’s name, it would seem, to point to this saint as the needed paragon of Gospel poverty in a time of worldly excess, of charity in a time of hatred, of trust in a time of fear, of outward apostolic mission in a time of inward ecclesial navel-gazing, of conciliation in a time of vitriol, of zeal in a time of apathy, of prayer in a time of distraction, of service in a time of selfishness, of chastity in a time of unchastity, of inner freedom in a time of addiction, of peace in a time of violence, of hope in a time of despair, of love of God above all things in a time of love of all things above God. I dare not tire you further with this lengthy litany, but I think you get the point.

St. Francis’ model of reform was unambiguously this: before you look to incite God’s revolution, make certain you’ve allowed yourself to become its first about-turn. As the Latin proverb as it, Nemo dat quod non habet, ‘You can’t give what you don’t have.’

In fact, St. Francis’ saint-counterpart in the Eastern Church, St. Seraphim on Sarov, made this point succinctly: “Acquire inward peace and thousands around you will be saved.”

As Fr. George Rutler phrases it in his book on ecclesial reform, every crisis in the Church is, at core, a crisis of saints (or lack thereof). Saints are not only living, authentic and compelling witnesses to the Gospel, but they are wellsprings of divine life bubbling up in the midst of a parched world. Saints transform human deserts into divine oases by refusing to leave the Gospel untried, unrisked, unspoken. Each saint manifests and sparkles with the truth, goodness and beauty of God according to his or her absolute uniqueness, which is why truly life’s greatest tragedy is to have not become the saint God created you to be. The manifestation of divine glory — of God’s attributes of peace, justice, charity, kindness, purity and mercy that were themselves made fully manifest in Christ crucified — is impoverished by even one human being’s failure to singularly refract the Light from Light.

The mission of the Church, which is to capture the world’s attention and turn it toward the Face of Christ, succeeds only inasmuch as the Church mirrors that Face; and she mirrors that Face only by first facing that Face aright in prayer-made-flesh, drenched in the Gospels, fruiting in holy lives awash in cruciform deeds of charity and justice.

Francis, patron saint of Church Renovation, was all of this in spades, and his life and charism set in motion a reformation that to this day burns undimmed.

Chestertonian Francis

G.K. Chesterton, in his must-read biography of St. Francis, describes personal sanctity as a prescription for reform:

Every saint is a sort of man before he is a saint; and a saint may be made of every sort or kind of man; and most of us will choose between these different types according to our different tastes….The Saint is a medicine because he as an antidote. Indeed, that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means the same element in every age. Yet each generation seeks its saint by instinct; and he is not what the people want, but rather what the people need.

In the same book, Chesterton offers a vivid portrait of St. Francis’ freshly minted and wildly radical post-conversion visage that shows just how potent this antidote had to be in the face of the ills of his age:

A young fool or rascal is caught robbing his father and selling goods which he ought to guard; and the only explanation he will offer is that a loud voice from nowhere spoke in his ear and told him to mend the cracks and holes in a particular wall. He then declares himself naturally independent of all powers corresponding to the police or the magistrates, and takes refuge with an amiable bishop who is forced to remonstrate with him and tell him he is wrong. He then proceeds to take off his clothes in public and practically throw them at his father; announcing at the same time that his father is not his father at all. He then runs about the town asking everybody he meets to give him fragments of buildings or building materials, apparently with reference to his old monomania about mending the wall. It may be an excellent thing that cracks should be filled up, but preferably not by somebody who is himself cracked; and architectural restoration like other things is not best performed by builders who, as we should say, have a tile loose. Finally the wretched youth relapses into rags and squalor and practically crawls away into the gutter. That is the spectacle that Francis must have presented to a very large number of his neighbors and friends.

Maybe this celestial irruption is the very form of sanctity our Pontiff is hoping will arise in the midst of the Church to proffer our ailing world a fresh dose of the Medicine of Immortality that subsists in the Catholic Church. Maybe we need a few such soberly intoxicated saints.

Maybe.

Fire-Casting

I will leave you with an oft cited quote from Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthatsar that elaborates on de Lubac’s point about St. Francis and punctuates in exclamatory form my own hope for the future-church:

And the saints are humble, that is to say, the mediocrity of the Church does not deter them from expressing once and for all their solidarity with her, knowing well that without her they could never find their way to God. To bypass Christ’s Church with the idea of making their way to God on their own initiative would never occur to them. They do battle with the mediocrity of Christ’s Church not by protesting but by enkindling and encouraging the better. The Church causes them pain, but they do not become embittered and stand aside to sulk. They form no dissident groups but cast their fire into the midst. Your genuine saint never points to himself; he is no more than the reflection. It is the Master Flame that counts.

St. Patrick, slave of Ireland

St. Patrick’s call to evangelize the Irish is a wild and absolutely unique story. Born in Britain, he was captured as a young man by Celtic pirates, enslaved as a shepherd in Ireland and, after having risked his life to regain his freedom, said “yes” to a divine call to return to his captors in order to preach the Gospel to them.

Patrick had stunning evangelical success as Christianity swept across Ireland in a short time, and it is a near-miracle of history that the ex-slave Bishop shepherded the notoriously brutal Celtic slave trade industry into an abrupt end.

Among the many characteristics of Patrick that marked the Irish soul, his earthy and no-nonsense humility stands out. Just take a moment to read this brief selection from his autobiographical Confession:

I am, then, first of all, countryfied, an exile, evidently unlearned, one who is not able to see into the future, but I know for certain, that before I was humbled I was like a stone lying in deep mire, and he that is mighty came and in his mercy raised me up and, indeed, lifted me high up and placed me on top of the wall. And from there I ought to shout out in gratitude to the Lord for his great favours in this world and for ever, that the mind of man cannot measure.

Therefore be amazed, you great and small who fear God, and you men of God, eloquent speakers, listen and contemplate. Who was it summoned me, a fool, from the midst of those who appear wise and learned in the law and powerful in rhetoric and in all things? Me, truly wretched in this world, he inspired before others that I could be– if I would– such a one who, with fear and reverence, and faithfully, without complaint, would come to the people to whom the love of Christ brought me and gave me in my lifetime, if I should be worthy, to serve them truly and with humility.

Therefore may it never befall me to be separated by my God from his people whom he has won in this most remote land. I pray God that he gives me perseverance, and that he will deign that I should be a faithful witness for his sake right up to the time of my passing.

And if at any time I managed anything of good for the sake of my God whom I love, I beg of him that he grant it to me to shed my blood for his name with proselytes and captives, even should I be left unburied, or even were my wretched body to be torn limb from limb by dogs or savage beasts, or were it to be devoured by the birds of the air, I think, most surely, were this to have happened to me, I had saved both my soul and my body. For beyond any doubt on that day we shall rise again in the brightness of the sun, that is, in the glory of Christ Jesus our Redeemer, as children of the living God and co-heirs of Christ, made in his image; for we shall reign through him and for him and in him.

St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, pray for us.

Join me in prayerfully listening to the Lorica (Breastplate) of St. Patrick:

Costly Belief

I was introduced to a new quote recently, penned by the eminently quotable early Christian writer, Tertullian. The quote provoked in me a string of loosely (un)related insights into faith that I thought I would share here.

Here’s the quote:

Since, moreover, you are close upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very authority (of the apostles themselves). How happy is Rome’s church, on which the apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood; where Peter endured a passion like his Lord’s; where Paul won his crown in a death like John the Baptist’s; where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and was thence remitted to his island-exile.

Tertullian’s image of doctrine mingled with shed blood totally captures my imagination.  It’s a symbol of the whole Christian life, as our life is to be a “handing on” of the faith in a living martyrdom. It is precisely the cost of the struggle to live faith, when that struggle is motivated by love, that secures the authenticity and power of our witness to Christ. Costly love is compelling.

Do You Love Me?

It reminds me of a story I heard from a man I met at a men’s conference. He told me he had over the years developed a stormy relationship with his teenage daughter. “She felt” he said, “that my strict discipline was a sign that I didn’t really love her; that I didn’t have her best interests at heart. It was very painful for me to be reconciled to the fact that she probably hated me in her heart, even though I knew that my strictness was out of love and concern for her well-being.” But it wasn’t until the day she had a brush with death that he said it all turned around. “God gave me a chance to show her how much I loved her as I placed myself physically in harm’s way to avert her being killed. After that she said to me, ‘If I ever doubted you really loved me, I don’t now. I believe you.’” “But,” he said, “what I think she never got was that the love I showed that day, and the love I showed all along were the same.”

In other words, he was willing to endure the dying that all parents have to undergo very time they die to themselves and make hard choices for their children’s good even when the child does not, or will not, see it at the time.

Sheep

It also reminds me of something I heard in a phenomenal lecture on the parable of the lost sheep in Luke’s Gospel back in 1999:

It’s precisely because of the fact that the shepherd is willing to leave the other 99 sheep in order to save the lonely, lost one that the those 99 feel wholly secure. And the fact that the shepherd is also willing to painfully bear on his shoulders the heavy burden of the stray sheep only seals their belief that he is worthy of supreme trust.

Creed

Yet again, it reminds me of a historical theology professor in my M.A. program who once said,

Every time you profess the Creed of Nicaea, remember that many of the Bishops who gathered in 325 A.D. to craft that summary of our Faith had previously suffered terrifying tortures under the vicious persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian. Imagine Bishops missing limbs, patches of hair and eyes, covered with scars, gathering to define the core symbol of faith. Next time you are given chance to profess the Creed, do so with great fervor and gusto knowing that those who handed on this Faith faithfully imitated the Master who gave Himself over into the hands of His enemies so that we might believe.

“And Jesus said to them, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM’” — John 8:28

Pause for a moment to hear our Creed, and profess it in your heart with gusto:

Lenten alms

I happened on this quote the other day from St. Don Bosco:

An effective but often neglected means of gaining Paradise is almsgiving. By almsgiving I mean any work of mercy exercised toward one’s neighbor for the love of God.

It reminded me of a comment a colleague of mine here at the Seminary made to me last Fall, that I quoted before on this blog:

If one were to do a cursory read of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), one would get the impression that we are saved by giving alms.

The vocation of human beings, in the Hebrew biblical worldview, is to return the created world back to God as a sacrificial offering of thanksgiving, and the prime conduit of that “return” is the hand of the beggar. We are, in effect, priests of mercy who ensure creation conspires to the good of all.

{If you are skeptical on this account of Jewish thinking on the topic, read Gary Anderson’s article in First Things (click here) that rocked my world first time I read it.}

In this sense, Jesus’ final judgment parable in Matthew 25:31-46 is simply the Messiah’s “Amen” at the end of the Hebrew Bible.

So this Lent, return your corner of the universe to God through the hands of those around you in need of mercy. When you die, they will await you with hands full…

Lead us not into temptation, but just in case….

On this Sunday of Jesus’ Temptation, I always like to prayerfully reflect on St. Ignatius’ first two Rules for discernment, and look to see where they are at play in my life. The “enemy” he speaks of refers to demonic evil, while the “good spirit” refers either to angels or to the Holy Spirit.

Iggy Rules

The first Rule: In the persons who go from mortal sin to mortal sin, the enemy is commonly used to propose to them apparent pleasures, making them imagine sensual delights and pleasures in order to hold them more and make them grow in their vices and sins. In these persons the good spirit uses the opposite method, pricking them and biting their consciences through the process of reason.

The second: In the persons who are going on intensely cleansing their sins and rising from good to better in the service of God our Lord, it is the method contrary to that in the first Rule, for then it is the way of the evil spirit to bite, sadden and put obstacles, disquieting with false reasons, that one may not go on; and it is proper to the good to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations and quiet, easing, and putting away all obstacles, that one may go on in well doing.

In the first rule, the evil spirit encourages the rationalization of one’s choice to remain in habitual sin, e.g. “it’s not so bad,” “they don’t understand,” “there’s plenty of time to change,” “they’re all hypocrites anyway,” “you deserve it,” “being good is no fun.”

In the second rule, the evil spirit encourages despair over one’s frailty in the pursuit of virtue, e.g. ”you’ll never change,” “you’re a fraud,” “God has rejected you,” “holiness is a pipe dream,” “it’s too demanding.”

Practicals

The proper response to being thus tempted? In very simple terms: Reveal your temptations to a trusted confessor, spiritual mentor or spiritual friend and keep nothing of your temptation secret. Repent often, making St. Isaac of Syria’s dictum real in your life: “The purpose of life in our fallen world is repentance.” Trust wholly in God’s mercy, not in your own power. Pray ceaselessly for God’s consoling compassion to lift you from those dark places, and press on after falling by boldly applying your will to the virtue that opposes your tempting vice (e.g. respond to greed with generosity).

All of these strategies come down to humility, the ground of all virtue that plants our roots in the dirt of reality; the soil of truth. St. Antony of Egypt got this: “I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said, groaning, “What can get one through such snares?” Then I heard a voice saying to me, “Humility.”

A last thought — I always highly commend reading Fr Gallagher’s excellent intro to Ignatius’ rules for discernment to get the meat and potatoes. You will not regret reading this book and I guarantee it will open your eyes and offer you tools to see God’s leading through the thickets of temptation that befall everyone who sets their hands to the plow.

Down Low is Upright

Jean Vanier

“Always remember that at the Last Judgement we are judged for loving Him, or failing to love Him, in the least person.”

—Archbishop Anastasios of Albania

This quote reminds me of the offbeat, indirect advice the ever-impassioned and bighearted Fr. Philip Scott once gave me when he was living in Tampa in 2000:

Remember, God will judge me more severely on how I ignored the nobodies, the irritating or the unattractive than he will reward me for the good I did for the important, the delightful and the attractive. Think upside down, and you will think upright.

Sounds like St. Paul,

…do not be haughty but associate with the lowly – Rom. 12:16

Thomas Kneel

Flannery O’Connor

On this great feast celebrating that giant among the saints, Thomas Aquinas, I could think of no better tribute than to make my own the words of that self-described “Hillbilly Thomist,” Flannery O’Connor, who found in Thomas’ rational sobriety a secret and wildly lovely fire:

St. Thomas called art reason in making. In art the reason goes wherever the imagination goes. We have reduced the uses of reason terribly. You say a thing is reasonable and people think you mean it’s safe. What’s reasonable is seldom safe and always exciting.

What I have always found, as a theologian, most attractive in Aquinas is the remarkable integration of intellectual rigor and spiritual depth he achieved. Among the many testimonies to his character collected for his canonization process, this one reported by Thomas of Celano moves me most:

He never set himself to study or argue a point, or lecture or write or dictate without first having recourse inwardly to prayer for the understanding and the words required by the subject. When perplexed by a difficulty, he would kneel and pray. Then, on returning to his writing or dictation, he was accustomed to find that his thought had become so clear that it seemed to show him inwardly, as in a book, the words he needed.

St. Thomas, pray that the Church may be served by more kneeling intellectuals who ‘get’ the unity of thought and prayer.

Apostle of the Heart Set Free

Today’s feast of St. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus points us to a core truth of Christian spirituality that I take as the theological anthem of all my work: the Cross. It was Paul’s leitmotif:

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 1 Cor. 2:2

Not I, But Christ in Me

I was listening to an old lecture by Orthodox theologian Fr. Tom Hopko yesterday on the spiritual life, and he made a powerful point in his characteristically striking way:

The Christian vision of growth toward wholeness is healing by death and resurrection. Death to self, life for God. Contemporary models of faith healing are so often merely spiritualized versions of our feel-good, consumer-driven, quick-fix and ego-saturated culture. Lazarus was raised from the dead so that he could later be martyred. We are healed so that we can freely bear more corsses and trials; so our old self might die and our new self might love with the same love with which God loved us in Christ crucified. Any “mysticism” that avoids the cross, as Fr Schmemann used to say, only serves to join us to that “other” trinity: mist, I and schism.

In this vein, the dazed Paul, who stumbled into Damascus after his encounter with the Risen Christ, was greeted with this haunting message that Jesus commanded Ananias to bring to Paul,

Go, for this man is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites. I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name.

The Mystery

Paul’s deepest conversion was not to “join” another religion, but rather to find himself confronted by a mystery: at the heart of Israel’s God a wise folly wherein power is found in weakness, life is born from death and majesty is exalted in its abasement.

But may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

As I mused today over what that looks like in a heart that embraces this royal road of the cross, a quote from St. John of the Cross filled my memory:

God values in you the inclination to dryness and suffering for love of him more than all the consolations, spiritual visions, and meditations you could possibly have.

That’s a tall order, but, as Paul relentlessly affirms, grace alone can turn us from self-less to love more.

I then wondered in what way this demanding vision could ever be made “attractive” to anyone? Then I thought: saints. Saints are the supreme aesthetic proof of God’s existence: saints are, therefore Beauty is.

When you meet this royal way in action, alive in real people who have striven their whole life to live love’s self-death, you are absolutely captivated and irresistibly seduced by it. These people are all around us and I have known, and know, many. When I leave their presence I feel lighter, more joyful, more human, as if I had been for them the most important person in their world.

In fact, just the other day I was with one such person, and as he walked away from me I immediately thought of St. Augustine’s famous line: “God loves each of us as if there was no one else for him to love.”

May grace make me thus inclined to love.

Antony the Tempted

Today is the feast of St. Antony of Egypt (c. 251–356), the patriarch of monasticism whose life of 105 years — 80 of those spent in the Egyptian desert — revolutionized the whole Christian world. His biography, written by his contemporary St. Athanasius of Alexandria, stands as one of the all time classics of Christian and spiritual literature. It’s filled with Antony’s endless and wild struggles with his own sins, with the demons, with maintaining ceaseless prayer and with the demands of Christian virtue. In the midst of his battles, as Antony would turn to prayer, God would simply affirm: “I am with you.”

What more could we want?

We also have a collection of Antony’s “sayings” that are very rich and have afforded me many hours of challenging reflection. Let me share one that I have found most profitable, one that has at least eased my sense of surprise when life gets tough:

Abba Anthony said to Abbe Poemen, “This is the Great Work of a man: always to take the blame for his own sins before God and to expect temptation to his last breath. Whoever has not experienced temptation cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Without temptation, no one can be saved.”

Temptation offers us the opportunity to practice heroism, great and small — to resist, to choose the good, to forge character and, most important of all, to turn to God in humility and cry out from the depths of our weakness for his assistance.

I think here of a priest, seasoned with experience, who said to a newly ordained priest who often fretted to him over his challenging new parish assignment: “You’re so lucky! A tough parish right off the bat…a free pass to sanctity! Me? My God, I got a saintly pastor and a pious parish. No such luck; I was not so fortunate.”

Best part, he meant every word of it.

Reminds me also of my former spiritual director, whom I often quote in this blog, who would say to me any time I would kvetch over my life’s hardships: “What’d you expect?”

I’d say back, “Do you really want to know?”

He never did.

St. Antony, come to our aid in time of temptation and beg for us the grace to make of every hardship a path to holiness. Amen.