The Dignity of being Christian

Merry Christmas!

From a sermon of Saint Leo the Great, pope
Christian, remember your dignity

Dearly beloved, today our Saviour is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.

No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is summoned to life.

In the fullness of time, chosen in the unfathomable depths of God’s wisdom, the Son of God took for himself our common humanity in order to reconcile it with its creator. He came to overthrow the devil, the origin of death, in that very nature by which he had overthrown mankind.

And so at the birth of our Lord the angels sing in joy: Glory to God in the highest, and they proclaim peace to men of good will as they see the heavenly Jerusalem being built from all the nations of the world. When the angels on high are so exultant at this marvellous work of God’s goodness, what joy should it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?

Beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit, because in his great love for us he took pity on us, and when we were dead in our sins he brought us to life with Christ, so that in him we might be a new creation. Let us throw off our old nature and all its ways and, as we have come to birth in Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh.

Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.

Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.

Salvation brought with crooked lines

In the Byzantine Church, we hear proclaimed the genealogy of Jesus, reminding us how God’s plan of salvation comes through a lot of interesting characters. Every time I hear this gospel passage I am reminded for two things: God uses the imperfect for the revelation of the perfect and therefore gives hope, and that our Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, the foretold Christ, is in the middle of our messy and complicated history offering us the gift of salvation. What is true is that God makes his home with us, and He “has a better plan for us” and we are an essential part of that plan.

“Matthew’s genealogy is extraordinarily comprehensive in his theology lf the roots of Jesus’ story in the Old Testament. But that is only one part of the story of Jesus Christ. The story has a sequence as well; and the continuing sequence is what makes the genealogy “good news” for Matthew’s audience and for us. Human being have been empowered to preserve, proclaim, and convey salvation brought by Jesus Christ throughout history. The God who wrote the beginnings with crooked lines also writes the sequence with crooked lines, and some of those lines are our own lives and witness.

A God who did not hesitate to use the scheming as well as the noble, the impure as well as the pure, men to whom the world hearkened and women upon whom the world frowned –this God continues to work through the same melange. If it was a challenge to recognize in the last part of Matthew’s genealogy that totally unknown people were part of the story of Jesus Christ, it may be a greater challenge to recognize that the unknown characters of today are an essential part of the sequence. The proclamation of that genealogy in the Advent liturgy is designed to give us hope about destiny and our importance.

By stressing the all-powerful grace of God, the genealogy presents it greatest challenge to those who will accept only an idealized Jesus Christ whose story they would write only with straight lines and whose portrait they would paint only in pastel colors. If we look at the whole story and the total picture, the Gospels teach us that Jesus’ ministry was not thus; the history of the church teaches us that the sequence as not thus. God’s grace can work even with people like us.” (Father Raymond Brown, S.S.)

Portsmouth Abbey Oblates meet

The Portsmouth Abbey Oblates meet several times a year for prayer, a good meal,  communio, and a presentation. This time we heard the witness of Dionne who represented the Portsmouth Oblates at the International Oblate Meeting in Rome back in September 2023. I think it was the 5th time an international meeting of Oblates met in Rome.

The Portsmouth Oblates follow the Benedictine charism of a 1500+ year tradition bequeathed by Saint Benedict and the venerable monastic tradition of monks, nuns, sisters and lay people: prayer, work, and reading (study).

Avery Dulles Remembered

Today marks 15 years since the Lord called Avery Dulles to Himself. The famed Jesuit Cardinal served the Church for several decades as a theologian trying to communicate the Church’s tradition in a time of controversy.

Personally, I miss Avery’s calm voice and steady thinking. For several years we were members of a Communio Circle in Weston, Connecticut with Maria Shrady and several theological bright lights. Sadly, the group has ceased to meet.

Thomas A. Guarino writes an appreciative essay, “Remembering Avery Dulles” in First Things. Guarino fittingly recognizes Dulles’ contribution to the field of American Theology and role of the theologian in the Church.

May Avery Cardinal Dulles’ memory be eternal.

St Nicholas

Today is the feast of the defender of the faith and apostle of charity, the bishop Saint Nicholas of Myra. Some of us forget too easily that Saint Nicholas is a significant model of Christian life: truth and love.

The image of Nicholas standing on the back of a devil speaks volumes, don’t you think?

The modern rendition of Nicholas is Santa Claus which too often misses the whole point of who ought to be in real life. Nicholas helps us to see clearly; Claus makes things cloudy.

Advent Recollection Day for the Order of Malta Eastern CT Area

Today the Order of Malta -Eastern Connecticut Area met at Holy Apostles College & Seminary for the Advent Day of Recollection (meeting, lesson, Holy Mass & lunch). Along with Bishop Peter Rosazza we had Father Peter Kucer, MSA, President/Rector of the Seminary give the lesson and offer Mass.

Our special guests were Dr & Mrs Peter Kelly, the outgoing President of the American Association of the Order of Malta.

We are grateful to the several members of the Seminary community who were generous with the hospitality.

Marvel at God’s compassion

This morning I came across a quote taken from the works of St. Peter of Damaskos (a 12th century) that I think begins to open a new window for our spiritual life. I think the mature Christian is a person who understands that the life of grace is a continuum: sometimes we live fully in the illumination of God’s life generating a virtuous life. Other periods of life we may struggle with a particular way of thinking and acting. I will say we can’t cave to thinking that we are hypocrites if we work on conforming our lives to the love, compassion and wonder of God’s Way. True conversion is neither THAT immediate nor lasting. To me, those who claim otherwise are fooling themselves and shallow and their spiritual advice not worth the paper it is written upon. The spiritual life takes time and it’s a deliberate work that is very tough-going and heart-wrenching. Whether the spiritual work is fully engaging in what is said in Matthew 25, or believing that Jesus of Nazareth is the Bread of Life, or to love our enemies, not stealing, murdering, or breaking (bending, stretching?) one’s promises and vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. We can’t reduce or empty the real questions which make life meaningful. Any reduction of the heart’s needs is too severe and unreasonable and therefore not of God.

The spiritual life is proposed to be an ascesis (an intentional work of the mind, heart & body). It is not always self-evident nor is it fully realizable without real, lively attention to grace. The fruit of grace is an openness and freedom to be the self. As one person taught, we are a mystery, and this constitutes this very self. What is veiled and unveiled takes intellectual, spiritual and affective maturity. And from my experience not too many of us have the required maturity. A periodic author that I have consulted has said, “It does not merely aim at the satisfaction of human understanding, it must “deepen” it. Thus, to replace the word “mystery” with the word ‘Father’ in relation to God renders an extremely comprehensible term which at the same time identifies God’s uniqueness and intensifies the mystery. The religious sense prepares us for such a revelation but revelation intensifies the depth of this religious sense” (A. Spencer).

In the end, we have to rely not on the negative to define who we are, and what we want to become. We are more than our “sin.” It is not the negative that will make us free in Christ. It may take to the end of our life to truly be what we are made to be. What we want may be illusive if we don’t do the work of conversion. We are more than our sin, we are more than the pathologies and our ideas that live rent free in our heads. Why is it that we allow toxicity to reign in the heart that tend to become unhealthy? I can say that I have personally struggled for years with defining myself and others by their actions without looking honestly at personal history and reality and the true desires of the human heart.

All this brings me to think about what it means to be in-relation to another person in a deeper way even if it breaks the convention, and challenges what has been proposed as the door to be a true son or daughter of the Lord of Life. I’m thinking of what it may mean to deal with humanity sexuality between consenting adults. I wouldn’t want to get into details here since that would be indiscrete. But I know first hand how certain religious superiors have not assisted the brethren well in dealing with matters of sexuality in a way that leads to greater freedom. In fact, the religious superiors have too readily adopted the world’s standards, in either a permissive way or in a way that does not allow for redemption. As Cardinal George said, our society now permits everything but forgives nothing.

All too often sexuality is feared and reduced to bromides. Human sexuality is supposed to be life-giving, generative, and beautiful. But it doesn’t have to be that way if we consider the perspective and way of proceeding of Eastern Christianity.

St. Peter of Damaskos writes:

Even if you are not what you should be, you should not despair. It is bad enough that you have sinned; why in addition do you wrong God by regarding him in your ignorance as powerless? Is he, who for your sake created the great universe that you behold, incapable of saving your soul? And if you say that this fact, as well as his incarnation, only makes your condemnation worse, then repent; and he will receive your repentance, as he accepted that of the prodigal son (Luke 15:20) and the prostitute (Luke 7:37-50). But if repentance is too much for you, and you sin out of habit even when you do not want to, show humility like the publican (Luke 18:13): this is enough to ensure your salvation. For he who sins without repenting, yet does not despair, must of necessity regard himself as the lowest of creatures, and will not dare to judge or censure anyone. Rather, he will marvel at God’s compassion.

As Christians we seek the hundredfold: our true happiness in this world, and our true happiness in the next (Mark 19:29). We live and act for the sake of Jesus and are promised one hundred times to inherit everlasting life and to be happy in this life. We forget that Jesus wants and begs for our happiness in this life!!!!  Why is it that we forget this point in biblical revelation? How we get there takes time, love (concern for another’s well-being and destiny), and prudence. I can’t fall off the ground. So far my relationships are electric on a certain level. I am aware of my sinfulness and know my need for happiness and for redemption. Jesus tells us so. Amen.