Three Kings

Not "those" three kings, though. The configuration of the readings and today's saint give us three kings to think about. The first king is Pharaoh from the first chapter of Exodus. He was the "new king who knew not Joseph" and set to enslave the people of Israel. The second king is the saint of the day, St. Henry, the "Holy Roman Emperor." And the third king? That would be God, to whom be "the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever." Amen? Amen!

"I am with you"

Today's first reading includes two of the Bible's most frequently repeated messages: "Do not be afraid" and "I am with you." (Not coincidentally, these phrases also appear in all of our Pauline chapels.) You wouldn't think that Jacob, who had successfully wrestled with an angel, and whose new name, Israel, means "the man who fought with God," would be afraid to leave his rough life as a sheep herder and go to Egypt where his own son was second only to Pharoah. What exactly was he afraid of? I wonder if he was afraid "to go to Egypt" because it mean leaving the Promised Land. Egypt was a land of many (and very strange) gods: how would Jacob's family and descendants remain faithful to the God of their fathers, who--so it seemed--was back in Canaan?
And so God reveals something new to Jacob in that second amazing dream (remember the first dream with the ladder?): "I will go with you." God is not bound to any piece of land, not even to the high mountain in the heights of Moriah where Abraham had been put to the test and realized "on the mountain, the Lord will see." God had committed himself to this people, wherever they went, whatever circumstances they found themselves in. "I will go with you."

Interesting note: The Gospel of Matthew begins with God saying pretty much the same thing to Joseph (significantly enough, in a dream): "Do not be afraid..." and the child Jesus will be "Emmanuel, a name which means 'God is with us'." And the ending of the Gospel? The Easter message, "Do not be afraid" and the "Great Commission": "Go into the whole world...I am with you always."

Blog Awards

I'm a few days late getting this out, but here's a list of some great Catholic reading, courtesy of the Catholic New Media Awards (an informal voting for favorite blogs and podcasts). Going through the list, I found several blogs that were new to me and that feature some remarkable writing.

I especially recommend "Conversion Diary" (the "conversion" started some years ago, and the writer is firmly Catholic, but our conversion is to be ongoing, is it not?). Blogging mom Jennifer writes very reflective posts, but they're always salted with reality--and she draws a cadre of equally insightful commenters. This is a blog for you to promote with abandon!

Joseph's story

Talk about being at the right place at the right time! But it sure didn't seem like that for Joseph (he of the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) fo the first however many years of his ordeal. Only later (I think we'll hear it in tomorrow's liturgy) was he able to recognize that the faithful God of his father, Israel (just yesterday we heard of Jacob's name-changing struggle with the Angel), had been with him all along, guiding things so providentially that in saving the family of Jacob, God was also saving "the whole world." (Egypt being the bread-basket of the ancient world, when there was a famine in Egypt, everyone went hungry.)
I'm utterly impressed with Joseph's faith, which will be revealed when we hear him tell his (now repentant) brothers, "You meant it for harm, but God meant it for good. It was God who sent me ahead of you." In the treachery of the older brothers, God was even more active, "making all things work together for good." St Paul counted on this in his own ministry. I am especially fond of his letter to the Philippians, written from imprisonment: "The circumstances of my present life are helping, not hindering, the spread of the Gospel... Whether it is for false motives or sincere ones, Christ is being proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. And I shall continue to rejoice!"
It can be so easy for me to read my life in key of human decisions (or indecisions), bad timing, "circumstances," all horizontal cause-and-effect type things. The story of Joseph and the story of Paul warn me not to discount the possibility that God really is acting within and through (not just in spite of!) whatever touches my life.

More about Maria

Yesterday's feast engendered more than a few posts, tweets and comments across the web about the saint of the day. Here's one writer who finds inspiration in Maria's story--so much so that she is giving away two copies of a DVD on the saint's life. But there is also a meek protest in the comments from a person who, having suffered sexual abuse, almost sees Maria's martyrdom as a reproach. Are survivors of rape, abuse or violence at fault? Does Maria's canonization mean that every woman faced with rape is obliged to fight to the death? "Better off dead"? Is that what the Church is insinuating every year on July 6?

Um, no.

The Preface for the Mass of Martyrs says to God, "You choose the weak and make them strong in bearing witness to you." Faced with Alexander Serenelli's proposition, she forthrightly told him that what he was asking was gravely sinful and that he was risking his immortal soul. Where did a fatherless pre-teen find the courage (never mind the clear-headedness) to give an answer like that to a man with a knife in his hand? That's a sign of God making the weak strong in bearing witness. The important thing in Maria Goretti's story is not that she died, but that she bore witness to the truth--even when that truth was unwelcome. The fact that she did die under those circumstances made that act of witness unmistakeable and definitive. The manner of her death put a kind of "seal" on her last acts.

Maria's witness wasn't confined to catechetical truth-telling. In the hospital, before giving her Viaticum (two months after her First Communion), the priest asked Maria if she forgave Alexander (in her delerium, she had been repeating, "Poor, miserable Alexander! You will go to hell!"). She answered yes, "for the love of Jesus," and even added that she wanted him to be in heaven with her. That generosity is another sign of God making the weak strong in bearing witness--this time, witness to the scope of Christian charity. (That there was more going on here than an overdose of Neopolitan piety was proven later by Serenelli's conversion in prison.)

The Church honors martyrs ("witnesses") because they bring the truth of the Gospel into bold relief. There are some lives that manifest the power of God in a striking way. Maria's witness gives us a clue about what the grace of God can look like under her very particular circumstances. When we recognize and acknowledge and acclaim that power, we are making an act of hope that God's grace will also be powerful in us.

Homework from the Pope

The Holy Father's long-promised social encyclical was released today (though signed last week and dated on the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul). It's not terribly long, as recent encyclicals go--45 pages (plus 9 pages of footnotes!), so you don't have a good excuse not to read it. The document was expected months ago, but Pope Benedict reeled it back in so he could address the social issues raised by the collapse of the markets. This being a social encyclical, the Pope doesn't write so much about money as about people. In glancing over the document as it is going to my printer, I see that he also addresses the social aspects of technology (#69), media(#73) and bioethics (#74).

Never read an encyclical before? Here are some road markers:

The title: "Caritas in Veritate" (Charity in truth): the first words of the text itself serve as the Latin title. Another form of the title can be found in the...
Introduction: "On integral human development in charity and truth." The themes of charity and truth are coming to us in both the title and the introduction. This is already a powerful message.
Addressees: "To the bishops, priests and deacons, men and women religious, the lay faithful and all people of good will." The Holy Father is directing his message not just to the leaders in the Church--or even just to its members--but to anyone, anywhere, who has "good will." This means we can expect him, while drawing on the tradition, teachings and documents of the Church, to present his thought in a way that can be understood by people of different faiths and of no faith. He is trying to speak to as wide an audience as possible.
The first sentence: Right from the beginning, the Pope refers to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This document is not just a detatched sociological analysis, but a way of bringing faith to bear on the current social order.

Ready to tackle it now?

Queen of the Night

A proud papa sent me this link from the talent show at this weekend's Taste of Chicago. I really never expected to hear Mozart sung in German by a diminutive Hispanic... And it was just too cute not to share!

Bettter late than...

My whole schedule got turned upside down today--and being the day after a long holiday weekend didn't help. I love holidays, but you know how much they can confuse your inner work cycle! Plus, I will be leaving for my retreat and a two-week recording session on Saturday (Boston, here I come!), so I am trying like mad to finish odds and ends before packing. (Ain't gonna happen, I know.) And to top it all off, a fire ant bite I succumbed to in San Antonio seems to have just re-ignited (on the sole of my foot), so I am trying to take care of that. And still visit my one friend who is still (after a month) in the hospital.
In other words, I forgot all about blogging.
But I did want to just put a note down about today's saint. Maria Goretti, not even twelve years old, was woman enough to refuse the lewd demands of a teen porn addict, and Christian enough to try to convince him that what he wanted to do was damnable. Alexander's passion of lust turned, as it so often does, into rage against the girl, and he expressed his fury with the blade of a knife. That's where there is a poignant connection with today's Gospel for Monday in Ordinary Time where Jesus, called to the bedside of another twelve-year-old, speaks to her the words he surely spoke to Maria in calling her to heaven, "Little girl, I say to you, arise."
A good day (even if a bit late in that day) to pray for young people who so blithely accept the offerings of our sex-crazed culture.

John Henry Newman: Oxford don, soon to be Blessed

Perhaps the single most influential convert to Catholicism since Augustine, the great Cardinal Newman will be beatified some time next spring. I'm not sure how long it's been since the last time anon-martyred Brit was beatified. Then again, Cardinal Newman may tell us that he suffered enough in his journey of faith to be counted among the white-robed army of martyrs.

Our Sr. Mary Emmanuel must really be rejoicing today. She's one of those "Newman mavens" who has read his books and meditated on his sermons for so many years that she serves us all as an informal in-house encyclopedia not only on the man and his writings, but on writings about him. She even seems to feel with him some of the trials he experienced in his lifetime, for example, his strained relationship with the pious, hymn-writing Father Faber. And since composer Edward Elgar (he of "Pomp and Circumstance") set Newman's poem "The Dream of Gerontius" to music, Elgar also benefits from Sr Emmanuel's particular sympathy.

Do you have a favorite work of Newman's that you refer to on a somewhat frequent basis? Have you read any biographies? Share with us!

"under" God

The first reading I heard at the Independence Day Mass at St. Peter's was from James--about the difference between true wisdom which comes from above, and the snarky, self-satisfied wisdom of this world. And today is (on the liturgical calendar, anyway) the feast of "doubting" Thomas, better known for his striking declaration of faith, "My Lord and My God." Funny day to get a targeted message on Twitter linked to a blog post insulting my faith. It is precisely this flippant atheism that Fr. Barron dismantles in a terrific video commentary that's well worth your seven minutes to take in. After all, the 4th of July is all about freedom, and it is the truth that frees us with the only genuine freedom there is.