Category: Liturgical Year

Mar­di Gras reminds us that feasts must be bought with fast; we are still here, and not yet there. Right­ly under­stood, Mar­di Gras is the day when fam­i­lies use up all eggs, fats, and but­ter in the home in prepa­ra­tion for Lent. The idea is, one does not want those mate­ri­als to spoil and go to waste. That’s not real­ly glut­tony; that’s thrift. You get fat, or gras, not for the sake of fat­ness but to get rid of all that tempts dis­ci­pline of will. Mar­di Gras does not mean do your sin in pub­lic today, for tomor­row you will do it in pri­vate.

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Let it be to me accord­ing to your word.” That is not just an incred­i­ble act of com­plete humil­i­ty and obe­di­ence, but it is an act of almost unimag­in­able sur­ren­der. If Mary was found with child out of mar­riage, by the law of Israel she could be stoned. And she could have said no, and avoid­ed all that. Instead she said “Fiat,” being under no mis­un­der­stand­ing about what that word could have meant to her, yet trust­ing ful­ly in the God who sent His archangel. But how would you feel to know that you had con­ceived in your womb the Cre­ator of all things?

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Come thou long expect­ed Jesus! It is fit­ting that, in the midst of all the long­ing and wait­ing and prepar­ing that takes place dur­ing Advent, the Church reminds us to be joy­ful: foras­much as God will not leave us watch­ing and long­ing for­ev­er. The Mes­si­ah has been promised, and He will come. And it is fit­ting — and most impor­tant — that the Church calls to our mind the object of our only true long­ing. We think it is for earth­ly love, but earth­ly love is a fig­ure. We think it is for rich­es, but only the rich­es of heav­en will not become cor­rupt.

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Joachim and Anne must have known. It is the kind of grace that will stand out, if your child nev­er sins. If your child nev­er once talks back to you, it is a good bet you will notice. If your child is nev­er dis­obe­di­ent, if your child nev­er has to be cor­rect­ed, if your child in short behaves in a way no child or per­son has ever behaved, you will be aware. How they must have mar­veled at their daugh­ter, and won­dered at the pur­pos­es of God. I do not know whether Mary’s par­ents may have sus­pect­ed that some­thing relat­ed to the promised Mes­si­ah was the cause of her immac­u­late con­cep­tion.

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Sacred Scrip­ture is full of ref­er­ences to the dis­ci­pline of “watch­ing”: “Blessed is the man that heareth me, watch­ing dai­ly at my gates, wait­ing at the posts of my doors” (Prov. 8:34); “What I say unto you, I say unto all: Watch” (Mark 13:37); “Blessed are those ser­vants, whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watch­ing” (Luke 12:37); “But in all things approv­ing our­selves as the min­is­ters of God, in much patience, in afflic­tions, in neces­si­ties, in dis­tress­es, in stripes, in impris­on­ments, in tumults, in labours, in watch­ings, in fast­ings” (2 Cor. 6:4 – 5). “Watch with all per­se­ver­ance” (Eph. 6:18).

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He is called “Angry Jesus,” but I appre­ci­ate John de Rosen’s art­work at the Basil­i­ca of the Nation­al Shrine of the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion. I used to belong to the Church of the Warm and Fuzzy Jesus. I used to have an image of a Jesus who did noth­ing but walk around hold­ing lambs and pat­ting peo­ple on the head. But now I’m mid­dle-aged and jad­ed and a Jesus who is ticked off all the time makes more sense to me. De Rosen’s Jesus is Howard Beale in glo­ry. De Rosen’s Jesus is the one who said, “How can you escape the damna­tion of Hell?”

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The more I look at the world I find myself in today, the more I am con­vinced that the twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry Church must become the first-cen­tu­ry Church. We must allow our hearts, our spir­its, our lives to be a cena­cle in which the fire of the Holy Spir­it can ignite and prompt us, if nec­es­sary, to shame and to mar­tyr­dom. For today the Church is con­front­ed with the very same evil it was con­front­ed with in the first cen­tu­ry: pagan­ism. The only dif­fer­ence today is that it is a sec­u­lar, and often a sta­tist, pagan­ism. But it is no less hos­tile to truth.

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I extend a very hap­py “Wel­come Home” to all those who will be received into full com­mu­nion with the Catholic Church at the East­er Vig­il Sat­ur­day evening. As an RCIA team mem­ber, I have lis­tened to the emo­tions of new Catholics, after the Vig­il, as they recalled mak­ing their first Eucharist. In them there is one feel­ing, unmis­tak­able and com­mon to them all: joy, often to the point of tears that would not be refused. I have not met, in my years work­ing with RCIA and after, the Catholic con­vert who does not expe­ri­ence that same joy or call it up again when telling their own con­ver­sion sto­ry.

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These are impor­tant thoughts to con­sid­er for the last Sun­day before Lent begins: Not just “what will I give up?” but “how have I failed?” Over the forty days to come, I will spend some time in med­i­ta­tion on all the ways in which I have failed the law of love. For the prac­tices of fast­ing and alms­giv­ing are, at their heart, meant to direct us away from self-love and toward love of God and love of neigh­bor. On Ash Wednes­day, when we receive the sign of the cross in ash­es on our head, the priest says, “Remem­ber, O man, that thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

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I am struck with how often Christi­na Rossetti’s praise of earth, in her duo of poems for Sex­a­ges­i­ma, is tem­pered by her under­stand­ing that it is not our real home. Here we have no con­tin­u­ing city. She calls it “The broad foun­da­tion of a holy place,” but it is not the “holy place” itself. It is, she explains, “Man’s step to scale the sky.” So earth is to be praised, not for what it is in itself, but for the fact that it is our path to some­thing holi­er and bet­ter. It is only in that con­text that we can under­stand what Ros­set­ti means when she refers to earth as “love­ly.”

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Pum­mel your body and sub­due it, St. Paul tells us. Get your­self under your own con­trol. Do not per­ish — turn­ing to Christi­na Rossetti’s lan­guage — for the lack of one step, one fur­ther toil, one word left unsaid. I am remind­ed when I read this poem: What have I held back from Christ? What have I left undone, say­ing, “maybe tomor­row”? What part of myself am I keep­ing for myself when I should give it to Christ? In what room of my soul have I shut the door to him with a sign that says “No entry”? But just that one part more, and the prize is won.

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