Pondering Piety

Alas! I am still ruminating on the homily about the Holy Family that I heard on their feast day. It has made it difficult for me to reflect on anything else, hence, I failed to post a reflection on the Baptism of the Lord.  I wondered what the parishioners of the unfortunate parish where I heard that homily would be listening to for the homily of the Lord's baptism.   Would they be convicted of what they truly are? Sinners in need of cleansing?  Would they be made to believe the consequences of impenitence:  death and eternal separation from God? Would the astounding story of Christ’s adult manifestation penetrate their hearts with wonder and deep gratitude as they learned of His taking upon His shoulders our sin and bearing them off as the Lamb of God.  Or would they be affirmed in seeing only what they want to see in their faith and nothing more.   But there is so much more. 

Arise! Shine, for your light has come, the glory of the LORD has dawned upon you.

In our own time we live in a tedious era.  An era where every sign and every type that prefigures the salvation that comes to us in Christ is so self-consciously chained to the temporal, we become myopic in our spiritual vision.   We diminish our pious devotion to the treasures that have been given to us through the Law, the Prophets, through the faith of our early Church Fathers and thus we untether our faith from the Sacred Tradition that orders us to grow in virtue. Mists of error become deep doubts, and those doubts begins to rule all of our thoughts.  We become cynical to the idea of growing in virtue. More and more we fall into spiritual complacency and presumption.  We cannot comprehend the reality of Scriptural symbolism; we chalk them up to exaggerations and manipulations, yet it is we who are manipulated away from the saving power that our baptism has given us.

Give to the LORD, you sons of God, give to the LORD glory and might; Give to the LORD the glory due his name.  Bow down before the LORD’s holy splendor!  The voice of the LORD is over the waters;  the God of glory thunders,  the LORD, over the mighty waters.  The voice of the LORD is power;  the voice of the LORD is splendor.  Psalm 29:1-4

And this is why a homily disputing the perfection and piety of the Holy Family is such a problem.  Because through their piety Mary and Joseph were free to discern and respond to the Lord.  Through their piety they humbly did not dismiss what they did not understand but instead pondered and prayed.  Through their piety the Son manifested Himself in shining glory for all generations to be guided by, and you and I are called to that same glory. Through our piety we become malleable souls for the Lord to recreate us in the splendor our baptism has destined us for.  To reject that is to reject your baptism, and your salvation.

So let us look to the Scriptures with  eyes of wonder and with hearts full of hope., cast off the blinding banality of self-serving spirituality.  Let us with pondering hearts see the signs and receive the true life that Christ is pouring out upon us, and let us bring it to those who are dwelling in darkness.  For our cultural darkness is growing, but His light is brighter still. 

Today let us do honor to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received — though not in its fullness — a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen. 
From a Sermon by Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop
The baptism of Christ

Come and Worship Christ the Newborn King

Come and worship, come and worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn King.

This past November an Episcopalian priest was expressing his hesitation to celebrate the feast of Christ the King in an Omaha World Herald feature called “From the Pulpit”.  This priest felt that king was too much of a political term with too great a connection with oppression and exclusion.  To his mind this title obscured Christ more than it revealed Him.  He had alternative titles that he thought more relevant and worthy of a feast day; one being ( I kid you not) “Christ the Includer”.  Yes indeed, I can  feel the banality of that title suck the passion out of every deep yearning of my soul.  In one fell phrase this man reduced the great Christian narrative of the return of the King to restore His good creation to a platitude of inclusiveness. What small hopes we have, our hearts desire is to be part of the crowd. 

Angels from the realms of glory,
Wing your flight o’er all the earth;
Ye who sang creation’s story
Now proclaim Messiah’s birth.

Don’t let your desires be reduced to platitudes, don’t let your hopes be tethered to worldly ideals.  Read the Infancy Narratives! Read of how God subverts the worldly narrative of Pax Romana under Caesar Augustus by sending the true King, who comes in quiet obscurity, without an army of men – but with a “multitude of heavenly hosts” .  Remember that throughout all history great worldly political leaders come and go, but the representative of the true King, the successor of Peter, is still here in the flesh.  And know that this King is not a distant impersonal King, he is the King who came to rescue me – ME -- Daydreamer and nobody that I am, and He is, in fact, what all my hopes and dreams are ultimately directed to!  And He came for you in the same way!  Ask Him to show you, trust that He will.

Shepherds, in the field abiding,
Watching o’er your flocks by night,
God with us is now residing;
Yonder shines the infant light

If that sermon was not disappointing enough last Sunday in a Catholic Church I sat through a homily that turned the virtue of piety completely upside down.  It was the feast of the Holy Family, and the priest told us over and over again that the Holy Family were “neither perfect nor pious”.  I guess if he would have defined pious as empty outward religious actions (which apparently is one of the definitions of the word) I may have cut him some slack, but this priest made no effort to clarify what he meant by pious and, based on the rest of his homily, I was left with the definite impression that this was an “I’m okay, your okay -- all you have to do is connect with your spiritual core and you will hear God – but you don’t need to wear your religion on your sleeve” homily.  If that is what he meant, according to him, the Holy Family were individualists trusting in themselves to get through difficult situations, owing no gratitude or honor to God or others.. Where does that leave you and me?  Trapped in isolated individualism, egoism and pathetic self-consciousness.  How can we be saved from that?

Come and worship, come and worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn King.

Again, read the Infancy Narratives.  Read of Mary’s humble fiat, and her beautiful  Magnificat.   Read of her firm faith and trust in God’s goodness.  Read and ponder Joseph’s righteousness, and through that righteousness, his discerning response to the angel's messages.  If you go by the actual Scriptures, they were indeed a pious family through whom the Kingdom of heaven emerged, even in our imperfect and debased world.  And in humble piety we too can receive Christ in our homes, in our families, in our hearts, in a personal and abiding way. And we too can let God’s kingdom overtake even the most hellish situations here in this world. Don’t let an unimaginative culture steal your piety away.

Sages, leave your contemplations,
Brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the great Desire of nations;
Ye have seen His natal star.

Both of these men diminished a title or a virtue, based on a darkened, and rather hopeless vision of humanity.  In doing so they obscure our deepest desires, allowing them to remain misdirected at worldly things.  Truley these clergymen have no real hope in God’s power to undo what our sin has wrought and restore all creation.  If you had heard (or read) these sermons you would have noticed that, despite words that seemed consoling and caring, Christ was not a personal savior that you can know and be known by.  He was simple an inspirational, motivational figure -- you know, an Includer, but most certainly not some religious freak.  Don’t let Him be diminished in that way.  Let Him show you His power.  Let Him be you Savior. Let Him be your great desire.

Saints, before the altar bending,
Watching long in hope and fear;
Suddenly the Lord, descending,
In His temple shall appear.

It is surely a sign of a latent cultural despair that we would settle for “Christ the Includer" to be our savior (from what – unpopularity?) or that we would so blithely diminish the beauty of Immaculate Mary and the righteousness of the pious Saint Joseph. I know that when we compare ourselves to them we we fall short, but that should be a reason to rejoice, because they show us that Christ our King has done for them He has come to do for us! Do not fear true repentance, do not give in to the temptation to reduce the Divine Word to banal and distant platitudes. Yield to Him, and give Him your fiat.

Sinners, wrung with true repentance,
Doomed for guilt to endless pains,
Justice now revokes the sentence,
Mercy calls you; break your chains.

The wonder of the Infancy Narratives are that God intervened in our dark world in such a personal and intimate way.  This is astonishing precisely because He is God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Don’t allow the world to reduce His titles, let them stir up wonder and awe. To be included is nice, but doesn't your heart desire something more wondrous? Christ has come for you to be more than just passively included, in fact, you are pursued and romanced by our Lord and King.  He is powerful enough to vanquish the sin and debasement of our souls that would separate us from Him.  We should pray for a strengthening of the virtue of piety, and for wonder and awe, so that we will direct all of our distorted, distracted desires to the One Desire who is the source of all good things. 

Though an Infant now we view Him,
He shall fill His Father’s throne,
Gather all the nations to Him;
Every knee shall then bow down:

I want my every thought impregnated with His Gospel so that every sense that I have is alert to His coming and my heart is in awe that my God comes so very near to a 'nobody' like me.  I don’t want platitudes, I don’t want an impersonal spiritual inner presence, I want my King, my Savior, my Lord. Let my soul magnify Him.

All creation, join in praising
God, the Father, Spirit, Son,
Evermore your voices raising
To th’eternal Three in One.

Come and worship, come and worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn King.

Merry Christmas and blessed 2014!

Heidi

Subheadings are the lyrics of the hymn Angels From the Realms of Glory
Downhere, a Christian rock band has a wonderful version of this hymn.