Monastery of the Holy Cross

Et Incarnatus Est – The Prior’s Blog

The faith of a child

Many years ago, when I was a young adult and attending a family event at my grandparents’, I had an amusing “discussion” with my four- or five-year-old cousin. He had just discovered the word “why” and was asking me an endless stream of questions. “The sky is blue. Why?” When I gave whatever answer seemed suitable for his age, he repeated what I said, and then added, “Why?” I found the exchange rather enjoyable, at least for awhile. I can’t quite remember, but I expect that the conversation ended at the point that I decided to say, “Just because,”…and that was good enough for him. An adult said so.

Faith is the virtue of allowing God to propose to us ideas and plans of action for which the question, “Why?” is more or less irrelevant, at least for the moment. To a child, what I understand about the color of the sky (electromagnetic waves of a certain frequency causing corresponding events in the cones of my eye and brain) is well beyond his cognitive ability at that age. Imagine how much more God knows—He Who knows everything that ever was or will be—than even the most intelligent human. It is clear that sometimes when we ask God, “Why?” He can only respond, “Just because; trust me!”

“Unless you become like a child, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!” May we have that serene and childlike trust in our heavenly Father that Jesus did.

The Feast of the Presentation

“Is a lamp brought in to be put under a bushel, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For there is nothing hid, except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light.” [Mark 4: 21-22]

When the Son of God, the light of the world, was sent by God into this world, He arrived in a surprising, even hidden, way. Rather than manifesting power, He embraced smallness and dependency, becoming an infant, a child of the Virgin Mary. This unspectacular entrance upon the world scene meant that, without jubilant angels singing before shepherds and miraculous stars drawing astronomers from the East, the presence of the Redeemer among us would have gone almost entirely unnoticed. Today’s celebration is the capstone on what used to be called “Epiphanytide,” that period of time after January 6 in which the Church meditates on the various ways in which Jesus Christ’s divinity was revealed in the flesh.

This points to an important reality about the Gospel, and in fact, the entire created cosmos: it is a revelation of things previously hidden. The inner meaning of the human person is only fully understood in the discovery that we are meant to share life with God, just as food and drink, bread and wine, find their full meaning in the Holy Eucharist, God feeding us with His own life.

In theory, God could have saved us without our knowing. There is something potentially mischievous, even manipulative, in that idea. What we see, rather, is that God invites us to be His coworkers in bringing mercy and healing to the world. For this to happen, we need to recognize His presence, how to read “the signs of the times.” The “ true light which enlightens every man” has entered the world, and now illuminates all of God’s creatures from within. The Word of God, through Whom all things were made, is revealed to be the life within all things, making them holy and lovable.

When the aged and devout prophet Simeon takes the infant in his arms, he not only proclaims Him to be the long-awaited salvation of Israel, but “a light for revelation to the Gentiles [Luke 2: 32].” Salvation and reconciliation with the great Creator of the cosmos is being offered to all, though it is Israel’s special “glory” to be the nation that prepared the way and who calls Jesus a son of the tribe of Judah.

Let’s turn to another aspect of today’s mystery. When the Babylonians captured Jerusalem in 587 B.C., the ark of the covenant, the sign of God’s presence, was removed from the temple. What happened to it remains an unsolved riddle–Indiana Jones’s adventures notwithstanding. When the temple was rebuilt, the ark was no longer in the Holy of Holies (when the Roman general Pompey entered the Holy of Holies after taking Jerusalem in 63 B.C., he was puzzled to find it empty of any idols or statues). God was not entirely absent; nor yet had He fully returned after His dramatic departure narrated at the beginning of Ezekiel’s prophecy, dating from the Babylonian captivity. The prophet Malachi, writing perhaps in the fifth century B.C., indicated the God would suddenly appear in the temple. In the arrival of the Virgin Mary and the boy Jesus, the early Church saw the return of the true Ark of the Covenant (the Mother of God, whose womb was God’s resting place for nine months), and the long-awaited sudden arrival of God in His temple. The long exile of the chosen people was finally ended, that moment for which holy Simeon and Anna had kept vigil with such love for God.

In the second antiphon from First Vespers of today’s feast, this arrival is seen as the consummation of the marriage covenant into which God had entered with Israel: “Adorn your bridal chamber, O Zion, and receive Christ the king; him whom the Virgin conceived, the Virgin has brought forth; after giving birth, the Virgin adores him whom she bore.” Now, if we remember back to the Exodus, and God’s claim on all first-born sons, we see that this espousal is intimately connected with Christ’s self-offering on the Cross. He returns to claim His bride, at the cost of His own blood. There is indeed a certain sorrow to this, but it is that of those who sow in tears, only to reap in joy. In the Presentation is encapsulated the whole of the story of salvation. God the Father, in receiving back the Son of Mary, liberates not only Israel, but through her, all humanity—and not from political slavery in Egypt, but from spiritual slavery to sin. It is significant that, at today’s Mass, we bear candles in procession, just as we will at the Easter Vigil. It is one and the same Passover that we celebrate, from differing perspectives. As such, today’s feast marks the perfect nodal point between the Incarnation and Christmas, and the Paschal Triduum that looms in the future.

 

Scholia on Genesis: Genesis 12:16

“For [Sarai’s] sake, [Pharaoh] dealt well with Abram.”

Abram uses the curious ruse of claiming that Sarai is his sister in order to avoid death at the hands of Pharaoh. This ruse could only work because they were childless. The Apostle writes that “women will be saved through bearing children” [1 Tim 2: 15]. Yet Abram and Sarai are clearly saved here because Sarai had not borne children, in terms of the flesh. We must therefore allow for a spiritual meaning in the Apostle’s words. In fact, he gives us the key in the following phrase: “…if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.”* These are true “fruits of the Spirit” [Gal 5: 22], and they ought to console those who fear that Sarai may have been unchaste when in Pharaoh’s household. But clearly the bearing of children in this sense means an increase of faith and love, which Sarai demonstrated in her holiness and modesty toward Pharaoh. When Pharaoh sent Abram and Sarai away, he gave them “sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels” [Gen 12: 16].  This accords with the Lord’s own teaching, which He gave to those disciples who were anxious over what to eat and what to drink. “Seek first the kingdom of God”—that is, bear the spiritual fruits of chastity, faith and love—“and all these things will be given you as well.”

*The RSV gives, “If she continues…” Obviously the translators were trying to make sense of the flow of thought on the level of the literal sense. This is our modern method, but I am increasingly suspect of this need to smooth out the text handed on to us. In this sudden turn to the third person plural rather than the expected feminine second person singular, the Fathers would see an invitation to a spiritual reading, which is what we have attempted to provide.

Thoughts, prayers, and actions

Shortly after I entered the Monastery, a man approached me after Mass one day. He invited me to join him to sit in protest, praying outside an abortion clinic. Since I was not allowed to leave the cloister without permission, I explained to him that I was not able to join him, but that I would pray for him. He was clearly disappointed. I suspect that he thought I was offering an excuse and simply didn’t care to go.

Episodes like this raise the entire question of the efficacy of prayer. One commonly sees Christians called out in the media for offering “thoughts and prayers” at a time of tragedy. Indeed, it’s painless to post such sentiments on social media, and so it’s perhaps good that Christians are challenged to demonstrate meaningful actions that back up such words. Offering “thoughts” really does open one to criticism. My thoughts accomplish little as long as they remain inside my head.

Prayer, on the other hand, always involves an Other—God. The truth is that prayer is an action. Praying well, with real faith and devotion, is not always easy. By inviting God into a situation, we bring the potential of new types of insights.  And these, in turn, can lead to new types of actions.

Scholia on Genesis: Genesis 12:10

“Now there was a famine in the land.”

Abram was able to go to Egypt and sojourn there to find bread. But where would we go if there were “not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord”? Would we not “wander from sea to sea, and from north to east”? [Amos 8: 11-12]

Abram’s descent to Egypt foreshadows the crucible through which his descendants must pass: the crucible of humility, becoming dependent upon the nations for bread. This indicates that the faithful, who have been given the bread of God’s Word, should not claim superiority over those who are in ignorance. Rather, they should commend them to God, since the faithful rely upon them for bodily sustenance. In this way, the knowledge of God will come to the nations.

It is notable that, amidst the distress of the famine, Abram does not return to the Haran, the comfort of the familiar, but presses on to Egypt.  Having put his hand to the plow [cf. Lk. 9: 62] and begun to cultivate the ground of his heart with the figurative gospel plow of true belief in One God, Abram does not look back to Assyria, Ur or Haran. Indeed, he exacts a promise from his servant illustrating his resolve: “See to it that you do not take my son back there.” [24: 6, 8]  Since, in Biblical language, the word ‘son’ often stands for our thoughts and words, we who have renounced the world should not allow our thoughts to go back there.  A servant may bring a wife for our son from the world, but she must return to dwell in the Promised Land of the cloistered heart; that is to say, we must “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” [1 Cor 10: 5]

Scholia on Genesis: Genesis 12:6-7

Abraham builds his first altar at Shechem, at the oak of Moreh. ‘Shechem’ means ‘shoulder’. Now in the New Testament, we read that the Good Shepherd places the lost sheep on his shoulders [cf. Lk. 15: 5]. So, too, in Abraham, the race of Adam is gathered up to begin the process of returning home. ‘Moreh’, a word related to torah, means ‘teaching’. We see in this the necessity of ongoing learning in the ways of God, taught by the Good Shepherd Who speaks through the shepherds of the Church.

Homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany

Nearly four thousand years ago, there was a man living in the vicinity of the ancient city of Babylon. This man heard God speak to him, and it turned out to be a major turning point in history. That might not seem like an exaggeration. After all, don’t we believe that God speaks to us on a regular basis? The answer would be, “yes, of course.” But whatever confidence we might have that we can separate out God’s voice in our hearts from the other voices clamoring for our attention, we owe very much to this man who lived so many generations ago.

I am referring, of course, to Abraham. At the time of which I am speaking, he lived in what we would call a pagan land, where there were many gods. The stars themselves were held to be divine in some way, and the wise men of Babylon were expert at mapping the heavens, watching them for divine messages. Later Jewish and Christian tradition held that Abraham was grieved by this perplexing multitude of gods and the superstition and magic that went along with them. In other words, Abraham wanted the Truth, and despaired of finding it in the paganism around him.

In Abraham, God, the One, True God, found a heart ready to hear the Truth. What Abraham heard was that to follow this Truth required of him a great sacrifice. He would need to leave his homeland and his family and travel to a place that this God would show him. But Abraham followed, because the Truth is better than make-believe, and certainly better than lies. As I said earlier, we owe a great deal to these patriarchs and their wives who heard the voice of God and obeyed, often at high cost to themselves. Through them, God was establishing a foothold in this world that had rebelled against Him. Abraham’s children, the Israelites, became a light for the nations because they worshipped the One, True God.

This vocation, to hear God’s word and follow, was often very costly, because the old gods were not about to give up their power easily. Unsurprisingly, the most powerful and successful by worldly standards were often the most dedicated to the false gods. Someone like Socrates, who had a similar thirst for Truth as Abraham, ended up being executed by those who felt threatened by him. This was a world of conflict, scarcity, fear, and mistrust. Too often, it was held together simply by the threat of violence and the predations of the stronger against the weaker. This is why God’s call to Abraham required him to renounce that world.

Today, on the Epiphany, God speaks again to a group of three men from the East. What is more, God speaks to them through one of the stars which they watched so carefully. The stars had always belonged to God, and were intended to be His messengers, but fallen man had forgotten how to read them properly. With the arrival of God’s Son, fallen nature begins to regain its true purpose, to offer us signs of God’s presence and His love. These three men do exactly what Abraham did many years before. They set off for a place unknown, following this star.

They know that a king has been born, and he is somewhere in this small country of Judea. By their obedience, by their willingness to set out, they make known the identity of this child. I said that the willingness to follow God comes at a cost. The gospel tells us that King Herod and Jerusalem were in an uproar about this news that God was sharing with them. In his famous poem “Journey of the Magi”, T.S. Eliot captures this cost well. He has one of the Magi, many years after his encounter with the baby Jesus, say this: “We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,/But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,/With an alien people clutching their gods.”

Today we celebrate the fact that God did not only call Abraham’s descendants, the Jews, to know the Truth. In the Magi, we see His rescue mission reaching the Gentiles as well. God reveals Himself to us and to all. In the Incarnation of His Son, Jesus Christ, we have a perpetual point of reference to discern God’s voice in today’s world. In the Church, which is the extension of the Incarnation in space and time, we continue to enjoy the assurance that we can hear God. He speaks through nature, through stars and trees and wind and rain.  With God’s Word alive in our hearts, we can learn to read these signs. But His invitation still calls us to leave all that is fallen within us and in the world. In other words, following it will require our ongoing conversion. Not everyone welcomes this. Herod heard what the Magi had to say, and he rejected it. He was unwilling to give up that old world in which he enjoyed power and status.

Where is God speaking to me today? How can the Church help me to clarify God’s voice and His invitation to conversion? Will we set off in faith toward what is still unknown in God’s plan? Will we put it off, or even reject what God is asking, fearing the cost? Guide our hearts Lord God, to hear and heed, and to follow where so many holy men and women have gone before, believing not only that the Truth is better than make-believe and lies, but that Your Truth is greater than all we can imagine.

The Holy Family

While doing a bit of searching in connection with yesterday’s Feast of the Holy Family, I discovered this striking–and humorous–image by the early 14th century Sienese iconographer Simoni Martini. It shows the finding of 12-year-old Jesus in the temple after Mary and Joseph had been searching for him for three days. Anyone who has parented an adolescent will, I hope, find this depiction amusing:

Let me take this opportunity to invite you to join us for Solemn Vespers tomorrow, Tuesday, December 31 at 5:15 p.m. In addition to exquisite music by Josquin and Willaert, our Schola will reprise a motet I composed for last year’s celebration: Virga Iesse floruit. At the bottom of this post is a sneak preview of the first of Josquin’s antiphon settings for this solemnity. The text, O admirabile commercium, with a translation, is also given below.

Merry Christmastide to all!

–Prior Peter, OSB

 

O admirabile commercium!
Creator generis humani,
animatum corpus sumens,
de Virgine nasci dignatus est:
et procedens homo sine semine,
largitus est nobis suam Deitatem.

O wondrous exchange:
the creator of human-kind,
taking on a living body
was worthy to be born of a virgin,
and, coming forth as a human without seed,
has given us his deity in abundance.

The Nativity of the Lord 2024

Dearly beloved, today our Savior 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. (Pope St. Leo the Great)

“Et Incarnatus Est” is on hiatus during Twelve Days of Christmas but will return after Epiphany.  Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Scholia on Genesis: Genesis 12:1

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

This is an invitation to put one’s security entirely in God’s hands, renouncing past (the country of Ur, which they had already left), present (kindred: our accustomed place in the fabric of society) and future (father’s house: our hoped-for inheritance). This demonstrates that the ‘land that I will show you’ ultimately refers not to Canaan, but to our heavenly homeland, outside of the succession of time in the present age.

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