There were two elderly men, Bill and Steve. They were devout Catholics who also had a life-long love of the game of baseball. They played together when they were young and coached their sons’ teams later in life. In their old age they avidly watched games together.
Eventually, Bill passed away. Some time later, he visited Steve in a dream.
“Steve! Steve! This is Bill!”
“Bill! Is it really you?”
“Yes! God has allowed me to visit you this one time.”
“Where are you Bill?”
“I’m in Heaven! Oh Steve, it’s amazing here. I can’t describe it.”
“That’s wonderful Bill, just incredible! Listen, though, can you tell me one thing?”
St. Ignatius Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus
The Society Today
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
Am I going out on a limb to say that the Society of Jesus is not what it used to be? I don’t want to be a Jebbie basher: I have studied under and worked with many Jesuits over the years. I have liked most of them, even admired a few. There are still a few Jesuits in public life who are eloquent expositors and defenders of the faith as handed on by the Apostles. Fr.s Fessio and Pacwa, for instance, and Fr. Schall before he passed away a few years ago.
Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
These Jesuit defenders of Catholic orthodoxy are outliers, unfortunately. A Jesuit of my acquaintance once dismissively referred to Fr. Fessio as “a complicated man.” He gave the definite impression that his brothers in the Society would disown him if they could. It’s no surprise that the public face of the Society of Jesus today does not belong to Fr. Fessio or Fr. Pacwa. No, by far the most recognizable S.J. right now (aside from Pope Francis) is Fr. James Martin. His mission, however, does not seem to be preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ so much as celebrating, well, more earthy concerns.
A Soldier
It wasn’t always that way. For a very long time the Jesuits followed the mold of their founder, St. Ignatius Loyola, today’s saint . . .
The all powerful totalitarian state in George Orwell’s novel 1984 uses the comforting, familial image of “Big Brother” to mask the ugly reality of its absolute control. Big Brother uses many tools (such as constant surveillance) to keep and exercise his power, but the most effective is language. By tightly controlling the language, Big Brother can control the way his subjects think. Just as the image of Big Brother himself is a fiction, words and phrases serve, not to convey meaning, but to hide real meanings in favor of whatever content the state chooses to give them.
Newspeak
This language that is intentionally designed to deceive rather than inform is called Newspeak. A character in the novel named Syme, a lexicologist, explains that, as Newspeak develops . . .
When I look at the Heavens, the work of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars which thou hast established;
What is man that thou art mindful of him,
And the son of man that thou dost care for him?
Yet thou hast made him little less than God,
And dost crown him with glory and honor. (Psalm 8:3-5)
What is man that thou art mindful of him,
And the son of man that thou dost care for him?
-Psalm 8:4
Pine Point Beach, June, 2014
One June morning some years ago I was at the beach with my family. As we enjoyed some beautiful early summer weather, I was reminded of a line from a hymn we sometimes sang at Mass: “There is a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.” It was one of those moments when I could feel the closeness of God.
Infinity Came Down
It doesn’t always feel that way. Standing on the edge of the ocean we can find its vastness overwhelming. We can feel very, very small in comparison. Sometimes when we look up at the heavens and think about the immensity of the universe, we can almost feel physically overwhelmed by it. Edna St. Vincent Millay describes such an experience her poem “Renaissance”:
So here upon my back I’ll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And – sure enough! – I see the top!
The sky I thought, is not so grand;
I ‘most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
I screamed and – lo! – Infinity
Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest,
Bent back my arm upon my breast . . .
The Wonder of the Incarnation
Thanksgiving morning, 2014
But how much more humbling than the vastness of creation is the infinite God who created it? How can we not feel absolutely insignificant by comparison? As I’ve said before, it’s not so much the existence of a creator-God that is so difficult for us to believe, it is that such a God could possibly even notice something as small as ourselves, much less love us.
That’s the Wonder of the Incarnation. That’s what we’re preparing ourselves for during the Season of advent. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16): God put himself on our level (to the degree that he can), he gave us a human face to gaze on, and in taking on human form sanctified humanity. “If God is for us,” Saint Paul asks, “who is against us?” (Romans 8:31) It is Christ Incarnate that allows us to feel the boundless immensity of creation not as an infinite indifference swallowing us up without a second thought, but the embrace of infinite Love. In fact, by lowering himself to become man, and by suffering and dying for us, Jesus showed us in the flesh that, truly, “God is Love”(1John 4:8). Let us thank The Lord.
Truth is “a thing,” to use the current jargon. Today’s memorial of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, commemorates a man who suffered greatly to safeguard the Truth of Jesus Christ. The 4th century theologian and Bishop of Alexandria dedicated his life to fighting the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ. The Arians were tenacious and unforgiving in their attacks on Athanasius. He “was banished five times and spent 17 years of his life in exile for the defense of the doctrine of Christ’s divinity” (St. Athanasius, catholic.org). At times he was opposed by a wide array of bishops, as well as the Roman emperor himself. He appeared to be standing alone in defense of orthodox Chrstian belief. His lonely stance earned him the nickname Athanasius Contra Mundum (Athanasius Against the World).
The battle for Truth continues today. The modern day descendants of the Arians are still with us. There are still those, even bishops, who would turn the Church of Jesus Christ into something more worldly. We still need Catholic Christians to stand up and proclaim, as St. Athanasius did, that Truth is a Thing.
A Grim Trajectory
In honor of today’s Memorial of St. Athanasius I’m revisiting a piece I first published on November 21st, 2014. Much has changed since then: I no longer teach in a Catholic school, for instance. Anthony Esolen likewise no longer teaches in the nominally Catholic college he has sometimes referred to as “St. Eustaby” (pronounced “Saint Used-To-Be”, as in used to be Catholic). By all reports he’s finding the environment and student body at Magdalen College in Warner, NH, much more attuned to the traditional Catholic understanding of God and His universe.
In the world outside, however, things have travelled even further along the same grim trajectory. Just as ecclesiastical and temporal powers joined forces against Athanasius, powerful institutions of our day are uniting to impose an alternative “truth.” Today, they deny even such basic natural truths as the difference between the two sexes. Read on to see why, more than ever, we need to assert that Truth is a Thing.
Athanasius Against the World
St. Athanasius and the Nicene Fathers with the Nicene Creed
Let’s go back in time to the fall of 2014. I’ll share just a couple of the highlights, or better yet lowlights. There was the Sunday when I found myself berated from the pulpit. Not me personally, but me and people like me. We were bad Catholics because we expected Catholic clergy to speak out in support of the Church’s moral teaching on issues such as abortion, marriage, serial adultery, etc. We were told we should be more like the Pope, welcoming everyone with a wink and nod. We should just stick to talking about Jesus (too bad Pope Francis didn’t get the memo: see here).
Then there was a Friday afternoon. This time I found myself trying to explain the Church’s teaching on human sexuality to a classroom full of fourteen-year-olds. My young theology students found my assertion that one need not indulge any and every sexual desire to be novel and inexplicably bizarre. I began to feel a little bit like Athanasius Contra Mundum. Shouldn’t these kids have heard this somewhere before, or from someone, anyone, beyond their 9th grade religion teacher? Even students from church-going families seemed unfamiliar with the idea that there is a real alternative to the self-righteous libertinism of the popular culture. This particular group was not unique. I had been seeing it more and more over the years.
The Good Professor Says His Piece
Coincidentally (perhaps?), when I arrived home that same day my lovely bride wanted to share an article with me. Anthony Esolen had just published a piece in Crisis (“Who Will Rescue the Lost Sheep of the Lonely Revolution?”). Apparently, Dr. Esolen was also getting rather frustrated with trying to reach students who have grown up immersed in the grim propaganda of the sexual revolution. In his article he addressed himself, not to the students themselves, but to the adults responsible for their moral formation:
Let me speak up for the young people who see the beauty of the moral law and the teachings of the Church, and who are blessed with noble aspirations, but who are given no help, none, from their listless parents, their listless churches, their crude and cynical classmates, their corrupted schools.
These youths and maidens in a healthier time would be youths and maidens indeed, and when they married they would become the heart of any parish. Do we expect heroic sanctity from them? Their very friendliness will work against them. They will fall. Do you care? Many of these will eventually “shack up,” and some will leave dead children in the wake of their friendliness.
Where are you? You say that they should not kill the children they have begotten, and you are right about that. So why are you shrugging and turning aside from the very habits that bring children into the world outside of the haven of marriage?
The Self-Help Guy Agrees
Esolen makes a number of important points. First, that our culture is toxic. Next, that its moral corruption has very real material consequences. Finally, and most damning, that we have largely abandoned our young people to it.
Some years ago the late self-help author Stephen Covey made a similar argument:
In the past, it was easier to successfully raise a family ‘out-side-in’ because society was an ally, a resource. People were surrounded by role models, examples, media reinforcement, and family-friendly laws and support systems that sustained marriage and helped create strong families. Even when there were problems within the family, there was still this powerful reinforcement of the whole idea of successful marriage and family life . . . (Stephen Covey, The7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, p. 15).
After the Revolution
That is no longer the case. In fact, society now actively subverts parents’ efforts to raise their children: it is, as Covey puts it, “family-fatal”. He marshals an impressive array of statistics (he cites sources for all of these in his book) to support his assertion:
Illegitimate birth rates have increased more than 400 percent.
The percentage of families headed by a single parent has more than tripled.
The divorce rate has more than doubled. Many project that about half of all new marriages will end in divorce.
Teenage suicide has increased almost 300 percent.
Scholastic Aptitude Test scores among all students have dropped 73 points.
The number one health problem for American women today is domestic violence, four million women are beaten each year by their partners.
One fourth of all adolescents contract a sexually transmitted disease before they graduate from high school.
Since 1940 the top disciplinary problems in public schools have changed from chewing gum and running in the halls to teen pregnancy, rape, and assault. (Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, p. 16)
Covey’s book was published in 1997. I guarantee that these statistics have not changed for the better in the intervening 25 years. And these are only some of the more obvious bad consequences of what Esolen calls the “Lonely Revolution.”
Who Needs Those Goofy Rules Anyway?
But don’t take my word for it. Almost two decades later, the Catholic News Agency brought us “Agree to Disagree: Why Young Catholics Pose a Unique Challenge For the Church.” The U.S. bishops had commissioned a study of young Catholics. Even those who considered themselves devout felt free to ignore “’goofy’ rules” that they did’t like:
If any Church teachings conflict with their own perceptions, young people simply “tune out” the teachings.
“They agree to disagree with the Church,” [Archbishop Thomas Wenski] said.
Furthermore, young Catholics are sensitive to language that could imply judgment. “For them, language like ‘hate the sin love the sinner’ means ‘hate the sinner’,” Archbishop Wenski said.
The last sentence gives the game away, even if the article does not explicitly say which particular “goofy” rules are at issue. The conflation of the sin with the sinner is a preferred tactic that the storm troopers of the Sexual Revolution. They often employ it in conjunction with the damning charge of “judgmentalism” to lead good Christians into error. Truth is not a thing for the revolutionaries.
Qui Bene Distinguit, Bene Docet
The Church, on the other hand, follows the old legal maxim Qui bene distinguit, bene docet. In English, “he who distinguishes well, teaches well.” She has always understood that “hating the sin” is not the same as “hating the sinner.” In fact, if we love the sinner we must hate the sin, because sin poisons the soul of the sinner. Notice, by the way, the Latin word docet, “teach.” It comes from the same root as doctrine. Doctrine is the sacred teaching of the Church.
If those responsible for teaching doctrine don’t teach, then those under their tutelage will be left to the teaching of the World. We have seen that the World “does not distinguish,” non distinguit. In fact, it intentionally fails to do so, in order to deceive. Is it any wonder, then, that our young people also nondistinguunt? The Church is supposed to be a Sign of Contradiction (Luke 2:34). If all she offers in the face of sin is a Nod and a Wink, however, what is she teaching? How is any distinction possible between her teaching and what the Conventional Wisdom has on offer? Do we not then give tacit assent?
Where’s That in The Bible?
The underlying problem is not a new one. Let’s go back a little further into the past, to the Book of the Prophet Ezekial:
If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you will have saved your life. (Ezekial 3:18-19)
But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you will have saved your life. (Ezekial 3:18-19)
Ezekial, by Michelangelo, 1508-1512
A Prophetic Office
All of us baptized Christians have a prophetic office, and the warning addressed to Ezekial above applies to all of us, as the Letter of James tells us:
My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20)
When it comes to guiding the young, our Lord himself puts the matter even more starkly:
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18:6)
Avoiding unpleasant truths, it seems, is not an option.
The Truth That is The Thing
Let’s return briefly to the scolding homilist I mentioned above. He’s correct that we need to model the love of Jesus. We do that, however, when we speak the Truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). When we distinguish between the sin and the sinner, we can show that we hate the sin because of our love for the sinner, because we understand the harm it is doing him.
I once heard a Catholic radio host wrap up his show with a nice summation of this truth. “The worst thing you can do for somebody” he said, “is to allow him to wallow in sin.” That’s exactly right. It is more loving to warn a person about sin, with all its painful consequences, than to leave them ignorant of something that’s destroying them. That’s the truth, and truth is indeed a thing. Yes, we should talk about Jesus, by all means. And didn’t he suffer and die for the express purpose of saving us from sin?
Go and Sin No More
I’m not saying we should be mean, or accusatory, or call people names. We do, however, need to recognize, as Anthony Esolen points out, that the currently popular sexual sins are not simply harmless “peccadilloes.” Sexual sin destroys families and ruins lives. It puts people in danger of being lost . . . forever. Jesus saved the woman caught in adultery from stoning, but he also told her: “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). We all, and particularly those of us who are parents, teachers, and leaders, should be prepared to say the same.
This isn’t just an excuse to write about one of my favorite television franchises. I have a serious point. Really. My thesis here is that the TV show that promises to take us “where no man has gone before” can help us understand what faith is . . . and what it isn’t. Spoiler alert: faith, and certainly Christian faith, is not what Star Trek thinks it is.
There can be no doubt that the Star Trek television and film franchise has been and remains an important cultural influence. It’s certainly one of the great entertainment success stories of the past half-century. I myself have enjoyed watching its various iterations since I was a child, at first because it was great fun, but more recently for another reason as well. I’ve discovered that, although most of the action is set several centuries in the future, Star Trek provides a useful window into the outlook of late twentieth and early twenty-first century cultural elites. It embodies the view of the world spread and reinforced through the popular media.
Rightful Heir
Consider the following, for instance. In later versions of Star Trek, Earth seems to be the only planet whose inhabitants have “outgrown” their need for religion. I see this as a reflection of the way that western opinion makers want to celebrate every culture in the world but their own (which they tend to treat with disdain). Everyone else in the galaxy is still fully engaged with the traditions of their forebears. The interactions of the (mostly human) main characters with these other beings nicely illustrate how our secular friends view those of us who take religion seriously.
The episode “Rightful Heir” from the series Star Trek: The Next Generation is a good example. It focuses on the the religious practices and beliefs of the fictional alien race of Klingons. The Klingons believe that Kahless, who had founded their empire 1,000 before, would return to them in the flesh. A Klingon claiming to be Kahless does indeed make an appearance, and a DNA test confirms his identity. There are incongruities, however, and he is eventually discovered to be a clone created by Klingon priests. Nevertheless, despite the disappointment of their hopes and the trickery of their religious leaders, at the end we see most of the Klingons still confidently awaiting the coming of their savior.
A Leap of Faith
I found one scene at the end of the show to be particularly interesting. It is a dialogue between two of the regular characters. One of the characters is Data, who is an android, a human-like robot. He has, apparently, achieved something like consciousness (this is science fiction, after all). The other is Worf, the only main character of Klingon parentage. The events surrounding Kahless have raised some questions in Data’s mind:
Data and Worf discuss faith
Data: May I ask a question? In the absence of empirical data, how will you determine whether or not this is the real Kahless?
Worf: It is not an empirical matter, it is a matter of . . . (pause) . . . faith.
Data: (musing) Faith . . . (gesturing to Klingons kneeling before the empty throne of Kahless) They insisted upon waiting here until they see Kahless again. Their “faith” appears unaffected by his inability to defeat Gowron. They still believe. (thoughtful pause) I once had what could be considered a crisis of the spirit.
Worf: You?
Data: Yes. The Starfleet officers who first activated me on Omicron Theta told me I was an android – nothing more than a sophisticated machine with human form. However, I realized that if I was simply a machine, I could never be anything else; I could never grow beyond my programming. I found that difficult to accept. So I chose to believe… that I was a person; that I had the potential to be more than a collection of circuits and subprocessors. It is a belief which I still hold.
Worf : How did you come to your decision?
Data: I made . . . a leap of faith.
“O Man of Little Faith”
Two thoughts immediately come to mind when I watch this scene. First, this is just how secularists perceive religious faith. They see faith as feelings based on no “empirical evidence.” It’s either pure intuition, as in Worf’s case, or a “leap of faith” in the sense that Data uses the term. This is not Kierkegard’s leap of faith. Here it means that the leaper chooses to believe that something is true simply because he wants it to be true.
The second thing that struck me is that neither of these versions of “faith” correspond to the Christian meaning of the word. To see the difference, compare the scene above to the following passage from the gospel of Matthew:
And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear. But immediately he spoke to them, saying, “Take heart, it is I; have no fear.” And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus; but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?” And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. (Matthew 14: 25-32)
Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?”
Not Blind Faith
Peter does not need to take Data’s “leap of faith,” nor is he relying on intuition. He not only sees with his own eyes Jesus walking on the water, he actually walks on water himself. Then, when his faith falters, he sinks. You can’t get much more empirical than that. When Jesus tells him that his faith is weak, then, he clearly is not talking about believing something with no evidence. He means trusting what you have truly seen and experienced. Christian Faith is not blind faith.
The Stark Trek understanding of faith is the same as the view that Peter Kreeft ascribes to the “modern world.” Kreeft says:
The most pervasive mistake the modern world makes about faith is to subjectivize and psychologize it, as if believers constructed their religion out of their own psyches.
Christian Faith is very different.
St. Peter himself would later write “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15), and in fact there is no shortage of reasons, and no lack of evidence, for God and for Christianity. There are cogent philosophical arguments from St. Thomas Aquinas and others, well-attested miracles, and the witness of countless Christians whose lives were transformed when they put their trust in the promises of Christ. The evidence is there. What is lacking is the will to see it for what it is, to trust what we have seen and heard.
The Truth
It is important to bear all this in mind when discussing faith with those who don’t share it, or who have not been well-formed in their faith. Our faith, pace Worf, is empirical. It’s based on trust in the Christ whom we have experienced. If we accept the Star Trek version of Christian faith we force ourselves to defend a position built on fantasy. The reality, however, is that we do have the Truth, and we really are prepared to give an account of the hope in us. Let’s leave the science fiction explanations to the other guys.
Speaking of Star Trek, you might also enjoy: “Cardinal Sarah was Right: Darmok and Jalod Ad Orientem”
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (2 Corinthians 4:8-10)
No Time to Despair
This is no time to despair. Lord knows, it’s a temptation. It’s a great temptation. The last couple of years particularly have forced even the naive among us to face up to the corruption in our society. Government institutions and private institutions alike (and very often, in concert) have abandoned their responsibilities in pursuit of raw power. Even the institutional Church seemed to abandon us. Christianity itself is declining, both in it’s social influence, and in the number of believers. Increasingly fewer people see the need for Jesus in their lives.
And yet it’s not the time for despair, if we really trust in the promises of Christ. None of the things I mention above should surprise us. It’s the way of worldly institutions to be driven by worldly concerns. As regards the Church, it’s far from the first time her institutional side has followed its worldly counterparts instead of the Sermon on the Mount. The downturn in Christian belief is more a cause of concern, but that, too, we have known about for a long time. One of the most well known predictions of the decline came in a radio talk on Christmas Day, 1969. The speaker was a young Catholic priest and university professor named Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI). Fr. Ratzinger famously foretold that “the Church of tomorrow” would be “a Church that has lost much.”
Edifices Built in Prosperity
Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI)
I discuss Fr. Ratzinger’s radio address at length in another post (“A Smaller, Purer Church?“). I’m just touching on it today because of what follows the line I quote above. Fr. Ratzinger starts to flesh out some of the implications of what it means to have lost much:
She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges.
Churches are much more than just buildings. They are enormous sacramentals, consecrated objects that can help connect us to the Grace of a God who is pure Spirit. Churches are iconic representations that teach us at an unconscious level about an ordered Universe with God at the apex.
When A Church Is No Longer A Church
Final Mass at St. Ann’s Church, Lewiston, Maine, 2000 (francocenter.org)
Once one of these buildings no longer serves as a church, it still communicates something of its sacramental character. The Pontifical Council of Culture, in the document Decommissioning and Ecclesial Reuse of Churches,says of these formerly sacred buildings:
Their evangelizing readability remains even if they lose their liturgical functionality. A church building, in fact, cannot be valued only in terms of functional use . . . So the cessation of the liturgical use of a space in no way automatically brings about its reduction to a building devoid of meaning and freely transformable into anything different; the significance it has acquired over time and its real presence within the community are not, in fact, reducible to technical or financial statistics.
Preferred Reuses
For this reason the Church has developed guidelines that govern what happens to a church building once it is no longer a church. This is less of a problem if the building remains Church property. But what if it’s to be sold? According to the Council on Culture document on decommisioning and reuse:
As far as possible and compatibly with the original intention of the building, it is desirable that when it can no longer be maintained as a religious building as such, an effort be made to ensure a new use, whether religious (for example, entrusting it to other Christian communities), cultural or charitable. Commercial for-profit reuses seem to be excluded, while social enterprise usage may be considered. What should be preferred are reuses with cultural aims (museums, conference halls, bookshops, libraries, archives, artistic workshops etc.), or social aims (meeting places, charity centers, healthcare clinics, foodbanks for the poor etc.).
Caveat Vendor
Of course, once the Church has sold the property, no matter how careful the vetting process, she has no control over what subsequent owners may do. I do know of some former Catholic churches that serve as places of worship for other Christian communities. That’s the best outcome under the circumstances.
Not all former churches fare as well. I’m familiar with another retired church building which is home to a youth theater group, which seems to correspond to the guidelines above. But there’s a complication. They have recently painted a very large and bright mural across the entire back wall of the structure. I certainly understand their desire to decorate their premises. And they have every right to do so, since they own the property. The problem is, the building still looks in other respects very much like a place of worship. There’s something jarring about this mural in this location. Even worse, it looks disrespectful to those of us who remember the formerly sacred character of the building.
Sometimes worse things than that happen once a church becomes somebody’s personal property. I know of one that is now a dining and entertainment venue, which definitely falls outside the guidelines for proper use. I got the idea for this post when I saw a picture online of yet another former Catholic church that is now a Masonic hall (you can read the sad story of this particular former church at The Pillar).
Signs of the Sacred
Sometimes, thankfully, a former church finds a happier fate. I wrote about the Basilica of St.s Peter and Paul in Lewiston, Maine, last week. Today I’d like to talk about another building in Lewiston. I attended a meeting a few years ago at a place called the Franco Center, formerly the Franco American Heritage Center. I was a little surprised when I arrived because it looked just like a church. As a matter of fact, for most of its existence it went by the name of St. Mary’s Church. There’s always something sad about a former Catholic church building converted to secular use. This one, however, has retained an unusual number of churchy details.
The seating area of the Franco Center in Lewiston, Maine (formerly the nave of St. Ann’s Church)
Its new name, Franco Center, is in part a reflection of its new function as a community center for the large French Canadian community in central Maine. It also serves as a museum celebrating the history of that community. That’s the reason why so much of its formerly sacred function is still on display. It’s commemorating the huge part Catholicism has played in the lives of French Canadians in New England.
It’s quite an impressive display for an ostensibly secular building. There’s a large crucifix, for instance, in a glass case in the lobby. Inside what used to be the nave of the church displays contain, among other historical artifacts, vestments and prayer books. In regard to the structure itself very few of the sacred architectural details have been removed or hidden.
The Gates of Hell Will Not Prevail
As unusual as those things are in a secular building, there is something else that took me by surprise when I first visited the Franco Center. In order to accommodate theater-style seating in the central nave, a new floor had been built that sloped up from front to back, until it reached the pointed tops of the Gothic arches that had towered over worshipers in years past (see photo above). When I climbed atop this structure to my seat an unexpected sight greeted me: although the high altar itself was gone, its towering wooden reredosremained (or better yet, this having been a French-speaking parish, it’s retable). The niche for the tabernacle was still visible, the red Alpha and Omega still stood out prominently, and above all, a big beautiful Madonna holding the Baby Jesus.
It was a wonderful sight, but it prompted thoughts both negative and positive. On the negative side, I was struck with the realization that this secular hall still looked more like a Catholic Church than many recent church buildings still being used for that purpose. The ugliness of so much modern church design is deplorable in itself, but also a sign of much that has gone wrong, both in the Church and in society. It’s a tangible embodiment of all those things (see the first paragraph above) that tempt us to despair.
No Time to Despair, Now or Ever
On the plus side, however, it’s a sign that, however difficult things may look along the way, the Gates of Hell will not prevail (see Matthew 16:17). The Christian roots of our culture have a way of showing up in all sorts of places. The evangelizing readability, as the Council for Culture inelegantly but truly put it, remains. Whenever the Church looks to be in danger of losing her way, God raises up a St. Benedict or a St. Francis of Assisi. Our Lord not abandoned us.
This is no time for despair. A baptized Christian may lose his or her faith, but will always retain the mark of baptism. A one-time church, once desacralized, never completely loses its sacred character. A formerly Christian culture will never, however hard it tries, completely forget Christ. Every time you see an apartment building with a steeple, or the outline of a cross on the side of a recreation center, let it remind you: now is not the time to despair. Christ will come again.
The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1670
Tough Love and Unconditional Love
Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’ (Luke 15:23-24)
The Prodigal Son
Who hasn’t heard, or at least heard of, Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son? I’ve encountered people with no experience of Christianity whatsoever who are familiar with the story of the profligate son and the forgiving father from Luke chapter 15. Jesus’ characters bring to life some universal human experiences. Many of us have been the foolish, headstrong son. We may also have grown up to be the father anxious for the return of his erring offspring. Let’s not overlook the resentful “good” brother. All of us have probably played more than one of these roles at some point in our own lives.
It’s not surprising that Jesus’ story has become so well known. There’s something for everyone there, and many levels of meaning. As it happens, the Parable of the Prodigal Son was this past Sunday’s Gospel reading. When I heard it along with the other readings for the 4th Sunday in Lent, it got me thinking. Specifically, it brought to mind the concept of tough love.
Tough Love
The activist Bill Milliken first popularized the term “tough love” in 1968. Milliken had spent a lot of time working with addicts. He had found that often the best approach was not to shield them from the consequences of their bad choices. Once they had made themselves truly miserable, they were ready to get serious about turning their lives around. Milliken famously characterized the attitude of tough love as:
I don’t care how this makes you feel toward me. You may hate my guts, but I love you, and I am doing this because I love you.
Tough love has enjoyed something of a mixed reception over the years. Many supporters point out, correctly, that individuals intent on following an immoral or self-destructive course generally don’t want to change. Very often they won’t change until the pain their actions cause themselves become unbearable. When we indulge them in order to keep on friendly terms, we’re actually enabling their ruinous behavior.
Unconditional Love
Critics point out in turn, with some justification, that a strong relationship of trust and love is the most essential thing. Without such a relationship, the tough love approach is likely to do more harm than good. We will simply drive the suffering person away.
The 4th Sunday of Lent’s scripture readings suggest that we need a robust mixture of both approaches. We see the love, for instance, in the reading from from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians:
And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)
Manna From Heaven, by Giovanni Battista Naldini, 16th century
Manna No More
The word reconciliation, however, implies a prior separation. How does that separation happen? Take a look at the first reading from Joshua (Joshua 5:10-12). The Hebrews are ready, after forty years in the wilderness, to enter the Promised Land. During that forty years God has fed his people with divine food, manna from Heaven.
No longer. From now on the Hebrews will need to feed themselves from the “produce of the land.” God has built up a relationship of trust and love with them over four decades. He has fed them in much the same way parents feed their children. Now they need to take up adult responsibility.
We know from the books that follow Joshua in the Old Testament that they did not always exercise that responsibility wisely. As a consequence, all the Hebrews eventually suffer subjugation by foreign powers, and exile from the Promised Land. Most of the tribes never return. It’s a harsh lesson. The members of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi who do return, however, have learned the bitter lessons of defeat and exile. They recommit themselves more deeply to the relationship their ancestors enjoyed with their loving Creator. Eventually, the Divine Savior is born in their midst.
Rock Bottom
The Prodigal Son Abandoned, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, c. 1660
This same dynamic plays out vividly in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke, 15:1-3; 11-32). A young man takes advantage of his father’s love, and demands to receive his inheritance immediately. He then goes out on his own, and wantonly squanders his inheritance. Bad choice. He eventually needs to take a job feeding another man’s pigs just to keep from starving to death. He finally “hits rock bottom” and decides to change his life. The repentant son knows that he has destroyed his claim to sonship. At the same time, because of the love and respect he has for his father, he trusts that his father will treat him with compassion.
For his part, the father allows his son to face the consequences of his actions. He doesn’t intervene when the young man is “swallowing up his property with prostitutes,” as the resentful elder brother puts it. Nor does he come to rescue him from the pigsty. The father knows that his son won’t truly understand how bad his choices have been until he faces the full consequences of his actions. It’s only then that he will freely commit himself the right path.
The Father is Waiting
Once the son does finally understand, and decides to turn his life around, the father is waiting. Not only is he waiting, he’s actively on the look-out. The eager father “ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.” He restores the son to his place in the family, and throws a big feast in celebration.
The readings from the 4th Sunday of Lent show us a Father who fully embraces tough love, but who is also fully committed to an unconditionally loving relationship. A full commitment to both may seem impossible for us, “but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). He gives us complete freedom to choose our own course. We are free to choose against his wishes. We are free even to choose the eternal desolation of Hell.
Joy in Heaven
But He wants us to choose to come to Him, all of us (1 Timothy 2:4). Once we make that choice He will not only welcome us, He’ll come to meet us. He’ll throw a feast in our honor. As Jesus himself says, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 5:7).
In a post earlier this week (“Our Goal is The Resurrection: Ain’t No Grave“) I suggested that we could look at the Season of Lent as representing our time of exile in this fallen world. The 4th Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday, is a reminder in the midst of that exile that God has promised us a new life of eternal joy, if we persevere. We might be feeling the tough love right now, but our Father is more than willing to come and welcome us on the road home.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . (John 1:1,4)
Any truly Christian anthropology needs to start with the Gospel of John, chapter 1. The incorporeal Eternal Word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, takes on human flesh and lives a material existence in the world. In a similar (albeit limited and human way) we are composed not only of flesh and blood, but also an immaterial soul that God has created to last for eternity, for an immeasurable time after our earthly bodies are gone. In this, as in other things, Christ is our model.
One consequence of our body/soul composition is that we need tangible things to help us grasp abstract or spiritual realities. That’s why Jesus taught with parables, and with images such as the mustard seed, or salt that has lost its savor. For the same reason we use spoken prayers, liturgical gestures, sacred music and art, and a whole range of sacramentals. No doubt Jesus chooses to use Sacraments as a means of bestowing Grace for this reason as well.
Needless to say, it follows that church buildings are also an important means of communicating, in a nonverbal and non rational way, the truths of the faith. I touched on this idea in last year’s piece, “Has Tradition become a Dirty Word?” I’m returning today to an article I published a number of years ago. I discuss these issues in the context of a particular church, the beautiful Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Lewiston, Maine.
The Basilica: a Beacon on a Hill
Basilica of St.s Peter and Paul, Lewiston, Maine (ladphotography.com)
Many a visitor to the old textile city of Lewiston, Maine, experiences surprise when, driving through a run-down neighborhood of shabby old New England triple-decker tenements, he suddenly finds an enormous and beautiful church looming over him. This is the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, formally consecrated in 1938.
Its location is not at all as incongruous as it might at first seem. It was the most natural thing in the world for the inhabitants of those cheap apartment houses to put all their extra money and effort into building the most magnificent church possible. At the time, the parishioners were mostly French Canadian immigrants who had come to Lewiston to work in the dark red-brick mills that lined the Androscoggin River.
And yes, it was those poor laborers, not wealthy benefactors or (Heaven forbid) government grants, that built the Basilica. “Religion is the opiate of the people” is not the least foolish of the foolish things Karl Marx said. Opiates deaden the soul and weigh down the limbs: nobody pushes themselves to the limit to build monuments to those. No, the Faith these humble workers brought with them from Quebec didn’t numb them into acquiescence, it gave them real assurance that they had something worth working toward: admittance to the presence of the living God.
More Than a Building: Enormous Sacramentals
And so naturally it was a Church that they chose as the focus of their devotion. Churches are much more than just buildings. They are enormous sacramentals, consecrated objects that can help connect us to the Grace of a God who is pure Spirit. Churches are iconic representations that teach us at an unconscious level about an ordered Universe with God at the apex . . . or at least they used to be. They are also places closely connected to some of the deepest experiences of our lives, such as baptisms, weddings and funerals. Finally, they are places that gather communities together. Sometimes families and communities build these connections over many generations. That’s why the closing of a church is so much more traumatic than the closing of a movie theater, for instance, or a department store. The local church is, for most people, their concrete connection to transcendent realities.
Current Portland Bishop Robert Deeley (far right) attends a Traditional Latin Mass at the Basilica (https://latinmassme.com/)
The Basilica of Peter and Paul, fortunately, is still going strong. It no longer draws its community, however, mostly from the immediate neighborhood. People have come from miles away to attend Mass in the Extraordinary Form every Sunday since 2008. That’s when then-Bishop Richard Malone designated it as one of two churches (the other being the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland) to host a new Latin Mass Chaplaincy. There is also a Mass in the Ordinary Form celebrated with a reverence that draws worshipers from a wide area, and a French language Mass that is very well attended by French speakers from all over southern Maine. Many other churches, to the great sorrow of parishioners who have been orphaned, have not been so lucky.
The New, New Evangelization
It’s in that connection that this post on Fr. Z’s blog (here), about parishioners in Buffalo who have enlisted the Vatican’s help in their attempts to keep their parish open, first caught my eye. Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone is the same man who, as Bishop of Portland, helped keep the Basilica thriving. Here, he comes off as the Bad Guy of the piece.* As it happens, Bishop Malone also oversaw the closing of many parishes in Maine, a practice he seems to have continued in Buffalo. Unfortunately, that appears to be one of the first lessons they teach in Bishop School these days. In any case, Fr. Z’s post made me wonder. Would it have made a difference if some of those other parishes had thought to appeal to the Pope?
There are bigger questions, of course. Fr. Z asks:
What sort of faith in an effort of “New Evangelization” do we evince if, while chattering about it, we are closing the churches we need to fill in the very places where the “New Evangelization” needs to be pursued?
That’s a good point. Today, all those triple-deckers around the Basilica in Lewiston still overflow with people. The difference is, they are no longer (mostly) people who actually attend the church that dominates their neighborhood. We can say the same of many churches we are decommissioning. The populations around them are (mostly) as large as when the churches boasted full congregations every Sunday. The difference is, they aren’t making up for the shortfall with people from further afield. And, yes, bishops and their staffs around the country should certainly learn to think more like Evangelists and less like Administrators. We lay Catholics, also, (and I include myself) need to do our part. What more we can do to invite all those people on the outside into the Church? If earlier generations with fewer resources but great faith could build the basilicas, could we not at least put enough people in the pews?
*A few years later, sorry to say, Bishop Malone’s tenure in Buffalo ended very badly indeed. Happily, that’s beyond the scope of this discussion.
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
As Timely As Ever:
Pious Tradition v. The “Experts”
Pious tradition attributes authorship of the prayer above, known as “The Lorica (or “Breastplate”) of St. Patrick”, to the Apostle of Ireland himself. As is the case with the beloved “Prayer of St. Francis”, experts tell us the eponymous Saint is most likely not the real author. I myself trust Pious Tradition more than The Experts any day, but for our purposes here we’ll just say that it could have been written by St. Patrick. In any case, while the prayer as you see it above is the most well-known version, it is really only a part of a much longer composition (I’ve put the full text at the bottom of this post). At one time this magnificent prayer, in its complete form, was a part of my morning devotions every day. “The Breastplate of St. Patrick” is, in fact, written as a morning prayer, and more: it is a statement of faith, a brief but comprehensive catechesis, and a call for Divine help against the dangers that beset us from both earthly and spiritual sources. Those things are as necessary today as they were in 5th century Ireland, and St. Patrick’s prayer is a powerful and inspiring way to start our daily journey.
“I Arise Today . . .”
The complete “Breastplate” opens with “I arise today/Through a mighty strength, the invocation of Trinity . . .” St. Patrick is famous for his emphasis on the Trinity, reportedly using the tree-leafed shamrock to illustrate the doctrine (as memorialized in the present-day stained glass window from the cathedral in Armagh, his primatial see). Here, he also emphasizes “the Oneness of the Creator of creation.” In converting a pagan people, Patrick needed to impress upon them that there was indeed only one God, as distinct from their pagan pantheon, although expressed in three Persons. The Triune God is also unlike their familiar gods in that He alone is the universal Creator, as opposed to pagan deities who were more powerful than mortal men, but still finite and fallible beings. In our own day we also need to be reminded that God is Love (1John 4:8), and Love reaches its perfection in a union of persons, but also that God the Creator is master of all the blind forces of nature with which we wrestle.
St. Patrick Lighting the Paschal Fire on the Hill of Slane, 433,by Vincenzo Waldre, 1792
The next “I arise today . . .” is followed by a brief Christology: incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and descent to the Dead. We, no less than our newly-christened forefathers did, need to understand exactly Who and What is the God that we follow. A third “I arise today . . . .” is followed by a litany of various Angels, Patriarchs, Prophets, and Saints, which re-establishes for us that our devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ also connects us to all the lesser persons, living and dead, in the Communion of Saints. Next, “I arise today/Through strength of heaven,/the light of the sun . . .” and so on, through a list of natural forces which, St. Patrick here reminds us, come below us in the order of creation, and are so much the more under God’s power (how often we moderns forget both of these truths!).
God’s Providential Care
After a fifth “I arise today . . .” we see a litany of the various manifestations of God’s Providential care:
God’s strength to pilot me, God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me . . .
And so on. At the end of this section we shift our focus to the various evils that beset us:
God’s host to save me From snares of devils, From temptation of vices, From everyone who shall wish me ill, Afar and near.
In the next section we call for God’s help against these evils, which are laid out in more detail:
I summon today All these powers between me and those evils, Against every cruel and merciless power That may oppose my body and soul, Against incantations of false prophets, Against black laws of pagandom, Against false laws of heretics, Against craft of idolatry, Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards, Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul. Christ shield me today Against poison, against burning, Against drowning, against wounding, So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.
Notice the priority given to spiritual evils, which Christians have traditionally understood to be far more serious dangers than the physical hazards at the end of the passage. Today we often ignore or even deride these deadly perils (as I discuss in my post “For Such a Time as This: Powers, Principalities & The Culture Wars“).
The Lorica
At this point we come to the famous passage quoted at the top of this post (Christ with me,Christ before me, Christ behind me . . .), from which the prayer takes its name. Here we call upon Christ to surround us, to “armor” us, with his protection. Finally, the prayer ends by repeating the invocation with which it starts:
I arise today, Through a mighty strength, The invocation of the Trinity, Through belief in the Threeness, Through confession of the Oneness Of the Creator of creation.
As I read through this prayer, which was composed for ancient pagans who knew nothing of Christianity, I am struck by how well it is suited to our current post-Christian, neo-pagan culture. We shouldn’t kid ourselves. Even with all the amazing gadgetry that we’ve concocted for ourselves over the centuries, we’re still subject to the same basic temptations and hazards that have always haunted humanity. We still could use the breastplate of Christ.
Here’s a beautiful setting for St. Patrick’s prayer by contemporary composer Ola Gjeilo:
The Breastplate of St. Patrick:
I arise today
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.
I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels, In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In the predictions of prophets,
In the preaching of apostles, In the faith of confessors,
In the innocence of holy virgins,
In the deeds of righteous men.
I arise today through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock.
I arise today through
God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and near.
God’s Providence
I summon today
All these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel and merciless power
that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.
The Lorica
Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me
an abundance of reward.
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.
Not all former churches fare as well. I’m familiar with another retired church building which is home to a youth theater group, which seems to correspond to the guidelines above. But there’s a complication. They have recently painted a very large and bright mural across the entire back wall of the structure. I certainly understand their desire to decorate their premises. And they have every right to do so, since they own the property. The problem is, the building still looks in other respects very much like a place of worship. There’s something jarring about this mural in this location. Even worse, it looks disrespectful to those of us who remember the formerly sacred character of the building.
The activist Bill Milliken first popularized the term “tough love” in 1968. Milliken had spent a lot of time working with addicts. He had found that often the best approach was not to shield them from the consequences of their bad choices. Once they had made themselves truly miserable, they were ready to get serious about turning their lives around. Milliken famously characterized the attitude of tough love as:
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