Slow down and listen to the voice of the Lord

Today is the feast of Christ the King-which means that it is the 34th and final Sunday of Ordinary Time, and the beginning of the last week of the liturgical year-one Year of Grace is coming to an end as another will begin next week with the first Vespers of Advent next Saturday night. As I posited here last year close to this time, the Scripture readings from the Lectionary each day during this time of the year take on a very different feeling than what we might hear the rest of the year, because many of the texts we hear at Mass and even during Matins (the Office of Readings) or that we might read in the texts for an extended vigil for Matins take on a heightened eschatological and apocalyptic character-they speak rather freely, it often seems, of the consummation of all things and of the End of Days. This apocalyptic theme seems to carry even into the first week of Advent-which is always a time of both hope and expectation, as we prepare to commemorate the first coming of the Messiah as a baby in a feeding trough for farm animals while awaiting the second and final coming of the Messiah in power and glory "and all his angels with him." (Matthew 25:31)

We have just passed Thanksgiving in the United States, and for us this is now the beginning of what I have come to call the "secular holiday season." I can't justifiably call it the Christmas season because we are, in fact, still over a month away from the Christmas season. This year, I can't say that we have come upon Advent because it is not yet Advent (in many years, the first Sunday of Advent often does fall the Sunday after Thanksgiving). What our so-called "holiday season" has become is just an excuse to engage in gross excess and-as my good friend from St. Albert the Great in Knoxville Stephanie Richer points out-a kind of crude Ba'al worship.


Nicole said I was being a bit of a Scrooge the other day because I launched what I believe is a perfectly valid complaint. Several of our area radio stations launch into constant Christmas music (some of them go even more secular and call it "holiday music." What holiday is this, Labor Day?) from Thanksgiving until Christmas, or even until the New Year. I found one the other day that had started playing this music even before Thanksgiving. I remarked that it didn't seem quite right to me to be singing of Christmas and chestnuts and sleigh rides or even the babe in the manger and the little drummer boy when we have not even really entered the season for that. It isn't that I have any trouble with Christmas music (I love Christmas and Christmas songs and carols have always been and remain some of my favorites-even the secular ones), but the rush to turn the remainder of the year into a holiday we haven't even reached and a feast we still have to prepare for in order that some people's profit margins might increase and we might gain some additional pleasure without preparing personally or spiritually for it. Yes, I expect that from our increasingly secularized culture, but when we see the people in our parishes falling into that trap it makes it all the more difficult to mark the passage of sacred time and to teach them what this time of year really means in its totality-the retelling again in sacred time of the Lord's coming-in memory of the First and anticipation of the Second Advent of the Lord.

As we mark the passage of one Year of Grace and the beginning of another, slow down. If you do, your Advent will likely be more Spirit-filled and your Christmas far more joyful and celebrated in a true spirit of charity and love.

Worshiping at the altar of materialism

Today is what has become known in modern colloquial usage as "Black Friday," the day after the Thanksgiving holiday when the American Christmas shopping season is supposed to officially begin. When I was growing up, stores might open a few hours early today-6AM was a popular opening time-and have sales that are only good today. It has traditionally been called "Black" Friday because if a store or business was behind in its margins for the year, today was traditionally the day its proprietors could look to as a day that brought enough intake to insure that on December 31st, that business would not end the year in deficit, or "in the red," but in profit or at least even-in "the black."


We have gone well beyond the original intent of today-a day to get in a few seasonal Christmas deals-and instead today has become a holiday in its own right-one that celebrates neither giving thanks nor the joy of the coming Prince of Peace, but instead pays homage to the real god of modern American society-materialism. The god of our things, and our ability to have more things and buy more things than our neighbor. Not only is today a day of honor for our God of the Material, but it is often a day where we as a culture spend our time and energy perpetually breaking the tenth and final commandment-thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods. Not only do we worship at the altar of the deity of materialism on this day, we insult the God of All Creation even further by breaking His Holy Law in a perpetual and cultural fashion.


Early this morning, I went with Nicole to Kohl's-she had been given a valuable coupon that helped her purchase some new clothing for her work at really rock-bottom prices, but since it was only good for today, she had to go early this morning just after midnight since she had to work on Friday itself. People were lined up outside the stores of the local mall like the needy at a soup kitchen-only these people didn't look like they needed much of anything, nor did many of them look like they couldn't afford to wait another few days to go shopping-especially sine most of the good sales aren't really going away after today. Some people could have done what my own mother used to do when I was growing up-she did most of her Christmas shopping through the summer months, so that by the time the rush came, she didn't have to visit the stores much.


I observed people coming and going-I didn't want to go in with Nicole and have to fight the crowd, and I think Nicole regretted it later. While I waited in the car, observing people behaving as though they had gone in and returned from some visitation with the divine, I had occasion to listen to the radio, and I happened upon Raymond Arroyo talking about his experience observing people waiting on this materialistic madness to begin. In addition to hosting The World Over on EWTN, Arroyo also occasionally sits in on a secular radio talk show that I happen to enjoy. I heard him talk about how he had passed by a local Target store on Thanksgiving morning and saw people camped out there, setting up what amounted to tent cities, waiting on the holiday sales to begin so that they could get in on some mythical deal. How many of those folks were running up credit they couldn't afford and will have to pay down later in the name of a deal today? Something seems terribly wrong with occupying places in line or in some overnight camp-out in front of a store when there are people who sleep out in front of malls and stores and on public benches and parks because they have nowhere else to sleep, while some of us camp out in front of Target or Belk or Walmart or Kohl's for our day of worship to the deus de materiali. With Black Friday rapidly becoming Black Thursday, Thanksgiving is becoming not a day for thanks to God, but just another shopping day, and Christmas is now just a day to eat and open presents so that we can all go to the store the next day for the big sale. The Christ Child? Who is that? What deal is this that's at the mall, the clearance rack is keeping? The Sale of Sales, good business brings, while customers' line is winding. This, This is Cash our King, while cashiers watch and  registers cling, haste, haste, to bring it laud, the jingle, the sound of profit.

Materialism has been the ultimate source of every wicked and evil ideology that has been formed in the mind of man, and it is the notion that only greater things can make us happy. Materialism brought us fascism, because only the State controlling the business you own can insure fairness-and while we're at it we'll go after those nasty Jews and other pesky people because they have more than us. Materialism gave us socialism and its child communism, because no one is allowed to earn more than their neighbor and if they have more it is always wrong, and it must be rectified-forcibly if necessary. Nevermind that we will kill all incentive to work or to achieve, and therefore to bless others as we have been blessed. Materialism also gives us a kind of crass capitalism that cares little for the individual or the dignity of the human person and only about the bottom line. Materialism is also the root of the sort of neo-socialism that we are seeing today that discourages thrift, because we want what we want now, even if someone else should pay for it.


None of this is to say that there is an inherent wrong in going Christmas shopping-there isn't. But our celebrations of Thanksgiving and Christmas have become about the creature more than the Creator, and we have made them more about the god of our making than the God who created us and who is using these special days as yet another way to call us all to Himself. When we prepare to give gifts to others, do we do it in the spirit of bringing Christ to others, or is it simply about the gifts-the things which, as St. Paul says, "passeth away?" (cf. I Corinthans 7:31)

The gates of Hell will not prevail against it...

I don't normally share my political column here because this blog is meant as a way to share my experience in Aspirancy to the deaconate, not to talk about political things. However, today's column is worth posting here because the subject matter should be important to every Catholic.

Our Lord Jesus Christ the King

The feast of Christ the King has always been among my favorite feasts of the Church's year. Perhaps this is because it is a reminder of the reality that Christ reigns unchanged over the Church forever, and that there will be no end to His Kingdom. The Lord reigns now, and as we are reminded, he will one day return (a reality that we remember at every Mass when we say "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." It may be that I am so fond of this feast because it is a reminder that, even though time changes (the Liturgical Year will end on Saturday afternoon-we have entered the final week of Ordinary Time), God does not change, and will never change. In a world of constant change, the one great thing which remains unchanged is the eternal God.

In today's Gospel (Matthew 25:31-46), Christ reminds us that all nations and all people will one day stand in judgment before Him, and he will render a royal judgment on the eternal fate of all people. He does not tell us that he will ask us if we have "been saved," he will not ask if we come to know him or not-He knows the end of from the beginning, and He says that He will know by our works whether we know him or not. Indeed, whether we accept him or not is the first step on our journey of faith-acceptance does not guarantee our salvation, but obedience does-our willingness to live according to the ways of Christ and to follow his example:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne,  and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’  Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ 

And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

There is little question that what the Lord is asking of us in this passage is a very tall order indeed. It seems simple enough-feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for those in prison, welcome the stranger, care for and heal the sick (and by extension, bury the dead). We may read this passage and say "oh, Jesus is telling us that we must be benevolent." Benevolence is good, and through personal, corporate, and ecclesiastical benevolence, we can accomplish wonderful things on behalf of those who otherwise cannot do for themselves-and that is important. However, Jesus is taking us to another place aside from benevolence in His description of the Last Judgment. Jesus is asking us to act in ways that are directly contrary to human nature.

We are prone to place blame upon the criminal for their crime, even the poor for their poverty or the sick for their illness, especially in our relatively wealthy and well-provided society. It is even fair to say, if we are completely honest with ourselves, that in our minds much of that blame is justified. After all, there are many poor who wish not to work or earn their keep. Despite the discussion about innocent people in prison or on death row, most people are incarcerated or waiting for the needle or the chair are in that position because they have committed crimes-often horrible-to put them in that position. Even the sick or ill are sometimes blamed-probably with some truth-because it may be said that they would not be ill if they did not take better care of themselves.

Jesus is asking something very radical of us, because He is asking us not to be concerned with whether the poor, or the sick, or the prisoner is to blame for their lot or not-in fact, He mentions nothing about how the people He mentions got to the state they were in. Jesus merely tells us that when we look at the poor, the hungry, the naked, the sick, the prisoner, we are looking at Him, and that when we minister to the needs of the poor, the hungry, the sick, the naked, the prisoner, et cetera, we are ministering to Christ. Jesus Christ is telling us that we must see Him in the poor, and that failure to do that could mean dire eternal consequences for us.

Many people remember the poor at this time of year, as we approach Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas. That is a good thing, especially for the children who truly have no control over their life situation. However, Christ does not ask us to remember the poor during one season of the year, but to consistently look to the poor and the unloved in order to see the face of Christ in our world. Further, He tells us that our willingness to see Him in the "least of these" will be the criteria upon which we are judged when we stand before Him in all His majestic splendor.

All of us-myself included-would do well to reflect on how well we would do at the great Divine Test