I make no bones about my brotherly affection and deep respect for Mike Aquilina – as such it shouldn’t surprise that I found his article on, if you will, ancient youth ministry so crisp and accurate.  Two snips really caught my attention:

They promised young people great things, like persecution, lower social status, public ridicule, severely limited employment opportunities, frequent fasting, a high risk of jail and torture, and maybe, just maybe, an early, violent death at the hands of their pagan rulers.

and

What made the Church attractive in the third century can make it just as attractive in the twenty-first. In the ancient world and in ours, young people want a challenge. They want to love with their whole being. They’re willing to do things the hard way — if people they respect make the big demands. These are distinguishing marks of youth. You don’t find too many middle-aged men petitioning the Marines for a long stay at Parris Island. It’s young men who beg for that kind of rigor.

Whether this concept of challenging youth instead of coddling them will ever catch on again within the Church, at least within my lifetime, certainly seems debatable and even doubtful in some corners.  As different as today’s youth are from those of ancient times they’re still youth, and their thirst and desire for a challenge has never abated.  Look a young man or woman square in the eye and tell them they too could move the world and they will follow you to the ends of the earth, no matter the cost – and in Christianity that cost starts with a death, death to self, death to the ways of this world, but that death opens unto new and everlasting life in Christ.  If it worked in the ancient Church, who knows, just maybe it can work here as well.

In a recent discussion on plurk about YALI (Yet Another Liturgical Infraction) someone asked me why I even care about this or that particular issue.   In this particular case the person wasn’t implying the issue wasn’t important, but questioning why I burned energy on something that is very unlikely to change and even if it does in one small place is likely still to be done improperly all over anyway.  The question of liturgy has surrounded me it seems since before I was even Catholic.  Story time … suffer through, if you will – it’s a short one, I promise.

Back when I was in College, still “unchurched” as the old term goes, I borrowed my mother’s Bible – partly to impress my then-girlfriend’s mother, partly out of an inner curiosity as to just what this book had in it that was so important to so many people.  Not knowing what I was doing I read it as any other book, from page 1 forwards.  I didn’t get much past Kings doing it that way before the lineages bogged me down.  In comes the local priest, whose name to this day I do not remember, who told me to read John first (as an aside, I often wonder why anyone would ever recommend the most mystical and multi-layered Gospel as a starter, but there it is).  It is, I think looking back  on it now, no coincidence that one of the first verses I would read was John 2:17:

His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Those words have never left me since then, even for a day.  As I moved on in my life and eventually entered the RCIA process and learned of and about the Mass those words took on a new meaning and a new depth of meaning.  The Mass is and always has been a core part of God’s plan for our salvation; Christ, as it is said, is the only person ever born with the express intention of dying – to die on the Cross, to give us that which we could never give ourselves and do so even at the price of His own Blood, to offer us salvation.  And not only salvation of which we are but bystanders, but one in which we actively participate by our very lives, in choosing in each and every action to live in and for Him, something we can only do through the strength offered us in the Eucharist.  How, I came to wonder, could you not be zealous for, and therein protective of, the way in which this great Gift is offered?

There are many things I’ve seen that irk me, some that genuinely bother me, and some that simply infuriate me.  When I read stories like this one from Jimmy Akin it makes me wonder, if we are called to conform our lives as closely as possible to Jesus’ and a very obvious part of that is this zeal the disciples all noticed as mentioned by John, why would I not care?  There is, in the end, nothing we do on this planet more important than the Mass.  Without the impossibly generous plan of salvation of which the Eucharist and therein the Mass is an integral part, nothing else we could do or say would amount to a hill of beans in the end estimation.  It is, as St. Pio said, that “[i]t would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do without Holy Mass.“  As I wrote in my comment on Jimmy’s post, Christ died to give us the Mass, martyrs shed their blood to protect it and Holy Mother Church has sheltered it in her bosom for centuries – it is not ours to do with as we please, no matter how wise or well-intentioned we may think we are.

There is, besides those pious observations, another reason.  I would say, for the purpose of picking a reasonably accurate number, probably 80% of your average parish that attends Mass even weekly does not attend any other formational activities.  That means that the great number of even the “committed” Catholics will never learn anything of their faith in their adult life if they do not learn it at Mass.  So if you play with the words, the signs or the symbols of the Mass you necessarily alter what the people learn.  Just as the Deposit of Faith is not ours to reinvent at our pleasure, so is the Mass which passes on that Faith not ours to reinvent.  Christ died for us, he died to give us the Mass – let us treat it as the great treasure it is.

“Is it fear or courage that compels you fleshling?”

Starting a blog post with a quote from Megatron, the arch-evil character from Transformers, is not something I ever imagined myself doing.  Somehow, however, the issue  and concept of fear have been bombarding me lately.  Several years ago I was laid off from my job after what can only be described as utterly killing myself for the company; knowing I couldn’t have done my job any better if I tried was slim comfort when staring at the prospect of not being able to feed my family.  I was, thanks be to God, extremely fortunate to land a job well before such a drastic thing could happen, but it left a constant hollow of fear – a gnawing sense that at any moment it all could go *poof*.  The need to somehow control tomorrow’s events today slowly grew into an almost OCD-like behavior.  I’d read over and again Jesus’ admonition to the Apostles to “not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” (Jn 14:27) but yet it always seemed so much easier to say than to do.  Fear becomes a pattern, and not just a repeating one but a pattern that builds on itself and grows and can become all-consuming given enough latitude.

Directly opposite Jesus’ direction we often hear “it’s okay to be afraid” and “fear is natural”.  Both of those seem self-evidently true on their face – so which is it?  Just telling someone it is okay to be afraid without any way of turning that fear to positive effect is just about as useless as telling someone to not be afraid when you yourself have no control either – it’s a nice thought but provides utterly no help to the other person.

After all these years of thinking about it, one significant difference finally dawned on me just a couple of days ago.  When we say either of the above we’re trying to be supportive and offer either a bit of encouragement or a kick in the keester.  But when Jesus told us to not let our hearts be troubled He said it not just as a brother and a friend, but as God who has control over every single thing in existence.  Do not be afraid…not just because I want to make you feel better, but because I sit at the right hand of the Father who values you more than every sparrow and knows every hair on your head (Mt 10:29-31) and I tell you “I know well the plans I have in mind for you … plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope.” (Jer 29:11)

Maybe I’m just dense, or maybe I needed to hear it a thousand times and one, but when the only one who has any control in the matter says in essence “I know what I’m doing … trust me” … maybe I just need to try that idea out, even just a little bit.  People around me are constantly hearing me say “just give it a minute and you’ll see what I mean”.  Sometimes our own advice is that which is hardest for us to take.  Patience grasshopper, the Lord knows exactly what He’s doing.

From The Imitation of Christ, Book 2 Chapter 11:

Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him. But if Jesus hides Himself and leaves them for a while, they fall either into complaints or into deep dejection. Those, on the contrary, who love Him for His own sake and not for any comfort of their own, bless Him in all trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even if He should never give them consolation, yet they would continue to praise Him and wish always to give Him thanks. What power there is in pure love for Jesus—love that is free from all self-interest and self-love!

Seek the Cross the and Consolations will come; seek only consolations and, well, you do the math.

From The Imitation of Christ, chapter 4:

A MAN is raised up from the earth by two wings—simplicity and purity. There must be simplicity in his intention and purity in his desires. Simplicity leads to God, purity embraces and enjoys Him.

If your heart is free from ill-ordered affection, no good deed will be difficult for you. If you aim at and seek after nothing but the pleasure of God and the welfare of your neighbor, you will enjoy freedom within.

If your heart were right, then every created thing would be a mirror of life for you and a book of holy teaching, for there is no creature so small and worthless that it does not show forth the goodness of God. If inwardly you were good and pure, you would see all things clearly and understand them rightly, for a pure heart penetrates to heaven and hell, and as a man is within, so he judges what is without. If there be joy in the world, the pure of heart certainly possess it; and if there be anguish and affliction anywhere, an evil conscience knows it too well.

As iron cast into fire loses its rust and becomes glowing white, so he who turns completely to God is stripped of his sluggishness and changed into a new man. When a man begins to grow lax, he fears a little toil and welcomes external comfort, but when he begins perfectly to conquer himself and to walk bravely in the ways of God, then he thinks those things less difficult which he thought so hard before.

Or, as my father would have put it, “things aren’t as hard as you’d like them to be.”

Just today my wife and I were discussing people who get married just so they can be “not alone” and how, in the end, those marriages never worked.  It was, surely, no coincidence that just earlier in the day I had read this from Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Transformation in Christ (and yes, I’m finally only a few pages from finishing it):

True self-surrender … implies that we are entirely centered upon the object in which we lose ourselves.  The value of that which holds us, and by no means the pleasure of being held, dominates our consciousness.  One who seeks that pleasure for its own sake errs just as they do who yearn for the thrill of love rather than thinking of the beloved person, and hence never attain real love at all.

There is no point in our longing to lose ourselves in general.  What we should long for is exclusively to lose ourselves in Christ.  Let us never forget that, though an intense love or enthusiasm as such is undoubtedly a great experience and a fine sight, its value essentially depends on whom or what we love; on the person or thing that evokes our enthusiasm.

(I meant to post this yesterday but, well, life intervened.)

In this Friday’s Morning Prayer we have a reading from the letter to the Galatians that made me really, truly, stop and think.  We read:

I have been crucified with Christ, and the life I live now is not my own; Christ is living in me.  I still live my human life, but it is a life of faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:19b-20)

For some reason every time I’ve read this passage I’ve always at least partially dismissed it as Paul’s description of himself.  I don’t think there is any arguing that St. Paul was a zealot, so seeing such strong and complete language from him isn’t very surprising.  But yet this is far more than a reflective statement – more than just Paul explaining why he acts the way he does.  Behind these words is the cry, “I have come this far, come with me, live only in and for Him!“  It is, as is only fitting, a call to follow.

So … all those times you have the opportunity to do what you want or do what you ought, which do you pick?  And when you do do what you ought, do you do it begrudgingly or with the joy of knowing you are following Christ’s call to charity?  Do you find joy in the freedom of being yoked with Christ or look askance at your perceived loss of freedom?  It may be that in surrendering what we perceive to be our freedom we find ourselves only then to be truly free.

You look around at the world about you and can’t help but feel a twinge of concern mixed with anger and frustration.  The world seems to be spinning on an unstable axis, wobbling ever closer to Babel than Jerusalem.  The world tells you there’s nothing you can do and no reason you should try.  God, however, has other ideas.  Improve the world by improving yourself, then those around you, always with charity.  It’s time we take this responsibility seriously.

Last evening I had the opportunity to attend a concert put on by the Chroale and Schola Cantorum from Holy Family Academy here in town.  The concert was held, as so many wonderful things in this city, at Ste. Marie’s church, which provided magnificent acoustics, even for those young men and women who were a little nervous in front of the good-sized crowd that had assembled.  Seeing them give glory to God in their singing, and particularly so in the many pieces of sacred music, was a truly powerful experience of hope.  When they intoned the Kyrie to start the concert I quite literally felt a chill run down my spine.

This is the future of the Church – this new generation of children and young adults growing up receiving a more full education both in the world and in the Faith than has been seen in decades, and growing up in love with Christ and His Church.  As much damage has been done in the past decades by terrible-to-nonexistent catechesis, the future looks even more bright.  Deo gratias!

Tonight was our last RCIA session of the year and, as per usual with this group, we ran off into some rather interesting topics and some pretty deep water.  In what was supposed to be initially a discussion about prayer we spent the first half hour talking about the abortion case in Phoenix and how excommunication works and what it is.  It quickly digressed to a discussion based largely on nuance and detail.  This has been making me think – in an age of Twitter and soundbite journalism are people really ready for nuance and fine details?

One question though really struck me as symbolic – “how can someone get excommunicated?”  It’s a question with seemingly a thousand answers, all different and all correct.  But yet saying “it’s complicated” seems to translate into “it’s an arcane holdover without an ounce of Christian charity”.  Somehow there needs to be a way to answer questions like this without delving into heavy theological and ecclesiological issues.  I think in many ways it’s the inability to provide these Baltimore Catechism-style answers to common questions that has helped put the Church into the corner it finds itself trying to fight out of modern days.  What do you think?