It’s been a while, eh?  I’ve been thinking over this post for a few days now, waiting for a chance to actually sit down and think it through at a keyboard.  The reading for Midday Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours for this past Friday struck me as another one where you can really get an awful lot more out of it by putting an accent on certain words rather than with just a flat reading.  First, without the accent of which I’m thinking:

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,

our sufferings that he endured,

While we thought him as stricken,

as one smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our offenses,

crushed for our sins.

Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,

by his stripes we were healed.

I think just about any Christian, and particularly any Catholic, should be familiar with this reading from Isaiah 53:4-5.  In the story of the Suffering Servant none in my mind are more poignant.  Come Good Friday as you are staring at the Cross, think back to this and remember.  But now look at the accents and see how this jumps out:

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,

our sufferings that he endured,

While we thought him as stricken,

as one smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our offenses,

crushed for our sins.

Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,

by his stripes we were healed.

Notice the symmetry in almost all of the highlighted lines – “his – our”, “he – we”.  Of all the things he has done, we are the beneficiaries.  Of all the things we have done, he accepts the chastisement.  Freely.  Willingly.  Intentionally.  As Archbishop Fulton Sheen pointed out in his Life of Christ, Jesus was the only man ever born with the express intent of dying.  You might notice one other thing – we are responsible for doing none of the good here but yet we are the recipients of all those benefits.  We are not worthy, we cannot be worthy, yet receive them we do.

Take time this Holy Week to contemplate how freely this gift was given, how costly this gift is, and how unworthy we are to receive it.  Keep all three in balance, for all three are important and all three feed on and magnify the others.  Let us say with the centurion, “Domine, non sum dignus…”

The other day I was sitting in an office waiting, as were many of my co-workers, to find out whether or not we were still employed (thankfully all those I know directly still are although a good many were not so lucky) when a co-worker dropped in the office to chat away some of the time.  Being the “horizontal organizer” that I am, I’d spread out my belongings across a good swath of the desk even though I was just borrowing it for the day.  Some day I’ll figure out how to be organized.  Honest.

As we chatted about mostly nothing he happened to notice the ribbon markers in my Liturgy of the Hours and asked if it was a Bible.  Since most people that see a book with ribbon markers think it’s a Bible that didn’t surprise me.  Now mind you, usually I’m the shy type and would respond to the question with a quick mumbled dismissal and then stuff the book in a bag to avoid the rest of the conversation.  This time, for whatever reason, I explained what the book was, how the LotH works and its history.  Come to find out he’s Russian Orthodox so we went looking to find out if the Orthodox have a complement to the LotH (answer: kind of, but not as universal as the LotH is in the Western Church).  During all this we discussed morality, politics vis-a-vis religion, the intersection of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, the differences between the pontificates of Benedict XVI and John Paul II, ecumenism and other topics I’m quite sure I don’t even remember.  And all this time I was quite sure that most of the people I worked with were, at best, disinterested agnostics.  Fine judge of character I turned out to be.

So what’s the moral of the story?  First, don’t assume you know people too well too quickly – it’s usually to your detriment as well as theirs.  Second, there are more of us out there than we sometimes like to think – “us” being those who have a more-than-passing interest in the Christian Faith.  Third, don’t be afraid to live your faith publicly – the people you’re afraid of offending might just be looking for someone to talk to and you might be their only chance.  John Paul II was right when he started his pontificate with the fine words, “be not afraid!”

With his passing so fresh in my memory, it was strange to see my latest edition of First Things come in the mail, flip to the back and read Fr. Neuhaus’ last words in this edition.  I do not know if he had already written for next month’s edition or if these indeed will be the last words from him; either way, it is truly something to be read and shared.  I’m quite certain he wouldn’t mind, but if asked of course I’ll take them down.

As of this writing, I am contending with a cancer, presently of unknown origin.  I am, I am given to believe, under the expert medical care of the Sloan-Kettering clinic here in New York.  I am grateful beyond measure for your prayers storming the gates of heaven.  Be assured that I neither fear to die nor refuse to live.  If it is to die, all that has been is but a slight intimation of what is to be. If it is to live, there is much that I hope to do in the interim.  After the last round with cancer fifteen years ago, I wrote a little book, As I Lay Dying (titled after William Faulkner after John Donne), in which I said much of what I had to say about the package deal that is mortality.  I did not know that I had so much more to learn.  And yes, the question has occurred to me that, ifI have but a little time to live, should I be spending it writing this column.  I have heard it attributed to figures as various as Brother Lawrence and Martin Luther – when asked what they would do if they knew they were going to die tomorrow, they answered that they would plant a tree and say their prayers.  (Luther is supposed to have added that he would quaff his favorite beer.)  Maybe I have, at least metaphorically, planted a few trees, and certainly I am saying my prayers.  Who knew that at this point in life I would be understanding, as if for the first time, the words of Paul, “When I am weak, then I am strong”?  This is not a farewell.  Please God, we will be pondering together the follies and splendors of the Church and the world for years to come.  But maybe not.  In any event, when there is an unidentified agent in your body aggressively attacking the good things your body is intended to do, it does concentrate the mind.  The entirety of our prayer is “Your will be done” – not as a note of resignation but of desire beyond expression.  To that end, I commend myself to your intercession, and that of all the saints and angels who accompany us each step through time toward home.

Some random patristic reflections on today’s Feast of the Baptism of the Lord:

Saint Ambrose of Milan:

Neither repentance avails without grace, nor grace without repentance; for repentance must first condemn sin, that grace may blot it out.  So then John, who was a type of the law, came baptizing for repentance, while Christ came to offer grace.

Saint John Chrysostom

John was setting forth the anticipatory and ancillary value of his won baptism, showing that it had no other purpose than to lead to repentance.  He pointed toward Christ’s baptism, full of inexpressible gifts.  John seems to be saying:  “On being told that he comes after me, you must not think lightly of him because he comes later.  When you understand the power of Christ’s gift, you will see that I said nothing lofty or noble when I said ‘I am unworthy to untie the thong of his sandal.’  When you hear, ‘He is mightier than I,’ do not imagine that I said this by way of comparison.  For I am not worthy to be ranked so much as among Christ’s servants, no, not even the lowest of his servants, nor to receive the least honored portion of his ministry.”  Therefore John did not simply say “his sandals,” he said “the thong of his sandals,” the part counted the least of all.

Saint Hippolytus

Do you see, beloved, how many and how great blessings we would have lost if the Lord had yielded to the exhortation of John and declined baptism?  For the heavens had been shut before this.  The region above was inaccessible.  We might descend to the lower parts, but not ascend to the upper.  So it happened not only that the Lord was being baptized – he also was making new the old creation.  He was bringing the alienated under the scepter of adoption.  For straightway “the heavens were opened to him.”  A reconciliation took place between the visible and the invisible.  The celestial orders were filled with joy, the diseases of earth were healed, secret things made known, those at enmity restored to amity.  For you have herd the word of the Evangelist, saying, “The heavens were opened to him,” on account of three wonders.  At the baptism of Christ the Bridegroom, it was fitting that the heavenly chamber should open its glorious gates.  So when the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and the Father’s voice spread everywhere, it was fitting that “the gates of heaven should be lifted up.

Saint Augustine

In the Scripture many details are mentioned distinguishably of each of the triune Persons individually, such as cannot be said of them jointly, even though they are inseparably together, as when they are made manifest by corporeal sounds.  So in certain passages of Scripture and through certain created beings they are shown separately and successively, as the Father in the voice which is heard:  “Thou art my Son,” and the Son in the human nature which he took from the Virgin, and the Holy Spirit in the physical appearance of a dove.  These are mentioned distinguishably, it is true, but they do not prove that the Three are separated.  To explicate this, we take as an example the unity of our memory, our understanding, our will.  Although we list these distinguishably, individually and in their various functions, there is nothing we do or say which proceeds from one of them without the other two.  However, we are not to think that these three faculties are compared to the Trinity so as to resemble it at every point, for a comparison is never given such importance in an argument that it exactly fits the thing to which it is compared.  Besides, when can any likeness in a created being be applied to the Creator?

Saint Gregory Nazianzen

As man he was baptized, but he absolved sins as God.  He needed no purifying rites himself – his purpose was to hallow water.

Again from the Office of Readings, for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  It gets really good towards the end:

Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light.  Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.

John is baptizing when Jesus draws near.  Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptizer; certainly he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters.  He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water.

The Baptist protests; Jesus insists.  Then John says:  I ought to be baptized by you.  He is the lamp in the presence of the sun, the voice in the presence of the word, the friend in the presence of the Bridegroom, the greatest of all born of woman in the presence of the firstborn of all creation, the one who leapt in his mother’s womb in the presence of him who was adored in the womb, the forerunner and future forerunner in the presence of him who has already come and is to come again.  I out to be baptized by you; we should also add: and for you, for John is to be baptized in blood, washed clean like Peter, not only by the washing of his feet.

Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him.  The heavens like Paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent open.  The Spirit comes to him as to an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead.  A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin.  The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove that so long ago announced the ending of the flood and so gives honor to the body that is one with God.

Today let us do honor to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness.  Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed.  Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist.  He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world.  You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven.  You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – though not in its fullness – a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever.  Amen. — St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 39 in Sancta Lumina

From today’s Office of Readings, commemorating St. Raymond of Penyafort:

The preacher of God’s truth has told us that all who want to live righteously in Christ will suffer persecution.  If he spoke the truth and did not lie, the only exception to this general statement is, I think, the person who either neglects, or does not know how, to live temperately, justly and righteously in this world.

May you never be numbered among those whose house is peaceful, quiet and free from care; those on whom the Lord’s chastisement does not descend; those who live out their days in prosperity, and in the twinkling of an eye will go down to hell.

Your purity of life, your devotion, deserve and call for a reward; because you are acceptable and pleasing to God your purity of life must be made purer still, by frequent buffetings, until you attain perfect sincerity of heart.  If from time to time you feel the sword falling on you with double or treble force, this also should be seen as sheer joy and the mark of love.

The two-edged sword consists in conflict without, fears within.  It falls with double or treble force within, when the cunning spirit troubles the depths of your heart with guile and enticements.  You have learned enough already about these kinds of warfare, or you would not have been able to enjoy peace and interior tranquillity in all its beauty.

The sword falls with double and treble force externally when, without cause being given, there breaks out from within the Church persecution in spiritual matters, where wounds are more serious, especially when inflicted by friends.

This is that enviable and blessed cross of Christ, which Andrew, that manly saint, received with joyful heart: the cross in which alone we must make our boast, as Paul, God’s chosen instrument, has told us.

Look then on Jesus, the author and preserver of faith:  in complete sinlessness he suffered, and at the hands of those who were his own, and was numbered among the wicked.  As you drink the cup of the Lord Jesus (how glorious it is!), give thanks to the Lord, the giver of all blessings.

May the God of love and peace set your hearts at rest and speed you on your journey; may he meanwhile shelter you from disturbance by others in the hidden recesses of his love, until he brings you at last into that place of complete plenitude where you will repose for ever in the vision of peace, in the security of trust and in the restful enjoyment of his riches. — St. Raymond of Penyafort