Augustine Wetta's Blog

 Praised be Jesus Christ…Now and Forever

In my last homily, I outlined for you the first six steps of the Ladder of Pride as preached by Saint Bernard.  As promised, I’ve outlined the last six steps, and I’ll read them to you now.  Again, they sound strangely familiar—as though Saint Bernard had written them for me.  And what's more, it’s not a real Christmassy theme, but I’ll try to make it up to you at the end of the sermon; though this is, after all, the twenty-second day of Advent, and Advent is a penitential season…so perhaps you can think of this as your last chance to be penitential before Christmas.
     You’ll recall that the first six steps were CURIOSITY, FICKLENESS, GIDDINESS, BOASTING and SINGULARITY.
THE SEVENTH STEP IS PRESUMPTION. Once monk thinks he is better than the others, then he’ll start to put himself first: the first in line at dinner, the first to be consulted.  In fact, he shows up even when he isn’t called. He interferes without being asked. If he is told to do some ordinary task, he refuses with contempt. A man with such an intellect should never be distracted by lesser things.
      Now, you can imagine that a man who is so free to give advice can hardly avoid making a mistake every now and then. But will he admit his fault? No way! A man who can’t believe he’s wrong certainly won’t let anyone else believe it. If therefore, when he is corrected, you see him making excuses, you will know he has dropped another step to...
     THE EIGHTH STEP: SELF-JUSTIFICATION. There are many ways of excusing sins. You can always say: "I didn't do it." If that doesn’t work, then: "I did it, but I was perfectly right in doing it."  If it was clearly wrong, you can say: "It isn't all that bad." And if it was absolutely harmful, you can fall back on: "I meant well."   And last of all, if your motive was downright malicious, feel free to take refuge in the tried-and-true excuse of Adam and Eve: just say that someone else made you do it.  When you see a man defending an obvious sin like that, you know he’ll never bring it to his confessor, and has thus descended to…
    THE NINTH STEP: HYPOCRITICAL CONFESSION.  There are those clever sinners who, when they are caught in their lies and know that if they defend themselves they won’t be believed, find a very subtle way out of this tricky situation: with downcast eyes and an obsequious posture, they squeeze out a few tears if they can.  Then, stuttering through sighs and groans not only admit to what they did, but actually exaggerate their guilt. They accuse themselves of such incredible evils that their accuser begins to doubt the charges he knew for certain just moments before.
    A proud man, you see, will use humility as a disguise when he wants to escape punishment. And you will know he’s a fraud because, at the slightest reproach or penance, this man begins to murmur and growl and get bent out of shape. Judge for yourself the state of this man's soul: His fraud has failed him, his peace of mind is gone, his reputation has been tarnished, and his sin is unforgiven.  There are only three steps remaining to such a man: truly, God may yet rescue him and inspire him to submit to the judgment of the community; but such a character finds this a very hard thing to do, and instead, usually takes an attitude of blatant insolence.  In desperation, takes that fatal plunge. He has already shown his contempt for his brethren by insolence, and now his contempt for superiors flashes out in...
    THE TENTH STEP: OPEN REVOLT. (Let’s pause here to take notice that the twelve steps of pride may be grouped into three classes; in the first six, you’ll recall, the monk expresses contempt for the brethren, the next four showed contempt for the superior, but the last two, on which I have not yet touched, show contempt for God.). If a monk refuses to live in harmonywith his brothers or even to obey his superior, what is he doingin the monastery except causing scandal?  And so he rebellious monk has reached the tenth step of pride and will leave the monastery altogether.
     Thus he arrives at THE ELEVENTH STEP which is FREEDOM TO SIN.  This monk no longer has a superior nor brethren to respect, so with fewer qualms he happily gives himself up to his sinful desires which in the monastery fear and shame held in check. He has no abbot or community to hold him back, but he still keeps some scant fear of God. His conscience still gives a little grunt every now and then, however faint; he makes a few half-hearted resolutions.  He still hesitates a little when he does evil... no, he doesn’t plunge headlong into the lake of vice but feels his way into it slowly, step by careful step, like someone stepping into cloudy water.
    Little, by little, he becomes fully emersed in…THE TWELFTH STEP: THE HABIT OF SINNING, because where conscience is dulled, habit tightens its grasp. The unfortunate man sinks into the depths of evil, is entangled in vices, and is swept into a whirlpool of sinful longings while his reason and the fear of God are forgotten.  At last, "the fool says in his heart: There is no God."  Good and evil mean nothing to him now.  He seeks new ways of sinning. The plans of his heart, the ready words of his mouth, the works of his hands, are at the service of every impulse.
    Those who are still in the middle of the ladder--whether going up or down--get tired with the effort of it, torn now by the fear of hell and now by the attraction of old habits. (Only at the very top and the very bottom is there a free and effortless course, upward to life or downward to death; bounding on in the effortless energy of love, or hurried, unresisting, by the downward pull of avarice.) So we can call the twelfth step 'the habit of sinning', by which the fear of God has been lost and replaced with contempt.   "For such a one," says St John the Apostle, "I would not have anyone pray." What then, O Blessed Apostle, is he to despair? One who really loves the sinner will still weep. Let him not dare to pray--nor cease to wail.

I know.  It’s all very depressing.  So in the spirit of Advent--and to help you remember the Twelve Steps of Pride, I wrote a little Advent Carol. There are twelve verses, but I’ll just sing you the last.  I call it, The Twelve Days of Advent:

On the twelfth day of Advent, Augustine preached to me

Twelve chronic sinners,
Eleven freely failing,
Ten souls revolting,
Nine fake confessions,
Eight bad excuses,
Seven wild presumptions,
Six smug assumptions,
FIVE “I’M UNIQUE!”
Four boasting brags,
Three giddy giggles,
Two moody humors,
And a question that I really didn’t need.

(Yeah.  It needs work.). Well…if you didn’t like it, I also wrote [to the tune of "Here Comes Santa Clause"]
Here comes pride again, here comes pride again,
Marching down its way…. 

      And [to the tune of "Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree") 
 O prideful heart, so dear to me,
You start with curiosity.

And if that doesn’t work for you, (yeah.  I was up all night) there’s always [to the tune of "Deck the Halls"]

Climb the steps of pride with folly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la!
Curiosity’s enthralling,
Fa la la la la, la la la la!
Fickleness will leave you spinning,
Fa la la, la la la, la la la!
Giddiness begins the sinning
,Fa la la la la, la la la la!

May you have a very merry Christmas, and "may you be blessed who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord will be fulfilled.”

In the Name of the Father…

12 STEPS OF PRIDE: PART I (Sermon to the Passionist Nuns of Ellisville)

Praised be Jesus Christ...Now and forever.'

As you all know by now, I consider myself an expert on humility. I was explaining this to a guest of the monastery a few weeks ago; and after he left, he sent me a book:  “Saint Bernard’s Steps of Pride”.  I’m sorry to say, I didn’t start reading it until last night.  But it reads like Saint Bernard saw into my soul.  It was so distubingly accurate, that I spent last night re-writing it as a letter to myself—and never wrote this morning’s homily.  So…you may consider this the first in a two-part series of sermons on pride: two parts, because I’m only half-way through the book.  So this morning’s sermon will be simply a re-telling of Bernard’s first six steps.  The second will be the rest of the steps.  And it will be up to you to figure out how this relates to our readings.  I’m thinking of turning this into a book, and the working title is:

"DIGGING YOUR SELF-ABASEMENT: SAINT BERNARD’S TWELVE-STEP GUIDE TO PRIDE
 It's just a working title, mind you.  Anyhow, like I said, I’m not entirely sure how this relates to this morning’s gospel, except to say that “when you see these things happening, know that He is near, at the gates.”

1THE FIRST STEP of pride is CURIOSITY.  How does it show itself? You see a guy who up to this time had every appearance of being an excellent monk. Now you begin to notice that wherever he is, his eyes are wandering, his glance darts right and left, his ears twitch. Some change has taken place in him; every movement shows it. 'He winks with his eye, nudges with his foot, points with his finger' (Prov 6P12). These symptoms show that his soul has caught some disease. He used to watch over his own conduct; now he is just watchful of everyone else. Oh, man. If you gave yourself the attention you ought, you wouldn't have so much time to look after others.

THE SECOND STEP is FICKLENESS.  Before long, the monk who observes others instead of attending to himself will begin to see some as his superiors and others as his inferiors; in some he will find things to envy, in others, things to despise. His eyes have wandered and so his mind follows. … One minute he is full of envious sadness, the next childishly glad about some excellence he sees in himself.  One moment he is sulky and silent except for some bitter remarks; the next sees a full outpouring of silly chatter. Now he is laughing, now doleful; all without rhyme or reason. 

Thus we will proceed to the THE THIRD STEP OF PRIDE which is GIDDINESS.  The monk that has fallen this far, is so saddened every time he sees the goodness of others, and so impatient with humiliation that he will be in a constant state of distress. So he finds an escape in false consolations…he has retired into a happy cloudland…where he never takes anything seriously.  "It's no big deal" he tells himself.  Watch a guy like this, and you will notice that he is over-cheerful in appearance, swaggering in posture, always ready for a joke, any little thing to get a laugh.  At times he simply can't stop laughing or hide his empty-headed foolery. He never takes anything seriously. He is like a bladder pumped full of air that has been pricked and squeezed. The air whistles out through the tiny hole with squeaks and peeps. The rule of silence will not let this monk relieve himself of his vain thoughts and silly jokes. They gather pressure inside until they explode in giggles. In embarrassment he buries his face in his hands, tightens his lips, clenches his teeth. It is no use! The laughter must burst out, and if his hand holds it in his mouth, the laughter erupts through his nose.

THE FOURTH STEP IS BOASTING When vanity has swelled the bladder to its limits, a bigger vent must be made or the bladder will burst. As the monk's silliness grows, laughing and signs are not enough outlet, so he is full of words; and the swelling spirit strains within him. His hunger and thirst are for listeners... At last the chance to speak comes.  He asks the questions--and gives the answers; cutting off anyone who tries to speak. When the bell rings for prayer and it is necessary to interrupt the conversation, hour-long though it be, he seeks a minute more…His aim is neither to teach nor to be taught, but to show how much he knows…He warmly recommends fasting, urges vigils and exalts prayer above all. He will give a long discourse on silence and humility and each of the other virtues--all words, all bragging… If you hear him, you will say his mouth has become a fountain of wit, a river of smart talk. He can get a laugh out of the most serious man in the room. 

When a man has been bragging that he is better than others he would feel ashamed of himself if he did not live up to his boast and show how much better than others he is. And so he descends to THE FIFTH STEP: SINGULARITY.  The common rule of the monastery and the example of the seniors are no longer enough for him. He does not so much want to be better as to be seen that way. He is not so much interested in leading a better life as he is concerned with appearing to do so…He is more complacent about fasting for one day when the others are feasting than he is about fasting seven days with all the rest. He prefers some petty private devotion to the whole night office of psalms. While he is at his meals, he casts his eyes around the table to be sure no one is eating less than himself.  He is never at rest. He wonders what others think about the appearance of his face, since he cannot see it.  He is very exact about his own behavior and slack about the common exercises. He will stay awake in bed and sleep in choir. He makes sure that those sitting outside know he is in there modestly hiding in a corner, clearing his throat and coughing and groaning and sighing.  Some are misled by his worthless singularities and they preemptively canonize him, confirming the poor guy in his self-delusion. 

THE SIXTH STEP IS SELF-SATISFACTION  All this time, he has been swallowing the praise that others give him. He is quite complacent about his conduct and he never examines his motives now; all he needs is the approval of others. He thinks he knows more about everything than anybody, and so, when they say something favorable about him he believes them--against his own conscience. Now he not only makes a show of his piety, but he actually believes that he is holier than the others. It never occurs to him that their praise might be given to him out of ignorance or kindness; his pride says to him, "You deserve it."

Well, brothers and sisters, “when you see these things happening, know that He is near, at the gates.”

In the Name of the Father...

 

Praised be Jesus Christ…now and forever.

 

Two days ago, Father Athanasius, a few seminarians, a few students, and I completed our 5th Annual Penitential Pilgrimage for Sins Against the Holy Eucharist.  We hiked 18 miles from Saint Louis Abbey to the Shrine of Saint Joseph, downtown.  The first year we did it, I swore I’d never do it again.  The second year, I figured I was in better shape than I was the first year.  (I wasn’t).  So the third year, I made arrangements to have someone pick me up half-way through (he didn’t).  And the fourth year, I figured I had finally learned from my mistakes.  (I hadn’t).  This year wasn’t so bad.  Maybe it was the cool weather.  Maybe I had finally achieved that heroic victory over self.  Or maybe it was the painkillers.  But after eight hours of walking, I didn’t feel like I wanted to die…until the next morning, when I discovered that every muscle from just under my shoulder blades to just behind the pads of my toes was frozen stiff.  Yesterday morning, I didn’t feel like the hero of the day before.I had to do this sort of Frankenstein maneuver just to sit up and get my feet on the ground.  Then I spent the rest of the day walking like Charlie Chaplin.  As usual, Father Athanasius had some chirpy advice about stretching or ice or something, but I ignored him, because I was in too much pain.  Besides which, I had my own regimen of physical recovery which involved well…mostly…falling over and cursing.  But it worked!  Within 48 hours, I had progressed from what medical professionals call the Frankenstein stage to the Charlie Chaplin stage, to what I am calling the Mussolini stage, where you just do a sort of duck-step with your face screwed into a grimace…and now I think I’m able to move more or less like a normal undead human being.

All of this means, of course, that Thanksgiving is over and that the penitential season of Advent has begun.  The Church has set off on a new liturgical year.  On this first Sunday of Advent, we begin to count the days separating us from Christmas, and we are invited by Holy Mother Church to reflect on the reality of our Christian vocation and the many ways we’ve fallen short.  Jesus, after all, has entrusted us with the mission of attracting other souls to holiness.  So this is the time to root out any behavior that conceals or obscures that vision of holiness.

Our own soul has to be set in order before we can begin to attract others.

            "Our greatest need,” wrote Fulton Sheen, “is for someone who will understand that there is no greater conquest than victory over self; someone who will realize that real worth is achieved not so much by activity, as by silence...who will, like a lightning flash, burn away the bonds of anxiety which tie down our energies to the world; who with a fearless voice, like John the Baptist, will arouse our weak nature out of the sleek dream of unheroic response; someone who will gain victories not by stepping down from the Cross and compromising with the world, but who will suffer in order to conquer the world.”      

            So you see, we don’t just look forward to Christmas—we NEED it.  And we need it in three doses.   Firstly, we are looking forward to the memorial of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem; secondly, we are looking forwars to the birth of christ in our souls.  And lastly, we are looking forward to the coming of Christ at the end of time.  We tend to think of the first much more than the second or third, and we do a good job of celebrating Jesus’ birthday; but the spiritual Bethlehem is just as important . . . It was this second birth of Christ in the soul that Saint Paul insisted on when he wrote to the Ephesians, begging them to let Christ dwell in their hearts by faith and that they be rooted and grounded in love. This is the second Bethlehem, or the personal relationship of the individual heart to the Lord Christ.”

            Only then, having rejoiced in these two advents, can we look forward to the third, when Jesus will come in power and great glory at the end of time—when everyone will finally get what’s coming to them—when people will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

“The liturgy of Advent, therefore, helps us to understand the meaning of the mystery of Christmas,” wrote Saint John Paul II. “Because it is not just about commemorating a historical event. Instead, it is necessary to understand that the whole of our life must be an ‘advent,’ a vigilant awaiting of the final coming of Christ. Advent is an intense training that directs us decisively toward him who already came, who will come, and who comes continuously” in our souls.

In the Name of the Father…

 

           “Stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour."  This parable of the bridesmaids is the last of Jesus’ warnings that we should be vigilant.  He will come to us when we least expect it.  In the middle of the night, perhaps—or when we’re tired or grumpy or stressed out or annoyed.  The Bridegroom will come, he says, but not necessarily when we expect him.  And not necessarily in a form we will recognize. 

            I spent three weeks of my summer in Long Beach, California helping out at Holy Innocents Parish.  It is in an area that is, as one of its parishioners explained to me, “as ghetto as it gets.”  Long Beach is hard core inner city. Snoop Dog is from Long Beach.  And it’s also where I met my first cholo.  

            You see, fireworks are illegal in Los Angeles, which means the street gangs, who clearly have nothing against illegal activities, put on the fireworks displays. Since Covid, I am told, it has evolved into something of a competition—each inner city neighborhood looking to outdo the others—Compton vs. Long Beach vs. Inglewood vs. Watts—to the effect that, from dusk till dawn, the sky is saturated in every direction with the most incredible displays of pyrotechnics I’ve ever witnessed in my life—rockets, roman candles, multi-shots, fire-fountains, small arms fire, hand grenades, cherry bombs.  (I’m not joking.  This is a recording I made.)  

             I drove out to a friend’s house to see it.  But at two o’clock in the morning, it was still in full swing—and I had to go to bed.  Problem was, the gangs had most of the streets blocked off—for, you know, safety reasons—so I had to drive past a couple of informal, gang-sponsored road blocks.

            Anyhow, I get in my car, and I’m working my way toward Holy Innocents Parish on Copeland and 20th Street, and to get there, I have to drive straight through an enormous flock of cholos.

Now, for those of you who, like me, have not grown up with cholos, the Oxford English dictionary defines the term as a descriptive of  “a young man belonging to a Mexican American urban  subculture associated with street gangs and a fashion style characterized by its distinctive blend of baggy pants, plaid flannel shirts, bandanas, oversized jackets, classic sneakers, and face tattoos.”

            Well, the cholos stopped my car and requested that I exit the vehicle.  Mind you, I am dressed in the full monk habit, so when I get out of the car, one of these young Hispanic gentlemen looks me up and down and says to me, “Hey, what ARE you, Homes?”

To which I responded, “I’m a priest.”

            Now the guy I’m talking with has a tattoo of a teardrop under his left eye, and a smiley face on his neck with the words “Smile now. Cry later.” Around it.  And I’m trying figure out what that means for me, when one of his buddies shouts over, “No he ain’t.”

            So I say, “Uh…Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filio, et…”

            “Wait! Wait! Wait!” shouts the cholo with the teardrop tattoo, “Let me get my kids.”

            “Yeah, me too,” says another.

            And pretty soon, I’m blessing grandmothers, girlfriends, rosaries, holy medals…one guy says to me, “Man, I don’t have anything to give you.”  As if he hadn’t already given me one of the greatest experiences of my life.

            About an hour later, after I had a beer with them, we all took selfies, and they packed me a grocery bag full of tamales.  Then they cleared the street, and I drove on home, thinking “The earth is full of goodness.”

            Now, the reason I’m telling you this story is because I didn’t get the feeling these were church-going individuals.  I don’t think anyone would call them “wise” in any worldly sense.  But “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” and when they saw a stranger in their midst, they saw the face of Christ.  They saw Jesus in me when I couldn’t see Jesus in them.  The Bridegroom came to them in the middle of the night…and like the wise bridesmaids, they were ready.  Mind you, this wasn’t about me.  They never even asked my name.  But they were prepared to reverence Christ in me.

           “Stay awake, Homes” I can imagine them telling me, “for you know neither the day nor the hour." And it’s true.  I didn’t expect to see Jesus that night on the street in Long Beach California.  But I did—and he had a tattoo on his neck and a teardrop tattoo.

         

  

Praised be Jesus Christ…now and forever!

   If you’ve been watching the news, then you’re probably as depressed as I am.  It just seems like everything is falling apart.  When I start feeling like this, I call to mind something one of our old monks used to tell me:  “Don’t be upset when there’s bad stuff in the news. At least the bad stuff is still newsworthy. Be upset when good things become newsworthy.”  And he was right.  Two days ago, I returned from California, which I’ve always thought of as the epicenter of weirdness for the universe.  But I met some great priests out there, and I saw good people leading lives of heroic virtue.  (Go off script here.  Tell cholo story). And these folks, I’m glad to say, never make the news because, as far as I can tell, they are the norm.
    Now, a few months ago, I started reading “The Brothers Karamozov.”  And I feel obliged to admit that I hate it. Personally, if there isn’t a good explosion within the first few pages of a novel, you’ve lost me—and the closest this book has come to an explosion (I’m only 300 pages into it) is that some kid threw a rock at one of the characters.  Frankly, I feel like throwing rocks at all of the characters. It’s just one interminable conversation after another. 
   The reason I’m still reading it is because on page 272, a priest named Zosima gives a sermon that’s given me some hope. It’s basically a diatribe about how horrible the world has become, which, I suppose, ought to make me more depressed.  Except that it was written 150 years ago and it sounds like it was written yesterday—which means things actually haven’t actually gotten that much worse.  So I’ve decided to plagiarize Dostoyevsky for my sermon this morning.  I’ve replaced some of the words, and I’ve skipped a paragraph here and there, but what follows is it…basically:

    “My friends,” says Father Zosima, “what is the priest? In the cultivated world, the word is nowadays pronounced by some people with a sneer, and by others it is used as a term of abuse, and this contempt for the priest is growing. It is true, sadly, that there are many slackers, gluttons, deviants and freeloaders among priests. Educated people point to these and say: “Priests are lazy, useless members of society; they live on the labor of others; they are shameless parasites.” 
     And yet how many meek and humble priests there are, who yearn for holiness and peace! These are less noticed, or we pass over them in silence. But how would theses educated people be if they were to discover that from these meek priests the salvation of the World will come!
   That is my view of the priest, and is it false? Is it too proud? Look at the people we call “sophisticated.” Has not God's image and His truth been distorted in them? Sure, they have science; but in science there is nothing but what is the object of sense. They want to base justice on reason alone, and in doing so, they have already proclaimed that there is no crime, that there is no such thing as sin—which, mind you, is consistent, for if you have no God what is the meaning of sin? They reject the spiritual world altogether, dismiss it with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. They have proclaimed the reign of freedom, especially of late, but what do we see in this freedom of theirs? Nothing but slavery and self-destruction! For they say: 
    “You have desires—satisfy them.  You have the right to be happy. Don't be afraid of satisfying your desires.  In fact, you should multiply them.” That is the doctrine of the modern world. And they call it “freedom”.  But what is the result of this multiplication of desires? In the rich…isolation and suicide; in the poor…envy and murder; for they have been given rights, but have not been shown how to use them. Our leaders tell us that the world is getting more and more united, more and more bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance and sends thoughts flying through the air.
     But instead of gaining freedom, we have sunk into slavery, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love, we have fallen into disharmony and isolation. For what can become of a man if he is a slave to his desires? He is isolated, and has no concern for the rest of humanity.  We have succeeded in accumulating a great mass of objects, but our joy in the world has grown less.
   And what cruelty we show to our children!  We give them machines for companions.  But is that what a child's heart needs? He needs sunshine, play, and good examples all about him, and at least a little love. There must be no more of this, my friends, no more torturing of children, rise up and preach that, quickly, quickly! 
     Of course, I don't deny that priests sin. To be sure, the fire of corruption is spreading visibly, hourly, working from above downwards. The spirit of isolation is coming upon us all.
    But God will save the world as He has saved it many times. Salvation will come from the people, from their faith and their meekness. People do still believe in righteousness.  Deep down, they have faith. See in one another the image of Christ, and it will shine forth like a precious diamond to the whole world. So may it be, so may it be! 

In the Name of the Father…

 

Acts 3:1-10

Peter and John were going up to the temple area

for the three o’clock hour of prayer.

And a man crippled from birth was carried

and placed at the gate of the temple called “the Beautiful Gate” every day

to beg for alms from the people who entered the temple.

When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple,

he asked for alms.

But Peter looked intently at him, as did John,

and said, “Look at us.”

He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them.

Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold,

but what I do have I give you:

in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.”

Then Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up,

and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong.

He leaped up, stood, and walked around,

and went into the temple with them,

walking and jumping and praising God.

When all the people saw him walking and praising God,

they recognized him as the one

who used to sit begging at the Beautiful Gate of the temple,

and they were filled with amazement and astonishment

at what had happened to him.

 

This is our first reading at mass today, and this morning, when I read it , it reminded me of a story that my friend, Walter Hooper, told me.  Walter was C.S. Lewis’ secretary, and they were walking down the street at Oxford and passed a panhandler.  Lewis reached into his pocket, pulled out some change, and threw it in the beggar’s hat.

         “Why did you do that?” says Walter, “You know he’ll just take that money to the pub and buy a drink with it.”

         “Well,” says Lewis, “That’s what I was going to do with it.”  

 

So that story reminded me of something that happened to me when I was seventeen.

 

You see, my sister worked for five years at a homeless shelter in Galveston, Texas, and I was driving her to a soccer game one afternoon, when we stopped at a light where a panhandler was wearing a sign that said, “Will work for food.”  As he came walking up to the car, I tried to avoid eye-contact.  But my sister, who was in the back seat, rolled down the window.  “Kristen!” he shouted, and stretched out his hand, “You got a dollar for me?”

         “Jimmy,” she says, “You know I’m not going to give you money.”  All the homeless people in Galveston have the same name, Jimmy, because it helps them avoid the authorities.

         And Jimmy laughs and says, “Yeah, I’d spend it on crack.” Then he reaches into the car and pats her on the head.  “You have a good day now,” he says.

         And she says, “I’ll be praying for you.”

         So we’re about three blocks on, and I said to my sister, “You rolled down your window to tell him you weren’t going to give him money?”

         And she says, “I know where he can get food.  He’s a client.  Money isn’t what he needs.”

         “So what does he need?” I say.

         “Eye contact,” she says. “He needs to be treated like a human.”

         So a few blocks later, there’s another panhandler at the light, and I go to roll down my window, and she shouts, “Don’t do that!”

         And I say to her, “I was going to make eye contact.”
         And Kristen looks at me like I’m about three years old, and she says, “No, stupid.  That’s mean. It’s like you’re faking him out. Just smile, wave, and shake your head.”

         “But you rolled down your window,” I said, and frankly, my feelings were a little hurt.

         “I rolled down my window,” she says, because Jimmy is my friend.”

         Now, what strikes me about this passage from Acts of the Apostles is not that they cure a crippled beggar, but that Peter looked intently at him…as did John.  That he in return looked intently at them…and that…Peter took him by the right hand.

We are told that the crippled man spent the rest of the day “walking and jumping and praising God”…and I have to wonder if he did that because he could walk…or because Peter shook his hand.

         If I’d shaken the hand of the first Pope, I’d have been jumping up and down too.

In preparation for this homily, I consulted the 21st Century theologian, Charlie Waltz.  You probably haven’t heard of him because he’s an 8th-Grader in our school.   You also probably haven’t heard of him because he isn’t a very good theologian.  He told me that the moral of our readings today is “don’t commit adultery or you're gonna get in trouble." Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that Saint Augustine had virtually the same interpretation! 

       In his commentary on the Gospel of John, he wrote: 

 

What is this, 0 Lord? --“Neither will I condemn you"?  Does this mean you’re okay with sin? Not so, apparently, because listen to what follows: "Go and sin no more."  Yes, Jesus did condemn, but he condemned sins, not the sinner.

Think about it.  (continues Saint Augustine) If Jesus tolerated sins, he would have said, “Neither will I condemn you; Now go and do whatever you like; I’ll look out for you no matter what you do.  Don’t worry about Hell. I’ll get you out.”

   But no, he didn’t say this. So pay attention!  By all means, love the gentleness of Jesus—but fear his truth as well.  The Lord is gentle, the Lord is long suffering, the Lord is full of pity; but the Lord is also just, the Lord is also true.

He gives us this present time to correct our behavior; but we—we prefer to focus on this present age and forget that it will come to an end some day.  Judgement has been delayed, but it’s still coming.

Let this woman be punished—but not by sinners; let the law be applied, but not by its transgressors.” 

 

So I think I see where Saint Augustine—and Charlie Waltz—are coming from.  I can imagine there was a wife somewhere in Jerusalem that day who was pretty disappointed to see her husband’s mistress weasel out of her punishment.  There was a home wrecked, a family torn apart, a marriage in jeopardy…and Jesus understood this too.  Which is why our gospel reading ends with the words “Go.Go and SIN NO MORE.”

   So.  Feel free to attend that raunchy bachelor party—so long as you can turn with confidence to the groom and tell him to sin no more.  Feel free to attend the wedding of your gay friends—so long as you are willing to stand up at the end of the ceremony and advise them to sin no more. Laugh at that racist joke—so long as you are willing to smile at the end and say, “Go and sin no more.”  Vote for that pro-choice politician—provided you write him a letter begging him to repent and sin no more.

But never use the gospel as an excuse to condone evil behvior.  “Jesus ate with sinners,” but he always, always admonished them to go and sin no more.

I spent the year before I came to the abbey taking Greek at Saint Louis U. and waiting tables at a fine dining establishment downtown.  For the record, I was, without a doubt, the world’s worst waiter.  I forgot which tables I was assigned, I brought entres before salads and deserts before drinks.   I once spilled an entire tray of margaritas down the back of a patron’s blouse.  And worst of all, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember the difference between Boston clam chowder and New England clam chowder.  Now…in my defense, The Wedgewood Supper Club (name changed so I don’t get sued) was a horrible, horrible place to work.  The busboys hated the waiters, the waiters hated the matre’d, the Matre’d hated the cook…and everyone hated Mister Van Crackle (name changed so I don’t get sued).  Not only was he a selfish, and irresolute leader, but he actually stole our tips.

Now, the reason I’m reliving this nightmare with you is because today’s reading about Jesus and the demon reminds me of a particular interaction I had with Mister Van Crackle.  You see, being universally scorned by my peers and employers had one advantage: I had nothing to lose.  So.  I wrote Mister Van Crackle a letter listing my greivences and had it notarized.  Of course, I never heard back from him.   He didn’t fire me or stiff my tables.   He just acted as though I’d never written the letter at all.  Which was infuriating!  So I sent a copy to the president of the Club Corporation of America, who, perhaps because even at that level, I was known mediocre employee, also ignored it.  I decided, then, to rewrite the entire letter, and send it certified mail to the board of directors.

I may be brash, but I’m not an idiot.  I had enough good sense, even then, to run it by my father first.  Who said, and I quote: “Mister Van Crackle knows you’re unhappy, right?   Presumably the president of the corporation knows this as well.  Am I right?  Both have chosen ignor you, right?  Well, then.  Listen carefully:  There’s a fine line between being assertive, and being an ass.  You are about to cross that line.”  When I continued to protest, he said, and again I quote: “He won.  You lost.  Get over it.  Get on with your life.”

For the first time in months, I, by my own volition, shut my mouth.  And with that, the demon of discontent left me.  I’m reminded of a quote from Saint Augustine: “It was not until I ceded the victory to Satan, that My Lord was able to win the victory on my behalf.  For what am I to myself without You, but a guide to my own downfall?”

A few weeks later, I quit my job, and went to wait tables at Augustino’s (which name I need not change because I loved it there).  Augustino Gabriele (whose name I won’t change because I love him too) had thought of an ingenious way of building comradery among his employees: about half-way through the night, he would steel $10 from the tips of every waiter in the house, put it in an envelope, and then give that envelope to the person on staff that we voted most helpful.  I remember accusing a busboy of helping me just so he could get the envelope.  All he did was smile at me and say, “Heck, yeah I want that envelop.” And that night, he got it.

A certain brother asked Saint Pambo of the Desert: Please help me! The devil is preventing me from loving my neighbor!

The elder said in reply: “Oh shut your mouth. Why don’t you just admit that you don’t want to be merciful? God said long ago: I have given you power over all the forces of the enemy?  Do you think He’s a liar?  Now go stamp down that evil spirit yourself!”

What these stories have in common is that same command that Jesus gives the devil in our gospel today: Be quiet.  Every exorcism begins with that simple command: “Shut your mouth.”

Oh, that today you would hear his voice:

"Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,

as in the day of Massah in the desert,

Where your fathers tempted me;

they tested me though they had seen my works."

“Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties,” says Saint Paul.  But you and I know that you won’t be, so instead, I’ll repeat—and I’ll repeat again—the words that Jesus proclaimed in the presence of the man with the unclean spirit:  “Be quiet.”  When you are overwhelmed by anger or lust or frustration or despair, when the demons of concupiscence and resentment gain the upper hand; when Satan himself seems to have definitively won the day, and everyone around you has surrendered to his lies…Be (pause) quiet.”  Admit you are powerless.  Admit that you lost.  Cede the victory so that Christ, who alone speaks with authority, can step in.

A clean heart create for me, O God, a steadfast spirit renew within me. Give me back the joy of your salvation, and a willing spirit sustain in me. THEN, O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

 

 

    Christmas is a return to our origins. It is possible to feel the “Spirit Christmas”, but only if we have the strength of mind to go back to kindergarten, and pretend that we never left. So I will not apologize, on Christmas morning, for taking you back to the origins of the human race; to those nursery rhymes which came together to form the introduction to the oldest story in the world, a story which begins at a time when the world did not exist at all. Those kindergarten stories have fallen out of vogue in recent years. We don’t like to be caught reading them; it was the same with our stuffed animals when we outgrew them. But I’ll say this much for those old kindergarten stories: you can write them off as primitive or patriarchal…or even sexist…you can undermine their authenticity by picking apart their authorship and archaeological accuracy, accuse their God of cruelty or barbarism…but you can’t escape those stories altogether. They will haunt you, primitive as they are. 

    But let’s not talk controversy today.  We’ll pass over the story of creation and the loss of Paradise.  The doors to that fantasy world will remain closed and locked for now, guarded by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens with their flaming swords.  

   The phrase we are asked to meditate on this morning is the very first utterance of fallen humanity; it is when Eve says, “I have produced a child with the help of the LORD.”

    In some abandoned cave, very far away, that first human mother gave birth to that first human child.  She called him Cain.  She and Adam had squandered their inheritance, had wasted it, committed a disgraceful crime and incurred a sentence of death; within a few years, for all they knew, human life would become extinct on the planet. But no, here was something saved from the wreckage; here was a new representative who would carry the torch of humanity. “For a child is born to us, a son is given to us;” the raw material of that Christmas carol rang through the primeval forest with a prophesy of our immortal hope.

    Now, trace the line of Eve’s posterity down through innumerable centuries, until you stop at a point roughly two thousand years ago.  And what do you see?  Why, it’s the same picture of a Mother and a Child! Even the setting is unaltered: we are still in a cave, for crying out loud! And our first thought is, “Heck, this isn’t any different from any other human birth! What mother wouldn’t adore her child? Isn’t that exactly what you see when you visit any labor ward at any hospital in the world?”

    And of course, we’re right. Like Eve, any new mother sees it as a kind of miracle—which it absolutely is; this particular thing has never happened before. And she’s right. All that is visible here—this tiny body—has come from her; has somehow, mysteriously assembled within her out of biomolecules and strings of DNA and amino acids.  How can that possibly happen? And yet we know that it happened, because this tiny thing is a human being, it is linked to an immortal soul. 

    This is indeed a miracle, not just to the mother and father, but to the entire human race!  A new being has come into existence. “For a child is born to us.”  Yes, well, the body comes from us; but the son-this particular Son—is given to us.  The soul doesn’t come from father or mother, but comes directly from God.

Still, the first thing we need to realize about Christmas, is that this birth is just like any other human birth.  And that is our precisely our guarantee: that although He was truly God, he was also truly man. God did not deceive us by taking on the appearance of humanity, like Zeus or Poseidon or Dionysus.  No, he became man.  That was the leverage, if you will, through which the work of our redemption was effected. 

    And, curiously, this is one of the lessons which the early Church found it particularly hard to teach. The first heretics were not people who denied Jesus’ Godhead; almost without exception, they were people who denied his manhood. They could believe that a god might come to earth; what they couldn’t believe was that he’d be human enough to be born—or to die.  This is why Muhammed rewrote the bible.  But also, perhaps, this is why the Middle Ages gave us the Christmas creche. As we kneel before the creche, the first thing we learn is the human reality of it all; God is actually here, among his creatures. Unto us a Child is born; it is not simply that God will come close to us, that he will stand at our side.  No, He will become one of us, become part of us.

     But now that we have said that it was just like any other human birth, we have to add, “…but you know, it wasn’t actually like any other birth…ever.” And the Church is not ashamed of the contradiction; when we are tracing the history of God made man, our very terms of reference are self-contradictory. This was like no other human birth, because the Mother in the cave this time, was and remains a virgin. Christians never lost sight of that—not even for a moment, no matter how great the temptation. And in those first centuries of Christianity, the temptation must have been very strong.  The earliest heretics didn’t try to deny that Jesus was truly divine; they denied that Jesus was truly human.  They argued that he was a ghost; or that he only appeared to be born of the Virgin Mary; he only appeared to suffer and die. It would have made sense if the Church had swung to the other extreme; had soft-pedalled or abandoned the doctrine of the Virgin Birth.  At least then it would have been easier to argue that Jesus was the human Son of a human Mother.  But the funny thing is, Christians have always had this instinct: that your theology is safe when your opponents accuse you of holding two contradictory beliefs.

    Yep.  That’s when you know you’re right.

    Throughout the ages, Christians have seen that Mother in the cave, but never for a second did they lose sight of the Virgin. So take a second look at the Christmas crib.  Your first view was wrong—or at least incomplete. When you first looked at it, it seemed like a beautiful picture of motherhood – that and nothing more. “I have produced a child with the help of the LORD””– it was the old cry of Eve, repeated down the centuries. But now it has reached its crucial expression: this particular cave at Bethlehem will be remembered as the birthplace of the greatest man who ever lived.

    And then…well…have you ever walked into a room and had the feeling that everyone there was in on a joke you didn’t understand—that there was some sort of secret everyone knew but you?  There is something like that in our second look at that Christmas creche. Everybody is keeping just a little too quiet; the shepherds seem to come in on tip-toe, the ass and the ox…they’re just lying there, not feeding, the angels seem to be standing at attention, waiting for something to happen. And then you take another look at the center of the group, and suddenly you notice what you really should have noticed before. A mother? But this is only a girl! It’s not just a question of age, it’s a question of atmosphere; they are playing a trick on you! It’s a girl dressed up as a young mother… And then you remember that there is no room here for dress-up or make-believe. This is the mystery of the Virgin Birth.

    And don’t think for a moment that Catholic reverence for virginity is just a prudish running away from sex. If we pass over this stuff in silence, it is not because we think them disgusting, but because we think them too holy to be mentioned in common talk. If the Fathers of the Church, from the earliest times, insisted on the virginity of God’s Mother, it was not because they wanted to pay her a compliment, by ascribing to her a well-known Christian virtue.  No!  It was exactly the other way around! They learned to reverence virginity because they had seen it in the Mother of God; because they had seen it in the stable of Bethlehem, and could not forget the experience. What they had seen there was an innocence which spoke to them of renewal. This other woman in the cave had brought them back to Paradise. Christmas Day is a birthday just like any other; and it is a birthday utterly unlike any other; and no wonder, for it is the birthday of us all.

    Go back now to that first woman in the cave; when she cried out, “I have produced child with the help of the LORD.” That was our birthday. The long history of woman’s child-bearing had begun; the process had been set in motion which was to give existence, all those centuries later, to you and me. Eve was the mother of life; and yet, what had she really given birth to when she boasted that she had a child?  She had borne the first murderer. He came into the world to bring death, death to his own brother. And that life which our first mother handed down to us is, after all, only a death sentence; sons of Eve, we are brothers to Cain and Abel, the villain and the victim of the first human tragedy.

    Okay.  Very sad.  But now, turn back to that second cave, that other woman; what did she accomplish? “I have come,” her son tells us, “that they may have life.” “The first-born among many brethren,” St. Paul calls him; our elder brother, who has brought us supernatural life.

I’ll say it again: We can feel the “Spirit Christmas”, but only if we have the strength of mind to climb to go back to kindergarten, and pretend that we never left.  And that is what we are doing when we pay our visit to the Christmas creche. We are going back to the cradle where life—supernatural life—first dawned for us; trying to recapture some breath of our own first innocence, as we look at the girl Mother, and the Infant God, and the manger which was all the cradle he had. It is difficult, at first, to get used to it; everything is so quiet, so secret; that world is so remote; you feel as if everyone is in on the joke but you. Yet this where you belong; you, too, have been born into the family of grace, and this is the cradle of it. Unto us a Child is born, to restore something of childhood, year by year, even to the most jaded, even to the most sophisticated, even to the most disillusioned of us.

 

*I feel obliged to admit that this entire homily was plagiarized from a sermon delivered seventy years ago by Ronald Knox.  All I’ve done is update the language and modernize some of the sentiments.  If you’d like to hear the original for yourself, in all it’s prim and noble rambling British glory, you can find it on YouTube under “Ronald Knox - A Sermon for Christmas Day (1950)”

 

 

Sermon to Saint Louis Abbey on the Second Sunday of Advent

    So I’ve been giving spiritual direction to a young man who was a student of mine.  He and I get along now, but his career at Priory was…well…fraught.  In fact, the best way to imagine our time together would be to picture a mash-up of “To Sir, with Love” and “Cannibal Holocaust.”  I’m actually considering writing a semi-autobiographical account of our relationship entitled, “Night of the Living Dead Poet Society.” This kid was an absolute terror in the school.  I think went out of his way to do bad work.   He was on the cross-country team back when I was coaching the D side—and to give you a little context for that: A side was varsity, B side was junior varsity,C side comprised the kids who couldn’t even make junior varsity, and D side was a small band of boys who actually refused to run.  These kids were real goons. And he was their ring-leader.

    Thus, when I say he was a student of mine, I use the word “student”  in the loosest possible way. He did so poorly at Priory that his parents actually refused to pay for college. So he did what every kid does who discovers that he is a rebel without a clue: He joined the Marines. But this is where the story gets interesting, because he was the sort of kid for whom “fight the power” wasn’t just a rock lyric. He did three combat tours of Iraq, then another in Afganistan.  When the Corps offered to make him an officer, he refused. “America doesn’t need more leaders”, he told me once. “It needs better followers.”

    Well, one Christmas, my friend finds himself in Iraq, brushing his teeth at four in the morning on Christmas Eve. “So it’s Christmas Day in Iraq,” he tells me, “and I have to go on a patrol at 4am to a town where the last time we went there we got ambushed and one of my friends was wounded. And I’m outside my tent brushing my teeth and another Marine looks over at me and says “Merry Christmas…I guess.” We both smile and say at the very same time: “Embrace the suck.”  

   Now, for the sake of this sermon, I wish there was a better phrase for that particular aspect of Marine philosophy, but, as my friend says, “The Corps has never been known for its eloquence.”  So hereafter, I’ll just say “embrace the stink” which doesn’t quite capture the grittiness of the phrase, but preserves a bit of the dignity with which we should treat the Divine Liturgy.

    Anyhow, my friend’s story has stuck with me because I think it encapsulates the spirit of Advent. This is the time of year when we teach ourselves to “embrace the stink.”  It is a penitential season.   We’re looking forward to Christmas, but we’ve got to slog through Advent first.  Which means it doesn’t quite match up to the grief and passion of Lent…but neither is it quite a joyful season.  It just kind of stinks.  In the old days, in fact, they used to refer to this as the “Little Lent”—which rather captures the spirit of it.

     

Years and years ago, when I was going through a sort of tepid atheistic phase, my confessor gave me this passage to read from a book by Rainer Marie Rilke called “Letters to a Young Poet.”  It reads “I would like to beg you, dear Sir . . . to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

    In his poetic Franco-Germanic way, the author is making the same point, namely, that we must learn to embrace the stink.  Life is kind of hard.  We’re never quite satisfied with what we have, and we never seem to notice what we have till it’s gone.  But during Advent, we try to remind ourselves to embrace it all.  The Lord is coming.  He’s already here, actually.  But still, we wait for his coming.  And it kind of stinks.

    To quote my friend, again: “It’s essentially a Stoic phrase but in modern Marine language we mean that you’ve got to embrace suffering. “We all suffer together, so let’s enjoy it.  It’s 8 degrees, in a fighting hole, in frozen mud, this stinks, bro.  But we’re in this together.”

    There is a wonderful little song by a rock group called AJR.  I don’t understand most of their lyrics.  I don’t even understand the name of the band.  But this one song begins with narrator explaining how heroic his grandparents were.  His grandpa fought in World War II, and his father was a fireman who risked his life to save people. And frankly, he feels like a bit of a wimp because he had to leave college when he got homesick.  He says, “I think I actually bored my therapist”.  But—and this is why I love the song—it ends with this phrase: “Even the world’s smallest violin needs an audience.”

    Most of us have probably never patrolled a hostile Afgani village at 4am or nearly frozen to death in a foxhole.  But that doesn’t mean our suffering is less worthy or even less heroic.  What it does mean, though, is that in the midst of our suffering, we must make room for gratitude—to grin at our brothers and sisters and “embrace the stink.”