Already gone?

Both the Catholic Church and the United States of America are in interesting times; in large part, our attitudes and actions are making the times interesting. I say “interesting” as the famous fortune cookie puts it, instead of “bad” or any related word. St. Augustine did remind us that things are as they ever were.

 

The Collect for today’s Mass [the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time; Ed.] tells of the “slavery to sin” from which the Incarnation and Paschal Mystery has rescued us. As we lament the times, we do well to affirm the completed sense of Redemption. It might help us to be more receptive to prophecy, whencesoever it comes and whatever it observes.

 

Fifty years ago, the prophet Glenn Frey declared this word of Jack Tempchin and Robert Arnold Strandlund: “So oftentimes it happens that we live our lives in chains / And we never even know we have the key.”

 

Unaware, or more accurately, “hard of face and obstinate of heart” (Ez 2:4-5), we are geared to reject what prophets have to say, which is not so much foretelling the future as now-telling how God sees things. Convinced this or that messenger is unworthy to speak, we remain “rebels” who yet know God has visited them.

 

Church and nation alike receive periodic invitations to humility. Recall the Boston Globe spotlighting both the rampant sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, and the complicity of bishops who persistently granted them access to children and vulnerable adults. I was ordained deacon 3 months after that series printed.

 

22 years thence, as each new victim’s blood cries out from the soil, each new abuse reinforces our willful blindness. We persist to offend as we profess being offended. Prophets within the Church now speak as loudly as those outside. Jesus, yet “amazed at [the] lack of faith” (Mk 6:6), performs few mighty deeds. Somehow, He strengthens the Church in her very weakness (cf. 2 Cor 12:10).

Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart

This article has the distinction of appearing in both my local secular (tnonline.com) and our diocesan (ad-today.com) news. However, it did not appear this way word-for-word, as I wanted to clarify some sentences and this is the best way to do it.

My three pleasant years as organist of First United Methodist Church in Saint Clair introduced me to robust congregational singing and impassioned hymnody. They didn't get more than 30 or 40 at a Sunday service, but you wouldn't have known it with your eyes closed.

Down the block at Bethlehem Baptist's annual St. David's Day Welsh Hymn Sing (Gymanfu Ganu), congregants and guests even harmonized! There I learned my preferred tune for "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name," ("Diadem," not "Coronation"), which I have never heard a Catholic parish use.

I am grateful without measure for the gift of Christ's Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, of course, and it was during a Monday morning Holy Hour where one of my favorites from that era returned to me, as periodically it does.

The tune "Morecambe" is the standard setting for "Spirit of God, Descend Upon my Heart" (tune ascribed to Frederick Cook Atkinson, words to George Croly). No hymn has better expressed my heart's desire in prayer, and it (rather, He, the Spirit) sparked this article.

"Spirit of God, descend upon my heart; wean it from earth, through all its pulses move; / Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art, and make me love Thee as I ought to love."

It is unrealistic to think we will "become fire" all at once, as if one prayer session rewards the secret elevator inside the interior castle. The image of weaning illustrates God's sense of when and how to diversify each child's divine diet. 

"I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies, no sudden rending of the veil of clay, / No angel visitant, no opening skies; but take the dimness of my soul away."

With the "veil of clay," I think of how Saint Paul encouraged the Romans to "present [their] bodies as...spiritual worship" (12:1). Flesh has the honor of conveying spirit, as spirit is worthy of expression in flesh.

Yet the transmission suffers some static. Very few receive unmistakable messages for ourselves or others, and it is unrealistic to expect any. Whatever delight the sluggish soul takes in the earliest offerings of solid food, we get too soon used to it. My kingdom for a crumb of clarity!

"Hast Thou not bid me love Thee, God and King? All, all Thine own--soul, heart, and strength, and mind. / I see Thy cross--there teach my heart to cling: / O let me seek Thee, and O let me find!"

This hymn gets down pat the first half of the Greatest Commandment (cf. Matthew 22:35-40 and parallels). We must look to the crucified Christ for the clearest demonstration of the love than which there is no whicher (cf. John 15:13).

I am glad that my parish and the Catholic Church in general "lifts high the [Occupied] Cross" to display the Lord's dual legacy of love and suffering. Let no inconvenience, hardship, or malady go unmined for grace; when a good deed is on my block, let me run as to Mister Softee.

"Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh; teach me the struggles of the soul to bear, / To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh; teach me the patience of unanswered prayer."

Here is the proverbial rub: God doesn't seem "always nigh": ask the aforementioned Crucified One. We will wonder when silence is the all-too-typical result. The ego-sigh is especially audible when the consequences of my rebellions come to call.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch called "consolation" and "desolation" the alternating experiences of God in the house or out to lunch. Why didn't I get the schedule? Only Jesus knew when "the hour has come" (John 12:23), and marched toward it with understandable dread.

"Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love, one holy passion filling all my frame; / The kindling of the heaven-descended Dove, my heart an altar, and Thy love the flame."

Non sumus angeli, one priestly commentator pointed out on an old series that would have been great for YouTube. Curiosity customarily gets the better of me, and beneficially for once: Franciscan Father Leo Clifford's succinct "Reflections" have been uploaded. The low video quality is refreshing.

No, we are not angels. But the Holy Spirit, Who came once in flame, once in feathers, and once in a flow, is stoked to settle within us. Not that He intends for us a sedentary satisfaction: flames spread, and this Consuming Fire takes no prisoners as He breaks all chains.

Arms Update #634284632217

 

This is it- make no mistake anymore.

Blazoned thus by u/MajoEsparza of the Reddit:

Argent, a bush enflamed proper, and upon a chief wavy Purpure a sword and a saw in saltire also proper, all within a bordure compony Sable and Argent.

Alternatively:

Per fess enhanced wavy Purpure and Argent, in chief a sword and saw in saltire, and in base a bush enflamed proper, all within a bordure compony Sable and Argent.

You could also specify how many pieces the bordure should have as "...of 24 pieces Sable and Argent" or "Argent and Sable", depending on whichever you want. You could also change the "bush enflamed" with "the burning bush".

This website also has become familiar with my vagaries in heraldic achievement. I'd like to think of each as intentional and meaningful. These last few have retained the same "charges" (items); the main changes have been in tincture (colors) and layout. Shield style also, which is less vital. 

The charges and field division pertain to my name, either directly or by allusion. 

Christopher: the wavy line resembling the river he crossed with Our Lord; 

Michael: the sword, also used by the Lithuanian vytis (knight, on their arms); 

Joseph, the saw;

Zelonis, the bush burning but not consumed. 

The burning bush has no intrinsic connection, save the false cognate of zelus (L, "zeal"); I do not know what my name means in Lithuanian. I put Hebrews 12:29 on my ordination card: "for our God is a consuming fire." I note that the Fathers of the Church often compared the Virgin Mother Mary to that bush aflame (pregnant) yet unconsumed (virginal).

I chose a two-handed saw to represent Joseph (my Confirmation name), suspecting that he and his Son sawed some wood together a few times. Consider, too, the synergy of God and man in the Incarnation and in the Christian life.

I was stationed in parishes dedicated to St. Joseph the Worker (curate, from March to December 2007) and St. Michael the Archangel (pastor, October 2016 to June 2019). My current parish, Saints Peter and Paul of Lehighton, PA, is near the Lehigh River. I often run and bike on windy river-adjacent trails.

I thought it neat that I received the finished product from fleurdelis.com today, when the 12th chapter of Hebrews was in the Office of Readings. This also happened, I think, with a previous revision. Is it odd, or is it God?

I felt moved to send my ordination card to the artists, noticing today that the original (which listed my First Mass at my home parish, where it didn't happen) cites Hebrews 13:29; reader, there is no 13:29. It was changed to 12:29 in the second card, which also omitted the actual location of the Mass (the former St. Mary Church in my hometown of Saint Clair, PA, now the site of St. Clare of Assisi Parish, where I resided while serving as a hospital chaplain from June 2014 to October 2016).

Silver reflects my second-place finish in my high school class: it serves as a sufficient background for the bush, termed "proper" because it is meant to represent the original (as far as we know; but isn't the plant red?). So what if I was second? God is and must be first.

Purple reflects my indecisiveness, as red is on the Lithuanian and Polish flags, and blue is Marian. I decided to combine them. 

The alternating black-white border alludes to 🎹 ; the reigning Bishop of Harrisburg, Timothy C. Senior, a skilled pianist, did it before me (vide infra).

That's my achievement, and I'm sticking to it. Face it: one of them will end up being my last!

On Planning and Providence

A few weeks ago, I noticed two tasks fell due on the same day: my tax preparer's request for my documents, and the A.D. Times' request for an article. To provide maximum bandwidth for both tasks, I decided to address one sooner than the other. 

My taxes won out because of this verse: “Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, whose mercy is very great, rather than into the hands of men” (1 Chronicles 21:13). Those who failed to receive this article would be more forgiving than Uncle Sam’s great-grandchildren. But then the verse inspired the article.

 

The above citation was King David’s response to the prophet Gad, who presented David three options of divine punishment for the census he had ordered. The king chose “the Lord’s own sword,” a three-day sweeping plague, over three years of famine or three months of his enemies’ pursuit.

 

What was the big deal over a census? Same as ever: leaders want to figure out the money and militia they can extract from their citizens. In the appropriately named Book of Numbers, the Lord Himself ordered Moses to count the Israelites for those very purposes.

 

In place of the firstborn of all Israel, the Lord took as tribute the priestly tribe of Levi, who were exempted from military service and therefore also from that census. Through Moses, the Lord directed the firstborn to give the Levites a quantity of shekels as a sacrificial offering for their redemption, and, practically speaking, as part of the Levites’ sustenance.

 

The chain of charges continues: To obtain everything necessary for its budget (salaries, utilities, goods and services, etc.), our diocese assigns a fair standard percentage from the parishes, which in turn do what they can to provide for their own needs in addition to the above assessment.

 

The Diocese requires from parishes annual spiritual and fiscal reports to guide future plans. The recent “Disciple-Maker Index” intends to help parishes and individual disciples consider how we are doing by the important metric of what we are doing.

 

Did the Lord order these censuses? If not, will we lose a third of our faithful in punishment? As it is, surveys estimate only a third of self-identified Catholics attend Mass and/or believe in the Eucharistic Presence of Christ offered therein.

 

Here we are following a maxim of Saint Teresa of Avila: “The bread of self-knowledge should be eaten with every meal,” which has this modern parallel: “The room for improvement should be the largest room in the house.”

 

With due respect to David’s doings and resultant prophecies, I do not deem assessments to defy divine providence. It is awesome to think how much and how long God has trusted us to continue the Incarnation and Paschal Mystery in the world.

 

Our modern efforts to plan things aren’t so modern after all. We still would rather fall by the hand of the Lord, whose requirements are matched, if not surpassed, by His graces.