Thursday, November 2, 2017

The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

"Though I walk in the valley of darkness, I fear no evil, for you are with me." In just over a week, we will enter into the final year of the centennial of the First World War. There is much we can learn from that conflict, particularly about the dangers of tribalism. But more importantly, we have an obligation to love our brothers and sisters who walked into some very dark valleys. For myself, my thoughts will be with those who fought on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915, a campaign that has long moved me. It is a true example of the pointless, asininity of warfare. Yet also one that highlights the nobility, even beauty, of courage and sacrifice. The paradox of war is that conflict showcases both the worst and the best of what it means to be human. And perhaps nothing sums up the latter better than the words of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk welcoming his former enemies and their loved ones back to the battlefields:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours … You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

Let us pray that all who endured the Great War, whichever side they were on, might know "goodness and kindness" and that they "shall dwell in the house of the LORD for years to come." Amen.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Solemnity of All Saints

"When our Lord saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, he whipped out his smartphone and began to tweet at them, saying: 'Shame on them who ...'"

How many of us long for that version of "The Sermon on the Mount"? How many of us look around at our brothers and sisters and struggle to find any worthy of the label "blessed"? How many of us prefer our petty little tribes to the strange and confusing beauty of our Parent's family?

There is a certain smallness to American culture and politics at our present moment in time. Everyone is stuck in their corners, bleating about this wound or that slight; each tribe attempting to outshout the others, but none succeeding. It is more tiresome than I can possibly describe, especially standing in comparison to that which we celebrate today: the Communion of Saints, aka our family.

In saying such things, I do not deny the reality of injustice and sin. But the Beatitudes are creatures of the kingdom, not the world. They are meant to be lived in the kingdom, not the world. Yes, this realm exists in the here and now, but not as the utopia of any of our plethora of isms. It cannot be found via human ingenuity, nor built by human institutions. The kingdom is a choice of heart and soul, a path to be trod each and every day; not the easiest to be sure, but the only road worth traveling.

So how does one get there? Choose the simplicity of loving your neighbor. Choose the nobility of doing good to those who hate you. Choose the truth that no amount of "progress" in technology or ideology can ever transform the world into something other than an unholy mess. And despite the latter, choose the honor of bearing grace to your siblings, starting with the most sinful and unworthy.

This is a vision made tangible in a set of tapestries hanging in the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles: a true communion of saints, ancient and new, famous and ordinary, a rainbow of diversity, all reveling in God's light and love with absolutely no regard for "official" saintly status.

This is the kingdom. This is our family. This is who we can be, if we so choose. It is perhaps a foolish vision. But if thus, then let me be an eternal fool, for it is a vision blessedly wonderful.