Pentecost Sequence: Veni Sancte Spiritus

A sequence was prescribed for this morning's Mass, the Veni Sancte Spiritus (not to be confused with the Veni Creator Spiritus).  Hopefully you heard something remotely like this (at least in word and thought) between the second reading and the Gospel:

Or for those looking for a more, ahem, robust version:



One of my favorite versions from when I was back in the music business is the Veni Sancte Spiritus by Michael M. Birkley, GIA (GI.G-4779), 1999.  Sorry, GIA has not seen fit to put a good preview on the internet... you are missing out on the real beauty and fire of this arrangement with the mere 30 seconds and two pages that are out there...

Balthasar and the "Spirit-filled" Church vs. "Institutional" Church

  This Pentecost weekend, I invite you to consider one of the great dialectics set before Christians of all stripes today: the subjective experience of "Church" and the objective reality of the same "Church".  It often comes out something like this:

"I am spiritual but not religious."

If there were not something true about the observation--that it is better to be 'spiritual' than 'religious'--people would think this is a crazy position to hold.  But obviously there is something here that speaks to people's experience.  Many people feel subjectively 'right' and 'justifified' in their own spiritual pursuits, but have no use for the formalities of religion.  But what is meant by this phrase, "spiritual but not religious"?

   Without attempting to completely drain the deep meaning of the expression, to be "spiritual", I think, represents a person's focus on the other-worldly... the things of faith, which while perhaps reasonable are not contained within reason.  "Spiritual" people are particularly in touch with themselves as beloved children of God, who are being lead in an intimate and personal way by divine grace to realize their giftedness and take responsibility in the world to proclaim the Christian Gospel.  Similarly, being "religious" is to be a conformist, a rule-follower (from where we get the word 'religion' whose root means 'measure' or 'ruler'), and sometimes is understood as one who is an "unenlightened-adherent-to-something-that-they-don't-really-understand-but-this-is-something-we-did-back-when-I-was-a-child".  'Religion', unlike 'spirituality', tends to provide assurance of one's destiny hereafter based on an objective, external set of standards, which can encourage and inspire continued growth and striving for godliness.
   People can be driven to one extreme or another--an extreme spirituality or extreme religiosity--by a negative "Church" experience in their lives.  Lots of people from my generation who continue to practice their faith, I think, have a tendency to turn to a very formal religiosity expressed by very proper liturgical practice and catechetical exactness when they find that the faith they have been raised with is not suitable to their adult questions and experiences... sometimes this is expressed as anger against "butterflies and rainbows" taught in their Catholic school or CCD during the 80's which never grew up.  But a similar pendulum swing can be observed from the generation before, where young people recited the Baltimore Catechism and chanted in Latin, having no idea what they were doing by time they reached their adult Catholic life... prompting them to turn away from "religion" and embrace the a more open "spiritual" expression of their faith that made a 'difference' for them (the "Spirit" of Vatican II, anyone?).  While these extremes are a very gross caricature of the situation in the Church today, I think one can see the temptation to radicalize and absolutize towards one direction or another.

   Religion is a necessary aspect of the Church in this age (that is, since the Ascension of our Lord, the Decent of the Spirit, and in the remaining time awaiting the Final Coming).  Not only does it provide identity and continuity in the expression of the faith, the rules and institutions of Christian religion have one more very important property: they are a sacramental, incarnational sign of God's desire for humanity and humanity's desire for God.  The Church is the visible sign of God's continuing presence and his desire to unite all humanity around his altar on earth as a foretaste of the union we hope to share in heaven.  As Paul would famously observe (1 Cor 12: 12-14), the Church is the Body of Christ, its many members building up the whole with Christ himself as the head.  Bodies necessarily have a design and, thus, 'rules'.  Bodies necessarily conform to a form, a plan... a code we recognize in the very DNA of the human body.  When a piece of the body grows on its own (cancer?) or separates itself (decapitation?) or does not contribute to the integral wholeness of the body (flu, illness?), the entire body is negatively affected.  Therefore, as members of the Body, we do have an obligation to cooperate with one another and with God's plan and will, that the entire body and and all its members might be healthy.

    What does it mean then, to be 'spiritual' without being 'religious'?  If we deny the incarnational reality of being part of the Church, we are lead to a certain kind of Christian proto-heresy: gnosticism.  Gnostics lean toward denying the union of body and spirit... that the Spirit world is 'true' and that the human body is superfluous... perhaps even a 'shell' that is happily left behind in order to transcend this world.  Rules belonging to our physical existence are seen as unimportant and 'passing' when only the soul matters.  The human soul is absolutized in importance, ignoring or refusing the necessity of the salvation and redemption of the body.  If the soul alone were all that remain after death, this would position would make sense, but Christians believe human person is a composite of soul and body.  Christ rose, not as a ghost or dismbodied spirit, but as a human person, glorifying the human form and giving us a vision of what we shall become.  When the body is chastised and disciplined, it necessarily impacts and tempers the soul for its future destiny in heaven (along with the body).  We fast during Lent, we obey the Christian sexual ethic, we venerate the saints and martyrs, we participate in the Sacred Liturgy precisely because it is through the body and through the sacraments that God reaches and molds our souls and makes us ready to take our place in the restored creation.  Sure, God could redeem the world through extraordinary means, but without the body we remain in the confusion of subjectivism... was that God talking to me or my own dreams and desires, or a strange reaction to those funny mushrooms I ate last night?   To reveal himself most perfectly in the Church and to preserve the dignity of our own free will to choose out of love, God humbles himself by taking a body--his human body when he walked this earth, his mystical body which we see in the Church--that we might encounter and accept him with some objective certainty.

   When the 'religious' aspect of the Church is jettisoned, a certain gnosticism necessarily takes its place.  That's why the DaVinci Code movie was such a hit.  It unmoored faith from rules and conventions of 'religiousity', added a controversial, speculative zinger about the nature of Christ's humanity which is denied by the 'instutional' Church of history, theologians, and 'orthodox' believers, and bingo!  Box-office gold!

   Gnosticised Christianity degrades into a body-soul dualism in the human person that leads to a fundamental lack respect and understanding of creation, the human form, suffering, and death.  Morality is reduced to a certain self-reflective pragmatic asceticism; suffering and death has no redemptive value, except as a woe to be avoided.  (Might these attitudes lead to theories of predestination and moral responsibility common to Calvinism and its Catholic counterpart, Jansenism?)  Gnosticism spiritualizes and trivializes the Incarnation of the Lord, removing objective certainty from the salvation of the Cross.  It often places the drama of salvation squarely on the shoulders of the struggling believer... are you able to find and do you believe in the right set of doctrines which will reveal a perfect truth?

   Conversely, to reject "spirituality" in favor or religious 'certainty', is to leave oneself open to a rigid, unyielding faith that is at the core of Jesus criticism of his age.  Religious people were characterized as whitewashed tombs whose insides were corrupt; they were a brood of vipers; they placed heavy burdens (in the name of religion) and did nothing to assist those who were being oppressed; they widened their phylacteries, took the best places at meals, and were honored by the title "teacher". If this is all that religion is, just a social convention that is often wrapped up with the influence and exercise of power, then I want nothing of it either.

   And so, I suppose that what we are shooting for is a via media, a middle road, where we are open to the subjective experience of the Spirit, while staying faithful to the disciplining spirit of 'religion'.  Maybe a better image is to have religion and spirituality in a healthy tension with each other.  Here's what my buddy, Hans Urs von Balthasar, brings to the table:

 

We can say that the Holy Spirit always lives in the Church as objective as well as subjective Spirit: as institution or rule, or disciplina, and as inspiration and loving obedience to the Father in the spirit of adoption... Certainly, "when Christ our life appears, you will also appear with him in glory" (Col 3: 3-4).  And then the institutional aspect of the Church will disappear in the same way as it did for the risen Lord and take on the aspect of the adoption of God's children.  For then we will no longer need to learn obedience but will have it by instinct and as part of our freedom, and the Spirit will tower over us objectively only in his divine original meaning -- as witness and igniter of love.  ...Neither aspect can be renounced but must be continually fitted to the other in mutual harmony.  There are sides of the external discipline that must be revived, perhaps even restored, by an inner inspiration.  But there is also much in the same external form that would be sufficiently living and vital to free up true inner inspiration if one only had the desire to see it as the Holy Spirit presents it, undistorted by the optical lenses through which one normally sees externals.

- Explorations IV, Spirit and Institution (Ignatius Press) 239-241.

   Optical lenses?  I think he's talking the 'lenses' we put before our eyes to understand the world... the lenses of politics and sociology (among others).  If we see the Church as simply one human organization among many, then to heck with it.  Religion is no more than polite coercion.  If the Church is nothing more than a pie-in-the-sky 'feeling', then to heck with it.  Mere spirituality has no power to save.  If we only had the eyes to see as the Holy Spirit truly presents the Church-- a harmony of rules, inspiration, freedom, deliverance, certainty, growth, humility, obedience, unity, and divine intimacy--would we not have a greater appreciation for both 'sides' of the 'religion' vs. 'spirit' debate?  Would we not welcome the challenge to discern wisely and embrace lovingly the things of God revealed in spirit and in truth?

  Come Holy Spirit!  Fill the Church with an uncompromised revelation of your love, expressed in the Church and expressed in the intimacy of our hearts, that we may be formed and redeemed, body and soul, in joyful anticipation of the Kingdom with is to come!

Bulletin Article: Pentecost

Blessed Pentecost! By giving the gift of the Holy Spirit the Lord calls us to great things… to ministry, charity, and holiness in his own name. The Lord breathes the Holy Spirit upon the Church that all we are and all we do might be touched by his mighty hand. The 20th century theologian Karl Rahner offers the insight that when the priest prays the epiclesis during the Eucharistic prayer, extending his hands over the gifts and praying, “Lord, let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, let them become for us the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, your only Son, our Lord…” the Spirit sweeps not only upon the elements of bread and wine, but also upon all the gathered Church, affecting a sacramental transformation not only in the newly-consecrated elements, but of the hearts and minds of all those present. Why might we say this? Because the Eucharist, made present on the altar through the ministry of Jesus himself and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, radically unites each of us to the person of Christ, the source of all goodness and all holiness, in his Mystical Body. It empowers us to take our place at the heavenly banquet as sons and daughters of God. By simply being present at Mass, taking it in with the eyes of faith, and participating in the sacrifice, we are all made sharers in the divine mission to draw all things to the Father through Christ. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the contemporary experience not only of the Last Supper, but also of that first Pentecost when the Church first received the Holy Spirit. The epiclesis calls down the blowing winds and tongues of fire which empower us to fulfill the Great Commission of teaching and sanctifying. When we hear these words at Mass, it is an opportunity to allow ourselves to be changed as individuals and as a whole Church community through the holiness of who we are, what we do, and who we become as the visible, Mystical Body of Christ. Come, Holy Spirit! Enkindle in us the fire of your Love!

Homily Thoughts E6-C

  On Easter and in the weeks immediately after, the focus is on the event of the Resurrection… the St. Peter and women going to the tomb, the encounter with doubting Thomas, the walk on the road to Emmaus.  But in the last two weeks, the Church has taken us back in the Gospel of John—a Gospel that reflects deeply on who Jesus is and what his mission is all about.  This week's reading of John 14 takes place after Jesus washed the feet of the disciples at the Last Supper, after Judas left to betray him, and before the mob showed up to carry him away to trial and execution.  It is this desolate moment of Jesus' first leave-taking that John reminds us that we will never be alone after we have encountered the love of God.  This was an important message for the disciples on that night of the Last Supper—but the importance of that message is even greater now as the Lord takes his leave of us to go back to heaven.

   As the Church continues to celebrate the 50 days of Easter, the readings presented on Sunday start to change as we reach the fifth, sixth, and seventh weeks.  Having encountered the love of God, now recognizing that love between Father and Son, who does Jesus promise?  Jesus says, “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit... will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you”  (John 14:26).  The Advocate, who proceeds as the unbegotten love the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, enlightens us to keep that love present with us--as present as the Lord walking with is disciples in Gallilee--even to this day.

   The Solemnity of Pentecost will give us the opportunity to reflect even more on the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church.  What I would like to do today, however, is turn our attention to the key revelation which is given to us today in these readings.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are One.  This is not a new revelation to this community— we pray this each time we make the sign of the cross ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’  Our prayers at Mass often end with the formula, “we ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you (the Father) and the Holy Spirit, One God forever and ever.”  We experience the Trinitarian reality through the ministry of the priest when he prays, “Therefore, O Lord [Father], we humbly implore you: by the same Spirit graciously make holy these gifts we have brought to you for consecration, that they may become the Body and Blood of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate these mysteries.”  To call upon one person of the Trinity is to invoke the presence all three.  To pray to the Father takes place through the ministry of the Son by the power of the Spirit.

   It is the Trinitarian reality which saturates all around us which reminds us that we, like our God, are designed to be radically relational.  Jesus is not strictly my God or your God; Jesus is our God.  Let’s bring this down to earth.  When we celebrate the Eucharist, each person who comes forward receives Jesus—in body, blood, soul, and divinity.  In receiving Jesus, each one of us here, and in every Catholic Church throughout the world, proclaim and live a profound unity which is made real here today.  Indeed, each person who receives the Eucharist across space and time are drawn together in our Lord Jesus Christ.  I take great solace when I consider that my participation in the Holy Sacrifice this day, takes place in union with the eternal, heavenly sacrifice which so many of my loved ones have left this life to enjoy.  I take great solace in the knowledge that my participation unites me even with all those people whom I have yet to meet who will form me as a priest and hopefully prepare me to participate well in the heavenly liturgy.  My communion with Jesus joins me with the little ones who gather for First Communion this weekend in so many places through the entire world.  It is our encounter with Jesus in this sacrifice which presents us as a human family to Our Father.  It is our encounter with Jesus which binds us to his promise of the Holy Spirit who goes before us, and in doing so, makes real the promise that he would be with us until the end of time.
   [An interesting observation: John 14 and the promise therein is offered only after the one who could not see the Love of God incarnate in the Son, Judas the Iscariot, broke ranks with the community and with the Lord (leaving Mass early?) to pursue the thirty pieces of silver by which he valued our Lord.  It would seem that Jesus promises his presence and his love, but only to those who remain in Communion not only with him but with his Church.]

   It is this radical rationality implicit in us which also reminds us that sin is never strictly personal, never strictly private.  Therefore, the remedy to sin through the sacraments of baptism and reconciliation (in particular) are never, strictly, personal events.  The worship of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, whether at Mass or through any of the countless devotional practices is never, strictly speaking, a private affair.  Our worship, whether in a quiet chapel or in a hospital bed or anywhere else, unites a person with God and God with his people.  The ministry of deacons, priests, and bishops never finds its end in the person of the cleric himself, rather it is ordered to the good of the entire Church.  The sacrament of marriage is not something to be shared and lived privately, but it has an external, public dimension which builds us all up as a community witnessing the love of God.

   Father, Son, and Spirit are a community of divine persons in relationship.  If this were not so, if the Father and Son and Spirit were not joined in mutual love, we would not have One God, but rather three separate gods.  We know this cannot be so.  The love of God is not self-love, love turned in on itself—God’s love reaches out to embrace the other.  The love of the Son is such that it reaches out and receives the love of the Father.  The love of Father and Son embraces and shares the Love of the Spirit.  As the Church on earth, we get a glimpse of God’s love in the person of Jesus by the power of the Spirit.  This mystery is the backdrop for understanding our Lord’s return to the Father and the sending of the Spirit which will complete our Easter celebration in the next few weeks:  We are never alone when we are loved by God.