-
Next Sunday, being the last Sunday of the Liturgical Year, is set aside to honor Our Lord in His title: “Christ the King.”
This Sunday, however, and over the past few Sundays, the Gospels have employed the motif of Apocalyptic literature, emphasizing not so much the end of this Year of Grace, but the end of time itself.
While the Apocalypse may or may not be just around the corner, more than a few people have spoken to me personally about the “signs of the times” of which Our Lord speaks today. Not about the earthquakes, the famines or plagues, but more about the recent election and the adversarial nature of our present culture toward religion in general, and Catholicism in particular.
In today’s Gospel, Our Lord proclaimed, “You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives and friends…and they will put some of you to death.” Francis Cardinal George, the late Archbishop of Chicago, famously said, back in 2015 about today’s hostile environment: “I will probably die in my bed… my successor will die in prison… his successor will be executed in the public square.”
The apocalyptic, or “end-of-the-world” themes heard in this Sunday’s end-of-the-year Readings (even the Gospel for the Feast of Christ the King next Sunday depicts the Lord’s Crucifixion) need not lead us entirely to thoughts of gloom and doom. Our Lord challenges us, instead, to persevere, saying: “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” By this He means not our lives here on earth, but securing our eternal lives, perhaps even through martyrdom.
What does Perseverance mean here?
Well, it doesn’t mean just holding on with our fingernails as we dangle on a precipice above the abyss. It is an interior virtue that helps us plant our feet solidly on terra firma. It is the outward manifestation of the interior disposition of Fortitude, one of the Cardinal Virtues. It is not so much “duty for duty’s sake,” but does require the effort to be faithful to principles that at times make harsh demands of us.
Some examples:
+ forgiveness in the face of real wrong
+ fidelity to serious commitments, even when others have failed us
+ courage to hold on and not give in to despair when faced with a fatal disease
+ trusting in God’s Presence and Providence in the midst of the death of a loved onePerseverance requires a deep-rooted conviction that God will be true to His promises, especially those given to us by Christ. I will now address this call to perseverance in three expressions which people have brought to me in our current social standing:
+religious freedom
+living a moral life
+the practice of asceticism for personal strength
Religious Freedom
It is a fair statement to make that the free exercise of religion has come under attack in popular opinion in our Society. A differentiation must be made between
+freedom of religion - and -
+freedom of worship.
The anti-religionists, be their opinions strong or mild, might venture to speak of freedom of worship not just hoping, but insisting, that the exercise of religion be reduced to worship, keeping religion within the walls of the church (lessening it to something more like a hobby) and not bringing it into the public square — or worse — attempting to introduce one set of values on a society which they would prefer to be “values neutral,” which is actually impossible, — or, at least — free of any religious or moral imperative.
In this, they are not speaking of freedom-for-religion, but of freedom-from-religion, as though truly moral and virtuous thought should be banned from
+the public discourse
+the legislative process
+and now we see: the State Constitution
But, in a manner of speaking, one can say that all law can be understood as legislated morality of one sort or another or, in some cases, legislated a-morality in which there can be no clear differentiation between good and evil, making some of what has been held historically— that is, for millennia — as evil, is now thought of as a new sort of good, defined not by long-held, venerated principles, but by the political influence of this or that segment of society.
Attempts to perfect society without God have failed in every totalitarian regime throughout history. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen has said: “There can be no brotherhood of Man without the Fatherhood of God.”
This leads us now to consider Living a Moral Life.
Freedom in this context is not the imaginary capacity to make any choice we want. Rather, it means that at the core of each person’s existence there is the real possibility of saying “Yes” to what is good, and “No” to what is evil.
Free Will is given to each person by God so that we might engage, by our own free choice, in a “participative redemption” wherein we might freely accept God’s gift of salvation, and work toward the salvation of others — even those who might resent us for doing so, as has been seen in the lives of the Martyrs.
While laws can be enacted which are contrary to God’s Divine Will, the Christian person, possessed of a holy perseverance, can transcend the immorality of the Culture by:
+leading a virtuous life
+speaking of eternal truths
+teaching and encouraging the young
+giving good example to the wayward
+caring for the needy — and —
+voting from one’s conscience
At least none of these have yet been outlawed.
This leads us now to Living a Moral Life.
Living a moral life, even in the midst of a culture that doesn’t value morality, or has, anyway, chosen to re-define it, is possible because of our inner freedom. How do we begin? In a conversation with my brothers a while ago on this topic, one of them said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.” Rather profound, actually. The “main thing” of a moral life is Christ Himself.
Pope Benedict XVI constantly taught that the basis of Christianity is not a set of teachings, or a set of rules, it is a relationship with Jesus Christ. Trying to imitate Christ makes for a good beginning, but this is more about:
+abiding with Him
+letting Him live inside of you — and —
+a way of life in which one allows Christ some real space, some closeness, while living in the world as it is.
Christian life is about making constant moral choices for the good, when evil looks just as attractive, or even more so. Christian morality is not based in a negative view of the world and human nature, constantly instructing us what not to do or say… instead, moral imperatives are given to us by Christ to show us the way to perfection. Saint John Henry Newman wrote: “We’re all familiar with imperfection, but it gives us a first glance at real perfection.”
Proper morality is oriented toward self-sacrifice, as seen in the life and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The moral life will awaken within us a desire for God — and a search for Him. Saint John of the Cross wrote about this: “If your soul is seeking God, know that He is seeking you much more.” And Saint Augustine wrote: “The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise in holy desire.”
We now come, finally to Asceticism.
Asceticism is usually considered a Lenten theme, but it can also be a motif that could help us improve our observance of the coming season of Advent, which has been compromised by the secular, headlong rush to Christmas, whose meaning has been overshadowed — one might even say kidnapped — by a consumerist culture that is now claiming Christmas for its own.
Asceticism does not despise human pleasures, but sees the good in them, knowing that even good things are subject to corruption. Not simply a “silver lining” view of the world, ascetical practices seek the good as that which will anticipate the ecstasy of Heaven. These practices awaken within us a desire for the highest good — that is — the very source of good, which is God Himself.
It will mean different things… choices… and actions to different people, but, essentially it means ridding oneself of whatever in one’s life is displeasing to God, and seeking:
+to find God
+to love God
+ to choose what we can be certain, pleases Him.
Advent, then, becomes the proper disposition for the Christian life. At once both penitential and joyful, it shows that true asceticism can be challenging, but in the end, ridding ourselves of sinful patterns of life will bring joy to ourselves, to God, and to the world.
And so, returning to our original thoughts, the “end times” could speak to us about changing our lives through perseverance… that is: protecting religious freedom, living a moral life and practicing asceticism, that would bring about the “end times,” so to speak,” for our sinful habits, so that Christ the King may reign in our lives in perhaps an entirely new way.