Courting Disaster or Will We Never Learn?

When you live long enough, you get to see lots. That’s how I would peg this moment in my life and the life of the Church. It is a sad moment heavily burdened with what some tick off as deja vu. Although I do not hold much for the thesis that history repeats itself, there are sad patterns which one can plot in scenarios which share at least a bit of degradation in common. I will try and illustrate.

As a seminarian in Rome at the beginning of the 1970’s, I witnessed the contest of wills between authorities and some rebellious seminarians which rapidly breached the wall of traditional usage and discipline, and brought in the as yet not approved practice of “communion in the hand” to the College in Rome. Was it something everybody longed for and found somehow right? Not hardly.

Some years later as a priest, I remember a good and holy priest in my mother’s home parish sharing with me his resignation to the fact that the admission of girl altar servers had become inevitable, because of overriding sentiment in favor thereof. No one doubted that it would render serving less attractive to 10 year old boys and have negative consequences for seminary recruitment. Cui bono?

Today, following much the same pattern, the push is on for married permanent deacons to be classed viri probati and be pushed on through to married priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church. The powers that be will no doubt make it happen, first in Germany and then in other places, by sheer force of will. With blunt instrument type arguments, the tired old innovators dumb the pearl of celibacy down to some sort of disciplinary fixation, rooted in the sexual mores of less developed or enlightened peoples of a bygone era. Heaven forbid!

Deja vu, as I say. Whether it is a matter of the breach of celibacy as intimately bound to the service of the altar or the cultivation of the notion of a set apart and sacred space (sanctuary), which ultimately and more efficaciously brings all of God's People into a more vibrant and closeup contact with the Lord of lords and King of kings, we're talking about an inappropriate leveling of the playing field. So-called "solutions" to "pastoral problems" are imposed upon us by force, yes, by violence. Some minority, a scurrilous elite or a heterodox school of thought, can always claim fame for imposing their agenda on a passive or cowed majority. 

As never before, I find myself asking what defense we might have against the strong or fat "bulls of Bashan"? Yes, our rescue is from the Lord. He is our help and our shield. Even so, I as a successor of the Apostles and all baptized faithful have a share in Christ's work of salvation for the world. Faithfulness to the Lord's founding will for His Church is in the best sense constraining. Jesus did not gives us a carte blanche. His Church has a physiognomy, a profile. 

Were we a democracy, I guess we would know that it was up to us to build a better political machine and launch an effective counter movement at the ballot box. Such pragmatism when it comes to Christ's Mystical Body is reductionist at best. Maybe these things are happening to us by the grace of the Holy Spirit precisely because we have failed in our duty to Christ by placing our trust in man in whom there is no salvation.

I am tempted to read Rod Dreher's "The Benedict Option" for answers, doubting all the while that he has more to offer than the counsel to be on the lookout for that contemporary young man of Nursia or community, who live for the Lord alone. Much as in the prophecy, I guess we really do need to seek out that ascetic, that humble, wise man, and grab hold of his sleeve or the hem of his garment. More of us need to opt for discernment in choosing our place of Sunday worship, for the sake of our souls and our children.

On this great feast of the Lord's Presentation in the Temple, I take consolation from the steadfast hope, transformed into profound joy of Simeon and Anna holding fast that little 40 day old Baby Jesus. I think I know what is expected of me in these uncertain times. Tenderly holding fast to that Child demands some Saint Benedict like choices for me in my life. I hope I make the right ones, which will enable others to take heart from my Nunc dimittis!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI