St. Mary's Church, Roslyn: Pastor's Page

Dear Friends:

“Is Jesus Christ the Son of God?”[thinks]
God: Jesus was my son. Buddha was my son. Mohammed. Moses. You. The man who said there was no room in the inn was my Son. And so is the one who charges eleven dollars for a steak. [Oh, God! (1977), starring George Burns]

Cute word game, no? By the same logic, thirty minutes with commercials is all you need to understand the meaning of life, reconcile enemies, comfort widows, and guide teenagers through adolescence. Yet celebrities preach endless, nonsensical sermons about “morality” with a fanaticism worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. They’ve got it backwards. The Old Testament prophet Micah (6:8), distinguishing true religion from its pagan counterpart, tells us: “You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God!” The modern version is: “Take God seriously, and don’t take yourself too seriously.” We should not limit God with our small ideas.

It demands a lot to explore the great questions of life; clever answers never satisfy us. This is particularly true when it comes to our relationship with God our Father. Today, the Church celebrates the Baptism of the Lord, when the crowd hears the Father speak directly to Jesus: “You are my Son; with you I am well pleased.” OK, so Jesus is God’s Son. But then isn’t Buddha, or Mohammed, or you, the son (or daughter) of God? If so, the claim of Jesus’ unique relationship to the Father becomes meaningless. So how do we approach the question?

The Catholic tradition, thank heaven, is rooted in the idea of analogy, according to which the same word enjoys various levels of meaning. This is how, e.g. we explain that things exist, but God is Existence. Likewise, then we say Jesus is God’s “Son,” we mean that everything God is, Jesus is: creator of the world, source of our existence, and the one in whom we have eternal life. We are not sons or daughters of God in this sense, for we do not possess the divine nature. Yet Jesus also shares in our human nature, which is why he could be born, grow, eat and drink, feel pleasure and pain, learn, and die just as we do. What is special about the Baptism of Christ is that, through him, believers receive the “Spirit of adoption, by which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Rom. 8:15). Jesus is God’s Son by nature, and we, by adoption. The same Holy Spirit that descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove is the same Spirit that animates the Church today, the Spirit that binds us to one another and to God. In the Mass for St. John the Baptist, we pray: “To make holy the flowing waters he baptized the very author of Baptism.” Jesus blesses the waters of baptism so we may become the “children of God” (1 John 3:2).

Our artwork this week is Pietro Perugino’s “Baptism of Christ” (1482) which resides in the Sistine Chapel. Notice that the central figure of the painting is the Holy Spirit. Catholics should remember that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and that the Spirit is the bond of love between us. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit may anoint us as he does the Servant of God (Is. 42:1-4) to bring the good news of Christ to our world.

Faithfully,
Fr. Valentine

Dear Friends:
A missing child: every parent’s (second) worst nightmare. We remember the scene from Tom Sawyer when a grief-stricken Aunt Polly cries herself to sleep, calling out for “my Tom.” When he finally appears—at his own funeral—she doesn’t quite know how to react: jump for joy? Praise God? Kiss Tom? Spank him? Collapse in relief? The answer is: why choose? When life is at risk, it unleashes within the soul a “desperate” desire to protect and recover the beloved child, whatever the cost, whatever the peril. Such is family life and love.
Immediately after Christmas the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family. We Roman Catholics call the family the ecclesiola, the “cell” of the Church. Every choice we make, from the books we read, the professions we enter, or the culture we tend, is meant to nourish and sustain this most fundamental social unit. No wonder Catholic social teaching rejects any system (e.g. Leo XIII’s critique of Communism) that corrodes the bonds between parents and children. Still, the family has a spiritual purpose; while a human institution, it bears within it the seeds of eternity; we are swept up into the Kingdom of God our Father with Jesus our Brother. The Holy Family illustrates the dynamic between Nature and Grace.

Today’s artwork for the feast of the Holy Family takes as its theme the joyful mystery: the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. The painting is “Christ Among the Doctors,” by Luca Giordano, who was born about a generation after the death of last week’s featured artist, Michelangelo Caravaggio. Art critic Silvia Tomasi lists a number of nicknames for the artist: fapresto, famolto, and proteo; he worked speedily, produced a large body of masterpieces, and, like the god Proteus, could adopt, combine, and transform various styles of other artists. She also notes that, unlike the tragic figure of Caravaggio, Giordano was a success not only in his artistic life but in his personal life as well. He was a loving father, ardent Catholic, and successful entrepreneur. His career took him through most of 17-century Europe, creating images from Biblical and mythological themes, a “grand” style of ceiling painting called the apotheosis, to immortalize famous families (e.g. the Medici), and scenes from the lives of the saints. He was a forerunner of the “Rococo” style: lush landscapes, lively colors, and heroic action. In today’s work, we see a youthful Jesus, seated among the scribes in the temple, as Mary and Joseph look on from a distance. The Holy Family, at least to my eyes, seems to have been imported to a baroque academy of scholars, who furiously check their books against the words that flow from the young man positioned serenely above them. The reactions of the rabbis vary: some are entertained by Jesus’ youth; others seem confounded; one appears lost in thought, as though his deepest convictions were being shattered; others simply take notes; one who appears to be wearing a beret, looks on in awe.

As for Mary and Joseph, are they relieved to have found their son? Annoyed at the trouble he has caused? Astonished to witness his divinity unveiling itself before their eyes? Tomasi ends her article with what I consider a very Catholic notion of beauty: that for Giordano, “art is not the union of two immeasurable worlds, the divine and the human, but itself a world in outline: an endless work in progress.” Where does divinity pick up and humanity leave off? Perhaps only God knows the answer, but for the family that has Christ at its center, the best way to approach the question is through love.

Faithfully,
Fr. Valentine