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

Dear Friends:

This week last year we reflected upon the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, enshrined above the altar in St. Peter’s Basilica as the symbol of unity within the Body of Christ, the Church. This year, we do well to remember how the power of divine faith strengthened the People of God in the early years, as they experienced persecution for their witness to Christ. The first and best-documented account of an early Christian martyr after the New Testament was that of St. Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna (c. 155 AD), whom we honor on Wednesday. His unusual name (poly & karpos) means “much fruit,” a fitting moniker on for a shepherd of souls who never shirked his responsibility to preach the gospel in and out of season. In a style reminiscent of St. Paul before him, Polycarp writes to the Church of Philippi to encourage the young community to grow in holiness and moral virtue. Clergy and laity are to pursue lives of generous service to the poor, inspired by the wisdom of the Christian scriptures; this demands love, forgiveness, and joy from Christ’s disciples. As you can imagine, the kindly bishop’s words and example won an enormous following in Smyrna, and his virtuous example in life and death shows an uncanny resemblance to that of Jesus himself.

Some scholars argue that early persecution of the Church was exaggerated. Christianity, they claim, was no more illegal to practice than, say, Judaism, within the Roman Empire, with its own state gods and goddesses. They were exploited as a one-time scapegoat for the burning of Rome in 64 AD. I disagree; Nero declared Christianity a religio illicita (“unlawful religion”) and the Christian’s refusal to recognize Roman religion accounted for generations of persecution to come. The author of The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp emphasizes that Polycarp never looked for a quarrel with the civil authorities, and never sought the glory of martyrdom. This notwithstanding, he would never he back away from this supreme act of love. Both his own people and the civil leader who executed him (“Herod”: but not that one) had great respect for Polycarp’s wisdom and personal goodness. Yet when he remained steadfast in his witness to no one but Christ, the governor, incited by the crowd, delivered him up to death.

Here is where the marvelous details of the story take on a supernatural quality. The fire by which he was to burn did not harm him at all, but formed the shape of an arch around him. Instead of the smell of burning flesh, the people smelled the fragrance of frankincense or spices, and his body appeared as “bread to be baked,” or “gold and silver in a furnace.” Failing in their attempts, members of the mob stabbed Polycarp, whose body emitted both a dove and a quantity of blood so great that it actually extinguished the fire. His body was then burned to keep it from the Christians who would otherwise have venerated it. All these features—Herod, a forced trial, testimony to God, the bread, the dove, and the pouring forth of blood—remind us that Christians must accept their share of the Cross out of love for Jesus.
I’ll go out on a limb with my guess that few of us will ever experience the same extraordinary martyrdom that St. Polycarp endured, but that’s not the point. We are never to seek persecution for its own sake. Rather, we embrace whatever suffering comes our way, for it is the price we pray for the love of God and neighbor.

Faithfully,
Fr. Valentine

Dear Friends:

To be honest, I’ve carried a grudge since 1969 against unknown forces in Rome for removing St. Valentine from the Church Calendar. Of course I have no quarrel with his replacements, Ss. Cyril and Methodius. These 9th-century brothers were the Apostles to the Slavs, inventing an entirely new alphabet to translate the Scriptures, while re-imagining the Sacred Liturgy for their flock. They’re great! But couldn’t their feast day have remained on July 5th? Granted, I may have a vested interest in the patron saint of lovers, but then again, don’t we all? The Catholic Encyclopedia lists a number of individuals named Valentine. There is the kindly priest who was martyred for marrying Roman soldiers to their sweethearts, thus transforming a boorish band of single warriors into mature, responsible family men through the grace of Christian matrimony. There is the bishop who was martyred for aiding persecuted Christians, and buried along the Via Flaminia. The imprisoned cleric, who evangelized pagans and miraculously cured the sick, would sign his notes, “From your Valentine.” Perhaps Valentine is a composite of many individuals rolled into one. Does it matter? The point is that this figure speaks eloquently to a culture that distorts the meaning of love. According to Andrew Greeley’s eponymous principle, Catholics, sad to say, discard valuable aspects of their culture, and others use them for their own purposes. So how do Christians distinguish their notion of love from its secular version?

In his Encyclical Deus Caritas Est (“God is love”) Pope Benedict XVI rejects the idea that love (eros) is a kind of “divine madness” that possesses lover and beloved as though against their will. (Think of teenagers in the throes of their first “crush.”) To be “intoxicated” by love is to degrade the deepest dimensions of human existence—reason and free will—and reduce people to the sum of their appetites. Benedict reminds us that genuine love (agape/philia) requires training and cultivation that direct one’s energies to the true good of others.

It follows, then, that love is much more than just feeling. I say this because I can’t count the number of times I have heard young people say: “I love you but I’m not in love with you.” This is a silly, meaningless statement. For Christians, love involves the entire person: mind, heart, spirit, body. We say that love is a free act of the will based on the desire for the truth, and it leads to a joy that people confuse with feeling. Yet feelings can come and go, whereas reason and freedom are relatively stable. Mature people, of course, love when they are not “feeling it.” Imagine what would happen to friendships, marriages, and families when feeling is the only barometer of love, as it is for so many?

Ultimately, we cannot exhaust the full meaning of Christian love, even by reading the Bible. As Fr. Balthasar points out: Scripture, essential as it may be, is “merely” the Word of God, whereas Christians cry out for the Word made flesh. Christ alone reveals the full majesty of divine love, and only he can bestow the gift of grace necessary for us to receive it. This is why Catholics profess the faith, celebrate the sacraments, and take seriously the moral demands of true religion: we open ourselves to God, who draws us ever deeper into his divine Life.

Faithfully,
Fr. Valentine