Fight Hard

In a translation full of flowery and technical sounding language (most of which I like, mind you), we come upon today's collect for the Passion of John the Baptist in the Roman Missal:

"Grant that, as he died a Martyr for truth and justice, we, too, may fight hard for the confession of what you teach."

To me, that phrase "fight hard" seems so uncharacteristically simple compared with the usual vocabulary of the Roman Missal. I would have expected something more like "contend vigorously." For whatever reason, the translators took the Latin strenue certemus and put it into very simple language, and I think we're better off for it, at least in this case.

In its simplicity, I take fight hard to have a more visceral connotation that speaks to what fighting is really all about. It comes from the gut.

My homily this morning was all about this, but with a warning. Christians don't fight to win, at least not in the worldly sense. John the Baptist didn't win; he got his head chopped off. But he still fought. He pointed at the injustices of the worldly power and screamed repentance from the rooftops. Yet as far as worldly success goes, he was a failure. He did not bring about a change of heart in King Herod, even though Herod liked to listen to him. He did not bring about change in power structures of his day. Those above him were unmoved by his words and actions. He made no vertical impact.

But those on his own level were watching. They saw his actions. They heard his words. They witnessed the disgusting authority of the powers that were react violently to his message of truth, and they preferred his way to the way of the world. They followed his finger pointing at the Lamb of God and became the followers of Jesus.

Such has it been in every age. The Christian (and sometimes the non-Christian too!) fights for justice and truth, even though the fight is in vain. Justin Martyr fought hard in writing his apologies to the emperor, but his real witness came when he lost that fight and was killed for being a Christian. We call him St. Justin Martyr, not St. Justin Writer.* We fight hard because it is right to do so. We fight hard because it is a witness. Others will see the struggle, the dedication, and the virtue of the Christian. At least, that's the hope.

We certainly hope for success in fighting injustice and institutional evil, but most of the time, it doesn't work out. That's nothing new. We fight hard because we want to be a witness for truth and justice, like St. John the Baptist, pointing his finger at the Truth Himself. We'll probably lose, but we're not in it to win. We're in it to be faithful to Him who is faithful to us.

* - This is why there are no doctors of the church who were martyrs. The term doctor of the church started out as a liturgical distinction, a way of honoring fathers of the church who were not martyred. If a father of the church were martyred, he's not named a doctor. Don't believe me? Here are a few ecclesiastical writers-turned-martyr who were never named doctors of the church: Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Cyprian of Carthage. (Though, full disclosure: Cyprian's opinion regarding re-baptism of lapsed Christians was heterodox, and even contested by then Pope St. Stephen. He's maybe not the best candidate for a doctor of the church. But, he's a martyr, so it doesn't matter.)

Gregory the Great Destroys Me

So here's Gregory the Great on the sins of priests (including himself):

“We do not seek to gain souls; we devote ourselves daily to our own pursuits, we attend to earthly matters, we strive for human praise with all our will. From being set over others we have greater freedom to do anything we like, and so we turn the ministry we have received into an occasion for display. We abandon God’s cause, and we devote ourselves to earthly business; we accept a place of holiness and involve ourselves in earthly deeds. What is written in Hosea is truly fulfilled in us: ‘And so it will be, like people, like priest.’ A priest does not differ from the people when he does not surpass their deeds by any merit of his own.” 

- Forty Gospel Homilies, 19.

Okay. I need to go to confession.

Pope St. Gregory the Great making us all feel bad.

Ash Wednesday without Mardi Gras?

This post is a little late. I intended to get it done in time for reflection during the Carnival season, but alas, we only have a few hours left before Lent. This means it's a little rushed and unpolished, which I suppose makes it even more fitting for Fat Tuesday.

Folly and Death
photo: Carol M. Highsmith

Nevertheless, in these last few hours for those who are still awake and sober, I think it is worth exploring why we feast before we fast. The liturgical principle is the opposite. We fast before feasting: Advent before Christmas, and Lent before Easter. Yet, before Lent gets going, much of the (historically) Christian world has some kind of secular observance during which society "tanks up" before letting go of worldly attachments.

I know very little about other carnival celebrations around the world (and even around the United States for that matter). Apparently some people eat pancakes today...that's pretty under-whelming if you ask me. However, though I am ignorant of most of them, I know there is a wide variety of cultural responses to the liturgical season we call Lent. The one I know is called Mardi Gras.

I was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, a city with a bit of a chip on her shoulder when it comes to Fat Tuesday. Overshadowed by our bigger, younger sister, New Orleans, when it comes to just about everything, especially carnival observance, Mobilians are quick to tell you that our celebration is older, more family friendly, and in general, better. I'm not here to make any of those arguments. (I will readily make them if anyone wants to have that conversation, but frankly it doesn't matter much to me.)

Mardi Gras is the day before Ash Wednesday, or rather to me (some of my clergy friends might be shocked by this) Ash Wednesday is the day that follows Mardi Gras. There has not been a single Lent of my life that was not preceded by a big party, and, but for the years I lived away from Mobile, that party was a two-and-a-half-week-long, city-wide party. Sharing in the fun with thousands of other people of all ages (none of whom feel the compulsion to expose themselves...I'm [not] looking at you New Orleans) has a profound effect on a person, especially when the next day, we all go to Mass and receive ashes. I know not everyone is Catholic or otherwise liturgical, but in my experience, you go from Tuesday streets full of people with beads and beers to Wednesday churches full of people with black marks on their heads. The weird transition is there. Many dismiss it as a moral cop out similar to the common dismissal of the Sacrament of Confession: do whatever you want, and you can be absolved right away. In this case of Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, it's the following day!

Herein we find a problem of perspective. Is there sin and debauchery at Mardi Gras? sure, but not by necessity. So long as you're not underage, nor convinced that teetotalism is the right path, nor perhaps a recovering alcoholic, there's nothing sinful in having a drink. There's also nothing sinful in having a drink in public. Drunkenness and carousing I will readily grant are going too far, and yes, many go way too far at Mardi Gras, but that doesn't mean we discredit the whole cultural phenomenon as sinful or even morally neutral.

I believe there is something good about Mardi Gras, or Carnival, or Shrove Tuesday, or whatever it is you call it. It all has to do with the reality of conversion.

Let's talk about Qoheleth. (If you've never read the book of Ecclesiastes, you need to stop reading this blog and go read it, because it's far more important than anything I'm writing. However, assuming you're already familiar with it, let's proceed.)

Each year during the Carnival season, we live out Qoheleth's discovery of the vanity of all things, especially the vanity of putting off our conversion, our penance, our suffering, and ultimately our death. Those are all things we want to deal with tomorrow, not today. Fat Tuesday embraces silliness and folly, pretending that death will not come.

In no way is this illustrated better than by the emblem float of the Order of Myths, who parade Mardi Gras evening in Mobile. A jester, the personification of Folly, chases Death, personified by a skeleton, around a pillar, beating him with inflated pig bladders. (There's no significance of the pig bladders that I know of. They make a really loud POP when you hit something with them, and so are an ideal tool for revelry.) Folly beats back Death...in vain. We all know it's in vain. We all know it's temporary. We all know that tomorrow is coming, and with it austerity, repentance, and ultimately goodness. Today we try in vain to find our fulfillment in this world. Tomorrow, we'll get to work finding it where it truly lies: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Note it's not Wisdom or Courage that tries to beat back Death. It's Folly. And if it's Folly to try and put off Death, then that means it doesn't actually work. Yet we try anyway, time and again, and time and again we're called back into reality, the desert of Lent.

Ash Wednesday is a noble tradition, a powerfully harsh beginning to the fast of Lent, meant to wake us up out of our dull slumber, as cold water dumped on a late sleeper. Preceding Ash Wednesday with Fat Tuesday amplifies that shock even further.  Ash Wednesday following Fat Tuesday is a tangible reminder that we are being called out of our stupidity into holiness.

Make no mistake, I'm not confusing the fun that comes prior to Lent with the joy and glory of the Lord's Resurrection. Lent exists because of Easter, not because of Carnival, and rightly so. We empty ourselves during Lent so as to be filled with Christ, and Christ alone. Only through that journey will we find what we are truly looking for. Still, how much more complete is the picture when considering the whole movement? from folly to self denial to true joy.

This is the story of conversion. In order to turn toward Jesus Christ, we have to turn away from something else. We all live out Folly's dream to chase off Death, to put off conversion to a later date, to pretend that the way things are now is "alright" and we don't require change.

Symbols speak to the human person much more loudly than concepts. Never limit the truth to words. Truth is communicated in ways a thousand times more profound than mere words. Carnival is a secular response to a religious practice, but that does not make it any less valuable. It just means there is a default human reaction to the call to repentance: stupidity.

I don't advocate debauchery, gluttony, lust, or drunkenness. However, I recognize that we are all drunk on our sins, in one way or another. Tomorrow, we will likely wake up hungover on those same sins. It might not be literally tomorrow, but we will all eventually find the emptiness and pain our sins cause, just as Qoheleth did. Hopefully that day comes sooner rather than later. Hopefully it comes tomorrow (which for me is a couple of hours away).

On the superficial level (which is by no means unimportant), Mardi Gras is fun. It's a good time. Yet if I dig deeper, I find that it is a powerful reminder to me of my "no" to God. Quite frankly, there are few stronger motivators for me to say "yes" to him tomorrow.

Female Altar Servers? No Problem

It's a pretty common opinion among my generation of priests that the presence of female altar servers makes boys less desirous of serving at the altar, and therefore less likely to hear the call to priesthood. I strongly disagree. I'm tired of the statistics being twisted (the ones that accurately show that most new priests were once altar servers) to suit the polemic against altar girls.

It's not girl altar servers that push boys (or anyone) away from altar serving. Rather, it's sub-par altar server training. It's the failure to give children actual responsibilities. It's lazy and lackluster liturgy. All of those things have been pretty much concurrent with the presence of female altar servers. To blame the middle/high school age altar server exodus on mere presence of girls is to completely ignore the real issues.

I was an altar server. One of my fellow priests was also an altar server with me, same age, same parish. There were a ton of female altar servers too. Neither of us were driven away from serving nor from the priesthood. Why? We loved serving. We were taught well, and we had responsibilities. We enjoyed being good at what we did, and we didn't want to let anyone down. That's really all it took to keep our interest. The gender of the participants had nothing to do with it.

Furthermore, the presence of female servers in no way hindered the parochial vicar (who was in charge of the servers) from encouraging priestly vocations all the time. We heard about it on a regular basis, and in fact, that's where I got the idea.

If you are half-hearted in your training of altar servers, you'll get half-hearted servers that think what they're doing is lame. And that's how you lose altar servers. Blaming it on girls is a red herring that needs to go away.