DEFENDING YOUR LIFE

As a way of strengthening my left leg (muscles atrophy quickly when you don’t have a hip for close to 6 months), I walk on a treadmill for over a mile and a quarter 4 to 5 times a week. This usually occurs around 9:30 pm after I’ve gotten home from the various evening church meetings/support groups etc and awakening Ruthie so she can go to work. As a way of passing the time, I watch a lot of movies on my Kindle as I walk. Having watched many comedies and action films, I recently have watched a very special film that Albert Brooks wrote, directed and starred in, along with Meryl Streep and Rip Torn, entitled, “Defending Your Life”. The premise of the film is that when people die, they go to a place called Judgment City where they go on trial to see how well they have conquered the fears that have plagued them through life. If they have done well in overcoming their fears, they go on to a higher form of life. If they have not done well, they go back to earth to live again, hopefully, to once and for all conquer their fears sufficiently to move on when they die again. One of the funniest parts of the film is when Brooks and Streep visit the Hall of Lives to view some of their past lives. Standing in adjoining cubicles, Brooks sees his past self as a terrified African native being chased by a lion. Streep sees herself as a knight rallying troops for battle. He calls out to her, “Who are you seeing?” She replies, “I think I am Prince Valiant. Who are you in your past life?” He replies, “Lunch!” The cameo of Shirley MacLaine in the Hall of Lives is priceless. 

 

While the premise of “living multiple lives until we get it right” I find rather depressing and not consistent with my faith as a Catholic, I find the idea that the greatest obstacle to eternal life is not sin but fear very thought provoking. How many of us find our lives dominated by fear? Have our fears impeded our growing into becoming the human beings God call us to be?

 The comedian, W.C. Fields’ greatest fear was to be penniless. Early on in his career as a comedic juggler in vaudeville, he would find himself stranded in a town in Nowhere, America with no money, the manager of the vaudeville troupe having skipped town with all the wages of the performers. His fear began a curious practice he continued for the rest of his life. Every time there was a whistle stop, he would hop out of the train, run to the local bank and open a savings account under aliases like Mahatma Kane Jeeves. He kept all the passbooks from these banks in a steamer trunk that he had with him (the other steamer trunk contained all his liquor) so that in the event he was stranded, he could go to that bank and withdraw some money. When he toured internationally, he did the same thing in every country he played. It was thought that at the time of his death in 1946, he had millions upon millions of dollars sitting idle under numerous aliases in banks throughout the world. Even with all of this security, his fear of poverty paralyzed him.

 

The fear of growing old has been the cause of many people, notably celebrities like Joan Rivers, to have so many plastic surgeries that they almost look inhuman. I recently saw Joan Rivers on television and I remarked to my daughter, Beth, that her face look like the face of the character “The Joker” that Jack Nicholson portrayed in the movie Bat Man, his face frozen into an unnatural smile. How many cosmetic companies, like old snake remedy hucksters of the past, manufacture “age cheating cosmetics” shilling a fearful aging population out of a ton of money in their attempt to cheat Father Time?

Fear has driven countries to go to war, even when governments provoke the masses to go to war by falsely duping them into thinking there is a real threat of “weapons of mass destruction.” Wall Street brokers use fear to “justify” raising the prices of petroleum and other much needed commodities. I think we can all go on and on and on naming the fears that dominate our lives and so many lives in our world.

The pertinent question to ask ourselves is does fear drive our faith life? I know it drove my faith life for many, many years. As a kid, the portrayal of God that I received was not a benevolent, loving Deity, but rather the severe judge inclined to send more people to Hell than not. The women religious I had as educators when I was a child filled me with all sorts of stories of God’s stern justice meted out to a hapless humanity. The fires of Hell, Divine retribution, stories of demonic possession etc were told so that those of us who voluntarily may not desire Heaven, would be scared into Heaven. The hearts of the nuns who taught me as a child were in the right place, however, their methods were very flawed.

I remember well singing the “Dies Irae” at Requiem Masses as a kid. Let’s helicopter jump through some of the English translation of the Latin text of this funeral hymn …

1.Day of wrath and doom impending,     2. Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth,
David's word with Sibyl's blending,           When from heaven the Judge descendeth,
Heaven and earth in ashes ending!             On whose sentence all dependeth.

4. Death is struck, and nature quaking,   5. Lo! the book, exactly worded,
All creation is awaking,                             Wherein all hath been recorded:
To its Judge an answer making.                 Thence shall judgement be awarded.

6. When the Judge his seat attaineth,     9. Think, kind Jesu!–my salvation
And each hidden deed arraigneth,           Caused thy wondrous Incarnation;
Nothing unavenged remaineth.                 Leave me not to reprobation!

12. Guilty, now I pour my moaning,         14. Worthless are my prayers and sighing,
All my shame with anguish owning;         Yet, Good Lord, in grace complying,
Spare, O God, Thy suppliant groaning!     Rescue me from fires undying!

17. Low I kneel, with heart submission,  18. Ah! that day of tears and mourning!
See, like ashes, my contrition;                    From the dust of earth returning
Help me in my last condition.                     Man for judgement must prepare him;
                                                                     Spare, O God, in mercy spare him!

 

When we hear the scriptural phrase, “fear of the LORD,” is the Dies Irae the kind of fear of God that phrase provokes within us? The phrase, well translated, should read “Awe of the LORD.” To be in awe of someone or something creates a much different emotion than the dread that fear provokes. 

Are we not in awe of the beautiful sunrises and sunsets we see in nature? Does not a melodic passage in music generate awe within us when we listen to it. There is one chord in the Copland’s “Appalachian Spring Suite” that follows his treatment of the Shaker Hymn, “Simple Gifts”, that touches me so deeply that I weep. The magnificence of the 4^th movement of Beethoven’s 9^th “Choral” Symphony drives me to such heights of awe that I do not come down from it for days.

Does the great love of Jesus, who lived, suffered and died for not only his followers but for all humankind, good and bad, from the beginning of creation till its end, generate within us fear or awe? For me, it must be awe. And every time I see an act of self-giving love from one human being to another, I feel the same great awe. The loving touch of a parent to a child, the volunteer assisting those who are in need. The washing of the sore, battered feet of the weary. The providing of food, clothing, and safe shelter to those who are homeless. The embrace of someone who has been beaten and battered by life. Holding the hand of one leaving this life for the next. These are acts of love that produce within me feelings of great awe for they reflect the love of Jesus who loved us beyond all love.

Would it not benefit us to prepare our lives for the next life by living lives filled with acts of awe rather than filling our lives with fear? If our lives must be measured in some way at our passing, let them be measured by those experiences of awe. May awe rather than fear dominate our lives, for where ever there is awe, we will find God.

 

EARTHEN VESSELS: A liturgical reflection

We hold a treasure
Not made of gold
In earthen vessels, wealth untold
One treasure only, the Lord, the Christ
In earthen vessels.

This beautiful text is from the hymn, “Earthen Vessels,” written by John Foley SJ. As a liturgical musician for over 37 years, I have sung the words of this hymn, and have meditated on the words often. The text is based on a passage from Paul’s 2^nd Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 4, verses 6-10, “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Christ. But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed;  always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.” (NAB)

As the Logos, the Word of God, the Son of God chose the human body, fragile and easily broken as it is, in which to be incarnated, so, too does the Son of God pick as his first choice to dwell, our fragile and easily broken bodies. It is because our bodies are so fragile that Christ chooses them so that, as Paul so wonderfully writes, the life of Christ may be shown as coming from God and not from something that we, as human beings, can manufacture. We are reminded at every funeral, every burial, and most vividly, on Ash Wednesday when ashes are smeared on our foreheads, that our bodies are from the earth. We find that our beginning and our end is that of the earth. We are earthen vessels.

The text from the refrain of the hymn, “Earthen Vessels,” has led me to reflect on the centuries old practice of having chalices (essentially a fancy cup) and ciborium (essentially a fancy plate on a stick) made of precious metal, mostly gold. For a while, after the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, other materials, including clay/pottery and wood, were considered very worthy of use as chalice and ciborium for the celebration of the Mass. Sadly, with the new Roman Missal and the way it is being understood/promulgated by some bishops, the practice of using pottery is being forbidden in dioceses, including ours. In particular, pottery, an earthen vessel, is not worthy enough to hold the Body and Blood of Christ, so we are told. It is too easily broken. The question I would wish to pose to the bishops is this, “is this teaching of God, or of humanity?” 

If we used the reasoning of some of the bishops about the use of precious metals as being only worthy enough to hold the Body and Blood of Jesus, we as human beings, fragile and broken as we are, would never be able to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus in Holy Communion. By emphasizing that the material that holds the Body and Blood of Christ must be of precious metal, do we not make the precious metal more of a treasure than the Body and Blood of Jesus? This does not seem to be the first choice of God but rather the choice of human beings. It is not God who has an obsession with gold or silver, it is a human obsession. Do not gold chalices and ciborium embellished with jewels take away from that which is the real treasure, the treasure that is beyond human value, that being the Body and Blood of Jesus? Does not all the gold finery distract from the Body and Blood of Christ? As Paul states very straightforwardly, God does not choose precious metal in which to dwell, God chooses the weakest of all materials, the human body. If the human body is an acceptable receptacle for the Body and Blood of Jesus, so why not use that which is made from the earth, a simple substance from the earth like pottery so that “that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us?”