CNA Columns: Led Into the Truth

Keeping Christmas in Christmas

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Father Joshua Allen

The stores are decorated, all of the Christmas fare has been out for purchase since shortly after Labor Day, trees are being snatched up at lots all over Atlanta, and lights will soon be going on, that is, in the homes that bothered to wait until after the Fourth of July to decorate.

In all seriousness, the Christmas blitz has begun. Two weeks ago, I started preaching about keeping Christmas simple and keeping the season of Advent intact. And in doing so, I have joined a chorus of voices from the Church that have exhorted the faithful to be on guard regarding the nearly blasphemous materialism that has so often shrouded the true meaning of Christmas.

Christmas, now more a material than spiritual event, is celebrated earlier and earlier each year. Not surprisingly, the rapid ascendency of the secular material Christmas has corresponded to the secularization of the faithful and the increasing assaults from both within and outside of the Church on her fundamental mission, which is to proclaim the saving message of Christ in the world. Unfortunately, these days Christ has less and less to do with Christmas.

But, I believe in Christmas. I believe in Jesus Christ, and I believe that it is possible to salvage the true meaning of Christmas, though I think it will require some serious sacrifices. The purpose of this column is to assist you with some ideas on how to make Christmas truly special while keeping Advent intact. I recognize that our culture has progressed to an extraordinary level of false celebration that will be very difficult to overcome, so I am not expecting the complete and full reversal of the troubling remnants of the secular trends in Christmas; rather, I would like to make some suggestions that can help you and your families to make strong steps towards a deeply Christian and less material experience of Christmas.

First, some principles:

1) We assume that the most joyful Christmas ever celebrated was the one in Bethlehem when Jesus entered into the world. This Christmas was a notable mixture of poverty and splendor. Christ was born in a less than glorious place, but the entire magnificence of the heavenly host appeared to a poor shepherd in the middle of a field singing “Gloria in excelsis Deo” and indicating the coming of the savior.

2) To the extent that we can approach the fundamental truths present in that first Christmas, our personal experience of Christmas should approach the joy experienced by Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and even the angels. Those truths are simplicity, glory, family, and a fundamental orientation to the incarnation of Christ in our lives.

Keeping these principles in mind, if we can devise even small strategies designed to emphasize simplicity, glory, family and the personalization of the Incarnation in our lives, we should be able to help our own families to experience Christmas more deeply.

To this end, I recommend considering the following:

1) Decoration. For many families with strong family traditions, the expectation that Christmas decoration would be delayed until Christmas Eve is unattainable…at least not as a first step. To be clear: I think that is the ideal. But ideals are not always easy to attain. Many families keep the wonderful tradition of slowly filling the family Manger scene with figures on the Sundays of Advent. On the first Sunday, the stable or structure itself is put out. On the second Sunday, the animals can be put in the scene. On the third Sunday, the shepherds can be placed in the field, and other figures inserted. The fourth Sunday brings Mary and Joseph, and then Christmas brings the baby Jesus and the Angel proclaiming the “Gloria.”

But, I recommend something further: the central figure in secular Christmas decoration is the Christmas Tree. I recommend that you go ahead and decorate the whole house as you normally would, but don’t turn on any of the lights. Put up your tree, but don’t decorate it. If you like, place some purple and pink ribbons on the tree to indicate that we are still in Advent. Make the Nativity Scene the focus of the decorations.

On Christmas Eve, in the morning, decorate the tree with your family. But don’t turn on the lights yet. Only once the sun goes down (or, if you attend a Vigil Mass or Midnight Mass, after Mass) do you light up the tree and the house and place the Baby Jesus in the manger. Then keep your decorations up and lit until January 6, the Epiphany.

What will the neighbors say? They’ll think you’re crazy. And they will ask you what you’re doing. And then you’ll have the opportunity to explain what Christmas is really about. And they’ll still think you’re crazy. But hey: we’re Catholics. We can all be crazy together. What I can assure you is that if you do this, your family will experience a holier and happier Christmas than otherwise.

2) Gift Giving. You’ll notice that in the first Christmas, there was no gift-giving until the Epiphany. I am a big fan of waiting to give gifts until after Christmas…letting Christmas Day be about Jesus Christ, and then letting the gifts come later. However, I recognize the difficulty of this proposition.

But, what can you do? Keep one gift for each member of your family for Epiphany. Your tree is going to be lit for the next 12 days anyway…it might as well have gifts under it! Make the Epiphany gift the best one, and make sure that you discuss with your family the mystery of the Epiphany…the coming of the Wise Men and the fulfillment of the aspirations of all the world in the coming of Jesus as savior…before you give your gifts.

I promise you this: you and your family will stay in the Christmas spirit if there are gifts yet to come, and this small act will dramatically increase the religiosity of your Christmas season.

3) Parties. It’s probably too late for this year, but consider next year having your Christmas party after Christmas Day. First of all, everyone is available, as long as you don’t have it on the 26th, because then all of your friends will be busy taking down their decorations. Have your party on one of the days in the Octave of Christmas! Secondly, everything you offer at the party will be cheaper, because you can benefit from the after-Christmas sales!

4) Prayer. Ask yourself this question: do you spend as much time praying about the true meaning of Christmas as you spend decorating and shopping and preparing for the material aspect of the holiday? If not, it’s time to change. Consider taking your family to Mass every morning the kids are off from school during Christmas. The Mass readings are awesome…we literally celebrate Christmas for 8 days! Pray the Rosary with your family during Christmas…even if you never do it. Yes, the kids get restless. Maybe it doesn’t even seem like prayer. Jesus understands. Mary understands…she once had a little munchkin running around too.

5) Almsgiving. Consider setting aside ten percent of your Christmas budget to assist the poor. Will this make things tighter? Yes. But, if we accept that there has never been a more joyful Christmas than the first, we should discover that simplicity is something that makes us happy.

Also, ask your kids to choose something that they really love (and you do the same), and to offer that very thing to someone less fortunate than them, even if it is something they have just received for Christmas. This can be easily accomplished through the St. Vincent de Paul society. And do this on the Epiphany, which will truly help your family to understand the greatness of sacrificial giving.

Now if you’ve actually made it this far in the column, you think I’m crazy and out of touch and asking the impossible. But here’s the thing: I know families who do each of these things, and more. And they are the happiest families I know. They are the families that are not constantly stressed at Christmas.

We have to be honest, to look at our culture, and to ask ourselves whether what is going on is really something we want in our families? Then, we have to recognize that it is already in our families! This is not the work of prevention, but the work of correction. If we believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ actually has something to offer to this world, we should live as if we believe it, even to the point of making sacrifices.

Whether these suggestions are the right thing for you or not, I encourage you to consider them and to come to some resolutions about how best to celebrate the holiness of Christmas in your families. God Bless, and Happy Advent!

Saying goodbye

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Father Joshua Allen

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

As I boarded the my flight from Fiumicino to Atlanta – for the final time as a resident of Rome – the closing words of T.S. Eliot’s famous poem “The Hollow Men” came to mind. I thought of them because they invoke for me the essence of anticlimax.

I was scheduled to fly home on July 1. Because of an emergency at home, I had to change my flight. In fact – it happened quite hectically. I learned of a situation at home early one morning in Rome, and had changed my flight to the next day within an hour. This presented a problem: I had planned my final week in Rome – after five years of studies – to be one of nostalgic goodbyes. I had a Mass scheduled in the Clementine Chapel. I had friends coming in town. I was looking forward to the Pallium Mass and to seeing our Holy Father one more time before I left – maybe for the last time. It was going to be an awesome week.

But instead, I changed my flight, and then had to frantically pack my room, which was supposed be a leisurely five day process. I was literally throwing things into boxes and hoping that I didn’t toss anything that was too important. It was hot – about 95 degrees with no air conditioning – and there was really no one to help, since I was one of the last guys to leave.

So, by the time I made it to the airport the next morning, I felt like I was in shock. My awesome final nostalgia week was ruined. I didn’t even get a last look at St. Peter’s – not even from the outside. I could not believe it! After all, St. Peter’s had become a very special place for me. For all five years of my time in Rome, it’s dome dominated the view from my room. I’ve been to confession in the Basilica countless times, celebrated dozens of Masses inside, and encountered the Holy Father there on numerous occasions. I’ve guided hundreds of people through the Basilica, sharing with them the love I have for her history and deep symbolism. To leave without even getting a last morning glance at the façade, so beautifully reflecting the morning hues of the rising sun, really bothered me.

And then I arrived in Atlanta, and I discovered why our Lord changed my plans. In Atlanta, we are starting to feel the crunch that every diocese will soon experience: we have a “bubble” of faithful priests who have been serving the people for many years who are now looking to retire – or at the very least to give up the stressful job of having to run a parish – and we simply have not ordained enough men to replace them, much less to deal with the strong growth of our diocese.

I learned that the pastor at my home parish was without help for a few weeks. Seven Sunday Masses is simply too many for one priest, and so I was able to help him. A wonderful man – a fellow Knight of Columbus, and one who had been supportive of my vocation for as long as I even thought the Lord was calling me to the priesthood, died after a struggle with cancer, and I was able to be present and concelebrate his funeral along with many of the priests whose lives he had touched. Many other fantastic things happened during my foiled “nostalgia week” – too many to recount. Confessions. Anointings. Suffice it to say that I think the Lord was trying to remind me of something very important.

He was trying to remind me that this world – this magnificent place in which we live – is only transitory. I had planned for myself a “dream week” in Rome, but that week would have been little more than self-aggrandizement, merely the inflating of the importance of my experiences in the the life the Lord has given me to lead in these past five years.

Instead he called me home to be reinserted in the ministry of eternity. I spent my nostalgia week as a parish priest, celebrating Mass and the sacraments for the people of God, who are so grateful for the presence of a priest. God reminded me that when I laid down my life, I laid down my rights to nostalgia. Nostalgia is backward-looking, and the priesthood is entirely about eternity and timelessness. The priesthood looks forward to eternity, not backward to what we have lost. Jesus said something about that…he who lays his hand to the plow but turns back is not worthy of the kingdom of God.

I may never return to Italy. It’s hard to imagine, but it is possible. And make no mistake: it was absolutely magnificent. I met some of the most amazing people in the world during my time in Rome – from places as far as Jerusalem, Australia, and Peru. I was a fifteen minute stroll to St. Peter’s Basilica, and I saw the Holy Father on a regular basis. I had the opportunity to deacon for him on five occasions, and was able several times to meet him. I grew in my love for the saints – particularly St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua – who both took excellent care of me during my time in Italy. I made friends when I entered seminary seven years ago who are now priests and working in the vineyard, men with whom I will remain friends I hope, but many of whom I will never see again. Our lives, for a brief moment in history, came together in a marvelous way, and then, when God was ready, we were sent on our various paths to bring him to souls and souls to him.

It’s been an amazing five years. I could not be more grateful to God for the experience, but I am also grateful that he ended it so abruptly. I think I would have ruined the whole thing by missing the point: Italy was given to me so that I could come back here and be the priest our Lord wants me to be. It was given to me as an instrument – to prepare me to serve the people of the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Pointless nostalgia should not hinder the priestly ministry of eternality. So for me, it’s no looking back, except to be grateful. Rather, it’s time to jump into my new parish, and to love these people into heaven.

On pilgrims and pilgrimages

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Father Joshua Allen

I have recently had the opportunity to participate in two pilgrimages: one in Italy with a family I know from home, and one in Jerusalem with a group from Texas led by a priest who is a friend of mine. Since I am fast approaching the end of my time in Italy, these pilgrimages were opportunities for me to revisit, as a priest, some of the places that have made such a difference in my life.

I recall four years ago, when I spent the entire summer in Jerusalem, encountering a priest in Jerusalem who had a mixed opinion about the importance of pilgrimages. Very often, the pilgrimage experience is not much more than religious tourism: going from place to place to see and experience amazing sights, but without much attention to prayer and conversion. To the extent that a pilgrimage remains nothing more than an exotic vacation, surely its spiritual value is hindered. In this opinion he is joined by St. Gregory of Nyssa. But Gregory feels even more strongly about the issue. He condemns the entire pilgrimage mentality:

When the Lord invites the blest to their inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, He does not include a pilgrimage to Jerusalem among their good deeds; when He announces the Beatitudes, He does not name among them that sort of devotion. But as to that which neither makes us blessed nor sets us in the path to the kingdom, for what reason it should be run after, let him that is wise consider. Even if there were some profit in what they do, yet even so, those who are perfect would do best not to be eager in practicing it…(Gregory of Nyssa, On Pilgrimages.)

The fruits that pilgrims receive on a pilgrimage are, in Gregory’s opinion, available to all as a result of the sacramental life offered by the Church in all times and places. So, for him, those who seek after the graces of pilgrimage are seeking after their own vanity, ignoring the interior life available to them in all places because of the Spirit, and instead seeking after an absurd physicality in their faith, as if a historical setting can lead to future glory.

Of course, the mentality of many “pilgrimages” is even worse than what Gregory mentions. Often people are seeking nothing more than a physical experience that confirms their own pre-conceived notions of their own holiness and relationship with God. Add to that the drone of tourism – merely plodding from place to place and seeing the glory of the past through a digital viewfinder – and truly pilgrimages start to seem like a bad idea. One who visits the Holy Land and returns with nothing but photographs and sore feet has, in the thought of Gregory, not profited their soul at best, and at worst, has done serious harm. Indeed, his analysis of the situation in Jerusalem in the 4th century is not all that different from the one pilgrims find in the 21st:

Again, if the Divine grace was more abundant about Jerusalem than elsewhere, sin would not be so much the fashion among those that live there; but as it is, there is no form of uncleanness that is not perpetrated among them; rascality, adultery, theft, idolatry, poisoning, quarrelling, murder, are rife; and the last kind of evil is so excessively prevalent, that nowhere in the world are people so ready to kill each other as there; where kinsmen attack each other like wild beasts, and spill each other's blood, merely for the sake of lifeless plunder. Well, in a place where such things go on, what proof, I ask, have you of the abundance of Divine grace? (On Pilgrimages)

Here’s the problem: I am left with a paradox. Everything that Gregory is saying makes sense, and yet I just finished with two pilgrimages which I am certain redounded to the spiritual benefit of (at least some) of the pilgrims involved. The first pilgrimage involved some dear friends – a father and a son – who flew to Italy as gift for the newly-graduated high schooler. Now these men are my friends, and we could frankly have been easily justified in just having a food, wine, and photo tour of Italy, but that is not what they wanted, and it’s not what I wanted. Instead, we woke up early every morning for Mass. We broke all the rules and sang everywhere; we prayed in the holy places; and we learned and experienced the dramatic history of the coming of age of the Church in Rome and Italy. Is there no benefit, as Gregory of Nyssa would argue, to celebrating Corpus Christi in the chapel of the relic whose miracle forms the basis of the feast? Is there no benefit to celebrating Mass in the house that Francis built – a foreshadowing of the profound renewal in the entire Church that his life would provoke? Is there no benefit to praying at the tombs of martyrs who died defending the truth of the faith, especially in times such as these? I think there’s something more to it than Gregory understood.

The second pilgrimage was with a group of Texans – mostly Aggies – in the Holy Land. Much ink has been spilt over the historical veracity of the sites we today venerate as the locations in which divine mysteries occurred. One might question: if the Tomb of Christ in the Holy Sepulcher was destroyed and rebuilt – a couple of times, and if we’re not even sure it’s in the exact spot, then what is the benefit of celebrating the Mass of the Resurrection there? Even if it is the empty tomb, the operative word is empty. And yet, there is no question that Mass in the Empty Tomb changes lives. It changed mine several years ago.

I think Gregory misunderstood the purpose of the pilgrimage. It is true, objectively speaking, there is no more divine grace available in Jerusalem than there is in Walla Walla. God’s gracious gift of his own divine life was for all men at all times, and no change in latitude or longitude will amplify or diminish the availability of the gift. What changes on pilgrimage is not God, but us.

Gregory of Nyssa was not a great lover of the body. He came from a line of patristic thought that considered the image of God to rest primarily in the soul of man. The body was truly part of a human person, but it was not a very exalted part. So for Gregory, to reduce oneself to seeking after bodily experiences – which a pilgrimage is, at least on the level of geography – is to value the input of the lesser part of man’s condition more than that of his greater part.

Over time, Gregory’s own position changed. He was forced to deal with the fact of the Resurrection of the Flesh, which indicates on an objective level that God places some serious value on the body. We know that all of our information comes through the body – through the senses. We are historical creatures, and seeing the spots and context of our Christian history can help us to understand where we have been as a Church and where we are going. Pilgrimages incarnate Christianity for us. The same principle lies behind relics and physical actions such as processions and kneeling and embracing the cross on Good Friday. Gregory was defending his flock from the notion that a pilgrimage grants the pilgrim some sort of necessary grace that would be otherwise unavailable, but in the process he trampled on the notion of unnecessary grace – gratuitously given that we might be better Christians.

Pilgrimages that function as they should have a retreat-like effect on people. Removed from our normal contexts and circumstances, absent the distractions and headaches of normal life, pilgrimages give us a chance to give unfettered attention to God and his Church. I do lament that, with increased mobility of communications, too often pilgrimages today are not the escape they should be, and to the extent that we remain “wired” while journeying to God, we rise with a tether on our foot, neglecting the higher things for the lower, which is precisely Gregory’s criticism.

I do know this: pilgrimages in Italy and to the Holy Land have changed my life. Could God have given me that grace in other ways? Without question, yes. But was I ready to accept it? No. And so I thank God for pilgrimages, and especially for the two I recently had the pleasure to accompany. I pray that the pilgrims I met will be changed by their experiences and be enriched as Christians by their new perspective.

Renewing Marriage

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Father Joshua Allen

It’s wedding season. If your parish is beautiful, chances are, it’s booked for the next couple of months or more. For many couples, the perfect wedding includes a May or June reception, and all the beauty that comes with spring, and it’s not without significance: spring is the birth of beauty, just as marriage should be the birth of an unbreakable union dedicated to beauty, holiness, and truth.

Marriage in the United States has been under political assault for some time — and I’m not just talking about our recent fracas with homosexual unions. In fact, our modern struggle with homosexual unions is really just the natural progression of a general assault on marriage that has been moving in force at least since the sexual revolution. This same assault is affronting family life, and its effect on the stability of society and the health of inter-personal relationships in general has been much-discussed and well-documented.

So my intention in this column is not to contribute to the heap of arguments stacked up against gay “marriage” or the explosion of no-fault divorce or any other assault on marriage. What I am more interested in as a priest is fixing the problem.

My Uncle once taught me about a concept called the “sphere of influence.” Each of us has a group of people with which we have some influence. Some people can influence only a couple of people — perhaps just a spouse or a child. Some people have influence over thousands — folks like the President or the Pope. Our sphere of influence really defines how we are able to practice our faith: it controls the degree to which we can witness to the love of Christ in the world.

The principle of the sphere of influence means that I spend the vast majority of my efforts trying to influence those whom I have the ability to influence. This is an extremely important thing to recognize if we are to re-evangelize the world. Who is it that I am able to influence? First, my immediate family, then, my friends, and then, perhaps their friends. If I am going to be successful, I have to stick within my competency.

I’m not trying to denigrate the general Christian witness. All of us have had experiences where the actions of a stranger have moved us to be better people. A Christian is a Christian at all times and in all things, but, our active efforts, our apostolates, our evangelical activity — these must begin within the realm of our sphere of influence.

When we consider the assaults that are being leveled against marriage on the national and international levels, we can be paralyzed by the grandness of the problem and the smallness of our influence, but we must have faith: if I influence those with whom I have some pull, then I am doing an enormous good. The witness of one beautiful and holy marriage can change dozens or even hundreds of marriages, or maybe it just changes one, or maybe it just nurtures saintly children. The point is, we have to be realistic about what we can do, and we have to recognize that the small changes we are able to make will have much more effect than all of the polemic we might level against our adversaries.

All of the complaining in the world about the assaults against marriage will not produce one good marriage. Good marriages come from faithful people who recognize that they themselves are fallen and have to work on their own basic Christian lives, who surround themselves with good people, and try to share the joy they have received from God with other people, one person at a time.

Marriage was being destroyed by Christians long before other groups jumped on board, and frankly, it’s a bit ridiculous for us to only now be so up in arms about it. Marriage prep has been in shambles in our country for years, and even good people can be very closed to the truth of the faith, not to mention that those who prepare couples are often afraid to speak of the truth!

If we are going to reclaim marriage as a gift from God, as the expression of a true vocation — a call from the Lord, as the one means for a particular man and a particular woman to make it to heaven, we have to begin with renewing existing marriages. It begins with your marriage and with your family, and it involves making choices. We cannot be completely plugged in people busy every single night with never a moment to spare for living in an actual family if we are going to live the vocation we have been given. Those of you who have families: your call from God, the very way you are going to get to heaven, is through your family. It’s not a matter of how you might think you’re doing. After all, we often have heightened opinions of our own efforts. The question is whether God, who knows you inside out, would look at every action of your day and question whether it is oriented to your fundamental vocation — be it marriage, consecrated life, or priesthood.

If, when I stand before the Lord, I cannot defend every action of my life as being in keeping with my vocation as a priest, then I’m in trouble. If you cannot stand before God and defend every action you do in the world as in accord with your family and your marriage, then you will be in trouble. God is merciful (thank goodness!), and he gives us the sacrament of Confession to help us overcome our failures, which are many, but we cannot be satisfied with failure. We have to cooperate with God’s grace, and we have to influence others to do the same.

The defenses of marriage that are going on right now are important and timely and, frankly, inspiring. But more important and more inspiring is the witness that you as a married person offer to those around you. The renewal of marriage begins with you! Your simple witness will be more effective than all the legal actions in the world, because it is through witnesses, from person to person, that our faith has always been and will always be shared.

The “New Evangelization”

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Father Joshua Allen

The other day I was on the train in the city of Rome, and I was approached by Mormon missionaries.

These young men were well dressed, extremely friendly, and trained in the Italian language. They were from the United States, so we spoke for a few minutes. They asked me if I had a relationship with Jesus Christ and had accepted him into my life. As we were speaking, I unzipped my jacket, and they saw my Roman collar, which pretty much ended the conversation (though I admit, I was enjoying it).

I was only on the train for about twenty minutes, but it was interesting to watch these two missionaries. The Mormons have been extraordinarily successful in winning converts (mostly from the Catholic Church) in South America, and now it seems that they have come to the heart of the Catholic world to continue their efforts at conversion.

As I was watching them, my thoughts turned to our new Catholic buzzword, the “New Evangelization.” Frankly, I’m not exactly sure what “New Evangelization” is supposed to mean. There are two lines of thought, it seems.

The first is that of the Academics. There have been numerous conferences about the New Evangelization here in Rome, and and they are concerned with the relationship of faith and reason and modern culture’s encounter with the Gospel. This thread purports to be the intellectual basis for actually going out and introducing people to Jesus Christ, a figure poorly known in our times.

The second thread of thought concerning the “New Evangelization” is a lot closer to the “Mormon approach.” It is a pastoral approach. Many bishops have followed the lead of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. and have instituted citywide confession programs, emphasizing the importance of the frequent reception of the sacraments. This is a laudable and hope-inspiring movement that I would love to see spread across the entire country.

What we do not see a lot of, however, is an active approach to positively spreading the message of Jesus Christ in the sense of missionary activity. We don’t really have our own versions of the Mormon missionaries. There are some programs here and there, but for the most part, the Catholic Church in the West has ceased to be a missionary Church.

I think that’s why Mormons are converting Catholics in droves in Italy. You’d think it would be impossible here! Rome is the center of the Catholic world. There are thousands of priests and seminarians here when school is in session. There are over 500 churches in the city! It seems like you can’t ever be more than a 5-minute walk from one! And yet, in general, Roman parish life is non-existent. And this is not an isolated phenomenon: all over Europe, parish life is dead.

I once had a pastor in a summer assignment tell me that a parish without a mission is a dead parish. Something about actively spreading the faith, whether the mission is in the local area or whether it is in another country, sparks a fire in a parish. We are instructed by Jesus to “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16:15). Without that missionary focus—spreading the joy and the hope we have received from Christ—it seems unlikely that a faith could truly remain strong and vibrant.

But there’s a problem with evangelization. There’s something that makes it fairly unattractive: it’s difficult. And it tends to create martyrs. In a society where simply walking around in clerics can earn insults and spitting (as has happened to me in both my hometown of Atlanta, GA, and also in Ireland, historically an uber-Catholic country), in a society where the legal environment is approaching, little by little, the point where the simple charitable defense of the truth of who the human person is and what our true destiny is could lead to arrest for hate speech or civil disturbance, in a society that shuns anyone who exits from the rat race of materialism and technological one-upmanship, in a society that has forgotten what it means to love someone so much that one discovers objective truth in the midst of that love—in such a society, evangelization is going to be painful.

But to not evangelize is even more painful, because the destructive anti-Gospel movement has never stopped. Whether it takes the form of relativistic indifference, of the perversion of the concept of civil rights, of the doctrine of fairness unfairly applied, or even of outright hostility to the truth one finds in religion, there are forces in our world that are working against the Gospel, using the indifference of the multitudes to their favor. Indifference is more destructive than hate. Remember, it is neither the hot nor the cold that the Lord spews from his mouth, but the lukewarm (Rev 3:16).

And so we must engage in the work of evangelization. It must begin with a Catholic renewal in our own lives. We have to kindle the fire first, perhaps by making a retreat, or engaging in more frequent adoration (or any at all), or greater pondering of the Scriptures. Through these means, or whatever means you might think best, let the Lord renew your own spirit. Make confession a more regular part of your life, and perhaps strive to attend Mass more frequently, even daily if possible. This personal renewal is the precursor to any evangelical activity we might attempt.

From there, what will be required is boldness, like the boldness of the apostles, who did not know exactly how to go about spreading the message of hope and joy which they had received, but their zeal and love gave them the strength to take the necessary risks, to be foolish for Christ. We need to be courageous in the face of the degeneration of our society, recognizing that Christians are the light of the world and the leaven used to give life to society. If we cannot center our lives on Christ, we will never be able to evangelize the culture, and sadly, we will be failing in the mission the Lord has given to us.

But we can do it, one person at a time, with the help of the Holy Spirit and the grace of Christ. It might not look pretty, but we know it ends well.

Abortion: A Catholic problem

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Father Joshua Allen

This week the United States endured the 39th Anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that expanded the breadth of Constitutional “privacy” to include the slaughter of the innocents. Thirty-nine years later, some 54 million deaths have been estimated (not including the under-counted medical abortions and the uncounted, untold thousands of children destroyed as excess baggage in IVF procedures or who were prevented from implantation by artificial birth control). By the time this column is published you will, undoubtedly, have been inundated with data suggesting that one third of the current generation of youth have already been annihilated and that our legislative prospects seem to be no further along than before. In fact, very shortly it seems that those who work for Catholic non-parochial institutions will have the great American “privilege” of receiving free contraception, sterilization procedures, and access to “morning-after” pills that make promiscuity and irresponsibility so apropos.

You have probably heard that Constitutional Law scholar and President of the United States Barack Obama has announced that abortion is a fundamental Constitutional right, seemingly on the same “fundamental” level as a bicameral legislature and thrice-branched governmental system of checks and balances. Surely the only reason the forefathers failed to include abortion in the Bill of Rights is their inherent cultural sexism, a hurdle we have thankfully overcome in today’s enlightened society.

A new study claims having an abortion is safer than giving birth. Raymond and Grimes found that between 1998 and 2005 one woman died for every 11,000 or so babies born, while only one woman in 167,000 died per child aborted. The authors of the study did not intend to indicate that abortion is the prudent choice for safety-conscious Americans, but the implication is unavoidable. One can hardly imagine that institutions such as Planned Parenthood will do anything other than advertise such conclusions. Noticeably absent from the study is any interest in and concern for the mortality of the children.

I have had many conversations with confused Catholics over the position of the Church concerning voting for candidates who are pro-choice. Because of the technical meaning of the term “proportional reason,” there is a lot of room for confusion. Due to this lack of clarity, many Catholics take “proportional reason,” turn it into “proportionalism,” and decide to weigh a whole package of issues and place personally-determined weights on them to construct a formula that allows the individual to vote for the person they were going to support anyway. This phenomenon is a reality for both conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans.

With 65 million Catholics in the United States, a voter turnout of 27 to 30 million Catholics in any given presidential election, it is absolutely clear that if Catholics actually stood without exception for life, then the United States would be a pro-life Republic. As it is, we rationalize our decisions far too often and convince ourselves that prudential issues—about which there is room for reasonable disagreement—are on the same level of importance as those issues on which we cannot compromise. It seems that the continued slaughter of the innocents in the United States is a problem perpetuated, in part, by Catholics. After all, Catholics account for nearly 30 percent of voters in every national election. Any pollster will tell you they can make all the difference in the final outcome.

The foundation of this point of view—that of relativism with respect to the most foundational of rights, the right to life—is based on a view of our lives that fails to consider the fact that this life is preparation for the next. The callousness of those who ignore the actual death of children in favor of pursuing some sort of theoretical solution that might correct the social conditions that supposedly prompt the need for abortion is truly astounding. While it’s laudable to seek improvement in economic or social conditions, we cannot deny that when we try to find merely a sociological explanation of the abortion issue, some quick and easy “solution,” we are endangering the eternal souls of those involved. Justifying abortion in this way contributes to the slow self-destruction of a population that is barely replacing itself, and inhibits the introduction of life and hope and love into the world by promoting destruction and death.

It’s simple. How do we eliminate the conditions that make abortion possible? By making abortion impossible.

We are an economically motivated people. We live in an economically motivated country. As long as the cheap and easy solution of abortion exists as a possibility, it will always be difficult to motivate that portion of the populace already prone to choosing the easy way out to consider the hard choice of responsibility: either in providing for the child personally or by offering him for adoption. For all of our thirty-nine years of trying to better the conditions that make abortion “necessary,” each year, the aggregate number of abortions remains stubbornly high—some 1.2 million induced abortions a year in the United States. And because of our current administration’s support of the Mexico City Policy and the UN Population Fund, we are now in the business of exporting our own self-destructive depravity, packaged to third world nations as a solution to poverty.

As bad as the problem is, we have reason to hope. The prayers of millions of pro-life Christians cannot go unheard. We must believe that the Lord has this travesty in his providential hands and that he will bring from it what is necessary for the salvation of souls. But we really should be giving God more to work with. I often wonder if what the Lord is seeking through all this is the conversion of Catholics. It is too easy to look outside ourselves for the cause and locus of the problem. After all, I’m pro-life, right?

But, how often am I using those exceptions about remote material cooperation with evil? How often am I supporting a company that gives money to Planned Parenthood or some other pro-abortion organization, convincing myself that if I were to eliminate all the guilty companies from my sphere of support then I would hardly be able to function. True enough, but doesn’t that reasoning just feed a callous Phariseeism that allows me to judge others harshly without actually changing anything in my own life? I’m not sure that the permissibility of remote material cooperation means that nothing in my economic life should change. The simple fact is, I don’t have a serious reason for eating Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. I cannot legitimately get around supporting them without some mental machination. In fact, if I can’t find an ice cream company that refuses to support Planned Parenthood, I suppose I shouldn’t eat ice cream or I should make my own. Because as it turns out, there are no grave reasons for eating ice cream.

The allowance of remote material cooperation with evil exists to allow Catholics to live in a fallen world. But, it is not permission to avoid personal sacrifice in confrontation with evil.

The pro-life movement must lead by example, but shooing away any objectionable practices of private companies because we really like their products, and we think we can squeeze supporting them into remote material cooperation, is not a great example to set. The Church has proven in its history that the times of its greatest growth are always fueled by martyrdoms. We would be poor Catholics indeed if we offload the entirety of that sacrifice on innocent fetuses. I think they’ve given enough.

Post-Christmas Diagnostics

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Father Joshua Allen

It’s over. The parties, the feasts, the gifts, the returns, the re-gifting, the feverish spending of gift card money. The leftovers are finally gone. The cakes and pies and candies and all of the other things that we accumulate but do not eat have been thrown away. Trees are back in their boxes or they are sitting by the street waiting to be mulched. Stockings are stored in dark cabinets and Nativity scenes have been carefully wrapped and put away for next year. The Christmas season, as wonderful as it was, is (mercifully?) finished.

Given that our festive excess has ended, that the bacchanalia of year-end excitement is done, perhaps it is time for an evaluation. Without doubt, anyone who is reading this column has been exhorted, certainly during the Advent Season, and perhaps even during Christmas itself, to heroically shun or, at the very least, to mildly reduce holiday materialism and excess. And like most good Catholics, we listen to the homilies and read the articles about returning to the kernel of Christmas that centers around the coming of Jesus, and we make all sorts of resolutions to keep our spending and our eating and our general excess in check, but when it is all over, we mostly find our resolutions have been as ineffectual as those made in haste on New Year’s Day and casually forgotten by Epiphany.

The simple fact is that we are a frequently, but briefly, resolved people.

Since I have been in seminary, I have been convinced intellectually that giving gifts on Christmas Day is a bad idea. It takes away from the celebration of the birth of Christ, and it contributes to the societal misconception under which we all too often operate that Christmas is a day instead of a season.

Each year, I resolve to give gifts on Epiphany instead of Christmas. This is much harder than it sounds, and each year I mostly fail. I end up giving Epiphany gifts to people only because I don’t see them before Epiphany. And I’m a priest! If I do things that are a little odd, people smile lovingly and comment that it is so sweet that Father is trying to inculcate a refreshing Christianity into Christmas.

Still, I find each year that the culture is so anti-Christmas that it is nearly impossible to celebrate the Birth of Christ in any way other than via excess commerce.

I offer an example: This was my first Christmas as a priest and my first Christmas at home in Atlanta in five years. I was at my home parish, surrounded by wonderful families whom I have known for a decade. I planned to visit with my brother and his family on the 26th and to my great delight, they were planning to come to the Rectory for a nice lunch that I would prepare and then we could enjoy one another’s company for a time.

I woke early on the 26th to head to the supermarket. The shelves had been ransacked as if the weatherman had predicted intermittent snow flurries. As I approached the check-out line, I noticed the restocking operation in full swing. But, I was horrified: all the Christmas decorations were coming down, and the stock boy was putting out the Easter candy! That’s right: Easter. It was the second day of Christmas!

My sister-in-law works for a business that decorates commercial properties for Christmas. They are feverishly busy on Thanksgiving weekend putting up generic, non-offensive Christmas decorations such as snowmen, garland and lights. Christmas evening and the day after they frequently spend taking down said decorations, because Christmas ends on Christmas Day.

Two days after Christmas, I walked into my bank and there wasn’t a single decoration. The only remnant of Christmas was a bit of leftover candy in a dish, which I assume will be replaced quickly with now-abundant Easter eggs.

So the question is: How was your Christmas? Here’s a simple survey: during the Octave of Christmas, how many times did you go to the mall, to Wal-Mart, to electronics stores or to online shops, using gift cards, exchanging presents, spending Christmas cash and generally engaging in commerce? And how many times did you attend Mass during the eight-day solemn octave of the Nativity of our Lord?

How much time did you set aside for real prayer?

Here’s the simple measurement: if you went to the mall more than you spent quality time with God during the Octave, then your Christmas was to materialistic. Staving off greed is not a defense that ends Christmas morning. Keeping Christ in Christmas is more than attending a 4 p.m. vigil Mass on Christmas Eve.

Here’s another measurement: how much did you give to charity this year? How much did you spend on Christmas gifts? Our gifts to the poor and needy as a general rule should exceed our gifts to the well-off and satisfied. As much as that new iPod or video game means to your child, there are people out there with far greater need.

People right in your parish.

So all those homilies before Christmas, all those attempts to keep Christ in Christmas – it turns out those messages were for us as much as they were for the stores stocking chocolate eggs on St. Stephen’s Day. Sure, I might rail at the secularism of others, but what sort of witness am I myself giving? What sort of example have I been? Who are the ones who need to keep Christ in Christmas?

You and I.

If your Christmas was too materialistic this year, if you are railing at the credit card bills that are beginning to come in, if you are questioning the wisdom of the way you approach the holiday, now is the time to make resolutions. Materialism is not something we can eliminate in the height of temptation. That’s a little like telling an alcoholic not to worry about his addiction until he finds himself bellied up to the bar.

To eliminate (or even reduce) materialism in our lives requires sacrifice and planning all year, and it requires increasing our devotion and our prayer life all year.

Christmas is given to us as a season of joy, but it is primarily a season of religious joy. We have to remember: the Magi brought gifts to Jesus, not to one another. Our gift giving is supposed to help us remember and imitate the giving of gifts to Jesus: to see the face of Jesus in our family and friends and neighbors and to give to them inasmuch as they are a representation of Christ in the world. This sort of giving requires serious planning, serious thought, and serious prayer. This sort of giving results in us growing closer to the Lord, who came in poverty to save all men of good will.
So if it wasn’t what it should be, now is the time to change. Reduce materialism in your life in January, and you will find it easier to do in February. Increase your prayer and attentiveness at Mass now, and it will be easier when your schedule is more complicated. Keeping Christ in Christmas is hard work, and our culture is working against us. To win the battle, we have to engage in the fight against materialism and secularism each day. The Lord will give us the grace. We can do it with his help, and his help is never lacking to those who ask!

Draw near, O Lord!

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Father Joshua Allen

Draw near, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty and Eternal God. These words mark the beginning of the prayer of consecration that my bishop will proclaim after he and the gathered presbyterate of Atlanta have laid their hands on me at my priestly ordination. He will invoke the Holy Spirit; he will recall the workings of God in the history of man, and with this prayer, I will be inserted into the mystery of salvation as an active agent, as the hands of Jesus Christ the High Priest in the world. And it will happen tomorrow.

Seven years I have been a seminarian. One year in the diocese, two years at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, and four at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Italy. All of this time has been spent following a plan laid out by the Church to form priests into the heart of Christ, to prepare them to be sacramental instruments. Seven years of grace; seven years in the hidden life, walking with Jesus more or less faithfully, learning to listen to him, learning to help others listen to him. These seven years culminate tomorrow, and then there is a new beginning.

It would not be entirely fair to say that Jesus Christ was a stranger to me before entering seminary, but it would not be far off. Certainly he was a stranger — even perceived by me as an enemy — only a couple of years earlier. And yet somehow, in the providence of God, tomorrow I will be given the power, authority, and obligation to forgive sins in sacramental confession and to celebrate the Eucharist, the central mystery of our faith and of the entire created universe. Jesus came into the world not to judge it, but to save it. He has called me to be his co-worker in salvation, to reconcile souls to him and to assist his children in climbing the ladder of divine ascent, becoming like God, the great mystery to which we have each been called. Draw near, O Lord!

I won’t say that I’m nervous. To be nervous is to have jitters caused by either lack of preparation or lack of confidence in the face of the requirement to perform. I am not nervous. “Nervous” does not capture the depth of my experience. What I am experiencing is fear. Fear of the Lord, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Sometime tomorrow afternoon, I will sit down in a confessional. I will pull a little purple stole out of my pocket. I will kiss it, and I will place it around my neck. I will feel its weight. I will sit there for a minute. I will pray. I will feel horribly unprepared. If I know myself well enough, I bet I’ll start trying to bargain with God, perhaps suggesting that my ordination day is not the best day to hear confessions. Perhaps I should wait until tomorrow?

And then someone will come into the confessional. It will be my first confession, so more likely than not, it will be a friend of mine. And then the most terrible and wonderful thing in the world will happen. My friend will speak to me as if I am Jesus Christ. He won’t be speaking to me. And he’ll suddenly be telling me things that he would never tell me otherwise, things that you would never say to another person. He will give me a window into his soul. Draw near, O Lord!

And I’ll listen. And I’ll be worried about giving him advice. And whatever I say probably won’t be very helpful, because after all, I’m fresh off the boat. A deer in headlights is still a deer, but not in its most impressive moment. Ultimately I’ll say something. I’ll probably forget some part of the rite: either to give a penance or to ask for the Act of Contrition. Thank God the Church supplies. What penance I give will be mundane. I’ll probably want to give something unique and powerfully associated with the sin that has been listed, but my guess is that I’ll fall back on the classic. But you know what, Mary’s happy to be someone’s penance. Draw near, O Lord!

And then I’ll say the words of absolution. They will surprise me, because I’ll remember them. During the confession itself, I probably won’t be listening very well, because I’ll be worried about getting everything right. About half way through the whole thing, I’ll stop listening entirely and start wondering if I remember the words of absolution. And I won’t. And I’ll panic inside, and I’ll start wondering whether I have the card in my pocket. I’ll imagine how horrible it will be for the penitent when I have to tell him to wait a second while I run to the sacristy to get the ritual book with the words of absolution in them. My mind will go so blank that I won’t even be able to remember where I am. My heart will race; my legs will start to shake. Draw near, O Lord!

But then the moment will come. I’ll raise my hand. It will be shaking. I’ll notice. And then the words will start coming from my mouth: God the Father of mercies. I’ll marvel that I remember them, even as I am saying them. My confidence will grow, and when the crucial words come, I will make the sign of the cross with a hand completely free of jitters, because the thing is, Jesus is not nervous about forgiving your sins, and it’s he that does it, not me. Draw near, O Lord!

You’ll have to trust me: that’s the way it will go. Probably. That’s always the way it goes on earth: slipping and sliding and limping all the way to heaven (hopefully). It’s the same with motherhood, which has its moments, but it’s generally about dirty diapers, snotty noses, frazzled nerves, and just holding it together for most of the time and hoping the failures are not catastrophic. Same thing with fatherhood. Same thing with priesthood. Glory is not always a pretty thing, I suppose. Not in this life, anyway.

It’s not nervousness I’m describing really. I’m talking about the smallness I know I will feel in the face of such a mystery. Moses saw God passing by in fire and smoke, and the fear and awe he experienced was such that his face had a radiance frightening to the Israelites. This is no wispy glance at the back of God; this is acting in the person of Jesus Christ, who is God. The audacity of such a thing would be nothing short of the worst sort of blasphemy in the Old Covenant. It is no mean thing to act in the person of the Savior of all the world. Draw near, O Lord!

Seven years as a seminarian. Thirty-three years as a wayfarer in this world. And tomorrow, I taste eternity. Tomorrow I experience the weight of glory. Tomorrow, I will be changed, and when the last trumpet sounds and the dead shall be raised, I shall be raised a Priest of Jesus Christ for all eternity. There is a heaviness in my heart — not of sadness, but of holy fear — a heaviness that finds no expression. Perhaps it is the Spirit groaning in words I cannot understand. It pounds, it stirs my emotions, and it causes a certain kind of ache, a longing that I cannot fulfill, that I cannot ignore, and that I cannot explain. I know it is the Holy Spirit preparing me to receive the gift of priesthood, but all I can think of is glory. The glory of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The glory of creation crying out to be reunited with God. It is in the glory of God that we were made; it is the glory of God to which we are called, and it is glory that forms the only means of understanding what will happen tomorrow: I will see the glory of God, and that glory will be in me. (Me? Are you kidding?) And then I’ll limp on, working it out as I go with the grace of God. Now, always, and unto the ages of ages. Draw near, O Lord!

Not in Kansas anymore

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Father Joshua Allen

My days as a seminarian are drawing to a close. These seven years have been nothing short of miraculous, and the end to which they lead will be even more so: in reflecting on my past, I am drawn into speechlessness at the thought of the grace God has showered upon me, staying with me as I have strayed, calling me into deeper and deeper communion with him. Now, in just a few days, God the Father will conform me to his Son definitively, in such a way that with just a few words, I will be able to turn bread into the Son of God; I will be able to wipe away the worst and most hardened filth of sin with an invocation of the Trinity; I will stand in persona Christi capitis — in the person of Christ the head — during liturgical action. I will be a priest of Jesus Christ.

A few days ago, I returned from Italy to Atlanta. I didn’t stay long though: two days later I was on a plane to Colorado to make a retreat. Canon law requires that seminarians make a retreat before ordination to the Diaconate, and then again before ordination to Priesthood. In Italy, I wear clerical attire all the time — it is so normal to see priests on the streets of Rome that you hardly even notice when one passes by. But, I have spent my entire period of theological study in Rome, so I have not really had the opportunity to wear clerics (priest garb) in the United States — certainly not in Atlanta, which is a somewhat Catholic town, but there is still a strong majority Protestant and Evangelical presence.

So, the everyday event of walking around a city in clerics that I experienced in Rome for these past four years is not exactly the same in Atlanta. I went with a friend into a coffee shop the first morning I was back. We were headed to a Sunday Mass at my home parish. My friend was in his cassock, since he was going to serve the Mass, and I was in my clerical suit. There were three or four folks in the shop. You would have thought that a three-headed camel riding a unicycle had walked through the door: “staring” is a polite understatement for the incredulous gawking that was going on.

And that was not the only occasion: as I went from place to place, the reactions continued. Not everyone stared, but just about everyone noticed. A man dressed as a priest in Atlanta truly makes an impression. It will be a lot to get used to. I found myself at times a bit uncomfortable. I was in a store looking for a picture frame for a gift I had brought someone from Italy, and there was a point that I had to close my eyes and ask God for the strength not to care what people thought, so intense was the attention I was garnering from passers by.

So when I flew to Colorado — wearing clerics on the plane — I prepared myself for the stares. I heard a few people make unpleasant comments one to another (obviously intended for my ears), but for the most part, when I smiled at someone — something that I am prone to do — they smiled back. At the Denver airport baggage claim, I found myself in the middle of a group of young adults who were embarking on some sort of evangelical campaign, and suddenly I was barraged with “questions” about the Catholic faith that were more like accusations. I thought to myself: this cleric-wearing thing is going to be difficult.

On the drive to the retreat center, which is magnificently located adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park, I stopped in a little diner to grab lunch. A couple sitting in the next booth noticed me, and I could tell they were talking about me. I remember thinking to myself, “Good grief, Lord, can you just give me a little break?”

Just as my food was arriving, this couple was leaving. They stopped at my table, and a kind-faced woman gently asked, “Are you a Catholic priest?”

I replied, “Not yet. I’m a deacon. I’ll be ordained in a few days. That’s why I’m here in Colorado. I’m on my way to make my retreat.”

You should have seen the look on their faces. I’ve seen the look before. It’s the look my Mom had when she saw her grandson for the first time. The joy that broke over their faces was intense, and I found myself a bit speechless in return. “That’s so wonderful!” the kind lady exclaimed.

They introduced themselves, and asked whether I was studying for Denver. I felt really bad to say that I was not: they seemed so eager to welcome me into their parish and diocese. We spoke for just a moment, and then they left. It was a wonderful encounter. When I asked for my check, I was told that this couple had already paid it.

So here’s the paradox: you’d think that I would prefer to meet people like this wonderful couple from Colorado all the time. After all, it is more rewarding and affirming. But the strange truth is that I felt worse after meeting them than I did from all of the awkward and moderately hostile stares I had received from others.

The simple fact is that most of us know how to be hated more than we know how to be loved. I think that perhaps in seminary I have so prepared myself for the possibility of persecution that I have in some sense missed being prepared to be loved without cause. That beautiful couple loved me just because I was following the will of God, in however imperfect a way. They loved me because I was preparing to be the one who could forgive their sins, who could bring them Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, who could anoint them in their sickness and prepare them for a happy death.

And I felt terrible, because when I sat down at that table, I saw their stare. And I had grown a little weary of the whole thing. I remember that I did not smile at them. At best, I gave them a scowl. But these were the ones that God sent to remind me of my mission, of the greatness to which I have been called, to which we have all been called in our own state of life: to be Christ in the world for others. That couple was manifested Christ to me. And to be Christ for others is no small thing. No small thing at all.

So to whoever you are, wonderful couple from Colorado, thank you for being so wonderful. Perhaps we will meet again one day, if not in this life, then hopefully in the next.

The silence of St. Peter’s

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Father Joshua Allen

When the prayers began before the Mass of Beatification, the sky was a steely grey. That morning at 5 a.m., the outlook had been grim, with heavy clouds threatening the hills outside of the city. But, away we went, fortunate in some ways to not have been required to keep vigil all night, and in other ways somehow missing the experience of remaining awake in prayer, as did our Lord so many times. The air was chilly, but not uncomfortable.

No matter the expectation ahead of time, there is nothing I can recall quite as awe-inspiring as the sight of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims filling St. Peter’s Square and the Via Conciliazione at seven in the morning. I had been out the previous evening, wandering around the streets near the Vatican. Originally I had attempted to take a bus across the city, returning from an evening with a pilgrim group from the United States, but the streets were so congested that it proved faster — and more rewarding — to walk.

Groups of pilgrims were filing calmly down the streets of Rome, many with candles in their hands, singing songs in languages I knew not and praying rosaries. Somehow in the few days before the Beatification, all of the hotel rooms in the city had filled to capacity, and yet Rome had never been more courteous. These were not crowds of tourists; they were pilgrims on the journey to see the last step before that supreme crowning of glory which is sanctification.

St. Gregory of Nyssa once wrote a short treatise on pilgrimages. In it, he is a little severe on pilgrims. He considers the problem of being overly attached to places and to things, arguing rightly that any spiritual benefit that can accrue to a person from a pilgrimage is perfectly available through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in the normal life. He even warns of the spiritual dangers in pilgrimages, especially that a person overly concerned with traveling to holy places or holy events can lose their own soul by externalizing their faith too greatly and forgetting the eternal indwelling of the Spirit in each person. Every time I make plans to make some pilgrimage, however great or small, Gregory of Nyssa’s words creep into my mind.

As I walked towards St. Peter’s on Saturday night in the middle of a large group of Polish youth (who would hear nothing of me leaving), I thought of Nyssa’s words. Everywhere I turned, different groups composed mainly of young people greeted me with smiles and joy and not a few tears. I was asked to bless objects, to pray the rosary, and to hear a number of confessions (one request I cannot yet grant…but soon enough!). These people were on pilgrimage. They were literally just in from Krakow or Prague or Bratislava or Minsk or Kiev or wherever, and they were here at the end of long and difficult journeys to spend the night near St. Peter’s and to hear the word beatus. Amazingly, most of them had no expectation whatsoever of even making it into the square or even to a place where they could see. They just wanted to be near.

I was chastened a little by this faith, by this love. I have had such magnificent blessings since I have been in Rome. I can see the Holy Father every week at the Angelus; I can attend any Papal event I choose; I have had the opportunity to sing the Gospel at three Papal Masses. But I have never, I must admit, loved a Pope so much that I would hitchhike or travel standing-room-only on a bus or a train thousands of miles only to sleep outdoors all night with no food or adequate bathrooms only to stand for eight to ten hours just to have the opportunity — the possibility — of hearing faint echoes of the Mass of Beatification. I couldn’t believe the love that surrounded me in the actions of these Polish youth who adopted me into their pilgrimage for the last kilometer or two as they approached the bridge on which they would keep vigil.

I of course returned to my seminary. I didn’t sleep much: I kept thinking of all those young people and how I really would have loved to hear their confessions — how I perhaps should have stayed with them that night.

The next morning, I made my way to the square. By some miracle, I had a ticket to the clerical section, which meant that unlike my Polish friends from the night before, I only had to show up three or four hours early. When we entered the square and turned around, the sight was indescribable. Hundreds of thousands of people waving flags and singing songs. They had been standing in the streets and the square since about 3:30 a.m. when the congestion got so bad in Rome that they had to open up the viewing areas, which were not supposed to open until much later in the morning.

I sat in my seat, prayed for a couple of hours, and read one of John Paul II’s books. When the actual moment of beatification came, I didn’t think I could ever see anything more beautiful and spectacular than the sea of Polish flags waving behind me along with the roar of the crowd. I turned to the deacon sitting next to me and screamed something to the effect of “They will be singing the entire Mass!”

But I was wrong. After the actual Beatification rite, before we began the Gloria, an announcement was made in several languages requesting that as we entered into the Eucharistic portion of the celebration that we observe a reverent silence and take down all flags and banners.

The roar of crowds is a spectacular thing. At St. Peter’s, the roar can actually be felt from where the Pope is: it hits him like a wave. The movement of the people actually creates a wind effect. The noise is spectacular: it has a depth that moves with the wind and gets in your bones. It’s hard not to be excited in an excited crowd, and it’s hard not to scream when they do. I have heard before that there is nothing more impressive than the roar of the crowd at St. Peter’s.

But there is. It’s the silence of the crowd at St. Peter’s. This was no Roman mob: in the moments of reflection after Pope Benedict’s homily and after communion, there wasn’t a peep from the people. St. Peter’s stood silent. But not just St. Peter’s — all of that section of Rome, and probably all of the people watching on television. These were pilgrims. They were here to honor John Paul II, but more important was the celebration of the Eucharist and the worship of God.

I remember thinking after communion about Gregory of Nyssa, and I thanked God for the opportunity to be there — to be at the event which will probably be the biggest of my life. And I mentioned to Gregory that he needn’t be worried about this crowd. Every crowd in the world can scream. Only a crowd filled with the Holy Spirit can experience such an exuberant, superabundant and exhilarating joy that it can only be expressed in contemplative silence.

Thank you Blessed John Paul II. Thank you for sharing your love of God. Thank you for your amazing mind. Thank you for your letters to priests. Thank you for your joy. Thank you for your suffering — for showing the world how to carry the cross with joy and how to die. Thank you for seeing so much sanctity in the modern world. Thank you for that mischievous glint in your eye and the happy glow of your face. I shall never forget your beatification, and I pray that your canonization will come in my lifetime — hopefully soon. Please pray for our sanctification, for our world — that we may love the world in the way that you did and that we may find Christ in contemplative prayer as well as in actions to help our neighbor.

Thank you Blessed John Paul. The world loves you. I love you. Santo Subito!