“ARE YOU SERIOUS?” (Mt 1:18-25): 18 December 2007 (Tuesday)
Reading: www.nccbuscc.org/nab/121807.shtml
One of the least known movies on the life of Christ is “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” directed by controversial Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Hailed as a masterpiece since its release in 1964, the film uses only scenes and words lifted from the first gospel.
“WHY SHOW YOUR TRUE COLORS?” (Mt 1:1-17): 17 December 2007 (Monday)
Reading: www.nccbuscc.org/nab/121707.shtml
Last March 2007, Cyndi Lauper appeared on “The View” and performed “True Colors,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard 100 charts almost twenty years ago. Gone were the outrageous costume and the wildly colored 80’s hair. Also, compared to the 1986 music video, this live performance was less affected, more quiet and heartfelt, relaying the song’s message in a way that the original recording, as well as the excellent 1998 Phil Collins’ cover, were nowhere close to achieving.
“SHOULD WE LOOK FOR ANOTHER?” (Mt 11:2-11): 16 December 2007 (Third Sunday of Advent)
Reading: www.nccbuscc.org/nab/121607.shtml
I don’t know if you noticed it, but that’s a pretty strange exchange of messages between our Lord and John the Baptist.
First of all, John the Baptist requests his disciples to ask our Lord a bizarre question. Thrown into prison for denouncing the sins of Herod Antipas, John the Baptist hears about the miracles of our Lord and sends his disciples to ask: “Are you the One who is to come, or should we look for another?” Now why would he ask a question like that?
“ARE YOU EMO?” (Mt 17:9a, 10-13): 15 December 2007 (Saturday)
Reading: www.nccbuscc.org/nab/121507.shtml
“Emo” (short for “emotional” or “emotive” and pronounced /ˈi-moʊ/) refers to a style of rock/punk music and fashion, as well as a personality stereotype characterized by being emotional, introverted, and angsty. I recently saw this tongue-in-cheek YouTube video called “What is emo?” The interviewer asks young people on the streets of London to define the term. The first response he gets? “People who slit their wrists!” Not surprising since self-injury is supposed to characterize someone who’s emo.
In today’s reading, the Lord compares John the Baptist to the prophet Elijah, who is known for his dramatic encounter with what I think are true blue Old Testament emo’s. Elijah the prophet condemns the Israelites’ worship of Baal and challenges the pagan priests to a test of powers. He summons all the prophets of Baal to Mount Carmel, where two altars are built, one for Baal and the other one for Yahweh. The sacrifice of oxen and fire wood are laid on each of the altars. Elijah then announces the rules of the contest: Without physically making fire, both camps are supposed to pray for fire to light the sacrifice. The priests of Baal pray all day–to no avail. Then the priests begin to act emo: They slash their wrists and mix their blood with the sacrifice, hoping that their prayers would be answered. Again, no success.
To make a long story short, before taking his turn, Elijah orders that his altar be drenched with twelve barrels of water for effect. When he utters his prayer, fire falls from the sky and, to the dismay of his opponents, Elijah’s altar ignites in a magnificent display of Yahweh’s power, proving once and for all that Yahweh is the One True God and that no amount of wrist-slashing will start any fire. Obviously, in this case, emotional blackmail didn’t work.
As I think about the behavior of Baal’s priests, the question that comes to mind is: “What about us? When it comes to dealing with God, are we closet emo’s?”
I don’t know about you, but think I’m guilty. When I was a kid, when I wanted something, I would make all sorts of promises to God. The more badly I wanted something, the bigger–and less realistic–my promises became. Even today, I’m still quite capable of the same tactics. I still catch myself resorting to emotional blackmail when I want something from God although I now try to be less blatant about it. In other words, short of cutting my wrists, I still find myself trying to manipulate God, albeit in more subtle ways.
Today the Lord reminds us that it just doesn’t work that way. No matter how grandiose the promises we make, no matter how grave the injury we inflict on ourselves, He remains truly God, transcendent, incapable of being manipulated to do as we wish. So if we know what’s best for us, we should forget the tactics of Baal’s priests, those Old Testament emo’s, and learn from the faith of Elijah–the prophet who staunchly believed that as long as what he did was right, God would not fail him.
The Lord actually mentioned Elijah in the context of the murder of John the Baptist and his own impending suffering. As we know, both he and the baptist didn’t hesitate to embrace pain and even death when the situation called for it. So now I can’t help but wonder and ask him: “What about you, Lord? Are you emo, too?” I’m tempted to think that God and his saints have a streak of emo in them too.
When you consider the way they accept suffering, it certainly looks that way–but there is one important difference: While true blue emo’s hurt themselves in order to get something for themselves, God and his saints allow themselves to be hurt–and even killed–in order to give to others. That’s a whole world of difference.
(image: forums.ijji.com)
“WHY ARE WE GRIEVING?” (Mt 11:16-19): 14 December 2007 (St. John of the Cross)
Reading: www.nccbuscc.org/nab/121407.shtml
For some reason, the gospel today reminds me of a poem I first read when I was in high school. The poem is “Spring and Fall” by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a 19th-century Jesuit who’s considered one of the most difficult English poets. The poem is deceptively short and simple, and Hopkins typically coins startlingly original words like “unleaving” and “leafmeal” to suggest–quite effectively–the piecemeal shedding of leaves in autumn. But even if I could hardly understand the poem then, I immediately liked it if only for its tone and mood.
In the poem, the speaker, an adult, watches a young girl named Margaret weep over fallen leaves. The poem begins:
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
His tone is tender and wistful; we can almost imagine him shaking his head, smiling sadly to himself as he watches Margaret. He sees that the girl doesn’t understand enough, but he doesn’t rush in to give her a lecture. He knows that in due time she will understand on her own.
I suspect the Lord might have felt something like this as he spoke to the fickle and confused crowd–perhaps not without exasperation, but certainly also not without sadness. “We played a flute for you,” he complained, “but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not mourn.”
This profound confusion that the Lord is talking about–I think I know what he means. Have you ever had the feeling that you’re so confused that you’re not even sure if you want to dance or mourn? Have you had moments when you can’t decide if you prefer to fast or feast, so you unwittingly end up rejecting both John the Baptist and the Lord? It’s almost as if we sometimes refuse to be happy. In other words, “Damn if you do, damn if you don’t.” Or as a famous local actress-turned-governor allegedly quipped during an interview: “Damaged if you do, damaged if you don’t!”
How right she is. Damaged we all are. We insist on grieving without really knowing what we grieve for. We insist on our discontent, vaguely wishing for something more or even just something else without really knowing what it is we seek.
The speaker in the poem understands that although Margaret is mourning the falling leaves, though she doesn’t know it yet, she is actually also grieving over the human condition as well as herself. As the last lines put it: “It is the blight man was born for, it is Margaret (we) mourn for.”
Likewise, the Lord knows that it is ourselves we mourn for. The truth is, the source of our grief is our estrangement from God, but we don’t know it. All our greatest hungers and all our fiercest needs are but symptoms of our deepest desire–which is nothing but our desire for God. Everything else is blind, frantic and desperate grasping to fill this hole inside us.
Today we ask ourselves, “Why are we grieving?” It’s a crucial question because to know what we mourn for is to know what we’re born for.
(image: www.victorianweb.org)
Note: I have uploaded a reading of the poem by Richard Austin. If you want to listen to it, download it from “The Soundtrack of Our Lives” (Music). Here also is the complete text of the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
SPRING AND FALL
to a young child
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.