Requiescat in pace, Papa

Pope Benedict XVI passed away this morning. He spent the last years of his long life in solitude, praying for the Church. At 95, his death wasn’t exactly unexpected, but it is still a loss. And, I think, heaven’s gain. It is not a sad occasion. It is peaceful, calm, serenely joyous—Christmasy.

He was born Joseph Ratzinger the Saturday before Easter. He died Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI the Saturday after Christmas. It is also the feast day of Pope Sylvester I, an early holy pope and patron of Benedictines. It is fitting for a man who drew so much from symbolism.

His legacy will be mixed, I think. Obviously, he will be infamously remembered for stepping down from the papacy.

He was born in Bavaria in 1927. In 1939 he enrolled in minor seminary. In 1942, the school closed due to the war. He was conscripted into the Hitler Youth, though it was well-established that his family opposed Nazism. In 1945 he was conscripted into military training but deserted upon news of American advancement and returned home. In late 1945, he and his brother entered seminary and ordained in 1951. He served at a parish in Munich. He continued to study, writing on St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure. He became a professor in 1958, teaching at Freising College, University of Bonn, and University of Munster.

In 1962, the Second Vatican Council convened. He was invited for his academic and theological knowledge and was known as a reformer, part of the theologians at the time calling for church reform, a renewed focus on social issues, and ecumenical cooperation.

In 1969, he cofounded the theological journal Communio with other heavy-hitting theologians such as Hans Urs von Balthasar and Henri de Lubac.

In 1977 he became Archbishop of Munich and Freising. His episcopal motto was “cooperatores veritatis,” “cooperators of the truth.” This appointment also led to him receiving the title of cardinal from Pope Paul VI.

In 1981, Pope John Paul II named him Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, basically the top theologian in the Church. He served in this office for the next 20 years.

He joined the European Academy of Sciences and Arts just a year after its foundation in 1990. His writings continued to strongly defend the Faith, and he became known as a conservative voice, though he maintained that his stances never changed from his “reformer” days.

Under this position in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was responsible for enforcing internal Church investigations, including those of priests accused of sexual abuse. His handling would be thoroughly criticized when the Church sex abuse scandal broke in 2002.

In 1997, when he turned 70, he requested to leave the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith and to become an archivist in the Vatican Secret Archives and a librarian in the Vatican Library (because who wouldn’t want that?). Unfortunately for him, Pope John Paul II denied his request.

Then, in 2005, he was elected pope after four ballots. It was said that he was planning to retire after the conclave and said that "At a certain point, I prayed to God 'please don't do this to me'...Evidently, this time He didn't listen to me." He took the name Benedict after Pope Benedict X (who was pope during WWI) and St. Benedict (patron of Europe and founder of Benedictines).

In his first public words to the world as pope, he said, “The Cardinals have elected me, a simple, humble laborer in the vineyard of the Lord. The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with insufficient instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers.”

One of my personal favorite actions of his as pope was naming St. Hildegard of Bingen as the fourth female (34^th total) Doctor of the Church. He also created the Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, aimed at understanding the current circumstances of people and belief and the modern means of effectively reaching people.

In 2013, he famously announced that would be resigning the papacy, the first pope to do so since 1294. He was close to 86, the fourth oldest pope in history. He said his deteriorating health could not meet the physical and mental demands of the papacy. He had seen the deterioration of Pope John Paul II and sought a different path. He spent his post-papacy life at a monastery in the Vatican. He wrote some more, returning to theology. But mostly he became a hermit, praying in solitude and offering brotherly friendship to the new pope, Francis. I think if he had remained pope, he wouldn’t have lived so long. And it’s nice to think that he found peace in a quieter life in his last years.

I think in time it will be his writings and theology that will be remembered. He was more an academic than a public figure. His books, homilies, and encyclicals are brilliant. If you haven’t, you should check them out. I know I’ll be revisiting his words in the coming days and probably years.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.

"Truth and love coincide in Christ. To the extent that we draw close to Christ, in our own lives too, truth and love are blended. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like 'a clanging cymbal.'" -homily at opening of conclave that elected him, April 18, 2005

Joy to All the World

Every year, the world experiences one moment when 99% of the human population experience daylight. It mostly goes by unnoticed; after all, it looks like any other day from our perspective. We don’t know we’re sharing in this moment. But how great would it be if we could appreciate the moment, find solidary among each other all over the world?

The “Christmas spirit” is sort of like that. There is a light in the darkness that we all want to see and share with others. There is a sense that we’re all feeling it at the same time—the magic in the air of a shared moment. Aren’t we all anticipating? Aren’t we all joyful? Aren’t we all seeing the cozy glow amidst the dark winter?

Of course, that’s just a feeling. Some don’t celebrate. Struggles continue. There is pain and loneliness, as there always is. On July 8 at 11:15 GMT, millions are experiencing nighttime. Millions more are on the edge of twilight; it might as well look like night. The shared moment isn’t all-encompassing. It’s difficult to get 8 billion people on the same page at the same time.

But the Church offers us as close as a shared moment as we can get. It may oscillate a bit with time zones, but we say the same prayers, read the same verses, celebrate the same holidays together. I don’t need to know you to know we’re sharing a feeling, experiencing the same joy of the coming king. We’re looking up at the same strange star. We’re looking down into the same humble manger.

The surrounding lights and flowers and decorations and sweet smells tell us that others around us are all on the same page. It’s the darkest time of year, but we all are celebrating light. In fact, we’re surrounded by light—the strings of lights, the candles, the goodwill. We can and do find solidarity with one another. We appreciate the season while it lasts. Together we acknowledge a shared moment—across time and space and culture and language. 

In one brilliant moment, amidst the dark and chaos, the Light of the World enters, and we begin to experience our salvation.        

Monday Motivation: Alfred Delp

 “Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfillment. We are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny.…Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernable as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening, today.” ― Alfred Delp, Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons And Prison Writings 1941-1944

Wherefore art Thou?

It’s the time of year with the best music—the classical, jaunty hymns of Advent/Christmas. I welcome them like old friends and belt them out. And on the first Sunday of Advent, as we began the processional, I had to endure the eye-rolling disappointment of an “updated” rendition of “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.” No “thees” or “thous” (outside the title). “You” and “your” choppily pushed in. Is it really so hard to leave the lines as we’ve sung them for generations, I thought. What’s so bad about singing “thy?”

Sure, those words aren’t used in everyday speech anymore. They’ve become “church” words, almost formalized. But it wasn’t always that way. “Thou” was originally the singular second person pronoun; “ye” was the plural second person pronoun. Around the 1300s as Middle English was shifting into Modern English, “ye/you” began to be used as a singular second person pronoun, particularly when addressing a superior. This was in part due to the French practice of addressing superiors or strangers in the plural (the royal “we’). Subsequently, “thee/thou” remained the “common” singular second person address, for friends, family, or inferiors.

Over time, “thee/thou” fell out of use as impolite. In social introductions, it was considered to err on the side of formally, so “you” became the default second person pronoun. But it persisted in familial settings, and in hymns. What I find so interesting about the formal/informal distinction with “you” and “thou” is that all those hymns addressing God use “thou.” What sounds so formal to our modern ears is in fact a familial phrase—it’s addressing God not in a formal, superior way but in an intimate, domestic way. He is our father. He is our friend. He knows us more intimately than anyone.

Singing hymns, knowing the “thous” are addresses of familiarity, makes the hymns more intimate. It’s no secret that I find most modern Christian worship songs weak or annoying. They hold no nostalgia for me, they’re repetitive and theologically susceptible, and they often just aren’t that fun to sing. I rarely enjoy a song written after 1950, and I almost never have had one help me pray. They’re distracting to my disposition. And even a familiar song that’s been “updated” with gender neutral or less “archaic” language takes me out of the prayerful singing. (I do protest by singing the “right” words of “Be Thou My Vision.”)

Language evolves, and it makes sense that in a more democratic world the distinction between formal and informal has disappeared. But I do think there is a loss when words disappear. As “you” became singular, we have started to need a distinguishing word for the plural (like “y’all”). Words convey specific meaning, even as the meanings change. “Thee/thou” may not be used outside church hymns and wedding vows, but they still have a place there—the intimate, holy second person pronoun.