Looked for the Master - got his office junior...

Christ is Risen!

Since I like to attend a daily Eucharist, and therefore will take it where I can, I sometimes attend a small church (which shall remain nameless, since there are many fine comments I can make – but others not quite so laudatory), which has multiple celebrations each weekday. At that church this morning, I heard one of those sermons that would be utterly hilarious were it not so unfortunate on other levels, and to which I’ll refer in a moment.

To begin, and this to my amazement and disappointment, two very large pictures, one of “The Divine Mercy,” the other of its recipient Sister Faustina (who appeared to be holding our Saviour in her hand), were in the sanctuary, nearly obscuring the view of the altar. Granted – the altar had enough lilies to rate an exhibit at the Chelsea flower show, but I dislike anything obstructing one’s emphasis on the resurrection. It always did seem to me, as well, that having a feast to commemorate a private revelation about ‘divine mercy,’ the Sunday following Holy Week and Easter, is rather like taking a solid gold cross and gilding it with the paint kids used to use on their ballet shoes for recitals.

It is not that I disapprove of private devotions – not in the least, even if we apophatic sorts are not likely to be able to indulge in them wholeheartedly (and I say that with some regret, envying my mother’s childlike trust as she chatted with the Infant of Prague or Saint Anthony.) Yet I am much more one for deification than (the usual views of) atonement, and I see purgatory as life and growth extending beyond this earth – an intimacy with God, burning with white-hot love, which ever increases – knowledge ever growing and never complete because the fullness of the divine nature is glorious beyond our comprehension. One must admit, as well, that even the most rock-ribbed versions of atonement still concede that, if death was the punishment for sin, Christ Himself paid the penalty. I see God as continually extending his creative, totally loving power – not forcing our love in return, since love requires freedom, but hardly as a judge who has to be begged for pardons.

I have a feeling that, in recounting details of this sermon (which are just as they were spoken, not including any of my personal irony), my readers will understand why I sighed even more than I did when I saw the pictures of a private revelation drawing more attention than the risen Christ.

Here are the highlights: Sister Faustina is Christ’s secretary (yes, that’s exactly what the aged priest said), second in rank only to the Blessed Mother who normally is a source of revelation. (I would have said that Mary most definitely and gloriously received a revelation or two, which became much clearer in light of the resurrection… her being source of revelation is a bit off… she was tabernacle of the most High but hardly spokesman..) Faustina (a native of Poland) received the revelation (and propagated the word about the novena, from Good Friday to Low Sunday, which gives one a chance to never spend time in purgatory), but originally Rome would not give approval to the devotion. Then, lo and behold, God, who always works out his purposes, had John Paul II elected, and this Polish native approved the divine mercy novena. (With so many of my studies centring on the medieval and renaissance periods, I never was one to assume that God hand picks popes, even the exemplary John Paul. The Almighty certainly went to a huge amount of trouble to select one from Poland entirely for approval of a divine mercy devotion... and John Paul certainly deserves to be remembered for more than that...) So, we have one of two chances each year (the other wasn’t specified) to have no time in purgatory! He also recommended that, if one had not begun the novena on Good Friday as is usual (…why do I doubt that any recent pope would have wanted novenas, rather than a few other pursuits of worship which come to mind, to be on anyone’s mind during the Triduum?), one could still get in the required prayers by saying them nine times between now and next Sunday.

This sermon, incidentally, also mentioned that Catholics alone see Jesus with his 'heart outside,' courtesy of Margaret Mary's revelation, where all other Christians have his heart hidden. (Last week, I was thinking of its being pierced with a lance... but let's not get too literal remembering undying love.) Get me another gin...

My friends, I attended some wonderful services this past week, and had all sorts of lofty ideas about the resurrection. I suppose my mentioning the worst sermon of the lot is a combination of my inherent snobbery and a sigh. It seems to me that there is a line in the liturgy somewhere not only about the felix culpa, but about how God created human nature and still more wonderfully restored it – and I’m also thinking of words about how Jesus took on our nature that it might be glorified. Is Easter week, of all times (if, indeed, any time is appropriate – though I’ll give you one free serve during All Souls’ week), a time to be begging our way out of a future purgatory (which undoubtedly resembles something Dante Alighieri cooked up, perhaps minus the political overtones)?

John Paul II was a great pope, though I daresay that his encyclical on Divine Mercy, which the preacher mentioned this morning, had a bit more to it than endorsement of a novena. However, if anyone wants some really marvellous reading for the Easter season (or any other time), I’d heartily recommend Pope Benedict’s “Eschatology.” I’m tempted to add that, unlike the hokey cokey, eschatology is what it’s all about…