Better Future

As the earth brings forth its plants and a garden makes its growth spring up, so will the Lord God make justice and praise spring up before all the nations. (Isaiah 61:11)

Hard to imagine a more hopeful book than the prophecies of Isaiah. The most beautiful passages accompany us during Advent.

The Lord God can and will give us a good future, by His power, according to His wisdom. The future will be brighter, because the Almighty holds it in His hands. His promises, wonderful as they may be, will certainly be fulfilled. Justice will spring up. The earth herself will sing to God a canticle of praise. Creation will reflect and magnify the splendor of the majestic Creator.

When the grace of Christ fills our souls, three theological virtues operate, namely: _____, ______, and ________.

Third Sunday of Advent, we seem to be talking about things, as yet unseen, that will give us joy in the future. In other words, because we believe that God will make good on His promises, we live in ________.

For the past two years, we have from time to time recalled the fiftieth anniversary of the great gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church in the 20th century, namely… When we look back at the days of Vatican II, we might get filled with nostalgia, nostalgia for the optimism of those times. Back then, in the 1960’s, the future appeared to open up like a fabulous suitcase, full of style and new possibilities. Hope practically grew on trees then. A better future seemed to lunge into the room like an eager hippopotamus.

Fifty years later, the atmosphere of the world has certainly changed. The hopefulness of the Sixties has all but vanished. The age of international peace that everyone dreamed of has been disturbed by terrorism and widespread political instability. The economy can’t snap out of the doldrums. I think it’s fair to say that we live in cynical, dispirited times.

Will our children have a better life than we do? Most Americans think not. It’s one of Tim Allen’s jokes: looking forward to having just enough to live on, in a small apartment—that’s the ‘Canadian dream.’ The measure of our short-term hope these days. Our grandparents nurtured the ‘American dream.’ But not us.

What about a year of favor? What about a jubilee? When captives held unjustly get liberated, and broken hearts heal, and debts racked-up in desperation get wiped away? What about a day of vindication—a day when everyone who has suffered wrongly gets compensated and made whole? Can we hope for better times? Better jobs, better government, and better Redskins’ seasons?

Not to imply any nastiness toward anyone in particular, but: I think people have cast ballots for candidates who talk about better things. Saying that an era of political compromise will come doesn’t make it come. Saying that America has a great future doesn’t make America have a great future. Saying that races and cultures and people need to get along better doesn’t make them actually get along better.

What, then, do we hope for? Well, if I might put it like Gandalf put it to Frodo, when the little hobbit started to realize how hard it would be to get the ring to Mordor:

We are going to hope, by God’s grace, that we ourselves, when everything is said and done, will stand before God without shame, because we did our little part to try to build a better world. It’s not for us to choose the times we live in. It’s for us to choose good over evil, no matter what happens.

After all, even though all long-term economic indicators for the middle-class suggest that we are living through one of the worst decades ever, and the movies they come out with these days seem more and more boring—even though these are pretty cruddy times, as times go—they don’t totally suck. Because we have each other. And we have opportunities every day to act with kindness and honesty and courage. Even though the world has grown cynical and dark, we can greet each single day for what it really is: an opportunity from Almighty God for us to practice the teachings of Christ.

Hoping for satisfaction and pleasure from what this world has to offer has always been a vain business, whether the times be good or bad. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s hero Jay Gatsby lived the high life, in a decade when money seemed to grow on trees. He had it all. But he did not have happiness. He longed in his heart for the kind of communion that this world cannot give.

So if the American Dream seems practically out of reach, we hope for a better future anyway. Because the work of God, and the fulfillment of the kingdom of God, comes down to little daily acts of honesty and kindness.

Little acts of Christian heroism plant hidden seeds. Here a seed of patience. Here a seed of chastity. Here a seed of self-sacrifice.

On a day that only God knows, all these seeds will bear fruit, glorious fruit. It won’t matter then what the Dow Jones industrial average is that day, or the gross domestic product, or the national debt, or even the air temperature. It won’t matter. Because God will be all in all.

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answers: Faith HOPE Love

Tough

Here is a question:

Retrospective Explanation

I am not much for apologias anymore. God knows the last time I tried to explain myself, it was kind of a Google-ripping disaster.

(Only long-time readers with sharp memories will remember last Assumption Day’s apologia. That little post is now lost in the sands of time, never to be surfed again…)

Now “Preacher” has turned in his Big Daddy. You and I, dear reader, have moved on to the next, more noble chapter together (the one named after I Corinthians 13:8).

Only the good Lord knows how this stage of the journey will unfold. We are always on the way to better things (as long as we do not die outside the state of grace.)

Nonetheless: I would, for the sake of the record, like to make two points. They are taken from the ultimate source of authority in faith and morals, The Lord of the Rings. Receive them as you will.

I.
Before the Quest began, the Breelanders thought that Aragorn was an unkempt, loopy vagrant who spent too much time smoking his pipe in taprooms and chanting decrepit elven lays.

But “Strider” knew most of the pathways of Middle Earth. He could guide anyone to their destination without getting lost.

When everything was said and done, Aragorn cleaned up pretty nice. He turned out be a skilled healer and, in fact, the king.

II.
Frodo carried the Ring of Power all the way to Mount Doom by the sheer force of his indomitable hobbit will.

But when he stood at the fiery chasm, Frodo did NOT have the strength to throw the ring in, to destroy it. Left to himself, Frodo would have walked away with the ring like Isildur did, and evil would have triumphed.

But the higher powers had a grander plan. Gollum attacked Frodo at just the right moment. In the struggle of two weakened wills, the evil ring fell into the chasm and was destroyed.

The higher powers see things we do not see. They know things we do not know. They make good winds blow when the time is ripe.

This is why the Valar most want us earthlings to be humble. They prize humility above all other human virtues.

…But, listen: I deserve every reproof I get, and I appreciate them all. In the ineffable words of Billy Joel, You may be right…

…Pray for the new pastor on Sunday, please! Pray that I will be open to every grace, and we will all move forward toward heaven together!

Crouching Spider, Little Bird

If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, then you know that Shelob is the ancient, giant spider that almost killed Frodo when he entered the land of Mordor.

Few of us would want to encounter such a creature. Nonetheless, it is fun for any afficionado of Middle Earth to visit Louise Bourgeois’ sculpture. The truculent iron spider is currently in front of the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington.

"Crouching Spider" on Independence Avenue

…The Lord Jesus said: “Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asked for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”

St. Therese of Lisieux wrote:

I look upon myself as a weak little bird…I am not an eagle…In spite of my extreme littleness, I still dare to gaze upon the Divine Sun, the Sun of Love, and my heart feels within it all the aspirations of the eagle…

O Jesus, I know and so do You that the imperfect little creature, while remaining in its place (that is, under the Sun’s rays), allows itself to be somewhat distracted from its sole occupation. It picks up a piece of grain on the right or on the left; it chases after a little worm; then coming upon a little pool of water, it wets its feathers still hardly formed. It sees an attractive flower and its little mind is occupied with this flower. In a word, being unable to soar like the eagles, the poor little bird is taken up with the trifles of earth.

And yet, after all these misdeeds, instead of going and hiding away in a corner, to weep over its misery and to die of sorrow, the little bird turns toward its beloved Sun, presenting its wet wings to its beneficent rays. It cries like a swallow and in its sweet song it recounts in detail all its infidelities, thinking in the boldness of its full trust that it will acquire in even greater fullness the love of Him who came to call not the just but sinners.

Jesus, I am too little to perform great actions, and my own folly is this: to trust that Your Love will accept me.

–St. Therese of Liseux, Story of a Soul, chapter IX (Manuscript B)