On the heaviness and lightness of being

Why worship lightens us, politics burden us, and how to lighten that load

Inauguration Day was bitterly cold, introducing the Polar Vortex that now blankets the Nation and reflecting as well the current national mood.

Due to impassable roads early in the morning, the Mass my wife and I habitually attend was postponed from its normal 7:00 a.m. time until 10:00, when the assistant pastor of the local parish came to celebrate for the cloistered Dominican nuns. He preached on Pope Fabian and touched upon St. Sebastian, whose feast day it was and who was very present to me as well, as I had lived in St. Sebastian in the mid-nineties. (As it happens, Pope St. Fabian’s remains were interred at San Sebastiano fuori le mura; their lives appear to be intertwined by more than the dies natalis they share.) Fabian was martyred — likely dying in prison rather than by execution — for his refusal to offer incense to Rome’s deities. He was, however, a loyal subject of the Emperor.

The Mass, as always, was other-worldly, as the nuns sing, pray, and live with a focus on God that is simply unavailable to us, enmeshed as we are, and by God’s will, in the affairs of the world. The purity of their singing, the light deftness of their responses, the silvery joy of their laughter at Father’s jokes all point to a life of great peace and joy, lived as it is focused on the one thing needful. That life is available to us laity as well, by the way: just not in that form and very seldom at that depth. All of us are called to holiness of life and freedom from sin, with the resultant joy that is unspeakable and full of glory, and the nuns in unfathomable generosity welcome us to a taste of it by welcoming us to worship with them.

Home we came, light as feathers, elevated by sublime worship, edifying preaching, and the power of the sacraments, and it was to the Inauguration that we came.

The contrast was predictably astounding, as we witnessed in the run-up to the Inauguration itself, the actual events of the Inauguration, and its aftermath, just about the opposite of everything we had just lived at Mass. The lightness of divine worship contrasted to the heaviness of vengeful vindictiveness, the notable exception being Carrie Underwood, who, undeterred by a sound system that mysteriously and inexplicably failed, rose to the occasion and sang a cappella, giving us all an example of grace under pressure. All the rest was true to form: the celebration of a new day and the end of night in America, the dawning of a new Golden Era, and the end of an age of terror and dread lived by those who do not share the outgoing Administration’s commitment to (very) progressive ideals (a dread and fear I also lived). I found the whole thing tiresome.

It is a cause for wonder that superficialities can be so burdensome.

The President’s speech was interesting, and what is true of this speech is true of all inaugural speeches: they all tell us that the dawn has come, the dark night has passed, new hope has arisen, and the glorious implementation of carefully-considered policies will usher in new unity and prosperity for all. They all tell us that foreign countries will respect us once again and that we are at the dawn of a new era of discovery that will yield untold bounty for all the world’s people. The only differences in the speeches are the actual policies. The Democrats tilt in one direction, the Republicans tilt in the other direction, and after each party has excoriated the other in the election cycle, they both proclaim it is time to “come together,” to work as one nation under a president who is everyone’s president. Victors want to speak with a light touch, but it’s almost impossible, really, because in the zero-sum game of modern politics, everyone does not win and the victor knows he has to deliver the goods to the ones who paid for his election, whether others suffer or not. And he also knows that his voters want the other side to suffer for the harms it has caused them.

We who are caught in the middle find our way forward by letting the priorities of faith determine our commitments. The criteria we develop through regular divine worship tell us what is perennial and what is ephemeral; what is important and what is trivial. That is why the battles over liturgy and worship — in all the churches, not just the Catholic Church — are so fierce: the action and words of worshipers outside of the liturgies are shaped by the actions and words of the liturgies themselves. Too much change, and instability results. Too little organic development, and ossification sets in. Politicization of the liturgy leads to its immediate demise, and to scorn of it by those whose politics differ. Liturgy unconcerned with human affairs is too abstract, too unreachable, and it becomes irrelevant.

Here I take no stance as to whether, in my own Church, the Novus Ordo or the Traditional Latin Mass is the better liturgy. What matters is the way they are celebrated. Treated as ends in themselves, the liturgies become idols. Liturgy is meant to be an icon, a representation of and invitation into the worship that occurs in heaven. We are meant to pass through liturgy to the wordless worship of the Father. Liturgies are more or less apt to those ends; and celebrants are too, precisely to the extent that they lead the faithful in worship to the Father or stand in the way. We laity, too, have some responsibility here: do we arrive, on-time, prepared to worship; are we praying for our clergy who minister Word and Sacrament to us; are we living in charity with those around us or silently judging them to smithereens because they sing too loud, or not loud enough, or are dressed poorly, or too well, or have misbehaved kids, or little automatons? There are a host of temptations to judge that constantly assault us when we seek the highest good.

It’s the search in worship and in personal prayer for the highest good, contemplative union with God, that carries over into the way we live our faith in the political and other arenas of our lives. Judge the hell out of those who surround us in worship and we will do the same outside of it. Pray for the good and salvation of all who worship with us and we will pray and work for it in our dealings with others. We foster the best in others when we foster it in ourselves. Let enough of us do that, let a critical mass be achieved, and our national dynamic just might improve.

It’s been an interesting week. I’m delighted that the last Administration’s political prisoners and “examples” are being pardoned — just as previous Presidents pardon those they consider worthy —; I’m happy that violent criminals illegally present are being deported, and worried that otherwise law-abiding but illegally present aliens will not get a fair hearing and a fair shake; I’m scratching my head about Mars; I’m not entirely sure of the AI initiative; and I think the talk about Greenland and the Panama Canal is, well, outlandish. As a former Fed who worked hard for the people of this Nation and who knows many Feds who do, I am outraged by the blunt contempt the Feds are being shown: too broad a brush is being used.

But I know this: I pray for our President — as I prayed for our last President and the ones before him —because this is my duty, to God, as a man of faith. As I pray for our President, I pray for all of our government officials. Not because I like them: many of them I do, and many of them I can’t stand, with plenty in between. I pray for them because I am commanded to do so. I am commanded to do so because it is good, for me, for them, for the Nation, and for the world that I do so. The release and enjoyment of heaven’s benediction is entirely conditioned upon our receptivity to it. We are receptive to heaven’s benediction precisely to the extent we pray for the good of others, and especially, as Our Lord told us in the Beatitudes, for those who persecute us. Pray for the President and our political class because it is good to do so. But pray especially for the ones you detest, the ones who have made you suffer: Our Divine Lord is quite clear that this is the test.