Peace be with you!
What makes it possible for us to know God? Parishioners Vicki Phillips and Pat Henry join Fr. Freeh in a discussion of the Holy Spirit, the human spirit, and unconditional love.
Sometimes so much is packed into these ten minutes it takes me awhile to figure out what I’m going to say, knowing I won’t do justice to the entire discussion.
At the end of this reflection, a classic song by The Police popped into my head: “We Are Spirits in the Material World” from the album “Ghost in the Machine.” And since Fr. Freeh brought up science fiction–a genre I’m pretty well acquainted with–I thought of all the robots across the spectrum from the evil Terminator to the good Terminator to the benign android Data from “Star Trek: the New Generation” and his evil twin, Lore. At the heart of these creative efforts is an exploration of what makes us human.
And I thought…The power of stories to move us is, I believe, a proof of the existence of meaning and of spirit. Stories go boldly where logic and science fear to tread.
While secular humanists have the luxury of denying both meaning and spirit, writers ignore them at their peril.
Without the elements of spirit, conscience, free will, and grace an author’s work lacks depth and fails to speak to the soul the humanists deny. Instead, they are forced to pander to human appetites: sex, violence, greed, power. Which might explain “Fifty Shades of Gray” and the general tendency to replace story with special effects. But it also explains why we still reach back through the centuries for Shakespeare revivals. No one will ever confuse “Fifty Shades” with great art. Only a pyschopath could fail to be moved by “Hamlet.”
Great art, great stories, great songs celebrate spirit, conscience, free will, and grace because they are the elements that create the opportunity for unconditional love. And unconditional love is the most compelling story ever told.
GK Chesterton said, “A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.”
Today is Passion Sunday, the ultimate story of unconditional love. And in this one, specific instance, I have found myself in rare disagreement with GK. The story of Passion Sunday is a good story. It tells the truth about its Hero. But it also tells the story of its Divine Author. Only in the Passion narrative do we find the final perfection of the divine humility of God, begun in the Incarnation:
Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross. — Phil 2:6-8
(Maybe I’m finally coming to terms with the outrageous statement that Christ’s Incarnation was necessary to His perfection as Son of the Father.)
The Roman soldier who witnessed the Passion in all its gore came away convinced that Jesus was truly the Son of God. He’d participated in many crucifixions before, and seen the victims beg for mercy or howl curses and invective from the cross. Jesus of Nazareth was different. In His extremis, He spoke of love, of forgiveness…even for those who still mocked Him, who had nailed Him to the Cross. I wonder if the Roman soldier, like Peter, wept when he realized what he’d done.
This Passion narrative is the true story that underlies all good stories. And it still has the power to touch the most hardened of hearts. St. Paul knew this when he declared he “preached Christ, and Him crucified.”
Go ahead. Read ahead and find out how the story turns out next week. And let it touch your heart, too.
Good News Spirituality 