Why Go To Church?

Many churches are half-empty much of the year, except on Easter, as I was reminded today when I encountered throngs of people, some with babies, crowding our parish church.

I wanted to ask some of them, especially the younger crowd: Why are you here?  What motivates you to include Easter Mass as part of your holiday--especially if you come only once a year? Is it simply a cultural expectation, something to do, a place to show off your finery?

I suspect that for many it is the unspoken, because unconscious, awareness that there is a loss in their daily lives of some experience of the sacred, some contact with a spiritual reality greater than their daily lives of work and play. They somehow need to be with others as prayers are said and sung and new life proclaimed, even if the Biblical story of the Resurrection is a bit vague to many of them, because there is something missing in their inner lives.

I like to think that in a world that is full of violence and the fear generated by terrorists, in a world that seems meaningless, the churches provide a reminder of something larger and more meaningful and hopeful.

Richard Rohr and other mystical-global thinkers would probably add that, whether we know it or not, we sense the need for a connection with others. We need to move beyond isolation into solidarity with others since everything in the universe is connected.

The independent self is hopelessly limited; it cannot see the whole picture. Easter is about the cosmic reality of life overcoming death and providing a pattern of hope.  We have to be part of a community that is hopeful.

A special occasion: an Easter reflection

I called a restaurant near us to make a reservation for Easter brunch. I was asked, "Is there a special occasion?"  I laughed and said, "Well, it's Easter Sunday!"  I wanted to say, "Yes, it is rather special: we're celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ."

But I didn't say that, of course. The occasion is really much more significant, in the big scheme of things, than my birthday or anniversary, but how to explain that to anyone is a problem.  Even my emphasis on the big scheme of things requires some explanation.

Despite all the countless books and movies, sermons and courses, just during the past fifty years or so, devoted to understanding the person of Jesus Christ, he remains essentially a mystery. Who was this unique man?

I was reminded of this question by an article in America magazine by the theologian Elizabeth Johnson a few months ago.  She writes: "the mystery of his person was never totally expressed. .  .until the time of his death, when he transcends this world and is raised from the dead. Then his ultimate identity burst upon him in all clarity."

I think she means that, with the Resurrection, Jesus became Christ as the material confronted, and was transformed by, the supernatural; or as T. S. Eliot put it, at the intersection of the timeless with time.  Presumably, according to Johnson, Jesus saw as in a blinding flash the full meaning of his divine nature, which is love through whom each of his followers is united with him---not just those living but all those who have lived and those who will ever live.  He saw his identity as the cosmic Christ.

The cosmic Christ is the source of nothing less than creation and life; through him the entire cosmos is redeemed and enlightened by love. Wow.

Such a mystical insight goes beyond the rational and borrows from poetry (Eliot, Dante) as well as from Teilhard de Chardin and Hans Urs von Balthasar, who wrote that the person of Jesus Christ is to be understood only in the context of man's entire history and in the context of the whole created cosmos.  Why?  Because the historical Jesus was not born for himself but "for us and for our salvation," as Christians attest.

Through Christ, we who are Christians are one with humanity past, present, and future: we are the body of Christ.  Yet that, too, remains a mystery. Just as the climax of his life, coming after a week of rejection and suffering, is a mystery that transcends the capacity of language to express it.

So Easter, being celebrated this year on April 5, celebrates the ultimate mystery and, like all mysteries, it should be approached with wonder.

Vile Bodies: Reflection for Holy Week

Good Friday, a somber day this week for Christians, is not hard to enter into. We are surrounded by pain and suffering and often ask, Why? It is natural to identify with the human agony of Jesus on the cross, with the reality of death.

Yet to move from darkness to light, to grasp the mystery of Easter with its story of resurrection, is much harder, I think. I don't mean we necessarily doubt the reality of Christ's ability to overcome death, but the resurrection of what the Book of Common Prayer calls our "vile bodies" implied in his Resurrection is something else again. It requires a greatest act of faith possible.

I think of the ashes of those scattered at sea, of those ancient kings whose hearts were buried on one place, the rest of them somewhere else, and of all the billions of bodies burned, unidentified, buried in mass graves, tossed into the sea and lost. Yet we must believe that the power of God is able to bring them all to life again one day and re-unite them with their souls. The Nicene Creed makes it clear.

But it's not easy to think about or to grasp such a power; it is the ultimate test of our willingness to believe in what we cannot understand yet hope for--a greater challenge even than the idea that the Son of God could die.

This Holy Week I think of all those I know who suffer, including a 21-year-old man named Derek, who endures great pain and knows he might die. I hope he feels the strength of those praying for him. I hope that all the others in pain, many old and yearning for death, know that the pain will end and that their death will be a new beginning. Somehow, as John of the Cross wrote, a great love awaits us.

But the full meaning of Easter and our radical transformation is beyond all knowing.