Upon This Rock

Yesterday, I went to see the Martin Scorsese film, Silence. It chronicles the lives of two Jesuit missionaries in Japan and the underground Christian community that sheltered and followed them during a period of intense persecution in the seventeenth century. I will do my best not to spoil the film for those who are planning to see it, but I would like to reference a couple of scenes in light of today's commemoration of the Confession of St. Peter.

With the priests' arrival, the people can once again celebrate the Eucharist and receive absolution for their sins after many years of being on their own. Their yearning for the smallest sign of nourishment for this faith was palpable--the gift of one bead from the priest's rosary was considered an inestimable gift of holiness, a pearl of great price. Their joy over the appearance of the padres was infectious; and at times, I got lost in their emotion, making the sign of the cross or mouthing the responses in the darkened theater, forgetting that I was watching a film, rather than participating in a moment of grace. But then I'd catch myself, and sheepishly return to my limited role as spectator. I was moved by the sincerity and intensity of their piety; it summoned memories of my own swelling emotion and devotion as a new convert not too many years ago. Perhaps that's why I was so easily sucked into the story.

The film also paints the devastating effects of the authorities' coercion of these Christians, driving them to apostasize in order to avoid torture and martyrdom. As the terrified faithful weigh whether to step and spit on an image of Jesus to avoid drowning and burning at the stake, one easily recalls Peter's three-fold denial of Jesus. And of the Church's earliest martyrs. The film's graphic depiction of human suffering inspires profound humility, for how many of us, one wonders, could endure as much? Is there a point beyond which an apostate Christian is beyond God's forgiveness? As priests responsible for the well-being of a vulnerable flock, what is the right thing for Fr. Rodrigues and Fr. Garupe to do: apostasize to save the people from torture and death or continue to profess the faith and watch them suffer and perish?  It is a morally complex and untidy film that deliberately raises questions that foster uneasiness on many levels, both theological and pragmatic. Scenes of crippling guilt and sorrow, followed by confession and absolution punctuate the film. Relationships get repeatedly ruptured and repaired, with little resolution or clarity.

The Denial of St. Peter, G. van Honthorst, c. 1622

Silence engages the politics of imperialism and cultural domination, as well; and I was sympathetic to the Japanese authorities' contention that the missionary work was subversive and disruptive. I was aware of my postmodern discomfort around the missionaries' claims that the Christian faith was the only source of truth or divine revelation, while also holding fast to my conviction that Christianity is a faith with unique and valid truth claims that we are urged to spread. Evangelism is part of our call to follow Jesus. It continues to be a timely dilemma. At what point does evangelism become disrespectful and invasive? How are evangelism and proselytism different and similar? How does one remain respectful of a different cultural and religious tradition while still commending the value of one's own, especially if one is an outsider?

Finally, Silence stirred in me a renewed awareness of the current persecution of sister and brother Christians around the world: in Pakistan, in Nigeria, in China, in Palestine. Scorsese's film reminded me that the plight of St. Peter, the early martyrs, the seventeenth-century martyrs of Japan, and Christians living under persecution now is largely the same. Christians worshiping in secret and hiding any signs of their faith--a crude cross made out of straw, or the image of a saint, or a Bible--is not merely an artifact of our early history, but the daily reality of many Christians around the world, which we often forget about in our own privileged contexts. Freedom of religion or conscience is not a universal benefit enjoyed by everyone.

In fact, the Church was built (and continues to be built) upon the bodies of St. Peter and the martyrs, on those who make sacrifices of many kinds to profess Jesus as the Messiah.  On this day, when we remember Peter, the rock on whom Jesus built his Church--for all of his apostasy--may we pray for all of the martyrs and confessors who suffer for proclaiming Jesus as their Lord and Messiah. May the Angels receive them into Paradise, into the everlasting rest of God.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

Of Sausages and Saints

As I watched the children rush exuberantly into the sanctuary on Sunday to listen to the story of St. Nicholas, I was reminded of the overwhelming responsibility the Church has to children, on a number of levels.

The most important one is the responsibility to keep them safe from harm. During my homily, I told one of the classic stories of St. Nicholas and children--the one where the evil butcher grinds them into sausages during a famine, and St. Nicholas grinds the sausages back into children to the peoples' amazement and relief. Another version of the story has the butcher curing the children in barrels, and then trying to sell them off as hams. Of course, St. Nicholas foils the butcher's wicked plot in this telling, too. I alerted the congregation ahead of time that the story might be shocking, but that it would turn out just fine in the end. There were understandably several very audible quick intakes of breath and groans when it became apparent where the story of was headed. When I was at St. Nicholas in Elk Grove Village, we told that story just about every year, and the children acted it out with great enthusiasm, running around the sanctuary to wild peals of laughter as they were turned into sausages. The story, of course, is situated in the fourth century when Christianity was the newly minted religion of Constantine's empire, following decades of persecutions and gory martyrdoms at the hands of the Roman state. Life was brutish and bloody, and so the core stories of Christianity were often bloody, too, even the ones that had happy endings.

What makes the story so worthy to be told in the 21st century is the way it emphasizes the church's role in protecting children. Yes, we should all ensure that the parish is a place where sexual misconduct is an impossibility by creating a culture of transparency and accountability, and requiring anyone who works with children to go through Keeping God's People Safe training. But that's just a first step. While I was preaching and offering the mass intention for the day, I was deeply mindful of the many children who suffer from violence on our city streets and around the world, because of gun violence, sexual abuse, neglect, child labor, and human trafficking. Are not these things just as horrifying as the story of the evil sausage grinder? Shouldn't we express our shock and outrage when we hear these things happening on a daily basis? Few of these children have the happy ending they deserve. In the story of the sausages, St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, swoops in to save the day, and the Church in our day should be prepared to do likewise.

Earlier in the day at the 8 am service, I preached on John the Baptist. In the face of so much abuse of children, his call to repentance, to prepare the way of the Lord, is the perfect response to the story of the sausages. The Forerunner might look wild and scary--perhaps today he'd be a street preacher with a megaphone and a placard scrawled with words of doom--but I would argue that his unapologetic call to repentance and action is completely appropriate in the face of so much evil.  It is also fitting that, on this the feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we reflect on how we can care for and protect mothers, who in their turn, must often face the same sources of abuse and violence as their children. Today, we commemorate the conception of the baby Mary, whose soul would magnify the Lord, and who would in turn become the Blessed Mother of Our Lord, Jesus. May the Church take seriously its responsibility to protect children, mothers, and all those who suffer from violence and abuse, as Nicholas and other saints great have done throughout the ages. Their stories--gritty, gory and shocking though they may be--still need to be told, so that we might be reminded of our responsibility as the Church to protect the vulnerable among us.

Advent blessings,
Fr. Ethan+