Good Friday in America: The Sixth Hour

April 18, 2014

On a hill far away. At the horizon of our memory as a people and as a Church, the vision of the great horror of human history remains vivid. It casts it's long, dark shadow down upon us from that stormy day to this, and it haunts us now as then. The world (and perhaps even most of the Church in it) turns away. From the darkness of the sixth hour they look past the gloom of the shadow of death, and fix their gaze longingly and hopefully upon the light of false promise that shines from beyond the ninth hour. They see a world reemerged from the darkness of the darkest day, and in a sense of desperate relief they say, "Historical Jesus studies show he was not the son of God. His disciples contrived the story to hide their grief -- to profit as we would do. Nothing supernatural happened here. It was but an ill-timed eclipse; a passing storm in a time of great superstition. But the storm has passed, the clouds have broken, and we now know better scientifically and stand in the bright sunshine of a bold new day. Dead men don't rise from the grave, and, if there is a God, he has no hold over us."
   
But there remains a remnant. A precious few. When they walk into the Sanctuary of God and see his body, broken for them, hanging in this darkened place between time and space, and heaven and hell, they fall to their knees before his Divine Presence in the Tabernacle. And they do this not because the rubric so instructs it, but because the heart so demands it. Because the legs grow suddenly weary and the knees buckle. Because the broken human heart suddenly feels the wound of the lance, and, so pierced, the only possible response is deep and profound and desperate prayer to his Sacred Heart, "Lord have mercy! Christ have mercy! Lord have mercy!" And the Spirit that emanates from the Real Presence whispers into the ear of the faithful penitent that most joyous revelation to human history, "Jesus lives!" And our faith is not in vain because Jesus is truly Lord and God has indeed raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9, 1 Corinthians 15:17).

Deep in prayer, the mind's eye comes into focus on that scene of long, long ago, on that hill, far, far away, and the silhouette of Jesus and the two thieves stands in even darker contrast to the cold, steel gray of the sky. But in this darkness shines an eternal light that radiates from the cross in the middle. In this light we see the faces of these two thieves. And they are you and I. As such, we are crucified by the sin of our forebears, and by our own sin that hangs upon our souls and brings its agonizing weight to bear upon the nails of avarice and lust and hubris that have us pinned helplessly upon the tree of death. In the midst of we who so hang awaiting our own death (a fate that is rightfully ours as the just reward for our misdeeds), is this man of mystery who dies here with us though he has done nothing wrong. And the choice is now ours to be as Gestas, and the many, and mock the Lord and turn away, or to be as Dismas, and the few, and turn to the Light of Christ in faith, offer up our sin, and so pray, "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Jesus is not dead! Jesus has a kingdom! Jesus is a king! And not merely a king in the sense that we recognize earthly rulers as such, but, as St. John tells us in the Revelation, he has as his title King of kings and Lord of lords. He is called Faithful and True. He is called the Word of God. And as this same Jesus, who was tortured to death in abject poverty and in total degradation upon the Roman cross, did indeed remember St. Dismas when he came into his kingdom, so he did not forget Gestas either. And he will not forget all of the nations and peoples and kings and kingdoms of this world who have betrayed him to the cross as did Judas, and who have denied him without claiming the repentance of Peter, who sits to this day upon Christ's throne and offers God's forgiveness to those who would but seek it. And I offer you not my words on my own authority, but those of the Evangelist himself, from the very Scripture the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ has officially proclaimed True and Holy Writ:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.

His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed which no one knows but himself. He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses. From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in midheaven, "Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great." And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who sits upon the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur. And the rest were slain by the sword of him who sits upon the horse, the sword that issues from his mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.

Revelation 19:11-21 (RSV)

What is this then? Should we tremble because God has gone mad? Or perhaps we should tremble more because He has not! Who speaks such things as these? Whose testimony is this? These are, to be sure, fair questions. And they are well answered by the mighty angel who brought this message to St. John when he says in verse nine, "These are the true words of God." And in verse ten when he divulges that such a spirit of prophecy is the very testimony of Jesus Christ himself. We would do well to heed the advice of good St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians and not be so deceived. For God is not crazy and neither is He mocked. What a man sows that shall he also reap. He who sows to the flesh shall, therefore, like Gestas, reap corruption. While he who sows to the Spirit shall, therefore, like Dismas, reap eternal life. And while the opportunity is still with us, it would be wise to do good to all, and especially to those who seek Christ on their knees beside us in the household of faith, for Paul also tells us, "...you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another" (Galatians 5:13, 6:7-10).

It is no coincidence that the wealth of the nation evaporates as our freedom to be Christian in the public square gives way to an ever greater freedom to celebrate these sins of the flesh. Homosexual men marry homosexual men, and lesbian women marry lesbian women, and woe be to he who utters a word against this abomination which maketh desolate! And the great irony in this is that now heterosexual men and heterosexual women see no need to marry at all. Debauchery takes on the name of love, and love gives way to lust, and the progeny of this sin is easily prevented -- or simply flushed away.  In such an America in which freedom of religion is withdrawn from public life, it is the anti-Catholic and anti-Christ lies and proclamations which remain as politically correct, while the truth of God goes forever silent.  And many cheer their right to choose death for their unborn children, and claim it hateful to protest and lament the blood of these Holy Innocents, spilled upon what we once called the sacred ground of Christ.

Yes, time for America now runs short. She hangs in the balance of history, rightly crucified for her sins and with one last chance to make the choice of Dismas and repent, or to make the choice of Gestas and continue to mock God in her unbelief and, in banishing Christ from the market place of ideas, condemn herself to the damnation of Egypt, Greece, Babylon, Rome and the other pagan empires that lie in ruins upon the earth. In the fading light of the American Dream, we find ourselves, each and every one of us, hanging upon the cross next to Christ, who has come into our midst to save us. And it is up to each and everyone of us to make the choice of Dismas and cry out with our dying breath, "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom," or to choose as Gestas and mock him in our one last act of unbelief.

In a democracy, the will of the majority wins out. The conversion of America to Christ is the result of the conversion of the majority of her people, and given the dire straights of modern times in general, and the predicament of our nation in particular, it would seem that the New Evangelization should, for us, take on a certain immediacy and urgency. But the truth is that the many who call themselves Catholic, or Christian by any other choice of denomination, do so with a particular and peculiar lack of religious conviction. 

In the fundamentalist and evangelical churches, and even to an extent among the more mainline Protestant churches, this does result in a "God and Country" mentality in which the cross is effectively replaced with the flag, and the will of the nation -- right or wrong -- is conceived to be the will of the Lord. The result is a mythical and historically ridiculous understanding of America as the defacto kingdom of God, and this is exploited with relative ease by conservative so-called "patriots" who presume him to be one of them.

In the Catholic tradition, the result is a certain and perceived self consciousness about the radical nature of the act of salvation, and its supernatural and other worldly aspects, that results in the elevation of Catholic social doctrine to the pinnacle of Calvary. In the modern, scientific world of democratic government, all religious views are to be given equal credence and respect before being effectively discarded. This means that no claim can be made to the uniquely salvific aspect of the Catholic faith, which has, at its heart and core, the cross. Indeed, the modern Catholic must ignore the crucial importance of the sacrifice of Christ to the salvation of the world in order to even engage in the debate of temporal politics, which has, at its heart and core, a merely secular and completely relative definition of what it hopes to accomplish. And while it is certainly legitimate to inject Catholic social teaching into the political discourse, it must be done secure in an underlying knowledge, and with a true and deep conviction, that the more dogmatic aspects of the act of eternal salvation at the cross are what is truly important.

It is impossible to conceive of a more apolitical personage than Jesus of Nazareth. He did not appeal his conviction but accepted his condemnation, as placed before him, as the greater will of God. He did not debate the cruelty of the cross, he merely subjected himself willingly to it, and did so without question or compromise. He makes not one suggestion pertaining to the wielding of power within the world, but instructs us to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's: to be in the world but not of it. Yet the central theme of the gospel message is that of the ultimate and unassailable politic of a supernatural and eternal coming kingdom of heaven. And so he tells Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world." It is a kingdom that will supersede this world system and abolish the nations that still inflict the will of the mighty upon the weak, and, in so doing, create an unnatural and opulent standard of living for the elite at the expense of an unnatural level of pain and suffering for the huddled masses.

It is the sixth hour in America and darkness has descended upon the land. America hangs upon the cross of time run out as the great thief of history, with the plundered treasure of the nations at her feet. She hangs convicted as a killer, with the blood of the holy innocents she has martyred, and the contrived enemies she has conquered, staining her hands. And already it would seem that judgment is upon her. Out of the storm darkened skies the wrath of God is funneled, and whole cities explode into an angry sky. Out of the seas come great tempests and great cities are drowned. Forests burst into flames and the mountain top homes of the great and powerful are incinerated as a harbinger of the greater holocaust to come. And the great and powerful capitalists, seeing the chance for profit, discard the business suits of wolves and disguise themselves in the jeans and flannel of sheep, and tell us that if we just trust the rising global government and "go green," we will stem the wrath of God and (somehow) save the planet. And that time is nigh upon us when the American eagle will cry, "Woe! Woe! Woe!" as the mighty voice of the angel of Revelation announces, "Fallen, fallen is America the Great!"

As the earth trembles under the weight of greed and sin, the light that shines from beyond the ninth hour of our suffering planet is the Light of Christ. But it is not the sweet, gentle Jesus who went to the Holy Cross of Calvary as the Lamb of God unto the sacrificial slaughter, but he who returns that is called Faithful and True. The Word of God. From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. He mounts his white horse and prepares to make war against those who make war as the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Son of Man who returns when least expected and, in a world that has denied his power to save us, and has banned him from the public square, that time is now. The nation that so denies him so rides against him, and it would seem the sharp sickle is put into the cluster of the vine.

But there remains a remnant. A precious few. And so we pray...