The Things One Can Never Forgive

It's taken me rather a long time (as usual) to figure this out. But sometimes history doesn't seem to cooperate very well with us. Sometimes history in a given place - like, say, the Middle East - instead of moving properly forward, can seem to close round itself in a kind of loop: a loop that suggests that its God - assuming history has a god - is either sorely unimaginative, or suffering from one degree or another of incompetence, or simply one who rather desperately needs our help. And in particular our help in breaking that history out of whatever holding pattern, or pattern of unprogressive recurrence, it's somehow stupidly got itself into. But all the more so if our religion happens to be a once and final, never-to-be-replaced-or-revised monotheism, whose advanced purity and austerity are such as to make pretty much all its predecessors (e.g., Judaism, Christianity) retrograde and redundant. If not positively harmful.

So now imagine such a loop, if you can: A blatantly lesser monotheistic people (however ingeniously cunning and conniving) with a most primitive and unspiritual notion, both of God and of their own relation to God, who somehow manage to return to a place from which they'd been most disgracefully (not to mention deservedly) expelled many centuries ago. And most troubling of all - at least from the standpoint of your own rightful deserts - they somehow manage to make a go, and even a kind of success, of it. To the point where not only their own numbers, but those of your own people keep increasing as it were inexorably. And however much they may want to ensure for you the exact opposite result.

Then again, someone else might argue, what difference should it make even if they were to to do the exact reverse - to try to increase and prosper your people, as well as theirs - given that they have absolutely NO business being there in the first place?

Consider, then, what it is even to share that same sacred space - the second holiest place on earth, in fact, and so surely the sole rightful possession of the world's holiest religion? - with a manifestly unworthy nation, and faith. Think what it is to have to concede the lion's share of it to a people you don't just morally object to, but despise, loathe, perhaps even abominate. Isn't it true, that sometimes the hardest of such a people's offenses to forgive, among all the myriad inconsiderations, degradations, gross injustices they inflict, are not so much their cruelties as their kindnesses, not their failures (of course), but their successes, not their hardness and miserliness of heart so much as their bounty and generosity. Think what a triumph of self-vindication it would be, if only you could mark just the former to their credit, and not the latter! Indeed, given their larger, indeed their prior and comprehensive unworthiness - which of course can only testify to the gross insincerity and untrustworthiness of even their "worthiest" present acts - sometimes it isn't enough to "cancel," to bring into disrepute their physical presence in the sacred space. Sometimes the only thing that will relieve your humiliation - the disgrace of their continued prosperity, and your ongoing misery (even as you - or some of you - partake of and benefit from their good fortune?) - is to cancel, undo, eradicate even the memory of their physical existence in that space. Or if, for the time being, their physical annihilation eludes you, surely you can bring about a moral annihilation like no other in the history of the world? Surely, armed as you are with the right side of that history, you can enlist on your side such an overwhelming preponderance of world opinion as will make it just a matter of time before the entire globe vomits them out . . . 

I can't pretend to know how far this is an accurate picture of the basic moral assumptions/quandaries of most Palestinians living in Gaza or elsewhere. But something tells me it's a pretty accurate, if broad-stroked, summary of the world-view of that infestation we call Hamas. And of those Palestinians, along with their apparently growing masses of supporters throughout the world, who have become more or less Hamasified. And as anyone, I suspect, who really knows the leadership of Hamas - whether pro or con, or from the inside or out - will tell you: It can never, ever be satisfied with even the most thorough and irrevocable extirpation of the Jewish state. Consider for a moment your fervently devout Hamas militant. As distinct from some more politically opportunistic supporter. For the true believer, Israel together with her allies, defenders, tolerators has arguably committed the great capital, and possibly unforgivable, sin against the (real) People of God. But even assuming the Jewish state's complete eradication, there remain those residual pockets of support and tolerance throughout the world to be dealt with. And even then, speaking just territorially, why stop there? Do not he and his comrades, or at any rate their closest co-religionists, have at least as good a claim to Cyprus and Crete and Greece and the greater part of the Balkans, to Sicily and Sardinia and most if not all of Spain? And those just for breakfast? 

Yet even apart from questions of territory, why should your devoutly Hamas militant make Jews/Israelis the most blameworthy of his enemies? They almost can't help it: being who they are, and so far as they intend to remain Jews, they really have no choice but to fight to the death those who seek (at very least) their collective amnesia. In short, as unrepentant Jews bent on their own survival, they're all but congenitally incorrigible. But what about the rest of us, who sympathize with, or aren't wholly convinced of the blasphemous absurdity of Israel's right to exist? Don't at least we have free will? And doesn't that make us at least criminally complicit with, and so even more culpable and deplorable than, Jews themselves? 

That is why I find myself more and more convinced that, whether we know it (yet) or not, under the self-appointedly "divine" judgment of Hamas we are all Jews nowadays. And above all those of us who have no intention of becoming even remotely Hamasified. In effect we are either with them or against them: either we are Jews in effect, or else we are those who, whether purposefully or not, have become complicit in the desire for (at very minimum) Jewish collective amnesia. Or other collective suicide. As indeed I frankly wonder if I haven't myself been complicit (and, yes, to my inestimable shame), because of my delayed response to October 7. 

But now recall what I hinted at earlier, regarding both Jerusalem and Israel as a whole. As some might argue, surely it's only right that the holiest place on earth (or even the second holiest?) should be the exclusive possession of the holiest and most progressive monotheistic religion. In short, by rights it both belongs to and should be mainly inhabited by Sunni Muslims.* Yet within such a tight, uncompromising moral framework, it is hard to see how there could ever be room, much less legitimacy, for any Israel, any Jewish state, or even province or reservation or autonomous region, no matter how small or "humbled," compliant or acquiescent. And once again, why stop there - assuming the tables have been sufficiently and irreversibly turned? After all, now you're on a roll, and feeling more than ever unstoppable. "We have them on the run," as I believe one Hamas militant put it some years ago. And let no one underestimate the sheer momentum of outraged world opinion.

*I suspect Iran even in its Machiavellian stupidity will learn that soon enough.

Given, then, that iron framework of moral assumptions, along with its accompanying momentum, the real question as I see it becomes very simple. Even with respect to a "repentant," restitution-offering Israel: once you, her sworn enemy, are possessed of that degree of moral certitude and contempt, of that sense of almost cosmic injustice and outrage, may I suggest, it is no longer a matter of what vengeance, what sadism, what otherwise diabolic cruelty and atrocity you become (rightly) capable of. And against those who are, after all, Allah's own personal enemies. The question rather is what vengeance, etc, do you believe you're not entitled to?

Travails of a (sadly un-salesmanlike) Church Mouse

So what am I doing wrong?

Why am I having so much trouble getting volunteers for even a single (minor festival) day, involving at most an hour or two? And that requiring nothing more strenuous than keeping the church open? Just when did so many unselfish, caring, conscientious people - and most of them comfortably retired - become so unbreathably busy?

But here's a disturbing thought. The fact that the ministry isn't all that strenuous or challenging - might that be the problem?

My late father used to talk about certain things in life - however many or few - that were simply "more trouble than they're worth." In other words, not everything is worth doing merely because it's intrinsically difficult. Even in a church. And if even those ministries of the largest inherent worth can somehow be made easier, more approachable, more humanly breathable, then surely - in most cases - some measure of net gain will be secured?

Which to me only suggests, why, how far we've progressed from - what? ignorance? inefficiency? barbarism? God? - since 1970. 

My point is that, in today's operational world, I suspect my father's dictum would be all but incomprehensible. And not just in corporate venues, but perhaps even more so among busy church people. No doubt our modern rejoinder should be best rephrased as a question. As in: "Wait a minute: if it's not troublesome, then what's it worth?" Or, more to the immediate point: If I'm not contantly multiplying and accelerating the amount of trouble I'm enduring on your behalf, how on earth are you - much less anyone else - ever going to know how much I love you?

More and more it occurs to me that Love Today (even - or especially? - in its most giving modes) is not nearly so much a matter of relying and trusting - in God or anyone else - as it is of proving and demonstrating: proving our worthiness, our dedication, our willingness to sacrifice, our up-to-the-challengeness. And so, of course, the more visibly dramatic or even excruciating the challenge the better: the better to cover ourselves in . . . credit? respect? or even glory? 

And why not? I mean, how else does one distinguish oneself in any organization - much more that of the Church - than by taking on more and more and more? Again, you do want to distinguish yourself, right? I mean, if you're not willing to take yourself seriously, why should I? And if nobody takes you seriously, how are you ever going to be given anything really important to do, and so accomplish real and significant good? And on the largest possible scale? (Which is where everything really counts, you know.) Finally, if these are precisely the incentives that have made us most effective in the World, shouldn't we of the Church be able to at least triple their effectiveness? Or what's an omnipotent God for, anyway???

And then simpletons like me marvel at how our Modern Acts of Charity have become so grim . . . and tense . . . and strained . . . and (dare I say it again?) competitive.

Now remember, the point of competing is to win. By winning, we at very least demonstrate our competence, possibly even our fitness to exercise authority. Or even to wield power? Indeed, what good is virtue - necessary as it is - apart from the power and authority required to make it effective, and authoritative? 

The real question, I suspect, is whether and how far the most effective - i.e., the most loving - kinds of power are primarily external. Does our Maker more convictingly demonstrate His might by changing governments, or systems, or technologies? Or by changing hearts? 

Which latter is, of course, an immeasurably more gentle, osmotic, insinuative power than anything we mere humans have so far achieved. Yes, even with those we profess - and strain - to love. 

My final point, then, concerns the nature of power at its most inward. The kind of power that, before it does anything of a mere external nature, somehow actually manages to reach into, and enter deeply the silence of, and therefore change, our hearts. Why, if I'm not mistaken, there's even some fairly solid Scriptural evidence for it. Indeed, as the present Church liturgical season - now called Ordinary Time, but which some used to call Pentecost - ought to remind us: Power at at its most love-full (awful phrase, I know) should not be understood as something taken at all. It is not something that you win, or gather, or amass, or earn or summon or conjure. Power at its most godly, and thus humble, and thereby effective, is above all something you receive.

Some Post-Covidity Realizations

Oh yeah, and one more prayer (remember, I'm nothing if not monotonous):

God save us from what I like to call a morbidly global globe. God deliver us from a world so morbidly intent on its pre-set, sacred agendas - whether of Life As Radically Reset, or of Business-As-Rigidly-Usual - that it becomes unable to see a genuine interruption clearly. Like, for instance, Covid. Imagine having been able to see even Covid clearly. Which is to say, prayerfully, trustfully, proportionately for what it is. And not merely for what we can make of it, according to your, or my, preferred political narratives. God heal us, too, from a world that, in its twisted obsession with global scale, finds it even harder to see how the proportionateness, the fitness of a given pandemic response both can and often should vary - from country to country, region to region, locale to locale, etc.

A little late for all that, I know. 

And of course you and I can debate till our Lord comes home about how the whole mess was prearranged, more or less conspiratorially. My point is that even the most brutally unexpected interruptions can be exploited to death, once we crafty humans get our bearings. Worse yet, they can be brazenly orchestrated and manipulated - yes, sometimes even towards the death of Freedom As We Know It. Which does not exactly prove that some omnicompetent Blofeld had it all planned from the start. On the other hand if, as in this case, the ground zero of interruption - our very own corporately most holy and godlike Beijing (to whose wisest precautions how could we all not defer?) - if even the Mighty Interrupter Itself was, shall we say, hardly prepared for pandemic, how much less the rest of us mere mortals?

Our Strange Pan-human Journey

Just some bizarre, rambling and (to some) possibly incoherent thoughts as one might expect from me following another ridiculously long - nearly four-month? - sabbatical. Or if you prefer, consider it a further exploration of certain points and themes raised in my last post but one. Anyhow: 

As I understand the Scriptures, we humans one and all come from one God, whether we like Him or not, who also made all the other creatures of our common universe, whether we like them or not. (And we humans can be quite finicky about these things). Neither does the story just go on from there, forever and ever - open-endedly, as it were - as if our Point of Origin, did we so choose, might be one to which we will never return, even as we continue to move onwards and upwards, to bigger and better (yet strangely God-free?) things. 

Rather, the point is that, just as we've all come from God, so one day we shall all return to Him, whether for mercy or for judgment. Please note, then, that the bounds of this whole cycle - its starting- and end-points - are not just one and the same God, but are both quite involuntary: we did not choose them, and again, we may not even much like them. We may indeed wish we could go much farther - or even infinitely far - to places supposedly unbounded by God. And the whole time doing it pretty much on our own: with our Maker barely a memory, or having left Him once and for all "in the dust," as they say. But we have no choice in the matter.

On the other hand, I've been told, on good authority, that as we become reconciled to what we can in no wise change - when we choose to embrace, with love, That over which we have least power or control - we sometimes encounter a kind of blessedness altogether unique: one containing a core of rapture, indeed, so not of this earth as to be both "boundless," and boundlessly satisfying.

But if that be so, then clearly our human problem lies not with our start or finish - our Alpha and Omega, so to speak - but with what happens, and what we choose, in the meantime. I.e., between our birth and our death. In a nutshell, our common problem is this: In our various highly individual journeys of return to the God who made us, we often run into other gods along the way, many of whom represent themselves as being either the real terminus of our journey, or as some genuine if not indispensable help in getting there. Almost as if the God were using them as tentative-yet-necessary intermediaries, or guideposts, or way-stations of refreshment and renewal, to help and speed us along. And yet we know, quite to the contrary, that His Word is altogether adamant in its warnings against precisely that: against following, not just gods other than the Creator and Redeemer of Genesis and John, but even "an angel from heaven" (if such a thing were possible) come down to preach to us some other gospel of supposed redemption.

Right now, though, I'd like to draw your attention to one very specific and distinct "other god." I would like to pray with all my heart our Maker's protection - for all of us - against one kind of very familiar, most ingratiating, and possibly ubiquitous deity. One so familiar as to be, as often as not, some version of our own "best," or most sacred, or heroic, or productive or progressive Self . Plus - as if all that weren't enough - one who very generously bothers to meet us half-way, as it were. And all for no other reason than to hasten us on down the right Path. As the saying goes, what could possibly go wrong?

So what is my prayer?

God save us, I pray, from the kind of god who, no matter how well-intentioned and compassionate he may be - and however much real, tangible power he may be able to gain over maybe the better part of the universe -  nonetheless did not create it. And so is not really capable of understanding it. At least not in what we might call its real depths: those strange, often hidden deeps of meaning, resonance and longing ("secret as the soul") in which it too both desires, and finds its only satisfaction in, its Maker. God save us, in other words, from that god in relation to whom the Universe itself, just because it is powerful, yet rarely if ever seems benevolent or compassionate, can only be one degree or another of obstacle. Or competitor. Or enemy. Indeed, one suspects that the relation between them - between this god and this universe - can only be one of the most hardened enmity, and that for two reasons. First, because on the one hand, again, this god did not create this world, and so has no hope of really getting inside it - getting to know it "from within itself," so to speak. Yet on the other hand, he clearly is (or at any rate seems to be) the hands-down moral superior of this most cruel, uncompassionate creation. 

At the same time, precisely because this same god, no matter how he may love or want to help us, did not create us either - any more than he created the world - neither can he really get inside of us; his life cannot flow through us, because our own life hinders it. We can never be his vessels, or his members, but at best only his partners or his instruments. Or at worst (some would argue) his puppets. Indeed, it may be contended that - even if one assumes him to be completely "outside of" us* - still, he depends no less on us than we on him, and possibly more so. As powerful as he is or is able to become, his power shall always be limited by what he did not create, and so cannot ever really know the heart and soul of. Neither can he ever be secure and without fear in his relation to the universe, in the way that, say, its Maker is; indeed, precisely because he can neither satisfy its desire nor gain its trust, there is but one way he can "overcome" the creation's enmity: it is through power, and ever more power, control, and ever more control.

*Never a safe assumption in any circumstances.

But while this god's power is clearly limited, we humans can, if we wish, extend it. We may have no more hope than he does of understanding this creation - at least not apart from the grace of its God. But we can nonetheless be partners with him in his project of taming and subuing it. Or failing that (and remember this is - at least from one standpoint - a most unruly, wicked creation), we can terrorize, eviscerate and beat it into submission. Much as you would any rudely obstinate and dangerous monster. After all, it may be argued, since when has want of real understanding - of anything - ever really interfered with Man's ability to control it, to utilize it, to turn it to good, sound, productive purpose. Oh, granted it has sometimes. But not, surely, when that purpose is comprehensively, technologically rational, unpoetic, unromantic, unsentimental, and above all, soundly utilitarian? Which is to say, when Rational Utilitarian Man is the One most utterly in control, both of himself and of his surroundings. On the other hand, if even our most rational purposes sometimes turn us to violent methods - due, again, to the obstinacy/unruliness/wickedness of the universe - or seem unduly harsh or cruel even to ourselves and to our neighbor: honestly, what else are we resourceful humans supposed to do? Be oppressed, so as not to oppress? And who is to blame us? or stop us?

The problem, as I see it, with this kind of god is that he cannot stop. He seems to be humble enough, because of his poignant awareness of his own insufficiency, and because he's forever imploring us to go beyond him. In a sense he's a very American sort of god; his first, his foremost, perhaps his only commandment is threefold: "Impress me. Surprise me. Surpass me." The implicit point being that just as he is not enough, but needs us to complete and go beyond and make him redundant, so do we in our turn need other things, that we in a very real sense have made (or at least much more than he can be said to have made us), to complete and go beyond and make us redundant. 

Are you with me so far?

But here to me is the most galling thing: The more has-been, obsolescent, redundant we all become - this modish yet all-too-soon-outmoded progression of gods - somehow the less we seem able to subdue, or pacify, or control, or even conciliate (much less be reconciled with) this growingly obstinate universe. Or even just this earth. Which latter no doubt will become the very soul of compliance and cooperation once we mere unenhanced humans - or most of us - have been duly superseded, and its new overlords are free to take our progress-so-far to the legendary "next level."

Now you can make of that likelihood whatever you like. For my part (and to return to my original prayer) I say: God save us from any intermediate, transitioning, ever-so-kindly-tentative god or series of gods. Yes, even when they all boil down to nothing more than our "very best" selves doing their best - or to that "sacred self" in each of us which most longs to please, or be closest to, or even "most like" God. God save us from that zealous deity who, however much he may strive or presume to love both God and man, cannot ever really (which is to say, lovingly) understand us humans: can never know us as me, but only as I; never as passive, or receptive, or contemplative, but only active; never as creation, but only as creating; can never know that inmost wellspring of need and longing, in you and me and every creature, which is all that waters and irrigates, solaces, refreshes and renews even our seemingly most independent creative acts. And just because he cannot know that in any creature which only its Creator knows best - cannot know its peace, but only its fear, defiance, ambition, aggression - so naturally he looks out on all nature, whether human or subhuman, and sees only a war of all against all. Hence, too, his own strange peace, which somehow always seems to resolve itself into one or another degree of violence, suppression, distortion, disfigurement: both of "nature," and of our own nature. Even as this same god proceeds, with the "very best" aims and intentions, to wreak or expedite the sort of havoc - climatic, economic, geopolitical, thermonuclear, what have you - which comes every month, every day* closer to the doorsteps of each one of us.  

*Or am I once again grossly overreacting? After all (as I've been told more than once), one singularly brutal and ugly global summer does not a climate-crisis make.

In short, God save us from that god who, as often as not - at least when he's not your and my most bravely self-transgressing, self-transcending Egos in disguise - is really the Devil. Which is to say, that One who, while he's not inaptly termed the god of this world, nonetheless did not create it, and so can never redeem it. 

On which note, once again, if I may: 

Pray for the peace and sanity of Kyiv. And the return to sanity of Moscow.

But above all, 

God deliver, cleanse and and heal America.

More Travails of Modern Love

No, I'm probably not one of the most giving souls ever to enter the doors of a church (much less the Order of Secular Franciscans). 

But from my observing of others who genuinely do give of themselves - along with the various hardships they encounter - may I hazard a speculation? 

This has got to be, I think, one of the most treacherous dilemmas facing anyone who's ever tried their best to love bitter, hardworking, self-consciously sacrificial people (which latter may be - let's face it - the great majority of us nowadays, in one busy venue or another?):

Namely, how you are to show them enough of the love they need, without making them either:

     (1) resentful of the obligation incurred; or 

     (2) jealous of your supposed moral high ground. 

Nor are they necessarily being petty or mean-spirited in thus responding. Much less Pharisaic. After all, even in charitable love - if one's aim is to obtain the very best results - can one ever be too competitive?

Pray for the peace of Kyiv.

God heal America.

A Most Unruly God

For all our modern advances, even today the universe can seem like a scary place. One that even now seems more than capable of swallowing us whole at a moment's (or an asteroid's) notice. 

And so of course, in an unruly - yet by no means uncontrollable - material world, hey, thank God for science, right? And for all the micro-burrowing, omni-excavating technologies that increasingly make the Progress of Science possible. If not inevitable. Thank God for those god-like atom-smashers, asteroid-deflectors, face-recognizers, fMRI scanners, etc, to whom all hearts (and guts) are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets of the universe are hid. I mean, even on the odd chance that we ourselves should wind up getting smashed, surely the risk incurred is one worth taking?

I'll admit, nowadays this expanding cosmos can often seem like that. Like some Ultimate Megahazard against which no insurance is ever too costly. Like a place not just overwhelming, but almost maliciously confusing in its infinitude, its elusive complexity, its wildness and callousness and treachery to whatever is human. Or whatever is "sentimentally" human, in any case. In short, a cosmic jungle, that not only offers no haven or even foothold for innocence and trust, for surprise and wonder (much less delight), but which only the most proudly, ruthlessly sophisticated human minds can ever hope to map and control, organize and productivize. And so, of course, "really" know. So that if, say for instance, modern America is fast becoming the sort of place that is "no country for old men," even so our wider cosmic habitat - the more we study and explore it - is more and more revealing itself to be no universe for little children. Not even children "in spirit." And just as our once seemingly limitless American wilderness may have demanded 

    "men for [commensurate with] my mountains,"

so now our one hope of intergalactic survival may be to become the sort of self-transhumanizing species that can indeed "equal" an expanding cosmos - but only to the extent that we control it. And - perhaps just as likely - only control it in the degree that we despise, and brutalize it? Remember, no sophistication without an ever-so-knowing, withering contempt. And surely most of us are familiar with those adult "real life" situations (most of real life, actually?) in which it all comes down to a choice of eat or be eaten, torture or be tortured, etc.

We "Biblical" theists, of course, continue to admit there may be room for a slightly different perspective. That is, we continue to confess to a more or less Biblical Creator. I.e, a deity who not only created every thing, but who persists in being on the most searchingly, yet respectfully, intimate terms with every thing He created, however glorious or "insignificant."  To such an extent, indeed, that He alone is able, not only to "take the edge off" our creaturely propensities to answer terror with terror, torture with torture, etc, but actually to find an older, deeper place within each of us. A place where "deep calls unto deep" - even, say, between man and rodent? - precisely because each one of us creatures is no longer seeking merely its own territorial power, but somehow also the presence - and so maybe the peace - of its God? 

In brief, we still confess to the sort of Maker who's no less mindful, and patient, and lovingly accepting of each being's vulnerabilities than of its strengths. And who knows that sometimes a creature is never more vulnerable than when it's trying to be most "in charge," and self-transcending. Or terrorizing. The point here being that there is nothing human (or even transhuman) that can exceed not just His grasp, but His wisdom, and empathy. And Final Judgment. So that if  - just maybe - there's some vestige of wistful innocence in even the unpromising soul of a tiger, or a Titan, or a Donald Trump, surely He, if anyone, will be the One who can show us how to find it? Or at any rate, far more effectively than the most arrogant transhuman worldliness could ever beat or torture it into submission.

The question, I suspect, on the minds of today's more globally-minded technocrats (so far as they think of God at all) is whether He's still up to that job. That is, the job of being "on top of" the whole universe, not just from top to bottom, but from start to finish. Can even He keep up with its ever-unfolding, infinitely multiplying strangeness and perversity? Or even our own? Much less with our own ever-exploding human science and technology? 

Or do we still, just maybe, have a Biblical God who remains what He always said He was? Who knew every conceivable crook and crevice of an expanding universe long before there was a human, or even a human science, to map and "conquer" it? A God who is every bit as "superior" to us at the end of our vast sojourn of progress as He was at its beginning? An author and a finisher so wholly incommensurate with every other "greatness," and yet so utterly childlike to the very core of His being (be He never so "adult," vast and wise), that our mere human pretensions to adulthood and maturity, to superiority and hierarchy, to greatness and progress and self-transcendence all boil down to one humongous joke from Hell?

Pray for the peace of Kyiv.

God heal America.

(Edited.)

A Risen Humility

Almost 2000 years ago, the shattered body of the One (and only) God-man was taken down from a hateful instrument of torture, and placed in a most lovingly prepared tomb. And all by the same species that had Him crucified. Clearly, quite a radical departure from what we did when we killed Him. In any case, at least we got the burial part right. 

But now imagine us, even as a species, becoming rather more hopeful than that. Or more brazenly ambitious, as some might prefer to call it. Imagine us, or some of us, actually trying to revive the body we had buried, by the ingenuity of our own mere human devices. Of course, it's hard to picture anyone in AD 33 envisioning that prospect with any degree of confidence. But today? . . . 

Now note: Our Lord had to be fully human in order to die. It takes a fully human body to be well and truly dead. But it takes nothing less than the God-man who indwells that same body to know, and to accept, that it is in fact broken beyond all hope of human repair. Broken, indeed, beyond anything but what a fully Divine restoration can accomplish. Left to our own human devices - even with the best of intentions - we would still, even now, be trying to resuscitate it. Or transhumanize it.

Again, a wholly Divine restoration. And grace. And tenderness. And solicitude. 

Of course I'm not expecting that this same human race is somehow - and at this late date - going to discover a humility (or even a tenderness) in any way approaching that of a Divine Father and Son. But may the shattered, self-crucified body of this world please note, and take heed: It can no more repair itself, than the best intentions and ingenuities of 1st-century mankind could have revived the body of its Christ.

Happy Easter.