From Season to Season

A few days ago, I began reading Uncommon Gratitude: Alleluia for All That Is , a book co-authored by Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B., and Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. While the premise of the book is fairly straightforward, it provides a perspective on life that hasn't been explored often before:  Life itself is an exercise in learning to sing alleluia here in order to recognize the face of God hidden in the recesses of time. To deal with the meaning of alleluia in life means to deal with moments that do not feel like alleluia moments at all... alleluia is not a substitute for reality. It is simply the awareness of another kind of reality--beyond the immediate, beyond the delusional, beyond the instant perception of things. One of the oldest anthems of the church, alleluia simply means "All hail to the One who is." It is the archhymn of praise, the ultimate expression of thanksgiving, the pinnacle of triumph, the acme of human joy. It say...

In The Dwelling of the Light , a reflection on icons of Christ, RowanWilliams (the former archbishop of Canterbury), reflecting on the icon tradition of the Eastern Church, wrote,  Orthodox theologians have said—surely rightly—that the moment of resurrection could not be depicted, any more than you could depict the moment of creation or the moment of incarnation. You cannot paint a picture of the simple act of God… You can only show the effect of God’s action: the creation itself carrying the mystery of God in its very being, the human situation transformed by God. So you can depict the Risen Christ, but not the event of the resurrection… So the classical Easter icon shows something more than an historical event: it shows, you might say, the effect of God’s action on human history up to that point, and implicitly, the effect of God’s action on all history. Just as the transfiguration icon shows the light of Jesus’ presence illuminating Moses and Elijah, this icon sho...

Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come. —Psalm 23:5-6 When Pope Pius XI instituted a special feast honoring Christ “the King” in 1925, he lamented a world that had been ravaged by the First World War and which had begun to bow down before the lords of exploitative consumerism, nationalism, secularism, and new forms of injustice. The old power structures in Europe and the Middle East were fading into memory (including the colonial system that allowed European nations to claim holdings in Africa, South East Asia, and South America) and a new and uncertain world was rising in their place.  Pope Pius XI opening the "Holy Door" for the 1925 Jubilee Year, during which he instituted the Feast of Christ the King It would seem that Pope Pius began to understand that, for the Christian, the passing empires and colonies did not define who or whose they were. Instead, he reflec...

And Jesus was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light… Behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”     The Transfiguration of Jesus is one of those moments in the Gospels when the veil between Heaven and Earth all but vanishes and we are given a glimpse of realities that transcend the limits of our language, intellects, and even our imaginations. Found in all three of the Synoptic Gospels ( Matthew 17:1-8 , Mark 9:2-9 , and Luke 9:28b-36 ), this is one of those events that Scripture scholars and theologians struggle to explain. Even the traditional name we’ve given to this moment of revelation—“Transfiguration”—is nearly impossible to translate into a simple, concise definition. But the Transfiguration isn’t a puzzle to be solved. While we do well to ask if this was originally...