The Mother of all Moments

Introduction

Mt. Tabor

Last Sunday Satan leads Jesus to a very high mountain and shows him all the glittering kingdoms of the world and tempts him saying, “Fall down and adore me, and all this splendor shall be yours” (Mt 4: 1-11). This Sunday Jesus is on anther height called Mount Tabor in Christian tradition. Mount Tabor is always the theme of the second Sunday of Lent (Mt 17:1-8; Mk 9:2- 8; Lk 9:28-36).

On that mountain Jesus’ face shines like the sun, and his clothes become white as light. A bright cloud appears, and out of the cloud a voice is heard proclaiming, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him” (Mt 17:5). Something spectacular is taking place on Tabor. Christians call it a transfiguration. Catholics assign a special feast day for it: August 6^th, Feast of the Lord’s Transfiguration. Others, especially psychologists, simply call that spectacular event a religious experience. Mount Tabor is the mountain of religious experience.

Saul’s voices

Religious experiences don’t happen just on lofty and breezy mountaintops. They happen also down in the sweaty valleys of real life. They can happen even as you’re on your way to do some mischief. As Saul of Tarsus was journeying to Damascus, breathing threats against the early Christians there, a flash of lightening struck him down from his high horse, and he heard a voice crying out, “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?” Startled Saul called out, “Who are you?” The voice answered, “I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:1-22). It was a powerful religious experience for Saul. It took place down in the heated valley of the human condition. In it Saul heard a voice, and that marked the moment of his conversion.

Augustine’s voices

St. Augustine heard his voices in the garden of his villa. Through his extensive writing this famous bishop of North Africa ruled the Church theologically from the 5^th to the 13^th century. In his younger days he was a rounder of the first water. He strayed off into the heretical teachings of Manichaeism and into the wayward paths of youth, begetting a son for himself out of wedlock. In his Confessions, Augustine relates how in his garden one day he heard a voice coming from the other side of the wall saying in a sing-song sort of way “Tolle et lege! Tolle et lege!” (Augustine wrote in Latin.) “Take and read! Take and read!”

At first he thought it was some kids on the other side playing a game. Then seized with the conviction that he was hearing a very special voice, Augustine picked up the Scriptures that lay nearby. They fell open to the words of St. Paul saying, “Let us behave decently as in the daylight, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual excess and lust, not in quarreling and jealousy. Rather let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (Rom 13:13, Confessions Bk VIII, ch 12). It was a powerful religious experience for Augustine. It took place down in the valley of human weakness. In it he heard a voice and that marked the moment of his conversion.

Francis’ voices

That great saint of all Catholic saints, St. Francis of Assisi, who also was a rounder in his earlier days, heard his voices in a little church falling into ruins. One day in the 23^rd year of his life in 1205, he was praying before a very old crucifix in a dilapidated little church of San Damiano in Assisi. “Lord,” he was earnestly praying, “what is it that you want from me?” Suddenly he heard a voice from the crucifix saying, “Francis, repair my church.”

At first that little literal man thought the voice was calling him to repair the rickety little chapel. It was really calling him to become the founder of the Franciscan Order---an immense family of friars and nuns as numerous as the sands of the sea, who would repair and revitalize the Church as no movement before or after. It was a powerful religious experience for Francis. It didn’t happen in the great Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome but in a poor little chapel in Assisi and before its crucifix.

A digression

Here I make a little digression. That crucifix before which Francis heard his voices was an icon painted on canvas and applied to a cross of walnut wood. It was the work of an unknown artist of the Umbrian School. The original one before which St. Francis prayed now stands in the Church of St. Clare in Assisi as the most prized possession of the Franciscan family. Over the centuries it has become the most renowned and most reproduced crucifix in the world. I’ve stood before that crucifix in Assisi a few times. I stood before it this past October.

The crucifix which led the procession down the aisle at the beginning of Mass this morning here at St. Mary, Star of the Sea, is an exact reproduction of that very crucifix which is known the world over as the San Damiano Crucifix. When I saw it here my first Sunday at St. Mary, Star of the Sea, Freeport, Texas, though many miles away from Milwaukee and a bit apprehensive of what to expect, I, a friar of the great Franciscan family, suddenly felt at home and at ease. Every Sunday when you see this crucifix make its way down the aisle of your beautiful church, recall that from it came the voice which the great St. Francis heard. And then recall Psalm 95 exhorting us, “If today you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts” (Ps 95:8).

Ecstasy

In religious experiences we hear voices, as Saul of Tarsus heard a voice when struck down from his high horse. As Augustine heard a voice coming from across the wall. As Francis heard a voice coming from the San Damiano crucifix. As Peter, James and John in today’s gospel heard a voice coming from a cloud overshadowing them on Mount Tabor. All religion is rooted in religious experience and its voices. Ceremonies and sermons, creeds and catechisms, in and of themselves don’t count for very much. At the end of the day, what counts is religious experience with its voices.

With religious experience and its voices there comes ecstasy. That’s a perfectly good word, and it shouldn’t scare us. Ecstasy is the coin of religious experience. In ecstasy we stand outside ourselves. In ecstasy we are beside ourselves in the face of something that fills us with awe and wonder. Up there on the lofty heights of Mt. Tabor, Peter is in ecstasy. He is beside himself. He is emoting. He is crying out, "Oh how good it is for us to be here!" It’s so good he wants to dig in and hunker down there forever. “Lord,” he cries out, “let’s build three shelters up here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Mk 9:5). Not only is Mount Tabor high, the Apostles are also high on Mount Tabor.

At least in church

The great religious experience of St. Francis happened in the little rickety church of San Damiano and before its renowned crucifix. Where in this whole wide world, we ask, should we expect to have a religious experience and hear its voices and reap its ecstasy if not in church? It’s for that very reason we build and consecrate churches in the first place. The church, of all places, should be the locus par excellence of religious experience and its ecstasy.

Unfortunately that’s often not the case. Karl Jung, the father of modern psychology, writes about the day of his first Holy Communion. Because of what he had heard he anxiously awaited the great event. The day finally came. All peeled into church. In familiar robes, his father who was the minister of the celebration stood behind the altar reading the prayers. He watched him eat the bread, which came from the local bakery, and sip the wine, which came from the local tavern. Then he passed the bread and wine to others who seemed solemn and stiff and even bored. Jung saw no joy on anyone’s face. He saw no one standing in awe of anything. He saw no one having visions or hearing voices.

Finally his turn came to eat the bread which tasted flat, and to sip the wine which tasted sour. After the final prayer, he heard no one crying out, "Oh how good it is for us to be here! Let’s build shelters here and hunker down forever.” He saw no one lingering in the glow of ecstasy. Instead, Jung writes, "All peeled out of the church with faces that were neither depressed nor illumined with joy—just faces which seemed to say, `Well, that's that.'"

Only gradually in the course of the following days did it dawn on him that nothing had happened. That experience of no religious experience at all was fatal for him, and Jung found himself saying, "Oh how bad it was for me to be there! I must never go back there again." And he didn't. The day of his very first Communion proved to be his very last! (Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Karl Jung).

Conclusion

The mother of all moments

Through fifty long years of priesthood, I have been blessed (and cursed) by the fiercest conviction that here in the Sunday assembly, if anywhere, we should find religious experience. That here at Sunday Mass, if anywhere, we should see visions and hear voices; here, by gum, we should reap some ecstasy to sustain us through the long hard week ahead.

Through fifty long years, I have been blessed (and cursed) by the fiercest conviction that the supreme moment in the week of the priest and the supreme moment in the week of God’s priestly people is the moment of the Sunday assembly. It is the mother of all moments for the both of us--a critical moment in which something happens or does not happen.

Through fifty long years I, priestly head of God’s priestly people, have been blessed (and cursed) by the fiercest conviction that there is nothing that I do all week long which is more important than what I do to prepare for this mother of all moments. But I am not so inflated as to think that it all depends on the priest. It depends also on the servers who serve, the readers who read, the singers who sing, the guitarists who play, the deacons who serve.

But not only on them but on all of us. We must all bring something to turn the Sunday assembly into Mount Tabor—into a lofty height that has us standing in awe and crying out, “Oh, how good it was for us to be here. We’re coming back next Sunday.” What we must all bring are minds and hearts capable of standing in awe of something other than ourselves. What we must all bring are minds and hearts capable of hearing voices other than our own voices. Then when the San Damiano crucifix processes down the aisle it might have the power to speak to us as it spoke to Francis.