You never know what you will see out your window each morning. I got up early today and glanced out the window. Looking East over Geary Boulevard I saw two planets almost touching each other! Jupiter and Venus are in a closer conjunction this morning than they will be until 2039. Leaning out the window, I snapped this picture on my phone.

I'm used to seeing Venus, the "Morning Star," outside my east-facing window. But today the Morning Star almost touched (at least in our field of vision) the great King of Planets, Jupiter. Venus is a small heavenly body, but she seems to cover the great gas giant planet of Jupiter with her sweet closeness this morning. 

Everything in life is sacramental. Everything points toward God. We call the Mother of God the "Morning Star" because she not only reflects the light of the rising sun (the Son of God, who is still hidden when she comes into human history), but she also announces the rising of that Sun by her own radiance. Mary is not God, but she reflects God's grace and proclaims that God is to be born into our world. In a few hours the Sun itself will rise over Geary Boulevard, right where Venus now steadily shines. Today Venus and Jupiter are as close as mother and son. 
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Tomorrow begins the lovely Month of May, the Month of Our Lady. We begin the Month of May with a May crowning of Our Lady in my parish at the 9:30am Sunday Mass. At that Mass I will lift one of our preschoolers up to the statue of Our Lady of Grace, so that she can place her handmade crown of flowers upon Mary's brow. Tomorrow is also the Feast of St. Joseph “the Workman.” We honor and pray for all those who work with their hands, and all in blue-collar jobs who provide for our basic needs, day in and day out. May the Morning Star, and her holy spouse, bring us this month to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

As I write this it is Good Friday in Ukraine (most Christians in that nation follow the Orthodox liturgical calendar, which is a week behind the Roman calendar this year). One of our Ukrainian parishioners asked me to bless her this morning. Her mother and sister have fled to Germany with the children, but her brother-in-law remains in Ukraine to defend the country. “My family,” she told me, “is enduring a Good Friday in the certain hope of an Easter Sunday.” The faith of this people is remarkable, annealed over a thousand years of loss and gain. The national anthem of this people sings that “Ukraine is not dead yet.”

I mentioned that I’ve been rereading The Lord of the Rings these last few weeks, and yesterday I read the third chapter of the sixth book, where Sam and Frodo have given up all hope but persevere in carrying the Ring up the slopes of Orodruin, Mount Doom. The Lord of the Rings movies barely scratch the surface of the books, but they do provide helpful images. As I reread the books, I could picture Gandalf, Aragorn, and the others with particular human characteristics, as living actors in a real narrative. In addition, the movie’s storylines often follow the books somewhat closely and so helped me keep particular details and plotlines in proper order.

So last night, having just read the grand finale of the trilogy (Frodo and Sam’s “Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday” on Mount Doom), I decided to watch that part of the movie again. But golly whiz, the movie frustrated me yet again, and I’m back to lamenting how much the screenwriters banalized Tolkien’s great work. For example, in the book, Gollum obtains the Ring in the end by biting off Frodo’s finger. He hops around the edge of the abyss with the Ring in such delirium that he casts himself over the edge. In the movie it is Frodo who throws Gollum over the edge in his fury to regain the Ring. A negligible departure from the book? Not at all, because in the book, Frodo, once relieved of the Ring, does not seek to regain it. He lets go of the fatal attraction and is a free man. All throughout the books Frodo has refused to take Gollum's life, and it is that respect for life that saves Frodo, and the whole world, in the end. In the movie, Frodo kills Gollum through his refusal to let go of the Ring's power. Tolkien portrays a man capable of gaining freedom from evil, whereas Jackson portrays a man never quite able to break free of his fatal addiction.

Another example: Aragorn’s army marches up to Mordor’s Black Gate, seeking justice for Sauron’s criminal invasion of Gondor. In the book Mordor's ambassador, the “Mouth of Sauron,” rides through the Gate to meet the Captains of the West, holding up Frodo’s mithril coat and sword as proof that the Ringbearer’s mission has failed. He announces Sauron’s terms, in which Gondor and all western lands will become slaves of Mordor in return for their lives. Gandalf magnificently snatches Frodo’s coat and sword from the ambassador with these words: “These we will take, in memory of our friend. But as for your terms, we reject them utterly. Get you gone, for your embassy is over and death is near to you. We did not come here to waste words with Sauron, faithless and accursed; still less with one of his slaves.” In the movie (although I must say the hideous “Mouth of Sauron” is brilliantly portrayed), Aragorn rides up to the ambassador and lops off his head, and we never hear Gandalf’s magnificent dismissal of tyranny. Jackson’s Aragorn decapitates the ambassador (so the movie could include one more scene of violence?), but Tolkien’s Aragorn would not have violated the rules of a just war. One of Tolkien’s points is that just wars—even though tragically necessary at times—are governed by rules in accord with right reason. They are not just food fights among children. Even should tyrants fight dishonorably, mature men fight honorably, with fundamental respect for their enemies as fellow human beings. Even should they have to kill to defend fatherland and family, they do so fairly and justly.

Finally, in the book, the Captains of the West stand their ground before the Black Gate. They have made their case, but they will not initiate further war. They will defend themselves and their land, according to the rule that a just war is always essentially defensive. In the movie, however, rather than standing their ground, Aragorn attacks Mordor, recklessly trusting in his own power rather than, as in the book, in a Power greater and wiser and more benevolent than himself. Aragorn trusts that this Power is greater even than the seemingly invincible power of Mordor. Jackson's Aragorn, however, trusts in himself more than he should, and so displays a dismal lack of kingly prudence. 

Today as I write it is Good Friday in Ukraine, or even Holy Saturday (given the time difference), and as you read this it will be almost Easter Sunday in Ukraine. The people of this beleaguered nation, with no earthly hope of defending themselves against a vastly more powerful empire, trust in a Power greater than themselves. They believe that Ukraine is not dead yet, and even if she should die, she would rise again, because her Lord rose again.

If you’ve never read The Lord of the Rings, now is a good time to read Chapter 10 of Book Five and Chapters 3 and 4 of Book Six. If you have read the books already, a careful rereading at this time of year, and at this time in history, will greatly reward you. It is the story of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and the story will repeat itself again and again until the Return of the King.

I watched the sun rise on Easter morning from a favorite bench in Golden Gate Park. The people of the city were still asleep, mostly, but not the birds. They sang in chorus as the sun crested the Eastern mountains across the Bay, warming their bright wings. I watched it rise, and did some prayers, and watched it rise further. Then two young sisters came jogging up the hill on which my bench sat. They came up the hill backwards, to work their calves, I suppose, but upon drawing near to me each turned around to say "good morning" with bright faces. As I returned a greeting to each of them in turn, the second one broke into a radiant smile and said "I hope you have a beautiful day" and followed her sister down the other side of the hill. One genuine greeting with a big, guileless smile--so rare in the city these days--transforms a day. "This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad," as we say every day of this Octave. Thank you, God, for sending me that smile to begin the Easter Octave. May I return the favor to many others!

Tomorrow we enter the Sacred Triduum, the still core of the liturgical year. In a more Christian culture, the whole world would pause during these three days. They would suspend their normal schedules to accompany Christ in his Last Supper on Holy Thursday, his Passion and Death on Good Friday, and the silence of his tomb on Holy Saturday. Then all heaven would break loose on Easter Sunday!

On Good Friday many pastors lead their congregations in the Stations of the Cross, even staging outdoor dramas of Christ’s road to Calvary. Christians long to accompany him, to walk with him in his mighty labor of saving the world. To “accompany” someone is not merely to "meet someone where they are at” and leave them there. "Accompaniment" is walking with someone beyond their poverty, offering him the support to get past their addictions and dependencies. I remember giving a pound sterling to a homeless man on the streets of Edinburgh some years ago. He was selling a small magazine published by the homeless of the city. It had poetry, articles, and photographs composed by the homeless, and the title of the publication was “A Hand Up, Not A Hand Out.” Christ, the poor man, wants a hand up as he makes his way through the Passion, not a hand out. He gladly accepts Simon of Cyrene’s help with his heavy cross, but he refuses the narcotic-laced drink offered by the Roman government. He does not shrink from any part of his difficult mission, but he welcomes the help of those who would accompany him along the Way of the Cross.

A homeless man in San Francisco, Michael, has been coming to our parish off and on for five years. He always asks for money, but he always also asks for work: “isn’t there something I can do around the parish?” Sometimes I give him odd jobs to earn the twenty-dollar bill I usually give him, but I don’t give him the $20 if it seems he is becoming dependent on hand outs. He struggles with addictions of all sorts, mostly drugs, partly because he has been much abused by the so-called “sexual liberation” of our time. His parents divorced when he was young and he was raised in foster homes; he has no family to love him now; he may well have been abused throughout his childhood; he certainly was exposed to toxic and addictive things as a child.

Yesterday he came into the church while I was at holy hour. He sat behind me for half an hour, and then ventured to ask me if I had any time to talk. "I'll be done in 15 minutes" I said. When we met he told me how he was almost completely off meth, and how the City of San Francisco has given him a room in a fleabag hotel. The government gives him food stamps. As with the tens of thousands our city governments sustain in a kind of purposeless limbo, Michael is not expected to work. He laments that if he did work, he would lose his room in the fleabag hotel. The government keeps him just dependent enough to keep him quiet, but Michael is losing his humanity. He is a number, a kind of bovine creature the government keeps in a kind of stall in the Tenderloin. He is struggling to keep off opioids, but what is a man to do all day without a purpose in society? Our government must learn to trust the people again, especially local community and church organizations, to care for their own people.

The progressive elites who use taxes to maintain this system, no doubt, think that they are doing the right thing. Well, at least some of them. Others are making a lot of money on the “homeless industry.” The over-engorged government and welfare systems began, I think, with the best of intentions, inspired no doubt by a Christian culture that aspires to care for the neediest. But what Michael needs is not a hand-out. He needs a hand-up, and he cries out for it. “Give me some work,” he pleaded with me yesterday, with tears in his eyes. “But you have to pay me under the table, because if the government finds out that I’m working, I will be back out on the street.” I told him I would try to get him some work around the parish, gave him $20 a pair of reading glasses, and urged him to pray often to God. "Only He can help you," I said. 

"One more thing," he said. "Do you have any cologne?" Rats. I had just run out. "I'll have some for you the next time," I said.
 

 

 
In a week I will lead my congregation through the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet, in the liturgical service known as Tenebrae (“darkness”). We will bewail the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC, the year the Chosen People were erased, “canceled” by foreign armies. As the Jewish People were decimated, seemingly beyond restoration, so the Catholic Church is becoming decimated, beyond recognition. Whose fault is it? In the Book of Lamentations, the enemies of Israel are only the instrumental cause of their downfall. God permitted Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Athens, and Rome to destroy Jerusalem because of the sins of her people, who are the effective cause of their destruction. It was their own infidelity that ruined them.

In 2002 terrible crimes against young people were revealed in the Boston Archdiocese. Most of these crimes were homosexual acts—clergy forcing themselves on post-pubescent males. A modern prophet, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, stated that the problem was “fidelity, fidelity, and fidelity:” the infidelity of bishops, priests, and laypeople. They had turned away from God’s laws in so many ways, which eventually led to the horror of “the fathers” sexually abusing their own spiritual sons and daughters. But it began with lay people skipping Mass on Sunday, lazy priests not teaching the faith, bishops living in worldly luxury, married couples contracepting, and clerics violating their vows of celibacy. The established Church has turned away from God, has become weak, and will be largely destroyed.

In San Francisco, the Church once flourished. You can still see the moldering monuments of a once-vibrant Catholicism and Christianity in her large churches all over the city. Some have become badly-maintained museums, some have become nightclubs, and many are simply decaying, like the Methodist church a block from me. It has been abandoned, its windows vacant and its halls silent, with mold and algae covering its gables and towers. The art, the music, the popular festivals, and the dynamic collaboration between mayor and archbishop are just fading memories.

I read this line in Lamentations 2:14 this morning: “The visions your prophets had on your behalf were delusive, tinsel things; they never pointed out your sin, to ward off our exile.” The vast majority of Catholics are drinking the poisoned Kool Aid our cultural elites serve up to us, and the priests are just smiling. Our priests are not pointing out our sin. A common lament among faithful Catholics is that we never hear our priests preach on hell, or the things that send us to hell, like fornication, contraception, abortion, and unnatural sexual practices. Most priests never touch those topics because the people don’t want to hear it. I preached one too many times on abortion in a former parish, and the chair of the Finance Council, the biggest attorney in town, pulled me aside. “Father, I don’t want to hear any more about abortion, or I will pull my money from this parish.” He did pull his money and his family from the parish, but the parish flourished without him. It was a tragedy, however, to see him leave.

Jean-Claude Hollerich, Cardinal Archbishop of Luxembourg, assured the world recently that the Church’s official teaching on same-sex acts is wrong and must be changed. That made him a darling with mainstream culture, of course, and won him much support from wealthy elites. Emboldened by the wealthy cardinal’s statement, the Franciscan chaplain of St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, Fr. Daniel P. Horan, also declared that the Church’s moral teaching on homosexual acts is mistaken, and indeed wicked.

“Your prophets,” said Jeremiah, “spoke tinsel things to you. They never pointed out your sin.” Calling out people’s sins is distasteful, even hateful, to me. It’s painful for priest and people alike. But a father must correct his children when they act irrationally, and in the long run the children love their fathers for doing so. Preaching the truth in love will always earn a priest enemies, but many of those enemies will be reconciled to God and neighbor if the priest stays the course.
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Some priests and bishops are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They are intentionally working to dismantle the church. Most priests, however, are simply weak and timid. So here’s a suggestion for the vast majority of our clergy: if you are not ready to accuse your people of their sin from the pulpit, try to get them into the confessional. There they will accuse themselves, and they will be healed. Simply sit in the confessional every day, before every Mass, and eventually they will start coming. The model for all parish priests, St. John Vianney, spent most of his priesthood (up to 16 hours a day) in the confessional. Our children know they are unhappy, and they know the truth about God and man. They will come, if you wait for them. It may take a few months, but you can catch up on your reading in the confessional while you wait for them to come home. Your mother and your father probably waited up many a night for you to come home. Now do it for your children.