Like the Rest of Humanity

When Christ shares with us today the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, it is worth pondering the differing placement of each figure in the temple area, as well as their contrasting prayers.  Jesus notes that the Pharisee “took up his position”---presumably at the front---because, by contrast, the Publican (or tax collector) “stood off at a distance.”  As for their respective prayers, the Pharisee “spoke [his] prayer to himself,” while the Publican “would not even raise his eyes to heaven.”  Moreover, the content of the Pharisee’s prayer is the supremely absurd statement:  “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity;” the Publican speaks simply and honestly, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”  And lest anyone miss the moral of this story, it concludes with the maxim:  “[E]veryone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

My liturgical task and position as an ordained Priest is to preside “at the front” of the assembly, “in persona Christi”---in the person of Christ---no less!  On the day of my Ordination, November 3, 2001 in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, there was a particular moment immediately following Bishop D’Arcy’s invocation of the Holy Spirit and laying on of hands in which I received a curious, almost prophetic admonition that I shall never forget. 

One of my seminary professors, Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P., was vesting me for the first time in my chasuble, the outer garment worn by Priests when they celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Apparently noticing that my head had been bowed toward the ground throughout the Sacred Liturgy (because that was the habitual posture of my prayer at Mass to which I had grown most comfortable over the years), he whispered in my ear with firm and almost scolding authority:  “Keep your head up!”  No hug, no tears, no sentimentality---just implicitly the bracing commission:  You are a shepherd now and must exercise oversight---eyes fixed on the people for whom you must lay down your life; on the danger-filled horizon to guard against wolves intent on slaughter; and on the Lord from Whose divine shepherding you will receive necessary guidance by a gaze relentlessly focused on the “Big Picture” of eternal salvation.

About eleven years into my Priesthood---when I made my first visit last September to the Piper Clinic in Florida for the initial evaluation of the severity of my TMJ problem---I shared with the medical staff my narrative of excruciating jaw pain and its probable cause.  Dr. Mark Piper listened intently and sympathetically, spoke to me about joint displacement and cartilage deterioration, and then looked me in the eye and (from seemingly out of nowhere) asked about my neck.  He noted that my head was bowed forward and that this downward bent was both a symptom and a contributing cause of my jaw pain.  Moreover, he insisted on physical therapy for this condition, both immediately following surgery and as part of a lifetime of rehabilitation.  I was stunned and incredulous.  For the second time in my life, I was essentially being told by a specialist of utmost competence:  Keep your head up!

Since returning to Queen of Peace and taking my place in silence beside Fr. John Eze---the principal celebrant of, and preacher at, all of the Masses of my beloved pastorate---I have had plenty of opportunities to ponder my simultaneously exalted and humbled position.  There I am in the sanctuary for all to see but none to hear, my dumbly protruding mouth plugged with plastic and metal, feeling like a piece of ecclesiastical furniture.  But I also ponder the astounding grace of being the beneficiary of so much sympathy and kind indulgence---an avalanche of get-well cards, buckets of soup, and countless prayers and words of encouragement.  I have received more support to "lift me up" than most people who have suffered and continue to suffer problems deeper than my own---including many parishioners at Queen of Peace---who may lack such a visibly extended network which often eagerly comes to the assistance of a public figure like a Pastor. I am tempted for more reasons than ever to bow my head and close my eyes to pray, brought closer beyond my choosing to the Eucharistic Lord, Who chose in His silent abiding in the Tabernacle to be both adored and ignored as “a piece of ecclesiastical furniture.” 

In my prayer during these days of the sede vacante as we await the election of a new Pope, I also cannot help but think of the contrast in the bodily posture of prayer between Bl. John Paul II and Benedict XVI.  The Polish Pope (and former actor) would ever lift his eyes to the crowds he loved but would always bow his head and close his eyes when he prayed, all the more poignantly when Parkinson’s disease cruelly bent his neck and humiliatingly bowed his back with the burden of the Cross of infirmity.  Benedict, by contrast, continually attempted before the crowds to direct attention away from himself, finally---in his abdication of the papacy---taking his place (like the Publican) “off at a distance” to pray.  But when Benedict prayed in public, his normal stance was with head up and eyes wide open.  In the membership of Christ’s Body, humility can take as many different postures and expressions of prayer as there are persons.

I conclude this meditation by reflecting on the public prayer of last evening at Queen of Peace, which was a historic moment in the life of our Parish.  Earlier in the day, the hand-carved Stations of the Cross to be newly hung in our church finally arrived from Italy.  Throughout yesterday’s special Friday Stations liturgy, a different Knight of Columbus processed in with each Station, one by one.  After the corresponding meditation and prayer led by Deacon Bill Gallagher (another one of my substitute “voices”), I blessed and kissed each Station, escorting the one who carried it to the exact position in church in which it would eventually be fixed in its permanent place.  In carrying the Stations, the Knights were instructed to hold each one high enough for the faithful to see, for the public veneration of this beautiful image of the Lord.  As it so happened, the face of each Knight was discretely shielded by the very humanly shaped, divinely conceived mystery he was holding.

After the placement of the 14^th Station, the final prayers, and the singing of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” I was filled with such joy---the happiness of a father beaming with pride---as I looked around the church with head raised high to see my people literally holding the tokens of the Lord’s Passion in their own hands.  They were more than pieces of ecclesiastical furniture; I saw the “living stones” which, St. Peter assures us, constitute Christ’s exalted temple, His Holy and Beloved Church (1 Pt 2:5).  Keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus “lifted up” on the Cross, we see together the love of God, which humbly abased itself precisely to be revealed as “like the rest of humanity.”  But in so doing, our Crucified Savior opens the way to our divine exaltation, that---keeping our heads up---we might, as St. Paul admonishes in the light and power of the Risen Christ, “seek the things that are above” (Col 3:1).