Burying
statues: When does prayer become superstitious?
By
Julie McCarty
In
the springtime, tulips and lilacs aren’t the only things that
bloom in my neighborhood. “For sale” signs also sprout
on greening lawns.
Selling a home can be a stressful ordeal, particularly in a slow market.
Anyone who has sold a home will tell you how trying it is to keep
the interior looking like a “model home.” Some home sellers
are also dealing with other tensions, such as death in the family,
job loss, or an impending divorce.
Perhaps it is this pressure that leads to the unusual “Catholic
custom” involving burying a statue of St. Joseph in the yard.
Rumor has it that burying it upside down, a certain depth, or a specific
number of feet from the house will somehow persuade St. Joseph to
procure a rapid and fortuitous home sale. (The symbolism escapes me.
Why would St. Joseph be moved to help someone who buries his statue
upside down?)
Let me be perfectly clear that I believe in the communion of saints.
I also believe that the saints can and do pray for us. However, I
was aghast when I spotted “home sale kits,” complete with
prayers and a tiny plastic statue of St. Joseph in a Catholic bookstore.
To be fair, these “home sale kits” carry admonitions against
turning prayer into magical “hocus pocus.” The instructions
attempt to steer people to devotion rather than superstition. However,
their disclaimers remind me of warning labels on cigarettes: while
the dangers are listed, everything about the packaging cries out,
“Buy me! Try me! You’ll get good results!”
The appropriate use of sacramentals, such as candles, statues, or
holy water, can support a healthy prayer life. Yet, we must not allow
our prayer practice to drift into the realm of superstition.
The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” reminds us that
when we indulge in superstitious practices, we are placing our trust
in mere external things rather than giving our full trust and adoration
to God (no. 2111).
Sixteenth century mystic St. John of the Cross observed people who
thought their prayers would be more effective (read that: get what
you want) if they used a more sophisticated rosary. They preferred
rosaries made with a finer metal or more elaborate design. St. John
wrote “One rosary is no more influential with God than is another.
His answer to the rosary prayer is not dependent on the kind of rosary
used. The prayer he hears is that of a simple and pure heart that
is concerned only about pleasing God…”
In our prayer lives, our intentions are of utmost importance. The
best way to approach God with requests is the way Jesus prayed on
the night before he was crucified: “My Father, if it is possible,
let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want”
(Matt. 26:39).
If one’s primary aim in selling a home is a strong desire to
“make a killing,” it might be better to pray that God
transforms your greed into generosity. If, however, you are selling
your home in order to simplify your life, find a home with room for
an aging parent, or some other good reason, merely ask God for help.
If you like, share your concerns with St. Joseph, the father who moved
his family to Egypt and back.
And, as my husband suggests, a fresh coat of paint wouldn’t
hurt.
(Julie McCarty, M.A.T., is a freelance writer from Eagan, Minn.
Contact her at soulwriting@yahoo.com.)
‘The
Passion’ – one man’s vision of Jesus’ suffering
By
Father Paul Schmidt
Special to The Voice
St.
Luke begins his Gospel by saying that “many others have undertaken
to write a coherent account.” In the light of all the ink spilled
about Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” in
recent weeks, the following may be superfluous. However, it is offered
in hopes of providing some additional assistance to those deciding
whether to see the film and those who are sorting out what they have
already seen.
Literature and art
Artists in every age have tried to picture the suffering and death
of Jesus Christ. The first artistic portrayal is literary, found in
the Passion narratives of the four Gospels. Each Evangelist put together
the details of the story, to convey his particular message.
Cutting and pasting the stories together for the sake of a consistent
narrative necessarily does violence to the original text. Books like
“The Day Christ Died,” by Jim Bishop and “A Doctor
at Calvary” by Pierre Barbet, however, show that a strictly
historical approach can shed light on what is recognized as “The
Greatest Story Ever Told.” Saints and mystics have also written
of their meditations and visions about the Passion.
Early Christians depicted the Cross covered with precious jewels.
Byzantine crucifixes showed a serene Jesus triumphant over death.
With the coming of the Middle Ages, emphasis shifted to more graphic,
sometimes gory, presentations of the sufferings of Jesus, a trend
that continued through the Renaissance down to modern times.
Some post-Renaissance crucifixes went back to illustrating Christ’s
triumph over death by depicting him as a rather muscular gentleman
who had sauntered over from the gym to strike a pose on a cross. The
20th century saw the return of a more stylized, Byzantine approach
or even abstract, non-representational forms.
Music and drama
Musicians also lent their hand to the presentation of the Passion.
The ancient Gregorian chant version gave different voices and melodies
to Jesus, the narrator, and the other characters. Later musicians
added choruses and interpolated hymns and personal reflections into
the Biblical text. The St. Matthew and St. John Passions of Johann
Sebastian Bach are the greatest examples of how this tradition developed
in the Lutheran Church.
Passion Plays, complete with scenery and costumes, developed in Europe
as acts of devotion with scripts that embroidered on and sometimes
exaggerated or distorted the Biblical narrative. Most people know
about the Oberammergau version, presented every 10 years. Perhaps
not so many know of the one given every summer in the Black Hills
of South Dakota.
It is not surprising that film artists would also attempt to portray
the whole compelling story of Jesus in cinematic art. Cecil B. DeMille
made a silent film, “The King of Kings.” Pier Pasolini,
an atheist, filmed the Gospel of Matthew in black and white as a tribute
to Pope John XXIII. Franco Zeffirelli made a color film of Jesus’
life and death, which reflected the filmmaker’s exuberant Italian
baroque piety. Now Mel Gibson has produced a version of the suffering
and death of Jesus.
Each of these films contains inspiring moments. DeMille has the viewer
see the Savior for the first time through the eyes of a boy healed
by Jesus of blindness. Pasolini shows the effect of Jesus’ invitation
to come and follow him on the faces of the Apostles. Zeffirelli illustrates
the scandal Jesus caused in town by dining with sinners.
Gibson’s film has similar moments – appearances of the
devil as a flesh-and-blood character, flash-backs of Mary and Jesus
in happier times, a Jesus who looks the way we expect Jesus to look,
at least before he is mangled beyond recognition, a Mary who looks
as though she stepped out of a Flemish painting, a Simon of Cyrene
with more than a cameo role, carrying Jesus as well as the cross to
Calvary.
Limitations
In most films about Jesus, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
There is always something missing. Or the imaginative touches of the
director take too many liberties. Mary Magdalene, as she appeared
before repentance and the Hays Film Code in DeMille’s film,
shocked audiences in the 1920’s. (One of her big cats seems
to have wandered into Herod’s palace in Gibson’s film;
Herod himself seems to have dropped in from a production of “Jesus
Christ Superstar.”)
It is somewhat jarring to hear Jesus conversing in “Church Latin”
with Pilate, but not totally improbable. It is difficult to portray
the enemies of Jesus in a sensitive yet accurate manner; Gibson’s
turn out to be stock characters from a Passion Play. Judas gets a
more sympathetic treatment.
One cannot criticize Mel Gibson for not making someone else’s
movie. His is an act of piety. It reflects his meditation on the suffering
of Jesus. He uses the language of the violent action movie, with which
he is familiar, as a means of conveying the enormity of the suffering
Jesus underwent, as well as the extremes of cruelty human beings can
demonstrate toward one another.
By doing so, he makes the film unsuitable for children. He may also
have dulled its cumulative effect by overkill, even though he includes
moments of respite, especially through imaginative and touching flashbacks.
Violence and realism
Violence on film has a deadening effect. An excess of violence dulls
the viewer’s ability to respond. Even factual newsreels of violence
and disaster tend to wash over us without effect, so inured are we
to seeing such things.
The Greeks knew long ago that it can be more horrifying to have a
murder committed offstage than to try to show it realistically to
the audience. Suggestion can be more powerful and more convincing
than representation. Questions may also be asked about an audience’s
willingness to view a depiction of torture, or about people’s
willingness to inflict and observe torture in real life. Psychiatrists
may have something to say about this.
Despite the intention to portray the Passion Narrative realistically,
the film is unrealistic in many ways.
Mary shows up in places where a woman would probably not have been
allowed. Jesus himself becomes a kind of “Braveheart”
action hero, able to take a terrible beating and still carry a historically
inaccurate cross farther than anyone in that condition really could.
Snapshots out of art history emerge here and there. Jewish leaders
seem never to change into something more comfortable. The crowd scenes
are somewhat inconsistent.
Some critics have pointed out that the film in itself does not adequately
show why Jesus was so hated and cruelly treated. The Gospels were
written after decades of reflection, in the light of the Resurrection
and early Church experience. That kind of theologizing was not possible
as the events were unfolding. The question “What did Jesus know,
and when did he know it?” is always problematic.
By starting with the Agony in the Garden, the film has to rely on
flashbacks to explain what went before. Less time spent on three varieties
of scourging and more on the earlier story might have explained things
more clearly. A person who did not know the whole story could be bewildered
or misled by what is happening onscreen. Gibson may presume (unrealistically)
that everybody knows the story, but that kind of presumption makes
for a less perfect work of dramatic art.
Theology
What theological points does this film make? It certainly shows Jesus
as a human being, subject to mental and physical suffering, but as
someone more than simply human. It presents the mystery and the complexity
of Jesus’ relationship with the Father. It illustrates the import
of Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies. It dramatizes
emphatically Jesus’ willingness to forgive. It connects the
Last Supper with the sacrifice of the Cross.
It highlights the role of Mary in the life of Jesus. It acknowledges
the presence of Satan in the world. It confronts the issue of an individual’s
relationship with Christ. All of these important teachings it presents
convincingly by the skillful use of cinematic art, visual and dramatic.
Is this a film people should see? And will it have great spiritual
effects? Those who go into the theater as believers may have their
faith and devotion enhanced. Those who go in not believing may at
least come out asking some questions. Those who go in looking for
something objectionable will find it.
The film can also lead to serious discussions about human cruelty,
the problem of evil, the role of suffering in salvation, the use of
images in religious life, anti-Semitism, the acceptable limits of
film violence, personal choice and belief.
At one point in the film, Pilate asks his famous question: “What
is truth?” Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ”
may help some to answer that question. Others it may leave still asking
it. A recent stirring performance of Bach’s “St. John’s
Passion” by the American Bach Soloists left fewer questions
and more answers.
(Father Paul Schmidt is diocesan director of priest personnel
and parochial administrator of St. Margaret Mary Parish in Oakland.)
Colonel
Ryszard Kuklinski— A life risked for freedom
By
George Weigel
In
early December 1980, Warsaw Pact infantry and armored divisions, most
of them Soviet, moved into position along Poland’s borders.
Three months earlier, the Solidarity movement had sprung to life in
Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyards. After a tumultuous infancy, Solidarity
seemed doomed to be strangled in its cradle, as Czechoslovakia’s
“Prague Spring” had been in 1968.
The stakes were enormously high. A Warsaw Pact invasion of Poland
would almost certainly have met with violent resistance from the aroused
Poles. Had massacres ensued, would the West have remained idle? As
the calendar pages turned in the first week of December 1980, it seemed
entirely possible that Poland, the flashpoint that ignited World War
II in Europe, would be the flashpoint that ignited World War III –
a war that could have been fought with nuclear weapons.
Then, remarkably, there was no invasion. Warsaw Pact troops stopped
advancing toward Poland and then retreated. What had happened?
While I was preparing Pope John Paul II’s biography, I talked
about that hair-raising period with one of the wisest men I’ve
ever known, Jan Nowak, former director of Radio Free Europe’s
Polish service (and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
America’s highest civilian honor).
Jan told me that two men had saved Poland from invasion. One was a
familiar name: Zbigniew Brzezinski, who in December 1980 was serving
his last weeks as President Carter’s national security adviser.
As Jan unfolded the tale, though, Brzezinski could do what he did
because of an unheralded figure who died in relative obscurity last
month, after living in exile under an assumed name for 23 years. His
real name was Ryszard Kuklinski.
By 1980, Colonel Kuklinski had spent his entire adult life in the
Polish Army. A tour with the International Control Commission in Vietnam
in 1967-68, where he met many Americans, convinced him that communist
propagandists were painting a false portrait of the United States.
Then, in August 1968, the reform communism of the “Prague Spring”
was crushed beneath the treads of Soviet tanks; Kuklinski was appalled.
His concerns increased exponentially when he became a senior Polish
Army war-planner with access to the highest-level information.
In his new position, Kuklinski learned that Soviet military doctrine
anticipated a western nuclear response to a Soviet invasion of western
Europe – a response that would fall, not on the USSR (which
would risk global catastrophe) but on Poland, as the second wave of
Soviet troops, tanks, and materiel passed through Kuklinski’s
homeland en route to the west. The USSR, Kuklinksi concluded, was
no “fraternal ally;” it was a predator, prepared to sacrifice
Poland for its own aggressive purposes.
What was a Polish patriot to do? Kuklinksi offered his services to
the United States and for nine years, from 1972 to 1981, was the single
most important western intelligence asset behind the iron curtain.
At daily risk of his life, Colonel Kuklinski provided the U.S. government
with some 50,000 pages of highly-classified documents that were of
immeasurable assistance to Western defense planners and arms control
negotiators.
Ryszard Kuklinski’s greatest service came in the Solidarity
crisis of late 1980, when he gave the U.S. the entire operational
plan for the proposed Warsaw Pact invasion of his homeland. With that
in hand, Zbigniew Brzezinski and private-sector leaders like the AFL-CIO’s
Lane Kirkland were able to organize an international trade embargo
of the USSR, should an invasion take place; such an embargo, a de
facto blockade, would have been a devastating blow to the already
tottering Soviet economy, and the Soviets backed off.
Martial law, imposed in Poland a year later, was bad enough. A Warsaw
Pact invasion, given its possible international consequences, risked
Armageddon. By providing the crucial intelligence that helped forestall
the invasion, Colonel Kuklinski may well have prevented a nuclear
holocaust.
Kuklinski’s remarkable story is now told in gripping detail
in Benjamin Weiser’s “A Secret Life: The Polish Officer,
His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to Save His Country”
(Public Affairs). I wish the book a broad readership. Despite the
fact that Ryszard Kuklinski was abruptly taken from us by death last
month, it’s never too late to get to know a man of principle,
a true hero of freedom.
(George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy
Center in Washington,
DC)
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