Catholic Sensibility

In "Freddy and the Bean Home News" the animals start their own paper because Mrs. Underdunk, the rich, haughty newspaper owner, and her editor, Mr. Garble, distort the news. When the evil Mr. Condiment hits Freddy, Freddy thinks: 'He slapped me because I am a pig….If I were a boy or a man he wouldn't have done it.'

Small wonder, then, that some of the children who grew up on these books went on to found alternative newspapers, to march for civil rights and to become ardent environmentalists. Still, you don't have to be in the 60's generation to appreciate Freddy. As with all books that last, their attraction is broader and deeper. Essentially, they evoke the most subversive politics of all: a child's instinctive desire for fair play. Brooks speaks powerfully to his young readers' moral sense without ever overtly moralizing. The local sheriff, for example tells Freddy's sidekick, Charles the rooster, that he will get much tougher penalties for pecking the face of a rich man than that of a poor one. Truer words were never spoken. But how can a reader feel preached at when it's someone talking to a rooster."

Time to get some reading in before bedtime.

For Fair Weather. For use at times when the prayer for Fair Weather in the Book of Common Prayer seems less suitable.

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, who art the author and giver of all good things; Look, we beseech thee, in thy loving-kindness upon us: thine unworthy servants, and grant to us at this time such fair weather that we may receive the fruits of the earth in their season, to our comfort and the glory of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

"This sacred synod prescribes that in the revision of the code of canon law suitable laws be drawn up in keeping with the principles stated in this decree. Due consideration should also be given the observations made by the commissions and the council Fathers."

Delegation. Love it or hate it, the council indeed left many specifics to the future work of bishops, commissions, and experts in particular fields. Note the importance given not only of the text of Christus Dominus, but also "the observations" of council participants. Presumably, somebody kept notes on all that. I'm not aware of any such resource that might include such observations. Is anyone?

"This sacred synod also prescribes that general directories be prepared treating of the care of souls for the use of both bishops and pastors. Thus they will be provided with certain methods which will help them to discharge their own pastoral office with greater ease and effectiveness."

I'm aware of some of the these directories being prepared, catechesis is one example.

"There should be prepared also a particular directory concerning the pastoral care of special groups of the faithful as the different circumstances of individual nations or regions require."

No idea if any "particular directories" have ever been prepared. Anyone?

"In preparing these directories, special attention should be given to the views which have been expressed both by the commissions and the council Fathers."

Ah! More unofficial input. By way of extension, one might say that continuing views of committees, bishops, clergy, religious, and lay people should be taken into account when preparing to move the Church in a particular direction.

In conclusion, we can see where the follow through has been spotty in regard to Christus Dominus, especially in contrast to the constitution on liturgy. Leadership on the episcopal level, though not usually impacting the daily life of Catholics, nevertheless has a trickle-down effect that alters the path of the Church and directly affects its fruitfulness in preaching the gospel. Don't count on the USCCB to take a serious look at it, though.

Some questioned the purpose of even looking at this document. I think there is one. I confess I'm a frequent critic of bishops. But is my criticism based on personal likes and dislikes? Is it based on the quirks I see or read about in a bishop? Is it touched by my distaste for the harboring of sexual predators? Perhaps this is so for many, if not all of us. But to be a responsible critic of a bishop or bishops in general, we have the opportunity to weigh their service against the ideal presented in Vatican II. We can read Christus Dominus, and hold up our favorite or detested bishop and see for ourselves: Is it something personal, or does it have an objective basis in fact and church teaching?

Final thoughts?

"Since pastoral needs require more and more that some pastoral undertakings be directed and carried forward as joint projects, it is fitting that certain offices be created for the service of all or many dioceses of a determined region or nation. These offices can be filled by bishops."

Christus Dominus 42 says it. Number 43 continues by strongly suggesting a military vicariate in each nation, if possible.

"Both the military vicar and the chaplains should devote themselves unsparingly to this difficult work in complete cooperation with the diocesan bishops. Diocesan bishops should release to the military vicar a sufficient number of priests who are qualified for this serious work. At the same time they should promote all endeavors which will improve the spiritual welfare of military personnel."

Even a pacifist agrees this is a necessary ministry.

Vatican II wasn't a completely head-in-the-clouds experience. Christus Dominus 39-41 speaks of "fitting boundaries" for dioceses and ecclesiastical provinces. National or regional episcopal conferences are to work out details, then submit "suggestions and desires" to Rome.

“Bishops should dedicate themselves to their apostolic office as witness of Christ before all men.” – Christus Dominus, 11

What would a Protestant make of this statement? This should not be a meaningless question asked out of mere curiosity. Regarding ecumenism, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger said in 1993, “To live unity in separation, in difference, we must learn to accept others in their otherness and precisely in this accomplish communion. We must learn to understand the objection of the other as our own problem. When this and similar things occur, when we can turn toward each other in our differences and let ourselves be refined by each other, as it were, then division can in its way be fruitful - more fruitful than superficial unity.” We might better understand Christus Dominus if we pause for a moment to turn toward a Protestant theologian.

John Webster, a self-consciously Protestant Anglican, now of the University of Aberdeen, would seem to be a likely source of help if we really are willing to “let ourselves be refined.” In a 2001 article, he outlined an “evangelical theology of episcopacy” – one “determined by and responsible to the good news of Jesus Christ,” proceeding by “dogmatic description, not by historical defense.” There is no reverent appeal to “from the earliest times” here. But Professor Webster also has little patience for a reflexive individualism and anticlericalism. Vague archaeological gestures to “from the earliest times” are no worse than a simplistic declension narrative of charismatic Pauline communities fading into a compromised “early Catholicism.”

In other words, there is no evading the question: What is the place of the church in the structure of the gospel? Professor Webster tells us that the God revealed by Jesus Christ is the God who elects, sustains, and perfect a particular human society “for the praise of his glorious grace that he granted us in the beloved” (Eph 1:6). So, there is no God without the church that manifests who he is. But, on the other hand, there is no church without immediate reference to this God whose action constitutes it. If we can happily speak of the church in the language of institutional forms and human intentions, we have lost sight of the true nature of the Church’s existence as creatura verbi divini (“creature of the divine word”). To be sure, we should never bifurcate divine and human action, but we must always give priority to the gracious action of the triune God. “Divine action is sheerly creative, uncaused, spontaneous, saving and effectual; human, churchly action is derivative, contingent and indicative.”

Does this mean that Professor Webster is left with an invisible, “spiritualized” church that is left “incapable of sustaining a coherent historical and social trajectory”? Not really. While Webster does wish to distinguish between “the gospel and its human representations” – perhaps spending sleepless nights worried by the “danger of collapsing Spirit into structure,” he claims that the gospel’s action will always realize in a concrete human representation. The “converting power and activity of Christ present as Spirit” will always form a social shape that we can call church order (and argue over endlessly). Jesus Christ is the minister of this church. Our Lord doesn’t eventually take an emeritus position, succeeded in his retirement by younger human representatives, but, in the words of Calvin, “he uses the ministry of men to declare openly his will to us by mouth, as a sort of delegated work, not by transferring to them his right and honor, but only that through their mouths he may do his own work – just as a workman uses a tool to do his work.”

We must have bishops in a visible church, then, but their ministry always “points beyond itself to the action of another.” Episcopal ministry is a “showing” of Christ’s self-bestowal in the Holy Spirit, and the bishop’s task, as Karl Barth wrote, “is simply to serve this happening.” This “showing” might be distinguished by tireless activity – teaching, presiding at the sacraments, exercising discipline - but it is always in service of a greater passivity, so that (Barth again) “all encroachment on the lordship of the One who is alone the Lord is either avoided or so suppressed and eliminated in practice that there is place for His Rule.” Jesus Christ is the “bishop of our souls” (1 Pet 2:25), and, to Webster, the local bishop’s “showing” of Christ’s more universal bishopric is simultaneously the refusal of the role of mystagogue.

Unity lies in this refusal. “The ministry of the church can neither create nor represent this unity, but only make it visible through the fact that it points unmistakably away from itself and toward that which it serves – the present action of Christ in the proclamation of the Gospel through word and sacrament.” “Episcopocentric” is a very dirty word indeed. Even Ignatius of Antioch, who might seem “episcopocentric” at first glance, wrote to the Ephesians, “I do not command you, as though I were a great person … For now I am making a beginning of discipleship, and I address you as my fellow-disciples.” Ignatius grounded his own authority in the “manifest will” of the Father to which the bishops were to promote obedience, “since the bishops, established in the furthest quarters, are so by the will of Jesus Christ.” The only ground of what we might call apostolicity is in this sort of claim, Webster says, “because it is not capable of being embodied without residue in ordered forms.”

In conclusion, the only authentic ministry is the “ministry of a herald” (Barth, for the last time). Bishops only perform the “delegated work” of Jesus Christ. It is a necessary implication of the gospel to create a church order with a ministry of oversight, but this ministry must be self-conscious of the contingency of its particular orderings before the action of the Spirit. Our strivings should never be directed towards the recovery of the ideal forms of a self-sufficient “official Christianity,” but towards the self-questioning that asks whether we are practically “attentive to word and sacrament, docile before the gospel, above all, prayerful for the coming of Christ and his Spirit.”

As Catholics, we would want to question Professor Webster’s suspicion of “ordered forms,” and his strong distinction between the bishop’s “representing” the unity of the church and his “indicating” this unity (Webster can commend only the latter). But we should also, in the then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s words, try to “understand the objection of the other as our own problem.” If we wish to suggest that certain forms are more than contingent and that the bishop can “represent” the church’s unity without diluting its Christology, we will have to show that these forms and representations intensify our “attentiveness to word and sacrament, docility before the gospel, above all, prayerfulness for the coming of Christ and his Spirit.”

Can we do this?

Brother Roger from Neil Dhingra

(Note: I had not been checking my home e-mail, so I missed Neil's essay, which was sent Wednesday -- Todd)

I’ve just heard that Brother Roger of Taizé has been murdered. The Associated Press reports, “A woman wielding a knife killed silver-haired Brother Roger, witnesses said, during Tuesday night's prayer service at the tranquil Taizé community in Burgundy, known worldwide for its devotion to peace.” May he rest in peace.

Brother Jean-Marie of Taizé wrote that there was never a “Taizé model” of prayer at the ecumenical community, but the brothers consistently discovered two fundamentals: singing – “There’s a fullness to sung prayer, an element of wholeness,” and silence.

Brother Jean-Marie said, “It’s impossible to imagine a time of prayer at Taizé without that long moment of silence in the middle. It’s a time of listening, a time to leave things before God, a time to be before God, to have one’s soul open for God.” Brother Roger’s gift to us is a space in a secularized Europe where we can still be attentive to God through the profundity of simple and ancient litanies and then discover the silence by which we can fully open ourselves before his mystery.

And, as Cardinal Godfried Danneels has written, answering the question of why so many young people were drawn to the community, "At the heart of Taizé, like a hidden wellspring, there is the community of brothers, silent and discreet, undemonstrative, entirely turned toward God and open to every guest, with unbelievably limited resources and with no pretension to making themselves stand out in the concert of the churches. Day after day, they sing the praise of God, give thanks, intercede. That is the final secret of Taizé: the exemplary force of the monastic life so ancient and so new." Brother Roger always reminded us of this “final secret.”

What is Taizé? The answer is at once simple and complex. Douglas Hicks wrote about the Taizé community in 1992. It was then a half-century old. Roger Schutz had founded the community in 1940, when, already a student of monasticism who had lived in community with friends, he decided that he could not stay in neutral Switzerland while others suffered during the war. He went to France and decided to live at the village of Taizé, which was close to the medieval monastic village of Cluny and even closer to the line separating occupied from unoccupied France. He opened a house which became a refuge to those fleeing from the Nazis into the safety of Switzerland. During his activity, Roger kept praying three times a day and found friendship with Pierre Souvrain and Max Thurian, who would become an important ecumenical theologian. The neighbors, however, were fearful of his activities. When he was finally denounced to the Nazis, Roger retreated to Geneva and returned to Taizé in 1944, after the Liberation.

Then the community cared for orphans and even shared their food with former German soldiers at a nearby prisoner-of-war camp. By 1949, the Taizé community had nine members, and the brothers took a life vow to the experimental monastery. Roger also composed a very brief and simple rule. By 1952, Taizé was forming small “fraternities” of brothers in areas of need – two became “priest-workers” in Montceau-les-Mines, and, since then, there have been fraternities in places such as Algeria and “Hell’s Kitchen” in New York. Besides a commitment to “engagement,” Roger was also dedicated to ecumenical reconciliation. The “Rule of Taizé” states, “Never resign yourself to the scandal of the separation of Christians, all so readily professing love for their neighbor, yet remaining divided. Make the unity of Christ’s Body your passionate concern.” Roger, a Protestant pastor, attended all the sessions of Vatican II.

During the 1950’s and 60’s, the brothers were all Protestants, albeit from many different denominations, but Roger would not accept Catholics until they were cleared to join by all the ecclesiastical bodies. The first Catholic brother was a Belgian doctor who joined in 1969. Roger and Max Thurian also visited Constantinople several times and have since accepted Orthodox believers into the community.

The community was dedicated to “engagement,” and, rather unexpectedly, it discovered a ministry to many young people – “searchers,” often disillusioned with the institutional churches, who began to visit Taizé to participate in study, discussion, work, and perhaps prayer. Some brother worried that a monastery was really no place to take care of thousands of people and wanted to remove to a more secluded location, or at least keep the visitors at a retreat center some miles away. Roger instead allowed a tent city to be set up on the hillside of Taizé. Ten years before, hardly anticipating the rush of visitors, he had written in the Rule: “In each guest it is Christ himself whom we have to receive; so let us learn to be welcoming and be ready to offer our free time.” And so, by 1970, the community was holding “Councils of Youth.”

Brother Roger recognized the youth’s increasing dedication to the struggle for justice, but did not want them to abandon contemplation – he showed them how to unite prayer with solidarity with the oppressed. In 1973, he wrote, “In the struggle for the voice of the voiceless to be heard, for the liberation of every person, the Christian finds his place – in the very front line. And at the same time the Christian, even though he be plunged in God’s silence, senses an underlying truth: this struggle for and with others finds its source in another struggle that is more and more etched in his deepest self, at that point in which no two people are quite alike. There he touches the gates of contemplation.” In 1979, he would travel to Chile with a delegation to show Taizé’s support for solidarity with the suffering of Latin America.

Through the 1980’s, the brothers would hold meetings for youth all over the world. The community has evolved, but some things have been held constant (including singing and silence). Decisions have always been made under the influence of regular community prayer. And we can see continuity in the Rule. This Rule tells the brothers to live in the spirit of the Beatitudes – joy, mercy, and simplicity. Part of simplicity is to live in a community of goods and to give away all excess – for the Rule counsels, “If for God there is the generosity of distributing all the good things of the earth, for man there is the grace of giving what he has received.” The brothers are also celibate, grasping that this celibacy “can only be accepted with the aim of giving ourselves more completely to our neighbor with the love of Christ himself.” Most importantly, they continue to pray together three times a day.

This life of prayer is not an escape from the world, but a re-centering of it. Why pray when there is so much to be done? Brother Pierre-Yves Emery tells us, “Life itself scatters man’s attention, even when it more obviously has meaning only in relation to God.” As Hicks says, “Prayer,” by drawing life’s tensions and struggles together, “becomes the heart of life.” The Church of Reconciliation at Taizé helps one’s attentiveness with many icons and candles – the principal icon is Christ on the cross with two disciples beside him. Those disciples are us. The music is a simple song and chant, a psalm is sung, and brief scriptures are read (in ten languages). Then there are five to ten minutes of quiet, for God speaks to us in this silence. Roger writes, “Could God’s apparent silence be concealing a communion, the kind of communion where ‘deep calls to deep’? The human spirit is unfathomable, an abyss! But God is there already.” There is no end of the service, because prayer must not be so easily separated from life. The brothers come out of the silence chanting, moving from contemplation to the day’s work. They do not stop chanting as they leave the church, for the church must not be so easily separated from the world. The Rule says, “Your prayer becomes total when it is one with your work. Hour by hour pray, work or rest, but all in God.”

The community of Taizé has changed, but precisely because of the faithfulness to Christ and Christ in the neighbor that has drawn it to ecumenism, refugees, the world’s youth, and other unexpected strangers who must always be received as Christ himself. Roger writes, “If [the Taizé Community] were not deeply rooted in the Body of Christ, if it reached the point of considering itself self-sufficient, it would be turning its back on its own vocation: to make that love which is communion a living reality.” As John Paul II said about that vocation, “I do not forget that in its unique, original and in a certain sense provisional vocation, your community can awaken astonishment and encounter incomprehension and suspicion.” May we remember the imperative of making “that love which is communion a living reality” wherever we should find ourselves in this world.

And let us pray with the Taizé community. (That) morning, the following was read at the morning service at the Church of Reconciliation:

“Christ of compassion, you enable us to be in communion with those who have gone before us, and who can remain so close to us. We confide into your hands our Brother Roger. He already contemplates the invisible. In his footsteps, you are preparing us to welcome a radiance of your brightness.”

But Bishop Finn told the community that most of the expense of renovating the building as well as future maintenance will be the community's responsibility.

'The work will be demanding and costly,' he said. 'There will be sacrifices involved.'"

"The relationships between the bishop and the diocesan priests should rest most especially upon the bonds of supernatural charity so that the harmony of the will of the priests with that of their bishop will render their pastoral activity more fruitful. Wherefore, for the sake of greater service to souls, let the bishop call the priests into dialogue, especially about pastoral matters. This he should do not only on a given occasion but at regularly fixed intervals insofar as this is possible."

I've had very little witness to this, naturally. I do know that my archbishop in Iowa took a very public stance in meeting with clergy and laity. I know from experience he was an excellent listener and had an excellent memory for people and facts. My wife remarked that he remembered our adoption hopes from one encounter to the next. Did this make him a wise collaborator? I can't say. But there's no doubt that for a bishop to be involved in substantive dialogue, he's going to have to be a good listener, or at least pretend to be.

"Furthermore all diocesan priests should be united among themselves and so should share a genuine concern for the spiritual welfare of the whole diocese. They should also be mindful that the benefits they receive by reason of their ecclesiastical office are closely bound up with their sacred work. Therefore they should contribute generously, as the bishop may direct and as their means permit, to the material needs of the diocese."

I had one pastor who dropped a collection envelope in the basket each week. The priests I've known have been generous with their giving. It's probably harder to effect a unity amongst themselves, given the demands of parish ministry.

Priests "charged with a pastoral office or apostolic organizations of a supra-parochial nature" are "closer collaborators" with the bishop. A nod is also given to priests who serve in non-parish apostolates.

Christus Dominus 30 continues:

"Pastors, however, are cooperators of the bishop in a very special way, for as pastors in their own name they are entrusted with the care of souls in a certain part of the diocese under the bishop's authority."

CD outlines this more deeply in three ways.

1. Pastors and their assistants fulfill the bishop's role in "teaching, sanctifying, and governing" the faithful. In doing so, pastors are to cooperate with one another and other priests involved in non-parish apostolates. Why? Unity and better effectiveness in ministry. What CD calls a "missionary spirit" might be seen as the apostolate of evangelization. Check out this quote:

"Moreover, the care of souls should always be infused with a missionary spirit so that it reaches out as it should to everyone living within the parish boundaries. If the pastor cannot contact certain groups of people, he should seek the assistance of others, even laymen who can assist him in the apostolate."

Even lay people. Imagine that.

"To render the care of souls more efficacious, community life for priests-especially those attached to the same parish-is highly recommended. This way of living, while it encourages apostolic action, also affords an example of charity and unity to the faithful."

Another good point, and note the emphasis here. Community life for priests is highly recommended. And not just for those attached to the same parish. This is one area I think bishops have been very lax: in attending to the living needs of dicoesan clergy. My experience in rural Iowa tells me this would have been very difficult for pastors responsible for whole counties, but even so, priests would benefit from more social reinforcement from their peers, if not in living arrangements, then in more frequent gatherings. My pastor in rural Iowa lived about thirty miles from the nearest priest, but he had a healthy social life, and frequently vacationed with a friend or two in the priesthood. Bishops should be more vigilant about ensuring this happens.

2. Pastors are responsible for preaching and teaching. They are also entrusted with the bishop's duty of sanctifying, seeing "to it that the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the center and culmination of the whole life of the Christian community. They should labor without stint that the faithful are nourished with spiritual food through the devout and frequent reception of the Sacraments and through intelligent and active participation in the Liturgy."

Even in a document on bishops, we see the conciliar emphasis on "active participation." CD 30 also underscores the important of the sacrament of Penance, and that pastors "should always make themselves available to hear the confessions of the faithful."

"In fulfilling their office as shepherd, pastors should take pains to know their own flock. Since they are the servants of all the sheep, they should encourage a full Christian life among the individual faithful and also in families, in associations especially dedicated to the apostolate, and in the whole parish community. Therefore, they should visit homes and schools to the extent that their pastoral work demands. They should pay especial attention to adolescents and youth. They should devote themselves with a paternal love to the poor and the sick. They should have a particular concern for workingmen. Finally, they should encourage the faithful to assist in the works of the apostolate."

A mission statement every priest should frame and hang on his office wall. CD 30's point three advises "assistant pastors" cooperate with the pastor, do the things the pastor does, and provides a "united" front in ministry to the parish.

CD 31 deals with the suitability of a priest for the office of pastor. Does your pastor measure up in "knowledge of doctrine but also his piety, apostolic zeal and other gifts and qualities which are necessary for the proper exercise of the care of souls?" Assorted administrative pieces are discussed, including the priority of the parish for the "good of souls" above other previous rights which might have existed previously, the ideal of the stability of the office of pastor in a parish, the suggestion that procedures for moving pastors should be simplified, the retirement of pastors, and the need for the bishop to provide for the support of resigned pastors.

"Finally, the same concern for souls should be the basis for determining or reconsidering the erection or suppression of parishes and any other changes of this kind which the bishop is empowered to undertake on his own authority."

I just got around to Cynthia Jarvis’ reflections on the Gospel reading for August 7 (I moved this week, you see). Jarvis, a Presbyterian minister, explores the fear that “strikes the hearts of Jesus' disciples when they see him walking toward them on the water.” The Lectionary associated this fear with the “emotions of Joseph's brothers, who fear and hate their brother's favored status.” We fear anything, Rev Jarvis says, that seems to anticipate our own powerlessness and defeat, and so “we make life an exercise in securing ourselves against our insecurities.” And, as she quotes Miroslav Volf as saying, "Others become scapegoats, concocted from our own shadows as repositories for our sins and weaknesses [and fears] so we can relish the illusion of our sinlessness and strength." Because of the clear danger of this illusion, the Church must cultivate a sense of insecurity. Jean Vanier says, “The poor are at the heart of the church, the poor are at the heart of humanity. They are not meant to be pushed aside. And of course this revolution means a complete disordering of the order. It's the breaking down of the fortress of prejudice, it's bringing humanity into one, it's breaking down the walls, and of course all these walls that have been created are the walls of security. It's the security of prejudice: I know who I am and I'm powerful. But in some way Jesus is breaking all this down to bring us into the insecurity of communion, the insecurity of love, the insecurity where God is present and calling us all forth. ...” So it is the hidden presence of Jesus in the poor, broken, and suffering that leads us past our fears of powerlessness and defeat - now exposed as quite literally Godless - into the loving insecurity of a communion formed by the self-emptying of the Son of God’s broken body on the Cross. And the New Testament is not at all subtle in its placing of the poor, broken, and suffering within the eschatological communion of the Church. But it is easy to miss this “disordering of the order.” An article in the most recent Journal of Biblical Literature by the Baptist exegete Mikael C. Parsons can help us reexamine the healing of the lame man in Acts 3-4 to better grasp the “insecurity of communion.” Dr Parsons begins by reminding us that “In the ancient world, it was commonplace to associate outer physical characteristics with inner moral qualities; it was a world in which it was assumed that you can, as it were, judge a book by its cover.” The pseudo-Aristotelian tractate Physiognomica told its readers that “soul and body react on each other; when the character of the soul changes, it changes also the form of the body, and conversely, when the form of the body changes, it changes the character of the soul.” This “physiognomic consciousness” would not bode well for a lame man, who would inevitably be seen as, in Volf’s words, a repository “for our sins and weaknesses [and fears].” But, apart from Acts 3-4, we see St Luke undermining the traditional understanding’s scapegoating to show the admission of the physically imperfect – a bent woman (Luke 13), the notably small Zacchaeus (19), and an Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8) - into the eschatological community. When reminding us that it is membership in this eschatological community that is “the true basis of an imperishable dignity, a dignity which also resists the defeat of death," John Paul II had to note that “Many handicapped people who are frail and frequently embarrassed by the consciousness of their disability, feel that their difficulties are ignored, and they are forced to lead a de facto life of marginalization.” But the disabled were even more marginalized in antiquity. Luke specifically tells us that the lame man’s “feet” and “ankles” were in need of healing (these terms, incidentally, explain why earlier exegetes thought he was a medical doctor). The tractate Physiognomica claimed, “Those who have strong and well-jointed ankles are brave in character; witness the male sex. Those who have fleshy and ill-jointed ankles are weak in character; witness the female sex.” A later text (Physiognomonica) said that “Perfect solid ankles belong to a noble man, those which are soft and smooth to a more unmanly man and those which are very thin to a cowardly and intemperate man. All those who have thick ankles, thick heels, fleshy feet, stubby toes and thick calves are for the most part stupid or mad.” There are similar comments about feet – the lame man’s handicap would have been seen as evidence of a weak character, an outer sign of the cowardice and effeminacy that all males desperately fear characterize themselves. When Peter refers to the lame man in Acts 4:9, he calls him what the NAB renders as “a cripple,” but what literally means “weak man.” But an ancient audience wouldn’t even have needed that sort of cue. They were used to seeing the disabled as subjects of ridicule. Dr Parsons quotes the work of Robert Garland, “Crippled dancers feature prominently on Corinthian pots, as, for instance, on an alabastron which depicts a padded dancer with clubbed feet who is about to have his leg pulled away by another danger – to the side-splitting laughter no doubt of the drinkers witnessing this prank” (but you knew this already from reading Homer’s accounts of Hephaistos and Thersites). The lame man might have been excluded from the first-century temple – he seems to have been placed in a marginal area “at the gate of the temple” (4:2), and the Septuagint rendered the end of 2 Sam 5:8, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house of the Lord.” In the surrounding pagan world, to be sure, admission to the priesthood was often reserved in Pausanius’ examples to “the boy who won the beauty contest” and the young man “who was himself good-looking and strong.” This is how an illusion of “sinlessness and strength” is preserved. But then the marginalized lame man is healed. In fact, “He leaped up, stood, and walked around, and went into the temple with Peter and John, walking and jumping and praising God” (4:13). St John Chrysostom noted that he shares in the “boldness” that the Apostles would later show before the leaders, elders, and scribes. His healing is nothing less than a sign of the establishment of the coming of God – Isaiah had prophesized that “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; the lame shall leap like a deer” (35:6). Now, Parsons cautions us, “If this were the whole story, then it would appear that Luke had followed the conventions of physiognomy to a tee. The lame, morally weak man becomes a whole, morally bold man. But this is not all there is to Luke’s story.” We need to pay more attention to the formerly lame man’s deeply subversive leaping. The truly masculine just didn’t leap about. It wasn’t done. As one physiognomist wrote, you could detect the effeminate quite easily - “his loins do not hold still, and his slack limbs never stay in one position. He minces along with little jumping steps.” Later Christian texts actually continue this theme – Clement writes, “A noble man should bear no sign of effeminacy upon his face or any other portion of his body. Nor should the disgrace of unmanliness ever be found in his movements or his posture.” The lame man has been given the faith that makes him a member of the Body of Christ – he “praises God” (see Lk 17:18-19) – but then he immediately acts in a rather unmanly way. St Luke is telling us that outward signs of masculine character do not matter. The lame man has faith, and, in a symbolic way, the miraculous strengthening of his feet and ankles will let him be on the “Way” that is Christianity (Acts 9:2). If we had judged him poorly because of his handicap earlier, we were wrong – our scapegoat has a place in God’s kingdom. If we judge him poorly because of his effeminate leaping, we are still wrong – he still has the place in God’s kingdom that gives him, as John Paul II said, an “imperishable dignity.” He has left us behind. Physiognomy is relativized by faith. That process described by Volf – “Others become scapegoats, concocted from our own shadows as repositories for our sins and weaknesses [and fears] so we can relish the illusion of our sinlessness and strength" – is revealed as a sham. The Kingdom of God is a community of bent women, small men, eunuch, and those who walk and jump as they praise God. But can we move past our fears to embrace the insecurity of this blessed community?