Homily for the Funeral Mass for Bradley Kastl

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

There is an ancient maxim in the Church which tells us that “the law of prayer is the law of faith.” This is another way of saying that the Church’s prayers are not mere empty words or hollow aspirations; rather, they are what the Church truly believes. And what the Church believes is always founded on the witness and testimony of the Apostles on and the writings of the Sacred Scriptures.

We prayed a moment ago that Brad might “stand with all the angels and saints, who know [God’s] love and praise [his] saving will.”[1] This belief, this hope, of the Church is founded on the promise that “the favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent” (Lamentations 3:22).

In the depth of your grief and heartache, which is not to be feared, it must surely feel as though the Lord’s mercies might be exhausted, but our faith is not founded on feelings, even as important as these are. Rather, our faith is built upon the certainty of the love of God, on the immeasurable depths of that love revealed for us in Jesus Christ. He showed his love for us in the midst of heartache and pain, in the presence of his Mother and of the Beloved Disciple because love always requires a willingness to sacrifice for the beloved.

Though I cannot pretend to share the experience of losing a spouse or a son, I do know something of the experience of grief, particularly the grief that follows after a tragic death. My father died just before my eighth birthday, and my mother died just two years later. Although not the same, the grief we experience is not altogether different. These many years since their deaths have not always been easy, but they have not been altogether unbearable, either.

As we mourn the loss of those we love so dearly, well-meaning family and friends often seek to comfort us with clichés, which are generally as untrue as they are lame. Not quite willing to enter into our suffering, they turn uncomfortably to words.

We hear especially these days the adage that “time heals all wounds.” The experience of life has taught me this is quite false; time may soothe our wounds and make them easier to bear, but it does not, it cannot, entirely heal them. The full healing of our wounds can only occur where time no longer passes, in the presence of Him who died for us and still bears his wounds, the marks of his love; the full healing of our wounds can only occur in the one who calls us to find our rest in him (cf. Matthew 11:29). The bad moments will continue, but good moments will also come. Likely enough, you will come to know a joy mingled with sadness, and a sadness mingled with joy.

When your sorrow hits you hardest, when it seems hope is lost, go to the Cross. Stand or kneel in the presence of the Blessed Mother and of Saint John; they will lead you to the one who is “meek and humble of heart,” to the one in whom you will find your rest (Matthew 11:28;cf. 11:29). Look upon Christ our salvation and let his love fall down upon you and he will renew you each morning (cf. Lamentations 3:23). You will learn there anew what it means to “hope in silence for the saving help of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:26).

In moments such as these words simply fail; all any of us can do is hold you tightly in our prayers and in our love and weep with you. Still, I wish with all my heart I had something more to say to you to offer comfort and consolation. There will long be an empty space in your hearts, an emptiness that can only be filled by Brad, but this need not lead you to despair or despondency if you place your faith in the hands of Jesus, that is, if you entrust yourselves entirely to him.

Andi, Randy, and Lorri, here I can only leave you with these words of J.R.R. Tolkien, which have long brought no small consolation to my own heart: “I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”[2] In moments such as this, tears are a sign of love; do not be afraid of them. May the Lord, in his loving mercy, keep you in his grace and bring you to rejoice before him together with Brad. Amen.

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[1] The Order of Christian Funerals, Prayers and Texts in Particular Circumstances: Prayers for the Dead, 28).

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, “The Grey Havens.”

I am unprepared for this birthday

Today is my forty-fourth birthday and, strange as it may seem to say so, I feel woefully unprepared for this day. In about an hour I will attain the same number of years as my father when he died, which is to say that if I live another two hundred and thirteen days - and I know of no reason why I should not - I will outlive my father.

I know birthdays are supposed to be happy occasions, but today I feel very much unsettled. That is the best word I can find to describe the sort of melancholy I am experiencing today. Whatever it is I am feeling, there must be a good German word for it, but I do not know that language of compounding words.

Two years ago, when I surpassed my mother's age at the time of her death, I did not feel this way. I do not know why, but I suspect it was because it was my father who died first. I would not say I feel guilty for not feeling unsettled that day, but something like it is also affecting me today.

The experience of grief is a curious thing. I do not really know what I feel today. I am in something of a fog. No one has prepared me for this day, nor could anyone have done so. I am surely not alone in what I am feeling today (lots of others have surpassed the age of their parents), but I feel a bit alone today.

Even so, these words of J.R.R. Tolkien bring me comfort today, as they so often do:

The link between father and son is not only of the perishable flesh: it must have something of aeternitas about it. There is a place called "heaven" where the good here unfinished is completed: and where stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet... (Letter to Michael Tolkien, 9 June 1941).

Homily - What does it mean to bless God, someone, or an object?

The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Dear brothers and sisters,

A week from today the Bishop will come to bless our new organ, which you have not yet heard because it has not yet been set aside for divine worship. Today King David says, “Bless the Lord, my soul” and the Lord Jesus tells us to “bless those who curse you” (Psalm 103:1; Luke 6:28). We speak, then, of blessing things, of blessing God, and of blessing people, but surely blessing things, blessing God, and blessing people does not carry the same connotation. What, then, does it mean to bless?

It seems to me that when some people think of blessings, they think of blessings over objects, whether it be a Bible, rosary, candle, statue, medal, or other object of religious devotion. Some mistakenly think that such a blessing somehow grants a quasi-magical power to the blessed object; this, of course, is not the case. What, then, does it mean to bless something or someone, or to bless God?

Our English word “bless” comes from the Old English word bletsian, meaning “to consecrate by a religious rite, make holy, give thanks.” To consecrate something – literally, to make something holy – is to remove it from the everyday world, to set it aside exclusively for divine purposes. This is what the Church does when she blesses an object. For example, during the blessing of an organ, the Church first blesses God – she thanks and praises him - by calling to mind the great celestial hymn sung by the angels and, indeed, by all of creation. Similarly, during the blessing of sacred vestments, the Church blesses God – she thanks and praises him - for the priesthood of Jesus Christ in which ministers of the New Covenant share.

In the texts of these two blessings, we can learn something important about what the Church does through blessings: “Blessings … refer first and foremost to God, whose majesty and goodness they extol…;” David blesses God by praising his goodness and rejoicing in his majesty.[1] Here we must come to another meaning of blessings: we cannot set God apart from our everyday lives because he is not of this world; consequently, there must be another meaning, a secondary meaning, of blessing.

Our English word “blessing” is used when the Latin texts speak of a benedictio, a word comprising two Latin words: bene, meaning “good,” and dictio, meaning “I speak.” In Latin, then, a blessing, a benediction, is good words that are spoken. To bless God is to speak good things about him, which is to say, words spoken in praise of God because of his goodness which he continually communicates to us.

Perhaps paradoxically, it is precisely by invoking God’s goodness that blessings “also involve human beings, whom he governs and in his providence [he] protects. Further, blessings apply to created things through which, in their abundance and variety, God blesses human beings.”[2] For this reason, when the Church sets aside an organ explicitly for sacred use, she prays that the organ’s music “may lead us to express our prayer and praise in melodies that are pleasing to you [God].”[3] Similarly, when the Church sets aside certain vestments for the exclusive worship of God, she prays that the sacred ministers who wear them may be “prepared for the celebration of the liturgy and set apart by your blessing, wear them with reverence and honor them [the vestments] by the holiness of their lives.”[4] But the sacred vestments do not simply remind bishops, priests, and deacons of the holiness of life to which they are called; through the holiness of their lives and the noble beauty of the garments, you, too, ought to be inspired and led to greater holiness of life so you might bless God through the witness of your lives.

In these two blessings, we see that we bless God “by praising him and thanking him and by offering him … reverent worship and service.”[5] Consequently, in order that the Christian faithful may bless God through and with their very lives, the Church also blesses people because “Christ, the Father’s supreme blessing upon us, is portrayed in the gospel as blessing those he encountered, especially the children, and as offering to his Father prayers of blessing.”[6]

Regardless of whether they pertain to God, to things, or to people, blessings are aimed at growth in holiness, which “is the goal of Christian life.”[7] Indeed, “what God wants most of all for each one of you is that you should become holy. He loves you much more than you could ever begin to imagine, and he wants the very best for you. And by far the best thing for you is to grow in holiness.”[8] We grow in holiness when we bless God because we call to him his own holiness. We grow in holiness when we bless people because we recall God’s activity and presence in their lives. We grow in holiness when we bless objects because we recall God’s particular care for us in the things he has made.

This is why the Second Vatican Council taught that, through her blessings, the Church

sanctifies almost every event of [our] lives with the divine grace which flows from the Paschal mystery of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. There is scarcely any proper use of material things which cannot thus be directed toward the sanctification of men and the praise of God.[9]

Blessings, then, are “a promise of divine help, a proclamation of his favor, [and] a reassurance of his faithfulness to the covenant he made with his people.”[10] When we sing in the Psalms, “Bless the Lord, my soul,” we remember God’s faithful love; when we follow the command of Jesus to “bless those who curse you,” we remember God’s great mercy toward us; when we bless objects, we remember God’s fatherly care for us. Through each of these forms of blessing, may our lives, too, become a blessing, a hymn of praise to God raised in gratitude to him. Amen.

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[1] Book of Blessings, 7.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 1337.

[4] Ibid., 1352.

[5] Ibid., 6.

[6] Ibid., 3.

[7] Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, 1 November 2010.

[8] Ibid., Homily, 17 September 2010.

[9] Sacrosanctum Concilium, 61.

[10] Book of Blessings, 6.

Homily - The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time - 6 February 2022

The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) 

Dear brothers and sisters,

“In the year King Uzziah died…” Is this not the way all great tales begin? The vision the prophet Isaiah then goes on to tell is one of the greatest tales that could be told. It is the vision of God who is “King of all the earth, the ruler of wind and water, harvest and seed-time, sun and storm.”[1] It was a vision that both terrified him and that made him realize his mission. 

He does not begin his account in this way – in the year King Uzziah died – simply to tell a good story. No, using this literary phrase, the prophet Isaiah situates his vision of a reality outside of time within time, in the year 742 b.c. to be precise. He does this to assert the truth of what he saw, to make clear he did not just make it up, but in order to more fully understand why he does this, we have to know something about King Uzziah. 

Judah had known no king like Uzziah since the time of Solomon. He had been an efficient administrator and an able military leader. Under his leadership Judah had grown in every way (cf. II Chronicles 26:1-15)… How easy it must have been to focus one’s hopes and trust upon a king like that. What will happen, then, when such a king dies, and coupled with that death there comes the recognition that a resurgent Assyria is pushing nearer and nearer? In moments like that it is easy to see the futility of any hope but an ultimate one. No earthly king could help Judah in that hour. In the context of such a crisis, God can more easily make himself known to us than when times are good and we are self-confidently complacent.[2] 

This is why the prophet of God says, “In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne;” he saw the true and eternal King, the one in whom we have our only and ultimate hope (Isaiah 6:1). 

Isaiah did not, however, only see God enthroned; he also saw – and heard – seraphim, angelic beings of fire with six wings. 

…the seraphim typify the appropriate response to God’s holiness … perfectly ready for praise and service. One pair of wings is used to cover their faces, for even the most perfect of creatures dare not gaze brazenly into the face of the Creator. The sight would be too much. Another pair covers their feet… [feet being used] in ancient Near Eastern literature as a euphemism for genitalia… As the creature should not look upon the Creator, so that the created should not be displayed in the sight of the Creator. But to be in the presence of the Creator is not primarily to be prostrated with awe. Rather, it is to be filled with praise. So, with the third pair of wings the seraphim were flying, all the while calling out their ecstatic song.[3] 

It is their hymn of praise, their hymn of high joy, that we are allowed and invited to sing each time we gather to offer the Holy Mass: “Holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3). The Seraphim sing it three times because saying something three times in a row is the Hebrew superlative; to say, holy, holier, holiest in Hebrew, you have to say holy, holy, holy. 

Let’s pause here for a moment to consider what it means to praise God, and why doing so is more desirable than falling down before him. 

Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory, quite beyond what he does, but simply because he is. It shares in the blessed happiness of the pure of heart who love God in faith before seeing him glory. By praise, the Spirit is joined to our spirits to bear witness that we are children of God, testifying to the only Son in whom we are adopted and by whom we glorify the Father. Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and carries them toward him who is its source and goal…[4] 

If we do not yet have a desire to praise God eternally with the angels, it is only because we do not yet love him sufficiently. 

If we are to sing in the sight of the angels, if we are to sing well the praise of the thrice-holy God, we must be like the Seraphim; we must be clean (cf. Psalm 138:1). Isaiah cried out, “woe to me, I am doomed!” because he knew he was not clean. For Isaiah and for the ancient Hebrews, 

The primary element about God’s holiness that distinguishes him from human beings is not his essence but his character… Here, then, Isaiah recognizes with sickening force that his character is not, any more than is his people’s, in keeping with God’s character. Their lips do not belong to God, else they would continually pour forth praise like the seraphim. Why, then, are the lips unclean? Because that of which they are an expression, the heart and the will, do not belong to God. That which God possesses is clean, for it is like him. Thus, it is not merely purification of the lips which is necessary. Nor is it mere ritual purification that is needed. In some way, sin and iniquity must be removed if Isaiah (and his people) are ever to serve God with clean lips.[5] 

Indeed, God himself removed Isaiah’s wickedness and cleansed him of his sin and now Isaiah can truly join in the heavenly song of the Seraphim (cf. Isaiah 6:5). 

It is good to notice that Isaiah’s vision of the throne room of God involved his sight, his hearing, his touch, his smell, and his taste; it involved each of his senses, his entire body, which may be taken to be a foreshadowing of the bodily resurrection of the dead for which we hope. It is not just our souls that are destined to be in the presence of God, but our bodies, as well. What Isaiah saw, we, too, will come to experience, if only we allow God to make us clean, if only we become holy, as God is holy (cf. Leviticus 21:8). 

Some people think that holiness is beyond us and, hence, that heaven is beyond our reach, but it is not, if only we only we hold fast to the Gospel that has been preached to us and which is saving us now (cf. I Corinthians 15:1-2). The Good News proclaimed to us is this: that the God who sits enthroned on high came to earth; that he took on our flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary; “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (I Corinthians 15:3-4). In short, in Christ Jesus, heaven has come to earth so that we might go to heaven. 

All of this is to say that “because God is holy, he can forgive the man who realizes that he is a sinner before him.”[6] This was certainly the experience of Saint Peter, and of Saint Paul, and of the prophet Isaiah, and indeed of all the saints who now sing in the presence of the angels in heaven. And if God can make them clean, he make you and me clean, as well.

This is all well and good, but what do we mean when we speak of heaven?

…this word Heaven does not indicate a place above the stars but something far more daring and sublime: it indicates Christ himself, the divine Person who welcomes humanity fully and forever, the One in whom God and man are inseparably united forever. Man's being in God, this is Heaven. And we draw close to Heaven, indeed, we enter Heaven to the extent that we draw close to Jesus and enter into communion with him.[7] 

This is why heaven is both “the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness” and “the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ.”[8] This is why J.R.R. Tolkien once said, “There is a place called ‘heaven’ where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet…”[9] May the Lord, then, teach us to place our ultimate hope in him alone, cleanse us, and make us know our greatest happiness in singing his praise for ever in the greatest of tales. Amen.

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[1] Aiden Nichols, O.P., Year of the Lord’s Favour: A Homiliary for the Roman Liturgy: Volume 3: The Temporal Cycle, Sundays through the Year (Freedom Publishing Pty Ltd: Balwin, Victoria, Australia, 2002), 27).

[2] John N. Oswalt, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament: The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1-39, R.K. Harrison and Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., eds. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986.), 177.

[3] Ibid., 179-180.

[4] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2639.

[5] John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, 183.

[6] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 208.

[7] Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, 24 May 2009.

[8] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1024, 1026.

[9] J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 45, 9 June 1941. In The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Humphrey Carpenter, ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000), 55.

Homily - 30 January 2022 - The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Dear brothers and sisters,

A few days ago, one of my acquaintances on Twitter posted a poll in which he asked a thought-provoking question: “In your opinion, which of these is the world most lacking at present: goodness, truth, or beauty?” Of the 585 votes he received, 52.5% of them said the world today is most lacking truth. Of the possible choices, truth had my vote, but I was surprised it received so many.

There is an intriguing connection between goodness, truth, and beauty. As the Catechism teaches us, “The practice of goodness is accompanied by spontaneous spiritual joy and moral beauty. Likewise, truth carries with it the joy and splendor of spiritual beauty. Truth is beautiful in itself.”[1] Because of their interconnectedness, goodness, truth, and beauty cannot really be separated, even though we typically think of them as distinct realities.

Goodness, truth, and beauty are what the philosophers and theologians call the Transcendentals because “they not only ”transcend” or exist independently from material things, but when we pay attention and try to detect them in the physical world, our heart and mind can be drawn upwards to God.”[2]

Indeed, God himself is Goodness, Truth, and Beauty and something in this world is only true, beautiful, or good to the extent it shares in the truth, beauty, and goodness of God. Beauty, after all, does not truly lie in the eye of the beholder, but in God.

Here we recall what the Lord Jesus said of himself: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” and “No one is good but God alone” (John 14:6; Mark 10:18). We also remember when the Apostles saw him transfigured, that “his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light;” his beauty was so great that the Apostles “fell prostrate and were very much afraid” (Matthew 17:2, 6). Even as goodness, truth, and beauty can cause some trepidation within us, they remain always attractive to us; we always desire more goodness, more truth, and more beauty because we do not yet possess them in full; we do not yet possess God.

While these three Transcendentals are each found within God, he has only explicitly associated himself with Truth: “I am the truth,” he says, and “if you remain in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John8:31-32). This is why Saint Augustine said, “True happiness is to rejoice in the truth, for to rejoice in the truth is to rejoice in you, O God, who are the Truth, for you, my God, my true Light, to whom I look for salvation. This is the happiness of desire. All desire this, the only state of happiness. All desire to rejoice in the truth.”[3]

Why do I bring this up today? What does it have to do with the Sacred Scriptures we have just heard? Admittedly not much, but we might say the Nazarenes sought “to hurl [Jesus] down headlong” off the brow of the hill because they did not accept the truth of who he is (Luke 4:29). They refused to conform themselves to the Truth – to Christ Jesus himself – because they were lacking in the virtues of faith, hope, and love (cf. I Corinthians 13:13).

This past week, Pope Francis met with the judges of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, the appellate court in Rome that handles petitions for declarations of nullity of marriage, more commonly – and incorrectly – called “annulments.” This address caught my attention because one of the roles I have in the diocesan curia is handling petitions for the declaration of marriage nullity.

When he spoke to the rotal judges, the Holy Father emphasized the importance of living in accord with the truth. He said,

Overcoming a distorted view of marriage cases, as if they were concerned with merely subjective interests, it must be rediscovered that all the participants in the case are required to contribute towards the same objective, that of shining a light on the truth of a real union between a man and a woman, arriving at the conclusion regarding the existence or otherwise of a true marriage between them.[4]

What does he mean here?

Very often when a party to a failed marriage seeks a declaration of nullity of marriage – that is, a declaration of the Church that, for whatever reason, a real marriage was never actually entered into by the two parties even though it looked like a marriage – there is an assumption that an affirmative judgment will be given simply because someone has asked for one. Then, when a negative decision is given - meaning a true marriage actually was entered into between the parties and that, consequently, they are not free to enter into a new marriage in accord with Jesus’ teachings on the permanence of marriage – they become upset with the judges or with the Church and seek to live life on their own terms instead of living in accord with the truth (cf. Matthew 19:9).

This is a danger for each of us, not only when it comes to living the truth about marriage, but of every aspect of human life. For example, today there is an especially grave danger for many to chose not to live in accord with the truth of their own bodies. For others, there is the temptation not to live in accord with the truth of their convictions; they condemn one political party for doing what their favored party did last year. Many parents face the temptation of not living in accord with the truth of what it means to be a mother or a father. For all of us there is the temptation not to live in accord with the truth of what it means to be a Christian, of what it means to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus.

Why is it that we fail to live in accord with the truth? The simple and very real answer is sin. Sin darkness our intellects; sin makes us stupid and leads us to choose a false good, something we perceive to be good or beautiful or true but which really is not.

The human heart is a unique reality; it can never be empty. It will always desire and seek after truth, goodness and beauty. Every person in every age and place, whether they believed in God or not, has always strived for, and chosen what they thought was true, good and beautiful.[5]

Making a daily examination of conscience and a regular confession of sins is of vital importance to each of us because doing so sheds light on our sins and illumines our intellect to help us chose what is really good, true, and beautiful; it helps to choose what is aligned with God and so to live in the truth by being authentic disciples of the Master.

Instead of seeking to hurl Jesus out of our lives when we do not agree with him, let us beg him to not only help us discover the truth of life and of our existence – to discover himself – but also to live in accord with the truth in every aspect of our lives. At the beginning of this Mass, we prayed to God “that we may honor you with all our mind, and love everyone in truth of heart.”[6] By our desire for happiness, for joy in truth, may he bring it fulfillment in us, for there can be no love without truth. Amen.

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[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2500.

[2] Bishop Thomas J. Olmstead, “The Transcendentals,” Catholic Sun, 22 September 2019. Accessed 29 January 2022. Available at https://www.catholicsun.org/2019/09/22/gods-footprints-in-our-world/.

[3] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, X.23.

[4] Pope Francis, Address to the Officials of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota for the Inauguration of the Judicial Year, 27 January 2022.

[5] Bishop Thomas J. Olmstead, “The Transcendentals.”

[6] Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman Missal.

Homily - The Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord - 2 January 2022

The Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

Dear brothers and sisters,

There are certain figures we expect to find in a Nativity set. Some of the obvious figures include Mary and Joseph and the Baby Joseph, an ox and an ass, shepherds and sheep, and of course the Magi. For the Germans, their Nativity sets almost always include a dog with the shepherds, an inclusion dear to my heart. Sadly, none of my own Nativity sets are of German origin, and so do not include a dog, but they do each include the key figures. There is, however, one figure my Nativity sets do not have that I often expect to find in a Nativity set. The missing figure is one we almost always find in Nativity sets inside churches: a camel. You have surely noticed that our own Nativity set here at St. Augustine’s has a camel.

Adoration of the Magi by Giotto

It is no secret that the account of the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child given to us by Saint Matthew does not mention camels. If this is the case, why is it that larger Nativity sets include these desert creatures? It may be because they are mentioned by the Prophet Isaiah, as we heard a few moments ago: “Caravans of camels shall fill you, dromedaries from Midian and Ephah; all from Sheba shall come bearing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the praises of the Lord” (Isaiah 60:6).

Since we know the Magi brought with them “gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh,” it seems reasonable to connect this passage from Isaiah with that concerning the Magi (Matthew 2:11). And since they came from the east, it seems practical for them to have travelled with camels. But is there something more behind the inclusion of the camel?

As I pondered the presence of the camel, I decided to consult a medieval Bestiary. The closest comparison we have to a Bestiary in our day would be a zoological textbook. Bestiaries, though, were something more than zoological texts, for they include in them what moral lessons might be learned from particular animals. In consulting the Bestiary I have, a reproduction of the thirteenth century English text known as MS Bodley 764, I stumbled on something rather profound.

In this Bestiary, the anonymous author says the name “camel” has its origin in the Greek word cami, meaning “low” or “short.”[1] They have this name “because the animal lies down to be loaded.”[2] Because of this gesture of bending low to take on a burden, we are told that the camel “signifies the humility of Christ, who bears all our sins.”[3] Christ Jesus “was willing to assume the part of the camel, in taking on Himself the burdens of our weakness which he did out of humility.”[4]

In this we see that “God’s criteria differ from human criteria. God does not manifest himself in the power of this world but in the humility of his love, the love that asks our freedom to be welcomed in order to transform us and to enable us to reach the One who is Love.”[5] We see this humility of the only begotten Son of God displayed unmistakably in his Incarnation, when he not only took on our weakness, but even our own flesh when he was born of the Virgin Mary, not in a royal palace, but in a stable and set, not on a throne, but in a feeding trough.

The moral lesson we are to learn from the camel, then, is that of humility, a lesson which the Magi certainly learned. When they arrived before the Child of Bethlehem, they did not simply genuflect before him; rather, “they prostrated themselves,” they threw themselves down, “and did him homage” (Matthew 2:11).

This was most fitting, as the word “humility” comes the Latin humilis, meaning “on the ground;” they cast themselves on the ground before “the newborn king of the Jews” because they knew his kingship was not limited to the Kingdom of Judea, but to the entire earth and indeed to the entire cosmos (Matthew 2:2). “Their humble courage was what enabled them to bend down before the child of poor people and to recognize in him the promised King, the one they had set out, on both their outward and their inward journey, to seek and to know.”[6]

When you and I are neither resistant nor afraid to cast ourselves down before the Lord, if we, like the Magi, prostrate ourselves before him, it does not pertain to us to offer him some kingly gift. Rather, it simply pertains to us to humbly offer him the treasure that is our hearts. Thinking perhaps too little of ourselves, we may be tempted to think such a gift is not worthy of so great a King, but what other gift does a Child ever want but the gift of love, of presence, of a heart?

When Jesus assumed the part of the camel, he received the burden of our sins. When the Magi assumed the part of the camel, they received the burden of being heralds of the newborn king, of proclaiming his Gospel when “they departed for their country by another way” (Matthew 2:12). When we assume the part of the camel, when we bend low, we not only receive the burden of announcing the Gospel, but also of taking up the Cross as it comes to us, of becoming his disciples (cf. Luke 9:23).

Today, brothers and sisters, let us imitate the devotion of the Magi. Let us bow down before the Holy Infant, not seeking to be great lords and ladies, but merely desiring to be his servants. Let us imitate the humble courage of the Magi who, “upon their return home … would certainly have told others of this amazing encounter with the Messiah, thus initiating the spread of the Gospel among the nations.”[7] Let us, with them, tell others of our own encounters with the Lord and proclaim the praises. Amen.

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[1] Richard Barber, Bestiary: Being an English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford M.S. Bodley 764 with All the Original Miniatures Reproduced in Facsimile. (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1999), 95.

[2] Christian Heck and Rémy Cordonnier, The Grand Medieval Bestiary: Animals in Illuminated Manuscripts (New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 2012), 198.

[3] Richard Barber, Bestiary, 96.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, 6 January 2011.

[6] Ibid., 6 January 2012.

[7] Pope Francis, Admirabile Signum, 9.