Did Christopher Hitchens exist?

I am writing this the day that Christopher Hitchens passed on to eternity. He "now knows the truth of it", as Pat Archbold wrote. When you're calling for prayer for someone's soul, currency is good. When you're using someone's death as the inspiration for a polemic, maybe a tape-delay is in order. Three months later, here we go...

During his life, Mr. Hitchens wrote numerous journal and newspaper articles. He wrote and edited books. He gave interviews and entered debates. In just a few hundred years, will there be proof that he said and did specific things? Did the New York Times really stop the presses the day he passed on, or is that just a poetic exaggeration?

What proof will there be that he said or did any particular thing?

• His book? Put together by a collection of British atheists writing in his name.
• Videotape of him? Lost to degrading of the recording and backup media.
• Videotape meticulously preserved? Doctored.
• People that knew him? Long dead.
• People that knew people that knew him? Patsies of the conspiracy to claim that he said and did those things.

Of course that’s ridiculous. The books he left behind, the articles by and about him, and the people that will pass on his legacy do demonstrate that he said and did certain things.

I have never met Christopher Hitchens, but I know he existed because of what people have written, recorded, and talked about.

In a few thousand years, maybe my distant descendants will find themselves researching in the library of the Sts. Archbold shrine. They'll find an article from Dec 15, 2011 and be able to say that Christopher Hitchens' contemporaries - even his opponents - wrote about and quoted him. They'll know what he said and did because of the written record and the stories passed down by others, if history judges those things important enough to preserve through the generations. If they find many copies of his books and numerous articles about him, even if the majority are from his fellow atheists, that will provide even stronger evidence than if they find only one or two passing references. If they find specific place names and dates, that will provide stronger evidence than just a reference to "the past".

History has a curious way of preserving things. It's worth meditating on. If Christopher Hitchens has left an indelible mark on the "new atheism" that lasts for thousands of years, what would the evidence of his words and actions look like in 4011?

On a Mission from God

You may not have an orphanage to save like the Blues Brothers, but you, too, are on a mission from God. Each of us has a mission to share the word of God with the world - with our world. The Holy Father tells us that "(i)t is the word itself which impels us towards our brothers and sisters: it is the word which illuminates, purifies, converts; we are only its servants."

The Holy Father calls us to return to the missionary sense of the first Christians. "The first Christian communities felt that their faith was not part of a particular cultural tradition, differing from one people to another, but belonged instead to the realm of truth, which concerns everyone equally." There is one truth, the truth for all people, and all people have a right to it. All people need it, whether they recognize it or not.

Pope Benedict points out an example from the Acts of the Apostles (17:16-34), where St. Paul preached to the local people based on their context. He met them where they are, so to speak. He found the things they had in common, however small, and built on them. The Pope reminds us that "(t)he Lord offers salvation to men and women in every age."

In the very next sentence, though, he writes that "(a)ll of us recognize how much the light of Christ needs to illumine every area of human life: the family, schools, culture, work, leisure and the other aspects of social life. It is not a matter of preaching a word of consolation, but rather a word which disrupts, which calls to conversion...." There is a place for ecumenism, but there is no place for indifferentism - believing that all religions are the same.

Where in your life are you being called to walk that line - to bring the Word of God into an aspect of your life, to disrupt and call to conversion, yet also to meet people where they are?

Catholic Answers Live! has recently addressed some of those areas of life. Here are a few relevant podcasts:

• Bringing God to Work
• What's New about the New Evangelization
• God's Plan for Sexuality
• Recipes for a Strong Family

From the Father, To the Father

The Holy Father begins the third and final part of Verbum Domini by describing the "fundamental paradox of the Christian faith". We both have and have not seen the face of God. "No one has ever seen God", Pope Benedict quotes from John 1:18 (cf. 1 Jn 4:12). At the same time - in the same first chapter of John's Gospel, no less - we are told that "the Word became flesh". We have seen the face of God because we have seen Christ, and Jesus is the one true God. We have not, however, seen God without flesh. No one has seen God the Father as He is, only the Father as shown through the Son.

In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, John Paul the Great teaches us that "(t)he Church professes: 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God'. Over the centuries this has been the Church’s profession of faith and of all those to whom the Father revealed the Son in the Holy Spirit, just as the Song in the Holy Spirit revealed to them the Father (cf Mt 11:25-27)."

We might say that we've seen God in the flesh but not in the spirit (that is, apart from the flesh). What we've seen is God come into the world.  God sent Himself to us. The Holy Father goes on in that opening paragraph of part three to remind us that God taught that "the word of God 'shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose...'". The Word came from the Father and did not return empty. Jesus accomplished in the world what He was sent to do, then He returned to the Father (the ascension).

The Word comes to us, too, individually. The Word is preached to us at each Mass. We receive Him in the Eucharist. We receive Him spiritually in our hearts. Should Jesus come to us individually and return empty?

Pope Benedict notes that "(t)he one whom the Father has sent to do his will... makes us part of his life and mission.... empowers us to proclaim the word everything by the witness of our lives."  This is what God has sent into our individual lives - a share in the life and mission of Jesus Christ. That is what He has sent to us, and we must not let it return empty. "Everyone today, whether he or she knows it or not, needs the message," Pope Benedict tells us. "It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God's grace, we ourselves have received."

Consider the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30). The man that returned to his master without doing anything was cast out. Those that did something, however large or small, were rewarded. I suspect that even had one servant lost the investment, that he used it and acted would be enough.* God works good through even our failure. He waits, instead, through our inaction. if I might mix my metaphors (and parables), it is not our job to make the seeds grow, only to plant them. We cannot be sure we'll be successful in the world, but we're not told to always be successful.  We're told to go into the world and witness.

"We are called upon not to be successful, but to be faithful."- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

* Kevin O'Brien treated this topic with humor and clarity in a recent article in the St. Austin Review: The Problem of Love and Frozen Banana Stands

Lectio Divina

Near the end of the second part of Verbum Domini, "The Word of God in the Life of the Church", Pope Benedict spends time on the subject of lectio divina: "the prayerful reading of sacred Scripture".

What is lectio divina?
It is a practice dating to at least the third century which the Pontifical Biblical Commission described as "a reading, on an individual or communal level, of a more or less lengthy passage of Scripture, received as the word of God and leading, at the prompting of the Spirit, to meditation, prayer and contemplation." The Synod acknowledges it as "a great patristic tradition" in which we not just read Sacred Scripture but dialogue with God about it. Of all the methods for approach Sacred Scripture, lectio divina is the one on which the Synod spent the most time.

It is made up of four stages: lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio; or, reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. Briefly, you begin by reading a short passage from Scripture - a line or so, then meditate on the meaning(s) of it. What is God telling you in those words of His? Next, you pray, speaking to God about what He is telling you. After speaking a little, of course, you should listen all the more; in the last step, you sit quietly in God's presence so He may respond. The Holy Father notes that these steps must ultimately lead to "actio": putting the Word of God into action in your life and living a Christian witness.

Note that this isn't intended to take the place of authentic interpretation from the Magisterium or public reading of the Word of God in the litury. Pope Benedict reiterates this reminder of the Synod, "that God’s word is given to us precisely to build communion, to unite us in the Truth along our path to God.... Consequently, the sacred text must always be approached in the communion of the Church."

In an address on Oct 28, 1996, Blessed John Paul II called it "the privileged occasion for meeting God while listening to His Word." This is not a subject that I can treat adequately in one article, nor am I an expert on "divine reading" by far. I've recommended some additional resources below, and I encourage you to read about the practice and give it a try.

Some resources, from brief to in-depth:
Lectio Divina in Our Catholic Life Today, Fr. Scott A. Hayes, S.J.C. (free article)
Meditation, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶2705-2708
Lectio Divina and the Practice of Teresian Prayer, Sam Anthony Morello, O.C.D. (booklet)
Praying Scripture for a Change: An Introduction to Lectio Divina, Dr. Tim Gray
Praying with Saint Paul: Daily Reflections on the Letters of the Apostle Paul, Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P.

References
John Paul II. 1996. Renewed Catechesis Will Lead to a More Incisive Promotion of Vocations. Address at World Day of Prayer for Vocations. Available from http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP961028.htm.
Pontifical Biblical Commission. 1994. On the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church. Available from http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.htm.

---

It's been quite a while since I started this measured read-through of Verbum Domini. In my next post we start the third and final section: Verbum Mundo.