Spirit of the age!

"The Thirteenth" has often been called: "the greatest of centuries". The beautiful landmarks of that century are still with us – the magnificent cathedrals of Europe. Everyone who visits them is breathless at the sublime beauty of the architecture. We can not build that way, anymore.

They were built in the thirteenth century. It took the people one hundred years to build them. But it was worth it! The stained glass windows! No one can make stained glass, like that, anymore. The secret has been lost.

In one of the cathedrals, on top of a great beam, high up, supporting the roof, there is the face of an angel, carved into the heart of a rose. Those who go to Mass in that cathedral can not see the rose, or the angels. The worker in the thirteenth century climbed out on that beam and carved the rose, and the angel, for the eyes of God alone.

And those were the days of the Guilds! The master shoemaker began with the cow. He tanned the leather, cut it, shaped and fashioned it, and worked on it until he produced his final masterpiece, the shoe. We do not work that way, anymore.

The cabinet maker began with the tree. He cut down the tree, made the boards, cut the boards according to his design, fastened them together – often without nails – polished the wood, and came out with his find masterpiece – the cabinet. Now the machines do all of that. We put the parts together in an assembly line.

The master tailor began with the sheep. He made the threads, wove the wool, cut the cloth, sewed the cloth personally, with his own hands, and finally came out with his masterpiece – the garment.

One of the great saints of the thirteenth century was King Louis IX, of France. He married the Princess Margareth when he was nineteen years old, and had eleven children. He became King at the age of twenty-two.

He was a superb administrator! He was a statesman. The statesman comes to power in order to give; the politician comes to power in order to take. The statesman realizes that his task is to serve the children of God; the politician feels that he is in power to be served. The statesman thinks of others, the politician thinks of himself. The statesman thinks of the next generation; the politician thinks of the next election.

King Louis was devoted to the poor. He was a classic example of "poverty of spirit". He had possessions, but was not possessed by them. He used the wealth of his kingdom for the good of his people, realizing that every poor man whom he helped was Christ Our Lord, thinly disguised. He led two crusades, and died during the second one, close to Carthage, in northern Africa.

He was canonized, not because he was a king, but because he was a good man. He wrote in his last spiritual testament: "My dearest son, you should permit yourself to be tormented by every kind of martyrdom, before you would allow yourself to commit a mortal sin." In our day, fathers do not speak to their children that way, anymore.

The spirit of that age was pride of workmanship, joy of living, and deep devotion to God. The amazing thing is that, in the thirteenth century, they worked only about four days a week! They were celebrating the feasts of all the saints, and every feast day was a holiday. So they came to work fresh, eager, loving everything they did.

When I was a Jesuit scholastic, studying theology, not yet ordained, we had a brilliant history teacher whom we called: "Honest Abe Ryan". He knew so much that he could never make an absolute statement. He would say: "This is true!" Then he would think a little, and say: "Though sometimes the opposite is true… You could say this… but sometimes you could also say that." He would end up trickling down the middle. He had a real grip on reality – all sides of every historical event.

Once he was on baroque. He said: "The Jesuits are accused of creating baroque. That is not true. The Society of Jesus never created baroque." Then he stopped, thought, and added: "Though you could say that the same spirit that created the Society of Jesus also created baroque." At the end of the class, we asked him what he meant by that.

He said: "It was an impatience with time and space. Baroque architecture is not just a wealth of statues. When you stand in the doorway of a baroque church, the whole church points to the altar, to the tabernacle. You want to run down the aisle, to the altar. It is foreshortened. An impatience with time and space."

In other ages, the painting of the conversion of Saint Paul is static – Paul kneeling on the ground looking up into the light. But the baroque painting has Paul already thrown out of the saddle, plunging down to the ground, with the horse rearing up behind him. If it were a photograph, and taken one moment later, Paul would not be in a picture. He would have broken the frame – the right side and the bottom. And the horse would not be in the picture. He would have broken the frame, the left side and the top. That was the spirit of age – breaking the frame.

In other ages, the death of Peter the Apostle is portrayed as static – Peter crucified, upside down. But the baroque painting takes the moment when the cross is being thrown up into position. If it were a photograph, taken one moment later, Peter and the cross would not be in it. They would have broken the frame.

So it was with the Society of Jesus. The world had just broken open, like an egg. Columbus had discovered America. Vasco de Gama had gone around the southern tip of Africa to India. Magellan’s expedition had circled the globe. The adventurous souls of Europe wanted to investigate this new world – all of it. They were impatient with time and space. So Loyola sent educators to Germany, Xavier to India, missionaries to North and South America, scientists into observatories to investigate the sun, the moon and the stars. The spirit that created the Society of Jesus was the same spirit that created baroque.

Our age – right here, right now – can best be described by those lines in the poem:

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I…

I took the road less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

We are the age of transition, the restless age, the age of division. There is a strong movement to abandon the morality of the past centuries. We are the first generation to kill the babies. Herod killed 32 little boys in Bethlehem and history looks on him as a monster. Our world kills sixty million babies every year, and the killers do not even feel bad about it.

But there is also a strong movement toward God. Everywhere people are reaching out to the poor, the least of God’s little ones. Habitat has built homes for 6,630 families in the Philippines, since they began in 1988. Couples of Christ are serving the poor, everywhere. There is tremendous concern for the 3.2 million street children in Manila, 1.1 million of whom are girls. Our world is going both ways.

But that is the way it was in the days of Christ Our Lord. Some of his own people nailed him to a cross, drove a lance through his side, and walked away, into the shadows. Others stood beneath his cross, all heart, all love, and suffered with him.

We are the schizophrenic age – the Culture of Death against the Gospel of Life.