St. Rose of Lima/Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Rose of Lima, as well as commemorating the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost. She was born in Lima in Peru in 1586. From an early age she discerned a vocation to the religious life. However, her parents were opposed to this. Eventually a compromise was reached whereby she remained living with her parents and did not formally enter the religious life, but her parents allowed her to live in her own quarters in the family home and she became a third order Dominican. She devoted herself to living an ascetic life, to prayer and to charitable works. She died in 1617.
There is much to learn from the life of St. Rose of Lima. Perhaps the most important is the need to combine principle with pragmatism. St. Rose was in a situation where there was a seemingly irresolvable conflict with her family. She had a clear vocation to the religious life, while her parents were equally clear in their opposition to this. How could such a conflict be resolved without her becoming permanently estranged from her parents? After all, “honour thy father and thy mother” was one of the Ten Commandments, but then the first and greatest commandment was “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. The compromise solution (which was one which neither side ideally wanted) was that she should pursue her religious vocation but remain at home with her family. This was a compromise that was acceptable to both her parents and to her, and prevented what would have otherwise been a potentially disastrous rift with her parents.
It is very difficult to get the balance right between having clear principles, and being pragmatic in their application to the circumstances in which we are in. If we make every issue and disagreement that we have with anyone else a matter of principle we will fall into the error of fighting big battles over small issues. We will find ourselves always at odds with everyone else because we insist that they must agree with us all of the time. On the other hand, if we take the easy way out of any potential conflict, and simply do whatever is necessary to accommodate ourselves to the environment in which we are in, then we will lose our own distinctive identity. We will sacrifice any principles we may have to what is most expedient at the present moment. In order to avoid either of these two extremes we have to find a way of being integrated with our environment, without being fully assimilated to it.
The prophet Jeremiah devoted his life to what in the short term proved a lost cause, calling the Jewish nation to repent. He called them to look to the old paths and they would find rest in their souls, but the nation would not. Their hearts were hardened. When the first exiles were led away into captivity in Babylon there were some who fed them false hopes that they would soon be able to return again to their land. In contrast to this, Jeremiah sent a letter to the Jewish exiles in Babylon urging them to build houses and settle down, to seek the welfare of the city, for in its welfare would be their welfare (Jeremiah 29). The situation was too far gone for them to have any hope of a speedy return. Consequently, the exiles had to find a way of being integrated with their new environment without being assimilated to it. The Babylonians were the political enemies of the Jewish nation, and they had won the battle in the short term. The Jewish exiles in Babylon had to find a way of adapting to the new situation, of admitting defeat in the short term, but not abandoning hope in the long term.
The policy Jeremiah advised worked. The Jewish exiles found a way of integrating with their new environment, yet without losing their identity. Decades later, the Babylonians were themselves overthrown by the Persians, and many of the Jews were allowed to return to their land and rebuild their temple. The fashioning of the Jewish commonwealth under Ezra and Nehemiah ensured that the identity of the Jews would be preserved for all time to come. Whereas other nations had lost their identity through conquest and assimilation the Jews survived. They survived because they followed Jeremiah’s advice and were able to combine principle with pragmatism, integrating into a hostile environment, without becoming completely assimilated to it.
Later, when the early Church started to win converts among non-Jews, the new Gentile converts found themselves in a political no man’s land. Whereas Judaism had the status within the Roman Empire of a protected religion and so the Jews were exempt from the imperial cult, the new Gentile Christians had no such legal protection. They were commanded by their faith to renounce idolatry, but they had no legal exemption from the imperial cult. There was always an underlying risk of persecution, even under the more tolerant Roman Emperors. They were seen to lack patriotism because they refused to acknowledge the State religion and worship the Emperor. Despite this they did not teach violent rebellion against the State, though they made it clear that it was not the ultimate authority and they could not participate in the imperial cult. Eventually, the Roman Empire was won over and became Christian. When the Empire eventually fell, first in the West, and then a thousand years later in the East, the Church survived. The Church had found a way of being integrated with the new environment without being assimilated to it.
In the West most people have not been Christians for some time now, but they have often retained many Christian ethical principles, albeit in a secularised form. Today even that has faded and society has returned to open paganism. Having lost any sense of a transcendent authority people have now put their faith in the Government instead as it amasses more and more power and control of a type that used to called totalitarian. In the new paganism promoted by the Government people who oppose the zeitgeist are seen as selfish and lacking in patriotism to the State (this is essentially a modern version of the charge against the early Christians). The opponents of Christianity who currently control Western governments are in the majority. There is nothing we can do on a political level to alter the situation. It is too far gone for that.
We will have to learn again to follow the advice of the prophet Jeremiah about living in a hostile environment. We must find a way of being integrated without becoming assimilated to the environment in which we find ourselves. If we are not able to do all the things we would like to do, then we still have to do what we can to keep the faith alive in these dark times. On a personal level, we have to find a way of working with our own families and neighbours, as St. Rose of Lima had to find a way of pursuing her own vocation in a way that was acceptable to her family, but without compromising her fundamental convictions.
We are called to do the same in our own time and place. We must hold firm to the faith once delivered to the saints, but also be pragmatic in our application of it in our own time and place. As an early Christian writer put it, “Live in the world, but as strangers, live as strangers, but in the world.” We can take to heart the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews about the removal of those things that can be shaken, so that those things that cannot be shaken may remain.
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
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