Where is your God Now?

Those of you who know me will surely realize that tomorrow marks an important day, not only for myself but for many of my friends and family. That's right, my alma mater Marquette is playing in the Elite 8.

Of course, there's also the fact that tomorrow is Holy Saturday, the final day of the Triduum, the day Christ spent in the tomb. While not technically a part of Lent, the Triduum is one of the most solemn periods on the Church calendar. I'll be in a bar getting a nice afternoon buzz, watching basketball.

I spent some time today considering whether that would be appropriate use of my day. The realization came to me that, rather than being sacrilegious, it's more or less in the liturgical spirit of the season.

"God is dead," Nietzche said and, like a stopped clock, he's right once a year.* What else is there to do? Do like the late-Republic Romans, I guess, when they stopped believing in their gods. Drink wine, watch gladiator contests and try to ignore the fact that the country is transforming before our eyes into an imperial military state. For a few hours, we Christians enter into the state the pre-Christian world found itself in. Take a moment to read Phillip Larkin's poem Aubade. (No seriously, read it!) How else is there to live with the unescapable inevitability of our own demise?

Fortunately, we have the advantage of knowing how the story ends. Death is no longer the last word. Jesus (showing His humanity) enters into death, like Bruce Banner slipping on an ill-fated white shirt in the morning. But by the end of the day His divinity bursts forth in Hulk-mode, destroying the power of death in the process.

Within a couple of centuries, Roman culture went from the the fading worship of gods they didn't totally believe in, to killing the God who was sent to them, to being ruled by that God-man's followers. Yet, their culture wasn't extinguished. It was baptized. The very term "alma mater" comes from the language of Zeno and Marcus Aurelius, but was preserved by Catholics for use in the university system they created.**

Have hope, Christus Vincit!

(It's always disheartening to realize that someone else blogged about the same topic as you did, and better. After I finished drafting this post, I came across this article by David Warren. Mr. Warren's article is a lot like this blog post, except it's insightful and well-written. And when you're done, read his whole archive. I burned through it in a couple of days and I'm smarter for it, if only in the sense that I know what a real writer sounds like.)

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* Imagine this is some kind of calendar clock, with 365 positions on the dial, corresponding to days of the year. Or imagine that I'm not good with similes.

** Every week, my parish's confirmation class has Little Caesar's pizza for lunch. Each pizza comes topped with pepperoni, sausage and the delicious irony that Catholicism continues to be believed and passed on, while our 2nd century oppressor is now a cartoon image used to sell fast food.