God and / or country
The most ceremonial ceremony I ever attended was a canonization. This was in 2010, when Andre Bessette, a humble brother of the Congregation of Holy Cross who served as the porter of a church in Montreal, was declared a saint. I was part of a group that went to Rome from the Holy Cross-sponsored college where I taught.
For the canonization Mass, Pope Benedict wore some gold number, surrounded by cardinals on a platform hundreds of yards from where our group sat in St. Peter's Square. As each of the six people being canonized were presented for the pope's consideration, a representative of their cause for sainthood knelt before Benedict and pleaded the person's case before him. They may have even taken the pope's hands in theirs as he sat in his throne.
The atmosphere in the square itself was in total contrast to the solemnity on the platform. It was less like a Mas and more like the soccer World Cup. The saints represented five or six different countries, and the flags of Poland, Canada, Quebec, Spain, and Italy waved throughout the morning. People draped themselves in the flags. They held up banners with slogans painted on them. They sang their national songs.
Australia was well-represented despite the long journey, because the country was getting its very first saint, Mary MacKillop. The Aussies did not hold back their enthusiasm. A schoolteacher sitting a few rows in front of us stood on his chair to rally his students, all in their uniforms, to cheer and chant. Someone in a group behind us played a didgeridoo for hours.
I was reminded of all of this when I read my friend Slavica Jakelic's Commonweal essay, "Nationalism without Idolatry." She notes that nationalism has inspired tremendous violence throughout history and that, moreover, the Catholic Church is meant to be universal, not national. But at one point, she cites an incident in which Pope Francis realized that love of country can inspire love of others, too: "when observing on one occasion pilgrims waving their national flags, he took it as 'a prophetic sign' that Catholics’ national pride can assist in shaping positively 'the encounter between peoples.'"
Slava makes a good argument for how to understand nationalism in relation not just to Catholicism, but to any universalist outlook. While a commitment to humanity in general "must reject the sacralization of any nation," loving your neighbors enough to improve the political situation around them often begins with love of country. The canonization may have been an example of what a non-idolatrous nationalism, within a frame of universalism, can look like. (It looks like a lot of fun.)
This newsletter is going out an hour later than normal this morning. It's not because of the time change. It's because I woke up with nothing prepared and no idea what to write about. (Usually I write these posts a day or two early, then edit and hit send on Monday morning.) But I'm committed to the discipline of sending you something twice a month, so I just started writing. I wrote a few paragraphs on disparate topics, mostly complaining about not having anything to write about. Then I remembered Slava's essay, and I clicked back to read some of it, and it sparked the memory of going to the canonization, and then I was off.
The lesson here (definitely for me, and maybe for you, too) is that the only way to discover what you have to write about is to start writing. This is not a new insight, but it's an easy one to forget, so we need to keep relearning it. The great thing about writing -- as opposed to, say, speaking -- is that you can revise and edit, and no one has to know all the poorly-considered things you said before you knew what you wanted to say.
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Jon