Veni, Adonai: Come, you who gave the law, come in cloud and majesty and awe.

–Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

–I am; and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.

I am. And with that confession there now erupts over Jesus… the brutal mockery of those who know they are in a position of strength: they make him feel their power, their utter contempt… in attacking him who now seems utterly powerless. It does not occur to them that… they are causing the destiny of the Suffering Servant to be literally fulfilled in him. He is the Son of Man, coming in the cloud of concealment. The power of God is love; the power of God is love.

The Power of the Most High overshadows you, o Virgin. Love overshadows you. Personal love, relational love, real love: The very term of the infinite fruitful mutual love of Father and Son comes upon you, such is the power which comes upon you. Blessed thou art. The cloud which is limpid ecstasy and ineffable delicacy, to us the sinful becomes all gloom, a heavy viscid film, the web that is woven over all the nations.

The divine decrees of this gentle, blissful, peaceful, tender Being bear no force against us. We, like spiders who eviscerate themselves in their work, spin about ourselves funnels of darkness. There is pain, grieving, so much; we are weary; we are given no rest. With the impress of that pain, the temptation ever taunts – to abuse things, to negate and truncate and repudiate what will not serve us. It is a trench to which we return when we ourselves feel repudiated, thwarted… rejected: To raise our fists, to retreat in protest, to embrace the paradigm of power which is most immediate, though most degenerate, which derides us according to its utter contempt. I know this contempt, the rejection; I know this temptation, and I know my sins.

With God everything is beautiful. His potentia ordinaria, his perfect regulation and governance flowing of his absolute power, is unto deep beauty. What you decree, o God, is beautiful, and efficacious of beauty, because it is yours. The permission of death is of your decree.

There is death, and a seraphic angst runs through the universe. Like dissonance in music, asymmetry in art, the tragic in drama, these low, rich, elegant tones undergird creation, lend density, gravity, reality. Without them, nothing is anchored; absent a nucleus about which beauty can coalesce, everything wafts away, turns pretty, ethereal, cloying. This exquisite strain of masculinity in which all being mysteriously participates imparts a character uniquely sacerdotal, prophetic, kingly. For to be truly beautiful, a thing must be whole, and to be whole is to be perfect. In Biblical idiom, to be made perfect implies sacerdotal consecration. In this alone are we touched by the passionate love of God … so great that it turns God against Himself – love so immense that it causes, as it were, a divine angst. None but a chiaroscuro Dasein can hold beauty, just as a Marcionistic Christianity is despoiled of beauty, fire, depth and authenticity. For beauty, sacrifice is the essential note.

Today is the memorial of St. John of the Cross. It is the first snowstorm of the winter, the start of the weekend of Gaudete Sunday, and the threshold for many concerts of sacred music. It is the one-year anniversary of the Newtown tragedy. And here in Connecticut among the Catholic young adult set, there is the party of the season scheduled for tonight. Far be it from me to suggest that we don sackcloth in liturgical rose – but here, Ramah is a few towns away. When the voice of mourning, of Rachel weeping for her children, is close enough for our own ears to hear, perhaps it is time for some small token of solidarity, of compassion. Half the victims are Catholic; all, our sisters and brothers in the human community. The bitter sting of a first anniversary of death by murderous violence – some among us seem naïve to that. I know it… how many times over?

Nor is this event centered around beauty; it is, rather, formed by popular entertainments. This same group, after all, held fast to their plans for a movie night just hours after the massacre, all in the name of courage and the Christmas spirit. Are we really so free to disengage utterly from the extraordinary sufferings of our literal neighbors? Cast on it whatever light you will: Such is denial, cheap grace. No, that which is wrong, the reality of evil, cannot simply be ignored; it cannot just be left to stand. It must be dealt with; it must be overcome. Only this counts as true mercy.

For the concerts, beauty is of a different order. Beauty and the works of beauty, whether creation, performance or reception – all involve risk. Beauty is truly courageous. Beauty alone is efficacious of the joy which is at once worthy and sacrificial, and the healing it offers redounds to the whole world.

But still, an uneasy presence remains, through which the sheer enormity of evil is brought before my mind. I am overwhelmed by the oceans of corruption which flood my environs and the Church on earth, the gross accumulation of filth and darkness, like the muddy amalgam which mires these streets. Me and corruption, we keep crossing paths. Even the knowledge of it – of things too grievous to be named at all, much less for those as would become saints – is a cross beyond my natural strength to bear. Who would have believed it? The same age-old frustration burns – the total powerlessness before the mysterium iniquitas, before the abyss of the full power of destruction, evil and enmity with God that is now unleashed… This sin, visible, clamorous and monstrous, its breakers surge about us with all the power of lies and pride, all the wiles and cruelty of the evil that masks itself as life, yet constantly serves to destroy, debase and crush. Can recourse against such hell be found on earth?

Veni, Adonai!

From an unpublished poem by Paul Chu.

Image: Adobe Stock. By vadim_fl.