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The Christmas Tales
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"I would say that there were people in the ancient world who didn't get it. In a real sense, Dan Brown picks up where they left off. And part of what he needs to do is make Mary Magdalene, or some substitute, the Holy Grail, because we can't actually have a cup that is the Holy Grail, because we can't actually have a Table where Christ's body and blood are given to all his brothers and sisters.
"And that is the meaning of Mary Magdalene as the Holy Grail. She is a beautiful diversion so we won't see what is being taken away. She is a decoy, meant to keep our eyes from seeing that any place for the Eucharist is vanishing. And I'm sure Mary Magdalene is rolling over in her reliquary about this.
"But in fact the Eucharist is not vanishing. It's here, and every time I receive it, I reverently kiss a chalice that is an image of the Holy Grail. What Dan Brown builds up to, as an exciting revelation, is that Jesus left behind his royal bloodline. This bloodline is alive today, and we see something special when Sophie wraps her arms around the brother she thought was dead. And that is truer than Dan Brown would ever have you guess.
"Jesus did leave behind his blood; we receive it every time we receive the Eucharist. And it courses through our veins. You've heard the saying, 'You are what you eat.' You do not become steak by eating steak, but you do become what Jesus is by eating his flesh. Augustine said, 'See what you believe. Become what you behold.' That's part of the mystery. In part through the Eucharist, we carry Christ's blood. It courses through our veins. And it's not dilute beyond measure, as Dan Brown's picture would have it. We are brothers and sisters to Christ and therefore to one another. There is an embrace of shared blood at the end of The da Vinci Code, and there is an embrace, between brothers and sisters who share something much deeper than physical blood, every time we share the holy kiss, or holy hug or whatever. Is the truth as wild as what Dan Brown says? It's actually much wilder."
Mary said, "I can't help feeling that The da Vinci Code captures something that... their talk of knights and castles, a Priory that has guarded a secret for generations, a pagan era before the testosterone poisoning we now call Christianity..."
John smiled. "Yes. It had that effect on me too. These things speak of something more. When I was younger, one of my friends pointed out to me that when I said 'medieval', I was referring to something more than the Middle Ages. It was a more-than-literal symbol, something that resonated with the light behind the Middle Ages. And the same is happening with the golden age Brown evokes. All of us have a sense that there is an original good which was lost, or at least damaged, and the yearning Brown speaks to is a real yearning for a legitimate good. But as to the specific golden age... Wicca makes some very specific claims about being the Old Religion that Wiccans resume after the interruption of monotheism. Or at least it made them, and scholars devastated those claims. There are a few Wiccans who continue to insist that they represent the Old Religion instead of a modern Spiritualist's concoction. But most acknowledge that the account isn't literally true: they hold the idea of an 'Old Religion' as an inspiring tale, and use the pejorative term 'Wiccan Fundamentalists' for people who literally believe that Wicca is the Old Religion.
"And so we can yearn for a Golden Age when people believed the spirit of our own age... um... how can I explain this. People who yearn for an old age when men and women were in balance have done little research into the past. People who think the New Testament was reactionary have no idea of a historical setting that makes the New Testament look like it was written by flaming liberals. Someone who truly appreciated the misogyny in ancient paganism would understand that rape could not only be seen as permissible; quite often it was simply seen as a man's prerogative. Trying to resurrect ancient paganism because Christian views on women bother you is like saying that your stomach is ill-treated by your parents' mashed potatoes so you're going to switch to eating sticks and gravel.
"But I'm getting into something I didn't want to get into...
"There is something from beyond this world, something transcendent, that is shining through Brown's writing. The Priory is haunting. The sacred feminine is haunting. There is something shining through. There is also something shining through in Orthodoxy. And that something is something that has shone through from the earliest times.
"In The da Vinci Code, knighthood is a relic of what it used to be. Or at least the knight they visit is a relic, more of a tip of the hat to ages past than a breathing tradition. The Knights Templar at least represent something alive and kicking. They're a society that continues alive today and is at once medieval and modern. They bear the glory of the past, but they bear it today. In that sense they're a glimmer of what the Church is--a society alike ancient and modern, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
"What I meant to be saying is that knighthood is more a tip of the hat than something alive. I've read the Grail legends in their medieval forms, and I've met knights and ladies in those pages. It takes some time to appreciate the medieval tradition--there is every reason for a modern reader to say that the texts are long and tedious, and I can't quickly explain why that understandable reaction is missing something. The knights and ladies there aren't a tip of the hat; they're men and women and they kick and breathe. And they represent something that the medieval authors would never have realized because they had never been challenged. They represent the glory of what it means to be a man, and the glory of what it means to be a woman. We speak of the New Eve, Mary, as 'the most blessed and glorious Lady;' we are called to be a royal priesthood, and when we receive the Eucharist we are called 'the servant of God Adam' or 'the handmaiden of God Eve'--which is also meant to be humble, but inescapably means the Knights and Ladies serving before the King of Kings.
"The Orthodox Church knows a great deal about how to be a knight and how to be a lady. It can be smeared, but it has a positive and distinctive place for both men and women. It may be a place that looks bad when we see it through prejudices we don't realize, but there is a real place for it."
"I know a lot of people who think it's not gender-balanced," Mary said.
John said, "What would they hold as being gender balanced?"
"I'm not sure any churches would be considered gender-balanced."
John said, "All right, which churches come closest?"
Mary said, "Well, the most liberal ones, of course."
John said, "That doesn't mesh with the figures. Men feel out of place in a lot of churches. With Evangelicalism and Catholicism, men aren't that much of a minority, about 45%. Go to the more liberal churches, and you'll find a ratio of about two to one, up to about seven to one. Come to an Orthodox parish, on the other hand, and find men voluntarily attending services that aren't considered mandatory--and the closest to a 50-50 balance in America."
Mary said, "But why? I thought the liberal churches had..."
John interrupted. "What are you assuming?"
Mary answered, "Nothing. Liberal churches have had the most opportunity for women to draw things into a balance."
John continued questioning. "What starting point are you assuming?"
Mary said, "Nothing. Just that things need to be balanced by women... um... just that men have defined the starting point..."
"And?" John said.
Mary continued: "And... um... that women haven't contributed anything significant to the starting point."
John paused. "Rather a dismal view of almost two millennia of contributions by women, don't you think?"
Mary opened her mouth, and closed it. "I need some time to think."
John said, "It took me almost four years to figure it out; I won't fault you if you're wise enough to take some time to ponder it. And I might also mention that the image of being knights and ladies is meant to help understand what it means to be man and woman--Vive la glorieuse difference!--and the many-layered mystery of masculinity and femininity, but an image nonetheless. All statements possess some truth, and all statements fall immeasurably short of the truth."
Mary said, "Huh? Are all statements equally true?"
John said, "No. Not all statements are equally true; some come closer to the truth than others. No picture is perfect, but there is such a thing as a more or less complete image. And what I have said about knights and ladies, and many things that could be said about the Church as a society guarding a powerful truth, point to something beyond them. They are great and the truth is greater. There is something in the Priory and the Knights Templar that is poisoned, that infects people with a sweetly-coated pride that ends in a misery that can't enjoy other people because it can't appreciate them, or indeed respect anybody who's not part of the self-same inner ring. That 'inner ring' is in the beginning as sweet as honey and in the end as bitter as gall and as sharp as a double-edged sword, so that struggling to achieve rank in the Priory is a difficult struggle with a bitter end. And in that sense the Priory is an image of the Church... it is a fellowship which has guarded an ancient truth, a truth that must not die, and has preserved it across the ages. But instead of being an inner ring achieved by pride, the Church beckons us to humility. This humility is unlike pride: it is unattractive to begin with, but when we bow we are taller and we find the secret of enjoying the whole universe."
"What is this secret?" Mary asked.
John closed his eyes for a moment and said, "You can only enjoy what you appreciate, and you can only appreciate what you approach in humility. This is part of a larger truth. It takes sobriety to enjoy even drunkenness. If you want to see the one person who cannot enjoy drunkenness, look at an alcoholic. Virtue is the doorway to enjoying everything, even vice.
"There is a treacherous poison beckoning in 'the inner ring', of a secret that is hidden from outsiders one looks down on. The inner ring is a door to Hell."
"You believe that Knights Templar will go to Hell?" Mary said.
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