Advent: Success vs. Faithfulness

And the good example of King Henry VI

To state the obvious, life can be frustrating. For one thing, you can work hard and do your best and end up with little to show for it. You might even get attacked for it as Daniel Penny, sportswomen forced to compete against cheating men, citizens contending for clean elections, first responders and any number of others can testify. The Holy Martyrs were certainly attacked for striving to do what is right in the eyes of God and will be until their number is completed. What we consider success often flees the deserving and is possessed by the undeserving, even the downright evil. And that can be beyond frustrating.

But now we have entered the season of Advent, and it reminds us not to worry too much about what the world considers success. It just is not that important. Yes, I know that might not be very comforting to people who deserve better, such as the working poor. And it might not be what less deserving, such as the lazy and indolent, need to hear most. But for the Christian at least, success should be a ways down the priority list.

The season of Advent so teaches us. At His first Advent, Jesus never was wealthy. Then He was utterly rejected and even executed as a criminal. At His second Advent, Christ as Judge will reveal a great many who seemed very successful to be the most foolish abject failures.

The Revelation to St. John gives us foretastes of that turnabout. The church in Laodicea thought, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, have need of nothing.” And they probably were by standards of this world. But Jesus informed them “you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” When it came to zeal and the love of God, they were poor indeed. (3:15-17 NASB 1995)

Later in the Apocalypse of St. John, the Whore of Babylon thinks, “I sit as a Queen and I am not a widow” as utter destruction is about to come upon her. Yes, she was “clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls.” She is very successful in the eyes of the world. Yet her evil will bring the judgement of God upon her and that suddenly. (Rev. 17 and 18)

This first week in Advent brings to mind quite a different example from history of how apparent success is deceptive. For today is St. Nicholas Eve. And St. Nicholas Day is also the birthday of King Henry VI of England, born in 1421. Less than a year after his birth, his father Henry V died, and young Henry became king.

That began a long reign that for all appearances was an utter failure. The War of the Roses, losing English possessions in France, bouts of debilitating mental illness, ousted from the throne twice by Edward IV — Henry VI had a disastrous reign that ended in his murder in the Tower of London. I preached about it in a homily on the anniversary of his death this past May.

But through it all, Henry VI remained pious and faithful. Lacking his father’s passion for warfare, he was intensely interested in sacred learning. So at age 19 he founded King’s College Cambridge, dedicated to Mary and St. Nicholas, and Eton College. But even that project seemed a pipe dream at his death. His grandiose Chapel of King’s College was incomplete hulk in Cambridge, hardly a third complete. (The Chapel at Eton never was completed to its original design and therefore looks like a sawed off King’s College Chapel to this day.)

But his career after death, if you will, exceeded his earthly reign. He became revered, far more so than those who defeated him. Soon, miracles were reported at his intercession and at his tomb. Within a few years, he became regarded across the land as a saint.

And after Henry Tutor ended the War of the Roses, became Henry VII and united the Houses of Lancaster and York, he decided to resume construction of that ambitious project of Henry VI. He resumed the construction of King’s College Chapel. Henry VIII completed it. And through the centuries, it has been a marvel of Gothic architecture — and of choral music. And King’s and Eton Colleges have been elite centers of education ever since.

All that because Henry VI, though weak and hapless, remained faithful to God and to his calling to further piety and learning. And God took his faithfulness and turned it into glory.

We are all called to be faithful. Not all are called to be successful. Many faithful Christians are not. Moreover, faithfulness usually leads through suffering and hardship.

But Advent and the lives of the saints, including uncanonized saints like Henry VI, teach us that faithfulness leads to glory, the glory of God. We may see little to none of that glory in this life. Our faithful works may seem like abandoned failures as King Henry’s Chapel of King’s College was for years after his death. But God delights in taking the faithfulness of His weak children and in taking even their apparent failures and turning them into glory.

And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it [the City of God]…. And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. (Rev. 21:26; 22:4,5 emphasis mine)

May this Advent give you a glimpse of the glory to come for those who may not be successful in this world, but are faithful.