musings from the pastor's study

GETTING COVERAGE

2012-02-08T11:02:00.000-06:00

The controversy about the new restrictions being placed on the exercise of conscience by the Obama Administration's proposals for its health care law focuses on the areas of contraception, sterilization and abortion. A particular fact in this controversy needs to be kept in mind.

Currently, the Archdiocese of Mobile has a health benefits plan for all employees through BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama. In this plan, there are a number of specific exclusions listed. Excluded from coverage are procedures like cosmetic surgery, hearing aids, for treatment of obesity, routine well child care, speech therapy...

Also explicitly listed are the following--
Services or expenses for elective abortions.
Oral contraceptives or other birth control methods except when they are prescribed by a physician for a medical condition and not for the purpose of birth control.
Services or expenses of any kind for or related to elective sterilizations.

We learn 2 things by this list--
1. The issue of alternative uses for contraceptive drugs is taken into account in our current coverage.
2. What the Catholic Church is asking is not that it be allowed to eliminate any coverage, but rather that it simply be allowed to continue its current health-care policy, which is in line with Catholic moral teaching.

The number of other exclusions makes it clear that there are limits to what can and should be covered by insurance. Inevitably, there must be some out-of-pocket costs for health care, and these vary from corporation to corporation, from business to business, from church to church. The idea of leveling the playing field with universal health care is a noble one, except when issues of conscience and moral teaching come into play. Currently, health care for the Archdiocese of Mobile is not "universal," but then it is not "nothing," either...

PRESSURES

2012-02-03T22:59:00.000-06:00

Below is a letter I sent today to The Mobile Press-Register. Whether or not they print it, you can at least see it here (and on my Facebook page):

It is sad that the Susan G Komen for the Cure Foundation has given in to societal and political pressure and has agreed to re-fund Planned Parenthood. But the original issue to which they were responding should not leave our sight. Planned Parenthood advertises services for women that it simply does not provide. Being caught in this kind of lie ruined the political hopes of one-time presidential candidate Gary Hart (I know this is ancient history). It also raises a fundamental question: if Planned Parenthood has knowingly and falsely solicited support on the basis of non-existent services, it has violated a public trust. One can fairly ask, what other deceptions is this organization involved in, and why? Such behavior should be more than enough to limit or terminate public funds; how much more so should a private foundation be within its rights to curtail funding, as well?

WHY WE BELIEVE

2012-01-31T15:37:00.000-06:00

How does an act of faith (our personal acceptance of an item, or a system, of beliefs) come about? It will surprise no one that I turn, in questions such as these, to Bl John Henry (Cardinal) Newman and his theological insights and analysis. From him, I perceive two essential steps in leading one to make an act of faith: a stimulus of the imagination, resulting in the desire to share a vision; and an examination of conscience which attunes the soul (or not) to the content of the vision the imagination has presented. The end result is a choice which Newman described in one place like this: “One can believe what one chooses. But one will be held accountable, in the end, for what one chose to believe.”

This is already getting heavier than most folks would like! I hope I can be more straightforward in presenting what I think is important here.

The short version (from the quote at the end of the 1st paragraph) is that I am responsible for my own convictions—holding them and living them. I am emphatically NOT responsible for forcing my (or anyone else’s) convictions on another. This is the distinction Newman makes between “faith” and “bigotry.” When struggling with whether or not to leave the Church of England, he would write, “Can I (it is personal, not whether another, but can I) be saved [refusing to become a Roman Catholic]?” But to answer such a question properly, without falling back on excuses like “It’s what I want to do,” or “I think I’d like it better,” or some other such evasion, one must explore the depths of one’s conscience—where God’s word is spoken to us who are willing to listen. “Conscience is the aboriginal vicar of Christ,” he would write. We must actually listen.
Still, we must first feel the call. It is why I have often referred to an essential ingredient of evangelization as offering others the “attractive confrontation” of Jesus Christ. They must be drawn; drawing must lead to openness to conversion…

And we are drawn by a vision offered to us by someone who is attractive, or whose vision is attractive. Newman writes: “The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination… Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us.” And the key is falling in love: “The sheep could not tell how they knew the Good Shepherd; …yet doubtless grounds there were: they, however, acted spontaneously on a loving Faith.” St Peter (John 6:68) said as much at the end of the Bread of Life discourse, when Jesus asked if the Twelve also wanted to leave: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter admitted he had no understanding of Jesus’ words, but he’d fallen in love with the Master and would not let such a small thing as a lack of comprehension divide them.

“One can believe what one chooses. But one will be held accountable, in the end, for what one chose to believe.” What we believe is a function both of to whom (and to what) we are attracted, and how we listen to the voice of our true conscience, rather than the urgings of our own desires. In this way we will discover what, and how, and why, we believe.

A SAD NOTE

2012-01-28T12:18:00.000-06:00

While I was in Rome, I had the chance to attend a Conference and Ecumenical Celebration of the Word, sponsored by the Franciscan Atonement Friars at the Centro Pro Unione. While there I learned of a new multi-lateral ecumenical document, The Reims Statement, entitled “Praying With One Voice.” It was published this past August 2011, under the auspices of the English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC).

This document was produced by participants representing Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed traditions, among others; they come from England, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa; members are respected scholars and Church-people, some of whom I know personally. They make straightforward observations and recommendations under three headings: “Liturgy and Ecumenism,” “Common Texts,” and “The Revised Common Lectionary.”

But sadly, I think there is a fly in this ointment which so wants to be a “balm in Gilead.” It comes in section two of the statement. There, the participants write: For the first time in history, Christians in the English speaking world are using common liturgical texts….They are being experienced as a gift, a sign and a way to Christian unity in our diversity….Prayed together, shared common texts become a part of the fabric of our being. They unite the hearts of Christians in giving glory to God…
This is a noble vision, but it seems we Roman Catholics have taken a step away from it (this is the “fly”) by the promulgation of the new English translation of the Roman Missal, 3rd Typical Edition. What has happened has been a change of what was the Catholics’ use of “common liturgical texts”—a change made unilaterally, seemingly without regard for the ecumenical implications. To give an example of this problem: when ICEL (the International Commission on English in the Liturgy) made the translation “And also with you” for the Latin Et cum spiritu tuo, this was not a rendering that necessarily sat well with Anglicans and Episcopalians (they were quite comfortable with “And with your/thy spirit” from their Book of Common Prayer), yet they did acceot this adaptation, along with the bulk of the other ICEL-proposed translations of the “Common” (ie, Gloria; Holy, Holy; Lamb of God). We were, then, “praying with one voice.”

How will we do so again? Will the Catholic Church renege on its new commitment to the translation principles of Liturgiam Authenticam and return to the older ICEL texts? It is not likely. Will other English-speaking Protestant denominations change to our new version? Especially in the case when to do so means a return to a preferred translation once given up for the sake of unity, it is not reasonable. So it seems we are at an impasse.

The "Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity," In One Body Through the Cross, makes the comment: …magisterial deliberations of the Roman Catholic Church should regularly involve non-Roman Catholic consultants. If the bishop of Rome is to teach for and to all the baptized, he must receive reliable counsel regarding the faith and life of the entire Christian community (no. 66). Though this comment refers specifically to the teaching office of the Church, yet the same suggestion can be made with regard to the sanctifying office in its worship. After all, we believe that the rule of worship is the rule of the faith (Lex orandi [est] lex credendi]. Much could be gained by such consultations, and much that is undesirable, like unnecessary divergence, might be avoided. We are proud to name our the Roman Catholic (Universal) Church; we should be proud also to have a truly “catholic” process of theological reflection and decision-making (which may fairly be distinguished from ‘decision-taking’).

The Reims Statement is a very short piece, fitting into a trifold. To see the statement and more information about the English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC), go to http://www.englishtexts.org/.

LOVE WINS

2012-01-26T12:44:00.000-06:00

While I was in Rome and waiting for dinnertime, I found myself watching a feature on Italian TV about a nature reserve in the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia. During the show I heard an interesting statement. A father and his son have permits to enter the reserve for the purposes of photography, and the only way to get to one particular part of the grounds is by horseback. The boy (perhaps 12) was talking through an interpreter about two horses: one was his favorite—he could do anything, he said, with that horse. The other, the boy said, was too young a stallion; he wouldn’t let the boy near him or touch him.

What is the difference between these two horses? I think the answer is a relationship of trust built on experience—or not. Yet there is a problem: if the other horse will never let itself be touched, can trust between it and the boy ever be established? I am always presuming, of course, that the boy has nothing but the highest intentions—as he surely has with his favorite horse…

This seems to me to have a direct bearing on relationships between humans, as well. How is trust established, other than making a choice to trust? One sees and feels the signals of honesty, regard, warmth, high intentions in general terms at the beginning. Then one makes a choice to be vulnerable; when the honesty, warmth, regard and high intentions are reinforced, one makes further choices to trust. Honesty leads to trust; trust then can lead to love. And the bonds grower ever stronger, so long as the trust remains unbroken by dishonesty.

In a somewhat different way, this is the theme of a short story by William Trevor that I recently read: “A Friendship.” Unfortunately, it is about dishonesty as a betrayal of trust that permanently damages more than one relationship.

It happens. But it doesn’t have to happen. In William Saroyan’s play The Time of Your Life, Joe tells Kitty: “I have only the noblest of thoughts for both your person, and your spirit.” An honest and mutual meaning of that, one to another, and having it believed by both the others, is really the secret to trust growing into love.

WHY THERE?

2012-01-26T07:52:00.000-06:00

This past Wednesday, 25 January, Pope Benedict XVI presided at a Vespers (Evening Prayer) service in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, to mark the end of this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

And on Saturday, 10 March, he will again preside at a Vespers service, this time at San Gregorio al Celio (just up from the end of the Circus Maximus), in context of a visit from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Why these two churches?

For centuries, St Paul’s has had a special association with the Church in England (long before the Reformation). The King of England was an honorary member of the Chapter (the decision-making body) of the Benedictine monks in whose care the basilica rests; the Abbot of the community was, in return, an honorary Knight of the Garter. Needless to say, by the 1530s this relationship of mutual honor was all but destroyed.

But because of this heritage, and because of the ways in which the Catholic Church and the Church of England were working together in ecumenical dialogue in the post-Vatican II era, historical associations seemed good to be remembered if not restored. And in the past the Bishop of Rome and the Archbishop of Canterbury shared the sanctuary for this final prayer service. Of course the fact that Christian Unity Week ends on the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul made the choice of this basilica even more obvious.

San Gregorio has a complex of wonderful associations of its own. Its site originally was a monastic-style community founded on his family’s estate by the man who became Pope Gregory the Great (late 6th century). And it was from this community that he sent missionaries to England to preach to the Angles and Saxons there (we must always remember that Christianity in Britain pre-dates this event—there were Roman British and Celtic Christians centuries beforehand). Still, under the leadership of St Augustine (who became the first archbishop of Canterbury), the Good News spread in England. It also set up a conflict with the earlier Celtic Church, but this is a story best left for another time (and, in fact, by St Bede the Venerable). So if you like, Archbishop Rowan Williams will be returning to the threshold of his ecclesiastical patrimony (if you like, making a personal ad limina visit) of sorts).

The complex of buildings directly behind this church now serves as the international motherhouse of the Missionaries of Charity; there the sisters offer food and lodging for the homeless poor (and I worked there one evening a week during one of my years in seminary). It is only here (or Calcutta) that Mother Teresa’s sisters make their solemn final vows.

What comes of such prayerful encounters as these? What kind of conversation might the Pope and the Archbishop have? Where might it lead? When we speak with divided voices, what I hear is a line from many old cowboy movies: “Paleface speak with forked tongue.” Can our voices unite? Here are the questions that need real answers…

[Footnote: There is one other church very important especially to English Catholics, and it is San Giorgio in Velabro,

a small church near to the more famous church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin (which houses on its front porch the legendary Bocca della Verità). San Giorgio was named for a saint who was (and is) one of the patrons of England; and it was given as a “titular church” in 1879 to John Henry Newman when Pope Leo XIII made him a Cardinal. Needless to say, this is an association very dear to my own heart!]

SPECIAL PERSONS, PLACES AND THINGS

2012-01-18T09:34:00.000-06:00

As I prepare to leave for a few days of vacation, flying to Rome, I posted on Facebook that I had as “Job 1” to pray in special places for family, then as “Job 2” to pray for friends/parishioners, also in special places. But why bother with “special places,” anyway? And what “special things” could be of any meaning? Isn't this all just "Church Lady" talk?

Surely from God’s point of view there is no need for anyone to go anywhere “special” to pray: Jesus (Matthew 6:5-6) assures us the best place may just be our private room. But now I am not referring so much to God’s listening but to my ability to open myself. And if the saying “Guilt by association” is true, so it is with the sense, the awareness, that generates or stimulates my capacity to connect.
It is why retreats are important—and they typically take place in contexts that are “special” if for no other reason than that they are different. We priests make our pilgrimage to the Jesuit retreat house in Manresa, LA every summer—a far better option than the “too familiar” Spring Hill College locale of old. Jesus Himself knew the advantage of retreats to a “special place” for the sake of re-charging the spiritual battery: after return of the Twelve from the mission on which He sent them, Jesus said to them: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31).

Then, too, Geoffrey Chaucer famously reminds us of the times when “…longen folk to goon on pilgrimages/…And specially, from every shires ende/Of Engelonde, to Caunterbury they wende/The holy blisful martir for to seke…”

For myself, the “holy blissful martyrs” and saints that I seek include Ss Peter and Paul, Augustine and Monica, Francis of Assisi and Ignatius Loyola. I feel a connection there that aids me in my prayer for others; and so I go.

“Special things” make a difference to me, as well: in these places I find that the Rosary is especially useful in helping me enter into prayer for others. But it is not just any rosary: it is made of what were once crushed rose petals, now blackened with use (though there is just the faintest hint of fragrance in them still). And it was my Father’s rosary, which I inherited when he died.

So, even though I will be doing some visiting with dear friends, some sight-seeing (there are in Rome still some churches, amazingly, that I have never visited) and of course some good eating. But I know what “Jobs 1-2” are, and I know the places and things that will allow me to pray better—not to change God, but to change me.

"I WEEP FOR OUR GENERATION"--CHARLIE BROWN

2012-01-12T17:44:00.000-06:00

The tragedy is multi-fold: given behavior like this, why would we wonder that Muslims dislike Americans?

More to the point for us as a nation, if presentations of defecation/urination on crucifixes or images of Mary are regarded as "art" and protected by First Amendment rights in our country, why would the fact of this behavior surprise us?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-16538159

BASIL, GREGORY & ‘CONSUBSTANTIAL’

2012-01-02T08:34:00.000-06:00

Today is the Memorial of two of the three great “Cappadocian” Fathers of the 4th century, Ss Basil and Gregory Nazianzen—friends and fellows standing in defense of the teaching of the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) on the full divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. Their teaching, preaching and personal witness led to the confirmation of these beliefs at the Council of Constantinople (381 AD)—giving us the form of the “Nicene” Creed that we recite at Mass today. These men are regarded as two of the original four “Doctors of the Eastern Church”—along with Ss John Chrysostom and Athanasius.

How to describe the divinity of the Incarnate Word? The theologians of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries struggled over this question, striving to strike a balance between respect for the sovereign unity of the One God and the integrity of creation, along with the conviction that redemption in Christ must involve more than just the “approval” of God: it requires actual participation by God. So the idea that Christ was the most exalted and first made of all Creation was inadequate: Christ must be seen as sharing fully in divinity: He must be of the same ‘stuff’ as God: not created at all, but eternally begotten, ‘true God from true God.’ The word settled on at Nicaea to describe this was (in Greek) homo-ousios. What does this mean? It means (in its two parts) ‘of the same substance.’ A poor analogy: the marble quarry of Carrera in Italy is the same ‘stuff’ as Michelangelo’s David…

Folks in the Western part of the Roman Empire had pretty well given up Greek and embraced Latin as their common tongue. I will ignore the problems that arose as a result of linguistic mistakes, mistranslations and general suspicion, and I will simply refer to the word in Latin that is the equivalent of homo-ousios. It is con-substantialis. So you can see where our “new word” in the Creed that is causing so many tongues to trip up comes from!

Our older English version of the Creed, in its rendering, produced the phrase “one in being.” For all the decades since its introduction, it has been suspected of being inadequate at best, and misleading at worst. Again, I won’t go into the details of theology here (and you may thank me privately, later!). But the difficulty of the concept was what led those responsible for the new translation to opt for a “trans-planting” rather than a translation. I think their thinking was “Better safe than sorry”…

Basil and Gregory (along with Basil’s brother, St Gregory of Nyssa, the third of the “Cappadocians”) were vindicated in their insistence on the full divinity of the Lord, and our Faith has been based on their teaching (and its proper developments) ever since. So even though we don’t recite the Creed at Masses today, we might pray it in private, and give thanks to Ss Basil and Gregory Nazianzen for living out the courage of their convictions for the fullest teaching of the Church.

One small footnote: some Fathers of the Church at and after Nicaea rejected the Creed on the argument that the crucial term, homo-ousios, was not found in the Scriptures. This argument finally failed, and it is worth noting that from very early times the concept of sola Scriptura as commonly understood today was rejected.

Below is the Credo from Ralph Vaughn Williams' Mass in G-minor for your enjoyment--sung in Latin. Let the video fully load before starting it, to maximize your listening pleasure. And at about minute 1:06, notice how Vaughn Williams uses the music to express the meaning of consubstantial.

PSALM 62

2011-12-30T20:30:00.000-06:00

By "special request" for someone--I hope you all enjoy it!

HOLY FAMILIES

2011-12-30T17:43:00.002-06:00

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family. The special carol "Once In Royal David's City" has already been posted (for Advent) by Rocco Palmo on his blog "Whispers In The Loggia," so instead I am posting one of my favorite carols in my all-time favorite arrangement--enjoy!

LUKE 2:8-14

2011-12-25T07:29:00.000-06:00

With its instrumental "pastoral symphony" as a gentle, lilting introduction, here is the most delightful of all settings of this great feast day's most popular Gospel: enjoy, and MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! May we all know and live the gift of His peace.

AT LONG LAST FOR THE LILY OF THE MOHAWKS

2011-12-19T15:10:00.000-06:00

DECREES OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE CAUSES OF SAINTS

VATICAN CITY, 19 DEC 2011 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in audience Cardinal Angelo Amato S.D.B., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and authorised the promulgation of decrees concerning the following causes:

MIRACLES
...
- Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, American laywoman (1656-1680).

So declares the Vatican Congregation, which sets the stage for a Consistory to confirm the canonization of Bl Kateri (and a number of others). After that, it remains to see when Pope Benedict will set a date for the canonization itself. Kateri will be the first Native American saint of North America, and this will be a great day for the Church in upstate New York and Canada (where her shrine is). Ora pro nobis, Beata!

TOCHER AUS ELYSIUM...

2011-12-16T06:48:00.000-06:00

Today is Beethoven's birthday. According to tradition, Schroeder is celebrating by playing his piano sonata #31 in A-flat, op 110 ("Alone!" he emphasizes to Lucy!).

Life can be filled with tragedy, and Beethoven's life of deafness is surely a great example, especially if (as has been plausibly suggested, it was caused by eating from clay-fired bowls that were decorated with lead-based paint that leached into the ceramic and the lead thence into his system). He insisted on conducting even when he could no longer hear: including the premiere of his Ninth Symphony. The 2nd movement got a standing ovation (in those days, it was acceptable to applaud after every movement and even call for an encore of it)--but Beethoven was lost and was still "conducting" even after the orchestra finished playing. His back was to the audience, and so he could not hear their approval until one of the singers took him by the hand and turned him around to face the cheering.

Below is not that 2nd movement, nor is it the famous finale ("Ode to Joy"). Instead, it is my favorite portion of the symphony: the slow 3rd movement. There is incredible beauty (really mystical) here--let this be a chance to "smell the flowers" with the ears for about 10 minutes and give thanks that when Beethoven realized his deafness was progressive and incurable, he did not commit suicide (as he was contemplating) but instead chose to live until he could bring forth all that he felt was within him to produce (his words, from the Heiligenstadt Testament). ENJOY!

ST JOHN OF THE CROSS LAGNIAPPE

2011-12-14T10:17:00.000-06:00

Attached please enjoy a musical setting of St John's famous poem, "The Dark Night of the Soul," sung by Loreena McKennitt.

THINGS COMING TOGETHER

2011-12-14T06:19:00.001-06:00

[I wrote this essay in 2000, but in honor of St John of the Cross' feast-day today, I re-post it.]

Congruence is the experience of threads or strands of life coming together to make sense in a larger way than would have been possible if only the individual strands or threads had remained separate. It is the joy of an insight.

Special congruence was a gift I received this past summer, in ways as disparate as a present from my Mom earlier this year, a book I was reading as a result of a commitment to a person with whom I do spiritual direction, and my visit to Poland.

Much earlier this year my Mom sent me a copy of the video of the Frontline special on Pope John Paul II. She knew I would enjoy it. But I didn't get around to watching it until this summer, with her in Chicago. If only her VCR hadn't died, midway into the watching!

But of what I saw, the background and history of Karol Wojtyla and of Poland in general (of which I knew some already) was heart-breaking. This can be discovered in greater depth in the first sections of George Weigel's papal biography Witness To Hope. His Mother's death, his brother's death, his Father's death, came in all too quick succession in Karol's young life. So did the devastation of Poland in World War II. Yet here history was only repeating itself.

For hundreds of years, Poland had formally ceased to exist, as empires chose it as their battlefield and territory: the Germans, Austro-Hungarians and Russians all had their hand in the partitions of Poland; here it was happening again. How did the Poles, and how did Karol Wojtyla, endure it?
During the communist regime, the Church was persecuted and harassed regularly. How did the Poles keep the Faith? How could they manage, in the face of the darkness they had individually and collectively lived for so long, with glimmers of light every now and then?

It was during this trip that I finished reading You Set My Spirit Free. It is a collection of 40 excerpts from the writings of St. John of the Cross, done by David Hazard in a series he calls Rekindling the Inner Fire. They are a powerful collection. St. John has some of the most inspirational and challenging writing about the spiritual life one could ever read. Interestingly, his works had long ago been recommended to me by a friend, who uses them in AA meetings.

The biography of St. John would break anyone's heart. He was hounded by the Inquisition and tormented for his attempts to reform the Carmelite Order along with St. Teresa of Avila. He was locked in a broom-closet for months, being unable to stand up or sit in it, not permitted to wash. He was beaten on a daily basis for weeks. And in all this he could write about the power and beauty of God who is encountered through the dark night, and that surrender to God must also involve surrender of the desire for spiritual consolations. St. John insisted that these would become false gods.

In these readings, I could now understand how the Poles endured their experience: it was the experience of St. John of the Cross, lived as a nation. Even after Warsaw was destroyed by the Nazis, the underground would continue to paint their special resistance symbols on the walls of what buildings were still standing. And no collaboration government was ever established in Poland. During my trip I saw, imbedded in the wall of the rebuilt cathedral of Warsaw, a piece of tread from one of the tanks that destroyed the old cathedral. So the challenge was met, and Faith triumphed over Nazi hatred.

This was the Polish experience, even though they had not read St. John. And yet someone else did: Karol Wojtyla. The dissertation he wrote for his first doctorate, for work he did in Rome, was on the writings of St. John of the Cross. And how could it not be, when St. John was the prophetic spiritual chronicler of the Polish nation?!

To understand Poland and to understand Pope John Paul II is to understand the insight of St. John of the Cross; to embrace St. John is to experience the radical freedom of surrender of all to God, knowing that Love exists beyond the dark night expressed so miraculously to me in the final
chorus of Les Miserables. Let me end my ramblings with those lyrics:

Do you hear the people sing/Lost in the valleys of the night?
It is the music of a people/Who are climbing to the light.
For the wretched of the earth/There is a flame that never dies.
Even the darkest night will end/And the sun will rise.
They will live again in freedom/In the garden of the Lord.
They will walk behind the ploughshare/They will put away the sword.
The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward.
Will you join in our crusade?/Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade/Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?/Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring When tomorrow comes!

POLITICS AND RELIGION IN THE WORLD

2011-12-03T07:49:00.000-06:00

There is nothing simple in international relations. No doubt people were cheering their support of the uprising in Egypt against the hard-handed Hosni Mubarak. And the affirmation led to celebration when democratic elections were scheduled and actually began. Results are not complete, but there are good indications of the outlook of those who will be regarded as “winners” in this referendum.

Unfortunately, there will also be “losers.” And the most significant of the minorities in this group will surely be the Coptic Christians. They have suffered discrimination and persecution for decades; if Shariah is established in Egypt, all religions and religious expressions except Islam could be outlawed.

How will the Copts (a most ancient Christian Church) cope? Will they (like their brothers in the Holy Land, or Iraq) feel compelled to leave their homeland?

What to do? Should the United States, as a matter of policy, support the results of democratic elections and the potential of making Egypt a hard-line Islamist state? Or should it make a strong stand in favor of human rights for the Copts?

It is this kind of fear that makes other Orthodox and Catholic Churches wary of the uprising in Syria. Even while the Arab League calls for President Bashar al-Assad to halt his vicious counter-attacks against anti-government demonstrators, Christians there fear that if he were to fall, the alternative would be another strongly Islamist state in which their existence would be severely limited, or even eliminated by law.

What to do? Should the United States stand by and watch as protesters are butchered? Or should it support the Assad regime on the theory “Out of the frying pan means into the fire”?

As a Catholic in the United States I want to affirm freedom, which implies democracy in politics) and religious solidarity (which means support for the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in North Africa and the Middle East). But how can I do both?

There is nothing simple in international relations.

NEW LITURGICAL YEAR, NEW LITURGICAL LANGUAGE

2011-11-27T06:16:00.000-06:00

In his blog, Whispers In The Loggia, Rocco Palmo asks how things went in the “roll-out” of the new Missal. After exactly 1 Eucharistic celebration with the Tertio Editio Typica, here are my thoughts:

A couple of weeks ago, borrowing language from the theatre, I suggested that we’d all be “on book” for a while, until we were comfortable with the new “script.” And so we were. But knowing what to use when made things a bit easier, especially for the singing of the new setting of Mass parts (we are using Dan Schutte’s Mass of Christ the Savior).

Were there some glitches? Of course—some “And also with you” mixed in with “And with your spirit,” a few “It is right to give Him thanks and praise” added to “It is right and just,” and so on. That’s OK; we’re getting it.
There were glitches on my part, as well: lapsing into the “old” prayers for the Preparation of the Gifts (mercifully, done silently as the congregation was singing); getting a bit tongue-tied in singing the Preface (not only different words, but the chant patterns are different), and so on.
Am I (are we) now “slaves of the book”? Perhaps, but not for long, I think. Familiarity breeds—well, familiarity, finally!

Is it difficult/impossible to pray? One priest commenting to Rocco seemed to think so. I partially understand what he was saying. Surely after (for me) 20 years of being able to lapse into sets of words like a comfortable pair of bedroom slippers, now having really to think about the words, makes this flow less automatically and smoothly. But being “automatic” or “rote” doesn’t necessarily make for better prayer, only unself-conscious prayer (which may or may not be “prayerful” at all, depending).

The new Missal is indeed heavy (it weighs more than some of our altar servers!). So I have a chapel-size edition at the chair that they can manage; the large one is brought up only to be used at the altar. I discovered that I need a pillow to prop up the Missal since I have to be far more careful about words now; I can see them more easily when they are at an angle. But this is a small “adaptation.”

At the end of Mass, everyone seemed to be able to agree with me that “We did it!” It will become 2nd nature to us after a while, and I am convinced that by serious (and cheerful) preparation, always insisting “We can do it!” the transition is going to be that much more effective. I hope the Missal itself will help us all to be more effective—in our prayer, and therefore in our faith-walk as followers of Jesus Christ.

A MEDITATION ON BLACK FRIDAY

2011-11-25T05:46:00.000-06:00

Instead of standing in line in the wee hours of the morning at a mega-store for sales, I offer the words below for consideration:

If…a direct appeal is made to [the] instincts—while ignoring in various ways the reality of the person as intelligent and free—then consumer attitudes and life-styles can be created which are objectively improper and often damaging to physical and spiritual health.

It is not wrong to want to live better; what is wrong is a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed towards “having” rather than “being”, and which wants to have more, not in order to be more but in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself.

…alienation—and the loss of authentic meaning of life—is a reality in Western societies too. This happens in consumerism, when people are ensnared in a web of false and superficial gratifications rather than being helped to experience their personhood in an authentic and concrete way.

A person who is concerned solely or primarily with possessing and enjoying, who is no longer able to control his instincts and passions, or to subordinate them by obedience to the truth, cannot be free: obedience to the truth about God and man is the first condition of freedom, making it possible for a person to order his needs and desires and to choose the means of satisfying them according to a correct scale of values, so that the ownership of things may become an occasion of growth for him. This growth can be hindered as a result of manipulation by the means of mass communication, which impose fashions and trends of opinion through carefully orchestrated repetition, without it being possible to subject to critical scrutiny the premises on which these fashions and trends are based.

--excerpted from Pope John Paul II: Centesimus Annus, ##36, 41

GIVING THANKS

2011-11-23T06:09:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving: a time of rejoicing in blessings, particularly the blessings of family, friendships, and faith (and yes, to be honest: food and football, as well!). Of all these, faith perhaps gets the shortest shrift on this day, and yet the essence of Christianity is that it is a eucharistic (thanks-giving) faith. In the words of the Exultet, the great hymn of the Easter Vigil: "Our birth would have been no gain, had we not been redeemed."

To celebrate properly, an excerpt from Messiah for everyone's holiday pleasure. Enjoy!

FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET…

2011-11-18T17:13:00.000-06:00

The laws of physics (as we know them today, thanks to Albert Einstein) insist that there is one constant in the universe, and it isn’t necessarily death or taxes: it is the light-speed barrier. According to Einstein, c (the standard abbreviation for the speed of light: ~186,000 miles/second) is absolute. And so it is. Or so it was…
Two separate experiments seem to demonstrate that neutrinos (sub-atomic particles with neutral electrical charge) in fact break the cosmic speed-limit. What does this mean?

The first conclusion is that it means all our science is wrong. This is perhaps too radical, but when fundamentals are proved inadequate, it is hard to see why such a conclusion would not be jumped to. Yet when Einstein’s mathematics showed that Newton was not 100% precise in all cases, this did not mean Newton was “wrong”—only incomplete.

Still, the history of science in the last century has demonstrated one thing in complete clarity: what we think we know is nowhere near so certain as what reality is in itself.

Atoms were once supposed to be the fundamental building-blocks of all matter: yet they themselves, as it turns out, are made up of an almost infinite range of smaller particles.

I could go on, but you would be better served by watching NOVA’s series “The Fabric of the Cosmos” with Brian Greene (or, better still, reading his book). What is clear is that, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet told Horatio (Hamlet, I, v, 166) there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in [our] philosophy.

This is not a bad thing—why should we think we can easily and simply explain and understand the reality of Reality? If we believe the universe is expanding (and accelerating, at that), in what is this expansion taking place? We have no answers. We talk about “multiverses,” series of parallel universes, yet we doubt the possibility of a Being beyond this cosmos. Why?
Peter Kreeft, borrowing a turn of phrase from C S Lewis, titled one of his books Chance—Or the Dance? I am happy to accept that any cosmic “dance” has steps far more complicated than I could ever learn. But that is not a bad thing. God is GOD, after all... And don't we ALL hope, one day, that we can travel (like the star-ship Enterprise) at warp-speed??

OMNIUM URBIS ET ORBIS ECCLESIARUM MATER ET CAPUT

2011-11-09T06:11:00.000-06:00

The dedication of a church is usually an “internal affair” in terms of celebration: one celebrates this anniversary when actually in that particular church. But then, St John Lateran is no ordinary church. One of the great patriarchal basilicas of Rome (along with St Peter’s, St Mary Major and St Paul Outside the Walls), it is in fact THE church of Rome.

It is the oldest Christian building, given by Constantine on what was once property belonging to the Laterani family (which came to belong to the family of his wife)—thus, the church was on private (imperial) land. It is the cathedral of Rome, and it is the home-church to the pope as bishop of Rome.

It has been the site of 5 ecumenical councils (the last one, in 1510, a “reforming council” that, sadly, failed utterly).

It is the church in which Pope Innocent III first encountered St Francis of Assisi, and it was this church that featured in the pope’s famous dream of an earthquake shaking the building, its being held up by a little man in a brown robe.

It is the place where St Francis and St Dominic met.

From this church the very first “Holy Year” was proclaimed (by Pope Boniface VIII, in 1300). On a column in the left-hand aisle there is a fragment of a fresco by Giotto which depicts the event.

It is the church where, every Holy Thursday, the pope presides at the Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper and washes the feet of twelve people.

When a pope speaks ex cathedra to define an article of the Faith (which has happened formally only twice, actually) the "cathedra" (bishop's chair) of St John Lateran is what is referred to, even if the “chair of Peter” is preserved in the monument of the same name in the basilica of the same name.

She calls herself the mother and head of all churches in the city and the world. And so she is, for Catholics. Could she ever be more, for other Christians?
The keynote speaker for our Lutheran-Anglican-Roman Catholic Conference, Dean Thomas Ferguson, spoke very wistfully about the meeting between Pope John Paul II and President George W Bush, in which the pope spoke strongly against the 2nd Iraq war. Ferguson said, “I wish, when he was speaking, that he were speaking also for me.” Then he added, “I wonder—in Ut Unum Sint (the pope’s encyclical on church unity) John Paul asked us to help him re-imagine the office of Peter to be a source of support and unity: could we do this?” Theologian Robert Jenson has also reflected such a desire. This longing comes from Episcopalian and Lutheran voices. What a joy it would be if such a vision could become a reality, and St John Lateran would truly be a motherly voice for ALL the Christian world.

STEM-CELLS AND THE FUTURE

2011-11-08T07:40:00.000-06:00

In the context of a press conference discussing the upcoming (9-11 Nov 2011) convention on adult stem-cell research, former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson had this to say. Especially in the light of the wonderful speech given by Lila Rose at our annual 2B pro-life banquet, exposing the fraudulent (and criminal) practices of some Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, this makes for important reading. There is so much we can do; why drive the agenda bus any further with regard to the supposed necessity of abortion and embryonic stem-cells as the only way forward in this research?

Footnote: in the near future Our Savior will sponsor an evening with myself and Dr Richard Duffey to discuss the ethical and political implications of our stem-cell policies. It will be a follow-up to the presentation Dr Duffey made earlier here, presenting the medical and scientific basis of stem-cell research and treatments.

• • INTERVENTO DELL’ON. TOMMY G. THOMPSON

Thank you so much, Card. Ravasi, and thanks also to NeoStem, The Stem for Life Foundation, and of course, The Vatican for bringing us all together on this historic day.
As many of you know, I was The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2001 to 2005. This was obviously a great privilege for me, and while I am no scientist or doctor, the job gave me a unique understanding of the many issues driving today’s dialogue on healthcare.

And adult stem cells deserve to be at the heart of this discussion – and it’s a subject I’m very passionate about.

Throughout the course of my career, whether in the public or private sector, the best ideas I’ve come across have always been the simplest ones. And frankly, I just don’t believe that man can engineer something superior to what The Good Lord has already given us. That’s what I love about adult stem cells – we’re using the divine wisdom inside of us to supercharge our bodies and wipe away disease. And as we do this, not one single human embryo is destroyed.

And that to me is a very big idea – but this idea has been shrouded in an ugly political argument that has served no one.

When I talk to the average American about adult stem cells, many of them are really surprised. All they have ever heard about are embryonic stem cells and this political battle about who is right and wrong. They see the constant finger pointing in Washington – and instead of focusing on "what we can do right now" with adult stem cells, our leaders argue about "what we should not do" with embryonic stem cells.

That doesn’t make any sense to me at all – and that’s why today is such an important, historic day, and I’m just thrilled to be a part of it.

The 246 million people in this world suffering from diabetes need to hear our voices today. The 770,000 Americans that will have a heart attack or stroke this year need to hear this message. Our men and women in uniform need to know that there is so much to be hopeful for – a day when our wounded veterans can regrow their own skin, organs and bones. And maybe, just maybe, one day our quadriplegics will rise up from their wheelchairs.

This is not wishful thinking, folks – that day is here if we want it – and that’s why I want to share my vision for a future of cellular collaboration.

President John F. Kennedy once challenged the nation and in fact the whole world to put a man on the moon in a historic research and development initiative. It was a race against the clock and an unprecedented era of scientific collaboration.

Ladies and gentleman, if we can put a moon on the moon, then we can surely unite to return health to the hundreds of millions of people suffering needlessly throughout the world. And we can do so without destroying one human life.

And we’re in our own race against the clock. The American baby boomers are just hitting retirement, so we’re going to see a huge spike in chronic disease in the years ahead. Just look at diabetes. Currently, one out of every eight Americans has diabetes and by 2050 one out of every three of us will have it. And already our nation is spending $200 billion dollars per year to manage this disease.

Can you believe this? $200 billion a year for this one disease? Can you imagine what diabetes will cost us when one third of all Americans have it?

This makes no sense to me. We’re wasting money managing a chronic disease instead of finding a cure for it. And ironically, the cure is sitting right inside of our own bodies, a divine intelligence just sitting there to be harvested and given back to us.

So why not create a coordinated network of scientists and professionals devoted to discovering and funding these vital therapies? We must tap the best of private enterprise to "get the job done fast". We must turn to America’s brightest companies and business leaders to take the best research from our universities and translate them into here-and-now cures.

Today I am calling on President Obama to create a Presidential-level commission of private sector business leaders to begin this important work. This group should evaluate all of the Federal efforts to date surrounding regenerative medicine, and they should make specific recommendations to our President on how we can better coordinate these efforts and unite them with the best of private enterprise. And I’m not alone in calling on our President to lead us in this initiative. Just this year The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine called on The Obama Administration to develop a national strategy for regenerative medicine.

But to date, nothing has been done.

That’s why I am so excited to be with all of you. Today, here in The Vatican, we are beginning that process – we are ushering in a new era of scientific collaboration – a true ‘race for the cure’ that will bring hope to the entire world.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening. And now I’ll be glad to answer any of your questions…

[01563-02.02] [Original text: English]

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

2011-11-02T13:24:00.000-05:00

It is All Souls’ Day—a time of commemoration of all those who have died, praying for them that they might enjoy redemption, healing, forgiveness and final transformation into children of light (and of the Light).

Is it morbid to see the skull-decorated altars of Mexico, or the “Bone Church” of the Cappuccini in Rome? Is there a connection to them with Halloween and our carved pumpkins?

The key here is self-understanding. In the crypt of Santa Maria della Concezione (aka, the “Bone Church”) there is a script (repeated in other churches throughout Italy) that allows the bones to speak to observers, saying (typically in Latin): “What you are, we once were; what we now are, you will become.” This is a direct and awesome slap in the face of reality, is it not? We all know that death and taxes are the only two guarantees in our life; do we really think it might happen to us, though—perhaps today?

If we were truly (and regularly) aware of our mortality, how differently might we live our lives? What that we think so critical to happiness now might be seen as irrelevant? Perhaps a re-reading of Luke 12:16-21 would help us (“You fool! This night your life will be demanded”)…

As Catholics, we believe our prayers can make a difference in others’ lives: here, and hereafter. Today of all days, we should concentrate on how we might make sacrifice for others (perhaps, also, for ourselves) and know that one day the “Day of the Dead” will be celebrated on our behalf.

THE POPE AND WORLD RELIGIONS IN ASSISI

2011-10-31T07:13:00.000-05:00

The charge was made in the Mobile Press-Register on Saturday, 29 Oct in an AP item, that Pope Benedict showed his typical closed-mindedness and craving for control by refusing to pray with members of other religions in an inter-religious gathering. [Ironically, this was in an article supposedly all about upcoming new liturgical language at Mass.] The reference was obviously to the “Day of Reflection, Dialogue and Prayer for Peace and Justice in the World” which took place on 27 October in Assisi. This charge is inane and really does not deserve the time I am taking to refute it—a refutation that would be less likely to be needed if the correspondent actually made some effort to research the piece before writing it.

Perhaps this correspondent overlooked the fact that this event was not something the Pope was asked to participate in, for which he gave “hard-line conditions” for his appearance. Assisi was from first to last his initiative, and he was the one who did the inviting and set the parameters for it. Should he have run his thoughts past our correspondent first, for approval?

Why would Pope Benedict “refuse” to pray with others at this gathering? Perhaps the answer is out of respect for his own beliefs, and those of the others. Let me elaborate—it seems to me at the very least an imposition to pray as a Christian when supposedly sharing prayer-time with a Jew or a Muslim. There are, incidentally, theological views among those latter faiths that regard Christians as heretics for introducing another god (Jesus Christ); they therefore would not recognize Christians as true monotheists. It is one reason why these three world religions are typically referred to, these days, as Abrahamic, rather than monotheistic, faiths.

What about Hindus? I cannot speak for the AP correspondent, and I mean no disrespect to Hindus. But I would be reluctant to pray to Kali…
Buddhists, on the other hand, do not strictly speaking have a belief in God at all—their prayer is for the purposes of achieving enlightenment (as the Buddha did), and of attuning themselves to nirvana, the cessation of the cycle of reincarnation and the cessation as well of personal consciousness. It is very akin (in the best possible sense) to the philosophy of Stoicism, in which the serenity produced by detachment is a most high value. Yet noble as it is, I would not want to pray for that same goal for myself.

Pope Benedict invited atheists to join in this meeting. To whom would they have prayed together?
It is fascinating that our society so vigorously opposes things like prayer before sporting event(preferring “a moment of silence”) yet would express the editorial opinion (misplaced in honest reporting in any case) that the Pope is at fault for sharing moments of silence with those who would reject his notion of God.

Perhaps this can be best explained by realizing that the critique is coming from a mind-set that thinks prayer in any form is really a trivial exercise. But at least from the Catholic point of view, and, I am convinced, from the point of view of the overwhelming majority of those taking part in Assisi, Pope Benedict was simply being hospitably sensitive to those who do not agree with his own view of God and prayer. In the end, his outreach surely trumps the small vision of the AP correspondent.

FAITH, UNDERSTANDING & CONSCIENCE (& SUNDAY SCHOOL?)

2011-10-27T17:42:00.000-05:00

Pope Benedict has announced the intention of making a “Year of Faith” to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican Council II. It is obvious why such a commemoration would be marked (50th anniversaries are pretty major), but why mention a notion like “faith”? More to the point, how does this reflect a linkage with a favorite theme of Benedict—faith and reason?

If we begin with the mediaeval definition of theology as Fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding), then perhaps we can make sense of this linkage. This would be especially true if we consider the insight of Bl John Henry (Cardinal) Newman, that the act of faith is essentially a choice to make an assent to a reality that is pointed to by what he called “converging probabilities.” But these probabilities can only be discovered by means of reason—that is, by thinking through the implications in a logical way. Not to panic: the principles of logic/reasoning themselves must also be accepted as axiomatic (that is, on faith)…

This sounds terribly esoteric, arcane, intellectual, abstract: and every other word I can think of that makes this topic seem “unrealistic/irrelevant” to 99% of believers! But I want to suggest that this is a wrong idea. I recently had a conversation with a high school girl (a junior) who is wondering about believing in God. As a result of what she is learning (and her school-mates are telling her) about science, she is asking: “Doesn’t the “Big Bang” deny the possibility of the existence of God?” I tried to assure her it was really quite the opposite: the wonders of science (like the heavens of Psalm 19) proclaim the glory of God. But how does one come to this insight, without examination of the possibilities laid before us by things like physics, calculus, analytic geometry, quantum mechanics, and so on? “Do you know why mathematics is the basis of life as we know it?” the little girl asks her Father in the TV ad. “Do tell me,” Dad replies, as they walk along the beach. Little girls (and young ladies in high school) want to know (this is beyond “enquiring minds,” as you can tell). Should knowledge and religious tenets be opposed to each other?

Still, the definition of theology I quoted above states that we must begin with the act of faith. Does this mean reason has no place until the (arbitrary?) act of faith is made? According to Newman, the answer is no. Our examination of the possibilities must lead us to the insight that making an act of faith is a reasonable thing to do: rational, even if not provable. So the intellect must be involved if an authentic act of faith is to be made. Newman referred to this as the principle of “converging probabilities” which justify the act of assent, even if they do not absolutely “prove” the fact-hood of the article to which the assent is given.

Perhaps this idea is all that much more important these days when there is a great deal of coercion (real or attempted) in religion, and when there is a great deal of unreflected embrace of particular expressions of one’s faith. The systematic persecution (often with the tacit approval of authorities) of minority Christians in countries like Egypt, Iraq or Pakistan—to name those most recently in the news—would be examples of the former. The “Christian” sect going around the country screaming hate slogans at the funerals of military personnel killed overseas is a sad example of the latter. Combining these two produces a totalitarian regime with the veneer of theocracy: probably the worst of all possible forms of government…

As a Christian, I should be bound by the words of I Peter 3:15—“Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for you hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence…” How can I express my faith in terms that are understandable to others (even if not finally persuasive to them)? How can I sort out the ways my reasons to believe are in fact finally persuasive to me? And how can I present my reasons (and reasoning) in ways that are persuasive to those of open minds? I think of Jesus Christ Superstar and its version of Pilate’s famous question:
But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law?
We both have truths; Are mine the same as yours?

All this means two things especially: open-mindedness to the wonders of our cosmos as signals of the presence and activity of a Creator; and honest facing of all the facts and arguments that suggest the opposite. Brilliant scientific men have been fervent believers in God, and other brilliant men have been determined atheists. It will not do simply to suggest that all believers are naïve and all non-believers realistic; nor, conversely, that all believers are open to the truth and all non-believers have ulterior agendas. And in any event, as Newman again insisted, the issue is far less what others choose to accept as sufficient evidences for the act of faith: what is crucial is how I use my best lights to lead me to make a “yes” or “no” to the question of belief.

Once I make an act of assent in a matter that is religious, it is required of me that I put the implications of this assent into practice in my life. Thus Newman, in coming to the conclusion that the Catholic Church was the one true church, not only became a Catholic but steadfastly refused to be a “cafeteria Catholic.” From his logic, the act of assent must be an “all or nothing” approach—otherwise, he judged, he would be setting himself up as arbiter of Scripture, Tradition, magisterial teaching—becoming the supreme authority in his own person.

Nevertheless, he refused to belittle the role of conscience in coming to terms with assent. Newman’s view of conscience here is critical—it is not a sense of “what I want” but rather an interior faculty to which I must listen and by which I must be guided, in determining where I find that truth to which I must give my assent. Newman did not “want” to become a Catholic; he saw it as his moral and religious obligation in conscience (and in fact he suffered for the choice in many ways). The phrase “freedom of conscience” is all too frequently abused and twisted to mean “I can do anything I want.” But the exercise of conscience is always and only a commitment to the truth as honesty comprehended—it is never an easy way to dodge an unpleasant responsibility.

Is all this too far-reaching an exercise in academic issues for most people to care about, much less get involved in? I hope not, because if we as human beings are not willing to examine our beliefs in the light of reason and then act upon the logical conclusions of those beliefs, what really are we? I am reminded of a pivotal speech of Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons (a speech, by the way, lifted from More’s own writings):
God made the angels to show him splendor—as he made animals for their innocence and plants for their simplicity. But Man he made to serve him wittily, in the tangle of his mind! If he suffers us to fall to such a case that there is no escaping, then we may stand to our tackle and clamor like champions…if we have the spittle for it. …But it’s God’s part, not our own, to bring ourselves to that extremity! Our natural business lies in escaping…

It is important to remember that in the exercise of reason in one’s faith-life and on the formation of one’s conscience one need not be a scholar. It is only important that one strive to understand to the best of his or her ability. At whatever level of my education and study, I must honestly ask (and answer) questions such as: “What do I believe?” “Why do I believe this?” “What are the implications for me personally of my belief, both in what I may do, and what may be done to me?” Am I willing and able to “count the cost” (Luke 14:28ff)? Unless I know the cost, I cannot determine if I am willing or able to afford it. And again, these must be personal answers—what does this all mean to and for me?

This is why there is probably no more important on-going activity offered by most parishes than religious education. In the younger years, this is dedicated to inculcation of basic premises and truths of the Faith. But as we grow older, facing choices like a personal YES to Jesus Christ (or not), and working out the implications of this YES, study is critical. An example: many people were sure (and are sure) that they have a legitimate disagreement with the Catholic Church’s teaching on artificial contraception. Yet how many have actually read any of the Church’s documents on this subject (beginning with Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae), or engaged in any sort of classes that would help explain it? Did we base our decision to reject this teaching on a sound-bite from television? Conversely, did we make a knee-jerk acceptance of the teaching because a prominent Catholic figure said to do so? In both cases we are abdicating our responsibility to think through, to understand, and to give the deepest, most authentic personal affirmation in conscience to the teaching.

So: is this entire essay an overblown appeal for adults to engage in religious education sessions? Maybe…

MEDITATION ON ROMANS 7

2011-10-21T14:32:00.000-05:00

St Paul famously described the internal spiritual struggle he had in this passage, including the insight “The good that I would [do], I do not do; that which I do not want [to do], that is what I do” (Rom 7:19). How many of us have not felt this same conflict (not necessarily reducing it to the trivial level of “The devil made me do it”)? What is this alternate law in the body that is seemingly so diametrically opposed to spiritual growth?

The 14th century Dominican spiritual master John Tauler had a fundamental insight: “Our nature looks to self in everything. …[M]an is inclined to love himself more than anything else…even more than God… And this evil tendency is rooted so deep in us, that its traces baffle the search of all the wise men in the world. All the industry of man cannot correct this innate weakness. …It often happens, that when we fancied God alone was our motive, it turned out that…we were but seeking self in everything.”
The more modern buzz-word for this propensity (from 12-Step programs) is “self-centeredness.” Ironically, the less we see this tendency in ourselves, the more likely it is deeply rooted in our hearts—it is the master-teacher of the exercise of rationalization, by which we can justify whatever we wish to do, in the name of the principle that declares, “This is wrong for everyone, all the time—except for me, this time.”

How can we put to death this cause of spiritual death? How can we break out of the prison of self-centeredness? Surely it must be a step-by-step process (so long as we truly continue to take the next steps)—what act of outreach, of generosity, will I engage in today that I otherwise would choose to avoid? Can I look into another’s eyes and see the other as a true other, rather than just a reflection of (or extension of) myself? So hard…

It seems to me that the precise meaning of Matt 5:48 (“You shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”) is the complete transformation of the person from self-centeredness to other-openness—it makes us heavenly creatures rather than hellish ones (those who, by definition, are utterly wrapped in self). The final letting go may be difficult—even painful: here is the beginning of the practical theology of purgatory—but utterly essential.

Who is willing to make today “the first day of the real ‘rest of your life’”?

A PLAN FOR PEACE

2011-10-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

Focolare is a movement in the Catholic Church dedicated to living lives in community and fostering ecumenical and inter-religious understanding. Their current president, Maria Voce, has been writing and speaking about the upcoming “Day of Reflection, Dialogue and Prayer for Peace and Justice in the World: Pilgrims of Truth, Pilgrims of Peace.” This day, called by Pope Benedict XVI, will be held in Assisi on 27 October, and it will also be the 25th anniversary of the first such event (also held in Assisi)—in 1986, in answer to the call of Pope John Paul II. He called another such gathering in 2002.

Is this “syncretism”? Is this “relativism”? These are dirty words that imply we can all gather together because one belief system is just as good as another, or because we don’t believe there is any such thing as objective truth which can in any way be known. This is not what these gatherings are about. It is a recognition that on the basis of natural law and our common humanity and our shared conviction in the reality of a Deity, there must be (even if only for reasons of simple self-preservation) a concentrated effort to end the violence and the injustices that plague our world. It makes sense for religious leaders to stand together in such a path: would a Greek be more likely to listen to a word of peace from a Hindu priest or from Patriarch Bartholomew? Would a Muslim be as open to such a word from Pope Benedict as he would from an imam?

If you truly think of the words, there is little in the famous “Peace Prayer” of St Francis (other than, perhaps, the hope to be “born to eternal life”) that the leader of any world religion could not recite with integrity. What a joy it would be if we could all put those words into practice in our daily lives! If there is ever to be peace on earth, I will have to "let it begin with me"...

This event will not be strictly only ecumenical (a word reserved for dialogue and the search for reconciliation and agreement between different Churches and Christian denominations). This gathering will also be inter-religious, and there will be leaders from many world religions: all with a longing to contribute in some concrete way to world peace and justice from their own unique faith-based perspectives.

FRANCIS

2011-10-04T05:47:00.000-05:00

For an imaginatively faithful biography, I recommend Francis: the Journey and the Dream by Murray Bodo, OFM.
We cannot do better on this feast of St Francis of Assisi, than his prayer for peace (pray it and live it), and John Michael Talbot makes the words come intensely alive in his musical setting. Enjoy, and happy feast day to all who love God's creation, who love peace, and who yearn to enjoy and be 'simple gifts.'

SILENCE AND WORD

2011-10-03T11:06:00.000-05:00

This is the theme for the upcoming World Day of Communications (officially on 24 January, the feast of St Francis de Sales). The Pope’s message will focus on evangelization, but I want to reflect first on the concept of silence.

This past weekend I was called to a home to administer the Sacrament of Anointing to Mary, a woman who is in fact dying. It really is “the last rites” in her case, I believe. I made it out to the house where the adult children (eight siblings) and their children and spouses were gathered. We all went to the woman’s bedroom (she is, sadly, unresponsive). I asked them to lay hands on whatever part of Mom/Grandma they could, to let her know through feel that they were there. It took a few minutes for everyone to settle down, get to a comfortable place in the room, and touch Mary. But they did, and then I laid hands on her sacramentally as well—in complete silence. It lasted 2-3 minutes, and the silence was overpowering—it led to all kinds of tears and sobbing, especially after the anointing itself, and the prayers of commendation.

The following morning at Sunday Mass I was privileged to confer the sacrament of Confirmation on a young woman. Again, there is a laying-on of hands in silence before the anointing (this time with the Sacred Chrism). The whole church silently prayed for her with me during this time. And again, the silence was deafening in its statement of presence.

Cromwell and Norfolk (in A Man For All Seasons) are talking about Thomas More’s refusal to take the oath of supremacy and standing on his silence. Cromwell remarks, “Not being a man of letters, Your Grace, you perhaps don’t realize the extent of [More’s] reputation. This ‘silence’ of his is bellowing up and down Europe.” And so it can, even if More attempted to take his stand on the legal maxim Qui tacet consentire [Silence gives consent]. Cromwell, in the trial scene, is quite right on one point: “So silence can, according to circumstances, speak.”

It is amazing (and very true) to think that silence can be regarded as eloquent. Do people in love always need words, or is not it often the case that looking into each other’s eyes is the best way of saying enough?

Our silence in prayer (even, according to the circumstances, in liturgy) is for some just a time of fidgeting—“When will the priest finally stand up and get on with it?” For others, it is a time of deep communion of heart and soul with our divine Lord and Savior.

The psalmist understood silence: “No speech, no word, no voice is heard; yet their message goes out to all the earth, and their words to the utmost bounds of the world” (Ps 19:4-5).

And in the spirit of wondrous, silent presence in love, I wonder if we cannot ourselves draw strength to be witnesses (martyrs) for the Lord by our example far more than our arguments. We can leave those to the debaters; let’s instead be people whose silent, loving witness draws others to the Master. And we can all gaze into His eyes and know we are loved, and home.

FAITHFUL CHANGE

2011-09-26T15:38:00.000-05:00

Below is the final official speech of Pope Benedict on his pastoral visit to Germany, which I have excerpted. It is on the long side, but I have indicated by italics and underlining where I think crucial thoughts were being conveyed. I encourage you to look for those selected passages and read the larger context for them.

The liturgical language changes that we are about to experience are small enough, all things considered. Are they like "re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic"? Perhaps, but EVERYTHING is like that, compared to Bl Mother Teresa's comment below. It's the heart of what we need to do and be, to reflect the Church authentically as the Body of Christ for others. See below...

MEETING WITH CATHOLICS ENGAGED IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH AND SOCIETY
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

Concert Hall, Freiburg im Breisgau
Sunday, 25 September 2011

Mr President of the Federal Republic,
Mr Minister President,
Mr Mayor,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Brother Bishops and Priests,

I am glad to be here today to meet all of you who work in so many ways for the Church and for society. This gives me a welcome opportunity personally to thank you most sincerely for your commitment and your witness as “powerful heralds of the faith in things to be hoped for” (Lumen Gentium, 35 – validi praecones fidei sperandarum rerum); this is how the Second Vatican Council describes people like you who do dedicated work for the present and the future from a faith perspective. In your fields of activity you readily stand up for your faith and for the Church, something that, as we know, is not at all easy at the present time.

For some decades now we have been experiencing a decline in religious practice and we have been seeing substantial numbers of the baptized drifting away from church life. This prompts the question: should the Church not change? Must she not adapt her offices and structures to the present day, in order to reach the searching and doubting people of today?

Blessed Mother Teresa was once asked what in her opinion was the first thing that would have to change in the Church. Her answer was: you and I.

Two things are clear from this brief story. On the one hand Mother Teresa wants to tell her interviewer: the Church is not just other people, not just the hierarchy, the Pope and the bishops: we are all the Church, we the baptized. And on the other hand her starting-point is this: yes, there are grounds for change. There is a need for change. Every Christian and the whole community of the faithful are called to constant change.

What should this change look like in practice? Are we talking about the kind of renewal that a householder might carry out when reordering or repainting his home? Or are we talking about a corrective, designed to bring us back on course and help us to make our way more swiftly and more directly? Certainly these and other elements play a part and we cannot go into all these matters here. But the fundamental motive for change is the apostolic mission of the disciples and the Church herself.

The Church, in other words, must constantly rededicate herself to her mission. …

In order to accomplish her true task adequately, the Church must constantly renew the effort to detach herself from her tendency towards worldliness and once again to become open towards God. In this she follows the words of Jesus: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (Jn 17:16), and in precisely this way he gives himself to the world. One could almost say that history comes to the aid of the Church here through the various periods of secularization, which have contributed significantly to her purification and inner reform.

Secularizing trends – whether by expropriation of Church goods, or elimination of privileges or the like – have always meant a profound liberation of the Church from forms of worldliness, for in the process she as it were sets aside her worldly wealth and once again completely embraces her worldly poverty. In this she shares the destiny of the tribe of Levi, which according to the Old Testament account was the only tribe in Israel with no ancestral land of its own, taking as its portion only God himself, his word and his signs. At those moments in history, the Church shared with that tribe the demands of a poverty that was open to the world, in order to be released from her material ties: and in this way her missionary activity regained credibility.

History has shown that, when the Church becomes less worldly, her missionary witness shines more brightly. Once liberated from material and political burdens and privileges, the Church can reach out more effectively and in a truly Christian way to the whole world, she can be truly open to the world. She can live more freely her vocation to the ministry of divine worship and service of neighbour. The missionary task, which is linked to Christian worship and should determine its structure, becomes more clearly visible. The Church opens herself to the world not in order to win men for an institution with its own claims to power, but in order to lead them to themselves by leading them to him of whom each person can say with Saint Augustine: he is closer to me than I am to myself (cf. Confessions, III,6,11). He who is infinitely above me is yet so deeply within me that he is my true interiority. This form of openness to the world on the Church’s part also serves to indicate how the individual Christian can be open to the world in effective and appropriate ways.

It is not a question here of finding a new strategy to relaunch the Church. Rather, it is a question of setting aside mere strategy and seeking total transparency, not bracketing or ignoring anything from the truth of our present situation, but living the faith fully here and now in the utterly sober light of day, appropriating it completely, and stripping away from it anything that only seems to belong to faith, but in truth is mere convention or habit.

To put it another way: for people of every era, and not just our own, the Christian faith is a scandal. That the eternal God should know us and care about us, that the intangible should at a particular moment have become tangible, that he who is immortal should have suffered and died on the Cross, that we who are mortal should be given the promise of resurrection and eternal life – for people of any era, to believe all this is a bold claim.

This scandal, which cannot be eliminated unless one were to eliminate Christianity itself, has unfortunately been overshadowed in recent times by other painful scandals on the part of the preachers of the faith. A dangerous situation arises when these scandals take the place of the primary skandalon of the Cross and in so doing they put it beyond reach, concealing the true demands of the Christian Gospel behind the unworthiness of those who proclaim it.

All the more, then, it is time once again to discover the right form of detachment from the world, to move resolutely away from the Church’s worldliness. …Only a profound relationship with God makes it possible to reach out fully towards others, just as a lack of outreach towards neighbour impoverishes one’s relationship with God.

Openness to the concerns of the world means, then, for the Church that is detached from worldliness, bearing witness to the primacy of God’s love according to the Gospel through word and deed, here and now, a task which at the same time points beyond the present world because this present life is also bound up with eternal life. As individuals and as the community of the Church, let us live the simplicity of a great love, which is both the simplest and hardest thing on earth, because it demands no more and no less than the gift of oneself.

Dear friends, it remains for me to invoke God’s blessing and the strength of the Holy Spirit upon us all, that we may continually recognize anew and bear fresh witness to God’s love and mercy in our respective fields of activity. Thank you for your attention.

DIFFICULTIES IN THE HOLY LAND

2011-09-23T12:34:00.000-05:00

The proposed petition to the United Nations to establish a State for the Palestinians is problematic on more fronts than people sometimes realize.

Let us be clear from the outset: the State of Israel has a right (even the obligation) to exist, and in fact to thrive, in peace and in security and in authentic fellowship with her neighbors.

Beyond that, there must be room for Palestinians who have also lived in the Holy Land for centuries. They cannot be disenfranchised and dismissed out of hand. Torah itself teaches us this: You shall not oppress or afflict a resident alien, for you were once aliens residing in the land of Egypt... (Ex 22:20)

As must be obvious to all but the most fanatical, terrorism cannot secure these two needs, nor can a resolution from the United Nations.

But there is a complicating factor in what is too often assumed to be a conflict between Jews and Muslims. It is that significant numbers of Palestinians are in fact Christians: typically they are Catholic or Orthodox. They are distained by Israelis as being Arab; they are held in contempt by Muslims because they are Christian. They are caught in a cross-fire that dismisses them as unimportant.

We have seen the results of contempt for Christians in the Middle East: in Egypt, in Iraq, in Syria and Lebanon. Christian Arabs are leaving in record numbers, either by their being killed, or else by self-imposed exile in the face of (I use the word deliberately) pogroms.

Too many ethnic groups have memories that are too long and too alive: what happened hundreds of years ago is kept burning as though it were yesterday. This is tragic. All have made disastrous mistakes—Jews least of all, it must be said. They have been victims vastly more often than anyone else. Given the history of European Jewry and Christendom, there is no wonder there is mistrust of motives when Christians speak well of Jews. We must move beyond that.

Muslims remember the Crusades. These began in 1095. Do Muslims also remember the Saracens’ attacks on Rome (and especially the church of St Peter’s there) in 846? The slaughter in and desecration of that church (and the tomb of St Peter) were massive, and it was in contempt of a holy place of Christians.

We must all learn to forgive, even if we do not (or cannot, or should not) completely forget. We must live in the present and face the future; pre-occupation with the past is counter-productive.
Our Mobile Trialogue (Christians, Jews and Muslims together) is an attempt to build a community of tolerance and reconciliation. It is far easier to achieve this goal here in Alabama than in the Holy Land. But perhaps with patience and prayer one day we can hold hands and proclaim (with Martin Luther King Jr) “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

MATTHEW AND JESUS

2011-09-21T15:55:00.002-05:00

What did Jesus see in Matthew/Levi the tax-collector that He called him?

What did Matthew see in Jesus “the Messiah”(?) that he followed Him? That is, when he finally looked at Jesus--judging by the painting, money was far more interesting to Matthew...

Matthew must have been a leader: look at the numbers of tax-collectors who joined him and Jesus and His disciples for dinner.

What do we see in Jesus?

Whom might we lead to the Lord (or away from Him) by our example?

It’s good to be called; it’s even better to respond and follow.

EXECUTING JUSTICE

2011-09-20T12:22:00.000-05:00

It is remarkable to read words like those below, especially when they were penned by the judge of the original sentence of death. I share these with readers of the blog for several reasons: they speak against the fairness of capital punishment, they remind us of the irrevocable nature of such a punishment, and they reinforce the evidence that many capital cases are resolved in favor of death because of inexperience: how often are indigent defendants actually represented by adequate counsel in their trials? It is for this reason that a moratorium (at the very least) needs to be placed on executions in the State of Alabama. We want justice to be served, not simple rage and blood-lust, no matter how understandable those emotions might be. Please read on:

The Huntsville-Madison County NAACP is sponsoring a Candlelight Rally in support of Derrick Mason's death sentence being commuted based upon the compelling legal reasons provided by the trial sentencing judge, Lloyd H. Little (retired) in his letter to Governor Robert Bentley requesting that Mason's death sentence be commuted and changed to life imprisonment. Judge Little cited Mason's attorneys and his own lack of experience in trying a capital murder case and stated: "That lack of experience, combined with its being my first experience in capital litigation, more than likely affected how the case was tried..... I believe that more experienced defense attorneys could have more effectively presented evidence of the mitigating factors (his age, lack of significant criminal record and drug and alcohol use) that could have affected the jury's recommendation and my ultimate decision." He further stated:

".... [T]]he law of Alabama requires that this aggravating factor of being especially heinous, atrocious and cruel be so when compared to other capital murders. In hindsight, and with so much more experience now in these cases, I do not believe this aggravating factor would have been available to the jury or the Court. Without that as an aggravating factor to consider, the advisory verdict of the jury wuld [sic] most likely have been different. They would have recommended life without parole and I would have followed that recommendation. That is what should have happened 15 years ago."

"Governor Bentley, I am confident that when I am asking you to do now is absolutely the right thing to do under the facts of this case and the law of this State."

ALLE MENSCHEN WERDEN BRÜDER…

2011-09-13T13:18:00.000-05:00

This past several days I've been in a whirlwind of ecumenical and inter-faith encounters. I enjoyed lunch on Friday with Rev Joy Blaylock, an old friend of mine who is now pastor of St Paul Lutheran Church (ELCA), really just round the corner from Our Savior. She is, in her own words, passionate about communion and unity.

Sunday was the celebration of our parish feast (Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which we transferred to Sunday evening)—Pastor Chris George of 1st Baptist Church in downtown Mobile was our guest preacher, and his words on behalf of ecumenical outreach and longing for unity were deeply touching.

This week we welcome Rabbi James Rudin to speak in our Christian-Jewish Dialogue; a special meeting of ecumenical and inter-faith clergy will also gather at our Cathedral’s rectory, graciously hosted by Archbishop Thomas Rodi: over coffee and pastries we will converse about the future of Christian-Jewish relations, nationally and locally here in Mobile.

What is the real point in all of this?

Is it just to make us feel good, to feel that somehow because of a few social and intellectual encounters we are breaking down walls of discord? Is it to trick us into thinking that our differences don’t matter, after all, and we can simply hold hands and think we all think (and believe) alike? Is it a desire to make an actual beginning of barrier-breaking, even if we don’t know what the barriers really are, or if any are genuinely necessary for the sake of preserving personal integrity?

For myself, I am immersed in this activity because I am convinced that the destiny of the human race (a destiny we seem wonderful at thwarting) is to unite and be one family in relationships (as we surely are, in genetics). Why should we not long to sing together, “Free at last; free at last; thank God almighty, we are free at last”?

There was an old saying in early ecumenical endeavors: “Doctrine divides; service unites.” I want to modify this: “Sin divides; love unites.” The motto of our Christian-Jewish Dialogue is “Hands that reach will touch.” If I do not reach out, does that mean that I am wrapped up in myself? Probably…

Can we eat together, or pray together, or serve together, or minister together, or witness to justice together, or love together?

If not, why not? Is our family really too big for new brothers and sisters? Today's title ("All men shall be brothers") comes from Schiller's An die Freude, set famously by Beethoven in his 9th symphony. The text continues:
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
[Can you sense your Maker, World?]
Such ihn über’m Strenenzelt!
[Find him well beyond the Stars]
Brüder, über’m Sternenzelt
[Brothers, well beyond the Stars]
Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.
[Surely dwells a loving Father.]

I want to be part of the family; who wants to join me?

I hope you will enjoy the section of Beethoven's last symphony which includes these words and this sentiment. Ut unum sint!

THE MEANING OF LIFE

2011-09-03T12:05:00.000-05:00

A couple of years ago I wrote this as a "mass mailing e-mail" to about 425 folks who had signed up (since then Outlook decided I was spamming and has blocked the sending of these items--oh, well). It was addressed to President Obama on the occasion of comments he made in the context of his invitation to give the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame in 2009 (this explains the use of 2nd person in my questions). I offer them in this forum as a way of reflecting on an item in the 9-3-11 Mobile Press-Register (by the Associated Press), reporting that pregnant women who take illegal drugs can be prosecuted for endangerment of a child, provided the woman is carrying a "viable fetus." This application, along with its terminology, begs many questions--some of them reflected in my remarks below. I hope they can still generate meaningful dialogue in pursuit of truth.

1. You support a woman’s right to an abortion. Is this on the basis of a belief that a pregnant woman is not carrying a human life, or on the basis of a belief that that human life is not worthy of protection?

2. In either case, what is the scientific/medical information that leads you to this conclusion?

3. In either case, when do you believe that human life (or human life worthy of protection) does begin, and how scientifically/medically did you determine this?

4. If an unborn child at 8-1/2 months of gestation can be aborted by the mother, what logical barrier is there for not following Prof. Singer of Princeton and thinking that a baby 2 weeks after being born cannot also be “aborted”? The answer must surely involve more than “location”...

5. You have said you are “wrestling” with the issue of life. If the unborn child is not a human life or a life worthy of protection, with what are you are wrestling?

6. If induced (adult) stem cell research is offering such promising results, as opposed to the results of any kind of embryonic stem cell research, why is the Administration reducing funding for such research?

7. If the unborn child is not human life or human life worthy of protection, why express willingness to work to reduce the numbers of abortions?

8. If the unborn child is not human life or human life worthy of protection, why should the slaying of a pregnant mother be regarded in a court of law as a “double homicide”?

These are questions that not only deserve but cry for an answer in honest dialogue.

LONELINESS OR “BAD COMPANY”?

2011-08-31T19:08:00.000-05:00

Today I saw a church marquee that proclaimed, “Better to be alone than to be in bad company.” I posted the quote as is on my FB page; interesting comments have been made. But I want to expand on the idea behind the quote, if I may.

My “in-law cousin” Tim thinks: I agree. But on the other hand, bad company is so much more exciting, and you can live vicariously, and have better stories to tell 30 years from now.
And my dear friend Pastor Randy thinks: Interesting, but aren't those the sort of folks Jesus sought out?

I have comments in reaction to both of these, beyond what I just posted on my FB site in reply. The first is that there is a basic agreement with me and Tim on the issue, though not quite for the reasons (which Mark Twain would have loved) he gives. For me, the difficulty is precisely that “alone” for most of us equates to “loneliness,” and this is NOT a good. We have only to reach into Genesis 2 (an anticipation, by the way, of Aristotle’s Politics)—“It is not good for the man to be alone…” (Genesis 2:18). It is fundamental to the understanding of humanity that community is essential to meaningful life. And so, all too often, we choose bad community over no community at all (or what we are afraid will be, or become, no community). Think of teen-agers and peer pressure…

Still, I think it is a serious mis-apprehension to relegate all efforts of desert spirituality, including the desires of people to be hermits, to some kind of pathological anti-social sense. I have to spend time alone in order to come to know myself—and if I am not happy with myself, why should I think that the presence of anyone else need be a “magic wand” to make me happy? Relationships and communion are, after all, mutual gifts of one to another, not a parasitic dependency of one on another.

When I reflect on Pastor Randy’s comments, I agree wholeheartedly (almost): as I said to him, it all depends on what you mean by associating. Did Jesus “seek out” those who were, so to speak, fallen by the wayside? Of course He did. But He didn’t become a “fallen one” Himself in so doing; that is the key to understanding the message of the marquee. Jesus encountered “bad company,” but He didn’t become part and parcel of bad company: He called it to higher, better things. For so many of us, tragically, being “in” bad company usually means being absorbed by it.

Being alone, if we embrace it, might just be the context and opportunity we need to listen to the voice of the Lord to us. We long (rightfully) for community, but embracing too quickly the wrong kind of community can damage us for a lifetime. Which is really better in the long run?

THE BLACK MADONNA

2011-08-26T05:35:00.000-05:00

Today, 26 August, is the non-liturgical feast day of Our Lady of Czestochowa. In her honor I am re-printing an essay I wrote reflecting on a trip to Poland I took in 2000 (guided by a Polish family I was friends with).

Knees are arguably the strongest parts of the Polish body, to judge by the extended kneeling on stone church floors that they do. Knees are arguably the weakest of my body, thanks to surgery and other injuries. This leads to a magic moment for me in the monastery of Jasna Gora, the “Mountain of Brightness,” in which is enshrined the “Black Madonna,” Our Lady of Częstochowa.

We attended Mass there at the chapel of the Black Madonna, with a crowd that far exceeded the normal mental picture of “standing room only.” Though it was only during the Consecration itself and Communion that we knelt, the stone was hardly smooth. It took something out of my knees. It was simply standard operating procedure for all the Poles there.

After Mass, we moved up to get a better look at the Madonna. This chapel (and in fact most of the monastery church) is predominantly ebony wood and black marble, trimmed in gilt. The effect is initially gloomy, ultimately powerful. We were at the central entrance to the chapel, when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed and Rosary was begun. What happened next is terribly important, but it is hard to describe.

The chapel itself is surrounded on three sides (like a horseshoe) by a kind of passageway. This passageway is completely in view of the chapel on the two sides; the back portion goes behind the altar in which the icon is displayed. The Poles (very, very many of them) were going round the icon in this passageway– on their knees, while reciting the Rosary. I knew I could never do anything like that, partly because it wasn’t “my kind of devotion,” and partly because I knew the condition of my knees. And yet, by the strangest coincidence, I found myself in the line to do exactly this!

I barely made it around. I was in physical agony for the entire 2nd half of this loop, and if there had not been a kind of hand-rail around the chapel, which I clutched with my right hand and arm, lifting myself off my knees for seconds at a time, I could not have made it around at all. I would have had to lie down (and hold up scores of people right behind me), or else stand up (and probably be looked at as a heretic).

Pope John Paul II has written that “in the designs of Providence there are no mere coincidences.” Was this a “design of Providence”? What was the point for me of this devotional exercise?

One thing that is true is that this activity is NOT a “devotion.” I believe, especially based on this experience, that no such activity is ever a “devotion.” But they are actions which, if performed with the right disposition, foster devotion. I say this because devotion is a function of relationship, not of activity in itself. “Devotion” is the state in which one is “devoted” to another. To say “I love you” from the heart is to say I am devoted to you in ways that may cost me; I am glad to pay that price for you. To say “I love you” to someone without the proper interior disposition becomes worse than a non-devotion: it is a lie. It becomes a mechanical substitute for authentic relationship, a mask of “the right words” behind which one hides one’s lack of commitment, or ennui, or immaturity, or selfishness. It says “You are not important to me, but I cannot be bothered to be honest enough with you or myself to say so, and so I go through the motions as a path of least resistance.”

For myself, I longed for the proper interior disposition; I wanted to be “devoted.” And so my thoughts crossed to our Lord and Mary while I was on my knees. You suffered and died for me, my Lord; you watched your Son die, Mary. My discomfort cannot identify with your anguish and pain, but let it remind me and make my desire to love you burn with new life. May it intensify my prayer, and may I never shy away from discomfort brought upon me by commitment to the Gospel.

Don’t we all yearn to offer visible, physical, authentic displays of our affection for others? The people at Jasna Gora were in love; they were committed. On my knees I re-discovered my love and commitment, and I re-dedicated myself. Was the visit “devotional”? You bet it was, in the best and fullest sense of the term! I pray the intensity of relationship will never wane, and I pray that other opportunities will present themselves to strengthen me, even if they present themselves through “mere coincidence”! In point of fact, they have in the past and in the present. I know God will continue to shower them upon me– and upon us all– in the future.

FAMINE IN AFRICA

2011-08-16T05:40:00.000-05:00

We are all sympathetic and want to help; we want to do the right thing. Sometimes, though, others can turn our "right thing" into a very wrong thing, and that is what is happening in the famine-gripped country o Somalia now. It is the saddest kind of repeat of the famine in Ethiopia years ago.

What can be done? The strongest suggestion I can offer is to make a contribution, if you so choose, to an organization on site that can use the funds in the most proper way--an organization like Catholic Relief Services, known throughout the world for being able to do exactly this wherever there is great need.

Mother Teresa was often asked by people what they could do to help her in her work. She never asked for money; she would simply say, "Come and see. If you come, then you'll see what needs to be done, and what you can do, and you can do it." We don't have the same opportunity to "come and see" in Somalia, but by going to the CRS web-site link, we can "come and see" even if from a distance, and we'll see what we can do, and we can do it.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRUTH AND FACT

2011-08-14T10:13:00.000-05:00

Excerpted as the “Meditation of the Day” for 3 August in Magnificat, Fr Bede Jarrett, OP reflects on the way to make the mysteries of religion come alive in one’s faith-walk: The whole series of mysteries will certainly be of no use to me in my endless advance toward God unless I try to make them my own by ceaselessly pondering over them. Of themselves, they are just the bare outlines of truths, yet it is not truths, but the facts that are contained in the truths, that are ultimately to influence my life.

This is a striking statement, and yet it is not the first time I have come across the attempt to make such a distinction. In another book, referring to the Christian story, a voice tells the main character, Pilgrim John:
Child, if you will, it is mythology. It is but truth, not fact: an image, not the very real. But then it is My mythology… this is My inventing, this is the veil under which I have chosen to appear even from the first until now. For this end I made your senses and for this end your imagination, that you might see My face and live.
This is the insight of C. S. Lewis in his first “apologetic” book, The Pilgrim’s Regress.

What does this attempt at a distinction (in Lewis or Bede Jarrett) tell us?

I think, first of all, that it is a way of entering into our sacramental worship—a reminder that what we do liturgically is true and real, but not final and absolute. Our celebration of the Eucharist, for example, is not the final goal but the vehicle by which we participate now by foretaste in what is our actual ultimate destiny—union with God in the Body of Christ.

It is also a way of keeping us intellectually humble. We humans must seek after, and may indeed have discovered, the truth; this does not mean we have a comprehensive grasp of Godhead. To think that we do really suggests that we have an idol instead of God. It is one of the virtues of a theology of the Trinity that it allows us to acknowledge fundamental truth about God (community of life and love) while forcing us to face our conceptual limitations (unity in multiplicity that permits the use of words like “triune”). Muslims and Jews regard Christians as polytheists; Christians loudly insist this is not the case, but “Trinity” is not a category in those other Abrahamic faiths, so we have problems explaining what we mean in a credible way to them. This is, I believe, all to the good—we have an expression of faith that leads us to surrender to the Mystery. We can be certain of the truth—we are less confident of the Fact. So we can be content to let God be God, and we recognize what the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 already taught us: that the distance between Creator and creature is so great that no matter how true the analogy we make about God might be, it will always be more “unlike” than “like.” As St Paul put it (II Cor 5:7)—“we walk by faith, not by sight.” And as he also said (I Cor 13:12)—“At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” That will be the great Day when truth becomes eternal Fact.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT ST CLARE OF ASSISI

2011-08-11T10:17:00.000-05:00

Clare was perhaps 13 years younger than St Francis, but she outlived him by 30 years, faithfully leading the first ever convent of what were to be called the “Poor Clares,” and never leaving San Damiano for the rest of her life (over 40 years as Prioress).

Only toward the end of her life did St Clare realize that the extreme discipline of her and her sisters’ lives was too strict (as St Francis realized much earlier, about his own life)—she encouraged the sisters to modify their life-style with the words “After all, our bodies are not made of brass.”

Nevertheless, St Clare was adamant about living in complete evangelical poverty. When the pope (!) offered to dispense her and her companions of this vow, she said, “I need to be absolved of my sins, but I do not wish to be absolved from the obligation of following Jesus Christ.” The pope backed off, and he conferred on San Damiano the Privilegium paupertatis, the privilege of poverty.

When St Clare escaped to the Porziuncola at Santa Maria degli Angeli the night before her wedding (she was 18), St Francis tonsured her, gave her the robes of a penitent, and took her to a Benedictine convent for safety—a good thing, as her family tried to drag her forcibly out of the church and back to “normal” life.

A delightful biography of St Clare is Clare: The Light in the Garden by Murray Bodo, OFM. He also wrote Francis: The Journey and the Dream.

The site of St Clare’s family house (marked by a plaque) is on the left-hand side of the piazza in front of San Ruffino in Assisi—in this church both she and St Francis were baptized.

The sisters were forced to leave San Damiano because there were fears for their safety (San Damiano is well outside the city walls of Assisi). They were given the church of San Giorgio (now Santa Chiara), with the friars moving down to San Damiano. The sisters reluctantly agreed, but they insisted on taking the famous crucifix with them—which is why it is now enshrined in Santa Chiara in a side-chapel to the right as you enter the church.

In the crypt of Santa Chiara in a reliquary one can see a glass and silver box containing some of the locks of St Clare’s hair from the tonsure—a touching memento.

Her dying words were: “Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for He that created you has sanctified you, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be thou, O God, for having created me.” May we all find ourselves able to make such a prayer at the time of our departure.

THOUGHTS ON SUICIDE

2011-08-04T14:27:00.000-05:00

This is an essay I wrote back in July of 2005, but a friend suggested that I re-print it in light of the suicide of another Mobile Archdiocesan Catholic priest, Fr Ernie Hyndman. And so here it is, with the slightest of re-working to make things a bit clearer.

I have had to face the issue of suicide as a pastor 4 times in the last 12 months [of 2004-2005], and it is one of the hardest things to do: the families are filled with so many conflicting emotions—grief, confusion, anger, fear, and so on. I also have several friends who battle mental diseases of one kind or another; I know the way they are ravaged by their illnesses. I recently received an e-mail from someone who is struggling to bring a bit of light to the tragedy of Fr. [Michael] Labadie’s death. I want to share an excerpt from it, and then to offer some comments of my own, in presentation of the Church’s teaching. The person wrote to me, in part, as follows:

“Church members who work with me have met me in the hallway, restrooms etc. have exclaimed, "But he was a priest! How could this happen?" My first reaction is to explode, but then I get my composure and try to educate them in a more gentler way. (I can't begin to address the topic that priests are human too…) Even after this, these individuals only remember our early teachings in religion classes that suicide is a mortal sin and you go to Hell for it. I pray for the Labadie family because they will face even more judgmental comments since their son was a priest.”

This is certainly, and very unfortunately, true. We all remember when suicide and many other things were classified as mortal sins, any one of which, even once, could consign a person to Hell. What was the context out of which this view emanated?

Until very recently, it was believed that actions done were actions chosen with sufficient freedom to make them sinful, and the person was by definition morally culpable (blameworthy). This is the view that led people to believe that alcoholism, for example, was simply a moral weakness that a person could overcome with sufficient effort and desire. But when the Church began to take seriously the insights of psychology, it became clear that our freedom to choose is often far more limited and compromised than we had previously thought. We learned that there are more kinds of compulsions than external, physical ones.

We learned also that mental illnesses like depression or bi-polar disorder can lead to behaviors that usually are seen as malicious when in fact they are the acting-out of the disease, often with little or no free choice involved in the persons, who cannot understand why they are compelled to feel and act as they do.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church recognizes all of this. Its teaching is clear. Suicide, if freely chosen, is indeed “gravely contrary to the just love of self,” and is mortally sinful. We can rationalize our way to evil, and it remains evil. Yet, the Catechism also teaches: “Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide. We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. …God can provide…” (CCC ##2281-2283). We know two things for certain: “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matt. 7:1), and God is a God of love, mercy, forgiveness and healing.

Priests are human beings and are subject to illnesses of all kinds, physical and emotional. When a priest (especially a priest whose intense desire is to be holy and to be united with God forever in Jesus Christ) commits suicide, therefore, it is the strongest evidence that the disease took over the person, much as cancer or heart disease might. What I am saying here applies in general terms also to others, not ordained, who succumb to the ravages of mental illnesses of whatever kind. The choice is not free, and to the extent it is not free, to that extent it is not mortally sinful (even if it is devastating).

The Gospel for the 14th Sunday of Cycle A (Matthew 11:25-30, just this past Sunday) reminds us that Jesus calls us all, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will give you rest.” Sometimes the burdens we carry, self-inflicted or laid on us by circumstances, are too great to be relieved in this world. As Jesus is the one who makes the promise, though, He will be the ultimate source of eternal healing for us all: those who suffer from mental illnesses (even leading to suicide), those who suffer physically (from diseases like cancer or diabetes or cerebral palsy), and those who struggle morally with temptations like materialism, lust for power, self-centeredness of any kind. Our God is an awesome God, who can take us all up in His hands—to bless, to heal, to love. May we all fall into those hands!

CLOSURE?

2011-07-21T05:37:00.000-05:00

The emotional buzz-word supporting the execution of criminals convicted of capital crimes is "closure," in the sense that the families of the victims cannot find "peace" until the perpetrator is dead.

Texas has recently given us a twist on this theme: the "closure" sought by a victim is rejected in favor of execution. Why is this? Whose "justice" is being sacrificed? What kinds of "rehabilitation" are being rejected? Why are forgiveness and reconciliation and conversion less important than what might fairly be seen (rightly or wrongly) as state-sanctioned blood lust?

If the survivor of this rampage was able to find peace and closure through forgiveness, in fact producing in the criminal a seeming change of heart, opening them to the possibility of reconciliation: what is there left for the State to do, to ensure "justice"?

We are better than this...

MAN AMONG MEN

2011-07-17T20:26:00.001-05:00

It is hard for me to think of another man whose dedication has spared more bloodshed than any single other person other than Nelson Mandela. His 93rd birthday is a triumph for the principle of reconciliation and forgiveness in the post-apartheid era of South Africa. He, along with Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu (and, less famously, Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Denis Hurley), established the idea that retribution (aka, a bloodbath) was not the way of the future for their nation. No better recipients for the Nobel Peace Prize could be found.

Here is a vision that could have been turned into hatred during the years of imprisonment he endured; instead, he became a statesman in the fullest and best sense of the term, making a State of his country that people could admire.

Is everything perfect in South Africa? No--it is not "paradise" by any stretch. Unemployment, rampant HIV/AIDS and other social ills plague the country. But it is also the country that created and modeled for the world the "Truth and Reconciliation Commissions" that allowed the people there to side-step the evils of the kind of violence that erupted, for example, in Rwanda (and in a different way in Sudan).

What Would Jesus Do?" (WWJD) has been a popular mantra for many who (honestly) never had to face a life-threatening challenge to their faith. Nelson Mandela showed us in practice what Jesus would do: he led his nation in the ways of the Sermon on the Mount--turning the other cheek, loving one's enemies, going the 2nd mile, doing good to those who persecute; forgiving "70 times 7 times" (yes, I'm aware that this last example isn't from Matt 5-7; it still applies).

Do politics and religion mix? Should they? Here's a powerful answer, as well as powerful challenge.

RESTING IN PEACE

2011-07-16T05:55:00.000-05:00

Abbreviations are a part of life—ask anyone who is addicted to texting—and a part of death. There are many kinds of abbreviations to be found in cemeteries: on headstones or monuments, in Roman necropolises and catacombs, and so on.

An abbreviation frequently seen in Roman funerary monuments is DM, Diis Manibus, an invocation to the gods of the lower world, asking for gentleness and mercy for the person whose remains are in this spot (I write in this way because for most of the first centuries after Christ pagan Roman practice typically was cremation). Christians, it turns out, adopted this shorthand as well—evidently it had become so much a standard (I almost said cliché) that its pagan meaning was pretty well dissolved.

Another inscription often seen is DOM, Deo Optimo Maximo—to God the greatest and highest. Originally this was a title for Jupiter in the Roman pantheon of deities. A temple to Jupiter under this title was built on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. This site is very near to the location of the huge white marble monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II, which also bears tribute to the “Unknown Italian Soldier” with its eternal flame and honor guard (much like Arlington National Cemetery).
Again, Christians had no problem adopting this title for the Judaeo-Christian God, and it was sometimes also applied to Christ, when the translation offered was Domino Optimo Maximo, to the Lord (Jesus) as opposed to God in the "pure" sense).

Of much greater familiarity to most of us is the famous RIP, Requiescat In Pace, may he/she rest in peace. In translation it is used as a significant part of the Rite of Commendation in Catholic funerals.

All of this leads me to a slight twist, for this past Sunday I spent a good part of the late morning and early afternoon in cemeteries in Chicago. I always say that visiting here is not typically what I do first, but it is always “Job 1” on my list of things to do. The drill is very simple: I bring flowers, and I go to Fairmount first because it is nearer. There are my Mom’s parents’ and my sister-in-law’s parents’ graves. I trim the grass around the headstones, wash them a bit, place the flowers, and pray commendation prayers for each of them. Then I head to Resurrection, where most of my Dad’s family is buried. But I go to my parents’ and baby brother’s graves. I perform the same ritual, but with an addition: I open up a lawn chair, facing the graves and under a tree, and pray a Rosary for them. And in all the times I’ve done this (six years now) this is the moment of greatest peace for me. And in this sense I live the RIP on the headstones with another meaning—it is the peace promised by Jesus in the “Farewell Discourse” of John’s Gospel, the peace the world cannot give, the peace we are to offer each other before we receive the Lord in the Eucharist at Mass.

In whatever way, I hope everyone can find a special place of peace to rest in sometimes. It is the goal of all retreats, after all, and Jesus understood this need. After the disciples returned from a missionary expedition, He said to them, “Let’s go away by ourselves and rest for a while.” Of course it didn’t work out that way for Jesus (crowds followed), but He understood (and understands) what is important. I am glad that I have such places to go to sometimes, but Resurrection Cemetery is far and away the place where I can best “rest in peace,” even if only for a couple of hours.

This is a "companion piece" of sorts to the post previous; it is also on the "Pastor's Corner" portion of the parish's web-site: www.oursaviorparish.org. Check out that site for different bits of writing.

WILL TODAY BE THE DAY?

2011-07-10T08:11:00.000-05:00

It’s a bit morbid, perhaps, especially on this weekly celebration of the Resurrection, but doing my power-walking in St Mary’s Cemetery in Evergreen Park (where I’ve run/walked for 20+ years in the summers) leads me to reflections on my own mortality (which we all share, needless to say, even when we steadfastly choose to ignore the fact). Driving to and from my sister’s house in Rockford yesterday on the Tri-State Toll-way, I-290, and the Northwest Toll-way only encourages this line of thinking!

Death is the great equalizer, the ecumenicist of existence, the arbiter of ethnic conflicts. In this cemetery, virtually side-by-side, one can find names like Kovacic, Rodriguez, Aylward, Moynihan, Steib, Matusek, or Cavallini. All with headstones marked either DOM or RIP or some other phrase of hope and prayerful love (“Together forever” for a married couple, for example). Some of these graves are full-fledged family mausoleums; others are monuments or simple headstones. And there is an entire section of cemetery-maintained mausoleums, as well.

So: how would I want my remains be dealt with? Or how will they (whether I want it or not) in fact be laid to rest? So many options—
Would I prefer interment or cremation, and why?
Would I want a mausoleum or a grave?
What would I want on the headstone that would mark who I have been and am?
Where would the funeral and burial take place?
Who would come? Who would preside/preach? What would be sung?

Bl Charles de Foucauld had a number of “mottos,” and one especially stands out as appropriate for my meditation: Live today as though you were going to die this evening. Many sacristies have a similar exhortation to priests: Celebrate this Mass as though it were your first Mass, your last Mass, your only Mass.

Epitaphs are notoriously tricky, but I think that (beyond my name and dates) I would like this quote from St Monnica (yes, that’s how she spelled it; her tomb in Sant' Agostino church in Rome is pictured above), found in her son’s Confessions:
…all I ask is that wherever you may be, you will remember me at the Lord’s altar.

And in the long run, this is really enough, after all.

Enjoy the excerpt from Gabriel Faure's heavenly Requiem...

MASS, CALLING AND SENDING

2011-07-07T13:10:00.000-05:00

Being “World Mission Sunday,” many parishes have guest preachers in their sanctuaries to speak about the history, successes and failures, and prospects of the missionary activity of the Church throughout the world.

Of course there is the traditional 2nd collection for World Missions; some folks think that offering a bit of cash is what is expected of them in this regard. How wrong they (we) are!

The key is language. The Mass ends with the words (in Latin): Ite, missa est. A reasonable translation of this is: Go, it is the sending. Paraphrased: Let’s go—it’s mission-time!

One can easily see that the words “Mass” and “mission” are related in their etymology. We send all kinds of types at Our Savior during Sunday Eucharist: children for “Children’s Liturgy of the Word,” RCIA catechumens (often with candidates), special ministers of Holy Communion to the sick, families receiving the Elijah Cup for prayer for vocations… Then the whole congregation is sent out.

Mass is the time of fueling up in order to be sent out.

We, every one of us, have a mission: to spread the Good News to others by the quality of our lives in Christ. If you like, the overall “mission” of the Church (its reason for existence) is not so much to be a haven for those who are (or who want to be) saved, as some triumphalists would like to think; it is not so much a hospital for the spiritually wounded, as St Augustine described it; rather, it is a training ground for “guerilla warfare” against the only Enemy who really matters. And even if all are not majors or colonels or generals, we’re all (at least) NCOs who have enlisted to defeat this Enemy.

Here is the mission of the Church: to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ, and at the same time undercut and defeat the Bad News of the Enemy. Again, this is done primarily by “crying the Gospel with our lives” (Bl Charles de Foucauld).

If the words of Jesus are true (“You have not chosen Me; I have chosen you…”), then we are not only sent, we have also beforehand been called. And we have said YES (with one level of enthusiasm/commitment or another)—so we have been given the uniform and are now part of the action.
We don’t have to earn a Silver Star; we just must not go AWOL…

Happy Sunday, fellow-Missionaries!!

Pictured above: the right arm of the greatest of all Jesuit missionaries, enshrined in Il Gesù in Rome).

THE MESSAGE AND THE MESSENGER

2011-06-29T06:38:00.000-05:00

The newly-named archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola, is quoted in a recent blog-post as saying, in part:

…I believe that the Christian proposal is particularly relevant now, because if we read the Gospel we see it revolves around the theme of happiness and freedom. Jesus said that if you wish to be happy, come and follow me, and he who follows me will be truly free. It inserts the dynamic of truth, goodness and beauty within the horizon of happiness and freedom.
So when the Christian proposal is freed from the many things that weigh it down because of the contradictions and sins in the men and women of the church, and is re-proposed in its youthful simplicity as an encounter with a humanity made whole by Christ, then it is more relevant than ever....
Certainly, Christianity implies a doctrine and a moral teaching, but they are incarnated in the life of a person and in the life of a community. Therefore, if I practice the Christian life for what it is – ‘the good life’ which the Gospel documents and witnesses to, then I can go and dialogue with everyone....”

There is a fundamental and important truth to this statement. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take a great deal of insight to understand all that comes under the phrase “the contradictions and sins in the men and women of the church.” And this is the core of the real problem (which in politics is simply labeled ‘credibility’): how does one effectively (even partially) separate the message from the messenger?

If, as Cardinal Scola states, the Christian proclamation is “incarnated in the life of a person and in the life of a community,” then the quality of the proclamation is either enhanced or damaged by the quality of that incarnation in me/you/us. Tertullian long ago in the 2nd century asserted that Christians were known for the way they loved each other. We proclaim that in a hymn from the 1960s/1970s that is still sung today. But when it is not true that we love the Lord and others, when we become known for other behaviors instead, then we become anti-evangelists and signs of contradiction of a kind unimagined by Simeon (Luke 2:34).

Perhaps this is why Bl Charles de Foucauld insisted that the best evangelization is to “cry the Gospel with one’s life.” In fact, this may be the only proper and true evangelization in today’s world (see I Peter 3:15)—be ready to speak, but wait to be asked, and live so as to encourage the asking…

PERSONS, PLACES & THINGS

2011-06-26T06:01:00.000-05:00

A famous episode of M*A*S*H has a young pilot talking about how wonderful the war is for him. Roughly, as I remember it, he says, "I fly around 45,000 feet, and it's so beautiful and peaceful up there; I drop my payload and head back to Japan, and my wife is there. It's really great." When Hawkeye gets him into the 4077's ER to help as an orderly, and he sees the destruction of human life (especially to a child) that bombs produce, he is deeply shaken. And Hawkeye tells him (again, I am quoting roughly, from memory), "Look, you're a decent person; too decent to believe there's ever any such thing as a 'clean war.'"

This is a lesson we need to be reminded of, as human beings on this planet: it is perilously easy for me to ignore nameless and faceless persons, to dismiss them by making them anonymous parts of a larger group that can be dismissed, or turning them into objects instead of brothers or sisters. If I regard someone as "the enemy" or "a drunk" or "a gypsie" (especially in Rome) or "an illegal alien," then I am fully justified (in my mind) in ignoring or despising that person.

Sometimes the kind of distancing we place between ourselves and others is inevitable (perhaps even necessary): can I possibly encounter every single victim of, for example, the earthquake and tsumani in Japan, or the tornadoes in Alabama, or the flooding in North Dakota, and have true empathy with each one? No, I cannot. And so because of the problem of either being emotionally overwhelmed by the tragedy or the impossibility of the numbers involved, I detach. I can turn the page of the newspaper or do another search on my computer and find something more pleasant, less problematic.

But perhaps I can encounter one person and have that relationship change my view of the grouping he or she is supposedly a member of. This can happen, as the story link below suggests. When it does, there is a break-through that can lead from hatred to regard, and even (perhaps) to reconciliation and peace...

It is very easy to hate and kill "the enemy." It is much, much harder to hate or kill "Dan" or "Mohammed" once you have met him as a person. As the motto of our Mobile Christian-Jewish Dialogue puts it, "Hands that reach will touch."

LEAD ME, LORD

2011-06-25T10:46:00.000-05:00

Our trip to Italy was one of spiritual focus as well as of sight-seeing and meals. Ours was the privilege of celebrating the Eucharist in some extraordinarily special places—

We were in the Blessed Sacrament chapel of Santa Chiara in Assisi, as well as in the upper basilica of San Francesco;
We were in the house of St Catherine of Siena;
We were in the Eucharistic miracle chapel of the Cathedral of Orvieto;
We were in an ancient church on the island of Capri and the Cathedral of Sorrento;
We were in the crypt-chapel of Monte Cassino, just below the tombs of Ss Benedict and Scholastica;
We were in special chapels in Santa Prassede, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and the crypt of St Peter’s in Rome.

These are all extremely imposing edifices, but their beauty is overshadowed by their age and tradition—from Apostolic times through the rise of monasticism to the renewal of the Church and the healing of divisions in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it is both humbling and renewing to be there and know that we can take part (active part) in this long heritage: in fact, we are called to do so.

Sharing food and drink at our regular meals was “eucharistic” in its own way, as well: after all, it was at a supper that Jesus gave us Himself in the Sacrament. This means that every meal can be for us a “sacramental,” a reminder of His total self-giving love for us. Surely that’s why grace before meals is such an important tradition (one we share, of course, with other religions—most especially our Jewish brothers and sisters).

Travel is exhausting, but it is good because it reminds us of the fact that ultimately we are all pilgrims, and our goal, our homeland, is not here (see Hebrews 13:14). Some of the “inns” we find are delightful, but they are rest-stops, not our destination. As St Augustine put it, “Sing, but continue walking.”

[NOTE: The picture above is of the base of the obelisk in the center of the piazza in front of St Peter's in Rome. For more images of our pilgrimage, see my Facebook page.]

IN VIAGGIO

2011-06-10T09:09:00.000-05:00

Today I am taking a group of 40 folks to Italy. The 12-day trip will include Assisi, Siena, Orvieto, Sorrento, Monte Cassino and Rome. We'll be celebrating Eucharist in some extremely memorable and special places, we'll be enjoying Italian cuisine, and we'll be visiting important and beautiful sites all over.

The joy of being in Assisi never gets old for me--and I have been there literally over 40 times. It has a magical "air" of peace and prayer about it that I have experienced nowhere else.

Completely opposite to that is Rome's open-air market at the Campo de' Fiori--noisy, crowded, shoving and pushing, laughing: chaotic Italy at its finest.

These are two of my favorite places in the universe!

Pictures will follow eventually. Meanwhile, the image here is of a portrait almost certainly painted by someone who knew Francis--it's the oldest image of him that we have, located in a monastery in Subiaco, outside Rome.

UNITY IN THE MYSTERIES

2011-06-05T06:36:00.000-05:00

Retreats are wonderful times for reflective prayer, and for me a great vehicle for this is the Rosary, especially in my car on the highway or during Adoration. So it was natural for me to pick up my beads during Adoration on our retreat this past week. And since they’re so new, I decided to enter into the Luminous Mysteries that Bl Pope John Paul II developed:

The Baptism of the Lord The Wedding at Cana
Preaching the Kingdom The Transfiguration Instituting the Eucharist

I am not claiming a “unity” of all five of these under any one rubric (other than that of revelation of Christ and His mission), but a thought did come to me that I think is worth offering (and which may well wind up being a thought that many have already had).

Most every student of the New Testament knows that there is an intimate connection between the accounts of the Institution of the Eucharist and the accounts of the multiplication of loaves and fish. The same language of “take, bless/give thanks, break and give” can be found in both; the multiplication is the only miracle of Jesus recorded in all four Gospels; and the long meditation on the “Bread of Life” in John 6 makes the connection explicit for the Fourth Evangelist and his community.

Most students also realize that the 120-180 gallons of wine miraculously produced by Jesus at the wedding in Cana (six stone water jars, each holding 20-30 gallons) was a sign to the disciples of Messianic presence because of the quantity: it revealed the expected abundance of the Kingdom.

For the first time, though, these signs came together for me, and I realized that the Eucharist is the fulfillment of abundance of both these signs: all the thousands fed by the five barley loaves multiplied, all the gallons of wine for the wedding—foretastes of banquet in which the abundance is that of Jesus Himself given to us. At the closing Mass for World Youth Day 2000 in the field of Tor Vergata, just outside Rome, over 2 million people were fed with the Bread of Life: an awesome event to be sure, yet small enough when considering those all over the world coming to the Sacrament on that day: every day…

It is impossible for me to think of the events of the Last Supper without being convinced that Jesus was aware of His imminent death and was confident in triumphing through it. And the Evangelists share their own conviction with us in differing ways: “Look at the wine and bread and what He did; see what He does with it now for you,” John says. “At Emmaus they recognized him in the breaking of the bread; you can too,” Luke says. “He is with us always,” Matthew says. All this is because of the power of the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit can transform the doubt-filled and fear-filled disciples into the courageous preachers and martyrs we know as the Apostles, it is a small enough thing to transform the bread and wine, as well. And He does the 2nd in order to empower us to be like the 1st: people of faith.

Sr Emerita back in 3rd grade would always tell us: “It’s a mystery.” It was her answer to every theological conundrum we could pose her. And she was right all along. Below is a recording of the anthem "O Taste and See" by Ralph Vaughn Williams for your listening pleasure. Enoy, and happy Ascension Sunday!

IS ABORTION ABOUT SEX? PROBABLY NOT...

2011-05-30T06:36:00.000-05:00

In an essay in the current issue of America (May 23, 2011), John Kavanaugh muses on the philosophical viewpoint of Ayn Rand, author of influential novels such as Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Hers is a view that celebrates the individual and narcissistic self-seeking to the extent, Kavanaugh suggests, of making narcissism a virtue--one that he believes is at risk of becoming the dominant one in American life.

This leads me to wonder about the ways in which abortion (to take one of many examples) is defended--almost irrationally--in American society. Is it really all about being able to have sex with whomever one wants, without any of the "consequences" for which acts of intercourse are naturally ordered? In part it is, but I think it is only one layer of the answer. Really, it seems that the larger picture is one in which I can do anything I want to please myself, and whoever dies with the most toys wins. Sexual gratification is only one of the "toys."

What is the opposite of such a view? The "enemy" according to Rand is the "collective," the society structured on mindless obedience, like an ant farm (think of the scene in The Once and Future King) or a beehive, with all workers subservient to a queen bee--like the world of Stalin's Russia. And this is truly a horrible vision of life: the individual has no purpose other than the progress of the State (rather like the orcs of Sauron's Mordor). It is a nightmarish vision. But it is not the only alternative.

When giving a talk a couple of Sundays ago on "Catholic Social Teaching" I referred to Pope John Paul II's encyclical Centesimus Annus, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum and the fall of communism in eastern and central Europe. The Pope had harsh criticism for the view of the collective that communism represented. But he had equally harsh words for capitalism (this made some in the audience uncomfortable). Insofar as both views are ultimately materialistic, they are opposite sides of the same coin: one exalts the individual at all costs, and the other rejects the individual in the name of the State.

But there is a third alternative. Just as Rollo May long ago (Love and Will) suggested that love and hate are not opposites but also two sides of the same coin, with apathy as the true opposite, so also in this case there is a true alternative to narcissistic self-absorption or the mindless collective. To quote Kavanaugh:
As the French philosopher Jacques Maritain pointed out long ago, the only authentic alternative is a community of persons.

In theological terms, this is the three-fold image of the Church found in Vatican II's Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium): to be citizens of the People of God, members of the Body of Christ, living stones in the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Where do the individual and society best come together in this balance? Ideally speaking, in a family, or in a monastery...

"I" is, but "I" is not all there is.

THE END OF TIME

2011-05-24T16:22:00.000-05:00

For all those who were disappointed by the failure of The End to take place this past weekend, and for all those somehow still thinking that the new date (21 Oct) is less likely to disappoint, perhaps a primer from Jesus' words in St Mark's Gospel (chapter 13) might be of help:

See that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name saying, 'I am he,' and they will deceive many. When you hear of wars and reports of wars do not be alarmed; such things must happen, but it will not yet be the end.

False messiahs and false prophets will arise...in order to mislead, if that were possible, even the elect.

But of that day or hour, no one knows...

Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.

What I say to you, I say to all: Watch!

Taking a cue from C. S. Lewis, I interpret Jesus' discourse above very simply:

1. There will be an End.
2. You cannot possibly know when.
3. Therefore, be prepared.
4. "Prepared" means being a person of prayer and active love of others.

Doing this, we will be ready for any "End" or "Rapture" that would come from our Lord. And if we are "left behind" while being this kind of disciple, then is where the others are going really where we'd want to go, anyway?!

Still, there is a certain attractiveness (and perhaps also fearful resignation) in the idea of the End of Time, especially as it must have been experienced by those in the POW and concentration camps of Nazi Germany. One such person (who survived) was the French composer Olivier Messiaen. While in Gorlitz camp he wrote his Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps, or Quarter for the end of Time. Attached here is the sublime final movement, entitled Louange a l'immortalite de Jesus ("Praise to the Immortality of Jesus")...

YOUTH AND PEACE 2012

2011-05-20T10:15:00.000-05:00

This is from the Vatican web-site, posted on 5-19-11-- with my comment below:

The Holy Father Benedict XVI has chosen the following theme for the celebration of the 45th World Day of Peace of January 1, 2012: "Educating Young People in Justice and Peace". The theme engages an urgent need in the world today: to listen to and enhance the important role of new generations in the realization of the common good, and in the affirmation of a just and peaceful social order where fundamental human rights can be fully expressed and realized.

In fact, there is a duty incumbent upon the present generation to prepare future ones, and creating for them the conditions that will allow these future generations to express freely and responsibly the urgency for a "new world." The Church welcomes young people and sees them as the sign of an ever promising springtime, and holds out Jesus to them as the model of love who "makes all things new" (Ap. 21,5).

Those responsible for public policy are called to work for the creation of institutions, laws and environments of life that are permeated by a transcendent humanism that offers new generations opportunities to fully realize themselves (e.g. decent job, education etc.) and to build a civilization of fraternal love directed toward a more profound awareness of truth, freedom, of love and of justice for all persons.

This, then, is the prophetic dimension of the theme chosen by the Holy Father in the path of the "pedagogy of peace" indicated by John Paul II in 1985 ("Peace and Youth Go Forward Together"), in 1979 («To Reach Peace, Teach Peace"), and in 2004 ("An Ever Timely Commitment: Teaching Peace").

Young persons must labour for justice and peace in a complex and globalized world. It is therefore necessary to establish a new "pedagogical alliance" among all those responsible for the education and formation of young people. The theme indicates an important area of concern in the teaching of Benedict XVI in his Messages for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace, beginning with the need for the truth (2006: "In Truth, Peace"), followed with the reflections on human dignity (2007: "The Human Person, the Heart of Peace"), on the human family (2008: "The Human Family, a Community of Peace"), on poverty (2009: "Fighting Poverty to Build Peace"), on the care for creation (2010: "If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation"), on religious freedom (2011: "Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace"), and now talking to the minds and beating hearts of young people: "Educating Young People in Justice and Peace".

Let me add that Our Savior's youth do a wonderful job of living the vocation of peace through service (aka, "active love"), and I pray that perhaps they can teach us adults more about being people of peace by being "hands-on" Christians as so many of them are.

LIFE AND DEATH AND RELATIONSHIPS

2011-05-19T11:17:00.000-05:00

Today there will be another execution in the State of Alabama. This time the man is Jason Williams, who in 1992 gunned down 4 people in a rage sparked by an unstable relationship with his estranged wife. He claims he was out of control at the time of the killing, high on drugs and alcohol. But his actions claimed four other innocent lives.

Relationships make this case the harder: one of those killed was a man who took Williams in and offered him shelter. The other three victims were members of a family, living nearby. And of course the relationship with his wife was problematic.

But there is one more relationship in this case, one that touches me in a personal way: a friend and member of Our Savior parish is a friend of his. She called me last night to pray for him, not knowing that I will in fact be at the prayer vigil in front of the Cathedral this afternoon, praying for him, his victims, their families: and for his friend at Our Savior as well. Even murderers have friends and family…

I am completely convinced that there is no necessity for our State to engage in executions of murderers in order to serve the cause of justice. I believe this, regardless of the guilt of the one convicted of the crime—which in this case, as in many others, there is really no doubt. Are there extenuating circumstances? Perhaps there are. But he in fact took 4 lives, including that of a man who was trying to be his friend. And in the name of justice, there must be some punishment. Especially if there is no reasonable hope of rehabilitation, society and the surviving members of these families deserve to be protected. Life in prison with no possibility of parole can accomplish this.

I will witness this afternoon in prayer to the hope that we can overcome our willingness, as a society, to confuse retribution with revenge. I refuse to believe that taking a life is the only way of punishing a person for taking a life. Individually and as a State, we are (and should act as though we are) better than those who have such lack of regard for the fundamental dignity of the human person. We must remember that even murderers retain this fundamental dignity, no matter how bad their crimes.

Other states and other nations get along quite well without the death penalty. One day, please God, Alabama will as well.

COMMUNITY AND CONTINUITY

2011-05-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

I just returned from a drive up to St Peter’s parish in Montgomery, to concelebrate the funeral Mass of Greg Walker. There is a tremendous amount of “back-story” that is appropriate here…
My first year of teaching at Montgomery Catholic HS (the fall of 1974) was to classes of 9th and 11th graders; Greg was Junior Class President that year. When I had some issues with them in 3rd quarter of that year, I turned to Greg to break down and sort out the issues, and he helped me come to a solution. This is a class a bonded with, especially with the boys (a boy-dominated class it was, for sure)—and particularly as I had them for 12th grade as well (when Greg was elected SGA President). His wife, Mary Stanaland, was also in that class. When I returned to St Bede as Pastor their children were in St Bede school and Catholic HS, and Mary was teaching kindergarten. It was like old-home week, because of them and many others.

So it was not surprising how many people I saw at this funeral that I have known for 35 years and more: parents as well as former students, and now their spouses and children and their children’s spouses. The line for receiving Holy Communion was beautiful to me, and painful as well, knowing how many people’s lives Greg impacted, and how much he will be missed.

In his homily, Fr Pat Driscoll emphasized over and over again the centrality of community in Catholic life. And that is what was represented in St Peter’s today: long-term community, the community of faithfulness to others and to the Lord that gave a real glimpse into the Body of Christ and the Kingdom of God. And for me it represented also the continuity of all those years of inter-action, regard, and of living through all the “prayers, works, joys and sorrows of the day”: and of the years. As people say, “We have history.”

Greg longed to remain connected, and the numbers that showed up today (and last night for the wake which I could not attend) attest to the fact of his success. And it leads to important questions for us: “With whom are we connected?” “Why?” “What is the ‘glue’ that bonds us to anyone else?” “Who is the Lord, and what is the Faith, in our lives?”

Today, Greg’s answers to these questions were manifest. How about ours?

THE ENDURANCE OF HATE; THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE

2011-05-07T22:47:00.000-05:00

Years ago, longshoreman-turned-philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote an important book entitled The True Believer, described as an analysis of the mind-set of the fanatic. His insights are still (and especially) relevant today in the face of the global conflict of ideology between radical Islamists and pretty well everyone else in the world. A sobering statistic: if indeed 90% of all Muslims worldwide are humble, peaceful, faith-filled and devout, still—10% of a billion is a lot of Islamists.

The conviction of a fanatic is that his view is so right that all other views, to whatever degree they diverge from his, are therefore not only wrong but deserving of being stamped out as dangerous, or heretical, or evil. By definition, then, the view of the fanatic alone is true. There is no possibility that a fanatic can be 80% correct and therefore have tolerance for those who are also correct to some degree: the true believer is always 100% correct, and so his opponents (or those whom he perceives as opponents) are 100% wrong. It is a clear view, simple to understand, and uncomplicated by the subtleties and ambiguities that if faced could imply the need for some vague sort of compromise with wrong—this the true believer can never tolerate.

All this is a long way of saying that one anti-terrorist raid is a far cry from the elimination of terror, and (to steal the title of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s book) there is no future without forgiveness (and reconciliation, and healing).

We see Islamists as fanatics; do we realize we are seen the same way by them? They were dancing in celebration when 9/11 happened, and it offended us to the bone; what do they see when we celebrate the killing of their leader? They reckon us to be economic imperialists who also are purveyors of pornography (aka, Western ‘culture’). On what basis do we refute those charges as false?

I have no magic wand for ending the enmity. But I am convinced that violence and counter-violence will never end it. But I do want to end this blog-post with a quote from the Catholic Liturgy, the Opening Prayer from the "Mass for Peace and Justice":

God of perfect peace, violence and cruelty can have no place with you. May those who are at peace with one another hold fast to the good will that unites them; may those who are enemies forget their hatred and be healed.

Let the Church say AMEN!

And please enjoy the movement below from the Gloria of Antonio Vivaldi--the movement "Et in terra pax" (and peace on earth). For those who listen carefully, you will hear the tension of notes that clash briefly and then resolve--Vivaldi's way of showing, musically, that the peace of Christ is "not as the world gives peace"...

BURIAL AT SEA

2011-05-03T18:02:00.000-05:00

I believe the world is a different place without Osama bin Laden among us.

I believe his killing has not accomplished the much larger and far more important goal, the defusing of terrorist ideology directed against the United States and Israel.

You may cut off the head of the Hydra, but it grows multiple new ones in its place. Frodo destroyed the One Ring and Sauron, yet Saruman was still capable of much “mischief.”

I find it impossible to rejoice that he has been killed, even though I am relieved that he is gone. I rather lament that he existed at all (at least, as he became). See the Vatican link here to understand what I'm struggling with...

MORE GLORIOUS THAN THE SURGINGS OF THE SEA...

2011-04-25T20:15:00.000-05:00

Walking on the beach at Destin in twilight-night: surf pounding (tide coming in), red and purple flags flying, sky clouding up & darkening in the SE (the direction of the gusting wind)...

"Man is the measure of all things." Protagoras believed this; Plato challenged it. Let anyone who thinks this simply join me in walking the beach and realize that we are not "the measure," we are not "in charge." Let them read Psalm 93 again and glory in the One who is truly in and over and above all things...

O DEUS EGO AMO TE

2011-04-22T11:08:00.000-05:00

A blessed Good Friday to all!

O God, I love thee, I love thee—

Not out of hope of heaven for me
Nor fearing not to love and be
     In the everlasting burning.
Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me
Didst each thine arms out dying,
For my sake sufferedst nails and lance,
Mocked and marred countenance,
    Sorrows passing number,
    Sweat and care and cumber,
Yea and death, and this for me,
     And thou couldst see me sinning:
Then I, why should not I love thee,
Jesu, so much in love with me?
Not for heaven’s sake; not to be
Out of hell by loving thee;
Not for any gains I see;
But just the way that thou didst me
I do love and I will love thee;
What must I love thee, Lord, for then?
For being my kind and God. Amen.

                  --Gerard Manley Hopkins

THE PRIESTLY CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP

2011-04-21T06:24:00.000-05:00

Below are the closing thoughts of Pope Benedict's homily at the Chrism Mass earlier today. They are worth a bit of prayerful meditation for us all today: what kind of Church do we want to be? What kind of Catholic are we willing to be? How will our discipleship, our participation in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, make a difference in the Church and in the world?

Christians are a priestly people for the world. Christians should make the living God visible to the world, they should bear witness to him and lead people towards him. When we speak of this task in which we share by virtue of our baptism, it is no reason to boast. It poses a question to us that makes us both joyful and anxious: are we truly God’s shrine in and for the world? Do we open up the pathway to God for others or do we rather conceal it? Have not we – the people of God – become to a large extent a people of unbelief and distance from God? Is it perhaps the case that the West, the heartlands of Christianity, are tired of their faith, bored by their history and culture, and no longer wish to know faith in Jesus Christ? We have reason to cry out at this time to God: "Do not allow us to become a ‘non-people’! Make us recognize you again! Truly, you have anointed us with your love, you have poured out your Holy Spirit upon us. Grant that the power of your Spirit may become newly effective in us, so that we may bear joyful witness to your message!

For all the shame we feel over our failings, we must not forget that today too there are radiant examples of faith, people who give hope to the world through their faith and love. When Pope John Paul II is beatified on 1 May, we shall think of him, with hearts full of thankfulness, as a great witness to God and to Jesus Christ in our day, as a man filled with the Holy Spirit. Alongside him, we think of the many people he beatified and canonized, who give us the certainty that even today God’s promise and commission do not fall on deaf ears.

I turn finally to you, dear brothers in the priestly ministry. Holy Thursday is in a special way our day. At the hour of the last Supper, the Lord instituted the new Testament priesthood. "Sanctify them in the truth" (Jn 17:17), he prayed to the Father, for the Apostles and for priests of all times. With great gratitude for the vocation and with humility for all our shortcomings, we renew at this hour our "yes" to the Lord’s call: yes, I want to be intimately united to the Lord Jesus, in self-denial, driven on by the love of Christ. Amen.

The Triduum is about to begin--the "great event of our salvation" (Preface II for Passion of the Lord) is upon us. May this "3-Day day" be a source of growth in love and dedication for us all!

LITTLE REMINDERS

2011-04-20T16:07:00.000-05:00

First of all, in the interests of full disclosure (as they say)—I am remembering to write this essay because of a “little reminder” note that I wrote and put into my shirt pocket. I’m very proud of myself that I remembered to find and read the note before I put the shirt into the laundry (after that, only to wonder what I’d written on the wad of pulp that was in the pocket after taking it out of the wash!).

The 18th century literary figure Dr Samuel Johnson once said he thought people needed far less to be taught, and far more simply to be reminded. I heartily concur.

When I was reading Encountering the Mystery by the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (part of my Lenten discipline), I encountered his example of offering Night Prayer for those people he’d encountered during the day. I was so impressed that I immediately resolved to do the same—if only I could remember to lift up those people in my life that day! Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t…

Finally (last week, actually) I had the brilliant idea of putting a small piece of paper into my Breviary at Night Prayer, so I would see it. It has two words on it: “For whom?” It’s my reminder that I want this particular prayer to be a prayer for the folks I’ve had contact with during the day; this works.

We all need “little reminders” during the day to be the kind of disciple we are called to be in the risen Lord. He has actually given us a “huge reminder” of both the call and the promise with the Resurrection. It is the ultimate sacrament of redemption: the outward sign of the interior grace that it makes effective by its very nature. Perhaps that’s why Easter itself is celebrated for eight days, and why the Easter season lasts for fifty days (ten more than Lent).

“Little reminders” can be all sorts of things: another in my Breviary is the sentence “All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time.” It’s from Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet In Heaven, but it’s in my Mom’s handwriting, and it was the key to the homily I preached six years ago for her funeral. It will never leave my prayer book—it’s a “little reminder” to me of so much that is important and central to my spiritual life.

What do you want/need to be reminded of? During this Easter season put out “little reminders” so you’ll never forget. We’re not necessarily bad people; we’re just absent- minded sometimes. We need the help (in theology this is known as “actual grace”). Let’s allow ourselves this blessing, and let’s always remember what needs to be recalled. “Little reminders” are really a gift from the Lord!

WHY IS THIS MOON DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHERS...?

2011-04-16T20:43:00.001-05:00

Looking up from the rectory patio as I prayed the Rosary, I saw the glorious sight of the planet Saturn just to the left of the almost full moon (you would notice, if you looked, that the moon’s lower left-hand area—“7:00”—is not quite complete). Such a pity: it’s almost Sunday. Why does this matter? Lacking only a few hours of being full, tonight might have been the Easter Vigil…

The calculations are complex, but the basic principle is that Easter falls on the 1^st Sunday after the 1^st full moon after the spring equinox. Tonight (Saturday, April 16) is almost it. But since it isn’t, Easter this year will be next Sunday, virtually its latest possible date.

Christians knew from the beginning that the timing of Passover was a part of the dating for Easter since the Gospels all agree that the Crucifixion took place around that time. Soon it became a major controversy: should Easter be dated solely on the basis of 14 Nisan, the Jewish date of Passover? Or should it always be on a Sunday (the Lord’s Day), since Christ rose on the 1^st day of the week? The former group came to be known as “Quartodecimans,” from the Latin word for “14.” But they did not prevail.

Just as a side note, if you were ever wondering why Eastern Orthodox Easter differs from Western Latin (= us) Easter (which this year it does not)—it’s because we measure the full moon from different spots on the globe, and so what becomes a full moon in one place is not necessarily full yet in the other. Amazing, isn’t it?

A JEWISH JESUS AND THE JEWS IN HOLY WEEK

2011-04-13T22:12:00.001-05:00

What do we, as Catholics, believe about the Jews? This question probably has at least two answers: first, what many Catholics may well believe; second, what the Catholic Church teaches. Let’s concentrate on the 2nd of these and leave any discrepancies to the consciences of those who think differently.

In the last 50+ years there has been a sea-change in attitudes expressed by the Catholic Church toward the Jews, and this has been not only all to the good but also utterly necessary. It begins by recognizing the obvious: Jesus was a Jew. It continues, centrally for us this week, with the admission that “the Jews” did not kill Jesus (slanders like “Christ-killers,” used for centuries which led to ghettos and pogroms and the Nazi ‘Final Solution,’ are just that: slanderous misuse of Scripture to justify hatred). Some Jews opposed Jesus; some Romans (particularly those in authority) also did. Many Jews supported Jesus; others were more than likely indifferent. In any event, this was an occurrence of the 1st century, not the 21st.

Are the Jews saved? Insofar as they are faithful to the Abrahamic covenant, then yes. St Paul tells us this (people need to read Romans 9-11 very carefully). Vatican II (in the document Nostra Aetate, paragraph 4) does so, as well. And the writings of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI confirm this. Will there be a great reconciliation in the messianic kingdom? Yes. But it is God’s place to achieve this, and so Catholics do not attempt to convert Jews, except in the sense of Bl Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who said: “Yes, I want to convert you: I convert a Jew to be a better Jew, I convert a Hindu to be a better Hindu, I convert a Muslim to be a better Muslim…”

A good word from the early preaching of the Church should help us here: Now I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did; but God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand…that his Messiah should suffer (Acts 3:17-18). St Paul again confirms this: …we speak of God’s wisdom…which none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (I Corinthians 2:7-8).

So let’s be completely clear: the passages in the Passion (especially in Matthew and John, which are ours for this liturgical year) in which there are cries for Jesus’ death cannot be applied to all Jews of that time, much less of today. It is no accident that those words will be proclaimed liturgically by the mouths of the Catholics at Mass on Palm Sunday and Good Friday: it is our sins for which Christ died.

So find your Jewish friends this week (in which they are celebrating Passover), and wish them “Good Pesach!” They are our elder brothers and sisters, and if Abraham is our father in faith (Eucharistic Prayer #1), it is from him that we (spiritually) and they (physically) both claim descent. May God bless us all this great week, and bring us all into the Kingdom. To modify the final cheer of the Seder slightly: Next year, together, in the New Jerusalem!!

[Footnote: the illustration above is of Marc Chagall's "White Crucifixion," housed in the Art Institute of Chicago, and one of most important works of religious-themed art in the 20th century.]

THE GOSPEL IN THE NEW AREOPAGUS

2011-04-10T06:39:00.000-05:00

It’s a scary kind of thing for me, to see myself on our parish’s website engaged in the daily Mass Liturgy of the Word, or in Bible study sessions, or our Lenten Stations of the Cross. But that is exactly what I can do, now that these things are being posted. We haven’t yet brought up a full Sunday Eucharist, but that’s also coming.

What’s the prime motivation for this? From the point of view of the person most responsible for this A/V project, it is to give our home-bound folks who have a computer some access to their own parish—so that they can feel a little bit more a part of the life of Our Savior even when they cannot get to church.

There is a secondary motivation, as well: by placing these moments from daily Mass also on YouTube, we hope that a word will get out to a broader audience than the 40-50 people who can make it to 8:30 am Mass here. People these days depend more and more on things like YouTube or Facebook or blogs or Twitter; if this is where they are, then the Gospel needs to be preached there, as well as in church. This is the message of Pope Benedict in his encouragement to use all the means of social communication available to bring Jesus Christ to the world.

Should I (or any priest) feel self-conscious or embarrassed about putting myself “out there” in this way? Well, it is scary, as I said above. But if I am not willing, perhaps I should not be willing to stand at the ambo to preach to a congregation of a few hundred on Sunday, either. If we priests do one, we should be willing to do the other.

So for now this is definitely a fledgling affair. Will it grow? Will it take off? In God’s time, with God’s grace, perhaps—but at least it’s out there. Who knows who just might stumble upon it while doing a search for something else, see it, like it, and perhaps find their way back to Christ? If a cup of cold water given will not fail to receive its reward (Mark 9:41), perhaps a YouTube clip might be the same…

IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS

2011-04-02T22:20:00.000-05:00

Despite his beliefs about Islam, [Terry] Jones said: "We're not Koran experts." He added that, "I would not consider myself an expert on the Bible."

Luke Jones, 29, said he and his father are "common people."
"We've not studied the Koran, but we still have an opinion. We're actually not educated. We're common people," said the son, who also is a pastor at the church.

The citation above can be examined in its context via the link provided. What is astounding is the admission that ignorance is no impediment to hate-filled action. They recognize that they do not understand what the Koran teaches, and they state they really do not even understand what the Bible teaches (though they think they are qualified to be pastors of a 'christian' denomination), Nevertheless, they feel justified enough in their ignorance to provoke an international incident.

Thank God I am not (nor do I wish to be) a part of the "common people" described above...

Some Christians doubt that Muslims are truly peace-loving because of the terrorists in the world. Why should Muslims think that Christians are peace-loving when such acts of hatred are perpetrated on what they hold sacred? No, burning a book is not the moral equivalent of blowing up oneself and perhaps 20 bystanders. But the internal attitude of is the same.

At the very least, if one wishes to think a religious text is a justification for intolerance, should not that person study the text to see if the prejudicial conclusion can be validated? In the case of the Dove Outreach Center, the answer is, "Why bother?"

TRUTH AND PEACE

2011-04-02T09:27:00.000-05:00

For those who believe in coincidences, perhaps that's what is happening to me right now: as I am asked to prepare the Ecumenism and Inter-Faith sections of the Archdiocesan report to the Holy See (as part of Archbishop Rodi's upcoming ad limina visit), we have just enjoyed a tremendously well-received presentation by Fr Dennis McManus for our Christian-Jewish Dialogue, and Pope Benedict has just announced more concretely his plan to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's inter-faith initiative at Assisi with an encounter of his own, striving to be a pilgrim of truth and a pilgrim of peace.

This desire is in great contrast to much of the world's news--it is filled (so it seems) with accounts of others who long for self instead of (sometimes in spite of) truth, and violence instead of peace.

From a Christian perspective, what is truth (no, I am not lampooning Pilate's famous question)? It is that which sets us free (John 8:32)--specifically, free from sin (v. 34-36). "Sin," for my purposes here, is that which places a person in a context of fundamental alienation: from God, others, and self. Truth, then, releases me from this alienation and allows me to live in right relationship with God and others, secure in the self-knowledge that I am first and foremost a child of God, that I am a brother or sister to others, that I am redeemed because I am loved.

How could a person in such a state of healing not also be a person of peace? It depends on what I mean be "peace." Peace, then, also needs to be described, and the best word to turn to for this is the Hebrew word shalom, embracing within its meaning the ideas of safety/security, well-being, sufficiency... Persons of peace are content with what/whom/where they are; they are also willing to allow others to be what/whom/where they are (always predicated on the notion that this state of peace will be mutual).

How can I live in peace with others if there is a different vision of truth in them? It's not too hard, if we would only be willing all to agree that the goal of truth is love: of God's love for us, and of our love of God (and one another) in return... Truth becomes the mode of coming to understand the reality, the centrality, of love.

Is it any wonder that the Johannine writings in the New Testment are filled with the interplay of truth, peace and love? In them we learn:
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life... (Jn 14:6)
I will give you another Advocate, to be with you always, the Spirit of truth... (Jn 14:16)
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you (Jn 14:27; see also Jn 20:19-21, 26)
In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us... (I Jn 4:10)

If we cannot journey to Assisi the end of October, we can at least be pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace; pilgrims of love in our own places. Below, to celebrate this desire, a performance of Thomas Tallis' "If Ye Love Me" by the Tallis Scholars. Enjoy--and let's walk together.

WHY TALK?

2011-03-29T06:33:00.000-05:00

Tonight the Christian-Jewish Dialogue of Mobile is hosting Fr Dennis McManus for a presentation on the state of dialogue especially between Jews and Catholics. Later, on 7 April, our Trialogue (Christians, Jews & Muslims) will be hosting an event with the title “The Sacred Call to Justice.” But for some, the real question is “Why bother?”

It’s a fair question on some levels. It presumes there should be an empirical outcome—one that can be measured and evaluated—to all activity, and if there is none, or if the measurement is minimal, then the activity is deemed worthless.

Their conclusion is that dialogue is exactly such a pointless activity because it produces nothing tangible and beneficial. But is this the case?

Without dialogue I can never get to know another human being as a person. They will remain objects but never subjects. With dialogue we can engage one another, look into each other’s eyes (and, perhaps, also our hearts) and come to understand. When understanding is in fact mutual, it is far easier to be tolerant of differences can that enrich instead of enrage.

There are no doubt some who are fanatically opposed to dialogue. These are typically seen to be Islamist extremists these days, though in fact they scarcely have a corner on the market of intolerance—Jews and Christians, too, are quite capable of these attitudes. But just as some Jews and Christians and Muslims are closed-minded to all perspectives but their own, many, many more are open to coming together for the purpose of respect, recognition of our mutual dignity, and eagerness to learn.

“Hands that reach will touch” is the motto of the Mobile Christian-Jewish Dialogue. It might be expanded: eyes that open will see, ears that listen will hear… To quote Hamlet, surely this is “a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

THE POWER OF A SINGLE WORD

2011-03-25T16:03:00.000-05:00

While listening to the St John Passion of Arvo Pärt today, something struck me that hadn’t hit me before: the words of Jesus and Peter are surely deliberately set in opposition to one another.

When Jesus asks whom the soldiers seek in the Garden, and they say, “Jesus of Nazareth,” He replies, “I am he.” In the Latin of Pärt’s setting this is Ego sum (and in the original Greek, ego eimi).

When the attendants in the High Priest’s courtyard ask Peter if he too is a disciple, he responds “I am not.” In the Latin, again, this is Non sum (and in the original Greek, ouk eimi).

Can there be a bigger contrast enclosed in this one word difference? Could the Evangelist possibly have done this by accident? (Hint: the answer to both questions is “No.”)

It’s a stunning reminder that we are to proclaim our faith with boldness, with clarity, with enthusiasm, with utter conviction. Jesus knows who He is: and we do, too—don’t we?

If it is true that Jesus came to make all things new (Rev 21:5), it is our hearts (and our courage) that also need to be made new. How bold are we in our public (not private) commitment to the Lord? Are we among those who say (with Jesus) “It’s me!”? Or are we more like Peter and say “Not me!”? It’s the power of a single word—a single YES, a single (in Latin and Greek, anyway) “I do”…

The world desperately needs public witness of the kind that Isaiah (Is 42) spoke—not crying out, not making our voices heard, yet as a presence which though it does not compel yet cannot be ignored.

Which “word” will we use tomorrow: “I am he,” or “I am not he”?

THE LORD HEARS THE CRY OF THE POOR

2011-03-23T21:02:00.000-05:00

The shocking truth of this photo is that solidarity with the poor is a risky thing. 31 years ago, on 24 March, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was gunned down while celebrating Mass because he spoke against the junta and in favor of the oppressed poor. Here are his last words, preached before the gunshot that martyred him:

May this body [of the Lord in the Eucharist] immolated and this blood sacrificed for humans nourish us also, so that we may give our body and our blood to suffering and to pain--like Christ, not for self, but to bring about justice and peace for our people.

It is difficult to stand with and for the poor in a way that not only desires to alleviate suffering but also to prevent it by advocating systemic reform. Dom Helder Camera of Recife, Brazil put it well: "Why is it that when I reach out to the poor I am called a saint, but when I ask, 'Why are there poor people?' I am called a communist?"

The Chinese proverb is only partially true: Give a man a fish and you feed him today; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The man must still be given (have or access to) a rod and reel and bait...

Can we end poverty and suffering? Probably not--not everyone who is "poor" has the desire to change. But the vast majority of the world's poor have it imposed on them by circumstances of geography, politics and macro-economics. And they remain poor because too many of our nations' economic policies do not recognize them as "brothers and sisters we haven't yet met."

We are blessed to be born and living in a nation that is economically prosperous and free. What of the rest of the world's people who were not so blessed--do we have any obligations to them?

These are hard questions that do not have easy or simplistic answers. But I think we have at least the obligation to ask them, and to try to find honest, faith-filled responses to the cry of the poor.

WHAT’S A GOOD (OR THE PERFECT) PRAYER?

2011-03-15T10:55:00.000-05:00

There are folks who insist that Catholics who pray the Rosary are not praying properly as we are therefore in violation of Jesus’ words in today’s (Tues of 1st Week of Lent) Gospel (Matt 6:7:15)—“When you pray, do not babble like the hypocrites…”

In that Gospel excerpt, Jesus then offers what many regard as the perfect prayer (some, the only prayer): the Lord’s Prayer. It truly does have everything: it is a prayer that asks for our transformation so that we can be people who overcome evil with good, who forgive others and experience forgiveness themselves, who have the strength to do what needs to be done today for the building of the Kingdom and who long for its completion, and to live lives such that God’s name be kept holy. What more could anyone wish to be?

Yet prayer has other purposes as well, beyond asking: it is a way of entering into communion with the Holy Trinity, a communion of life and love. Can this be done in ways beyond the Lord’s Prayer? No doubt it can.

Prayer of contemplation (simply enjoying being in the Presence) is one such way. Entering into Sacred Scripture (especially on the Ignatian model of placing oneself in the various scenes/episodes of the life of Christ) is another powerful way. And “mantric” prayers like the Rosary (or the Jesus Prayer) are yet another way: they become the underlying music that allows our souls to sing. They are emphatically not babbling many words in order to be heard. They are instead vehicles by which our hearts and minds are lifted up to God in order to be present, attentive, thankful, in love.

How do you pray? What’s the best format for you to come closer to God? In what ways do you find spiritual surrender easiest and most effective? This is what is important in our walk with the Lord. Pray as you can: and when you think you can’t, let the Holy Spirit take over for you (Rom 8:26-27).

THE GIFT OF THEOLOGY

2011-03-12T09:40:00.000-06:00

In his book Encountering the Mystery, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew makes the fascinating and challenging observation: theology is not a study one does; it is a gift one receives. This would surely be a shock to the faculties at university theology departments, or divinity schools, or seminaries—that many of the Ph.D.s teaching there are not “theologians” in the Patriarch’s sense. What does he mean?
His first comment is that in Orthodox history only three people have been designated with the title “Theologian”—St John the Divine (Fourth Evangelist); St Gregory the Theologian (Gregory Nazianzen), and St Simeon the New Theologian. It is worth noting that many great saints do not make the cut on this criterion: St Athanasius, St Basil, St John Chrysostom, St Gregory Palamas, St John Damascene… So what set these three apart from their noble fellows?

In all three cases it was a mystical experience that was a “donation” of sorts, typically mediated in a vision, which involved receiving the gift of theology as a commission. Interestingly, St John Chrysostom and St Gregory Thaumaturgus (the Wonderworker) were also said to have had the encounter which resulted in their being given the gift, but they are not designated as “theologian.” Nevertheless, these other names all can participate in the gift—and how they do so is pivotal for Bartholomew:

[T]heology is the study of…the Holy Trinity. It is, however, never simply the accumulation of knowledge about the divine nature; …theology is an encounter with the living, personal God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
…Thus, theology is always received; it is never merely repeated. It is an act of the Church…
It underlines the importance of theology as encounter and communion; theology is a divine gift to be shared…
If one speaks theologically, then one always does so within the context of an intimate relationship with God, who is the source of all theology.

The Ecumenical Patriarch thus reminds us that the ultimate act of theology is one of prayerful communion with the Trinity—it can never be abstract but always personal and affective and experiential. It is why it is often said that theology cannot properly be “done” except on one’s knees. Libraries are often useful, but on this understanding they are never essential, nor are they ever sufficient. A doctoral dissertation on its own cannot make one a “theologian”…

It is easy to see why his book is titled as it is. It is a worthy companion for the journey of Lent.

HAVE MERCY ON ME, O LORD, FOR I HAVE SINNED...

2011-03-10T17:49:00.000-06:00

Below, courtesy of Rocco Palmo's Whispers in the Loggia, is the Ash Wednesday homily of Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia. In it he refers to the issue of the grand jury's report on priests previously exonerated by the Church re: charges of sexual abuse of minors. 37 cases are being reviewed by the Archdiocese now; 21 priests have been suspended effective immediately.

The tragedy for me is that I tried to listen to Cardinal Rigali's homily with the ears of one of the victims, or of someone from S.N.A.P.--and I am sure such a person would find the homily distressingly inadequate. It must have sounded to such a person like he was saying we need to repent of such abuse in the same way that we strive during Lent to repent of over-eating or give up smoking. I am sure the Cardinal is personally devastated by the situation; I am only referring to the impression. The whole situation has me very, very sad and disheartened...

THE GLORY OF THESE 40 DAYS

2011-03-09T12:48:00.001-06:00

An alternative invocation for the imposition of ashes today is "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." They are a slight liturgical variation on the opening words of Jesus in Mark's Gospel:
This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel (Mk 1:15).

Are we ready to repent? Of course, this presupposes we think we have things from which to repent! Yet in our quieter moments we know this is the case: what will happen to us this Lent that will allow us (encourage us, even) to die to self in some specific way(s), so to live in the Lord more intimately?

Psalm 51 (our Response at Mass today) is attributed to King David after being accused of the blatant adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband, Uriah. He was accused; he confessed his sin. We might do well to examine our consciences and confess our sins as well, even if they are not such monstrous evils as David's. To that end I am offering a classic performance of the classic Ash Wednesday composition: Gregorio Allegri's Miserere. While for some of us the adaptation to the text of the King James Bible, sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge is the first and best of all recordings, this one by the Tallis Scholars (in the original Latin) is at least equally delightful. Enjoy, and may our Lenten journey bring us that much closer to the Lamb of God.

SPECIAL SPACES

2011-03-07T11:14:00.000-06:00

[Note: this mini-essay will also be on the upcoming parish bulletin front.]

A book I am currently reading is Encountering the Mystery by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (seen left). It has a lengthy introduction by Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia (a former tutor of mine at Oxford). But beyond that, it is a delightful introduction to the theology and (far more importantly) the spirituality of the Orthodox East. This is a book that I could easily recommend to others for their Lenten journey. But I want to focus on one brief excerpt from the book:

Each evening, as I shut the door to my office, I do not leave behind the people and the issues I have faced during that day. I bring them with me and within my heart to the small Patriarchal Chapel, where they are all offered in prayer during the Compline service that closes the day. The chapel is a small refuge from the daily deluge of problems, a splendid occasion to meditate on the wonders of God, who loves us as we are. What more could I ever ask for? What more could I ever do?

I am only personally acquainted with the residences of two bishops (here in Mobile, and one in England), but they both have private chapels where prayer can be offered and Eucharist celebrated. I expect virtually all episcopal residences also have these chapels. Most of us do not have such 24/7 access, but we can make a special space in our own homes for this kind of daily “mini-retreat” to encounter the Lord and bring to Him all the issues of our day just past, and the expectations & anxieties of the day to come.

For myself, of course I am blessed with having the key to the church, and getting up early enough to spend some quality time in front of the Blessed Sacrament before the day gets to chaotic. But I also have a “prayer-spot” in the rectory where I can also lift up daily worries, concerns, failures, joys, needs—mine, and those of parishioners I have encountered during this day. This is the goal for my Lenten prayer—to spend more time in this space with the Lord and with those whose paths have intersected with mine during the day—by phone, by e-mail, by appointment, by ‘chance’ encounter (though really, there is no such thing).

I encourage you all, I challenge us all, to use your/our special space (or create one, at least for Lent) to do the same: to encounter the Lord and lift up those whom we love and who have asked for our prayers—perhaps even, for those we do not love and who have not asked for our spiritual help…

Lent is our special season of increased and intensified prayer, fasting and almsgiving; it is a joyous opportunity to step aside and focus on the journey within, to meet the One who waits within to embrace us. What are we waiting for? He is waiting for us; He loves us; He is calling us. But He will never force us—otherwise, love would not be love.

St Paul once wrote that he longed to “know fully even as I am known” (I Cor 13:12). This Lent, let’s long to want to love, even as we are loved.

GOD AND HATE

2011-03-05T12:38:00.000-06:00

[Based on the homily of this past Thursday, 3-3]

Two radically different approaches to law were in evidence this past week: Shahbaz Bhatti, a Pakistani leader and a Catholic, was murdered for his openness to reform of that country's blasphemy laws, in which pretty well anyone can be convicted and given a death sentence (especially a Christian) on "evidence" the quality of which would have been laughed out of court at the Salem witch trials.

On the other hand, the US Supreme Court voted (8-1) to uphold the rights of a Christian sect in Topeka, KS to go around the country protesting at the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq, on the ground that they see this as a guarantee of freedom of speech from the First Amendment. Of course, to protest is one thing: to be vulgar and offensive is another. But our High Court said that even in such cases, the right is the right.

My concern here is not so much for the structure of the two countries that either through vigilante action destroy freedom of speech/thought, or through legal precedents protect offensive freedom of speech/thought. My concern is primarily for the depth of hatred and anger that fuels both the Topeka sect on the one hand and the extremist Islamists on the other. What leads these groups to believe that it is acceptable either to kill another, or to celebrate another's death, in the name of God/Allah? What hope is there for reconciliation, tolerance, and mutual co-existence in a world marked by such hatred?

More to the point: what is the depth of anger and hated in my own heart that might (if pushed far enough) turn me into that kind of person? Lent is just the time for examining what St Paul knew about his own heart (Rom 7:13-25). I pray that we might all take these next weeks to make the journey within, to examine and name the Beast, and bring it to heel.

APPROACHING GOD

2011-03-01T12:39:00.000-06:00

[This thought is based on this morning's daily Mass homily.]

The readings for Mass this morning offer a challenge to our mode of approaching God (or even acknowledging our need for the Lord), as Sirach reminds us not to try to bribe God. Most of us would probably think, "I never do that!" But I think too often we do.

We may not come to the Temple to offer sacrifices of lambs and oxen, but we do come with promises in our hands, and the words are often a version of Do ut des ("I give so that you might give"), or perhaps Da et dabo ("Give, and I will give").

We sometimes pray, "Lord, I'm offering all this to you; now, please give me what I want." Or our words might instead be, "Lord, I'm offering all this to you; now, please don't give me what I deserve!" Our focus is ultimately on ourselves: either rewards we long for or punishments we want to avoid. The sad part of this is that in such a focus we are operating on what the moral theologian Louis Monden, SJ called the "Instinctive" or lowest level of ethical behavior--in which the guiding principle is fear of punishment.

But the Sacred Author today encourages us to live lives that are full: obedient to God's law, eager to do justice for others, cheerful in giving, engaging in worship as relationship rather than as beggary--what Monden called the "Christian-religious" or highest level of ethical behavior, based on love relationships. Would such a way of living (with God and with others) not actually make us much happier than anything else?

"We have given up everything and followed you," Peter protests to Jesus in the Gospel. We 21st century folk have surely not left "all," but as we approach Lent we might well consider how much we could profitably leave behind--so much baggage (or garbage?) we carry that needs to be dropped. With St Paul, let's forget what is behind and run forward to what is ahead (Phil 3:7-14).

DEATH COMES FOR US ALL…

2011-02-27T06:43:00.001-06:00

Though these words were given by Robert Bolt to Thomas More in the trial scene and final scene of A Man For All Seasons, referring to More’s own execution, they can have wider implications for many of us.

I’ve been on a ‘death-watch’ for the last 10 days—a man suffering from a complex of conditions that had him in ICU for a week; he’s now been in a Hospice wing room for a week. It seems that, close as he is to dying, he and God are not ready for his final breath just yet. I stood at the bedside with the family for over an hour Saturday—we were sure his passing was minutes away. As I write this, however, it’s been over 18 hours more…

I have had spiritual counseling sessions with several others who have lost their jobs, often in circumstances that seem grossly unfair. There is a kind of death involved here, too: a death of self-respect and dignity. New jobs can go a long way toward restoring a person’s sense of worth, but it typically is not a resurrection that happens after only three days.

After checking on Facebook this morning, I found that one of my “friends” there (a young woman whom I first got to know in 1997 when she was in 4th grade) has changed her status to “single.” She was married; she has a child. What happened to cause the death of that relationship? I have no idea, but a death surely occurred there.

We are approaching Ash Wednesday (which of course here in Mobile means the day marking the end of two weeks’ worth of Mardi Gras parades, balls and general partying). And here I take a cue from St Augustine, who loved to make theological points based on the etymology of words (no matter how wrong his etymology actually was!). Mine will be wrong, too—but I am doing this deliberately.

Lent (our penitential season of preparation for Easter and the celebration of the sacraments of Christian Initiation) is a word that actually comes from the Old English lencten, meaning “spring.” But I want to associate the word instead with the Italian lento, meaning “slow.” Lent’s emphasis is also on dying—to self-centeredness, to sin. How good for us would it be to slow down, take serious stock, and see where we need to shed our selfishness and expand our sense of connection with God and others through the traditional practices of fasting, almsgiving and prayer?

The Church Fathers always linked these three practices together, insisting that in this way we become more like the children of God we were meant to be (“the best version of ourselves,” as Matthew Kelly would put it). Would it not be special to realize, after the “slowing-down” period of Lent, that Easter saw in us a real resurrection of graced life after dying to what is unnecessary or sinful in us?

“Death comes for us all, my lords.” And sometimes that can be a good thing. I hope it will be, for us, this Lent.

UPDATE: Mike Walsh (1st paragraph above) died this morning at about 10:10 am. Please pray for the Walsh family.

THE TRADITION OF MARTYRDOM IN THE CHURCH

2011-02-20T06:43:00.000-06:00

The very early Church had its share of martyrs, and for a number of reasons. The first Christians tended to come from strata of society that were looked down upon, including slaves, women and the poor (recall Paul’s words to the Corinthians—I Cor 1:26ff.). Beyond that, Christians showed themselves unpatriotic by refusing to sacrifice to the genius of the Emperor, suggesting they were not interested in contributing to the security and order of the social fabric. Finally, once their separation from Judaism was complete, they were a “non-protected cult” and as such opposed for introducing “new gods” that were alien to, or in opposition to, the Roman pantheon.

There were sporadic outbreaks against the early Christians, including famously that of Nero after the fire of 64 CE. In his Annals, the Roman historian Tacitus describes this scene, giving a glimpse into both the horrors of Nero’s actions and the general dislike for Christians felt by “decent” Romans (Annals XV, 44). The Church celebrates these witnesses for Christ on 30 June (the day after the great Solemnity of Ss Peter and Paul, the two Roman martyrs par excellence).

Where the Church would have gone devotionally if this were all there is to tell, I am not sure. But in the 2nd century CE two other martyrs came to the fore, and they set the standard for witnessing that inspired thousands of others in the next centuries before Constantine. They were St Ignatius of Antioch (whose memorial is 17 October) and St Polycarp (whose memorial is this Wednesday, 23 Feb). What made them so important?

In the case of Ignatius, it was in part the circumstances of his martyrdom: arrested for his faith, he was taken to Rome around 107 CE to be thrown to the lions in the Coliseum (known then as the Flavian Amphitheatre). The legend of such a fate for the Christians is strong (and most of the time false); this time it was spot-on. More to the point, though, are the letters Ignatius wrote to various churches while on his way to his death. They are filled with beauty and dignity, humility and courage. They enjoin the recipients to remain united and faithful. And in the letter written to the Roman church in advance of his arrival, he touches poetic heights in his longing for Christ: Earthly longings have been crucified; in me there is left no spark of desire for mundane things, but only a murmur of living water that whispers within me, ‘Come to the Father.’ And this leads to this Wednesday’s memorial.

For one of the letters Ignatius wrote, besides to the church at Smyrna in general, was to its bishop, Polycarp. And Polycarp himself would follow the path of witness to death for Christ in the year 155 CE. But: while we have Ignatius’ own words to describe his longing to be with Christ, we have what seems to be an eye-witness account of the martyrdom of Polycarp—the first such written account in Christian history. It is filled with wonderful dramatic literary touches: Polycarp’s confession of faith even as an old man; his insisting he would stand firm in the pyre; the fire’s inability to burn him; his being stabbed to death at the end. The author writes: …he was like a noble ram taken out of some great flock for sacrifice: a goodly burnt-offering all ready for God. …The fire…formed a wall round about the martyr’s figure; and there was he in the centre of it, not like a human being in flames but like a loaf baking in the oven, or like a gold or silver ingot being refined in the furnace. And we became aware of a delicious fragrance, like the odour of incense…

Quickly this description circulated throughout the Church and became an inspiration. From this moment, martyrdom was seen not only as something that happened but something to be embraced.

Another pivotal event that really sealed the celebratory view of witness to death was the description of the martyrdoms of two young women in north Africa—Perpetua and Felicity (commemorated on 7 March). But that is another story for another time.

THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION

2011-02-13T06:34:00.000-06:00

Perhaps this is a bit premature, but the joy of seeing the report of Muslims and Christians together in Egypt, helping one another pray on their respective holy days, during the protests was more than heart-warming.

It is a reminder of several things—first and foremost, it reminds us that not all Muslims are fanatical, violent terrorists willing to bomb Christian churches in an abuse of the name of Allah.

It is a reminder, too, that the regime of Hosni Mubarak, was regularly accustomed to turning a legal “blind eye” to attacks on religious minorities, especially women. In a truly democratic Egypt, minority individuals and groups may be able to enjoy a larger degree of equal protection under the law. We can pray that this is the case.

Finally, it is a reminder of the book penned some years ago by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the main architects in the ending of apartheid in South Africa without a resulting bloodbath. His book, No Future Without Forgiveness, is a description of the role of the “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions” that were active during the time of Nelson Mandela (who himself had every reason to be angry and bitter after 27 years imprisonment by the former government for his anti-apartheid stands).

People can move forward, if they can not only forgive (after all, this is a “one-way street”) but truly reconcile (this is the “two-way street” that is crucial, allowing for healing). From a Christian perspective, this is the message of Jesus—to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in His Name (Lk 24:47).

These Sundays the Gospel readings are all from the Sermon on the Mount—over and over they are challenges to us to do more (magis, as St Ignatius Loyola would refer to it in Latin). In the realm of forgiveness it is often very hard to do anything beyond the minimum. But Jesus was not a minimalist. We cannot afford to be, either.

'TIL DEATH US DO PART...

2011-02-09T19:28:00.000-06:00

Is Sandra Hocutt competent to stand trial? Why was she competent to marry??

MORE ON TOLERATION

2011-01-28T10:18:00.000-06:00

A previous Trialogue event found us exploring the issue of extremism. In our Christian-Jewish-Muslim conversations this topic has been called "the elephant in the room." How do we face extremism in our own religious traditions (never minding, for the time being, identifying extremism in others' faiths)?

To that end, and to further the table discussion on this topic, I offered a series of questions for consideration. In the light of the recent unrest in Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and Yemen (the the implications of this unrest for the world); and in the light of the terrorist attacks on Chaldean Christians in the last months in Iraq and Coptic Christians Egypt, I think these questions are worth pondering even if not in dialogue with others. And so I offer them for your reflection.

1. Does my conviction with regard to my own beliefs sometimes lead to my intolerance of others' beliefs?
2. Must mutually exclusive beliefs always lead to conflict?
3. Can freedom and conviction be successfully juxtaposed in my life?
4. Does my intolerance of others' views stem from my unconscious doubts about my own views? Are doubts what lead me to be 'triumphalistic'?
5. C. S. Lewis referred to a practice he called 'Bulverism,' whereby one makes statements like, "The reason you think like that is because you're a [X]" (fill in the blank with an insulting term). Why do we resort to insults and name-calling?
6. Is fear the basis for all intolerance? If so, how can I overcome it in my own life?

I will only observe, in conclusion, that some of these issues have been 'burning issues' for Pope Benedict in his papacy, including most recently in his Message for the World Day of Peace (1 January 2011).

THOMAS AQUINAS, FAITH AND SIGHT, TOLERATION AND PEACE

2011-01-28T10:07:00.000-06:00

Today’s (28 Jan) memorial of St Thomas Aquinas fits well into this week for me personally: on Wed (26 Jan) I gave a talk to the Mobile Kiwanis Club about inter-faith dialogue, and for part of it I used a brief essay that I made part of a Trialogue (“Christians, Jews & Muslims Together”) event in the recent past. Coincidentally, this past Thurs evening (27 Jan) we had another Trialogue event, with the topic of “Peace: what does this look like for people of faith?” All this leads me to do a “re-print” of sorts—in slightly edited form, what follows below is my reflection.

A PERSONAL VIEW OF GOD, FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

In many ways I think the faith of Rabbi Silberman, Mr Ashraf Sayyad and myself is derivative. The rabbi’s belief in the Master of the Universe is transmitted through Moses. Mr Sayyad’s belief in Allah is the result of the witness of Muhammad. My belief in God is derivative from my belief in the Resurrection of Jesus. My own study leads me to conclude, in the phraseology of John Henry Cardinal Newman, that there is a ‘convergence of probabilities’ that makes an act of faith in Jesus, in virtue of the Resurrection, a reasonable thing to do. This leads me to my belief in His being Messiah and Son of God. While Jews and Muslims agree that God must never be represented or imaged, I confess that I hold Jesus as the image of the invisible God, the form of God I can see, leading me to love of the God I cannot see.

I am aware that this ‘convergence’ doesn’t have to lead to such a belief: the Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide, for example, could accept the historicity of the Resurrection while still rejecting the idea of the Messiahship (to say nothing of the divinity) of Jesus. But I, personally, do come to this conclusion.

It means for me that the proclamation of Jesus is at once and eternally a genuine insight into the nature of God, and that this insight is into the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whom Jesus called Abba. It is through this lens that I come to my understanding of God.

There is a song popular in Christian “Praise and Worship” circles called Our God Is An Awesome God. Its refrain is: Our God is an awesome God/He reigns from heaven above/With wisdom, power and love/Our God is an awesome God. To be able to sing this with full conviction is surely a joyful, energizing and (if I may say it) triumphalistic celebration of the God of presence.

For me, though, all too often, it seems that “My God is a silent God” (a Deus absconditus, a “hidden God”). Some mystics have glorious visions of the Deity; I am more at home with writings like The Cloud of Unknowing or The Dark Night of the Soul. I resonate with the poetry of St Thomas Aquinas, celebrating the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, when he writes (in the Holy Week hymn Pange, Lingua): Et si sensus deficit/Ad firmandum cor sincerum/Sola fides sufficit… Praestet fides supplementum/ Sensuum defectui [And if senses finally fail us/For to strengthen hearts that trust/Faith alone is what one needs… Faith stands ready to assist us/When our senses fail to see.] And so you can see that slogans like the mediaeval cry Deus vult! [God wills it!] are foreign to my experience—I am simply not so sure I know God’s will for someone else that I am able to lead any Crusades. I only want to bear witness, to “cry the Gospel with my life” (as Bl Charles de Foucauld expressed it). This is the form of evangelization that I choose to embrace, one that can lead others to an attractive confrontation with my Faith based upon its realization in my life.

And so I am very uncomfortable with those (especially on TV) who seem to have 14 conversations with God every day, when they are told specific things to say or do—quite specific things. This is not my experience.

And yet, I do have (beyond my trust in the Resurrection) what the poet William Wordsworth called “Intimations” of God’s presence—the quality of the answer to certain prayers (including those that led me to seminary, or at the times of my Dad’s and my Mom’s deaths): intimations that force nothing yet invite and hint at everything. I trust them; I choose to remember them, I embrace them. It my hope they are (it all is) true.

St Paul (Rom 8:24) tells us that hope is not hope if we in fact already see. My faith, then, my hope, is to be able one day to see, to know even as I am known (I Cor 13:12). What supports and sustains this hope, for me?

Two things lead me to trust in God’s existence and love: to return to the beginning, my trust is in the reality of the Resurrection and the proclamation of God as a loving Father of forgiveness and healing—the God that Jesus announced as the Good News of the Kingdom. Second is the community of the faithful of which I wish to be a part: the people like Francis of Assisi and Ignatius Loyola; Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Teresa of Avila; Cardinal Newman and Cardinal Bernardin; Bl Pope John XXIII and Bl Charles de Foucauld. These people knew all too intimately themselves the ‘dark night’; all followed Jesus to the cross and (in the words of the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner) looked down from the cross into the abyss of darkness, entering into it with Jesus, trusting that at the bottom they would find Abba-Love. I want to join them in this journey.

The Jews (I defer to Rabbi Silberman) have a story that when a rabbi dies, it is because there is a tremendous debate going on in heaven over some point of Torah, and another voice is needed. I believe that this debate is real, even if I cannot hear the voices and the arguments right now, and I am excited about the possibility of getting the chance to have my say.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS

2011-01-20T06:08:00.000-06:00

(MOBILE, Ala.)- While nationally Gov. Robert Bentley's remarks are creating controversy, among some in local churches the reaction is much different.

Moments after his inauguration Bentley said, "Anyone here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be you're brother."
"When you accept Jesus as your savior you become a child of God that means we are all brothers and sisters in Christ," said Myra Barton a member of the congregation.
Barton says Bentley is speaking a language that Christians will fully understand, what she says she understand is the controversy being created.
Pastor Aaron McKinnis of Fresh Fire on the Mount Ministries agreed, "When you are talking about being an earthly and a Christian brother those are two different things, he said he is everyone's Governor."

Now ignoring the grammatical errors of the report above, we need to break down both Gov Bentley’s remark (in King Memorial Dexter Av Baptist Church, perhaps 2 blocks from the State Capitol) and the comment of Myra Barton. Both are theologically inaccurate.

Christians understand that we all, no matter our beliefs, are in fact brothers and sisters. Since this is the “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” it is good to refer to a classic passage of the New Testament proclaimed during these days: the Letter to the Ephesians 4:1-6: “…one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” So regardless of anyone’s feelings or faith, Christians believe that we in fact do have the same “daddy,” as Gov Bentley so colloquially put it. And therefore we are brothers and sisters in fact.

If Gov Bentley or Myra Barton or any other Christian has a special relationship with another because of mutual belief in Jesus as the Messiah, that’s fine and important, just as a faithful Muslim has a unique relationship with other Muslims in the Ummah, the world-wide community of Islam, or just as faithful Jews have a special relationship to one another as children of the original covenant (which God has not, and will not, revoke—see Romans 11:29).

But we need not (and in fact must not) pretend that this somehow makes us all unrelated to one another; we must see each other as brothers and sisters. When we fail to do so, it is the first of a series of steps that can lead to seeing each other as alien, dehumanized, so utterly “other” that things like violations of rights, or torture, or war, or liquidations, become tolerable and even sensible.

We must say NO to this. We are family. Below is a clip from the final movement of Beethoven's great Ninth Symphony. Enjoy it, and know that the words sung by the soloists at about 1'30" are:
Alle menschen werden bruder (All mankind shall be brothers...)

A WITHERED HAND

2011-01-19T13:30:00.000-06:00

Today's Gospel at Mass was the healing by Jesus of a man with a withered hand. It was in a synagogue on a Sabbath; the Pharisees were not pleased. Nevertheless, Jesus healed the man.

An extraordinarily touching evocation of this scene (Mark 3:1-6) comes from the American composer John Adams. He is one of a series of composers known for "minimalism," in which patterns are repeated multiple times. It takes great concentration to play his music since it's easy to lose track of how many times a pattern has been played, thus missing the time for changing it! Still, this piece presents a gentle introduction both to faith and to "minimalism"--Christian Zeal and Activity. Enjoy!

LIFE’S INTERRUPTIONS

2011-01-16T15:45:00.000-06:00

I intended to write this blog-post last Tuesday, but I was overtaken by events: specifically, the deaths of 3 members of the parish, which cut short my time at the computer. There is still one funeral (on Monday, Martin Luther King Day), but I have a bit of a breather to put these thoughts down.
The news is encouraging in a recent USA Today feature: “Youths prefer praise to sex, booze. Study: Self-esteem takes precedence.” This study was also featured recently on Chicago’s WGN News at Nine.

Read the item for yourselves, but surely there can be no easier way to strengthen teens’ self-esteem than authentic (not fake) affirmation. In the long run, though, youths/teens are no different from the rest of humanity: we like to know (and be told) that we have done well, that we are good, that we make a meaningful and positive difference—in short, that we are valued and loved.

Our Savior is blessed with a remarkable youth group of teens who are generous, sensitive, loving and positive. I have no doubts they receive oceans of affirmation: from our youth minister, from me, and from their families. Sometimes our young people don’t feel good about themselves or approved by others (especially the significant other adults in their lives). But a hug or a compliment from the heart can go a long, long way toward undoing their doubts.

After all, what is the bottom line attraction of sex, drugs and alcohol? It’s in the first place to make a substitute for self-worth, and in the second place to anesthetize the feelings of worthlessness. If one knows one’s worth and knows that others approve of it, so many other things are simply not necessary…

We are coming near to Catholic Schools Week in the Archdiocese of Mobile. Let’s do the real education that teaches our teens their dignity and value. Especially when our young people are in fact so wonderful, we need to let them know it.

I BAPTIZE YOU…

2011-01-08T12:42:00.000-06:00

Our theology of the waters of baptism dove-tails (pun intended!) nicely with that of the Greek Orthodox as presented in today’s Mobile Press-Register, in its feature on Fr Elias Stevens of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church here. His blessings of homes in this Epiphany season involves holy water—“When [Jesus] was baptized…he sanctified all waters,” he said.

Our liturgy proclaims the same thing. When we use the Asperges or sprinkling-rite in place of a penitential rite at the beginning of Mass (typically in Easter season), the prayer of blessing also says: “You made the water of baptism holy by Christ’s baptism in the Jordan: by it you give us a new birth and renew us in holiness.”

How many of us remember that when we come to church and dip our hands into the holy water stoups we are re-claiming our baptism? Here at Our Savior there is no other stoup except the font itself, the more easily to remind folks of this fact. We are in effect taking Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior every time we enter the church and make a bodily YES to our commitment to Him. In the same way, when we process forward to receive the Eucharist during Mass, we say AMEN to the declaration “The Body/Blood of Christ.” Once again, we make our personal YES…

Our action at the font is additionally mirrored in two complementary ways: the action of the Sign of the Cross is our affirmation that we are saved by (and wish to embrace) the Cross of Jesus Christ. And our words (an echo of Matthew 28:19) proclaim our faith in the One Triune God—Father, Son, Spirit. It’s a superb renewal of our personal YES.

All this we celebrate in origin today with the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord. He is Lord (and He is our Lord) forever and ever!

Today’s illustration is from a 5th century baptistery in Ravenna, Italy.

A TALE OF TWO NE(W/U)MAN(N)S

2011-01-05T10:36:00.000-06:00

The men pictured here both lived in the 19th century, both were members of the hierarchy, both passionately were interested in Catholic education, and both are “raised to the altar.” But they are not the same person, even though there is often enough confusion about them.

Today’s Memorial is of St John Neumann, an immigrant from Bohemia who became a Redemptorist priest and ultimately the bishop of Philadelphia. He was dedicated to building a Catholic school system suited especially to children of immigrant families. He was beatified in 1963 and canonized in 1977, both by Pope Paul VI.

Bl John Henry (Cardinal) Newman, formerly a tutor at Oriel College, Oxford and effectively the “campus minister” for the University, lived all his life in England. His efforts in conjunction with the beginnings of a Catholic university in Ireland led to the publication of one of his most famous books, The Idea of a University. Pope Benedict XVI beatified him this past September 2010. We are waiting for official acceptance of a 2nd miracle which would allow him to be formally canonized.

One peculiar difference between these two men is the state of their remains. Bp Neumann’s body is preserved in glass under an altar in the lower crypt of St Peter’s church in Philadelphia (see the picture above); when Cardinal Newman’s grave was opened preparatory to the beatification, virtually no remains were found inside it.

But their legacy of support for Catholic education survives, both in England and in the United States. Though they are not the same man, they shared the same vision of the importance of an educated laity for fostering the work and growth of the Church.

Though the excerpt below is from the good Cardinal and not the saintly bishop, let it be a word on the value of education in the Faith (what these days is most often referred to as ‘apologetics,’ but which perhaps more correctly should be named ‘fundamental theology’):

…I think that incalculable benefits may ensue to the Catholic cause, greater almost than that which even singularly gifted theologians or controversialists could effect, if a body of [lay] men in your station of life shall be found in the great towns of Ireland, not disputatious, contentious, loquacious, presumptuous…but gravely and solidly educated in Catholic knowledge, intelligent, acute, versed in their religion, sensitive of its beauty and majesty, alive to the arguments in its behalf, and aware both of its difficulties and of the mode of treating them. …my own reason for rejoicing in the establishment of your classes is the same as that which led me to take part in the establishment of the University itself, viz., the wish, by increasing the intellectual force of Ireland, to strengthen the defenses, in a day of great danger, of the Christian religion. (The Idea of a University)

So whether it is Newman or Neumann, cardinal or bishop, blessed or sainted, I say thank you both for your vision of the importance of learning!

NOW THERE'S SOMETHING YOU DON’T SEE EVERY DAY, CHAUNCEY…

2011-01-02T18:32:00.000-06:00

There are numerous references/allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures buried in today’s Gospel of the Magi’s visit to the Holy Family. They can be found in Psalm 72 and Isaiah (which feature dominantly in the Scriptures of the liturgy of this day), to say nothing of Numbers 24.

One reference that you won’t find (seemingly) is from my favorite book of the “Deutero-Canonical Writings,” Tobit. This is a marvelous story that deserves to be read and savored for its impact and its delight (and for its happy ending). It has angels, it has good people rewarded, it has magical deliverance from demons, it has macabre graveyard humor, and it even has the Old Testament equivalent of “Old Yeller.”

But for our purposes it also has an image directly applicable to today’s Gospel scene:

A bright light will shine to all parts of the earth; many nations will come to you from afar, and the inhabitants of all the limits of the earth, drawn to you by the name of the Lord God, bearing in their hand their gifts for the King of heaven. (Tobit 13:11a, emphasis added)

Not even the original Jerusalem Bible (with its 300 cross-references for every verse) makes this connection. Perhaps I should simply shut up and admit that the scholars and Biblical translators know far more than I do.

But I offer the passage to anyway, and I hope that it invites you to enter into a world of story that is delightful and profound and important.

Whether or not you (or the scholars) agree with me on this point, I do hope you will read this (extra-)Biblical book and have a blessed Epiphany!

PS—“Bonus points” if you can identify the reference in the title of this post…

PAX ET BONUM

2010-12-31T10:50:00.000-06:00

This was the blessing offered by St Francis of Assisi to people he met: "Peace, and good(ness) to you." Don't we all long for this blessing more than for virtually any other in the world?

Can we find peace in the midst of suffering and sadness? I think we can (and the illustrations in the song below show some ways in which it is possible). This is the peace that comes from solidarity, outreach, love. It is the gift that says "You can relax, you can be safe; it's going to be all right." This is the promise of the Lord to Mother Julian of Norwich: "Sin was bound to happen, but all will be well..."

1 January is the old Feast of the Circumcision (and the Gospel still reflects this fact). Now it is celebrated as the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Her Son is also known as the Prince of Peace; He assures us (John 14:27, 20:19, 20) that he gives His peace to us "not as the world gives," but for the sake of forgiveness of sins. Think of the peace that could come if those words were truly taken in--"I know all about it--every detail. I forgive you because I love you."

In 1986 Pope John Paul II met with leaders of the world's religions in Assisi to pray for peace. At one point it was thought a heretical idea--the Holy Father went forward with it anyway because it (the prayer itself, and the witness) was what the world needed to see. At the distance of 25 years, the event now seems prophetic, but will its spirit carry us forward toward the fulfillment of that vision? Pope Benedict's Message for the World Day for Peace 2011 says that it can and must--that peace must be built on mutual religious freedom.

This evening at Our Savior we will be holding a Holy Hour Vigil of Adoration for peace. Would that the church might be as crowded as it was for the 5:00 pm Mass of Christmas Eve! But for those of us who will be there, the Prince of Peace will have something to say to us: "I love you; take courage, for I have overcome the world."

…AS WE WAIT IN JOYFUL HOPE…

2010-12-28T07:54:00.000-06:00

The meditation in Magnificat for December 26 (Holy Family Sunday) was excerpted from the writing of Mother Elvira Petrozzi, an Italian nun who has founded Communità Cenàcolo, dedicated to outreach to “lost and desperate” people, often drug-addicted. Interestingly, Bp Robert Baker of Birmingham was the guest on EWTN’s The Journey Home, speaking about his invitation to Mother Elvira to open such a house in his diocese: Our Lady of Joyful Hope.

The idea is an exercise (sustained) in Catholic Christian living. It is the Benedictine model of ora et labora (prayer and work) allows addicts to experience structured, devout and practical life in community, rooted in the Sacraments, the Rosary, and hands-on tasks of cleaning, repairing, building: whatever is needed so the community can thrive. People coming to such houses are there for the long haul: they commit to three years of life in the community. This produces true formation rather than a band-aid.

But more to the point for me are Mother Elvira’s thoughts in the Magnificat meditation. Hers is a vision for the addicted that is similar to that of Jean Vanier with the handicapped in his L'Arche homes. Both see as essential for truly human life the experience of community which is in fact the experience of family:

“Each of us has a desire in his heart to become a family, because only within the family can our greatest needs be expressed; a dialogue not only with words but with our feelings, our affections, our gaze, in a reciprocal gift of self and in concrete gestures of love. …It is an essential and fundamental need, natural to us, which each one of us has inside, a need to see ourselves in the gaze, smile and reception of another person.”

Mother Elvira’s thoughts continue in the direction of forming relationships that lead to Christian marriage and family, but the thoughts I have included here are more wide-reaching than spousal life and love: it is why people at her Cenacles find such a gift of freedom: freedom from, and freedom for, and openness to.

Robert Frost famously defined home as “the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” I would rather call it “the place where you fit in and belong and rest, and are safe.”

Home—another of my favorite 4-letter words. Home, family, community: all of what we long for in this week that began with Holy Family Sunday, goes past the Holy Innocents, and ends with the Mother of God, prayer for peace, and the Epiphany. There is no greater longing in our souls, is there?

HE'S HERE

2010-12-24T09:39:00.001-06:00

The Day has arrived; the celebration begins--for shepherds and kings, for ox and ass, for all of us. "In Him we see our God made visible, and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see" (Preface #1 of Christmas). Enjoy the choral depiction of this great night.

O COME, O COME...

2010-12-22T05:55:00.000-06:00

Rocco Palmo ("Whispers in the Loggia") is publishing Gregorian chant versions of the "O Antiphons" on a daily basis; they're great, but I'm still partial to this setting from Mannheim Steamroller. Enjoy the rest of the Advent season!

LONGING FOR ETERNITY

2010-12-18T14:50:00.000-06:00

La rievangelizzazione del mondo secolarizzato passa anche attraverso un recupero del senso del sacro”, ha osservato.
Re-evangelization of the secularized world also requires a recovery of the sense of the sacred.

“Le stesse scoperte meravigliose della scienza e della tecnica, anziché portare al disincanto, possono diventare occasioni di stupore e di esperienza del divino”.
The same wondrous discoveries of science and technology, rather than bringing a sense of disenchantment, can also become occasions of wonder and of the experience of the divine.

Allo stesso modo, nella vita umana quotidiana “non mancano occasioni in cui è possibile fare l’esperienza di un’'altra' dimensione: l’innamoramento, la nascita del primo figlio, una grande gioia”.
…everyday human life itself does not lack times when it is possible to have an experience of another dimension—falling in love, the birth of a first son, any great joy.

“Bisogna aiutare le persone ad aprire gli occhi e a ritrovare la capacità di stupirsi”, ha detto.
It is necessary to help people open their eyes and recover the ability to be amazed.

These excerpts (found on the Zenit website--my translation) are from Fr Cantalamessa’s 3rd homily for the Holy Father for the season of Advent. In playing with one of Pope Benedict’s favorite themes, that of re-evangelization of the secular world, the papal preacher emphasized the need to have eyes open to the Great Beyond (al di là, in Italian): the notion that, as Hamlet put it, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (I, v).

It is more than an awareness of the sense of the transcendent that is lacking; it is a lack of the sense of wonder in itself. Not all things can or should be reducible to particles; there needs to be a recognition that sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Theologically, we say this is especially true of the human being, but it is also true of most of creation: of a dog’s affection, or a bluebird’s domestic sense, or a sunset’s grandeur, or a rose’s uniqueness. Yes, I am referring here to Le Petit Prince, a book of central significance for awakening the sense of the “more” in life: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Albert Einstein was quoted as saying that the greatest thing is the sense of the mysterious. Even if one were to try to break down all existence, all creation, into its particular parts, one would still be confronted with the mysterious: quantum physics shows us this. In the words of the great scientist Niels Bohr: “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory does not understand it.” The life of the micro-cosmos is so radically unexpected, unpredictable, that one wonders how we macro-cosmic types could think we can make universal laws at all.

But we do not need to enter into particle physics to be amazed—why not just enter into the deeper meaning of poetry, or love, or liturgy? William Blake wrote: “To see a world in a grain of sand/And heaven in a wild flower…” How do 2 otherwise unique (and solitary) beings see each other and ‘fall in love’? What can we make of a spiritual declaration that God is 3-in-1 or that bread becomes His Body?

These ideas seem radically ridiculous to some, yet the alternative is to believe creation (and oneself) to be the moral and effective equivalent of a rock—a being whose behaviors have no significance, no purpose, no value here or ultimately. To quote Thomas More (in Robert Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons)—“Some men are capable of this, but I would be loath to think your Father one of them.”

Do we have yearnings, longings, in our hearts? Why stifle them? Why not see them, in Wordsworth’s phrase, as “intimations of immortality,” hints that we are made of more than material and destined for more than a grave? Even if wrong, what really has been lost, and what has been gained?

I want to embrace the notion of transcendence (which underlies the notion of transubstantiation); I want to celebrate the reality of authentic mutual love of another; I want to see a world in a grain of sand. We are the worse as individuals and as nations for saying “no” to the possibilities this vision offers us.

COMING CLOSER TOGETHER?

2010-12-18T07:04:00.002-06:00

NEWS ITEM: Bishop Munib Younan, President of the Lutheran World Federation, is calling for a “common Roman Catholic-Lutheran declaration on Eucharistic hospitality” by 2017 as a way of marking (and undoing) the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. He made the remarks in Rome shortly before a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI.

Is such a vision a possibility or a mirage? At this distance it seems unlikely, but one can never know. After all, it is not we frail and ego-bound human beings who are in charge, but the Holy Spirit. If Vatican II could happen, if agreement (even if not 100% complete) on the theology of “Justification” could be produced, if a Palestinian-born Lutheran bishop could make this request to a German Pope…

Would such a statement require 100% agreement in all areas of faith, morals and church practice and discipline? I think not. I have two reasons for saying this.

The first is that it is clear the Catholic practice of closed communion is one of discipline and not doctrine. The (then named) Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, in their 1972 Instruction Concerning Cases When Other Christians May Be Admitted To Eucharistic Communion In The Catholic Church sets out guidelines for when such communion might occur; it even specifies circumstances when Catholics might approach the Sacrament in other communions. They are not to be considered as “regular” events, but they are in fact not impossible.

The second is that from the time of the 1983 Revised Code of Canon Law the Catholic Church recognizes the right of the Orthodox Churches, along with members of “the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Polish National Catholic Church”: they are not to be refused if they present themselves for the Sacrament in a Catholic Church. Such welcome is not reciprocal at this point, but it is significant that from the Roman Catholic point of view a lack of 100% agreement even on issues like the wording of the Creed and the juridical authority of the Pope do not in themselves have to be Church-dividing.

What will happen in 2017? I have no idea, but I want to be around when it (whatever “it” is) does happen. The Book of Proverbs (29: 18, KJV) reminded us, millennia ago: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Here we have a vision. I pray we can make it possible.

DARK NIGHTS, REFINER'S FIRE

2010-12-14T14:29:00.004-06:00

Celebrating St John of the Cross is a dangerous thing: are we really ready to celebrate the life of the one who insisted that the path through the Cross to the Lord must be via a “Dark Night of the Soul”? This is the man who stressed that the only way to enlightenment is through the thicket of suffering…

John’s writing is crucial, as is that of the anonymous spiritual guide who wrote (in England, perhaps 200 years earlier) The Cloud of Unknowing. These masters of the Via Negativa (the experience of God as “absent Presence”) know that their own journey parallels that of many disciples—far more so than of the kinds of experiences that others might call “mystical”—filled with visions, revelations, consolations.

The best place to begin to gain insight into John is, I think, a small book edited by David Hazard: You Set My Spirit Free. It is billed as “A 40-day Journey in the Company of John of the Cross,” published by Bethany House. It is one of a magnificent series of books on the great spiritual masters of the centuries. Every “day” will begin with passages from Scripture, a paraphrased excerpt from John’s writings, and then a closing prayer. I highly recommend this book and this series.

John’s own experiences (well narrated in David Hazard’s introduction) were those of darkness and suffering as a way of coming to Christ. In many ways they were brutal. But he came through them, thanks be to God, and he is a great guide for us as result. He could have made his own a song by Steve Green, The Refiner’s Fire—it is a song of suffering as a road to purgation, to purification; a road that leads to “God alone.” It is a road that Pope John Paul II would have understood instinctively (his doctoral thesis in Rome’s Angelicum University was in fact on this great mystical writer)—a road that would lead to his own motto, Totus Tuus. This is a motto of surrender into the hands of a God who is at once hidden and loving Abba…

I hope you will find David Hazard’s book, unless of course you are ready for the “whole enchilada” of John of the Cross’s writings. And I hope you will enjoy Steve Green’s song. And for good measure, a setting by Loreena McKennitt of St John's original poem, Dark Night of the Soul.

The Refiner's Fire
There burns a fire with sacred heat
White hot with holy flame
And all who dare pass through its blaze
Will not emerge the same
Some as bronze, and some as silver
Some as gold, then with great skill
All are hammered by their sufferings
On the anvil of His will

Chorus:
The Refiner's fire
Has now become my souls desire
Purged and cleansed and purified
That the Lord be glorified
He is consuming my soul
Refining me, making me whole
No matter what I may lose
I choose the Refiner's fire

I'm learning now to trust His touch
To crave the fire's embrace
For though my past with sin was etched
His mercies did erase
Each time His purging cleanses deeper
I'm not sure that I'll survive
Yet the strength in growing weaker
Keeps my hungry soul alive

Chorus

Words and music by Jon Mohr and Randall Dennis
Copyright 1989 Birdwing Music/Jonathan Mark Music (admin. by Gaither copyright management)/J.R. Dennis Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

THE CLOISTER WALK

2010-12-14T06:43:00.002-06:00

All this year the calendar nearest the desk in my study has been one made by and for the Sisters of the Visitation Monastery here in Mobile. The final picture, for December, is a group photo of the sisters—a community of eight women.

Just a couple of weeks ago I received word of the death of one of the sisters at the Dominican Monastery of St Jude in Marbury. I was able to offer Mass for her repose, and I got a lovely note from the Mother Superior there, along with a memorial card.

There are two things that connect the card and the calendar for me, and they are equally important. The first is that both the Visitation Monastery and St Jude Monastery are communities of cloistered nuns: their entire life is focused on prayer, seeking God alone.
The second is the tremendous happiness that radiates from all their faces: they have found joy in their vocation, joy in our Lord.

Most of these women are about the same age—in their 80s. Sr Mary Magdalen of the Marbury Dominicans was actually born the same year as my own Mother—1925. Does it take a lifetime before one comes to see the truth of one’s vocation and love it (and be loved by it)? Perhaps it’s only at the end of a long road that one can really look back and say that whether or not it was the “road less traveled” it was the right road for me, and that the Lord’s hand was upon me even when I wasn’t aware of it or didn’t perceive it…

“Vocation” in many ways is what our hand finds to do (to refer to Ecclesiastes 9:10)—will we “do it with our might” for God’s glory and the advancement of the Kingdom? We might be cloistered nuns, or diocesan priests; we might be single-parents or ministering to spouses with Alzheimer’s or cancer; we might be young adults in college or starting a first real job. The key is always the answer to the question “Given all that I am, given who and what I am, how can I take this package of personhood and give God the glory with it today?” No answer will produce the kind of joy and happiness of the sisters here in Mobile or in Marbury other than that that particular calling was truly their calling.

And to know what is your—or my—calling, requires listening to the whispers of the Spirit within. When heart’s deepest inclinations resonate with outward choices, then one finds peace; one finds one’s vocation.

May we all live and die in the Lord with the joy of these cloistered sisters!

MARY, MOTHER OF US ALL

2010-12-07T20:16:00.002-06:00

In honor of today's/tomorrow's Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (our nation's and our Archdiocese's patronal feast day, as well as the patronal feast day of my seminary, the North American College in Rome), I offer this setting of the Gospel for the Mass (and which we are singing this year as our Communion Hymn)... Enjoy, and remember that in terms of enthusiasm our December 8 is "only a shadow" of what will be going on in so much of the Americas on December 12.

GRASS, PROMISED LIFE

2010-12-07T12:29:00.002-06:00

It may strike some as fatalistic, but the text of this movement of Johannes Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem [A German Requiem] is actually that of the 1st reading for Mass this morning (Tuesday, 2nd Week of Advent)--"All flesh is grass..."

For Isaiah, the contrast is the temporal nature of our life as opposed to the eternal reality of God. How small we are! And yet, as Is 40:1-11 is yoked in the liturgy to Matt 18:10-14, we see that even grass-like (human) flesh is worthy of being loved, of being pursued, by our Maker/Savior/Sanctifier. Why would God bother? What benefit would there possibly be to the Divine Majesty by our redemption, or loss by our perdition?

Those questions are not answered; instead, we are assured that even at the risk of losing the rest of the 99, God wants to seek and save US, the 1 lost sheep. "Wants to" must, in the context, be translated as "loves us so much that He chooses to." This is our God...

So enjoy the excerpt below from Brahms' great work, and may the love of the Lord be with us!