I was interviewed on National Public Radio last year regarding a blog post I had written a few years previously about the movie “Toy Story.” The link to the interview is at the bottom of this post. You may wish to skip my written remarks below and just go to the interview instead, as it incorporates most of my reflections.
There was a movie some years ago that most of you have probably seen called Toy Story. It had a profound impact on me, for it came out at a critical time in my life.
It was my 33rd year of life and the 6th year of my priesthood. As I have related elsewhere, I had suffered a nervous breakdown that required a week in the hospital and a month off to recuperate. What drove me to that point was agreeing to take an assignment I really wasn’t ready for. I was asked to pastor a parish that was in serious financial trouble. The stress nearly finished me.
Invincible? I was a young priest at the time, still in my “invincible” stage, when I thought I could do anything. I guess it’s fairly common for young men to think they can handle anything. During those years, opinions are strong, dreams are still vivid, and hard experiences have not yet taught their tough lessons.
So, this young priest said “yes” to the assignment, even though I had reservations. Soon enough, the panic attacks came, followed by waves of depression. There were days when I could barely come out of my room. A week in the hospital for evaluation, a month off to recuperate, and years of good spiritual direction, psychotherapy, and the sacraments have been God’s way of restoring me to health.
Somewhere during the early stages of my recovery, I saw the movie Toy Story. Right away, I recognized myself in Buzz Lightyear. Buzz begins the movie as a brash, would-be hero and savior of the planet. Buzz Lightyear’s tagline is, “To infinity … and beyond!” The only problem is that he seems to have no idea that he is a toy. He thinks he has come from a distant planet to save Earth. Buzz often radios to the mother ship and, hearing nothing, concludes that she must be just out of range.
At a critical point in the movie, it begins to dawn on Buzz that he is just a toy and may not be able to save the day. He struggles with this realization and resists it. He tries to leap to the rescue, not knowing he can’t really fly, and falls from the second floor breaking off his arm. Suddenly, Buzz realizes he’s just a toy, that all his boasting was based on an illusion. Buzz then sinks into depression, his sense of self destroyed.
But God wasn’t done with Buzz Lightyear. In the end, Buzz does save the day, by simply being what he was made to be: a toy. One of the neighborhood kids, Sid, straps Buzz to a rocket, intending to launch him high in the air. In the end, that enables Buzz to “fly” and save the day at a critical moment. Although Sid meant Buzz’s launch to cause harm, God meant it for good. The humiliation Buzz suffered enabled him to conquer his pride; it made him able to save the day.
The lesson of the movie is a critical one and certainly the lesson I learned in my own personal crisis. The lesson is that our greatness does not come from our inflated notions of our self but from God. God does not need or want us to pretend to be something we are not. He wants us to be exactly what He made us to be. It is often through our weakness that He is able to do His greatest work.
Just as Buzz comes to realize that he is just a toy, I have come to realize that I am but a man. I have certain gifts and lack others. Some doors are open to me and others are not. When I accept that and come to depend on God to fashion me and use me according to His will, great things are possible. If we go on living in sinful illusion, we miss our true calling and our proper place in God’s kingdom. Ultimately, each of us must come to discover the man or woman that God created us to be. That is our true greatness. It is often through our weaknesses and humiliations that we learn this best.
At Mass for Wednesday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time, we read a crucial question from Elijah. It came at a time of widespread apostasy among the Jewish people. Elijah summoned a multitude to Mt. Carmel in the far north of Israel:
Elijah appealed to all the people and said, “How long will you straddle the issue? If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him.” The people, however, did not answer him (1 Kings 18:21).
The Baals were the gods of the Canaanites. It had become expedient and popular to worship them because the ruling political leaders, the apostate King Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel, had set forth the worship of the Baals by erecting altars and sacred columns. All who wished their life to go well and to have access to the levers of prosperity were surely “encouraged” to comply. Jezebel funded hundreds of prophets of Baal and the goddess Asherah. She had many of the prophets of Israel killed and forced others into hiding. Through a policy of favoritism and fear, the true faith was suppressed, and false ideologies were promoted.
At this critical moment, Elijah asked his question. In effect he told them that they needed to decide whether to serve the Lord God out of courageous fidelity or the Baals out of cowardly fear.
We, too, must decide. In our times, the true faith has been undermined in the hearts of many by plausible liars, cultural war, and political correctness. Those who strive to hold to the true faith are called hateful, bigoted, and intolerant. A legal framework is growing that seeks to force compliance to the moral revolution and abandonment of the biblical worldview. Social pressures are at work as well, seeking to compel compliance through political correctness, through suppression of speech and ideas, and through the influence of music, cinema, and art.
The same question must be asked of us: How long will you straddle the issue? If the Lord is God, follow him at any cost. If Baal is your god, follow him! If you prefer what is popular, politically correct, and safe, go for it; but understand that if you do so, your decision is increasingly for Baal, not the Lord. In a culture that insists you celebrate fornication, homosexual acts, transgenderism, abortion, euthanasia, and all sorts of intemperance, realize that your decision to comply amounts to a choice for Baal.
Some claim that they are not really making a fundamental choice against God and for the modern Baals. Rather, they prefer to think that they are being “tolerant,” that they are pleasant moderates seeking to “build bridges” and keep the faith “mainstream.”
The lines are starkly drawn. The choices required of us are clear. The ancient maxim has never been more true: tertium non datur (no third way is given). Jesus says, You cannot serve God and mammon (Mat 6:24). James adds, Adulterers! Do you not realize that a friendship with the world is enmity at God? (James 4:4) Elijah’s question cannot be watered down. There are two sides in the moral battle of our times: choose one.
The people of Elijah’s time did not want to answer. The text says that they just stood there silently. But a lack of response does not make the question or the choice go away. Prolonged silence to so fundamental a question becomes an answer in itself. Silence and fence-sitting are not valid answers when the lines are so clearly drawn.
Here is a warning to “fence-sitters” in the form of an old story:
A man once refused to take sides in the critical and disputed matters of his day, nobly declaring that he was tolerant of all views. Taking his seat on the fence he congratulated himself for his openness; others did too. One day the devil came and said to him, “Come along now, you’re with me.” The man protested, “I don’t belong to you. I’m on the fence!” The devil simply replied: “Oh, but you do belong to me. You see, I own the fence.”
“How long will you straddle the issue? If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him.”
A rather succinct and accurate summary of our current malaise is that we live in the age of “the imperial, autonomous self.” In effect, many if not most people claim an authority, a right, to craft their own reality and live according to their own notions of it. Not so long ago, it was generally accepted that reality was something outside ourselves, something that we had to go out to meet, study, and obey. There was a certain “is-ness” to things. Conformity with the basic and revealed nature of things produced thriving and the kind of happiness that comes from being in harmony with what fundamentally is.
Recently however, there has been the ascendency of the notion that reality is what I say it is. The “soft garments” version of this is, “That may be true for you, but I see it differently. You live your truth and I will live mine.”
A Supreme Court decision of the early 1990s gave voice to this notion in its ruling defending a woman’s “right” to abort her baby:
Such vapid language from the highest court in the land undermines the very concept of law. If someone can just define abortion as good, or define even the very nature of the universe, why can’t someone commit mass murder and call it good? This is the exultation of the imperial, autonomous self with almost no qualification! No family, community, nation, or culture can exist as a collection of imperial, autonomous individuals; it would be moral and political anarchy! Something outside ourselves (e.g., reality, the real (not imagined) universe, divine law, natural law, agreed-upon legal norms) must unite us.
The imperial, autonomous self cannot stay soft when, as the court suggests, the heart of liberty is neither the truth nor law (divine, natural, or civil). As we have seen in recent years, the imperial, autonomous becomes the imperious, combative self; the battle is not won by those with the most reasonable stance but by the most powerful, richest, loudest, fiercest, most exotic; or by those with most access to the media and popular culture.
The soft version of the imperial, autonomous self marches under the banners of tolerance, kindness, and open-mindedness. The fiercer version that has emerged more recently substitutes tyranny for tolerance. Few of these tyrants will admit their tyranny; they prefer to call it tolerance, but they have substituted a new meaning for the word.
Tolerance used to be understood as “a measured willingness to live with differences.” Today it has come to mean “agreement” and even “approval.” Of course, if I agree with you and approve of what you do, I do not need to practice tolerance. Thus, the redefinition of tolerance vacates the original meaning of the word entirely. Interestingly this new definition still permits calling others intolerant using the original meaning! It illustrates the “brilliance” of the cultural left in refashioning our very vocabulary and harnessing the power of words. I have written more on this matter here: Misunderstood Tolerance.
We ought not to be mistaken; the “tolerance” of the cultural elites is in fact tyranny. This is evident time and time again when anyone dares to stray from the acceptance and approval that are demanded by this new meaning. If one transgresses by not approving whatever previously sinful behavior currently demands approval, the repercussions include denouncement and demonization. The person or group is labeled unkind, hateful, intolerant, bigoted, phobic, discriminatory, and/or guilty of aggression (or the newly coined “microaggression”) and is accused of making people “feel unsafe.”
Having successfully demonized people or groups, the next move is to silence and suppress any expression of alternate views. Speakers delivering oppositional lectures on campuses are not merely protested, they are interrupted, shouted down, and even subjected physical disruption. All of this is deemed acceptable because the protesters are silencing the views of “bad” and “intolerant” people. In this way, the cultural left—which once held free speech as among the highest freedoms—is increasingly silencing oppositional speech.
The next stage is not merely to denounce opponents, but to legally punish them and criminalize their non-cooperation in the latest cause-du-jour. They are threatened legally, hauled into court, decertified, fined, and/or shut down for failing to approve of whatever the theoretically tolerant people say they should.
A recent Supreme Court case granted some relief to a Colorado baker who was subjected to this. This does not mean that such actions are going to stop. The cultural elites and self-appointed enlightened ones will just keep at it until they reach their objectives. Wearisome, lengthy, and expensive lawsuits, along with increasingly severe legislation, will likely continue until complete compliance has been achieved.
Thus, we see how the imperial, autonomous self gradually becomes the imperious, authoritarian self. Tolerance becomes tyranny. Our current Pope warns of ideological colonization. Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI warned of the “tyranny of relativism” and subjectivism. When we shift the locus of truth from the object (reality) to the subject (the individual), “truth” becomes about power and who has more of it.
George Weigel, in his thoughtful book The Fragility of Order , summarizes our times as follows:
The drastic attenuation of … three great ideas:
that there are deep truths built into the world, into human beings and into human relationships;
that these truths can be known by reason;
and that knowledge of these truths is essential to living virtuously, which means living happily (p. 124).
With these three great ideas weakened, we are left with a very small world; we are turned inward and have become self-referential. These are the ultimate parameters of the imperial, autonomous self: it is a small world, closed on itself, with a population of one. It is centered on me and whatever I think. Forget about anyone else. Forget about heritage. Forget the collected wisdom of millennia. Because little can be agreed upon (even the patently obvious sex of male and female bodies), we are left with a fierce power struggle between competing visions of “reality.”
If Western culture was the fair flower of the Judeo-Christian vision, the post-modern world is an ugly dandelion with deep tap roots. It is a dandelion that has gone to seed, and its white, cotton-like seeds are blowing in the breeze and taking root everywhere.
What are we to do? First, we must see the revolution for what it is. There is a hopelessly fatal shifting of the locus of truth away from what is revealed by God in biblical revelation (Divine Truth) and in the Book of Creation as grasped by reason (Natural Law). This is our Judeo-Christian heritage; it was what grounded us and united us. Having removed and denied the efficacy of this, our modern world has become unmoored and unraveled, mired in hopeless power struggles.
Only a return to our roots can save us. Therefore, St. Paul’s mandate to Timothy must also become ours:
Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and encourage with every form of patient instruction. For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry (2 Tim 4:2-5).
This is true not only for bishops and priests, but for parents, Catholics in general, and all believing citizens of this land. America remains a great country, and our religious sensibilities are not completely lost. There is time, but the door is closing, and our cultural opponents are more fierce and bold than ever before. This is a good fight, and if you find a good fight you should get in it.
Pope Leo XIII penned an insightful analysis of three trends that both alarmed him and pointed to future problems. He wrote of these three concerns in 1893 in the Encyclical on the Holy Rosary entitled Laetitiae Sanctae (Of Holy Joy). The Pope laid out these three areas of concern and then offered the Mysteries of the Rosary as a remedy. Let’s look at how he described the problems and then consider what he proposed as a solution. His teaching is presented in bold, black italics. My remarks are shown in plain, red text.
There are three influences which appear to us to have the chief place in effecting this downgrade movement of society. These are—first, the distaste for a simple and laborious life; secondly, repugnance to suffering of any kind; thirdly, the forgetfulness of the future life (# 4).
Problem 1: The distaste for a simple and laborious life – We deplore … the growing contempt of those homely duties and virtues which make up the beauty of humble life. To this cause we may trace in the home, the readiness of children to withdraw themselves from the natural obligation of obedience to the parents, and their impatience of any form of treatment which is not of the indulgent and effeminate kind. In the workman, it evinces itself in a tendency to desert his trade, to shrink from toil, to become discontented with his lot, to fix his gaze on things that are above him, and to look forward with unthinking hopefulness to some future equalization of property. We may observe the same temper permeating the masses in the eagerness to exchange the life of the rural districts for the excitements and pleasures of the town … (#5).
One of the truths that set us free is that life is hard. Along with the progress we can and do experience come trials, arduous work, and setbacks. Few things of true value come to us without significant cost. Coming to realize and accept that life is hard is freeing, for it minimizes or even removes many of our resentments. Many today expect that life should be peachy all the time and when it is not become angry and resentful; some even threaten lawsuits. It is common today to think of happiness as a God-given right. Our Founding Fathers recognized the pursuit of happiness as a right, but many think happiness itself is a right. When they are not happy, the system has somehow failed them. Many today expect to live lives in which there is little risk and things come easily. This has been one of the factors influencing the growth of government. As insistence on a comfortable life grows and hard work begins to seem an unreasonable demand, we expect government to ease our burdens and provide comfort and happiness; we are less willing to work hard for these things. Rather, we see happiness and comfort as things to which we are entitled.
Unrealistic expectations are premeditated resentments. With unrealistic expectations, people quickly grow resentful. Our ancestors of a mere 150 years ago had different notions. They looked for happiness, too, but largely expected to find that in Heaven. Many of the old Catholic prayers bespeak a vision that this world was a place of travail and exile, a valley of tears where we sighed and longed to be with God. Many Catholics of those earlier times lived lives that were both difficult and short; they lived with far fewer creature comforts than we do today. There was no electricity or running water; medicines were few and far less effective. Entertainment was limited, houses were smaller, and transportation was far more restricted.
We live so well in comparison, yet despite being more comfortable, there is little evidence that we are happier. Indeed, we seem more resentful, probably because we expect more—a lot more. As Pope Leo noted, young people resent discipline and seem to expect to be spoiled. Most parents seem more than willing to indulge them while shirking their duty to correct, as that would bring tension and difficulty.
The value of hard work and the satisfaction that comes from it seem lost on many today. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick used to counsel us priests that if we did not go to bed tired, something was wrong. All of us need some rest and relaxation, but hard work actually brings greater satisfaction to times of rest.
The high expectations we have today breed discontent. We really insist on living in a fantasy that this world is, or can be, paradise; it cannot. A better strategy is to accept that life is at times difficult and to meet its difficulties with courage. Though this is a hard truth, accepting it brings peace.
In response to this first error, Pope Leo commended to our attention the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary and in particular a meditation on the implicit lessons of the home at Nazareth:
Let us take our stand in front of that earthly and divine home of holiness, the House of Nazareth. How much we have to learn from the daily life which was led within its walls! What an all-perfect model of domestic society! Here we behold simplicity and purity of conduct, perfect agreement and unbroken harmony, mutual respect and love … devotedness of service. Here is the patient industry which provides what is required for food and raiment; which does so “in the sweat of the brow,” which is contented with little …. These are precious examples of goodness, of modesty, of humility, of hard-working endurance, of kindness to others, of diligence in the small duties of daily life, and of other virtues …. Then will each one begin to feel his work to be no longer lowly and irksome, but grateful and lightsome, and clothed with a certain joyousness by his sense of duty in discharging it conscientiously … home-life … loved and esteemed … (# 6).
Problem 2: Repugnance to suffering of any kind – A second evil … is to be found in repugnance to suffering and eagerness to escape whatever is hard or painful to endure. The greater number are thus robbed of that peace and freedom of mind which remains the reward of those who do what is right undismayed by the perils or troubles to be met with in doing so …. By this passionate and unbridled desire of living a life of pleasure, the minds of men are weakened, and if they do not entirely succumb, they become demoralized and miserably cower and sink under the hardships of the battle of life (# 7).
Today more than ever there is almost a complete intolerance of any sort of suffering. This has been fueled by the fact that we have been successful in eliminating much suffering from daily life.
We are largely protected from the elements, medicines alleviate much of our pain and bodily discomfort, appliances and advanced technology provide unprecedented convenience and make most routine manual labor all but unnecessary.
This leads to the unrealistic expectation that all suffering should be eliminated. There is almost an indignity expressed when one suggests that perhaps some things should be endured or that it is unreasonable to expect government, or science, or “someone” to eliminate every evil or all forms of suffering.
Further, we seem unwilling to accept that accidents happen, and unfortunate circumstances occur. Instead we demand more and more laws, some of which are intrusive and oppressive; we undertake lawsuits that discourage the very risk-taking that makes new inventions, medical breakthroughs, and scientific techniques possible.
We often hold people responsible for things over which they have little to no control. Economies have cycles as do climates. Governments and politicians cannot be expected to solve every problem or alleviate every burden. Sometimes things just happen and there’s no one to blame and no one that can fix it.
Life is not a cushioned room. While we can and should try to fix unnecessary hazards and seek to ease one another’s burdens, suffering, sorrows, accidents, and difficulties are all part of life in this valley of tears. Acceptance of this truth leads to a kind of paradoxical serenity. Rejection of it and indulgence in the unrealistic notion that all suffering is unreasonable leads to resentment and further unhappiness.
In response to this second error, Pope Leo commended to our attention the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary.
If from our earliest years our minds have been trained to dwell upon the sorrowful mysteries of Our Lord’s life … we [may] see written in His example all the lessons that He Himself had taught us for the bearing of our burden of labor– and sorrow, and mark how the sufferings…He embraced with the greatest measure of generosity and good will. We behold Him overwhelmed with sadness, so that drops of blood ooze like sweat from His veins. We see Him bound like a malefactor, subjected to the judgment of the unrighteous, laden with insults, covered with shame, assailed with false accusations, torn with scourges, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross, accounted unworthy to live …. Here, too, we contemplate the grief of the most Holy Mother … “pierced” by the sword of sorrow … (# 8).
Then, be it that the “earth is accursed” and brings forth “thistles and thorns,”—be it that the soul is saddened with grief and the body with sickness; even so, there will be no evil which the envy of man or the rage of devils can invent, nor calamity which can fall upon the individual or the community, over which we shall not triumph by the patience of suffering …. But by this patience, we do not mean that empty stoicism in the enduring of pain which was the ideal of some of the philosophers of old, but rather …. It is the patience which is obtained by the help of His grace; which shirks not a trial because it is painful, but which accepts it and esteems it as a gain, however hard it may be to undergo. [Men and women of faith] re-echo, not with their lips, but with their life, the words of [the Apostle] St. Thomas: “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John xi., 16) (# 9).
The cross is part of this life, but Christ has made it clear that it yields ultimately to glory if we carry it willingly and with faith.
Problem 3: Forgetfulness of the future life – The third evil for which a remedy is needed is one which is chiefly characteristic of the times in which we live. Men in former ages, although they loved the world, and loved it far too well, did not usually aggravate their sinful attachment to the things of earth by a contempt of the things of heaven. Even the right-thinking portion of the pagan world recognized that this life was not a home but a dwelling-place, not our destination, but a stage in the journey. But men of our day, albeit they have had the advantages of Christian instruction, pursue the false goods of this world in such wise that the thought of their true Fatherland of enduring happiness is not only set aside, but, to their shame be it said, banished and entirely erased from their memory, notwithstanding the warning of St. Paul, “We have not here a lasting city, but we seek one which is to come” (Heb. xiii., 4) (# 11).
I am increasingly amazed at how infrequently most people think of Heaven. Even Churchgoing believers talk little of it; priests rarely preach on it. Our main preoccupation seems to be making this world a more comfortable and pleasant place. Even in our so-called spiritual life, our prayers bespeak a worldly preoccupation: Lord, fix my money problems; improve my heath; get me a better job. It is almost as though we are saying, “Make this world pleasant enough and I’ll just stay here.” It is not wrong to pray for these things, nor is it wrong to work to make this world a better place, but our true home is in Heaven and we ought to seek its shores eagerly. We should meditate on Heaven frequently and the deepest longing of our soul should be to be with God forever. Instead we fear getting older; our culture tries to keep death hidden away. It ought to be that we can’t wait to see God. Sure, it would be nice to finish a few things we’ve started, but as Heaven and being with God draw closer, we should be happy that the years are flying by faster. Each day means we are one day closer to God!
Our prosperity has misled us into having an unhealthy love of this world. A friend of the world is an enemy to God (James 4:4). We are distracted and too easily forget that this world is passing away; we are all going to die. Only a proper longing for Heaven can correct the absurdity that an obsessive love for this world establishes in our soul.
Meditate on Heaven frequently! Read the scriptures, such as Revelation 1, & 4-5, 20-21. Ask for a deeper longing from God.
In response to this third error, Pope Leo commended to our attention the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary as a medicine for both our absurd attachment to this passing world and our forgetfulness of Heaven:
These mysteries are the means by which, in the soul of a Christian, a most clear light is shed upon the good things, hidden to sense, but visible to faith, “which God has prepared for those who love Him.” From them we learn that death is not an annihilation which ends all things, but merely a migration and passage from life to life. By them we are taught that the path to Heaven lies open to all men, and as we behold Christ ascending thither, we recall the sweet words of His promise, “I go to prepare a place for you.” By them we are reminded that a time will come when “God will wipe away every tear from our eyes,” and that “neither mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow, shall be any more,” and that “We shall be always with the Lord,” and “like to the Lord, for we shall see Him as He is,” and “drink of the torrent of His delight,” as “fellow-citizens of the saints,” in the blessed companionship of our glorious Queen and Mother. Dwelling upon such a prospect, our hearts are kindled with desire, and we exclaim, in the words of a great saint, “How vile grows the earth when I look up to heaven!” Then, too, shall we feel the solace of the assurance “that this momentary and light affliction produces for us an eternal weight of glory beyond measure, exceedingly” (2 Cor. iv., 17).
Here, then, are three diagnoses and three remedies. It is interesting that the roots of these problems were already evident in 1893. How much more they press upon us over a century later! It is helpful to have a doctor of souls to help us name the demons that afflict us. Having named a demon, we have more power over it and can learn its moves more easily.
Demon, your name is “laziness” and “distaste for hard work.” By the joyful mysteries of the Lord’s life, be gone.
Demon, your name is “refusal of any suffering” and “resentment at the cross.” By the sorrowful mysteries of the Lord’s life, be gone.
Demon, your name is “forgetfulness of Heaven” and “obsession with the passing world.” By the glorious mysteries of the Lord’s life (and our Lady’s, too), be gone.
This week in daily Mass we read of the struggles of Elijah the Prophet, who spent his life fighting the influence of the Canaanite god Baal in Israel. Up on Mt. Carmel, Elijah was strong and fearless, but he also had moments of deep discouragement.
Many of us today are discouraged in these times of cultural confusion, times when so many Catholics have fallen away from the practice of the faith or so easily dissent. It makes me think of the prophet Elijah at his lowest moment: he was in a cave, anxious and fretting, so depressed he could barely eat.
Those were very dark times, when huge numbers of Jews fell away from the exclusive worship of the LORD and bent the knee to Baal. Jezebel, the foreign wife of the Jewish King Ahab, was instrumental in spreading this apostasy. Elijah fought against it tirelessly and at times felt quite alone.
There he was, fleeing from Queen Jezebel (who sought his life) and deeply discouraged by his fellow Jews, who were either too confused or too fearful to resist the religion of the Baals demanded by Jezebel. Perhaps he thought he was the last of those who held the true religion. In the cave, Elijah pours out his lament.
And there he came to a cave, and lodged there; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the people of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Ki 19:9–10).
God will have none of this despair or complaining. He says to Elijah,
Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria; and Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. And him who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay; and him who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet I have seven thousand in Israel, that have never bent the knee to nor bowed to Baal, nor kissed him with the mouth (1 Ki 19:15–18).
There are others after all! It is a small remnant to be sure, but Elijah is not alone. A small remnant remains faithful and God will rebuild, working with them.
Elijah is commanded not to give way to discouragement, but rather to keep preaching and to anoint leaders and a prophet who will keep preaching after him.
This is a lesson for all of us.
In times like these, it is hard not to feel like Elijah: deeply disappointed and even discouraged in the face of our current cultural decline. How many of our countrymen and even fellow Catholics have bent the knee to the Baals of our time, accepting the doctrines of demons? How many have been led astray by the Jezebels and the false religion of the Baals of our time, setting aside the cross and substituting the pillow of comfort and selfish desire? Now, like then, many are told to immolate their children, to kill the innocent through abortion (and call it “choice,” “women’s healthcare,” or “reproductive freedom”). There is widespread misunderstanding of marriage, rampant divorce, cohabitation, fornication, children being born out of wedlock, sweeping approval for same-sex unions, and even the open celebration of homosexual activity. All of this causes grievous harm to children by shredding the family—the very institution that needs to be strong if they are to be raised well.
Euthanasia is back in the news, and the legalization of polygamy may be on the horizon.
So here we are today in a culture of rebellion. Sadly, too many in the Church (including clergymen and those in the Church hierarchy) seem bewitched, succumbing to false compassion.
Lest we become like Elijah in the cave, discouraged and edging toward despair, we ought to hear again the words of God to Elijah: I have seven thousand in Israel that have never bent the knee to nor bowed to Baal.
God has a way of working with remnants in order to rebuild His Kingdom. Mysteriously, He allows a kind of pruning, a falling away of what He calls the cowards (e.g., Judges 7:3, Rev 21:8). With those who are left, He can achieve a great victory.
Consider that at the foot of the cross there was only one bishop (i.e., one priest, one man) who had the courage to be there. Only four or five women possessed such courage. But Jesus was there; and with a remnant, a small fraction of His followers, He won thorough to the end.
Are you praying with me? Stay firm! Stay confident! Do not despair! There are seven thousand who have not bent the knee to the Baals of this age. With a small group, the Lord can win through to the end. Are you among the seven thousand? Or do the Baals hold some of your allegiance? Where do you stand?
Elijah was reminded that he was not alone. Hearing of the faith of so many of you readers reminds me that I am not alone. When I hear the Amens coming from my congregation as I preach the “old time religion,” I remember that I am not alone. When I gather with other coalitions of believers, I am reminded that there are many good souls still to be found. Seek them out. Build alliances, and stand ready to resist, to fight the coming and already-present onslaughts.
I cannot be certain of the fate of Western culture (frankly, it doesn’t look good). I am not sure if these are the end times or just the end of an era. But of this I am sure: Jesus wins and so do all who stand with Him and persevere to the end. Get up, Elijah. Go prophesy, even if you are killed for it. Keep preaching until the last soul is converted..
In the first reading for Sunday (from Genesis) the Lord asks three important questions and sets into motion a “crucial” plan for our salvation. The word “crucial” is rooted in the Latin word for cross (crux or crucis). As such, it indicates something that is central by a coming together of the horizontal and vertical. It also points to a suffering that needs healing. Let’s look at each question in turn and then observe God’s saving plan.
I. “Adam, where are you?” – God’s first question has almost the quality of a plaintive cry. Because Adam is the head of his household, when God calls Adam He is also seeking Eve.
Of course, God knows where Adam and Eve are. He is really saying, “Adam, Eve: your heart has been hidden from me. What has happened? Where are you going with your life?” This is a crucial question for all of us who are so easily wayward and dull of heart: Where are you?
It is almost as if Adam and Eve had a place in God’s heart and suddenly are absent from that place. Noticing it at once, God seeks them as a shepherd looks for lost sheep.
It is interesting that He is seeking them, not pursuing them. There is nothing here to imply an angry Father, bent on punishment and venting His anger, pursuing those who have done wrong. No, this is a soulful cry.
God is not unaware of what has happened or where they are. The question is deeper: Where is your heart?
We are asked this same question: Where is our heart? On what are our desires focused? Where are we and where are we going? It is much like what Jesus asked Peter: “Do you love me?” How will we answer?
II. “Who told you that you were naked?” – We do well to understand that the nakedness here is about more than a lack of clothes (which they didn’t even need moments ago). It more fully refers to the experience of feeling exposed, vulnerable, inadequate, and unduly humiliated before God and others.
Proper sorrow for sin is a good thing, but if it descends to deep degradation and feelings of worthlessness, we are robbed of our dignity and capacity to withstand sin in the future. St. Paul says,
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. (2 Cor. 7:10).
Proper sorrow bids us to seek God for healing. Note that Adam is hiding from God. He has a servile fear of punishment. Instead of running to God, Adam hides; he is fearful and resentful. How quickly he blames his wife for the whole thing: “It was that woman you put here with me!”
God asks us this question, too: “Who told you that you were naked?” In other words, who told you that were wretched and inadequate such that you need to hide from me? I never told you that. Clearly, Satan has bedeviled you and lied to you.
Here are some further things for many of us: “Who told you that you are ugly, that others are better than you, that you do not measure up, that others are laughing at you, that your inadequacies are all that others see? I did not tell you this. They are not the source of your dignity, I am.”
It is a terrible thing to sin, but it is even worse to then lose all hope, to despair, and to feel incapable of emerging from the nakedness of humiliation. Judas despaired of his sin in this way and refused to live with his nakedness and exposure to humiliation. In contrast, Peter waited for the Lord, lived with his sorrow, and then experienced His forgiveness at the lakeside (Jn 21:15ff).
Let the Lord ask you: “Who told you that you were naked?” What does nakedness mean in your life?
Remember, the Lord did not forsake Adam and Eve. He prepares their salvation (as we shall see) and meanwhile He clothed them: The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them (Gen 3:21). Later, Jesus clothed us in righteousness (Rev 19:8).
III. “Why did you do such a thing?” – The tone here could be rhetorical, as if to say, “How could you have done such a thing?” For our purpose, though, it is better to understand the question as an invitation to look into our heart and ponder our motivations.
The Catechism speaks to Adam and Eve’s motivations in the following way:
Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness (CCC # 397).
So, at the heart of Adam and Eve’s fall was a lack of trust in God’s goodness and truthfulness. They accepted Satan’s lie that God was not really good and that He was holding the best things back from them, that He was preventing them from being gods. This also aroused their pride and made them ungrateful for what they had. These are the deeper drives behind their external act.
In asking this question, God invites Adam and Eve to ponder the motivations of their hearts and come to greater self-knowledge.
This same question must be asked of us when we sin: Why did you do such a thing? It is good to confess our sinful behavior, but it is more healing to ponder the deep drives of sin and seek the Lord’s healing. There are many deep drives of sin: pride, greed, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, sloth, ingratitude, fear, worldliness, stubbornness, and so forth. We do well to study our hearts and learn to name the vices and virtues we discover there. Through self-knowledge and grace, we can take greater authority over our lives.
The Crucial Plan: The text from Genesis 3 also announces the “protoevangelium” (the first Gospel) after Original Sin. The Lord does not forsake Adam, Eve, or us. He sets forth a crucial plan wherein one of Eve’s own progeny will rise to conquer Satan’s pride by His humble acceptance of the Cross:
Then the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures; on your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.”
In effect, God says that this attack on His people will not stand. He will set this right. In setting it right He will include His people in the very solution. The man, woman, and tree involved in this fall will also be its undoing. There will be a new Adam (Christ), a new Eve (Mary), and the tree of the Cross. In the very act of striking at Christ’s heel, the serpent’s head will be crushed. Your power will be crushed, Satan.
So indeed, it happened. God had a “crucial” plan: the plan of the Cross. Humility would defeat pride as light casts out darkness and love drives out hatred.
Whatever your sins, never forget that God has a plan to save you. Let God find you as He calls “Where are you?” Let Him clothe your nakedness and help you to understand your heart. Finally, let Him apply the crucial remedy, the cross. All He needs is your ongoing yes!
Below is a link to a commercial that must have taken weeks to film. Regardless of its intent (selling home insurance), there is something of an admonition in both the visuals and the music, that life and the things of life slip away.
While the music sets forth the theme, “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow; don’t stop, it’ll soon be here,” the objects in the house start to get up and leave the house and its owners. The owners themselves begin to be swept away as well. By the end of the commercial, all that was within, and all who were within, have been swept outside.
This is a paradigm for life. No thing and no person in this world will survive the passage of time. All will be swept away; all will pass. Even lofty mountains were once on the sea floor, and to that floor they will eventually erode and return. Jesus said, Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away (Mat 24:35).
Scripture also says,
For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come (Heb 13:14).
The end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray (1 Peter 4:7).
But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13).
This commercial is not morbid, but rather almost joyful. Indeed, though earthly glories fade, Scripture says (in many different passages) that trouble doesn’t last always (cf Psalm 30:6).
The commercial ends with a photograph being taken. Ultimately, each moment in life is but a snapshot in time. Time itself and all things are moving downstream and slipping away. God alone remains forever. Our only hope is to be anchored to Him. He is our rock, our firm foundation. His Kingdom is our lasting city. All else fails and slips away.
There are a lot of “solos” sung by our Protestant brethren: sola fide (saved by faith alone), sola Scriptura (Scripture alone is the rule of faith), and sola gratia (grace alone). Generally, one ought to be leery of claims that things work “alone.” Typically, many things work together in harmony; things are interrelated. Very seldom is anyone or anything really “alone.”
The problem with “solos” emerges (it seems to me) in our mind, where it is possible to separate things out; but just because we can separate something out in our mind does not mean that we can do so in reality.
Consider, for a moment, a candle’s flame. In my mind, I can separate the heat of the flame from its light, but I could never put a knife into the flame and put the heat of the flame on one side of it and the light on the other. In reality, the heat and light are inseparable—so together as to be one.
I would like to argue that it is the same with things like faith and works, grace and transformation, Scripture and the Church. We can separate all these things out in our mind, but in reality, they are one. Attempting to separate them from what they belong to leads to grave distortions and to the thing in question no longer being what it is claimed to be. Rather, it becomes an abstraction that exists only on a blackboard or in the mind of a theologian.
Let’s look at the three main “solos” of Protestant theology. I am aware that there are non-Catholic readers of this blog, so please understand that my objections are made with respect. I am also aware that in a short blog I may oversimplify, and thus I welcome additions, clarifications, etc. in the comments section.
Solo 1: Faith alone (sola fide) – For 400 years, Catholics and Protestants have debated the question of faith and works. In this matter, we must each avoid caricaturing the other’s position. Catholics do not and never have taught that we are saved by works. For Heaven’s sake, we baptize infants! We fought off the Pelagians. But neither do Protestants mean by “faith” a purely intellectual acceptance of the existence of God, as many Catholics think that they do.
What concerns us here is the detachment of faith from works that the phrase “faith alone” implies. Let me ask, what is faith without works? Can you point to it? Is it visible? Introduce me to someone who has real faith but no works. I don’t think one can be found. About the only example I can think of is a baptized infant, but that’s a Catholic thing! Most Baptists and Evangelicals who sing the solos reject infant baptism.
Hence it seems that faith alone is something of an abstraction. Faith is something that can only be separated from works in our minds. If faith is a transformative relationship with Jesus Christ, we cannot enter into that relationship while remaining unchanged. This change affects our behavior, our works. Even in the case of infants, it is possible to argue that they are changed and do have “works”; it’s just that they are not easily observed.
Scripture affirms that faith is never alone, that such a concept is an abstraction.Faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Faith without works is not faith at all because faith does not exist by itself; it is always present with and causes works through love. Galatians 5:6 says, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love. Hence faith works not alone but through love. Further, as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 13:2, if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
Hence faith alone is the null set. True faith is never alone; it bears the fruit of love and the works of holiness. Faith ignites love and works through it. Beware of the solo “faith alone” and ask where faith, all by itself, can be found.
Solo 2: Grace alone (sola gratia) – By its very nature grace changes us. Again, show me grace apart from works. Grace without works is an abstraction. It cannot be found apart from its effects. In our mind it may exist as an idea, but in reality, grace is never alone.
Grace builds on nature and transforms it. It engages the person who responds to its urges and gifts. If grace is real, it will have its effects and cannot be found alone or apart from works. It cannot be found apart from a real flesh-and-blood human who is manifesting its effects.
Solo 3: Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) – Beware those who say, “sola Scriptura!” This is the claim that Scripture alone is the measure of faith and the sole authority for the Christian, that there is no need for a Church and no authority in the Church, that there is only authority in the Scripture.
There are several problems with this.
First, Scripture as we know it (with the full New Testament) was not fully assembled and agreed upon until the 4th century.
It was Catholic bishops, in union with the Pope, who made the decision as to which books belonged in the Bible. The early Christians could not possibly have lived by sola scriptura because the Scriptures were not even fully written in the earliest years. And although collected and largely completed in written form by 100 AD, the set of books and letters that actually made up the New Testament was not agreed upon until the 4th century.
Second, until recently most people could not read.
Given this, it seems strange that God would make, as the sole rule of faith, a book that people had to read on their own. Even today, large numbers of people in the world cannot read well. Hence, Scripture was not necessarily a read text, but rather one that most people heard and experienced in and with the Church through her preaching, liturgy, art, architecture, stained glass, passion plays, and so forth.
Third, and most important, if all you have is a book, then that book needs to be interpreted accurately.
Without a valid and recognized interpreter, the book can serve to divide more than to unite. Is this not the experience of Protestantism, which now has tens of thousands of denominations all claiming to read the same Bible but interpreting it in rather different manners?
The problem is, if no one is Pope then everyone is Pope! Protestant “soloists” claim that anyone, alone with a Bible and the Holy Spirit, can authentically interpret Scripture. Well then, why does the Holy Spirit tell some people that baptism is necessary for salvation and others that it is not necessary? Why does the Holy Spirit tell some that the Eucharist really is Christ’s Body and Blood and others that it is only a symbol? Why does the Holy Spirit say to some Protestants, “Once saved, always saved” and to others, “No”?
So, it seems clear that Scripture is not meant to be alone. Scripture itself says this in 2 Peter 3:16: our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, also wrote to you, Our Brother Paul speaking of these things [the Last things] as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures. Hence Scripture itself warns that it is quite possible to misinterpret Scripture.
Where is the truth to be found? The Scriptures once again answer this:you should know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim 3:15).
Hence Scripture is not to be read alone. It is a document of the Lord through the Church and must be read in the context of the Church and with the Church’s authoritative interpretation and Tradition. As this passage from Timothy says, the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth. The Bible is a Church book and thus is not meant to be read apart from the Church that received the authority to publish it from God Himself. Scripture is the most authoritative and precious document of the Church, but it emanates from the Church’s Tradition and must be understood in the light of it.
Thus, the problems of “singing solo” seem to boil down to the fact that if we separate what God has joined we end up with an abstraction, something that exists only in the mind but in reality, cannot be found alone.
Here is a brief video in which Fr. Robert Barron ponders the Protestant point of view that every baptized Christian has the right to authoritatively interpret the Word of God.
I was interviewed on National Public Radio last year regarding a blog post I had written a few years previously about the movie “Toy Story.” The link to the interview is at the bottom of this post. You may wish to skip my written remarks below and just go to the interview instead, as it incorporates most of my reflections.
