In the modern age we have tended to reduce the notion of hypocrisy to duplicity. The modern notion is that a hypocrite is someone who says one thing but does another, a person who is two-faced, who is inconsistent or phony. Jesus’ teaching on Hypocrisy does not exclude this notion but is far richer.
The Biblical understanding enunciated by Jesus is rooted in the original meaning of the Greek word hypokritḗs which means “stage actor.” At one level it is easy to see how this word has come to mean some one who is phony. In other words what they claim to be they really are not, they are just acting a role. But when no one is looking (i.e. the audience is gone) they revert to their true self, which is some one quite different. But Jesus in his teaching here develops the understanding far more richly that shows how sad and poignant hypocrisy is, what its origin is and how it can be overcome.
Hypocrisy defined – In Matthew 6, Jesus takes up the problem of hypocrisy. In effect he describes hypocrisy as the sad state of a person who reduces himself to being an actor on a stage, because he does not know God the Father. There are many people who live their life in a desperate search for human approval and applause. They discern their dignity and worth, not from God (who is, in effect, a stranger to them), but from what other human beings think of them. They are willing to adapt themselves often in dramatic ways to win approval. They are willing to play many roles and wear many masks to give the audience what they want. They are like actors on a stage who seek applause or perhaps laughter and approval. Notice the way Jesus describes the heart of hypocrisy:
Jesus said to his disciples: “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them;….The Lord goes on to say that they blow a trumpet so that others will see them giving alms, they pray ostentatiously so that others may see they are praying, and they alter their appearance so that others may see they are fasting.
The heart of hypocrisy – Thus, the goal of such a person is to be seen. They are on stage and seek to ingratiate themselves to the audience, and win applause. Hence they engage in some action “in order that people may see them.” It is clear that this is ultimately very sad. A lonely actor on a stage performing whatever role is required in order to win approval from the current audience. Their inner core or deepest self is repressed and replaced by the demands of others. This is the true heart of and description of hypocrisy.
Many take this desperate need for approval from others to very self destructive extremes. Many young people, due to peer pressure, will engage in dangerous and unhealthy practices to win approval. Some will drop out of school, join gangs and commit crimes. Others will drink heavily or use drugs. Still others will tattoo and pierce their bodies, engage in sexual activity before marriage, and do many risky things. The need for approval is often the deep drive that underlies this desperate behavior. But like actors on a stage seeking applause, they rush to fill these rolls, and hope for the applause and acceptance. Adults too will often compromise core principles in order to fit in and be liked, gain promotions, or earn access. Christians will hide their faith, playing the role of a secular modern in order to win approval. Some will act deceitfully to please a boss, others will gossip or engage in any number of sinful behaviors to ingratiate themselves to a group.
It is also clear that our modern notion of hypocrisy as duplicity, while incomplete, is not wrong either. Why does the hypocrite act inconsistently, often in a duplicitous manner? Because the audience changes and he must change with it. So to one group he will say, “Yes” and to another group he will say, “No.” Since the goal of the hypocrite (actor) is to be seen and win approval, the answer must change if the group does. Hence he will morph, hide his true thoughts, or outright lie to gain the approval. He no longer has a core, his identity is outside of himself in what ever the audience requires in order to grant him approval.
Why does this happen to a person? Here too Jesus is rather clear. This happens to a person who does not know God the Father. The great tragedy of many lives is that they do not know the Father. They may know ABOUT God, but they do not personally know God or his love for them. God is at best a benevolent stranger who runs the universe, but he is in some remote heaven, and the interaction that many have with him is vague and abstract. God exists but he is on the periphery of life. In effect he is a stranger.
Notice the remedy that Jesus assigns for each example of hypocrisy he cites:
Your heavenly Father, who sees in secret will repay you for giving alms….Your heavenly Father who sees in secret will repay you for praying…..Your heavenly Father who sees what is hidden will repay you for your fasting.
In other words the goal in life, and the remedy for hypocrisy, is that it be enough that Your heavenly Father sees what you do. Now of course, as long as God the Father remains a distant and aloof figure, what he sees never WILL be enough. But to the degree that we begin to experience God the Father’s love for us, his providence and his good will toward us, then we become less concerned with what others think. We begin to come down off the stage and be less concerned for the approval of men and more focused on and then satisfied with the approval of God.
Notice too the intimacy that Jesus points too. He is “Your heavenly Father.” He is not merely the “Deity.” He is not merely God up in heaven. He is not even merely the Father. He is “YOUR heavenly Father.” He is the one who created you, sustains you, provides for and loves you.
Journeying away from Hypocrisy – To the degree that this becomes real for us and is more than words on the page of a book or inferential knowledge base only on what others have said, to the degree that this is a real experience for us, we start to climb off the stage. We are less the actor (the hypocrite) and more the authentic self God has created us to be. We begin to loose our obsession with what others think of us. We are less desperate for their approval. It is not that we become sociopaths caring not one whit what others think. We still groom ourselves etc but we are not obsessed with the good opinion of others. It is enough that we know our heavenly Father and his love for us.
Hence, hypocrisy, at least as Jesus teaches it here, is a richer concept than we often think of today. To this sad and poingnant problem, Jesus addresses a very powerful and personal solution of knowing “your heavenly Father” and expereincing his love for you. Thank you Lord Jesus!
Pain- be it psychological, emotional, or physical- can affect us deeply. When we hurt, the world can seem a very bleak place. We can feel alone, scared, helpless, depressed. We might become angry at God, wonder if he cares, or even doubt that he exists. At times like this, we need to hear Jesus’ words in today’s gospel. “You will grieve,” he promised, “but your grief will become joy.”
When Jesus first spoke these words, he was assuring his disciples that their sadness over his crucifixion would be replaced by the joy of his resurrection. But the Lord intends these words for us as well, because resurrection joy has the power to transform our grief as well, by offering us hope.
The resurrection gives us a present hope- a hope for the healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, courage, and strength that Jesus offers us as gifts. And, the resurrection gives us a future hope as well- a hope for a life not only free of sorrow and pain, but one filled with a love, a joy, and a peace we can only begin to imagine now.
Thanks to the resurrection, beyond every one of our Good Fridays lies the hope of an everlasting Easter; beyond every cross we carry, is the promise of an empty tomb.
We have discussed here before the population implosion taking place in most parts of Europe. Approximately 2.1 Children per woman are needed to maintain the population of a given country or ethnic group. In most of Europe, the birthrate hovers well below 2, often as low as 1.3 in some Eastern European countries. In effect these cultures are aborting and contracepting themselves out of existence.
As populations shrink, so do economies and so does the ability to provide basic services, and staff the engine of production. Some countries rely on large numbers of immigrants to fill the gaps. But these immigrants do not often share the faith and culture of the people they are gradually replacing. The result is a dying European culture. We have certainly discussed these matters extensively here before. (e.g. HERE)
Now comes the news from AP- that proposed legislation in Russia would seek to severely curtail abortion to stem the tide of eroding populations. Here is the brief article.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia‘s Orthodox Church teamed with Conservative parliamentarians Monday to push legislation that would radically restrict abortions in a nation struggling to cope with one of the world’s lowest birthrates.
The legislation would ban free abortions at government-run clinics and prohibit the sale of the morning-after pill without a prescription, said Yelena Mizulina, who heads a parliamentary committee on families, women and children.
She added that abortion for a married woman would also require the permission of her spouse, while teenage girls would need their parents’ consent. If the legislation is passed, a week’s waiting period would also be introduced so women could consider their decision to terminate their pregnancy, Mizulina said.
Mirabile visu, mirabale auditu! (Wondrous to see! Wondrous to hear!)
Clearly, more will be necessary to stem the tide than this, but it is a recognition of the fact that abortion (and I would add, contraception) have devastated Western Cultures (including Eastern Europe). Any culture that either celebrates them or is too permissive of them will ultimately suffer from a kind of implosion.
For, it would seem that many today consider children too much trouble, too expensive, or too impacting our their lifestyle. Many prefer expensive and large homes, along with many expensive creature comforts. They prefer these to children. When this becomes a cultural trend, that culture is doomed.
Some will argue that the cost of living is too high today to have more than one or two children. While economic questions have a considerable complexity, it must also be admitted that we have chosen rather elaborate and expensive lifestyles. There are many things that we could and would do without, if we valued children more.
Now, faced with serious threats to their on-going viability as a country and a culture, the Russians are considering how to limit abortion, which has been legal there since the 1920s!
Let’s pray that other countries will wake up, including our own to the fact that we cannot go on killing our children, or preventing their existence and expect to thrive. France has begun to turn things around, it’s birth rate is edging back up toward 2.0. Perhaps other countries will also turn back the tide on abortion and contraception, and come to see that if we do not love life, we tend to die.
“It is not good for man to be alone,” declared God at the dawn of creation. God said this because we human beings are created in his image. And God, who has existed for all eternity, has himself never been alone. God is a community of three persons- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- who are united as one in perfect love.
Today’s gospel spoke of how this love is demonstrated in three ways. First, this love involves sharing. “Everything that the Father has is mine,” said Jesus, who in turn shares this with the Spirit. Second, we heard that this love builds each other up, in that the Spirit glorifies Jesus, who in turn glorifies that Father. Third, this love leads all involved to possess a common mind. The Spirit does not speak on his own. Instead, he declares the mind of Jesus, which is one with the Father.
We can see that within the Trinity, there is sharing, cooperation, mutual encouragement, and a common purpose springing from a united will. As Christians, this should be the model and goal of all our relationships too. The gospel challenge today is for us to love each other in the same way the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit love each other. A love that has already been shared with us.
At first glance, Mary appears to speak out of both sides of her mouth in today’s gospel. On one hand, she rejoices that God scatters the proud in their conceit. Yet on the other hand, she rejoices that all generations will call her blessed- an assertion that, taken in isolation, sounds like a prideful boast. We might ask: “How can Mary speak of the proud’s humiliation while she herself sounds so proud?”
In truth, Mary is not arrogant at all. She doesn’t boast of own accomplishments; she celebrates instead what God has done for her. She’s not prideful; she’s simply grateful. Instead of singing her own praises, she praises the greatness of the Lord.
Mary knew full well that it was God who had raised her up; she understood that it was God who had looked on her with favor; she acknowledged that it was the Lord who had chosen her to be the mother of his Son.
Because of this, Mary is a model for us, because she exemplifies the virtue of humility- the humility of knowing that all good things around us are sent from heaven above; the humility of accepting that any good we might do finds its origin in God’s grace; and the humility of a life lived, not for our glory, but for the glory of God. Mary soul doesn’t magnify herself. Instead, her soul “magnifies the Lord.”
It is no secret that our culture as a whole is descending into an ever-deeper sexual confusion. Recently two examples of this were in the news.
In the first article which I summarize here, a Canadian couple have chosen to raise (impose upon?) their child a “genderless” upbringing. For now, they have refused to tell any of their family or friends the sex of their child, whom they call “Storm,” and groom and dress the infant child ambiguously.
I would like to provide excerpts of a much longer article here and comment as we go. As usual, the article is in bold, black italics. My comments are in plain red text. The full article is here: Parents Keep Baby’s Gender Secret
Jayme Poisson
STAFF REPORTER
“So it’s a boy, right?” a neighbor calls out as Kathy Witterick walks by, her four month old baby, Storm, strapped to her chest in a carrier.
Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising a genderless baby. (Pet peeve: “Gender” was traditionally a word that referred to grammar, as in the subclass of a noun (male, female and neuter) in Latin and in the romance languages.”Sex” was the traditional word that referred to the sub classification of human beings as either male or female. I am willing to admit that language (which does change) is undergoing a change here. But perhaps too, it is no coincidence that, as we increasingly loose a proper sense of our humanity, that we would take up the word “gender” to refer to our sexuality. For gender in language is somewhat of an arbitrary assignment to words which have, not only a male and female sub class, but also, a third “neuter class). While there’s nothing ambiguous about Storm’s genitalia, they aren’t telling anyone whether their third child is a boy or a girl.
“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” says Stocker. (And here is one of the great errors of the modern age, a kind of Gnostic or Manichean dualism, if you will. Sexuality is much more than genitalia. The whole body, and the whole soul, is male or female. The body is not some arbitrary container or machine in which I live. My body and my soul are one. The body expresses the soul, the soul is the form of the body. It is not just my body that is male. I am male. As a human person my body and soul, though distinguishable, are one. Thus my body is a revelation of who I am at the deepest level. The child’s father (am I allowed to use that term?) has an anthropology that no Christian can accept, it is an ancient heresy (dualism) fought by the Church 18 Centuries ago, and also in more recent times. Gnostic dualism tried to separate the soul and the body).
Friends said they were imposing their political and ideological values on a newborn. Most of all, people said they were setting their kids up for a life of bullying in a world that can be cruel to outsiders. Witterick and Stocker [the parents] believe they are giving their children the freedom to choose who they want to be, unconstrained by social norms about males and females. Some say their choice is alienating. (Their friends are right. This is a terrible thing to do to the child, not only for social reasons, but also for deeply personal reasons. They are messing with this child’s psyche. For nature (and I would add, nature’s God) has supplied this child with a sex, and pretending this is insignificant, is unnatural, and thus unhealthy, for the child. Sex (or “gender” as they say), is not something we choose. It is something that is given. It is, quite simply, who and what we are).
Stocker, 39, and Witterick, 38, believe kids can make meaningful decisions for themselves from a very early age. “What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It’s obnoxious,” says Stocker. (I wonder if they will allow their kid to take up smoking, swallow broken glass, or join a right-wing political movement? The fact is, children need to be raised. They are in no position to make most decisions for themselves at an early age. Children need to be formed and educated according to what is right and proper. (Sadly, these parents seem in no position to do that anyway). Parents need to be parents. They need to show their children what is the way and how to navigate, both reality, and the social order. It is possible for a parent to micromanage a child in some matters, but these parents are over correcting for the possibility.
Further, though they claim to be giving their kid “freedom,” it is just as arguable that they are imposing their confused agenda on their children. To say that “gender” is up for grabs, is not a neutral position, it is a viewpoint; a (perverse) doctrine they are imposing on their child. So, though they like to claim that they are on some sort of (perverse) high ground, the fact is, they are imposing an agenda upon their children. So perhaps the truer conclusion is that they are being parents, just bad parents).
The moment a child’s sex is announced, so begins the parade of pink and barrage of blue. Tutus and toy trucks aren’t far behind. The couple says it only intensifies with age. (Shame on us! We are all so evil. Imagine, recognizing a child for what he or she is, how could we be so pushy?).
“In fact, in not telling the gender of my precious baby, I am saying to the world, ‘Please can you just let Storm discover for him/herself what s (he) wants to be?!.” Witterick writes in an email.(Again, we don’t decide what sex we are going to be. The body is a revelation from nature (and, I would argue, from nature’s God) of who the person IS. Sex change operations, and other forms of pretending, do not change what we are. They simply reveal deep-seated confusion and psychological disorder.
Christian anthropology insists that the body is revelation. We learn about ourselves from our bodies. They will often tell us when we are under stress, when we are being gluttonous, how old we are, etc. It is true, the body is not the only revelation of who we are, but it IS revelation, it does not lie. It cannot simply be ignored or set aside because of some form of stinking thinking, or delusional notion, that all that matters is what I think. The body is a reminder of a little thing called “reality” to which we must answer and square our thinking by. More on this below).
Stocker teaches at City View Alternative, a tiny school west of Dufferin Grove Park, with four teachers and about 60 Grade 7 and 8 students whose lessons are framed by social-justice issues around class, race and gender…. The family traveled [recently] through the mountains of Mexico, speaking with the Zapatistas, a revolutionary group who shun mainstream politics as corrupt and demand greater indigenous rights. In 1994, about 150 people died in violent clashes with the Mexican military, but the leftist movement has been largely peaceful since. Last year, they spent two weeks in Cuba, living with local families and learning about the revolution. (I wonder what the indigenous people would think of this couple’s absurd notions? I would think that most indigenous people are more in touch with reality, basic nature, and “real-world” living than this Canadian couple, lost in a post-Cartesian fog. My guess is that as they observe this sort of thing from the “corrupted West” a word comes to their mind: “Loco.” Not sure about the Cubans and how much they’ve been “westernized.”
Witterick has worked in violence prevention, giving workshops to teachers. These days, she volunteers, offering breastfeeding support. At the moment, she is a full-time mom. (Glad that mom is a full time mom, but in this case, I wish the kids had other influences).
Witterick practices unschooling, an offshoot of home-schooling centered on the belief that learning should be driven by a child’s curiosity. There are no report cards, no textbooks and no tests. For unschoolers, learning is about exploring and asking questions, “not something that happens by rote from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays in a building with a group of same-age people, planned, implemented and assessed by someone else,” says Witterick. The fringe movement is growing. An unschooling conference in Toronto drew dozens of families last fall. (These poor kids, these poor, poor kids. Not only are they being heavily influenced by sexual confusion, but they are being wholly unprepared for life. Life does occur on our own little schedule, or indulge our moments of curiosity. Life does have tests, and we are accountable for what we do. Tests, and report cards are good training for life. Textbooks, though not perfect, do at least provide a reasonably common curriculum written by some one other than these confused parents. These poor kids, what a mess. I am not against home schooling, but the picture is, that these kids are being really isolated from the real world by parents who refuse to engage reality).
Jazz — [the oldest boy] soft-spoken, with a slight frame and curious brown eyes — keeps his hair long, preferring to wear it in three braids, two in the front and one in the back, even though both his parents have close-cropped hair. His favourite colour is pink, although his parents don’t own a piece of pink clothing between them. He loves to paint his fingernails and wears a sparkly pink stud in one ear, despite the fact his parents wear no nail polish or jewelry. Kio [his brother] keeps his curly blond hair just below his chin. The 2-year-old loves purple, although he’s happiest in any kind of pyjama pants.“As a result, Jazz and now Kio are almost exclusively assumed to be girls,” says Stocker, adding he and Witterick don’t out them. (Sigh…)
On a recent trip to Hamilton, Jazz was out of earshot when family friend Denise Hansen overheard two little girls at the park say they didn’t want to play with a “girl-boy.” (Now, of course, the parents and their supporters will calls these girls unenlightened, harsh, mean spirited etc. But the fact is, these boys are (understandably) confused, and their (created) confusion unsettles people. But as is usually the case in these matters, those who engage in disordered and troubling behavior, demand all the sensitivity, and show none. As per usual they are preferring an “in-your face” approach that demands acceptance and tolerance, while at the same time showing none for us, who are understandably troubled by deeply disordered notions that fly in the face of reality).
Dr. Ken Zucker, considered a world expert on gender identityand head of the gender identity service for children at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, calls this a “social experiment of nurture.” When asked what psychological harm, if any, could come from keeping the sex of a child secret, Zucker said: “One will find out.”OK, Doctor, you have used an important word here: “experiment.” Since when did we get the notion that performing experiments on children is just fine? And do you, Doctor, parents, and supporters of the parents, really think its OK to just “find out” if any harm will come to the children? Is it right for parents to perform “social experiments” on their children in regard to the deepest aspects of who they are?
What if a certain group of parents decided that sleep was over-rated and 8 hours of sleep was an undesirable and socially imposed rule that had to go? And what if they decided to impose an “experiment” on their children by depriving them of sleep and indoctrinating them with the notion that what their body was clearly saying (“I want to sleep”) could and should be ignored? How about another experiment where we just let kids eat what they want, or bathe when and if they please? Maybe we could also refuse potty training since toilets are “social constructs.” It wouldn’t take long for the authorities to intervene in cases like this. But when it comes to sexual confusion, a politically correct and protected deviancy, we are all just supposed to step back and admire an “experiment” while three children descend into utter confusion).
The broader question, he says, is how much influence parents have on their kids. If [some] lean toward nature, Zucker puts more emphasis on nurture. Even when parents don’t make a choice, that’s still a choice, and one that can impact the children. Well Dr. Z you’ve spoken the truth here: the parents non-choice is, in fact, a choice. And their “non-choice choice” will have “impact” on their children, I would estimate the impact at about 65 mph, head on.
Well there it is, in all its tragic gloom. And, as the lights go out in Western culture this sort of thing is going to become more common.
At the heart of the problem in the Western world has been the full flower of the Cartesian error. Rene Descartes, back in the 16th Century, adopted a radical skepticism wherein he did not trust that the reality around him was real or even existed. All he could “trust” was that he doubted and quipped, “I think, therefore I am.” And thus began in the Western World, a slow but steady retreat away from reality, and into the mind. Little by little we have pulled up roots from the real, the actual and natural world around us, and turned in on ourselves. Increasingly all that matters is what I think. When one points to the actual, the real world, to facts of nature, and so forth, the modern world is increasingly unimpressed or runs to find an anomaly and pretend it’s normative. In the end for the modern westerner, All that matters is what I think. And as for what you think, well that’s just your opinion, what you think. There is no common, no shared reality, just what I think, that is all that matters.
When it comes to many of the moral issues of the day, the actual, physical, aspects of the matter are increasingly ignored and everything becomes an abstraction. Abortion is not the physical dismemberment of a human baby, it is a “choice” or just a political “issue.” When one points out that homosexual activity violates the clear design of the human body (for the man is clearly for the woman and the woman for the man, not the man for the man or the woman for the woman), one is greeted with puzzlement, as if to say, “What does the body have to do with it?” For the modern age, our bodies apparently have nothing to say to us. That promiscuity of any sort brings disease doesn’t seem to register with modern man. Most today do not conclude, on account of STDs and AIDS that perhaps our bodies are telling us something. Rather the only conclusion is that the government needs to supply more condoms and antibiotics and do more research so that we can go on ignoring our bodies and indulge our passions.
It is clear that we are retreating into our minds and away from the physical realities that are before us. Reality is cast aside. We owe no debt to the “is-ness” of things. All that matters is what we think. Rene Descartes’ retreat into the mind has come full flower and it is an ugly flower.
But for the Church and the Biblical moral tradition, natural law is an essential component of understanding what is right and wrong. The body is a revelation to us from nature, and for the Church, the body is also a revelation from God. Our bodies and the natural world around us have essential and critical things to teach us, and we owe a debt to reality that is actually before us. To simply ignore the body in discussion of sexuality is unthinkable from a Natural Law perspective, and from a Biblical perspective. The body speaks truth to us, and reveals to us what is right. When we retreat from reality by rationalizations and intellectualizing, or simply by ignoring it, we suppress the truth it reveals.
At the heart of the Church teaching and or her Natural Law Tradition is a confidence that we can know reality and trust what it tells us. To ignore reality, to ignore the revelation of the natural world, and the body is, pure and simple, to suppress the truth. The Letter to the Romans speaks with great sobriety about this problem:
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their senseless minds were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools….Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in their bodies the due penalty for their perversion. (Romans 1:21-27)
In suppressing the truth about God and what can be known from nature, our senseless Western minds have become darkened. As the Scripture points out, one of the most obvious symptoms of this is sexual confusion: promiscuity, contraception, and homosexual activity, all involve a turning away from what the body teaches us about sexuality. Sex is pleasurable to be sure, but that pleasure is obviously oriented to pro-creation. The bodily aspect of sexuality is clearly unitive but it is also procreative. We cannot simply set aside the procreative dimension of sexuality without doing violence to what the body reveals.
And, as we descend deeper into sexual confusion it would now seem that we have come to a place where some cannot even decide what it means to be male or female. How can anyone be so confused? And the yet Scriptures say plainly how. Just suppress the truth, by ignoring God and what he reveals in creation, and the downward slide begins. Before long, there is utter debasement, confusion and, at least collectively speaking, our senseless minds are darkened.
As the lights go out, the Church cannot simply curse the darkness. We must light a candles of Revelation and Natural Law. We must hold them high. And as we do so, the world will curse us, for light is obnoxious to those accustomed to darkness. But gradually, the light can be adjusted to again.
The following video is another example of the sexual confusion being pushed on others. In this case it is indoctrination in the public schools of California which insists that one can “choose” to be a boy, a girl or “both.” The “instructor,” as he points to his heart and head says, “Gender identity is about what’s in here, and up here.” It is pure Gnostic dualism, and a Cartesian retreat into the mind, and away from reality. All that matters is what I think. What is outside, “doesn’t matter.”
Memorial Day, for many, means the beginning of Summer. To others, it is a day off to shop. But, as I am sure you really know Memorial Day is a day to honor those who have died in the service of this country.
The word “memorial” comes from the Latin Memorare which is in an imperative meaning: “Remember!” So, Memorial Day is “Remember! Day.”
This is a day to remember that there are men and women who have died so that you and I could live with greater security, justice and peace. May these fallen soldiers rest in Peace. We owe them a debt of gratitude and our prayers.
In a secondary sense we can also honor those today who currently serve in the military since they have placed their lives on the line for our security and peace.We will have a second opportunity to thank those who still live on Veterans Day.
God bless them all, and may the dead rest in peace.
The Love of one’s country (Patriotism) is related to the fourth commandment. The Catechism teaches:
It is the duty of citizens to contribute to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity and freedom. The love and service of one’s country follow from the the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity. (CCC # 2239)
The Lord himself makes it plain: No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13).
My Cousin, John Clem, has blogged on how his parish celebrated Memorial Day by remembering the cost, the high cost, of war in human terms: HERE: Eyes Wide Open
Never forget the price others have paid for our freedom. Pray for our fallen soldiers of every generation and their families. Perhaps you might use this video as a way to meditate on the sacrifices they made. Here the text of the song “Mansions of the Lord” and the video follows:
To fallen soldiers let us sing,
Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing,
Our broken brothers let us bring
To the Mansions of the Lord
No more weeping,
No more fight,
No prayers pleading through the night,
Just Divine embrace,
Eternal light,
In the Mansions of the Lord
Where no mothers cry
And no children weep,
We shall stand and guard
Though the angels sleep,
Oh, through the ages safely keep
The Mansions of the Lord
While teaching a group of small children, Sister Briege McKenna said, “When you receive your first Holy Communion, Jesus will come and live in your heart.” One little girl piped up and asked, “Oh, do you mean with his furniture and everything?” Well, there is no furniture involved, of course. But Jesus does come and live in our hearts when we receive Holy Communion.
A woman at my parish taught this truth to a non-verbal autistic boy who was preparing for his First Communion. She wanted to make sure that he could make a distinction between the normal food he ate at meals and the spiritual food he would receive in Holy Communion. So she drew a big picture of his body on a sheet of brown paper. Where the stomach would be she drew a big circle and filled it with samples of food he would often eat- Cheerios and things like that. Next she drew a picture of his heart and placed in it some unconsecrated communion wafers. Then, after completing the picture, she would ask the boy where the food he eats at meals goes. He would point to his own stomach, and then the stomach on the big picture. Finally, she would ask him where the spiritual food Jesus gives him goes, and he would touch his heart, and then the one on the picture with the wafers. He was ready for his first Holy Communion.
Jesus himself teaches us, in today’s gospel, that he comes to dwell in our hearts when we receive Holy Communion. The setting this teaching was the Last Supper, when Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. He explained to his disciples that after he had risen and ascended to heaven, he would send the Holy Spirit who would unite them with himself and God the Father in a very intimate way. “On that day,” Jesus said, “you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.” This communion with God begins when we receive the Holy Spirit at baptism, and it is nourished and strengthened whenever we receive Jesus in Holy Communion.
Pope John Paul II once said, “Even if all the physical hunger of the world were satisfied…the deepest hunger of man would still exist.” Indeed, we have several deep hungers that need to be fed. Bishop Robert Morneau of Green Bay proposes that we each have what he calls “five basic hungers of the heart.”
The first of these hungers, he says, is for meaning in life. Sometimes we wonder if life has any purpose. We ask “What’s it all about?” We look to the skies a and note that our tiny planet circles a sun that is only one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy, which in turn is only one of 100 billion galaxies in the universe, which is growing bigger as we speak. We see this, and wonder if there’s any purpose in it all.
Our second basic hunger, according to Bishop Morneau, is for commitment. We all search for someone or something to commit our lives to; we seek to give our talents and energies to something worthwhile. If we don’t commit ourselves, we’ll wind up bouncing from one relationship to another, moving from one job to the next, ceaselessly drifting and experimenting.
Our third basic hunger is for depth and quality in life. Morneau says that we long for deep encounters- with God, with others, and with ourselves. He gave the example of a Christmas party he once attended. In twenty minutes he was introduced to thirty people, but he concluded that he didn’t really meet anybody. The encounters were superficial, which is the experience of life for too many people today. They- we- hunger for more.
“Wholeness” is the fourth basic hunger of the heart. We’re all broken people, says Morneau. We’ve been hurt by life, by others, and we’ve hurt ourselves too. We struggle with our pain, our addictions, and our sinfulness. We need to be healed, to be made “whole” once again.
The fifth and final “basic hunger of the heart” is intimacy. We’re made for oneness, for communion, says Morneau. Nevertheless, we suffer from isolation, alienation, and loneliness. In a sense, this is kind of a “hell on earth.” What we want is closeness- with others, with God.
The only thing- the only person– who can feed the deepest hungers of our heart, is Jesus Christ. Only Jesus who can satisfy our need for meaning, commitment, depth, wholeness, and intimacy. This was learned by a woman I know who was fond of wearing a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant. The heart, however, wasn’t solid. It was only the outline of a heart. She said that this pendant was symbolic, as she felt as if she were going through life with an empty heart. At times she had tried to fill it with various things- some good, some bad. But it was only when Jesus broke into her life that the hunger of her heart really began to be fed.
St. Peter said to us in today’s second reading: “Sanctify Jesus in your hearts.” We can do this by letting Jesus come into our hearts and feed its hungers with the gift of himself in Holy Communion. So maybe the challenge for us today is to come prepared, and to come often. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God,” wrote St. Augustine. But perhaps we can paraphrase him and say: Our hearts are hungry, until they are fed by Jesus.
We have discussed here before the population implosion taking place in most parts of Europe. Approximately 2.1 Children per woman are needed to maintain the population of a given country or ethnic group. In most of Europe, the birthrate hovers well below 2, often as low as 1.3 in some Eastern European countries. In effect these cultures are aborting and contracepting themselves out of existence.
