Tag: Faith & Current Events

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Only the Pure in Heart Can See God.

Over 23 years ago I made my canonical retreat that was required before being ordained a transitional deacon. We were studying the Letter to the Romans in the retreat conferences and came upon a particularly difficult passage early in the retreat.

The retreat master, an older priest and well known scripture scholar stopped his train of thought, perhaps perceiving we were having difficulty and said, “Do you know what is the biggest obstacle for us in understanding the Word of God?” I was expecting a geeky answer like, “We don’t know enough Greek,” or “We haven’t studied the Historical Critical Method carefully enough.” But the priest pleasantly surprised me we he paused, looked around the room and then said, “The biggest obstacle we have to understanding the Word of God is our sin.”

He was (and still is) Fr. Francis Martin. He went on to encourage us in the discipline of study but warned us that all the study in the world could not be of great help, indeed it could be of harm, if we did not have a clean heart. I have respected him ever since and listened on tape to probably two dozen other priest conferences and courses he preached and taught. He became one of my principal teachers through his tape ministry though I was never formally enrolled in a class he taught. He now has a great Youtube ministry here: Fr. Francis Martin Ministries

Scholars, academicians, even unbelievers to some extent can tell you what a biblical text is talking about, but only the holy, the Saints, can tell you what it means. Fulton Sheen was famous for saying toward the end of his life something to the effect, that we have tried in modern times every possible way to build up the Church: committees, study groups, task forces, seminars, advanced degrees in every sort of theology and religious study. But there is only one thing that we have not tried, and that is holiness. He went on to recommend that every priest make a daily Holy Hour.

There is a passage in the Breviary that also well sets for the correlation between seeing and holiness:

If you say, “Show me your God,” I will say to you, “Show me what kind of person you are, and I will show you my God.” …..God is seen by those who have the capacity to see him, provided that they keep the eyes of their mind open. All have eyes, but some have eyes that are shrouded in darkness, unable to see the light of the sun. Because the blind cannot see it, it does not follow that the sun does not shine. The blind must trace the cause back to themselves and their eyes. In the same way, you have eyes in your mind that are shrouded in darkness because of your sins and evil deeds. A person’s soul should be clean, like a mirror reflecting light. If there is rust on the mirror his face cannot be seen in it. In the same way, no one who has sin within him can see God. But if you will you can be healed. Hand yourself over to the doctor, and he will open the eyes of your mind and heart. Who is to be the doctor? It is God, who heals and gives life through his Word and wisdom…. If you understand this, and live in purity and holiness and justice, you may see God. But, before all, faith and the fear of God must take the first place in your heart, and then you will understand all this. When you have laid aside mortality and been clothed in immortality, then you will see God according to your merits.— From the book addressed to Autolycus by Saint Theophilus of Antioch, bishop

So there it is, holiness, a the fear of the Lord are the only way to really see at all.

There is also the great Gospel of the Man Born Blind. In a pivotal moment Jesus smeared his eyelids with clay and sends him to the Pool of Siloam to wash. He comes back able to see. When asked how he came to see he says, in effect, “I went, I washed and now I see.” This is Baptismal theology even if in seminal form. We cannot see until we are washed. In the end it is Baptism, Confession and a holy life by God’s grace that give the greatest light. One of the great theologians and Fathers of the Church St. Cyprian experienced the vision that Baptism and holiness brings:

And I myself was bound fast, held by so many errors of my past life, from which I did not believe I could extricate myself. I was disposed therefore to yield to my clinging vices; and, despairing of better ways, I indulged my sins…But afterwards, when the stain of my past life had been washed away by means of the waters of rebirth, a light from above poured itself upon my chastened and now pure heart; afterwards, through the Spirit which is breathed from heaven, a second birth made of me a new man. And then in marvelous manner, doubts immediately clarified themselves, the closed opened…and what had been thought impossible was able to be done(“Letter to Donatus,” 4).

Only after baptism did some things make sense and seem possible for Cyprian.

For me too, I have come to understand some things only after many years of prayer and growth. Daily Holy Hours, daily mass and the liturgy of the hours, weekly confession, only then do some things clarify and does that which had been in darkness come to light. Studies have had their place in my life to be sure, But only the path to holiness (combined with study) can ever really bring light.

We’ve tried everything! How about holiness? …..Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8).

Here’s a video I put together on the beauty of prayer especially before the Blessed Sacrament. It is set to the words of a beautiful Eucharistic Hymn “Jesus My Lord, My God, My All” directed by the late Richard Proulx.

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Is Nothing Sacred? Apparently Not. Reflecting on Another Absurdity in the News

We live in a culture where, increasingly, any sense of the sacred is being lost. The thought that something could be sacred, special, holy, or somehow “off-limits” is bewildering to many. Indeed many secularists consider those who do see some things as sacred, to be stuffy and somehow arrogant. There are many in our culture who defend the rights of others to burn the flag, ridicule religious symbols (e.g. the cross submerged in urine some years back in a noted “art” museum), and even applaud when, a couple years back, homosexual activists desecrated the Body of Christ by stomping on hosts.

These of course are extreme examples. But there is also the more general loss of reverence in our culture which causes many to say “What’s so wrong with that?” when presented with some pretty questionable and shocking things. Consider the following example:

LONDON — Dead bodies will be burned to heat a swimming pool in the U.K. — and the British government is considering adopting the idea across the country.

Redditch Borough Council is set to become the first local government body in England to use heat from a crematorium to warm a pool this spring, the newspaper reported.

Senior lawmaker Sir George Young, the leader of the House of Commons, told The Telegraph newspaper that he would “die a happier man” if he could arrange for his cremation to provide heat for swimmers.

The Telegraph said the incinerators used to burn bodies reach temperatures of 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit and cited estimates that using the waste heat from the Redditch crematorium could save more than $22,000 per year.

Carole Gandy, the leader of Redditch Borough Council…”I do recognise some people might not like it, but if they don’t, they don’t have to use our crematorium.”

Durham Crematorium, in northern England, was thinking about fitting turbines to its burners in order to create electricity that could potentially power 1,500 televisions. [1]

Many in our increasingly secular culture will applaud such a move. Materialists and secularists tend to be utilitarian, pragmatists. “Why waste the heat…..Isn’t using the dead a way to honor them?……This will help reduce the carbon footprint……It will reduce greenhouse gases…..etc.” Yes, all very coldly practical from a materialist, pragmatist point of view.

But it also demonstrates a almost complete loss of any notion that some things, in this case the human body, are sacred and should not simply be used for any mundane purpose. Just because something is considered useful does not mean it should be done. There are other matters to be considered. In this case, what needs to be considered is that the human body is sacred, and not to be considered as fuel for a power plant.

Let’s consider what is meant by using the term “sacred.” “Sacred” refers to something or someone who has been set apart from ordinary use or understanding. Consider the chalice used in holy Mass. It is a sacred vessel, it is set apart for one purpose, to hold the Precious Blood of Christ. It would be wholly inappropriate for a priest to take this sacred vessel over to the rectory and use it in an ordinary meal, to serve wine or champagne or beer from it, or to use it as an ornament on the rectory dinner table. No, the chalice is set apart for something far more special than ordinary use.  It is set apart, it is “sacred,” it is distinctively special, and has a dignity above any other ordinary glass or vessel.

The human body is also sacred. It is not to be equated with the bodies of animals, and surely it should not be equated with coal or any fuel for fire in a power plant. Human remains are to be treated with honor, given proper disposition and burial. The human body is set apart from ordinary things, for in it and through it, an immortal human person, known by God from all eternity has existed. The human body is not a log, it is not a lump of coal, it is not to be equated with anything ordinary, it is sacred. And even in those cases where human bodies are “donated to science” for the holy purpose of advancing medicine and understanding the of the body, the body is to be treated with respect and the final remains interred.

I realize that many today will sniff at such a notion. I expect to hear from some of them here. But in making their comments, they will make my point, which is that very little, indeed next to nothing, is considered sacred anymore. This is one of the unholy fruits of secularization: next to nothing is sacred. Almost nothing and no one has special dignity. Young people, especially those under thirty, have lived in a world almost wholly devoid of any notion of the sacred.

And to those egalitarians who want to say no one and nothing should have special dignity, the fact is when everything is called sacred, nothing is sacred, when everything is special, nothing is special. The fact is, distinctions are necessary in life, and it has been a human instinct to appreciate that some things are special, some things are sacred, some things are set apart for special honor, reverence and respect.

And thus, having abandoned this notion, we have the absurd result depicted above that human bodies, sacred icons and vessels of human dignity, are being burned for fuel to heat a pool and run televisions. It is a sad and dreary world we are passing on. Long gone are the days when, even in the tragic and un-sacred horror of war, troops would see that the dead, even the bodies of their enemies, were reverently buried. Honor is departing our world.

Is nothing sacred? Apparently not.

Cardinal Wuerl also ponders the loss in the sense of the sacred at his blog. Read his reflections here: Cardinal’s Blog on American Values

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You Didn’t See Nuthin’ – A Pondering of Biblical Justice in a Doritos Commercial

In my usual format of late, I have liked to set forth a lighter fare on Friday evenings as I post. This week though has a twist.

I saw a biblical theme in a Doritos Commercial. In this case though, the theme is not a pleasant one at all. And though the commercial has a certain humor, it is a dark humor to be sure.

In the commercial the family Dog has killed the family cat. And the father of the family who discovers the Dog’s guilt, is bribed by a bag of Doritos to stay quiet an pretend he “didn’t see nuthin.”

And in this brief commercial we see displayed the often sad human condition of the poor (here represented by a murdered cat!), and those who have no voice, or the money and power to be heard, often get no justice, a no one sees “nuthin” of their plight. Scripture says,

  1. This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back [my wrath]. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. (Amos 2:6-7)
  2. For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts. (Amos 5:12)
  3. Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them (Isaiah 1:23)
  4. They acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent. (Is 5:23)

A couple of scenarios in my life come to mind.

Scenario One: This morning I stood with others outside a fancy breakfast that was held for developers and local politicians here in DC. And as they entered the building we respectfully reminded them of the poor and sought to engage them in a discussion about corporate welfare. For, in tight budget times, while corporate subsidies are being doled out in higher and abundant monies by the DC Government, the budget for affordable housing, shelters and job creation were underfunded, and in some cases wholly unfunded.

DC City Council and the Mayor claim that in lean times, the Neighborhood Investment Act would have to remain unfunded in a belt-tightening measure. Meanwhile subsidies to corporations and developers took no similar hit. In fact the DC convention Center (which should be making money) receives 100 million dollars in city money every year. There were surely no belt-tightening cuts to that subsidy. Other fancy hotels and development projects also receive substantial subsidies.

Thus corporate welfare continues apace, but the social safety net goes underfunded. When will capitalists (and I am a fan of capitalism) start acting like capitalists and stand on their own? Washington DC is second only to New York City in the Hotel Room Revenue Rates and Office Rental revenue. In such a lucrative market, why is corporate welfare necessary?

Talk as you will about the need to reduce the size of government. But why not begin with the huge amounts of corporate welfare that are doled out and start shrinking there? (Pardon a little Tea Party thinking here).

But the answer to this question is clear enough. Corporate subsidies do not get cut because developers and lobbyists for the hotel and tourism industry have money, influence and access to make sure that doesn’t happen. You might say (to use the image in the video) they have the bag of Doritos to push and to compel silence from the political sector. This morning it was a fancy breakfast with local politicians (all Democrats by the way, there are no Republicans in local DC politics). At other times it is threats to take their development elsewhere if they don’t get lots of incentives to stay.

Development is good, but only if it actually benefits local DC residents, which is largely does not. Unemployment rates remain as high as 30% among the poorer residents of this city despite all the development downtown for over twenty years. DC laws to train and hire a certain percentage of DC workers (when subsidies are given) are not enforced.

Scenario Two: Later this month I will stand outside the Planned Parenthood Clinic on 16th Street just up the street front the White House. There too I will speak for those who have (literally) no voice in this world, the unborn. There too, powerful interests (the Planned Parenthood lobby and others in the abortion and contraceptive industry) get their way and the poorest of the poor, infants in the womb, are killed for profit and political advancement.

And to those who run the “clinics” who would have us all say (in the words of the ad below) “you don’t see nuthin,” But I will say I see what you are doing and God sees everything you are doing. And you will answer to Him for what you are doing if you do not repent.

At the end of the commercial below comes the voice of a woman, asking her husband if he has seen the cat. And looking to the dog with another bag of Doritos he says, “Nope.” But her question echoes in his mind, despite his answer. He has seen everything that has happened and his silence, though it brings him rewards now, will bring him trouble later. For the truth will out.

Perhaps we can see the woman in the background in this commercial as Mother Church. And as a son of Mother Church, I often find it necessary to ask the deeper version of the commercial’s question (“Have you seen the cat?”). And the Deeper version is “How is your brother?” (cf Gen 4:9).

The Church doesn’t have a bribe, just a question, How is your brother, your sister? And that question must continue to echo in the hearts and minds of everyone.

Here’s the commercial:

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Be Very Careful Before You Ask God to be Fair

In the first reading from Mass today (Friday). God answers the question of his “fairness” in dealing with us:

You say, “The LORD’s way is not fair!” Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair? When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die. But if the wicked, turning from the wickedness he has committed, does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; since he has turned away from all the sins that he committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. (Ezekiel 18:25-28)

It is a rather dangerous thing demand that God be fair. How easily we can declare of many circumstances. “That’s not fair!” But when it comes to the Lord, a little friendly advice is helpful: Be VERY careful before you ask God to be fair. If God were fair we’d all be in Hell right now. As it is, God is merciful and none of us have ever really gotten the punishment we deserved. Notice that God answers the accusation that it is unfair for him to punish the sinner in a twofold way:

1. Choice is Yours – If a person sins and does not repent of it he will die (i.e. descend to hell). But that is his choice to stay in sin and thus incur the consequence that he dies spiritually and cannot see eternal life. It is our choice that is determinative of this.

2. Choose Mercy! God also answers with a sort of plea that we call on his mercy instead. God is a God of the second chance. And, rather than give us the fairness we seek in a misguided way, we bids us call on his mercy, repent and he will hear and save us. For if a person repent he will live! Scripture says elsewhere: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?‘ (Ezekiel 33:11). Again, God our savior wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). And again, The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

If you want God to be “fair,” that is, to use strict justice, cannot you see that we are all in very serious trouble? In the end it is only his grace and mercy that will ever see us through. We ought to have enough humility to banish notions of fairness in our relations with God. Mercy is the only way we stand a chance. Kyrie Eleison!

Picture above from goodsalt.com (right click on photo for URL)

Here’s a quick video that reminds us that the measure we measure to others will be measured back to us (Matt 7:2). So this is a good time to let the Lord’s grace cause us to show love and mercy, for if we do he will show us grace and mercy. But if we do not forgive neither will we be forgiven (Matt 6:15)

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Reaping the Whirlwind: A Reflection on the Global War Against Baby Girls and Its Social Implications

From the “God save us from ourselves” file comes a chilling study entitled The Global War Against Baby Girls by Nicholas Eberstadt. It is published in the New Atlantis. It describes the ever-widening trend of sex-selected abortion, a trend which now effects up to forty percent of the world’s population.  The article is steeped in numbers (enough to make you cross-eyed) and well researched. But it is so sad to read and and its descriptions are a testimony to human folly and sinfulness. We have sown in the wind and are reaping the whirlwind.

It is a very lengthy article and I can present only a small portion here. As usual the original text of Mr. Eberstadt is in bold black italics, and my remarks are in normal red text:

Over the past three decades the world has come to witness an ominous and entirely new form of gender discrimination: sex-selective feticide, implemented through the practice of surgical abortion with the assistance of information gained through prenatal gender determination technology. All around the world, the victims of this new practice are overwhelmingly female—in fact, almost universally female. The practice has become so ruthlessly routine in many contemporary societies that it has impacted their very population structures, warping the balance between male and female births and consequently skewing the sex ratios for the rising generation toward a biologically unnatural excess of males. This still- growing international predilection for sex-selective abortion is by now evident in the demographic contours of dozens of countries around the globe—and it is sufficiently severe that it has come to alter the overall sex ratio at birth of the entire planet, resulting in millions upon millions of new “missing baby girls” each year. In terms of its sheer toll in human numbers, sex-selective abortion has assumed a scale tantamount to a global war against baby girls.

A pretty good executive summary of the problem. Has anyone heard from women’s rights activists and those who advocate for “women’s healthcare?” Perhaps I have missed some reports of the outcry from them? The report later concludes that this practice declares: women as the disfavored sex in nakedly utilitarian terms, and indeed signaling that their very existence is now conditional and contingent (upon cultural preferences). Again, perhaps I have missed the outcry and the protests, the planeloads of Western Feminists descending upon these nations to protest and the demands for sanctions.

But then again, maybe I have not missed it, since such a thing is “off message” that abortion is wholly a matter of free choice and is an unabridged healthcare right never to be interfered with. Saying that ANY form of abortion should be disallowed would be for them, the first chip in the precious crystal they call abortion. Better to let baby girls die and the female sex be despised by many than lose the “most fundamental right” in women’s “healthcare.” Or so the logic would seem.

One thing I think it is fair to note that the report mentions, most of the nations where this is going on have laws against sex-selected abortion. But they are not enforced.

The modern phenomenon of biologically unnatural increase in the sex ratio at birth (due to sex selected abortion) was first noticed in the 1980s for China, the world’s most populous country. In 1979, China promulgated its “One Child Policy,” a compulsory and at times coercive population-control program that continues to be enforced to this day (albeit with regional and temporal variations in severity). In 1982, China’s national population census—the first to be conducted in nearly two decades—reported a disturbing demographic anomaly [of as high as 120 males per 100 females born].

The pernicious and evil one-child policy of China also commands a great deal of silence from the decadent. For all the talk here in the West about “the government staying out of my bedroom” there is a looking the other way when it comes to China. Here too the silence may well emerge from our (wrongful) western notion that the world is overpopulated. While not approving of the method necessarily, I suspect many are pleased that there are, as a result, fewer humans on the planet. Indeed, that is an essential goal of the culture of death, fewer people.

Another lesson here is that unrepented sin leads to distortion in the human person and to culture. Hence, the Chinese and others in the far East are sowing in the wind and reaping the whirlwind. Their whole culture is becoming distorted and they are heading for a major crisis as the proper balance of men and women is lost. More on that below.

What is driving the Imbalance?

One commonality to China and the [nearby countries]  is a Confucian cultural heritage, which places an imperative on continuing a family’s lineage through the male heir as a metaphysical key to greater universal harmony and virtue. Confucian heritage [however] is not a unique identifier of societies at risk of mass female feticide. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam—a society with a deep Buddhist tradition—now shows strong indications like China…

[Hence a fuller] explanation for unnaturally high male to female birth rates appear to arise from a collision of three forces: first, local mores that uphold a truly merciless preference for sons; second, low or sub-replacement fertility trends, which [weights] the gender outcome of each birth with extra significance for parents with extreme gender bias; and third, the availability of health services and technologies (easy and affordable abortion and prenatal sex diagnostics) that permit parents to engineer the sex composition of their families—and by extension, of their societies.

And everyone of these factors is rooted in human interference and a rejection of what nature and Nature’s God provide.  The lesson will be clear enough, start messing around and playing God, and rejecting what God provides, and soon enough you’re in a real mess. Thus contraception, the misuse of medical technologies and a playing God by choosing who will live and who will die, and who is fit and who is not,  all lead to a very dark place.

So what are the social implications

The consequences of medically abetted mass feticide are far-reaching and manifestly adverse.

  1. Women have less dignity – In populations with unnaturally skewed [ratios], the very fact that many thousands—or in some cases, millions—of prospective girls and young women have been deliberately eliminated simply because they would have been female establishes a new social reality that inescapably colors the whole realm of human relationships, redefining the role of women as the disfavored sex in nakedly utilitarian terms, and indeed signaling that their very existence is now conditional and contingent.
  2. Lots of unmarried men spells trouble – Moreover, enduring and extreme male to female imbalances set the demographic stage for an incipient “marriage squeeze” in affected populations, with notably reduced pools of potential future brides. China will transform from a country where, as of 2000, nearly all males (about 96 percent) had been married by their early 40s, to one in which nearly a quarter (23 percent) are projected to be never married as of 2040. Such a transformation augurs ill in a number of respects. For one thing, unmarried men appear to suffer greater health risks than their married counterparts….. Second, In a low-income society lacking sturdy and reliable national pension guarantees for the elderly, a steep rise in the proportion of unmarried and involuntarily childless men begs the question of old-age support for that rising cohort.
  3. Forced Prostitution, kidnapping and trafficking of women – Third, Economists such as Gary Becker and Judge Richard Posner have hypothesized that mass feticide, in making women scarce, will only increase their “value”—but in settings where the legal and personal rights of the individual are not secure and inviolable, the “rising value of women” can have perverse and unexpected consequences, including increased demand for prostitution and an upsurge in the kidnapping and trafficking of women (as is now being witnessed in some women-scarce areas in Asia)
  4. More problems with unmarried men –  Finally, there is the speculative question of the social impact of a sudden addition of a large cohort of young “excess males” to populations…. [D]epending on a given country’s cultural and institutional capabilities for coping with this challenge, such trends could quite conceivably lead to increased crime, violence, and social tensions—or possibly even a greater proclivity for social instability. (For a decidedly pessimistic but studied assessment of these prospects, see Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer’s 2004 book Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population.)

Mr Eberstadt concludes that the only why to end this practice of killing female babies in utero is for Medical and health care professionals—without whose assistance mass female feticide could not occur— to develop a conscience and understand that they have a special obligation to be front and center in ending this evil practice.

Evil is my word, not his, but I know of no better word to describe it. Consider the intersection (or shall we say collision) of murder, pride (for we play God), misogyny (for females are murderously hated in comparison to men), selfishness (for only the right baby is wanted), and government incursion,  and tell me if there is not a better word than evil to describe the practice of sex-selected abortion. It is a tangled web of deep confusion and abuse of power at every level and flows directly from the practice of abortion itself, and the prideful notion that we get to decide who lives and who dies.

I often sense the need to recall in our culture that many women and men feel driven to abortion out of fear and that we must compassionately assist them to find alternatives to abortion. I also work with project Rachael to help in the healing of women and men who have chosen to abort or who have helped to abort. But this sort of abortion (for sex-selection) is harder to understand.

Perhaps there are social pressures in the far East that I do not understand, but from my Western perspective, the use of abortion for sex-selection is most shocking and surely going to lead the Far East and other places it is practiced to real social harm and upheaval. I also have little doubt some use it here in the West as well, though not in numbers vast enough to shift the demographic balance of men and women.

For sowing in the wind, we are sure to reap the whirlwind. Please help us Lord, spare us from our stubbornness and stupidity.  Parce Domine, Parce nos! Deus, miserere!

In this video we hear of the first incursion of sex-selected abortion in this country. He also details how some women in the Far East are often pressured to abort female babies by men and other family members:

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Wood already touched by fire is not hard to light. An Insight for Evangelization

There’s just something about being a Catholic. The faith sets down deep roots that, for many never go away, even if they leave for many years.

I remember an older priest once remarking about the many Catholics leaving for evangelical Churches: “Ah…don’t worry, they’ll be back.” I was annoyed when I heard him say this, since I thought he was just shirking his duty to evangelize and should be more alarmed at the declining numbers.

But to some extent I have found his words to have  truth. Many do return. And even for those who have yet to return, they still surface from time to time and their Catholic roots stir within them.

There is the well known story of an Evangelical Minister who was preaching a Latino congregation in California. Many of them had already joined his denomination, and his ministry among them was growing. But, it is said, one Sunday, he crossed a line. As he preached he spent time denouncing a number of Catholic practices such as confession. It is said he tore up a picture of a priest and even of the pope. But then, he held up a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He wouldn’t….would he? He did. He tore up the picture of our Lady. According to the news report, the people in the congregation rushed the pulpit and the fracas that ensued required the police to be summoned to safely escort the minister out of the Church.

Yes, they may have strayed from the Catholic Church but the roots were still there and you just don’t tear up a picture of our Lady of Guadalupe, you just don’t do that. Our Lady may well get many of them back too. There’s just something about being a Catholic, most never wholly shake it, it’s just in your DNA.

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and like every Ash Wednesday the congregation practically triples in size. The zeal for ashes on the forehead is truly amazing. As Church doors were being unlocked at 6:30am for the 7:00am, Mass people were already standing outside. The crowds for all the masses are truly amazing. The phone rang all day, “When can I get ashes?” And Oh the near panic of some who missed the Mass: “Could not Father come to the door and give me ashes?!” Then comes the little lecture from me, “You know we give Holy Communion every Sunday and Jesus is better than ashes.” The usual response is a blank stare, as though they merely heard thunder when I spoke.

The phone rings again, and Mrs. Jones says, Father my mother has been bed-ridden  for three months. Please come and bring her ashes. I say,  Gee, This is the first I’ve heard about your mother’s condition. Don’t you think I should bring communion and anointing? Oh yeah, that too Father, please come at once, she really needs her ashes….And I want some too, Father. Do you come to Church here? I ask…..No I ain’t been in a while, but it’s Ash Wednesday so I got to get my ashes…..Can you come Father?

All quite remarkable, and duplicated in millions of parishes world-wide last Wednesday. How to explain this?

I was talking to a well known expert on Evangelization and asked what she thought of the phenomenon. She looked at me and then quoted an African Proverb:

Wood, already touched by fire is not hard to light.

She said, remember that Father, they may leave the faith or get lazy in the practice, but once the fire of the faith has touched them, the littlest thing like ashes or palms can light them up. To some extent Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving, baptisms, first communions and so forth all show the same thing: Wood already touched by fire is not hard to light.

This sort of insight explained a lot about Ash Wednesday to me. There’s just something about being a Catholic. It gets into your bones, your DNA, it has roots. And even for those who leave, there’s still those roots. Some try to deny it, but they’ve been touched by fire, touched by Jesus, and he leaves a mark, and lights a fire that never dies away wholly. Yes, even the hostile ones, by their very hostility, show that a mark has been made.

Maybe the old priest was right, many of them will be back. Even some who joined other denominations often circle back as they discover that those denominations also have “rules,” and that the trendy stuff is wearying after a while. Some even make it back on a death bed, after years of renouncing Catholic practice, but in their bones, the fire of Catholicism still glows, and so they say from that death bed, to surprised relatives: “Call the priest!”

Wood, already touched by fire is not hard to light.

And so as we evangelize, as we go forth to call many souls home, it may not be as difficult as we sometimes think. Somehow, deep in their bones, deep in their DNA, is a Catholicism they can never fully shake. And all it sometimes takes is a spark. Can you be that spark?

Wood already touched by fire is not hard to light.

Here’s a song celebrating being a Catholic by Justin Stroh

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God’s Law is Deeply Personal and Loving

There is a danger when we speak of God’s Law, to think of it as we might think of any secular law. We usually think of secular law merely to be some sort of impersonal code written by some nameless legislators or bureaucrats. We have not met them, we do not know them, or necessarily love or trust them. In effect, they are an abstraction in our mind called “the government” or “the man” or just “they,” as in, “They don’t want you to park here” or “They’ll arrest you for that.”

But God’s Law is Personal – But when it comes to God’s Law we are dealing with something quite different, something very personal, if we have faith. For God’s law is not given by someone we do not know, love or trust. If we have faith, God is someone we do in fact know, someone we love and trust.Further, we believe he loves us and wants what is best for us.

God’s law is not the equivalent of a no-parking sign hung by some nameless, faceless city government. Rather it is a personal exhortation, instruction and command given by someone we know and who knows and loves us.

Consider an example. Suppose you pull in front of my church to park and you see a no-parking sign. Now suppose you also decide to ignore it. Alright, you have broken a law, not a big one, but a law nonetheless. You’ve chosen to ignore a sign put there by “the government.” But suppose another scenario: I your beloved blogger, and the pastor of the Church you are attending or visiting, is standing out there, and I say to you, “Please don’t park here.” Now the situation is very different. I, someone you know and love, 🙂 , am personally requesting that you leave the space open for some reason.

When you experience the law in this personal way, you are far more likely to follow it, because someone you know and trust is asking and directing you. But what if, despite this, you still choose to ignore the instruction not to park there. Well then, the situation is quite different, for, in this case, the law is personal. The refusal to follow it now becomes personal as well and there is a far more serious situation we are dealing with.

Scripture: In the first reading for Mass today (Monday, week one of Lent) the Law of the Lord is announced. I will not reproduce the whole reading but here is an excerpt:

“You shall not defraud or rob your neighbor.
You shall not withhold overnight the wages of your day laborer.
You shall not curse the deaf,
or put a stumbling block in front of the blind,
but you shall fear your God.
I am the LORD.

“You shall not act dishonestly in rendering judgment.
Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty,
but judge your fellow men justly.
You shall not go about spreading slander among your kin;
nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake.
I am the LORD. (Lev 19:11-14)

Note how the litanies of the law each end: “I am the Lord.” (These are but two of other litanies). I am the Lord. On the one hand it gives solemnity to the pronouncement. But, at another level what God is saying is, This is Me talking. It is I who speak to you. I who created you, who led you out of slavery, parted the Red Sea, dispatched your enemies, fed you in the desert and gave you drink from the rock. It I, I who love you, I who care for you, I who has given you everything you have, I who want what is best for you, I who have earned your trust. It is I, your Father who speak to you and give you this command.

God’s law is personal. Do we see and experience it this way? This will happen only if we come to know the Lord personally. Otherwise, the danger becomes that we see the Law of God as merely an impersonal code, an abstract set of rules to follow. They might as well have been issued by the deity, the godhead, or even just the religious leaders of the day.

Hence a gift to pray for in terms of keeping God’s Law is a closer walk with the Lord and an experience of his love for us. Such an experience is a great help in loving the Law of the Lord. For when we love the Lord, we love his law and see it not as an imposition, but a personal code of love that is meant to protect us. And when we offend against it, either willfully or through weakness, we are more able to repent with a more perfect contrition for we experience that we have offended someone we love and who is deserving of all our love.

Abba – St. Paul indicates that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is that we are able to experience God as Abba. Abba is the Hebrew and Aramaic family word for father. It is translated by some as Papa, or Dad. But however it is translated, it indicates a deep love and tender affection for the Father. He is not merely “The Father” in some abstract, or merely titular sense. He is someone I experience as my own dear Father as someone who loves me. It is a personal and family relationship that the Holy Spirit wants to grant us.

This personal relationship brings God’s law alive, makes it personal. And so God says as he reminds of of his Law: I am the Lord. This is me talking – It is I, the one who loves you.

I might add that we also need to experience this with regard to the Church. Many see the Church in am impersonal way, as an institution. But the real gift is to see the Church as Christ’s Beloved Bride and our Mother. In this sense we love the Church and grow daily in affection for her, not seeing her “rules” as impersonal, but, rather as the guidance and direction of a loving mother.

In this video Fr. Francis Martin beautifully describes the gift to love the Father with deep affection:

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Setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience… A Consideration of the Church’s Role in the Public Square

In much of the heated public debate on the HHS mandate (that the Catholic Church pay for contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization) and over gay “marriage,” there is a strain to the conversation, that somehow, the Catholic Church is trying to force people to follow what she teaches.

To think that we have such power is fanciful, but the charge comes up a lot and in different forms. Consider the following comments I gleaned from the combox of a Washington Post article submitted by me and the Archdiocese of Washington on the topic of gay “marriage.” These are just a few excerpts that illustrate that some see us as trying to use power to force others to do what we want. (I have added a few responses in Red just because I can’t resist):

  1. Translation [of your article]: Of course we do not want to make you a Roman Catholic, only that you will be governed by the pope in Rome…. He, and we, don’t have that power.
  2. Inasmuch as we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, everyone should be free to follow their own path as individuals. You are. I don’t have the power to force you to do anything. But you are going further than “following your own path.” You are asking for legal recognition of something that has never been recognized before. Expect a little push back. Further, the Catholic Church does not only appeal to God and the Bible but also to Natural Law because we recognize that not everyone sees the Scriptures with the kind of reverence we do.
  3. When it comes to owning a business that accepts public funds and which will employ believers of every stripe as well as non-believers, the owners have no right dictating the choice of others – Actually is the Government that is dictating choice. In the HHS mandate, only the government has the power here to compel and punish non-compliance, and they are saying that we must give contraceptives free to anyone who asks for them. The “mandate” says that Catholics, and anyone who objects to sterilization, to abortifacients and contraceptives, (for it is not only Catholics), must pay for them whether they like it or not. As for Gay “marriage,” it is once again the Government that is requiring everyone to recognize what has never been recognized before, that same-sex couples are “married.” And, by gosh, if we don’t recognize them and treat them as married then we will be decertified from adoption services and have to stop providing marital health benefits for our married employees (as happened with Catholic Charities). So there IS a lot of forcing going on here, but it isn’t the Church. We don’t have that power, the State does. And frankly that should make everyone sober, even those who don’t agree with us on these specific issues. EVERYONE ought to be mighty concerned when the State seeks to compel people to act against their conscience.
  4. Just one more example why one should never vote for a Roman Catholic politician who would more likely march in lockstep to the dictates of the Church than follow constitution. Whew! Dream on, we have the opposite problem. Very FEW Catholic politicians live their faith when it comes to political agendas. And if they do, they, like anyone else, they have to face the voters every few years. Further, why is it wrong for politicians to follow, say, environmental agendas, or homosexual agendas, or social justice agendas, but it is WRONG for them to follow religiously inspired agendas? Since when do people of faith have no voice or seat at the table in the world of politics? Are we not citizens who have the right to petition the government for redress etc?
  5. This is about the Catholic church demanding that people who do not have any allegiance to that church or its dogma live by its rules. We don’t have this power. It is the State (and you?) who are instituting that we pay for what we consider wrong. Why should I have to pay for your contraceptives? Why should you simply demand to get them free?
  6. Today, they are gunning for the gays. Next will be your birth control. We don’t have this power. What we are asking is that we not be compelled to pay for things we consider wrong and sinful.
  7. In pushing your definition of marriage on to all other people and churches, you are in fact trying to ensure that Catholic law remains state law. We don’t have this power. As citizens, and for principled reasons rooted in Scripture and Natural Law, we argue that the law that Has ALWAYS been the law in this land, remain unchanged. We have a right as citizens to be part of the political process. One side is going to win, right now it looks like the pro-gay marriage folks. How would you feel if I said, “You are pushing your definition of marriage and trying to make it State law?” Why don’t we just admit that we both have a right to be in the public square and advocate for what we think is right? I think you’re wrong headed and confused about marriage and your type  loves to call me intolerant and bigoted. I’ll see you at the ballot box. Oh! but wait a minute! Here in DC your advocates on the DC Council would not allow a referendum. And, gee, when we do win at the ballot box as we have in several states, your side runs to a judge and tries (usually successfully) to overturn the will of the voters. Hmm….who is throwing power around here? Who’s pushing whose definition on whom? Hmm…?
  8. the church will be better off the more that it gives up its hold on political power. What power? If we’re so powerful, why is the moral meltdown so advanced? Again, are you simply striving to say we should have no voice in the political process? We have a right as citizens to try and influence outcomes, just like you. Frankly we haven’t been very successful lately. I’d love to find out where all this political power we theoretically have is hidden.

OK, well you get the point. A LOT of people think we have a lot more power than we do. Frankly it’s laughable to think think the Catholic Church has all this power. We can’t even unify our own believers. I have written before (with love) that unifying Catholics is like herding cats! I would to God that we could really unify around anything. Then we might be a political force to be reckoned with. And as citizens we would have every right to be such a force. But as it is, we are (sadly) a rather divided lot, even on abortion. I can assure you , most Catholic politicians do NOT have a hotline to the Vatican or take even a scintilla of advice from the Pope or Bishops. And even if they accidentally agree with the Pope or the bishops, for most of them, it is because the politics make sense, not that the faith has “compelled” them. No, don’t worry too much about the “power” of the Church.

That said, I have already commented above (in the red remarks) that Catholics, as citizens of the Untied States of America have the same rights as any other citizen to petition the government, to seek to enact laws that reflect our values and concerns. But we have no more or less power or voice than any other citizen of this Land. We, like others, often band together with coalitions. But again, if this is somehow wrong, then why is it not wrong for feminists, or environmentalists, or unions, or advocates of any number of hundred of other causes to do the same? We are Americans with rights. And people of faith have just as much right to be in the public square and the public conversation as any one else.

Some of the commenters in the Washington Post Combox, not listed here, wanted to recite grievances from the Middle Ages about Church power then etc. Why not leave the 14th Century politics in the 14th Century, and let’s stay in the 21st Century. There was a LOT of bad stuff in the old days. It wasn’t just the Church, governments too were different then. Modern democratic republics were unknown in those days. Today the political landscape is different. And if the Church ever did have all the power (and some of the claims are exaggerated and the Inquisition is often cartoonishly portrayed) that is not the case today. For our purposes we are in the 21st Century West.

Finally, I think a quote from St. Paul rather well distills what we, as a Church, and as believers, seek to do in the public square of America. More than acquire power (which is not easy in a wide and pluralistic culture), we seek to commend ourselves, and our message to everyone’s conscience. St. Paul says,

Rather, renouncing secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the Word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God (2 Cor 4:2)

Yes, frankly we do have vigorous disagreement with secret (and not so secret), shameful practices. And we will not, in order to be popular or conformed to these times, distort or misrepresent the Word of God. Abortion is wrong. Fornication, adultery, and homosexual acts are wrong. Divorce, and chosen single parenthood, and so called gay “marriage” are wrong. Contraception, sterilization, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, wrong, wrong wrong.

But I cannot force you to obey me. Rather I commend myself to your conscience. And even if Scripture will not be acceptable to you, I will have recourse to Natural Law. I, indeed the whole Church, will continue to commend myself to your conscience. And even though the gospel is currently “out of season” (cf 2 Tim 4:2) and you laugh at me and call me names like intolerant, bigoted etc., I will continue to commend myself to your conscience.

As long as I live I will speak the truth in love. And however you choose to understand me I will continue to speak. You may wish to call me hateful. I am not. I invite you to conscientiously consider what I say. I cannot command you, so do not fear me. But I do commend myself to your conscience.I will meet you in the public square, for that is my right as much as yours. But in the end, mandates and forced adherence are not in my power. I commend myself to your conscience, I do not, I cannot,  command you.

Here’s a video I put together of the World travels by the Pope as seeks to commend himself to everyone’s conscience. Johnny Cash supplies the musical theme: “I’ve Been Everywhere!”