Have breakfast with Jesus every morning! In the past you’ve had see him with eyes of faith. Now you can seem him right on the toast! It’s the Jesus Toaster! Just $31.95 plus shipping and handling.
No Christmas is complete without this fine new toaster.
Was not Jesus born in Bethlehem which means “House of Bread!?”
So celebrate Christmas all year long!
Did Jesus not leave his face on Veronica’s veil? Now you can see his face and eat it too!
With the Jesus toaster you just never know where Jesus will pop up!
Legal disclaimer: this toaster does not convey true presence and the bread coming forth from it is not to be adored. Do not try true presence at home which leads to idolatry. True presence is brought about only by trained priests in the careful conditions of the Catholic Mass.
Blogger Disclaimer – No disrespect is hereby intended in this post. But sometimes things are in such bad taste that the absurdity is best illustrated by being absurd, as I have been here.
It’s getting close to Christmas so it must be time for the war against Christmas by certain extreme secularists. There are the usual demands to banish the word Christmas in favor of “Holidays” (but remember Holidays is just a mispronunciation of Holy days). There is the utterly silly banishment of the colors red and green in certain public schools. And even further, are the outright insulting attacks on both believers and Christmas traditions. Here are just two of the insulting ones:
1. SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the three wise men are being crowded out by atheists. Most of the Christmas nativity scenes that churches had placed in a Santa Monica coastal park for decades have been displaced by non-religious displays….One display reads: “Religions are all alike — founded upon fables and mythologies. — Thomas Jefferson.” And another display with photographs depicting King Neptune, Jesus Christ, Santa Claus and Satan reads, “Million Americans know MYTHS when they see them. What myths do you see?….[1]
2. People stopped to stare and voiced their disapproval about the strange red-coated skeleton that appeared on the courthouse grounds in Leesburg over the weekend….The crucified Santa had drawn the immediate attention of community residents, resulting in a barrage of complaints to county officials, according to Julie Withrow, assistant to the county administrator…..[One woman said], How offensive to children, especially, to see a beloved symbol of the holidays crucified!” [2]
OK, here’s your disclaimer – They have a right to free speech.
That said, the extremists who do things like this are rude, insensitive, discourteous, and ill-mannered and unneighborly. Using people’s religious holidays to ridicule them is lacks class.
Grouping Jesus with Neptune and Satan and calling him a myth (even considered only from his human nature, he changed world history) is ignorant, ungracious, and borders on bigotry. As for the Jefferson quote, it is also and simply ignorant. Any trip to the Jefferson memorial will show how out of context their little pull quote is. Jefferson had high regard for the necessity of religion in society and frequently references God whom he acknowledges to exist. He wouldn’t appreciate their little stunt. And while Santa isn’t a religious symbol per se, lots of kids have a place in their heart for him, and the inconsiderate, no-class protestor ought to be ashamed of himself. Nobody likes ugly or mean.
Note too that Chanukah was not targeted. There are no cries to rename the Menorah a “Holiday Candelabra” and no one hangs skeletons in Jewish prayer shawls from the Menorah. And imagine the uproar if, during Muslim holy days, the Prophet Muhammad were hung in effigy anywhere, let alone the courthouse lawn. I can assure you, no county official would even allow such things to see the light of day. In the end this hatred is about Christ, public enemy number one, to the militants who do such indecent things.
I wonder how the secular extremists who do such things would react if the tables were turned? What if, on Earth Day, a high holy day for most of them, they were to observe roving bands of “Christians” descend on their festival on the Mall and start burning leaves? What if all throughout the country, by the thousands, we staged a counter-demonstration by cutting down trees just for the heck of it, merely to signal our dis-satisfaction at their celebration? What if, while the thousands of trees were being felled, other on-lookers shook signs that read, “Take that you tree-huggers!” or “Earth-day is a pagan myth,” or “CO2, We’re for you.” At what if at the end of the demonstration the signs and the felled trees were burned? What if thousands of believers, just to counter demonstrate, turned on every light in their house, for six hours and idled their cars in their driveway, just for the heck of it? What if all this was done on earth-day for the sheer purpose of counter-demonstrating in the most offensive ways possible.
How do you suppose the devotees would feel on that day? How would the media cover it? Would “free speech” in America be celebrated? Would the media indicate that some people obviously have legitimate grievances against the declaration of a certain day as “Earth Day” and that we must understand their concerns? Rather unlikely I think.
But of course we don’t things like this on Earth Day, do we? To do so would be to lack class, and have the same rude, ill-mannered, and impolite attitudes that anti-Christmas extremists have, and get away with. But just for a moment it might be good to call the question on the secularists and media sympathizers, “What if, on Earth-day the same sort of tactics were used that are used against Christmas? How does it look? And how is it so different from what is increasingly happening at Christmas?”
At the heart of thanksgiving is not just food, but also family and fellowship. And, in these busy and distracted times we don’t have enough of these. But communion with God and each other is a foretaste of heaven. On the road to Emmaus Jesus gave a poignant picture of heaven: walking, talking and dining. And though I suspect we’ll do little walking this Thanksgiving, surely talking and dining will be an important part of it for most of us.
Pushes back the Evil One – And be mindful of this, our intentional communion, our talking and dining, if done with charity, pushes back the incursion of the evil one and helps prepare us for heaven. And we also stress charity and be intentional about it. For the devil despises communion and will do what he can to destroy or limit what ever communion we seek or find among each other.
I am somehow mindful of a quote from Pope Benedict XVI:
If there were such a thing as a loneliness which could no longer be penetrated and transformed by the word of another; if a state of abandonment were to arise which was so deep that no “You” could reach into it any more, then we should have real, total loneliness and frightfulness, what theology calls “hell”. We can now define exactly what this word means: it denotes a loneliness which the word love can no longer penetrate…a night into whose solitude no voice reaches. (In Introduction to Christianity, commentary on “Descended to hell.”)
Yes, our Thanksgiving fellowship, our communion of love, is essential for us. A kind of a remedy for the soul and a protective embrace against the powers of Hell. It helps, by God’s grace, to push back the loneliness and alienation that easily envelop us today in this “communication age.” For, as we too easily discover, communication is not the same as communion. In this simple feast we are reminded that we were made for love and communion.
Allow God to work many graces in for you this thanksgiving, especially the grace to love and find deeper communion with Him and others.
On a lighter note, this T.V. commercial in the video below (from the 1950s) teaches you how to add at least a 1000 calories to your Turkey this year.
Despite the terrible dietary advice given herein, I must say this video gave me a warm memory of my father, mother and sister as I watched it. For when I was very young, my mother and sister would be in the kitchen preparing the bird, and bonding as only a mother an daughter can. And my father would be nearby sharpening the knives and preparing for his role in cutting the turkey and the roast. (Though he would never wear the silly apron seen in the ad). They are all deceased now, but I can almost see them in this look into the past; a communion still.
Too many people think of Holy Communion as a ritual, rather than a transformative, life giving reality. Jesus spoke clearly of how Holy Communion, the partaking of his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, would give us new life and raise us up:
For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. (Jn 6:33)
I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (Jn 6:48-51)
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (Jn 6:54)
The one who feeds on me will live because of me (Jn 6:57)
He who feeds on this bread will live forever. (Jn 6:58)
[In the ancient Temple] a tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand, the table and the consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place…. When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood…This is an illustration for the present time…..When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made…He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption….to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Heb 9: varia).
So Holy Communion with Jesus takes us, who were dead in our sins, and raises us to a new and eternal life. The word eternal does not refer merely to the length of life, but to the fullness of it. So we are given not just a long life, but a full one.
I am a witness to this and I hope you are. I have been receiving Holy communion just about every day for the last 27 years. And I want to say I have seen sins put to death and new life come forth in me, new gifts given to me. I am more serene, more loving, more chaste, more concerned for the poor, more generous, more patient, more alive that ever before. Holy Communion with the Lord does that, it gives life, bestows holiness and wholeness. And in giving me greater life, he enables me to share it with others.
Whoever eats my flesh will live, says the Lord. And he’s done for me just what he said. Thank you Lord.
And to those who refrain from Holy Communion, The Lord has this to say:
Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you have no life in you. (Jn 6:53)
Those who have stepped away from the Communion with the Lord in the Sacrament of the Eucharist are starving themselves and risk utter spiritual death: no life you.
To receive the Lord fruitfully in Holy Communion brings life, to refuse him brings death. It is that simple, and if you wish to argue with me, talk instead to Jesus. He said it, not me, though whatever the Son of God says, I believe (credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius). And he did say it.
And now we go to a surprising place: a Doritos commercial (see video below).
In this commercial, a friend going on a journey exhorts his friend to remember to feed the fish, and water the plant.
I wonder if we cannot see ourselves receiving a similar command from Jesus. Jesus often speaks in parables of a King, or landowner (Him really) going on a journey and leaving instructions.
And Jesus’ instructions are similar involving food and drink. For he said, as he went on a journey, Eat my Flesh and drink my Blood….Do this in remembrance of me.
But in the ad, the friend on the couch pays little attention. And as you can guess, he does not really do what he is supposed to.
Interestingly however, HE does eat the Doritos!
Perhaps then, he is emblematic of some modern Catholics, who, though they know how to get to Church themselves, have not evangelized others, even their relatives, and do not make sure they eat and drink by receiving Holy Communion.
Sure enough, as we have noted, in the ad, the couch bound friend (pew sitting Catholic?) does not give food to the fish, and drink to the plant and they die. And this is what is happening spiritually to our family and friends who do not come to Mass and worthily receive Holy Communion. And to the extent that we have neglected to evangelized them, we, like this couch sitting friend in the ad, share in the blame for their death.
Suddenly the couch bound friend realizes it is Thursday and his friend will return soon. He sees the death he has helped cause by failing to feed, and urgently tries to remedy the situation. Perhaps (we hope) this is a symbol of us in the Church who have allowed 70% of our brethren to drift away from the food and drink they need (Jesus). Waking up from a long nap, we hear the call to the new Evangelization as we see our once filled parishes and schools empty and closing.
Now things get silly, but action is taken. The couch bound friend suddenly leaves his couch (pew) and goes to work. He feeds the dead fish Doritos and suddenly the Fish comes back to life! I know it’s a stretch, but allow this to be a symbol of getting a friend or family member back to the Sacraments. If we do, that which was dead is now alive. Next, in the ad, the tree comes alive, and most auspiciously even Grandpa, whose ashes are an the mantle also comes back to life (remember though do not put the ashes of loved ones on the mantle. The Church requires that they be buried or place in a columbarium at a cemetery).
OK, it’s crazy, but the Doritos can symbolize here (by a stretch) the Eucharist. And as for giving life, Doritos don’t, but Communion Can! When Holy Communion is received worthily and fruitfully, what was dead can and does come back to life. And what is already alive is further enlivened.
So the moral is, Stay faithful to Holy Communion or Die. And even if you’re receiving, you know people who aren’t. They need to get back to Holy Communion or they will perish (cf Jn 6:53).
Now don’t let some guy in a Doritos commercial be smarter than you. Get to work, evangelize. There are people out there (including your own children, family members and friends) who are dying spiritually for lack of Holy Communion. Get to work, Jesus may be coming soon.
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Rev 3:20-22)
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (Jn 6:54)
There is a scene in the Movie Devil’s Advocate where Al Pacino, who plays the Devil, takes up a rant against God. In so doing, the scene rather remarkably portrays the attitude and view of God and religion held by many secularists today. If you click through to the YouTube page and look at the comments, you’ll see page after page of clench fists raised saying, in effect “YEAH!” Beware of the abundance of extreme profanity if you look at those comments. It seems not to be enough for some secularists that they find God and faith irrelevant, rather they must go further to hate God and faith.
Fr. Robert Barron has a cautionary note when engaging these sorts of secularists and atheists. He notes that they are not so much rejecting God, as a caricature of God, a false and distorted picture of God, gleaned from selective reading of Scripture, and a selective and a distorted notion of the life of faith. Frankly the “god” some of them reject, we reject too.
Hence, we do well to listen carefully to their notion of God and faith and to learn to distinguish the god they reject and the faith they despise, from the True God and the true faith.
With that in mind lets take a closer look at the Al Pacino (as the devil) rant and analyze it. It may be helpful for you to view the video below and follow the text (reproduced here) before looking at my line by line reflection. I am sorry for the profanity in the middle of the clip….It is Hollywood after all. But the profanity does illustrate the depth of the anger, that not a few have today, of the caricatured god they reject who they somehow think is the True God. Here is the quote in full and the video is below:
What are you carrying all those bricks for, anyway, God? God? Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He is a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you these extraordinary gifts, and what does he do? I swear, for his own amusement, his own private cosmic gag reel, he sets the rules in opposition. It is the goof of all time. Look, but don’t touch. Touch, but don’t take. Taste, but don’t swallow. And while you are driving yourself nuts, what is He doing? He is laughing his sick ……..off…. He is an absentee landlord. Worship that? Never!…I’m here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I’ve nurtured every sensation man has been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections I am a fan of man. I am a humanist. Maybe the last humanist. Who in their right mind, Kevin, could possibly deny that the 20th Century was entirely mine? All of it Kevin. All of it. Mine. I’m peaking…It’s my time now.
And now permit a few responses to each line:
What are you carrying all those bricks for, anyway, God? –
Most secular critics of the faith see the living of the faith as a hardship that stifles humanity and lead to unhappy and unfulfilled lives. They see us shackled by dogmas that limit us and confine our search for truth and greater self actualization and development. They see us as carrying bricks.
Sadly, some Christians give rise to these notions by manifesting a sour-faced, joyless faith, which does manifest unnecessary hostility to the world and the beauty of creation. This of course is not an orthodox expression of the true faith. For at the heart of the true faith is the joy of an empty tomb, the new life of resurrected glory.
As a Christian my deepest experiences are of joy and serenity. I am overwhelmed with gratitude at what God is doing in my life. It is my joy to praise and serve God. His law is more precious to me than gold and it has preserved me from a boat load of trouble!
It is true that the Cross is held high by the Church. But it is at the Cross that the full love of God for me is visible as Jesus dies in my place. And the cross brings life, for it is in dying to lower things that we rise to higher and more wonderful things. I glory in the Cross and, in the laboratory of my own life, I have experienced how it does bring me life and blessing and how its power transforms my life.
I am not carrying bricks for love lightens every load. God’s commandments are not burdensome to me, for the more I love God and my neighbor, them more and more I keep them, almost without effort. Here too it has been my experience that God has given me grace upon grace and that, as his Law comes alive in my life, it is by his gift, rather than my effort. To be in Christ is my joy, my life, my most precious possession.
As for burdens, we all have them, secularists as well as the faithful. But to experience my burdens with faith lightens them and gives me confidence that they only make me stringer and prepare me for glory.
I do not carry bricks, I am carried by God’s love.
Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch….He is an absentee landlord. –
Here is a deistic notion of God, that he sort of sets things in motion, and then steps back to watch or go have lunch or something.
But neither Scripture nor my own experience confirm this notion. The Lord holds all creation together in himself (e.g. Col 1:17). He is more present to me than I am to myself. Though he transcends he also indwells through immanence.
I have come to powerfully experience God’s presence in my life in recent years. As my prayer has deepened I am drawn into close union with God in wordless contemplation. I am privileged to walk with many spiritual directees who have also come to experience deep union with God.
The normal Christian life is to be in living conscious contact with God at every moment. Nothing is more strange to me than to think God is watching from afar. Even as I type these words my heart is moved with his indwelling presence, a presence that is real and unquestioned by me.
He is a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you these extraordinary gifts, and what does he do? I swear, for his own amusement, his own private cosmic warped sense of humor, he sets the rules in opposition to your instincts. It is the goof of all time. Look, but don’t touch. Touch, but don’t take. Take, but don’t swallow. And while you are driving yourself nuts, what is He doing? He is laughing…
It is a Christian teaching that God gave us our passions (what Pacino (aka the devil) calls “instincts.” It is also Christian teaching that these passions are, of themselves good and necessary. God does not given them to us for his amusement, but for our survival and for our enjoyment of the good things he offers.
It is a truth however, that our passions, after the fall, are unruly and we often struggle to maintain them in a balance that is healthy and helpful.
It is not just God who sets up rules to limit our indulgence of passions. The world does too. If you drink and drink, you’re under arrest. If you eat too much the world laughs at you and calls you fat, and doctors wag their finger and (rightfully) warn of heart disease, diabetes, cholesterol etc. If you vent your anger excessively you may be arrested or sued. If you merely indulge your sexual passion and grope people, sexually abuse or rape them, you are subject to arrest, imprisonment and lawsuit.
There are necessary limits for our indulgence of passions in any setting, secular or religious. If all we do is follow our instincts, we are but animals, and orderly society is not possible.
Self Mastery – So limits are not unique to a Christian or religious setting. What is unique is the understanding that what the world calls limits, we call self mastery. The Christian moral vision is not a vision so much of limits, as of transformation and freedom. I am not to be enslaved by my passions but the master of them. Christ announces freedom not slavery or suppression.
Here too I am a witness. I am joyful in what the Lord has done for me. He has set me free from innumerable sinful habits and patterns. I have gained great mastery over many of my passions, especially anger. In its place are greater compassion, patience, kindness and love.
I do not experience these as impositions or limits, but as gifts. I am not stifled but strengthened. I am joyful over the fact that I am not a slave to pornography, I do not sexually act out nor do I even want to. I am seeing my greed abate and be replaced by greater generosity. I am less resentful, and more easily forget hurts of the past.
I do not say things like to boast, except to boast in the Lord. I am so glad at what he is doing in my life! He is not laughing at me, He is loving me, and transforming me! Thank you Lord.
I’m here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I’ve nurtured every sensation man has been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections I am a fan of man. I am a humanist.
Yes, Satan and the secular mindset like to praise themselves as the friend of man, the friend of the people.
Here Satan claims to be close, while God is distant and laughing. I have already addressed those notions.
But what Satan here calls “nurturing every sensation” I call temptation. Our passions do not need to be nurtured. We have them naturally from God and, of themselves they work fine. And as noted, since the Fall of Man, sometimes they work too well and out of balance. What Satan and the world do, is to manipulate and tempt us beyond what is necessary or just. All day long, Satan and the world seek to provoke our anger, our fear, our sexuality, our need for popularity and acceptance, our greed, our hatred, our hunger and thirst. The hope is to get us spending too much and to ensnare us in the insatiable desire for more. When our passions own us, we are easily bought and manipulated.
This is not humanism, it is hatred and exploitation. It is slavery that is the goal, not freedom. Most people who have marched under the banner of freedom in recent decades have ended up addicted, diseased and indebted, with broken families, broken lives and broken hearts. Any honest look at the disarray caused by the excesses of modern times tells this sad tale.
Satan also boasts that the he has never judged or rejected man. Nonsense, for both he and the so-called “tolerant” secularists are highly judgmental.
Scripture calls Satan our accuser.
And the secular world is anything but tolerant. Just utter, even unintentionally, something that is not politically correct and watch how fast you are humiliated, called names, kicked to the curb, threatened with lawsuits, and even told to resign. Transgress, even for a moment, the rule that certain protected classes are never to be questioned or challenged, and watch the venom and name calling: bigot, homophobe, hater, intolerant, insensitive, racist, etc.
Our so-called tolerant society specializes in destroying those who transgress, even obliquely. There is no room for apology, clarification, context, or any presumption of good will. The transgressor must be destroyed.
Is this humanism or is it what the Pope has called the “tyranny of relativism?” Is this what the devil in this scene means when we says he and the secular world does not judge although God, and presumably, religionists do? It does not seem that being judgmental is a problem only of the religiously observant. Frankly, some of the destructive vindictiveness of the secular world far surpasses what the Pope or the local pastor can mete out.
Who in their right mind, Kevin, could possibly deny that the 20th Century was entirely mine? All of it Kevin. All of it. Mine. I’m peaking…It’s my time now –
Ah, and here is where “Satan” goes a bridge too far. I am really rather surprised that Hollywood allowed this line in the final cut. For here is where the mask comes off, and we see the real face of Satan and the true fruits of the secularism of these times. The woes of the 20th Century have little to do with religion. Rather, they emerge directly from secular principles, as well as from sin set loose by Satan.
Most of us who have lived through the 20th Century realize what a dreadful fall we have had.
It is true our technology, science and medicine are off the hook and wonderful things have been seen.We have also made progress in turning back the most severe forms of racism.
But the dreadful and bloody wars where millions died, the genocidal mania that swept Germany in the 40s, the Balkans and Rwanda in 90s. The over 100 million killed by Stalin and the Chinese in their Communist crack down. The incredible bloodshed in southeast Asia, the unfathomable toll of abortion and on and on.
The West has also suffered dramatic decline and our families have been destroyed by promiscuity, divorce, and cohabitation. Contraception and abortion have also fueled a kind of death wish as our birthrates have plummeted. It is the children who suffer most.
Church attendance has severely declined, social unrest grows, the economy throughout the West is laden with debt and near disaster.
Most of us who are older remember times that were safer and simpler, where people made commitments and kept them, and where self control and a common moral vision were more the norm. They were not perfect times by any means, and some things were worse, but any casual observer will note a sudden and shocking decline in the 20th Century of the basic fabric of culture, faith, family and country.
Yes, I would easily agree, the 20th Century has surely been a playground for Satan. It recalls the vision of Pope Leo who came to understand that Satan’s power would grow for the period of 100 years. He asked that the Prayer of St. Michael be thus recited everywhere, especially after low Mass. Keep praying, for, even if Satan’s time is up, the ripples in the water take time to calm down.
Yes, I am surprised Hollywood allowed this last line to stay in. For, despite all the talk of how religion has caused wars, and how religion imprisons people in a lack of self fulfillment, and dogmatic rigidity, the problems of the 20th Century cannot be laid at the door of faith. The ruins of the 20th Century are the “fair-flower” of utopian secularist thinking. Divorced from God, and insisting it is accountable to no one higher, and convinced it can cast aside the wisdom of previous ages like filthy rags, secular culture has shown us the fruit of its premises. Welcome to humanist paradise.
As for me, I have come to love the Kingdom of God. We in the Church have not lived it perfectly or manifested it well. Indeed, we too are accountable for the ruins around us, for it has happened on our watch. We failed to effectively hand on the faith to our children, and we were inwardly focused while our culture melted down. Other Catholics were too busy trying to fit in, rather than joyfully live the faith.
But in the end, it is not the faith that was the cause, it was the failure to life the faith that caused our witness to the world to fall flat. Now it is the time for Christians to authentically come to a true and lively faith, a joyful and confident faith. For, as Fr. Barron has said so well, it is not God that most atheists and secularists reject, it is a false picture of God that they reject. It is up to us to encounter the living and true God, and to manifest him to the world. We must soberly assess the world, joyfully embrace our God and our Faith and manifest him personally to the world.
There is a story of St. Paul’s arrest, beating and imprisonment at Philippi that serves as a kind of paradigm for the radicality of true Christianity and why it so perturbs many in this world. For, of itself the Christian faith, its message and the transformation it can effect, is very unsettling for a world that quite literally and figuratively banks on sin. Lets consider this lesser known story of Paul and see what it ought to mean for us, if we take the Christian faith seriously and do not try to “tame” it.
Philippi was the first “European” city that Paul evangelized as he came across from Asia Minor. Arriving at the port the port of Philippi in Macedonia, Paul and Silas went right to work evangelizing. One of their first Converts was Lydia, a wealthy woman from Thyatira, a dealer in purple cloth. Other converts followed. And here is where we pick up the story.
Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.
When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”
The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. (Acts 16:16-24).
Note, in this story, the heart of the problem. St. Paul, in setting the slave girl free of her demon has deprived her “owners” of the income they derived from her sad state. They were banking on her bad condition and trafficking on her trouble. In the name and Power of Jesus Christ, St. Paul sets her free. His action draws deep anger from the “owners.” He has rocked their world and touched their pocketbooks. They see the Christian message for it is: revolutionary, disconcerting, threatening, and deeply unsettling.
A threat not only to profit, but to power. In having Paul arrested they stir up the hatred and fear of others as well indicating that Paul was not merely preaching some “strange new religion” but were advocating customs forbidden to Romans. The word “customs” here in Greek is ἐθη (ethe) and refers to “religious rites or forms of worship.” Cicero in De Legibus, ii. 8, says, “No person shall have any separate gods, or new ones; nor shall he privately worship any strange gods, unless they be publicly allowed.” While the Romans often overlooked the private worship of unapproved gods, to publicly proclaim new and unapproved deities was an occasion for dissension and controversy and forbidden.
And frankly, the charges against Paul and Silas are true enough. They have hindered profit in the healing they wrought. Further they were openly proclaiming that Jesus was Lord. To our ears we hear a religious phrase. But to Roman ears the phrase was provocative and revolutionary. It was directly contrary to their proclamation that Caesar is Lord. Yes, Paul, Silas, Luke and the others were shaking the ground in Philippi. While they were not advocating the overthrow of any government, they were announcing a power greater than Caesar and a higher King demanding first loyalty: Jesus is Lord!
This is not the tame and domesticated proclamation of the faith so common today. This is not the faith that is trimmed to fit into worldly categories and to be tucked under political, philosophical and moral preferences. This is the faith that shakes the world and brings a revolutionary challenge to the world’s priorities. Yes, Paul and Silas are a serious threat.
And what of us today? We have gone through a long period where, in many ways we have thought the faith could be lived quietly and that it generally fit quite well into the world in which we lived. Harmony and getting along were highly prized. Particularly here in America, Catholics wanted to reassure the general populace that our faith in no way hindered us from being full participants in the American scene and that we could fit right in, be just like everyone else. With the election of the first Catholic President we could say we had finally made it and been fully accepted. Finally we fit in.
Of course the culture was not in such disrepair in those days and we still had a fairly wide moral consensus rooted in the Judeo-Christian vision. But having finally “made it” we assumed room temperature and the fire of our distinctively Catholic culture faded away. At the same time Western culture has also largely died. (Coincidence)?
And now we are coming full circle where we have got to rediscover how revolutionary our Catholic faith truly is to this world gone mad. And as we proclaim healing and an allegiance to something other than this world, we will become increasingly obnoxious to the world around us.
Consider both things for which Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned:
1. They ate away at profit – Paul drove a terrible demon out of a slave girl, a demon that afflicted her, but profited her slaveholders. In this world today there is a lot of trafficking in sin and addiction. Terrible demons afflict many people regarding sexuality, drugs, and alcohol. And there’s a lot of money to be made selling pornography to sex addicts, and others. Sex sells, Hollywood movie producers, contraceptionists, pimps, escort services, abortionists, and even traffickers in the sex slave industry also feed at the trough. Drugs and alcohol are big money makers too. Not to mention the huge numbers of products that are sold using the demon of fear: You are not pretty enough, you are not healthy enough, you are getting old, you don’t drive the right car, you haven’t impressed your friends enough. You need to buy our product right away so you are not so pathetic. And thus the demon of fear and low self-esteem is exploited, along with the demon of greed.
But what would happen if the Church were to start effectively preaching unabridged Christianity which says, “You don’t need to be afraid of your health, your age, or what people think of you. You can also find serenity in Christ and so you won’t need all that extra alcohol and those drugs. And you can be set free from your enslavement to sex, take authority over your passions and discover the beauty of traditional marriage. What if we got back in the business of driving out demons?
Well, of course the answer would be that we like Paul would be and are, under attack. We are especially hated by the sex industry and the abortionists, since that is the most focused issue these days. To them we are public enemy number one. We threaten the vision, the addiction and the despair that fills their coffers. If we are too successful, and for now our successes are meager, their profits may go away. Yes, we must be dealt with.
But really, we will only be effective if we preach the unabridged faith. Not the faith that is trimmed and tucked under worldly priorities, the faith that insists on being “realistic” and makes endless apologies to the inevitable objections of the world no matter how much we water things down. The true faith is revolutionary in the freedom it offers from sin and the demons.
Paul and Silas didn’t end up in prison by preaching a watered down, tamed and domesticated moral vision. They unabashedly drove out a demon that was afflicting a girl, and in so doing they engaged in a revolutionary threat to a world that profits well on sin.
2. They threatened power – Calling Jesus Lord was a revolutionary threat to the incumbent power which seeks and demands our first and full loyalty. And thus today, many strive to make Catholics fit into neat little political categories. Both Republicans and Democrats want the Church to fit into their narrow little categories and march in lockstep with a party system. Even Catholics in those categories want the Church to conform. Many Catholics in fact are more loyal to their party than their Church, and are more passionate about their political views than their faith. If there is a conflict between a Church teaching and the party line, guess which usually gives way.
But in the end the Church will not just fit into some neat political category. The true faith is too revolutionary to fit into some worldly box.
And thus there is a lot of hatred and anger directed at the Church. Republicans say we’re too liberal, Democrats say we’re too conservative. More and more we are being shown the door, kicked to the curb and our very right to religious liberty is threatened. Religious exemptions to increasingly pernicious laws are being slowly removed, and lawsuits against Catholic Institutions are increasing. It will surely get worse as secular systems demand increasing loyalty and Church must refuse that loyalty.
Because, Jesus is Lord, not the Federal, State or local government. Jesus is not Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. He is God, and the faith he announces cannot be defined down or compromised to fit into a friendship with the world.
But here too, no tame, domesticated Christianity, will threaten or change this world. When Paul preached the people rioted, but too much modern preaching incites only yawns and indifference.
What should we learn from St. Paul’s arrest at Philippi? That the true faith is revolutionary, and threatens the world right where it hurts: in the profit and power centers. As the world turns more secular the revolutionary aspect of the faith will become more evident.
Are you ready?
In this video Fr. Barron comments on the movie “The Matrix” which depicts an interesting Christian motif. The Matrix is a machine from which people need liberation. The solution can only happen when some one from outside the Matrix (Neo) enters in and announces liberty, dies rises and defeats the Matrix.
An interesting article appeared the in the Wall Street Journal on the Saturday after the passing of Steve Jobs. Written by Andy Crouch, it does a good job (pardon the pun) of distilling the philosophy of technology that is common today. Steve Jobs, a master at technology and business, articulated and exemplified many of its tenants. We do well to examine this philosophy for it is a strong rival to the Christian outlook and has growing numbers of loyalists who see technology as a kind of saving god which has over thrown the older paradigm of the Judeo Christian heritage. It is a kind of substitutional philosophy that deserves so analysis.
I want to present excerpts from the article which is excellent. The full article can be read here: Steve Jobs: Secular Prophet. The text of Mr. Crouch is in bold, black italics, my comments are in red plain text.
Disclaimer: I am a fan of Apple products. I use them and will probably use more in the near future. I respect what Steve Jobs has accomplished and that what he has done has provided benefits for many to include good products, employment and the promotion of excellence. In responding to the philosophical claims of Mr Jobs and others, I am using a form of response that is akin to “rant.” I mean no personal disrespect to Mr Jobs (de mortuis nil nisi bonum). I disagree with his outlook and philosophy but personally respect what he has accomplished. I regret he did not have faith, yet still I hope to see I hope to see him in the great parousia.
Further, If I seem to be disagreeing with Mr Crouch, I am not, for he is but reporting the philosophy of technology and in the ends raises many of the same questions I do. Remember, to some degree I am using “rant” here in order to pull memorably in the other direction. It is a form of speech that requires context and some degree of appreciation for hyperbole (exaggeration).
Steve Jobs was extraordinary in countless ways—as a designer, an innovator, a (demanding and occasionally ruthless) leader. But his most singular quality was his ability to articulate a perfectly secular form of hope. Nothing exemplifies that ability more than Apple’s early logo, which slapped a rainbow on the very archetype of human fallenness and failure—the bitten fruit—and turned it into a sign of promise and progress. That bitten apple was just one of Steve Jobs’s many touches of genius, capturing the promise of technology in a single glance.
To be honest, I never really connected the Apple logo with a shot across the bow of the Judeo-Christian vision of our fallenness. I recently bought an iMac, which I like very much. But frankly the world of Apple and Mac have not been on my radar that much until recently.
But to be clear, I want to personally testify, that neither Macs nor PCs have made even a dent in the problem of sin. Any look at the typical combox of a blog will show that. If anything we’ve become more coarse and divided in our dialogue, as we tend to retreat from real interactions to virtual ones.
Granted, many new connections can be made, and some of them very beneficial, but not all of them are good. Internet porn sites are by far the most visited sites on the Internet, most them completely blowing away the nearest competitors.
Viruses also shout sin. Imagine some one sitting at home writing code to infect my computer and crash the hard disk. Talk about evil.
If there is a rainbow over the bitten apple, it’s a hologram, not real at all. The promise of technology to save or redeem us seems hollow, indeed, empty.
The philosopher Albert Borgmann has observed that technology promises to relieve us of the burden of being merely human, of being finite creatures in a harsh and unyielding world. The biblical story of the Fall pronounced a curse upon human work—”cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” All technology implicitly promises to reverse the curse, easing the burden of creaturely existence. And technology is most celebrated when it is most invisible—when the machinery is completely hidden, combining godlike effortlessness with blissful ignorance about the mechanisms that deliver our disburdened lives.
To say that our lives are “disburdened” is a stretch. It is true that there are many creature comforts today and many once tedious tasks have been eliminated.
But honestly, the more we have, the less satisfied we seem to be. Stress and living at 90 mph with endless interruptions, e-mails, text messages, voice mails, tweets, and Facebook pokes, ain’t no paradise. Psychotropic drugs are sold at record levels to help manage the stress and depression that often results.
The wealthier and more well apportioned we have become, the more anxious we become. Frankly, we have too much to loose and so we are fearful. And, all our many possessions breed a kind of addiction to them.
Steve Jobs was great at showing us how that phone he just sold a year ago us is no longer enough. In fact, since his new phone came out, the one he sold us last year is now a piece of junk. You ain’t nothing until you get the latest iPhone 5! And there is something sad and pathetic, seeing people lined up for three days in front of a store to buy a stupid phone (oops, I mean “smart phone”), especially when the one they just bought a year ago, is working fine.
Further, the promises of advertisers et al. to make life peachy, also breeds unrealistic expectations, which in turn breeds resentments and disappointments.
Don’t get me wrong, I like technology and use it, but I am not sure it has “relieved me of the burden of being merely human.” The basic contours of life remain essentially unchanged, and that is, that life has its pleasures and pains, it’s joys and disappointments. Technology hasn’t changed that.
In the end, nothing in this world can fill the God-sized hole in our hearts. This world is not home and we’re always going to feel that we’re living out of a suitcase, because we are.
Politically, militarily, economically, the decade was defined by disappointment after disappointment—but technologically, it was defined by a series of elegantly produced events in which Steve Jobs, commanding more attention and publicity each time, strode on stage with a miracle in his pocket.
But wait a minute, I thought technology was supposed to relieve us of the burden of being merely human! What this I hear about military political and economic disappointment? Isn’t there an app for that? Looks like we need more than a miracle in a pocket.
He believed so sincerely in the “magical, revolutionary” promise of Apple precisely because he believed in no higher power.
Well, this “magical promise” that replaces the “higher power” has a lot of work to do. We still ain’t back in paradise, no matter what the holographic rainbow over the bitten apple says.
In his celebrated Stanford commencement address (which is itself an elegant, excellent model of the genre), he spoke frankly….”No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.”
Sad really. The human person’s dignity reduced to “doing something,” and then, when your usefulness is over and you get in the way of “change,” you need to be cleared away. Sounds like the voice of pure utilitarianism, wherein we are reduced to human doings, rather than human beings. It is clear that, by this philosophy, you do not exist for your own sake. Rather you exist for the purpose of being a “change agent.” And when you start getting in the way of blessed “progress,” holy “change” and other utopian notions, you need to be cut down and cleared away.
[Mr Jobs went on to say] “Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition.”
Of course dogma is a “no-no” in techno-religion, since it tends to block blessed and holy “progress” and “change.” For, “dogma” is actually more than “other people’s thinking,” it is the wisdom of past ages, and we can’t have any of that around here. That would get in the way of holy and blessed progress and change. And remember, as soon as you get in the way, you too must be cut down and carried away. Imagine! Learning from the past. No indeed, we certainly can’t be “trapped” by dogma for the reasons stated. Change is all, progress is the pearl of great price. Away with any wisdom from the past (a.k.a “dogma”)!
This is the gospel of a secular age….but the gospel of self-fulfillment does require an extra helping of stability and privilege to be plausible……
Exactly, a philosophy like this can only emerge among the comfortable and well healed, those who are most insulated from life’s often shocking turns. The “do your own thing” dictum is simply not possible for most of the less privileged who are not as free and privileged as Mr Jobs. I wonder if Mr Job’s own employees felt free not to let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. It would seem he did give a lot a freedom to some on his staff, but I doubt the guy in shipping, packing boxes, felt free to ignore Mr Job’s opinion and follow his own inner voice, heart and ambition. I suspect he felt very obliged obey Mr Job’s thinking (i.e. “dogma”).
Is it possible to live a good, full, human life without that kind of hope? Steve Jobs would have said yes in a heartbeat. A convert to Zen Buddhism, he was convinced as anyone could be that this life is all there is. But the rest of us, as grateful as we are for his legacy, still have to decide whether technology’s promise is enough to take us to the promised land. Is technology enough? Has the curse truly been repealed? [Technology] works wonders within its own walled garden, but it falters when confronted with the worst of the world and the worst in ourselves. Exactly
OK, so there’s my rant. How say you?
Portrait above, by Tim O’Brien
I don’t know that I agree with the final line of this video, but it does bring home the point that there are a few thorns and thistles in techno-paradise.
Did you hear a good homily on forgiveness yesterday? Not only were the readings a great starting point for reflecting on the tenth anniversary of 9-11, the Gospel story is one of those that just hits home every time. It was one of those Gospels where we leave church thinking, I know I need to grapple with the fact I don’t want to forgive THAT person.” Or I want to believe that even though I may never see justice, I can do something so that the situation will stop eating at me. You may find yourself thinking I want to hear another homily on how I can forgive.
BUT HOW
As perfectly timed, as yesterday’s Gospel, is the publication of my fellow blogger and colleague, Fr. R. Scott Hurd’s book, Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach. In the spirit of full disclosure, Fr. Scott is a colleague and we have admired each other’s work for a number of years and I have written an endorsement for the book which all adds up to having lots of evidence that Fr. Hurd knows what he is talking about. The book is worth purchasing for yourself and for a friend who may be stuck in the awful cycle of anger and hurt. What makes Forgiveness such a good read is that it is also a manual. It answers the HOW question in a step-by step look at sin, forgiveness and reconciliation and how we can make it happen. If you are a regular reader of this blog or have had the good fortune to hear Fr. Hurd preach, you will recognize his gift for storytelling and you will appreciate that his example of people grappling with forgiveness and finding their way toward reconciliation come from his own experience in ministry, from the lives of the saints and ripped from the headlines of the news. They offer such a breadth of experiences that I can’t image you won’t see yourself in one of them.
Be An Instrument
Forgiveness is more than just stories; Fr. Hurd tackles the big questions as well. He writes of having to face the fact we may need to express anger with God, and he tackles how tough forgiving in a Christian way can be. He reminds us that prayer and participation in the other sacraments not only can help but are essential to the process. He helps us to honestly ask ourselves if the place to start is realizing we just may need to “lower the bar!” Fr. Hurd’s book is the kind of book that you could read together with a spouse or family member or friend with whom you are trying to find the way toward reconciliation but just can’t seem to get past an obstacle. Cardinal Wuerl, in his forward to the book, writes “…We are all called to even more than the passive reception of God’s mercy. Jesus asks us to be instruments of forgiveness.” In Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach we are given the tools to be instruments of forgiveness.
