Reform in the Church seldom comes from a committee of clergy, or from the clergy at all. It usually comes from the laity and from religious communities. In a way, reform in the Church “comes out of nowhere.” During the often-corrupt periods of the Church (e.g., the Middle Ages)—when many of the clergy were more like aristocrats and landowners than true pastors, when wealthy clergy often collected parishes and posts like stocks and bonds and hired poorly trained people to do their work—reform came out of nowhere. It came in the person of St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, the mendicant orders, and many others. In later periods, it came in the person of great saints like St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.
These reformers came as if out of nowhere. They defied the usual expectations of what leadership in the church should be like. They broke the rules, not the moral law or rules, but the “business as usual” rules. God sent them to the Church at critical moments. Ecclesia semper reformanda (the Church is always in need of reform).
All of this occurred to me as I watched this commercial:
The Mass for today’s feast of Saints Simon and Jude, like that for almost all of the Apostles, contains passages from Psalm 19. This has always intrigued me because this psalm is not a reference to human preaching or witness at all, but rather a reference to the wordless witness of creation.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world (Psalm 19:2-3; 4-5).
And while it is true that the voice of the Apostles has gone out to all the earth, that is not what this psalm is really about. There is a kind of daring and glorious transposition of meaning. The witness through the words of the Apostles is joined to the wordless witness of creation. Why? Well, are not the Apostles—indeed all humans—part of creation? And if the lower parts of creation proclaim the glory of God, do not we as well?
Here, then, is a beautiful reminder of the two books of revelation: Scripture and Creation. It is also a reminder that we are part of that creation. Yes, creation is revelation, as St. Paul reminds: For God’s invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made (Romans 1:20).
Yes, the whole universe shouts Order! Consistency! Intelligibility! Our bodies and all of the delicately functioning systems on this planet echo back this refrain. And while I do not ask scientists (as scientists) to specifically affirm the biblical and Christian God, the existence of consistent order in the universe is obvious and serves as the basis of the whole scientific method.
If things were truly random, scientists could not propose theories, test results, or verify them; repeated experiments would not turn out similar results. The scientific method presupposes order and consistency within a verifiable range. Thus, while scientists need not draw conclusions as to how this order came about, it is wholly inappropriate for them to be dismissive of believers who conclude from this order that someone must have ordered it so.
Yes, what a glorious and magnificent thing creation is! To this believer, it loudly proclaims the existence of God, who made it.
The beautiful hymn “The Spacious Firmament on High,” which I have seldom heard in Catholic parishes, takes up the voice of creation—especially that part of creation we call the heavens or the sky. It is based on Psalm 19, and to me it is a minor masterpiece of English poetry. It was written by Joseph Addison in 1712.
The hymn was written before skeptical agnosticism and hostility to the very notion (let alone existence) of God had taken deep root in our culture. And, frankly, it also comes from a more sober time, when it was accepted as obvious that creation is ordered and therefore ordered by someone in a purposeful and intelligent manner. We believers call that “someone” God.
Consider the beautiful words of this song, and its reasoned conclusion that creation shouts the existence of its Creator.
The spacious firmament on high, with all the blue ethereal sky, and spangled heavens, a shining frame, their great Original proclaim. The unwearied sun from day to day does his Creator’s power display; and publishes to every land the work of an almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail, the moon takes up the wondrous tale, and nightly to the listening earth repeats the story of her birth: whilst all the stars that round her burn, and all the planets in their turn, confirm the tidings, as they roll and spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all move round the dark terrestrial ball? What though no real voice nor sound amid their radiant orbs be found? In reason’s ear they all rejoice, and utter forth a glorious voice; forever singing as they shine, “The hand that made us is divine.”
Yes, the hand that made us is divine, and He has done a marvelous thing!
Today’s Gospel features a strange dialog; it is hard not to rejoice in Jesus’ aplomb.
In it, some Pharisees (likely disingenuous) approach Jesus, warning Him to leave immediately: Go away, leave this area because Herod wants to kill you. Probably more for their benefit than for Herod’s, Jesus responds,
“Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and I perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I accomplish my purpose’” (Lk 13:32).
Surely Jesus has more in mind here than the next three days. He is obviously speaking of the Paschal mystery: His passion, death, and resurrection. To any who would threaten His life, He is saying that in so doing they only serve to undermine their own power and cause Him to fulfill His own purpose.
Nailed to a cross, He will be casting out demons and bringing healing. The next day He will descend to Sheol to awaken the dead, summon them to righteousness, and bring healing in life. And on the third day He will arise, fully accomplishing His purpose and casting off death like a mere garment.
There is no way that Herod, the Pharisees, or Satan can win; for in winning, they lose.
So also for those who would align themselves with the darkness rather than the light. No matter how deep the darkness, dawn inevitably comes and scatters it; the darkness cannot win. Scripture says, The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (Jn 1:5).
In this strange and provocative saying of Jesus’ from the Gospel of Luke is an important perspective for all of us: no matter how powerful it may seem, evil cannot stand; it will ultimately self-destruct and be overcome by the light. No matter how awful Good Friday seemed to those first disciples, Jesus was casting out demons and bring healing in that very act of suffering. And His apparent disappearance into death and down into Sheol was only for the purpose of bringing life into the place of the dead and healing to the deep wounds caused by sin.
While Resurrection Sunday manifested Jesus’ obvious triumph, even Good Friday and Holy Saturday were already displaying His great victory.
In this saying of Jesus’ and in the facts of the Paschal mystery, two things are taught to us about evil: we should never glamorize it and we should not utterly fear it.
As for glamorizing evil, we love our movies and other things in culture that often glorify evil, whether it’s “The Untouchables,” “The Godfather,” “Goodfellas,” or other fare that in a general way celebrate wrongdoing and equate it with power and glory.
This is illusion. Evil may have its day, but the Word of the Lord remains forever. Scripture says,
I have seen the wicked triumphant, towering like a cedar of Lebanon. I passed by again; he was gone. I searched; he was nowhere to be found (Psalm 37:35-36).
We should neither glamorize evil nor inordinately fear its passing power. We should confront it soberly and resist its demands, but we should not fear it.
No, evil cannot stand. To glorify evil or to fear it inordinately is to miss the lesson of both Scripture and history. At the end of the day, evil does not last.
What does last is God’s holy Word and His Church. Despite repeated attempts to persecute, diminish, and destroy the Church, she has outlived every one of her opponents. Her history extends back more than 2000 years into the heritage of God’s people, the Jews. For His word to Abraham persists, and God rescued them from slavery in Egypt and gave His Word on Mount Sinai. Despite every attempt to ridicule, reduce, and redefine God’s Word, His promise to Abraham, His Word from Sinai, and His Word from the Sermon on the Mount all persist to this day.
This is what lasts: God’s Word and the Church He founded. This is verifiable through the study of history. Empires have come and gone, wicked philosophies have come into favor and disappeared, scoffers and persecutors have arrived and departed, all throughout the age of the Church. Here we are still; they are gone. And those who claim power today and who laugh at us and say our day is done should know this: when they are gone we will still be here.
Evil, error, and perversion do not last. God does last, and so does His Word and the Church to which He has entrusted it.
And so Jesus, when threatened by the Pharisees and indirectly by Herod, simply says,
“Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and I perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I accomplish my purpose’” (Lk 13:32).
In effect, Jesus says, “Neither you nor Herod can thwart my plans. In killing me you merely assist me in accomplishing my plan; I will break the back of your power. When you persecute my disciples or shed the blood of my Church members you are sowing seeds for the Church by the very blood of the martyrs you spill. Whatever victory you claim is hollow, for it is really my victory.”
Yes, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, … I accomplish my purpose.’” By these words the Lord decodes history for us. It doesn’t matter how we might wish to obsess over this seeming loss or that apparent defeat. It doesn’t matter how the world and the devil might wish to gloat over an apparent victory. In the end, the Lord holds all the cards. The house, His house, always wins.
It is true; read history. Do not admire evil or fear its apparent ascendance. Jesus has won and His victory is shown time and time again. Don’t let the Devil deceive you. Evil cannot stand. The devil is a liar.
Indeed, in the name and power of Jesus, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and I perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I accomplish my purpose’” (Lk 13:32).
Today, let’s wade into the waters of a difficult, mysterious subject. Predestination, and in a wider sense, God’s providence, raises a lot of conundrums in our mind, bound as we are by time and the limits of human language.
Many people ask questions about God’s providence that are rooted in faulty premises, either about time or causality. For example, the following questions are often asked:
If God predestines someone for Heaven or Hell, doesn’t this merely reduce us to a fate we cannot control?
Why exhort people to make good choices or to pray if we are all simply acting out a script for our life, written by God long before we were ever made?
There are three important distinctions to make.
Distinction 1: God does not predestine anyone for Hell.
The stated desire or purpose of God is that all come to know Him through faith and thus are saved: God our Savior … desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). While it is true that Scripture speaks of predestining us for Heaven (e.g., Eph 1:5; Rom 8:29), this is not the same as saying that we are locked into a fate. St. Thomas Aquinas said, “Thus, as men are ordained to eternal life through the providence of God, it likewise is part of that providence to permit some to fall away from that end” (Summa Theologica I, 23, art. 3). And thus while we are ordained or ordered for Heaven, God, who made us free, permits that those who freely reject Him and His Kingdom will be lost.
Distinction 2: Knowing is not the same as willing.
The second question above fails to distinguish between God knowing something and God willing it (and thereby causing it). Even we mortals can know something before it happens, but our knowing it does not cause it. Suppose you were on a hillside and saw two trains on opposite sides of a blind curve, heading for each other on the same track. You know what will happen, but your knowing it does not cause it to happen.
God can know things that will happen without willing or forcing them to happen. God knowing “ahead of time” that some will go to Hell and others will go to Heaven does not mean that He wills it. For God says,
Say to them, “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, people of Israel?” (Ez 33:11)
God wants all to be saved but foresees that some will be lost. Why does God exhort Ezekiel to tell the Israelites to turn from their sinful ways? What good will it do? After all, God already knows who will and will not be saved.
Distinction 3: Primary causes do not eliminate secondary causes.
God wants all to be saved but foresees that some will be lost. In the previous passage, why does God exhort Ezekiel to tell the Israelites to turn from their sinful ways? What good will it do? After all, God already knows who will and will not be saved.
The answer leads us to a distinction between primary and secondary causes.
God is the primary cause of all things, of all reality. Whatever effect things like people, animals, and trees have on one another, God is still the primary cause of those effects, because God is creating and sustaining them all. Thus for them to act and to cause other effects, God must first create, equip, and empower them to exist at all. Because God must “first” do this, He is the primary cause of every effect.
But, as St. Thomas explains, that God is the primary cause of everything does not eliminate secondary causes:
Concerning this question, there were different errors. Some, regarding the certainty of divine predestination, said that prayers were superfluous (unnecessary), as also anything else done to attain salvation; because whether these things were done or not, the predestined would attain, and the reprobate would not attain, eternal salvation. But against this opinion are all the warnings of Holy Scripture, exhorting us to prayer and other good works.
Others declared that the divine predestination was altered through prayer. …Against this also is the authority of Scripture. For it is said… that “the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance (unalterable)” (Romans 11:29).
Wherefore we must say … it is not due to their prayers that anyone is predestined by God. [But it is also true that] … predestination is said to be helped by the prayers of the saints, and by other good works; because providence, of which predestination is a part, does not do away with secondary causes but so provides effects, that the order of secondary causes falls also under providence … [T]he salvation of a person is predestined by God in such a way, that whatever helps that person towards salvation falls under the order of predestination; whether it be one’s own prayers or those of another; or other good works … without which one would not attain to salvation. Whence, the predestined must strive after good works and prayer; because through these means predestination is most certainly fulfilled. For this reason it is said: “Labor more that by good works you may make sure your calling and election” (2 Peter 1:10) (Summa Theologica I, 23, art 8).
In other words, God in His providence knows not only the end of a person but also all the things he will freely contribute to that end. Why bother praying? Because God has always known what prayers you would utter and what difference they would make. We should pray to fulfill the role and supply the help that God has always known we would. The same holds for good works and other forms of cooperating with God’s grace. In one of his sermons, St. Augustine said, “God, who made you without you, will not save you without you.”
A final observation is that predestination is caught up in the mystery of time. God does not live in time as we do; He lives in the eternal now. God’s name is, “I AM.” Past, present, and future are all equally present to Him. And though we can grasp in a small way what this means, we cannot really know what it is like. Deliberating, discerning, and considering—which occur over time for us—are not the same for God. We might ponder why at time ‘A’ God would consider creating a person at time ‘B,’ even knowing that at time ‘C’ that person would be lost. But this is simplistic; it tries to put God within our framework of time, which He is not.
Great humility is necessary when pondering the mystery of predestination and providence. We know for certain that God is in control, but His control mysteriously interacts with and considers human freedom in a way that harms neither truth. He tells us to pray and to cooperate with and earnestly work for our salvation and that of others. God knows everything, including our cooperation (or lack thereof). His knowing is sovereign, complete, and absolute—but it does not cancel our freedom.
So remember that all things depend on God and are known by Him. Nothing surprises God. But remember, too, that He Himself has ordained that we should freely cooperate with Him as His providence unfolds in our life. His knowing what we will do does not cancel our freedom, but rather interacts with it in a mysterious way.
And old song from the Taizé Community says, “Within our darkest night [, Lord], you kindle a fire that never dies away, that never dies away.” Something of this “light in darkness” has come to me in the deep winter of moral collapse that is present-day America. For this I can only thank the Lord and marvel at His paradoxical providence.
In my parish, the darkness was made very local and very real when Planned Parenthood announced the opening of their “flagship” center, right here in our neighborhood.
To add insult to injury, the center would be located next door to an elementary school and directly across the street from a middle school. On that street, many children would enter through school doors to be educated for life. But through other doors, children would enter to have their lives snuffed out, some by chemical burning, others by dismemberment.
To add irony to injury, the facility would be located on 4th St. NE at number 1225 (12/25 is Christmas Day). Coincidence? I doubt it. Even if men are not so clever, the Evil One is. 1225 … a kind of mockery of the Incarnation.
Our darkest night was upon us.
“Within our darkest night [, Lord], you kindle a fire that never dies away, that never dies away.”
Pro-life action was not a signature of the parishes surrounding Capitol Hill. But with the looming threat of the new “flagship” center, all that was about to change.
As a local pastor, I knew that if I did nothing about this abortion “clinic,” my parish and I would face severe judgment one day. A prayer discussion began in my heart and in the hearts of others as well. My own heartfelt awareness sounded something like this:
“What must I do, O Lord? Few of the parishes in the Capitol Hill neighborhood have active prolife ministries!”
And whose fault is that? the Lord asked me.
“Mine (and others), I suppose.”
Well, skip the blame game and get started. You know what to do; you’ve done it before.
“Ah. Get people to walk, people to pray, and people to cook!”
Yes! Form a community of life. Gather leaders and get started. I have 7,000 people on Capitol Hill who have never bent the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18; Rom 11:3-5). Go to them, anoint leaders, and summon them to witness.
Five parishes, stirred from their slumber, switched on the light, began to pray, and prepared to act.
Yes, in this dark hour, God kindled a light. Sometimes it seems dark, but dawn is not far away; it’s just beneath the horizon. It was time to assemble a community of life to call the culture of death to reconsider and to repent. As the local dean at that time, I was commanded by the Lord to act.
Through my experience with evangelization, I had learned that witnesses require support from others. Due to advanced age, failing health, or perhaps just a reserved demeanor, some people find it difficult to engage others. But even so, they can do other things such as praying for those who witness or helping to sustain those witnesses by providing a meal. In previous outreach efforts by my parish, we evangelized the neighborhood in such a way that the whole parish could participate. Some walked from door to door. Others prayed in the church while we walked. Still others prepared a meal so that all could debrief, rejoice, and build a unified community at the end of the day.
God gave me this message:
Do it here. I want a community of life to come forth from the parishes surrounding this dark clinic. Some will walk in witness, some will pray in church at the same time, some will prepare a meal to help all to give thanks and build a supportive community. I have appointed leaders already. Call the diocese; they will help. I will be with you; just get started!
God sent so many people to help from the five parishes and all around the diocese. He sent Teresa, Mary, Maggie, Yajaira, Susan, Linda, Molly, Fr. Hyacinth, Chris, and Elisa, just to name a few (this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, and I don’t mean to belittle anyone’s contributions). He sent many others who provided wisdom and experience.
Five parishes together supplied both experienced and new pro-life leaders. By God’s grace, we gathered together to build a community of life. It was still dark, but God was kindling a light. Our meetings began.
Just before I went to a key meeting, I prayed, “Give us a sign, Lord. We want to be sure that we’re doing your will. We need to hear from you. Give us a charge and a name, O Lord!”
I opened up the Bible at random and put my finger down on the page, near the top. Though I usually give the Lord one “do over,” it was not necessary this time. When I looked down, my finger was pointing to this text from Proverbs:
If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not God who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to our work? (Proverbs 24:10-12)
I was astounded; I couldn’t wait to share it!
When I arrived at the meeting, I told the group what had happened. We all sat in silence. God could not have been any clearer. Though we had wondered what to call our new community of life, one of our leaders, Mary, now suggested, “Why not call it ‘Proverbs 24’?”
I wondered aloud whether the name was too vague, but we decided that it was a name that would make people ask about it and then we’d have a teaching opportunity.
And so we had our name: “Proverbs 24: A Community of Life.”
We began to recruit actively from the five parishes. We asked for people who would witness, people who would pray in church for us, and people who would prepare a communal meal. Two Sundays during Respect Life Month in October featured our announcements. We had sign-up tables where people could indicate their willingness to attend an orientation and commit to three Saturdays of witness in front of the Planned Parenthood “clinic,” prayer in the church at the same time, or help in preparing a communal meal.
Meanwhile, we tried legal means to prevent the opening. Surely the zoning laws would require a hearing before such a facility was opened right next to a school! At such a site, no liquor store would be able to be opened without public notice. Yet we, the citizens of the neighborhood, were not informed until the project was well underway. We requested and were granted an appeal, but unfortunately, on Oct. 4th, our appeal was denied. And so, shortly before the 100th anniversary of Planned Parenthood in mid-October, the center opened.
But all is not lost. As a result of our recruiting effort at Sunday Masses, ninety people across the five parishes expressed interest in helping and forty-five showed up this past Saturday for training.
Please pray for us. Although Satan has made a move in our community, God never fails. He will bring good even from this dreadful abortion center. If our parishes were sleepy in this regard in the past, shame on us. But God has a way of awakening a faithful remnant. Pray that we will grow. Pray that we will persevere. And please pray that we will never fail to witness to the glory of human life, no matter the challenges.
“Within our darkest night Lord, you kindle a fire that never dies away, that never dies away.”
Today’s Gospel (Mat 12:1-8), in which Jesus is rebuked for violating the Sabbath, reminded me of the video below. It illustrates how we sometimes follow smaller rules while overlooking bigger ones in the process.
The Lord Jesus was often scorned by the people of His day, who claimed that He overlooked certain details of the law (often Sabbath observances). But those who rebuked him for this were guilty of far greater violations. For example,
[Jesus] went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.” Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus (Mk 3:1-6).
Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone (Luke 11:42).
Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” (Lk 13:14-16)
You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean (Matt 23:24-25).
Yes, they are straining out gnats but swallowing camels, maximizing the minimum but minimizing the maximum. Note that in the first passage above they are actually planning to kill Jesus for healing on the Sabbath!
Perhaps my all-time favorite illustration of this awful human tendency is in the Gospel of John:
Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out … (John 18:28-29).
They are plotting to kill a just and innocent man, indeed they are plotting to kill God. They are acting out of wickedness, envy, jealousy, hatred, and murderous anger, but their primary concern is avoiding ritual uncleanliness! Yes, they are straining out gnats but swallowing camels.
We who are pious and observant need to be wary of this tendency. Sometimes in congratulating ourselves over adherence in lesser matters, we can either offend or neglect in weightier ones. Perhaps I attend Mass each Sunday (a grave obligation); perhaps I pray the rosary (a highly commendable practice); perhaps I tithe (a commendable precept). These are all things that ought to be done (one is commanded, one is commended, and one is a precept). But what if at the same time I am hateful toward someone at the office, unforgiving to a family member, and/or insensitive to the poor?
The danger could be that I let my observance of certain things allow me to think that I can “check off the God box” and figure that because I went to Mass, prayed the rosary, and gave an offering, I’ve “got this righteousness thing down.” Too often, very significant and serious things like love, mercy, forgiveness, and charity are set aside or neglected as I am busy congratulating myself over my adherence to other, sometimes lesser, things.
This oversight can happen in the other direction as well. Someone may congratulate himself for spending the day working in a soup kitchen, and think that he therefore has no need to look at the fact that he is living unchastely (shacked up, for example) or not attending Mass.
We cannot “buy God off,” doing certain things (usually things that we like) while ignoring others we’d rather not. In the end, the whole counsel of God is important.
We must avoid the sinful tendency to try to substitute or swap, to observe a few things while overlooking others.
We see a lot of examples of this in our culture as well. We obsess over people smoking because it might be bad for their health while ignoring the health consequences of promiscuous behavior, which spreads AIDS and countless venereal diseases and leads to abortion. We campaign to save the baby seals while over a thousand baby humans are killed each day in the United States. We deplore (rightfully) the death of thousands each year in gun homicides while calling the murder of hundreds of thousands of babies each year a constitutional right. The school nurse is required to obtain parental permission to dispense aspirin to students but not to provide the dangerous abortifacient “morning after pill.” We talk about the dignity of women and yet pornography flourishes. We fret endlessly about our weight and the physical appearance of our bodies, which will die, and care little for our souls, which will live. We obsess over carbon footprints while flying on jets to global warming conferences at luxurious convention center complexes.
Yes, we are straining gnats but swallowing camels. As the Lord says, we ought not to neglect smaller things wholly, but simply observing lesser things doesn’t give us the right to ignore greater ones.
Salus animarum suprema lex. (The salvation of souls is the highest Law.) While little things mean a lot, we must always remember not to allow them to eclipse greater things.
The ideal for which to aim is an integrated state in which the lesser serves the greater and is subsumed into it. St. Augustine rightly observed,
Quod Minimum, minimum est, Sed in minimo fidelem esse, magnum est (De Doctrina Christiana, IV,35).
(What is a little thing, is (just) a little thing. But to be faithful in a little thing is a great thing.)
Notice that the lesser things are in service of the greater thing—in this case fidelity. And thus we should rightly ask whether some of the lesser things we do are really in service of the greater things like justice, love, mercy, fidelity, kindness, and generosity. Otherwise we run the risk of straining out gnats but swallowing camels.
Enjoy this commercial, which illustrates how one rule (no loud voices in the library) is observed while violating nearly every other.
There’s an old saying that goes, “Faults in others I can see, but praise the Lord, there’s none in me.” But one is snared in sin by the very act of claiming to have no sin! In fact, it’s the biggest sin of all: pride.
In today’s Gospel, the Lord illustrates this very point in speaking to us of two men who go to the temple to pray. One man commits the greatest sin of all, pride, and leaves unjustified. The other, though a great sinner, receives the gift of justification through humility. Let’s look at what the Lord teaches us.
1. Prideful Premise – Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness. When it comes to parables, it is easy for us gloss over the introductory statement, which often tells us what prompted Jesus to tell the parable. Many people simply see this parable as being about arrogance, but there is more to it than that.
Jesus is addressing this parable to those who are convinced of their own righteousness. They are under the illusion that they are capable of justifying and saving themselves. They think that they can have their own righteousness and that it will be enough to save them.
But there is no saving righteousness apart from Christ’s righteousness. I do not care how many spiritual pushups you do, how many good works you do, or how many commandments you keep; it will never be enough for you to earn Heaven. On your own you are not holy enough to enter Heaven or to save yourself. Scripture says, One cannot redeem himself, pay to God a ransom. Too high the price to redeem a life; he would never have enough (Psalm 49:8-9).
Only Christ and His righteousness can ever close the gap, can ever get you to Heaven. Even if we do have good works, they are not our gift to God, they are His gift to us. We cannot boast of them because they are His. Scripture says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should walk in them (Eph 2:8-10).
The Pharisee in today’s parable has a prideful premise: he is convinced of his own righteousness. In his brief prayer, notice that he uses the word “I” four times.
I thank you
I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous
I fast
I pay tithes
It is also interesting that the Lord indicates that the Pharisee “spoke this prayer to himself.” Some think that this merely means that he did not say the prayer out loud. But others suspect that more is at work here, that there is a double meaning, if you will. In effect, the Lord is saying that the Pharisee’s prayer is so self-centered, so devoid of any true appreciation of God, that it is actually spoken only to himself. He is congratulating himself more than he is praying to God, and his “thank you” is purely perfunctory and is more for his own prideful self-adulation. He is speaking to himself, all right. He is so prideful that even God can’t even hear him!
Hence we see a prideful premise on the part of the Pharisee, who sees his righteousness as his own, as something that he has achieved. He is badly mistaken.
2. Problematic Perspective – and despised everyone else. To despise others means to look down on them with contempt, to perceive them as beneath us. Notice that the Pharisee is glad to report that he is not like the rest of humanity.
Not only is his remark foolish, it is also impertinent. One will not get to Heaven merely by being a little better than someone else. No indeed, being better than a tax collector, prostitute, drug dealer, or dishonest businessman is not the standard we must meet. The standard we must meet is Jesus. He is the standard. Jesus said, Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:48). Now, somebody say, “Lord, have mercy!” It is dangerous (and a waste of time) to compare oneself with others because it misses the point entirely.
The point is that we are to compare ourselves to Jesus and be conformed to Him by the work of His grace. Any honest comparison of ourselves to Jesus should make us fall to our knees and cry out for grace and mercy, because it is the only way we stand a chance.
It is so silly, laughable really, to compare ourselves to others. What a pointless pursuit! What a fool’s errand! What a waste of time! God is very holy and we need to leave behind the problematic perspective of looking down on others and trying to be just a little better than some other poor (fellow) sinner.
There’s a lot of talk today about being “basically a nice person.” But being nice isn’t how we get to Heaven. We get to Heaven by being like Jesus. The goal in life isn’t to be nice; the goal is to be made holy. We need to set aside all the tepid and merely humanistic notions of righteousness and come to understand how radical the call to holiness is and how unattainable it is by human effort. Looking to be average, or a little better than others, is a problematic perspective. It has to go; it must be replaced by the Jesus standard.
Let’s put it in terms of something we all can understand: money. Let’s say that you and I are on our way to Heaven; you have $50, while I have $500. Now I might laugh at you and feel superior to you. I might ridicule you and say, “I have ten times as much as you do!” But then we get to Heaven and find out the cost to enter is $70 trillion. Oops. Looks like we’re both going to need a lot of mercy and grace to get in the door. In the end, we are both in the same boat; we’re both woefully short. All my boasting was a waste of time and quite silly, to boot. We have a task so enormous and unattainable that we simply have to let God grant it and accomplish it for us.
3. Prescribed Practice – But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” Given everything we have reflected on, we can only bow our head and cry from the heart, “Lord have mercy!” Deep humility coupled with lively hope are the only answers.
Being humble isn’t something we can do on our own. We have to ask God for a humble and contrite heart. Without this gift we will never be saved. In our flesh, we are just too proud and egotistical. God needs to give us a new heart, a new mind. Notice that the tax collector in today’s parable did three things; we should do these things as well:
Realize your distance – he stood off at a distance. He realizes that he is a long way from the goal. He knows how holy God is, and how distant he himself is. Let’s be clear: the image of a tax collector is shocking. Such men did not get their posts by being “nice guys.” They were often ruthless thugs who didn’t hesitate to use fear and extortion. But his recognition of his distance is already a grace and a mercy. God is already granting the humility by which he stands a chance.
Recognize your disability – he would not even raise his eyes to heaven. Scripture says, No one can see on God and live (Ex 33:20). We are not ready to look on the face of God in all its glory. That is evidenced by the fact that we are still here on earth. Scripture also says, “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God” (Matt 5:8). This tax collector recognizes his disability, his inability to look on the face of God, for his heart is not yet pure enough. In humility, he looks down. His recognition of his disability is already a grace and a mercy. God is already granting him the humility by which he stands a chance.
Request your deliverance – he beat his breast and prayed, “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Notice that the tax collector’s humility is steeped in hope. He cannot save himself, but God can. He cannot have a saving righteousness of his own, but Jesus does. This tax collector summons those twins called grace and mercy. In this man’s humility, a grace given him by God, he stands a chance. For by this humility, he invokes Jesus Christ, who alone can make him righteous and save him. Scripture says, The humble, contrite heart the Lord will not spurn (Ps 51:17). Jesus says, whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Beware of pride, our worst enemy. Beg for the gift of humility, for only with it do we even stand a chance.
I have it on the best of authority that as he left the temple, the tax collector sang this spiritual: “It’s Me, Oh Lord, Standing in the Need of Prayer.” In the video below it is sung by a German choir, which explains their unusual pronunciation of the word “prayer.” I can’t complain, though; I don’t pronounce “Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung” (speed limit) very well either!
The word honesty comes from the Latin honestas meaning an honor received from others, a kind of “standing in honor” before others (honor + stas (to stand)). It’s interesting that most people are willing to be a little phony in order to get vague appreciation or to be thought well of. (The whole cosmetics industry is based on this.) But when one is actually “honored” in a formal way by others, there is an elevated sense that we need to truthfully deserve the honor. And thus honor calls forth honesty.
A similar concept is sincerity. The word sincerity comes from the Latin as well: sine (without) + cera (wax). It seems that sculptors in the ancient world often used a hard, resin-like wax to hide their errors. But every now and then there was the perfect carving, with no wax needed, nothing phony about it, no cover-ups.
I thought about these words as I saw this commercial. In the ad, the “honor” of engagement draws forth honesty and sincerity. The honesty of one person brings forth the honesty of the other and they both end up more relaxed.
Reform in the Church seldom comes from a committee of clergy, or from the clergy at all. It usually comes from the laity and from religious communities. In a way, reform in the Church “comes out of nowhere.” During the often-corrupt periods of the Church (e.g., the Middle Ages)—when many of the clergy were more like aristocrats and landowners than true pastors, when wealthy clergy often collected parishes and posts like stocks and bonds and hired poorly trained people to do their work—reform came out of nowhere. It came in the person of St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, the mendicant orders, and many others. In later periods, it came in the person of great saints like St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.
