Community in Mission

In Yesterday’s (Sunday of the 30th Week) Mass there was a reference to the wrath of God and how only Jesus can save us from it. St Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, commends them who have turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to await his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath (1 Thess 1:9-10). Well thank you, Jesus!

But what is God’s wrath? It is spoken of often in the scriptures and it is a concept with which we have to be careful. On the one hand we cannot simply dismiss the concept as contradictory to the fact that God is love. But neither can we deny God’s wrath as unfit in terms of His love.

It seems worthwhile to consider some aspects of the very complicated reality of the wrath of God. There is not enough space to cover the whole topic in this post, but the comments stay open, as always, for your additions and subtractions. What are some ways that we can explain and understand the wrath of God? Let me propose a few.

The wrath of God is not merely an Old Testament concept. In fact, it is mentioned quite frequently in the New Testament as well. For example, consider the following:

1. Jesus said, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36).
2. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness (Rom 1:18).
3. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord (Rom 12:19).
4. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things [i.e. sexual immorality] God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient (Eph 5:6).
5. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess 5:9).
6. The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath (Rev 14:19).

There are at least a dozen other texts from the New Testament that could be referenced, but allow these to suffice. So it is clear that the “wrath of God” is not some ancient or primitive concept with which the New Testament has dispensed. And notice, too, that the wrath of God is not something simply for the end of the world. It is also spoken of as something already operative in certain people.

So again, what is God’s wrath? And how can we reconcile it with His love?  Consider some of the following images, explanations of God’s wrath. None of them alone explains it, but considered together an overall understanding may emerge.

1. Image: God’s wrath is His passion to set things right. We see this image of God’s wrath right at the beginning in Genesis when God cursed Satan and uttered the protoevangelium (the first good news): I will make you and the woman enemies … one of her seed will crush your head while you strike at his heel” (Genesis 3:15). God is clearly angered at what sin has done to Adam and Eve and He continues to have anger whenever He beholds sin and injustice. He has a passion for our holiness. He wants what is best for us. He is angered by what hinders us in this regard. Surely all sins provoke His wrath, but there are five sins that especially cry out to Heaven: willful murder (Gen. 4:10), the sin of the Sodomites (Gen. 18:20; 19:13), the cry of the people oppressed (Ex. 3:7-10); the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan (Ex. 20:20-22), and injustice to the wage earner. (Deut. 24:14-5; Jas. 5:4) (cf Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1867). In terms of sin, injustice, and anything that afflicts or hinders the possibility of salvation, God has a wrathful indignation and a passion to set things right. This is part of His love for us. His wrath may be manifested through punishments, disturbances of our conscience, or simply by allowing us to experience the consequences of our sin and injustice.
2. Clarification: God’s wrath is not like our anger. In saying that God is angry we ought to be careful to understand that however God experiences anger (or any passion), it is not tainted by sin. God is not angry the way we are angry. When we get angry we often experience an out-of-control quality; our temper flares and we often say and do things that are excessive if not sinful. It cannot pertain to God to have temper tantrums and to fly off the handle, to combine anger with an unreasonable lashing out. The way God does experience anger is not something we can fully understand but it is surely a sovereign and serene act of His will, not an out-of-control emotion.
3. Clarification: God is not moody. It does not pertain to God to have good days and bad days, good moods and bad ones. Scripture seems clear enough when it indicates that God does not change. Consider this from the Book of James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variableness or shadow of turning. Hence to speak of God’s wrath does not mean that He has suddenly had enough or that His temper has flared, or that His mood has soured. God IS. He does not change. As the text says, He is not variable. And this leads us to the next image.
4. Image: Given what we have said,  the primary location of God’s wrath is not in God; it is in us. Perhaps the best definition I have heard of God’s wrath is this: God’s wrath is our experience of the total incompatibility of our sinful state before the Holiness of God. Sin and God’s holiness just don’t mix. They can’t keep company. Think of fire and water. They do not mix. They cannot coexist in the same spot. Bring them together and you can hear the conflict. Think of water spilled on a hot stove and hear the sizzling and popping; see the steam rising as the water flees away. If, on the other hand, there is a lot of water, the fire is overwhelmed and extinguished. But the point is that they cannot coexist. They will conflict and one will win. This is wrath: the complete incompatibility of two things. It is this way between sin and God’s utter holiness. We must be purified before we can enter the presence of God otherwise we could never tolerate His glory. We would wail and grind our teeth and turn away in horror. The wrath is the conflict between our sin and God’s holiness. God cannot and will not change so we must be changed. Otherwise we experience wrath. But notice the experience is in us primarily and not God. God does not change; He is holy, serene; He is love. If we experience His wrath it is on account of us, not Him. Consider the next image.
5. Image: It is we who change, not God and this causes wrath to be experienced or not. Consider the following example. On the ceiling of my bedroom is a light with a 100-watt light bulb. At night before bed I delight in the light. I am accustomed to it. But then at bed time I put out the light and go to sleep. When I awake it is still dark (at least in the winter). Hence I put the light on. But Ugh! Grrr! Now the light is bright and I curse it! Now, mind you, the light has not changed one bit. It is still the same 100-watt bulb it was hours earlier. The light is the same; it is I who have changed. But do you know what I do? I blame the light and say, “That light is harsh!” But the light is not harsh; it is just the same as when I was happy with it. Now that I have changed I experience its wrath but the wrath is really in me. So also consider the experience of the ancient family of man with God. Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the evening when the dew collected on the grass (cf Gen 3:8).  They had a warm friendship with Him and did not fear His presence. After sinning, they hid. Had God changed? He had not; they had, and they now experienced him very differently. Fast forward to another theophany. God had come to Mt Sinai and as He descended the people were terrified for there were peals of thunder, lightning, clouds, and the loud blast of a trumpet. The people told Moses “You speak to us, but let not God speak, else we will die!” (Ex 20:19) God, too, warned Moses that the people could not get close lest His wrath be vented upon them (Ex 19:20-25). Now again, had God changed? No, he had not. He was the same God who walked with them in the cool of the evening in a most intimate way. It was we who had changed. We had lost the holiness without which no one can see the Lord (Heb 12:14). The same God, unchanged though He was, now seemed to us frightening and wrathful.
6. What then shall we do? If we can allow the image of fire to remain before us we may well find a hopeful sign in God’s providence. Since God is a holy fire, a consuming fire (cf Heb 12:26; Is 33:14), how can we possibly come into His presence? How can we avoid the wrath that would destroy us? Well, what is the only thing that survives in the presence of fire? Fire is the only thing that survives! So it looks as if we’d better become fire if we want to see God. And thus it was that God sent tongues of fire upon the Apostles and upon us at our Confirmation. God wants to set you and me on fire with the Holy Spirit and in holiness. God wants to bring us up to the temperature of glory so that we can stand in His presence: See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.  But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years (Mal 3:1-4). And indeed Jesus has now come: For you have  turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath (1 Thess 1:10-11).

So there is a “wrath of God.” As I have tried to show, it is more in us than it is in God. But I will not say to you that there is NO wrath IN God. Scripture seems clear to indicate that wrath does pertain to God’s inner life. What exactly it is and how God experiences it  is mysterious to us. We can say to some extent what it is not (as we did above) but we cannot really say what it is exactly. But far more rich is the meditation that the wrath of God is essentially in us. It is OUR experience of the incompatibility of sin before God. We must be washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb and purified. Most of us will need purification in Purgatory, too. But if we let the Lord work His saving work we are saved from the wrath, for we are made holy and set on fire with God’s love. And fire never fears the presence of fire. God is love, but He will not change. So it is that love must change us.

One of the greatest cinematic depictions of the wrath of God occurred in the move the Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Nazis sinfully think they can open the Ark and endure the presence of God. What they get is wrath, for sin cannot endure the reality of God’s presence. “Enjoy” this clip:

There was an expression common among the rabbis of Jesus’ time, wherein one rabbi would ask another a question, and request that the answer be given while “standing on one foot.” This is a Jewish way of saying, “Be brief in your answer.”

And that sort of expression may be behind the question that is raised in today’s gospel by the scholar of law, who asks, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

Just as an aside, it is likely that the scholar of the law is not asking just for the sake of brevity, since he is in a hostile stance with Jesus. (The text says he speaks to Jesus in order to “test” him.) In effect, he says to Jesus, “All right, let’s get right to the point. You’re talking about a lot of new things but what is the greatest commandment?”

For this reflection, though, let’s just set aside the background hostilities and allow Jesus to recite the Law, standing on one foot. In so doing, Jesus recites the traditional Jewish Shema:

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד.
Šĕmaʿ Yisĕrāʾel Ădōnāy Ĕlōhênû Ădōnāy eḥād.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

The fuller text recited by Jesus is from Deuteronomy 6:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts (Deut 6:4-6).

And then Jesus adds, also in common Rabbinic tradition, And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

That’s it, the whole Law, standing on one foot. The first table of the law (the first three Commandants): love the Lord your God. The second table of the law (Commandments 4-10): love your neighbor.

There is value in noting several aspects of this summary of the law.

I. The Leadership of Love. Jesus says that the whole law and the prophets depend on the command to love God and your neighbor. Love comes first and is the foundation, the power of the law. Jesus says elsewhere, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). In other words, it is love that enables us to keep the law. When we want to do something, then the doing is both joyful and, in some sense, effortless. Love changes our desires so that we want what God wants and we keep His law not because we have to, but because we want to.

II The Layers of Love. The text says we should love God with our heart, our soul and our mind. These layers of our existence encompass the whole of the interior person. Thus:

• Mind – Through love we come to a new mind, that is, a new way of thinking.
• Heart – We also receive a new heart wherein our desires are reformed and conformed to God.
• Soul – And a new soul is given, whereby we begin to live a whole new life,  since the soul is the life-giving principle of the Body.

III. The Lavishness of Love. There is the little word ALL. We love the Lord with ALL our heart, ALL our mind, and ALL our soul. When we love we are not minimalists, we are lavish. Our response to God is wholehearted, not perfunctory. Love does not ask, “What is the least I can do?” Love asks, “What more can I do?”

It is said that the ancient Rabbi Hillel, being even briefer, said of the second table of the law, Do not do unto others that which you would hate done unto yourself, and all the rest is commentary.

We like to make it more complicated, but it really isn’t. If elaboration is required, consider the Ten Commandments understood and expressed in the light of love:

1. No other gods – If I really love God, should I need separate laws that tell me I ought not put other gods, whether things or people ahead of him? No! I want to be faithful and would never dream of being unfaithful by “sleeping with other gods” of any sort.
2. I Love His Name – Neither do I need rules that tell me not to use God’s name hatefully, or in vain and empty ways. I love His name and just to hear it lights up my heart with love.
3. I love to Praise Him – And if I love God I do not need to be compelled by law or fear to come to Church on Sunday and worship Him. I want to worship Him and praise His name.
4. I love my family, Church, and country – And if I do, then I do not need to be told to revere those who have lawful authority in those places. I love my parents and my family and am willing to honor, revere, and pray for them for all. I also love my Church and willingly love our leaders and pray for them. And I follow the teaching of the Church with joy, trusting that I am hearing the voice of the Lord, who teaches me through the Church. And I love my country and pray for our leaders that God may uphold and guide them. I willingly follow all just laws and work for unity based in truth and for the common good.
5. I love my neighbors, – And if so, why would I want to kill them, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually? If I love others I revere their life and act in ways that build them up and encourage them and help them to have a richer and more abundant life rooted in the truth. I would never act recklessly  to endanger any of them. Of course not; I love them.
6. I love human life – And if I love my neighbors, why would I tempt them, or exploit them sexually? If I love the human family, why would I endanger it by treating lightly the great sacredness of human sexuality by which God calls us into existence? Why would I want to look at pornography or laugh at crude jokes that demean something so sacred? If I love others why would I merely want to gratify myself at their expense?  If I love, I grow away from these unloving things.
7. I love others by respecting what is rightfully theirs – And if I love others, why would I wish to steal from them, or harm or endanger what belongs to them, or unjustly deprive them of what is rightfully theirs? Why would I want to act unjustly toward others by refusing them just wages? Why would I be unjust to the poor by refusing to help them when it is in my ability to help them? For if I have two coats one of them justly belongs to the poor. If I love others why would I steal or act unjustly? No, I want to help them and am glad when they are blessed. I respect what they rightfully have and share in their joy.
8. I speak the truth in love – And why would I lie to those I love? Or why would I seek to harm their reputation or gossip about them? Why would I pass on hurtful things that I don’t even know are true? And why would I fail to share the truth in love? Love rejoices in the truth, so why would I lie or suppress the truth?
9. I rejoice in the good fortune of others – And if I love others why would I seek unjustly to possess what they have, or resent them for what they do have? No, I love them and am happy for them. Perhaps their blessings mean that I too will be blessed.
10. I reverence the families of others – And why would I ever seek to harm the marriage or family of another or resent them for the gift they have in their spouse and family? No, I am happy for their blessings. I am happy that my friend has a beautiful wife and well-behaved children. Out of love I seek to encourage him to rejoice in his gifts!

So there’s a little commentary if you need it. But it all comes down to love. Love rejoices in God and wants whatever God wants. Love rejoices in the other and wants what is best for them.

Now of course love is the key. And many of us struggle to love. But God can give us a new heart, a heart that actually starts loving God, fully and freely; a heart that has a deep love, even affection, for everyone. God can do that for us. Yes, if we want it, God can do it:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws (Ez 36:26-27).

A thousand questions and doubts may come to mind when we are called to love. It is true that even when we love, we cannot always say yes. Love sometimes must say no, and love cannot approve of everything. Love must sometimes correct and reprove. But in the end, people know if you love them or not, and they know if you love God or not. And if people know of your love and experience it, it is possible to say even difficult and challenging things. Yes in the end, our thousand questions are still answered by love.

And now we ought to stop. For since Jesus is giving the law “standing on one foot,” then the preacher must also brief. You and I like to complicate things and ask a lot of question. But in the end, the answer is simple enough: love! And all the rest is mere commentary.

This song reminds us that to love God is, first of all, to experience powerfully His love for us. One day it will finally dawn on each of us that the Lord died for us.

Most of us struggle with the fact that God allows bad things to happen to us. Why does he not intervene more often to protect us from attacks of various sorts, and from events that cause sadness, setbacks, or suffering?

While mysterious, the clearest answer is that God allows suffering in order that some greater blessing may occur. To some degree I have found this so, since some of my greatest blessings required that a door slam shut, or that some suffering be endured. And so if my college sweetheart had not dumped me, it is likely that I would not have the very great blessing of being a priest today. Had I gotten some of my preferred assignments in my early years as a priest, I would not have been enriched by the assignments I did have. Those assignments have drawn me out and helped me to grow far more than the cozy, familiar placements I desired. Had I not entered into the crucible of depression and anxiety in my 30s, I would not have learned to trust God as much as I do, and I would not have learned important lessons about myself and about life.

So despite that fact that we understandably fear suffering and dislike it, for reasons of His own, (reasons He knows best), God does allow some degree of it in our lives.

Yet I wonder if we really consider often enough the countless times God did step in to prevent any number of disasters in our lives. We tend to focus on the negative things in life and overlook an enormous number of often hidden blessings, down to every beat of our heart, every proper function of every cell in our body – all the perfect balances that exist in nature and the cosmos in order to sustain us.

Just think of the simple act of walking and all the possible missteps we might have taken but did not. Think of  all the stupid risks we have taken in our lives, especially when we were young, that did not end in disaster. Think of all the poor choices we made, and yet escaped the worst possible outcomes.

Yes, we wonder why we and others suffer, and why God allows it.  But do we ever wonder why we don’t suffer? Do we ever think about why and how we have escaped enduring the consequences of some awfully stupid and foolish things we have done? In typical human fashion, we minimize our many, many blessings, and magnify and resent our sufferings.

I have a favorite expression, one that I have made my own over the years, that I use in response to people who ask me how I am doing: “I’m pretty well blessed for a sinner.”  I’ve heard others put the same sentiment this way: “I am more blessed than I deserve.”  Yes, we are all pretty well blessed indeed!

I thought of all that as I watched the commercial below, (aired during the Super Bowl). And while it speaks of the watchfulness of a father, it also makes me think of my guardian angel, who has surely preserved me from many disasters.

As you watch the commercial, don’t forget to thank God for the many times He has rescued you, through the interventions of  your guardian angel. Thank Him too for His hidden blessings—blessings that, though you know nothing of them, are bestowed by Him all the same. And think, finally, of the wonderful mercy He has often shown in protecting you from the worst of your foolishness.

In the video below there is a fascinating demonstration of what is known as the McGurk Effect, wherein what we hear is strongly influenced by what we see. Though the sounds heard in the experiment are exactly the same, when the visual cues change we hear another sound. Even knowing the “trick” does not change the effect.

And this is a paradigm for faith, if you ask me.

Scripture speaks often of the fact that faith is a matter of hearing rather than seeing:

1. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ (Rom 10:17).
2. For we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5:7).
3. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face (1 Cor 13:12).
4. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? (Rom 8:24)
5. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1).
6. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy (1 Peter 1:8).
7. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (Jn 20:29).

So while many say, “Seeing is believing,” it really isn’t so. Seeing is just seeing. Faith comes by hearing.

Now this principle is very important, for many of the truths of our faith are “mysterious.” The use of the word “mysterious” here does not mean to imply that the truths are spooky or strange, but rather that what we “see” or intellectually grasp of them is but a small part, and that the greater part of is hidden from both our sight and our intellect. Since this is so, we must be taught the faith through hearing. Receiving the faith by hearing gives us a prophetic interpretation of the reality we perceive through our other senses.

Consider especially the sacraments. What we see is often very limited.

At a baptism, our eyes may see merely water being poured out. But with faith, granted though our hearing of the sacred words, we grasp the deeper meaning: that sins are being washed away, that new life is being conveyed, and that a heavenly inheritance is being bestowed.

At a wedding, our eyes may see merely a man and a woman. But as we hear their vows proclaimed, we must disregard what our eyes see (still two) and grasp through faith what our ears tell us from the very Word of Jesus: They are no longer two, but one and what God has joined together, let no one divide (Matt 19:6). Faith comes by hearing.

Regarding the Holy Eucharist, St Thomas lovingly wrote in the hymn Adoro Te Devote,

Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur.  (Sight, touch, taste, in thee falter.)
Sed auditu solo tuto creditur. (But the hearing alone is safely believed.)
Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius; (I believe whatever the Son of God has said;)
Nil hoc verbo veritátis verius. (Nothing is truer than this word of truth.)

So again, the eyes deceive; we must believe through what we hear. The world and the flesh are always demanding to see, but faith comes by hearing. There may be some “motives of credibility” that seeing can give, but, frankly, the eyes are too easily deceived; we are often misled by what we see.

And that brings us to the video. As has already been mentioned, the sound in the video remains unchanged, but when the visual cue changes, we insist that the sound has changed. But it hasn’t. Yet even knowing this, we tend to trust our eyes more than our ears and insist on what we see rather than what we hear.

But then comes the strangest thing of all. The BBC announcer, almost in a subconscious illustration of the McGurk effect, comes to precisely the WRONG conclusion. She says, “The McGurk effect shows us that what we hear may not always be the truth.” Wrong! And exactly backwards! The McGurk effect demonstrates that what we SEE may not always be the truth. Stubbornly, she then reiterates, “So we can’t always trust what we hear.” But again, wrong in terms of this experiment and exactly backwards! It is what we SEE that we cannot trust in this instance. Indeed a very strange error on her part and almost Freudian in its psychological significance.

In the end, I hope you “see” what I mean: faith comes by hearing. And it is a very important dimension of faith to not let our eyes or other senses override our ears. The eyes and other senses can supply us with certain data, even motives of credibility. But in the end it is through hearing and the Word of God, heard, that we have a prophetic interpretation of the reality perceived by our other senses. Faith, which comes by hearing, is a prophetic interpretation of reality: Sed auditu solo tuto creditur.

Enjoy the video; it’ll mess with your mind but it confirms an important truth.

A former Archbishop of Washington was known to often remark, “There’s nothing deader than a dead priest.” Some wondered as to the meaning of this expression, and those who knew him the best explained that it was a sort of version of the old Latin expression Corruptio optime pessima (The corruption of the best is the worst thing of all).

Of all the men on the planet who need to be alive, vocal, clear, and active, the priest is one of the most critical. For if he is doing as he should, and like a herald, summoning the faithful to be true to the gospel. He can reach thousands, who in turn can reach thousands more. But if he fails, the whole chain of the gospel is broken at the critical link and falls to the ground.

The same Archbishop also told us priests that if we did not go to bed tired most nights, something was wrong. There is nothing deader than a dead priest.

Two images from Pope St. Gregory the Great come to mind in this regard. He writes them in his Pastoral Rule, which is must reading for every priest. But every father of a family and every leader in the Church can also benefit from Gregory’s reflections. Both images are drawn from the ancient Jewish Law in reference to the priests and Levites.

The first image pertains to the priest’s duty to work hard:

Both the breast and the right shoulder [of the sacrificed animal] are offered to the priest for food so that he may learn from the sacrifice that he has received to offer a corresponding sacrifice to the Creator of all things (Lev 10:14-15). Thus, not only is he to have right thoughts in his breast, but by putting his own shoulder to good works he invites to sublime heights those who watch him (Pastoral Rule II.3).

So, it is not enough for the priest to be learned in orthodoxy. That is clearly essential. But he must also be willing to work hard in proclaiming and teaching the doctrinally orthodox faith by patient and persistent work. He teaches not with words only, but also by his works and by his manner of life.  He cannot merely speak of prayer, he must pray; he cannot merely warn of greed, he must live simply and humbly; he cannot merely speak of chastity, he must live chastely; he cannot merely counsel love, he must love. To adapt an old expression, he must live faith, heart and shoulder above the rest.

The second image pertains to his duty to speak, to preach:

Moses was enjoined that when a priest goes into the tabernacle, he should be canvassed with little bells, a sign that he must have a voice for preaching, or else by his silence he provoke the judgment of Him who sees everything from above. For it is written, “So that the sound is heard is heard when he entered and exits the sanctuary in the sight of the Lord, so that he may not die” (Ex 28:35). For the priest who enters and exits will die if a sound is not heard from him because he provokes the wrath of the hidden Judge if he goes about without the sound of preaching.

The bells are appropriately described as being inserted into his vestments because what else are we to understand the vestments of the priest to be but good works? The psalmist attests this when he says, “Let your priests be clothed with righteousness” (Ps 131:9). The little bells therefore are fixed to the vestment to signify that the works of the priest should be proclaimed by the sound of his voice and the way of his life (Rule II.4).

Pope Gregory’s ability to see the significance of seemingly small things is magnificent. Here he draws on the simple truth that the High Priest, gone into the Holy of Holies, wore a vestment with sounding bells. And as long as he moved and said the prayers the bells rang, signaling that he was alive before the Lord of Glory. But if the bells (of preaching) fell silent, then he was surely dead, for no sound came from him. All that could be done was to drag his dead body from the Holy place by the rope that was tied to his ankle.

The Image is clear: no sound, no life. A silent priest is a dead priest. And there is nothing deader than a dead priest. He is good for nothing but to be dragged from the Holy Place and buried underfoot.

Let priests and bishops who have ears hear. Let all leaders in the Church who have ears hear! Let parents, catechists, teachers, and elders hear! Let us heed Gregory’s warning: to be silent is to be dead, good for nothing but to be dragged off and buried.

Deep concerns remain in the hearts of many Catholics regarding the just-closed Extraordinary Synod on the Family. I have written much in the past two weeks and you know my own concerns, especially the need for clarity on Catholic doctrine in those teachings most disputed by the western world: marriage, family, sexuality, and the dignity of human life. We need to keep praying, a lot!

I must say, there are words in the Pope’s concluding address that I take to heart and hope will guide us going forward. He warns of serious temptations faced by the Church and her leaders to veer from the truth in the name of a false “compassion.”

I would like to review the temptations that the Holy Father lists and make a few remarks of my own. Although Pope Francis does list in the first temptation a challenge to those with more doctrinal concerns, I hope that you will read on and see that the rest of the temptations he lists are challenges to those who seek what I would call radical change or a departure from the clear teaching of Holy Scripture. Please read all these temptations. In toto, they are a summons to apply courageously the remedy of truth to what ails us. As usual, direct quotes from the Pope’s texts are in bold, black italics and my own remarks are in plain red text.

Noting the tense climate of the Synod, the Holy Father speaks of tensions and temptations, of which a few possibilities could be mentioned:

1. – A temptation to hostile inflexibility [trans. rigidity], that is, wanting to close oneself within the written word, (the letter) and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God, by the God of surprises, (the spirit); within the law, within the certitude of what we know and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve. From the time of Christ, it is the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the solicitous and of the so-called – today – “traditionalists” and also of the intellectuals.

While warning of rigidity (something which I would argue that “liberals” are also very susceptible to) the Holy Father does hasten to add that flexibility must be exercised “within the law, within the certitude of what we know.” Hence what flexibility we can find is to be rooted in the humility of obedience to the truth and also the humility that we do not know everything.

For example, a Thomist might adhere rigidly to the scholastic formulations in a way that would embarrass even St. Thomas Aquinas himself, who was usually quite gracious to his opponents and would argue, “Now, because we cannot know what it God is, but rather what he is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how he is not” (Prima pars, q. 3, prologue). Hence, again,  humility is an important stance with respect to sacred theology: we must have obedience to what is revealed with certainty and taught by God through the Church, but also appreciation for what we do not know with certainty and for which there can be a range of views that Sacred Tradition proposes.

But what is true for a Thomist or any traditional theologian must also hold true for those of more modern systems of thought. For example, I have met adherents to the historical-critical method who are every bit as rigid and possessed of hostile inflexibility as an iron bar. So we do well to note the Holy Father’s first caution and be aware of the temptation to be rigid when we don’t have to but to find flexibility “within the law,” and within the boundaries of certitude.

2. – The temptation to a destructive tendency to goodness [it. buonismo], that in the name of a deceptive mercy binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots. It is the temptation of the “do-gooders,” of the fearful, and also of the so-called “progressives and liberals.”

For in order to bind the wounds of sin we must first say and determine that there is sin. A doctor does not treat wounds by saying there is no wound. A true and good doctor says there is a wound, there is a disease or disorder, there is something wrong—and then proceeds mercifully to offer and begin treatment.

As the Holy Father states, there are a lot of so-called “do-gooders” who think that to do good is merely to please or ingratiate. He also warns that some are fearful, perhaps implying that they fear to offend or to cause the pain that healing sometimes involves.

We cannot be tempted to blindness, false compassion, or fear. Love and truth cannot be separated, though truth without love can be used as a bludgeon.

3. – The temptation to transform stones into bread to break the long, heavy, and painful fast (cf. Lk 4:1-4); and also to transform the bread into a stone and cast it against the sinners, the weak, and the sick (cf Jn 8:7), that is, to transform it into unbearable burdens (Lk 11:46).

As Christians, we cannot deny the Cross or be embarrassed by it. The Lord points insistently to the necessity of the Cross and the endurance of suffering, and we can do no less. Saints Paul and Barnabas went about, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). Paul also lamented that many  in his own day who live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things (Phil 3:18-19). But the same Paul also declared with conviction, We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:23-24).

Yet today, sadly, many Christians are ashamed of the Cross when it moves from being an abstraction to making real demands of people. And thus those who cannot reasonably marry must live celibately. It is sometimes true that a woman who is raped becomes pregnant and yes, she must carry the child to birth and may not abort. Suffering and dying are not permitted simply to “check out” at will. People in difficult marriages need to be encouraged to work out their problems and not consider divorce and subsequent remarriage. But instead of pointing to the Cross and summoning others to courage and being ready to help them, many Catholics either go silent or insist that such crosses are not required.

Too many Catholics are tempted by the hedonism of the day, which insists that pleasure and happiness are the sole points of life, and thus tempted, they insist that the Cross is not required. Many think that God’s only goal for us is that we be happy and content. But they forget that true happiness comes from holiness and true holiness is often the fruit of suffering.

And yes, as the Holy Father also insists, we must also avoid the temptation to forget that the cross IS heavy for many. Alone it may be an unbearable burden. And thus we must help people to carry the Cross, not just point to it. We must continue to help women in crisis pregnancies as we do through the Gabriel Project and Rachel’s Vineyard; we must encourage those with same-sex attraction to live celibately as we do through the Courage Apostolate; we must work hard with couples to preserve their marriages; we must provide quality palliative care to the dying, and so forth. Sinners who struggle but are repentant must find understanding, compassion, and support in the Lord’s Church.

4. – The temptation to come down off the Cross, to please the people, and not stay there, in order to fulfil the will of the Father; to bow down to a worldly spirit instead of purifying it and bending it to the Spirit of God.

Of the Cross, I have already spoken above. Of the “worldly spirit,” the Holy Father says clearly that our job is not conform to it but rather to purify it and conform it to the truth and will of God: Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven. Worldliness and popularity are grave temptations.

5. – The temptation to neglect the “depositum fidei” [the deposit of faith], not thinking of themselves as guardians but as owners or masters [of it]; or, on the other hand, the temptation to neglect reality, making use of meticulous language and a language of smoothing to say so many things and to say nothing!

And here too, we can never neglect the glorious faith handed on to us. But neither can we allow it not to be fresh every day.

There are great challenges in preaching an ancient faith to a world that has lost touch with the vocabulary of faith. Yet the Church in every age, when she was strong and sure in her own faith and has not neglected the deposit of faith or been compromised by the world, has always used the arts, music, painting, song, drama, and preaching to convey the faith creatively.

We must continue to translate our unchanging doctrine to a changing world and bend the world, not be bent by it. The deposit of faith is non nova, sed nove (Not a new thing, but proclaimed newly (and freshly)).

I can only hope that these remarks are reflective of a mindset going forward. The Synod, at least “as seen on TV,” seemed to show in many the temptations described here. We who worship a crucified and risen Lord in our liturgy must be willing to take that Cross out into the world and announce that the Cross is the only way to glory. The Cross is the A440, the tuning fork that assures that our proclamation is pure and Christ-like. Whatever we might wish the truth to be, or however much we might wish Christ had said or done something differently, we must, in humble obedience to the truth, conform to Christ; we cannot demand that He conform to us or our will.

Toward the end of the talk, the Holy Father says the following words, with which I would like to conclude.

So, the Church is Christ’s – she is His bride – and all the bishops, in communion with the Successor of Peter, have the task and the duty of guarding her and serving her, not as masters but as servants. The Pope, in this context, is not the supreme lord but rather the supreme servant – the “servant of the servants of God”; the guarantor of the obedience and the conformity of the Church to the will of God, to the Gospel of Christ, and to the Tradition of the Church, putting aside every personal whim, despite being – by the will of Christ Himself – the “supreme Pastor and Teacher of all the faithful” (Can. 749) and despite enjoying “supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church” (cf. Cann. 331-334).