Inyesterday’s post, I wrote about my experience serving on a grand jury, describing in particular the darkness we jurors had to face each day as we listened to testimony about and video of some horrible crimes. In today’s piece, I’d like to point out some light I saw in the midst of that darkness, some positive elements of my experience.
For much of my life I have looked somewhat askance at lawyers, despite the fact that my father was a lawyer, and a good one at that. (I also enjoy lawyer jokes – all in good fun, of course.) I had this vague impression that lawyers just make everything difficult. The lawyers with whom I come into contact in the Church warn us about so many things that I sometimes cynically remark that if we took every one of their precautions, we’d never open our doors. However, their cautions are usually well-founded given our litigious society. Then, too, there are the ambulance chasers whose advertisements seem to be everywhere. There are also lawyers who file frivolous lawsuits knowing that it’s easier for companies to settle out of court than to fight back. Such things give the profession a bad reputation even though most attorneys do not engage in such practices. Those were some of the biases I harbored when I was summoned.
There I was at the beginning of grand jury duty, unsure of what to expect, when in walked the first of many Assistant U.S. Attorneys I would meet over the next several weeks. I must say that I was impressed by every one of them; they were consummate professionals who had obviously done a lot of meticulous work assembling the cases. In the initial stages of an investigation, these attorneys work closely with the police to examine evidence. They interview many witnesses in their office before ever setting foot in the grand jury room. Witnesses are not always cooperative and some even fail to appear. Their testimony is not always clear and must be disambiguated. Further, witnesses sometimes contradict one another as they recall a traumatic event. Even the victims themselves can be uncooperative due to the fear of repercussions from testifying or supplying information. I can only imagine how difficult and painstaking the attorneys’ work is. Surely it requires great dedication, patience, and perseverance. I was also impressed with their command of the facts in each case, especially considering that they work on numerous cases simultaneously.
In the grand jury room, I was taken by the great respect the attorneys showed for the law while at the same time treating the victims and their families compassionately. Their presentations were well-organized and focused on the evidence. They carefully led the witnesses through what was often gut-wrenching testimony with gentleness, empathy, and understanding. At no time did I see any of them being overzealous. These attorneys have earned my respect and I am grateful to them for all that they do.
Another thing I appreciated during my service was becoming deeply immersed in one of the last bastions of reason and order in our society. In recent years, our culture has experienced an almost complete loss of reason and clear meaning. We are currently in a desert of existentialism, in which individuals define their own meaning because they believe there is no intrinsic purpose or meaning to human existence. This has led to the current bizarre idea that a man can declare himself to be a woman or a woman can declare herself to be a man – and that the rest of society must accept such declarations as fact. It’s hard to have a good argument, let alone a conversation, when basic terms and realities are no longer a given.
The legal world, however, is still steeped in reason and careful, precise definitions. For example, what it means to “possess” a weapon and what is meant by “intent to kill” are precisely defined. The conditions under which charges can be enhanced due to prior convictions must meet strict, definitive criteria. The specifics of a firearm, down to the length of the barrel and the capacity of the ammunition clip, play an important role in applying the law. Jurors and judges in trials are expected to evaluate the evidence and testimony with respect to the law and then draw a well-reasoned conclusion.
In legal proceedings there is the careful assessment of what is meant by a particular crime and what the law provides in terms of adjudication and outcomes. I am not making a case for legal positivism (i.e., whatever the law says is good or right) but merely remarking that we grand jurors were provided with clear definitions and instructions on how to evaluate the evidence and testimony before us.
Hearing the word “reason” used again and witnessing the precision of language and meaning was refreshing. It was almost like stepping back in time a few decades, to a time when words still had clear meanings and basic moral norms were accepted. Even if we didn’t live perfectly moral lives, we knew when the moral law was broken and did not commonly call good or no big deal what God calls sinful.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that law is an ordinance of reason for the common good (Summa Theologica I IIae 90.1). As an ordinance of reason, the law binds people to the reasonable limits it sets forth. The very word “law” comes from the Latin word ligere, which means “to bind.” Law, properly understood, concerns reason, order, and limits we must all accept to enjoy the greatest freedom. The only true freedom is limited freedom. Consider the dangerous chaos that would ensue if we did not limit our freedom to drive by following agreed upon traffic laws.
While we on the jury were looking into a world of chaos and disorder, our attention was always drawn back to the world of reason and order. Lawyers are agents of stability in this milieu, where the rule of law is still important, and words and reality still matter.
I was not born yesterday; I realize that the courts have also been infected with existentialism and the political correctness that is its offspring. This is especially evident at the higher levels of the judicial system, where unelected activist judges “legislate from the bench” and find new rights in the “penumbras” and “emanations” of the Constitution. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy once ignominiously wrote, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” (Planned Parenthood v. Casey). There you have it – pure existentialism. The right of people to define their own meaning and their own concept of existence is not a path to liberty but to chaos and anarchy. This is increasingly the case in our society today.
At the lower levels of the judicial system, reason, law, and objectivity are still the meat and potatoes of the daily work. At its best, our legal system is one of the last sectors of our society in which reason and the application of clear definitions are still evident. My grand jury experience made me deeply aware of this. It was uplifting and encouraging and was not a light I expected to see within the darkness.
I have new respect for the criminal justice system. In this antinomian and politicized age, it is a popular whipping boy. Though no system is perfect, I came away impressed with its thoroughness and fairness. Prosecutors don’t just prosecute criminals; they also work to secure justice for victims and their families and to protect the common good. Defense attorneys play a critical role as well. The attorneys do all this within the careful confines of the law, which seeks to protect the rights of both the accused and the victims.
Doxology
Thank You, Lord, for the good and hard work of those in our criminal justice system, many of whom labor behind the scenes. Often, they must deal with the worst of crimes and endure frustrating setbacks, yet they persevere in their work. Thank you too, Lord, for the rule of law that You have given us over the centuries. May we protect it from the erosion by existentialism and relativism. May our law be just and in perfect accord with Your eternal law. May the rights and dignity of every person, accused and victim, be upheld and honored. True justice can only be Your work. May all of us, especially those who are lawyers, judges, and jurors be instruments in Your hand.
This song speaks of the sadness of existentialism and relativism. While it idealizes the past, it does point out that we have lost something important.
In early September, I was summoned to serve on a criminal grand jury here in Washington, D.C. through mid-October. It was difficult and emotionally draining work; I frequently wondered why the Lord would permit such a huge addition to my already overwhelming schedule. When I complained to Him, all I got back was that He wanted me to see something.
Many expressed their surprise that a priest would be compelled to serve. Frankly, as a clergyman, I fully expected to be dismissed. As I discovered, however, grand juries are quite different from petit juries, from which priests, religious, and other sorts of people who might sway fellow jurors are often dismissed. Very few occupations (e.g., active duty military personnel) are exempted from serving on a grand jury.
As that morning unfolded, I began to realize I wasn’t going to escape this time. By noon it became clear that I was going to have to serve not just for one day or one trial but every weekday for the next five weeks, from nine to five. Don’t expect to be called and told not to come in, they warned us, because there’s just too much work to be done; you’ll be reviewing evidence on over forty cases. I didn’t think it was possible for me to get any busier, but I just had. Twenty-three of us were sworn in and marched over to the grand jury room. Suddenly, my tightly scheduled calendar was thrown into complete disarray. My staff was shocked; they were bewildered by all the implications of a pastor being essentially unreachable every working day during normal business hours.
What is a grand jury? Grand juries are called “grand” because they are typically composed of more members than are petit juries. In our jurisdiction, a grand jury has 23 members, with 16 required for a quorum. Petit juries are typically composed of 12 jurors and two alternates. Another difference is that grand juries do not determine guilt or innocence; rather, they examine the evidence and decide whether there is “probable cause” for it to proceed to trial. In effect, grand juries exist as a kind of buffer, protecting citizens from overly aggressive prosecution. If the jury finds that sufficient evidence exists in relation to the charge(s), it returns an indictment. If not, it issues an “ignoramus” (meaning “we are ignorant” or “we don’t know”).
I was not fully prepared for what the Lord wanted me to see. Indeed, I found myself peering into a deep, deep darkness. In the midst of it, though, I also saw light.
As for the darkness, it was very dark. In our jurisdiction there are five grand juries seated and working at any given time. I was assigned to the one focused on the very worst kinds of cases: first degree murder, assault with intent to kill, assault with a deadly weapon, negligent homicide, armed robbery, kidnapping, and aggravated rape. I am not permitted to reveal any details, but I can say that those details are now written deeply in my heart. On many evenings, after hearing testimony and viewing evidence all day, I went into the rectory chapel and wept. So many of the killings and attacks considered by such grand juries are brutal and cold-blooded, not acts committed in the heat of a passion but rather planned and vengeful. Serving on one, I wondered how people could have the capacity to be so cruel to fellow human beings. I don’t know how some of the victims could ever really recover. All I could do was to sigh inwardly and pray as we saw the evidence and heard the victims testify.
Another thing that both surprised me and added to my sorrow was to discover that in so many incidents there is significant video evidence – sometimes of the very crime itself being committed. It is clear to me now that there are video cameras just about everywhere. It is one thing to see a violent crime “committed” in a movie, but quite another to watch a real one. It is impossible for me to drive past certain locations in this city now and not feel a solemn reverence for what I know happened there. May God have mercy on the victims, many dead, but some still living though forever changed. May God also have mercy on the perpetrators, who somehow lost their way in a world of darkness, evil, and hopelessness that so often sets up in the poorest areas of the city.
When God told me that He wanted me to see something, I thought that I had seen it before. As pastor of St. Thomas More parish in Ward 8, I spent eight years living in one of D.C.’s poorest neighborhoods. Even there, however, I was surrounded with a loving, supportive parish family. During that time there were two murders on our parish grounds (one by stabbing, the other by shooting), but we were able to come together and heal. We even responded by building a five-million-dollar community center to try to get kids off the streets and away from gangs.
But this was different. I think it was both the sheer number of violent cases and the “up-close” experience of them through video footage and witness testimony. Although I was surrounded by the other grand jurors, the mandated secrecy outside the jury room meant that we could only discuss things within the formal setting.
Doxology
You told me, Lord, that you wanted me to see something. I did indeed see it. I am now more mindful to pray and offer Masses for what I saw. I am not sure what to do about all the situations that lead to the kinds of crimes we investigated, but I am more aware of the burdens that others carry and the things they suffer, particularly in areas of this city where there is frequent disorder and violent crime. What You had me see weighs heavily on me, but You, O Lord, surely carried the heaviest burden of all when, dying on the cross, the full horror of every sin ever committed or to be committed, including my own, flashed before You and increased Your pain. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for what You endured. I carry only a sliver of the cross You bore; I have seen and know a minuscule fraction of what You do. I can only be more grateful for what You did for us on that dreadful hill of Golgotha, where the full fury of our anger and inhumanity was violently unleashed upon You. I am grateful for Your mercy, Lord, so grateful. We need it more than ever.
I wrote above that I also saw light – in a place I did not expect. More on that in tomorrow’s post.
This Sunday’s readings speak to us of the power of persistent prayer. The first reading (Exodus 17:8-13) in particular depicts prayer quite powerfully. In it, we can discern six fundamental teachings on prayer.
I. The Problem for Prayer – In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel. None of us like problems, but one good thing about them is that they help to keep us praying. Israel was at war and her enemies were strong; it was time to pray.
The Gospel concerns a widow who is troubled about something, and this problem keeps her coming back to the judge. Sometimes God allows us to have problems in order to keep us praying. Problems also keep us humble and remind us of our need for God and others.
Problems aren’t the only reason we pray, but they are one important motivator. It shouldn’t be necessary for us to have problems, but they certainly have a way of summoning us to prayer.
II. The Priority of Prayer – Moses, therefore, said to Joshua, “Pick out certain men, and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle. I will be standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” So Joshua did as Moses told him: he engaged Amalek in battle after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.
Notice that Joshua and the army did not go forth until after Moses took up his position of prayer. Prayer ought to precede any major decision or action.
We often rush into things without praying. We should begin each day with prayer. Important decisions should also elicit prayer from us. Prayer needs to come first; it has priority.
Too many people use prayer as a kind of rear-guard action through which they ask God to clean up the mess they’ve made. We end up doing a lot of things we shouldn’t because we didn’t pray first. We also end up doing a lot of things poorly that prayer might have clarified or enriched.
Prayer isn’t just about asking for this or that specific thing. It involves an ongoing relationship with God, through which we gradually receive a new mind and heart, and our vision and priorities are clarified and purified. The new mind and heart that we receive through prayer and the study of our faith are an essential part of the prayer that precedes decisions and actions.
III. The Power of Prayer – As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.
As long as Moses prayed, Israel got the better of the battle, but when fatigue caused his prayer to diminish, Israel began to lose.
Prayer changes things. Here in this world, we may never fully know how our prayers helped to change history, but I am sure that one of the joys of Heaven will be to see what a difference our prayers—even the distracted and poor ones—made. In Heaven, we’ll tell stories of prayer’s power and will be able to appreciate the difference it made for us and for others. For now, much of this is hidden from our eyes, but one day, we’ll see with a glorious vision what prayer accomplished.
I suppose, too, that one of the pains of purgatory might be seeing the negative effects of our failure to pray and realizing that it was only God’s mercy that counteracted our laziness.
In this passage, Moses struggles to pray—so do we. Remembering prayer’s power is an important motivator to keep us on our knees and at our beads.
IV. The Partnership of Prayer – Moses’ hands, however, grew tired; so they put a rock in place for him to sit on. Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other.
Moses knew that because of his fatigue he needed the assistance of Aaron and Hur. They all prayed together and, once again, Israel was strengthened and regained the upper hand.
Prayer is not supposed to be merely a solitary experience. While personal prayer is important, so is communal and group prayer. The Lord said, Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Matt 18:20). He also said, Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven (Matt 18:19).
We are taught to gather in prayer liturgically and also to find partners for prayer. Because prayer is so essential and we are individually so weak, we ought not to have it all depend on us. We need our own Aaron and Hur to support us in prayer and to help make up for our weakness.
Do you have some friends who help you, not only to pray but also to walk uprightly? Scripture says, Woe to the solitary man! For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up. … where a lone man may be overcome, two together can resist. A three-ply cord is not easily broken (Ecclesiastes 4:10,12).
Do not pray or journey alone. Find some spiritual friends to accompany you.
V. The Persistence of Prayer – so that [Moses] hands remained steady till sunset.
With Aaron and Hur to help him, Moses prayed right through until sunset. They prayed right up to the end—so must we. There is a mystery as to why God sometimes makes us wait, but we must continue to pray anyway. We may get frustrated, fatigued, or disheartened by the delay, but we must pray on. Like Moses, we should get friends to help us, be we must not stop praying.
Be like the woman in the Gospel, who just kept returning to that judge until he rendered justice for her. I have brought people back into the Church long after the spouse or parent who prayed for them died.
VI. The Product of Prayer – And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.
The text says that the enemies of Israel were utterly defeated. This shows the powerful result of persistent prayer.
We may not fully see the results of our prayer on this side of the veil, but on glory’s side we one day will. We may not need God to mow down a foreign enemy for us, but how about enemies like fear, poverty, illness, and sin? Yes, we have enemies, and God answers prayers. Pray and then wait patiently for the product of prayer.
There you have it, six practices and teachings on prayer.
There are different ways to look at life, and two of these are captured in a couple of seemingly contradictory sayings. The more famous aphorism is this one: “The perfect is the enemy of the good,” but you’ll also hear its converse: “The good is the enemy of the best.” The second expression cautions that we sometimes settle for something that is merely good enough when we should be aiming higher; excellence is certainly something for which to strive.
In today’s blog, though, I’d like to concentrate on the original: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” In striving for the perfect thing, we can miss the good. We live in a fallen world, less than perfect. Likewise, you and I are incomplete, unfinished, imperfect. Yet this does not mean that we lack anything good at all or that this imperfect world has nothing to offer.
Being more than halfway through my expected lifespan, I have moved from the perfectionist world of the second saying to the contented world of the first, though each has its place. I have come to understand that contentedness is a very great gift and that true perfection only exists in Heaven.
There is another, similar, saying: “Unrealistic expectations are premeditated resentments.” Many, believing that life should be a peachy, are resentful to discover that even peaches have pits. Such an expectation is a sure-fire recipe for resentment, discouragement, and depression.
I think this is one of the problems with marriage today. Despite the modern tendency to be cynical about pretty much everything, many still have very high ideals expectations of marriage: that it will always be romantic, joyful, and fulfilling, that love will magically solve every problem.
This is not realistic. Marriage is like life; it has its ups and downs. There are things we like and things we wish were different. There is no perfect spouse and there is no perfect marriage. There are many good marriages that are far from perfect. There are many spouses who, though basically decent, do not act perfectly all of the time.
When people enter marriage with unrealistically high expectations, they may be tempted to focus on the negative things, to magnify them because they are not perfect as was expected; resentments begin to build. It’s sad, really. The marriage may not actually be that bad; the less-than-ideal spouse may not really be so awful.
But the perfect becomes the enemy of the good; decent things are trampled underfoot in the elusive search for the perfect, the best, the ideal.
Indeed, there is yet another related saying about marriage: “Many people want their marriage to be ideal, and if there is any ordeal, they want a new deal.”
We do a lot of this: discarding the good as we chase in vain after the perfect. There is always a better parish, a better job, a better boss, a better house, a better car, a better neighborhood, a better deal.
There is something freeing and calming about being able to accept the good, the imperfect, and be content with it. The perfect will come, but probably not before Heaven. In the meantime, the good will suffice. Sometimes we don’t recognize or appreciate the good until we accept that the best, the perfect, will have to wait.
All of this occurred to me as I watched this animated short about a “man” who creates a work of art. At first he loves it, but then, noticing an imperfection, he is driven to try to make it perfect, even as everything else around him is being destroyed in the process. Just before it is too late, he realizes his folly. Clinging desperately to his creation, he learns to love it as it is. To some extent this has been my journey; I pray that it is yours, too.
In Tuesday’s Mass there was a reference to the wrath of God: The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness (Romans 1:18).
What is God’s wrath? It is spoken of often in Scripture but is a concept with which we must be careful. On the one hand, we cannot simply dismiss it as contrary to the fact that God is love, but on the other, we cannot deny that God’s wrath is unfit in terms of His love.
Let’s consider some aspects of the complex reality of the wrath of God. There is not enough space to cover the topic fully in a single post, so I welcome your additions and subtractions in the comments section, as always.
The wrath of God is not merely an Old Testament concept. In fact, it is mentioned quite frequently in the New Testament as well. Here are a few of the many New Testament passages:
Jesus said, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains upon him” (John 3:36).
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).
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things [e.g., immorality] God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient (Ephesians 5:6).
For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath (Revelation 14:19).
Clearly, the “wrath of God” is not some ancient or primitive concept with which the New Testament has dispensed. Notice also that the wrath of God is not something reserved for the end of the world; it is spoken of as already operative in certain people.
What is God’s wrath, and how can we reconcile it with His love? Consider these explanations. Taken together, they can lead us to an overall understanding.
God’s wrath is His passion to set things right. We see an example of this right at the beginning, in Genesis, when God cursed Satan and uttered the protoevangelium: 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 and is angered by what hinders this. All sins provoke His wrath, but there are five that especially cry out to Heaven for vengeance: willful murder (Gen 4:10), the sin of the Sodomites (Gen 18:20, 19:13), the cry of the oppressed (Exodus 3:7-10); the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan (Ex 20:20-22), and injustice to the wage earner (Deuteronomy 24:14-5, James 5:4, Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1867). In terms of sin, injustice, and anything that 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 punishment, disturbance of our conscience, or simply by allowing us to experience the consequences of our sin.
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 in the way that we are. When we get angry, we often lose control, saying and doing things that are excessive if not downright sinful. It cannot pertain to God to have temper tantrums, fly off the handle, or lash out unreasonably. 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.
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 that God does not change. Consider this from the Book of James: Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variableness or shadow of turning (James 1:17). Hence, God’s wrath does not represent Him suddenly getting fed up, or His temper flaring, or His mood souring. He does not change; He is not variable.
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 cannot coexist in the same place. Bring them together and you can hear the conflict. Think of a small amount of water poured into a large fire: the water droplets sizzle and pop; steam rises as the water boils away. If there is a lot of water, the fire is overwhelmed and extinguished. The point is that they cannot coexist; they will conflict, and one will win. This is God’s wrath: the complete incompatibility of two things, sin and His utter holiness. We must be purified before entering His presence, otherwise we could not tolerate His glory. We would wail and grind our teeth, turning 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 or else we will experience wrath.
The primary location of God’s wrath is not in Him; it is in us. God does not change; He is holy and serene; He is love. If we experience His wrath it is on account of us, not Him.
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 fixture with a 100-watt light bulb. Before bed at night, I delight in the light; I become accustomed to it. At bedtime, I turn off the light and go to sleep. When I awake it is still dark, and I turn on the light. Now now it seems too bright, and I curse it. Obviously, the light itself has not changed; it is just as bright in the early morning hours as it was the previous evening. The light is the same, but I have changed. Yet do you know what I do? I blame the light, saying, “That light is so harsh!” The light is not any harsher than it was the night before when I was perfectly happy with it. Now that I have changed, I experience its “wrath,” but the wrath is really in me.
Now 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? No, they had. 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 blast of a trumpet. The people told Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen, but let not God speak to us, 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). Had God changed? No, He was the same God who had walked with Adam and Eve 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 frightening and wrathful.
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. If 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! It looks as if we’d better become fire if we want to see God. He sent tongues of fire upon the apostles and upon us at our Confirmation. God wants to set us on fire with the Holy Spirit in holiness. He 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).
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,” and it is more in us than it is in Him. I will not claim that there is no wrath in God. Scripture seems clear that wrath does pertain to God’s inner life. What exactly it is and how He experiences it is a mystery to us. We can say to some extent what it is not, but we cannot really say what it is exactly. A far richer point to meditate is 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. However, if we let the Lord work His saving work, we will be saved from the wrath, for we are made holy and set on fire with His love—and fire doesn’t fear the presence of fire. God is love, but He will not change; His love must change us.
One of the greatest cinematic depictions of the wrath of God occurred in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Nazis sinfully think they can open the Ark and withstand the presence of God; what they get, however, is His wrath, for sin cannot endure the reality of His presence. “Enjoy” this clip:
The first reading from Mass for Tuesday of the 28th week of the year is rich in meaning for us today. Scripture is a prophetic interpretation of reality, showing us what is really going on from the perspective of the Lord of History. It describes not only the current of the times but the end to which it is tending. It is important for us to read Scripture carefully with the Church and to submit our understanding to the rule of faith and the context of Sacred Tradition.
With those parameters in mind, I would like to consider this passage from Romans, in which St. Paul describes the grave condition of Greco-Roman culture in the 1st century. Although he was, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, prophetically interpreting that age, it is clear that the situation today is frighteningly similar.
St. Paul saw a once-noble culture in crisis, in the process of being plowed under by God for its willful suppression of the truth.
Let’s take a look at the details of this prophetic interpretation and apply it to our own times.
I. The Root of the Ruin – The text says, The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
As the curtain draws back, we not eased into the scene at all. We are confronted at once with the glaring light of judgment and the frightening word “wrath.” Note that the wrath of God is being “revealed”; His wrath is the revelation!
This is directly contrary to the modern tendency to view God as an “affirmer in chief” whose love for us is a sentimental one rather than a true love that insists on what is right, on what we need rather than what we want.
What exactly is the wrath of God? It is our experience of the total incompatibility of unrepented sin before His holiness. The unrepentant sinner cannot endure the presence and the holiness of God. For him, there is wailing, grinding of teeth, anger, and even rage when confronted by God and the demands of His justice and holiness. God is not simply “angry,” as if emotionally worked up into a fury. He is not moody or unstable. He does not have temper tantrums the way we do. Rather, it is that God is holy, and the unrepentant sinner cannot endure His holiness, experiencing it as “wrath.”
To the degree that God’s wrath is in Him, it is His passion to set things right. He is patient and will wait and work to draw us to repentance, but His justice and truth cannot forever tarry. When judgment sets in on an unrepentant person, culture, civilization, or age, His holiness and justice are revealed as wrath.
What was the central sin of St. Paul’s day (and is that of our own today)? It is the sin that leads to every other problem: they suppress the truth by their wickedness.
On account of wickedness and a desire to persist in sin, many suppress the truth. The Catechism of the Catholic Church warns,
by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin … it happens that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or at least doubtful (Catechism of the Catholic Church # 37).
Similarly, St. Paul told St. Timothy,
… the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear (2 Tim 4:3).
And Isaiah described,
They say to the seers, “See no more visions” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right. Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions…” (Isaiah 30:10).
The desire to cling to sin and to justify one’s behavior leads people to suppress the truth. While this human tendency has always existed, it has become widespread and collective today, just as it did in St. Paul’s age. There seems to be an increasing tendency for people of our own time in the decadent West to call “good” or “no big deal” what God calls sinful.
The text makes clear that on account of the repeated, collective, and obstinate suppression of the truth, God’s wrath is revealed. This is true both in St. Paul’s day and today in the decadent West.
II. The Revelation that is Refused– The text goes on to say, what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
God the Holy Spirit and St. Paul attest that the suppression of the truth is willful. It is not merely ignorance. Even though the pagans of St. Paul’s day did not have the Scriptures, they are “without excuse.” Why? Because they had the revelation of creation, which reveals God. It speaks not only to His existence but to His attributes, His justice, His power, His will, and to the good order He instilled in what He made and thus expects of us.
All of this means that even those raised outside the context of faith, whether in the first century or today, are “without excuse.”
The Catechism states that the responsibility to discover and live the truth is rooted in the conscience.
Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. …For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. … His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths. … It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments. … [Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ (Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1776-1778).
Because of the witness and revelation of the created order and on account of the conscience in all who have attained the use of reason, those who suppress the truth are without excuse.
It has been my experience as a pastor working with sinners and as a sinner myself, that people realize, deep down, they are doing. They may have tried to suppress the still, quiet voice of God. They may have tried to keep His voice at bay with layers of rationalization. inking. They have collected false teachers to confirm them in their sin. They may have permitted deceivers to tickle their ears. Deep inside, though, they know that what they are doing is wrong. They are without excuse. Not only is there the revelation of creation, but for many there is also the Word of God, which they have heard in various ways.
To justify their wickedness, many today, like those in St. Paul’s time, willfully refuse revelation. They are without excuse.
III. The Result in the Ranks – The text says, For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but became vain in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles (Romans 1:21-23).
This should sound very familiar. In St. Paul’s day, and even more so in ours, a prideful culture set aside God through atheism and secularism or through neglect and tepidity. God has been escorted to the margins of our proud, anthropocentric culture. His wisdom has been forcibly removed from our schools and from the public square. His image as well as references to Him are increasingly being removed by force of law. Many mock His Holy Name, His truth, and our faith.
Faith, and the magnificent deposit of knowledge and culture that has come with it, is denigrated as a relic from ancient, unenlightened, unscientific times.
Our disdainful culture has become a sort of iconoclastic anti-culture, which has systematically put into the shredder every vestige of Godly wisdom it can. The traditional family, chastity, self-control, moderation, and most virtues have been scorned and willfully smashed by the iconoclasts of our time. To them, everything of this sort must be destroyed.
As a prophetic interpretation of reality, the passage describes the result of suppressing the truth and refusing to acknowledge and glorify God: they became vain in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.
Yes, there is a powerful darkening effect that comes from suppressing the truth and refusing the wisdom and revelation of God. While claiming to be so wise, intelligent, and advanced, we have become foolish. Our intellects grow dimmer and darker by the day. Our interest in passing and frivolous things is intensifying, while we rarely attend to the things that really do matter: death, judgment, Heaven and Hell. We have difficulty exercising even a modest amount of self-control. We cannot make or keep commitments. Addiction is widespread and becoming ever more serious. The most basic indicators indicate grave problems: graduation, teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, divorce, cohabitation. The rates that should be going up are going down, and the ones that should be going down are going up.
Even our ability to think clearly and have intelligent, meaningful conversations has decreased. We cannot agree on even the most basic points. We talk past one other and live in our own bubbles, which are increasingly self-defined.
Even the part of the passage about idolatry (… images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles) applies today. People are into stones and all sorts of strange combinations of religions, including the occult. This is the age of the “designer God.” People no longer tolerate the revealed God of the Scriptures. Rather, they recast, reinvent, and remake Him into a “God of their own understanding,” who just so happens to agree with everything they think.
Many people today congratulate themselves for being tolerant, open-minded, and non-judgmental. It is hard not see that our senseless minds have become dark, our thoughts vain, and our behavior foolish.
Our culture today is in the grave condition that this Scripture, this prophetic interpretation of reality, describes. There is much about which to be concerned.
IV. The Revelation of the Wrath – The text says, Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error (Rom 1: 24-27).
Here the “wrath” is revealed. The text says, God gave them over to their sinful desires. This is the wrath, the revelation of the total incompatibility of unrepented sin before the holiness of God and the holiness to which we are summoned.
In effect, God says, “If you want sin and rebellion, you can have it, but I will let you experience the consequences. You will feel the full fury of your own sinful choices.” Yes, God gave them over to their sinful desires.
It seems obvious that God has also given us over to our sinful desires.
Note that the first and most prominent effect of being given over to sinful desires is sexual confusion. The text describes sexual impurity, the degradation of their bodies through shameful lusts and shameful acts of homosexual perversion. It also speaks of bodily penalties for such action, probably disease and other deleterious effects that result from doing what is unnatural, from using the body in ways for which it was not designed.
Welcome to the decaying West in the 21st century.
Many misunderstand this passage, interpreting it as saying that God will punish us for engaging in, condoning, and celebrating homosexual acts. But the text does not say that God will punish us, it says that the widespread behavior is God’s punishment; it is the revelation of His wrath.
Let us be careful to make an important distinction. The text does not say that only those with same-sex attraction are punished (and in fact some may have this orientation but live chastely). Rather, the text says that we are all punished.
Why? For decades, the West has celebrated promiscuity, pornography, fornication, cohabitation, contraception, and even to some extent adultery. The resulting carnage of abortion, STDs, AIDS, broken families, single mothers/absent fathers, and the effects of these on our children, has not been enough to bring us to our senses. Our lusts have become wilder and more and more debased.
Through contraception, we severed the connection between sex and procreation. Sex has been reduced to adults doing what they want in order to have fun, feel pleasure, or “share love (lust).” This has opened the door to increasingly debased sexual expression and to irresponsibility.
Then came the rise of the homosexual community and its demands for acceptance and celebration. Our wider culture, now debased, darkened, and deeply confused, cannot comprehend what is obvious: homosexual acts are wholly contrary to nature. The very design of the body shouts against it. Deeply immersed in its own confusions about sex via contraception, increasingly depraved pornography, and the celebration of oral and anal sex among heterosexuals, our culture has no answer to the challenge.
Our senseless minds are darkened, confused, foolish, and debased. This is wrath.This is what it means to be given over to our sinful desires. This is what happens when God finally says, “If you want sin, you have it … until it comes out of your ears.”
How many tens of millions of aborted babies have been sacrificed to our lusts? How many children have experienced the pain of living without both parents? How many have died from AIDS? How many have lived with STDs? Yet we have not repented.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Notice again that homosexuals are not being singled out; the wrath is against the godlessness and wickedness of all who suppress the truth. When even the carnage has not been enough to bring us to our senses, God finally gives us over to our own sinful desires to feel their full effect. We have become so collectively foolish, vain in our thinking, and darkened in our intellect, that we now as a culture “celebrate” homosexual acts, which Scripture rightly calls disordered. (Paraphysin, which means “contrary to nature” is the word St. Paul uses in this passage to describe homosexual acts.) Scripture also speaks of homosexual acts as crying out to heaven for vengeance.
V. The Revolution that Results – The text says, Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
When proper understanding of sexuality, marriage, and family go into the cultural shredder, countless social ills are set loose.
This is because children are no longer properly formed. The term “bastard” is often used to refer to a despicable person, but its more strict meaning is someone born of parents not married to each other. Both senses are related. This text says, in effect, that people start to act like bastards.
Large numbers of children raised without their mother and father in a stable marriage is a recipe for the social disaster described in these verses. It is another way in which wrath is revealed, in which God seems to have given us over to our sin.
VI. The Refusal to Repent – Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Here, too, is the mystery of our iniquity, of our stubborn refusal to repent no matter how high the cost or how clear the evidence. Let us pray that we will still come to our senses. God has a record of allowing civilizations to come and go, nations to rise and fall. If we do not love life, we do not have to have it. If we want lies rather than truth, we can have them, but we will feel their full effects.
Remember that God said,
When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place (2 Chron 7:14-15).
Within his many letters, St. Paul occasionally gives us a glimpse of early Christian hymns and sayings. While he may have been their author, it is more likely that he is quoting or summarizing others. Here are some of the hymns he includes in his letters:
Hymn of Christ and Creation (Colossians 1:15-20)
Hymn of the Humbled and Exalted Christ (Philippians 2:5-11)
Another one occurred in the readings this past Sunday (28th Sunday of the Year) and it is worth a look, as it puzzles some who read it.
This saying is trustworthy:
If we have died with him,
we shall also live with him;
if we persevere
we shall also reign with him.
But if we deny him
he will deny us.
If we are unfaithful
he remains faithful,
for he cannot deny himself (2 Tim 2:11-13).
William Barclay called this “The Song of the Martyr.” Such a title does seem fitting, at least in a general way, although there is also a baptismal theme.
The first strophe seems clear. If we have died with Christ, whether in baptism or martyrdom, we will live with Him. The baptismal theme comes in because the phraseology echoes a passage in Romans:
Are you not aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We therefore were buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection (Romans 6:3-5).
All of us who die with Christ to this world through baptism and/or martyrdom (bloody martyrdom or the white martyrdom of those who confess the faith publicly despite the cost) will live with Christ.
The second strophe reminds us that we must persevere. This echoes Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Matthew: But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved (Matt 24:13). This need for perseverance seems clear as well, though many try to appeal to the fact that they were baptized or answered an altar call, forgetting that they must live the daily call of discipleship as well.
The third strophe is a little less clear, at least to some. The Greek word used is ἀρνέομαι (arneomai), and it is properly translated here as “deny.” It can also mean to repudiate, contradict, or say no. There are indeed some (Christ says many) who deny Him or say no to God’s offer; the text says that the Lord will also deny them.
This concept offends some modern readers who prefer to speak endlessly of God’s unconditional mercy. This strophe can be understood as meaning that the Lord affirms or accepts the unrepentant sinner’s denial of Him, His values, and His Kingdom. God will not force anyone to love what and whom He loves. The Lord’s denial of the person is a respectful acknowledgement of the free decision the person made to deny Him.
The last strophe is perhaps the most potentially confusing. It says, in effect, that even if we are unfaithful to the groom of our soul and the Bridegroom of the Church, He will not be unfaithful to us. God will never say to the soul that rejects or hates Him, “I hate you.” The Lord cannot be anything other than Himself. He who is love cannot hate.
However, and more soberly, the text means that Lord, who is truth itself, cannot ignore the fact that someone has freely chosen to deny, contradict, and reject His offer and the faith. God cannot “pretend” at the moment of judgment that an unrepentant sinner has in fact accepted Him and been faithful because pretending is contrary to the truth; doing so would be denying His very nature.
St. Paul follows the “saying” with this caution: Remind them of these things, solemnly charging them to stop disputing about words.
We should consider ourselves reminded; we are charged to hear and heed this solemn warning before going to the great judgment seat of Christ.
The time-lapse video below does a wonderful job of recording the beauty of fog. Most of us don’t remark on it in “real time”; it just seems to sit there and brood. Like clouds, fog is dynamic and undulating, moving so slowly that it rarely catches our attention. If time is collapsed, as is done in this video, the fog seems to flow like a river over the landscape, sometimes cascading like a waterfall. It is a beautiful sight. Put this in your wonder and awe file.
Praise the LORD, you from the earth,
fire, hail, snow, and fog, winds and storms
that carry out his command. (Psalm 148: 7-8)
