Oregon Trail, Age of Empires, and Clash of Clans

Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

When I was in middle school, probably my favorite computer game was Oregon Trail.  We didn’t have the greatest graphics then, everything was still green and black, so it wasn’t too life-like, but it was fun trying to take settlers from St. Louis to Oregon, without them dying from dysentery or starving to death because there was no food to hunt.  When I was in college, graphics had improved a lot, and my new favorite game was Age of Empires, where you got to build civilizations and defend from bands of foreign armies.  There were many a Friday night where I was playing with or against fellow seminarians on our dorm network.  Now that I’m an adult, I’ve moved on to much more sophisticated things, like Clash of Clans.  In this game, you build a city with walls and attack and defend from other players.  You can also hold mock wars with other groups, and win gold, elixir, and dark elixir.

The common thread in all of these games is the ability to control persons or civilizations.  Perhaps I have a bit of a control-complex, but it’s fun to help civilizations grow and use them to attack other groups.  There’s something fun about being in control.

But Jesus reminds us today that control in life is limited to very few things.  In most aspects of our life, we don’t have any control.  But Jesus tells us not to worry or be anxious.  If you’re like me, that’s easier said than done.  In a more and more chaotic world, the temptation is to try to gain more and more control over our circumstances in life.  

Now certainly, Jesus is not telling us that we should ignore our responsibilities in life and just let things go in favor of seeing how God works.  Jesus is not telling us that we no longer need to go to work, no longer need to pay our bills, no longer need to do our homework, etc.  Those are our responsibilities as part of being a parent or student.  

But think about all the other things we worry about over which we have no control whatsoever.  Probably one of the biggest is what people think of us.  How much time do we spend wondering what someone would think if we do a certain good or neutral action?  We can spend so much time trying to imagine what other people are going to say or think about us that we miss the opportunity to do the good that God wants us to do.

Another area that people commonly worry about is the state of the world.  There are very few things that we are going to do that will have a direct impact on our nations or other nations.  But, if we stop worrying about it and “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” in our lives, then we will be doing what we can, however indirectly, to bring peace and truth and justice to the world.  We can’t control the actions of our nation or other nations, and so should not worry about it.  That’s not to say we shouldn’t do anything about it.  But we shouldn’t be anxious about things over which we cannot control.  We can control our own actions, how we treat others, and so should do our best to live a peaceful and holy life.

Another area of worry is children who do not practice their faith.  Even if they’re not our kids, so many of us at least know someone who has stopped practicing their Catholic faith, and people can spend no small amount of time wondering about where they went wrong, what more they could have done, etc.  We shouldn’t worry about that.  Again, this doesn’t mean we should do nothing.  What we can do is first and foremost, pray for that person.  Spend a good deal of time praying for that person.  Maybe even offer your Lenten penances for that person.  And then, as you feel moved by the Holy Spirit, invite them to come to confession with you, and then Mass.  If they decline, let them know the offer is always there.  

Trust in God is also important in the other areas of our life: marriage, how many kids to have, whether or not to send those kids to a Catholic school.  Certainly, in all those decisions, we should use the gift of reason that God gave us, as well as the teachings of the Church.  But all those decisions also rely on trust in God: trust that we will choose the right person to marry, the person with whom we want to be a saint; trust that, following the teachings of the Church and using Natural Family Planning, that if God surprises us with another child, we will have the ability to love and care for that child; trust that, even if we have to give up a few of our creature comforts, God will help us provide a quality, Catholic education to our children.  

Trust can be hard.  It’s easier to try to control things.  But if we really think about, there is very little that we actually control.  If we rely on the one who actually does have control, then we can find greater happiness from not worrying and wasting energy about things beyond us.  Simply follow the advice of Jesus: “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”

The Spirit of the Law

Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Some, or maybe many of you, have heard that I have applied to become the chaplain of the Flint Post of the Michigan State Police.  I’m almost done with the process and will know by the middle of March whether I have been approved or not.  In the mean time, hoping that I am approved, and trying to get to know the troopers, I have been doing ride-alongs with them.  Many people who have experiences with law enforcement have negative experiences with them, because they have been caught doing something wrong.  But in my ride-alongs, I have been extremely impressed with the mercy of the troopers, and how often people get only a warning.  In fact, on one ride-along, a trooper asked me (and he said, “Be honest,”), “Do you think I should be doing anything differently?”  I told him that, if I were in his shoes, I probably would have given out more tickets and given fewer warnings.  He chuckled.

Besides what I see as a generally antagonistic culture when it comes to law enforcement (i.e., the cops are always wrong, they use way too much force all the time, they’re all racist, they’re horrible human beings, etc.), we are also in a culture that does not value the law.  Many people, if not we ourselves, feel like the rules were made to be broken, and that rules get in the way, rather than help us.  

So Jesus’ words today might be hard to swallow.  After all, Jesus, so we hear, wasn’t about laws and rules!  That’s why he was so tough on the Pharisees and the scribes!  But what did Jesus say today?  “‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.  I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.  Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law.’”  It would be hard to argue the whole “spirit of the law” theory while quoting these words.

But Jesus was a spirit of the law guy.  Now, the spirit of the law does not mean undoing the law.  So often that’s what we want it to mean: the spirit of the law means we don’t have to follow the real law.  But as Jesus goes beyond the letter of the law (Thou shalt not kill…, thou shalt not commit adultery…, whoever divorces his wife…, do not take a false oath…), He seems to make things stricter, not looser.  

As a confessor, I’m not sure I have ever had someone say, “Yeah, I killed somebody.”  But I do often hear anger and hatred and vengeance of the heart.  But Jesus goes beyond simply doing bodily harm.  He goes to the heart of the issue, which is, pardon the earlier pun, the heart.  

The letter of the law says that I cannot take an innocent life.  If we consider how many people are on earth, and how many of them ever actually murder someone (murder being the word we use for the taking of an innocent life), that percentage is probably pretty low.  But how many of us have wanted to do someone serious harm because they wronged us?  How many of us have held something against another person in hatred and vengeance?  That’s probably a much larger percentage.  But Jesus, the new Moses, the new Lawgiver, tells us that our offering here at Mass is only acceptable if we have been reconciled with those with whom we have issues.  If there is a large separation between us and another person, or us and God, we should go to confession, receive forgiveness of sins, and only then present ourselves for Holy Communion.

The letter of the law says that we can’t have marital relations with a person who is not our spouse or who is married to another.  Jesus reminds us that the infidelity or unchastity does not begin with the exterior parts of our body, but begins in our hearts and in our minds.

The teaching on divorce might seem very difficult.  After all, Jesus makes it very clear that we cannot divorce and remarry without committing adultery, unless the marriage is unlawful.  This is the passage that the Church points to in what is commonly referred to as the annulment process.  The Church examines the validity, or lawfulness, of the marriage.  But until the Church declares that bond unlawful, each spouse is bound to live a life free of sexual relations with someone other than their spouse.  

Whenever Jesus gives us a law, it is meant to guide us to lead happy lives.  And in my ride-alongs with the Michigan State Police, I can tell you that, outside traffic stops, the difficult situations into which the troopers are called began earlier than when 911 was called: with anger or lust in the heart; with distrust; or with any other issue.  The calls we responded to were simply the outer manifestations of interior problems that had been festering for some time.  

Today we are invited to listen to the words of Jesus.  To paraphrase our first reading from Sirach, if we follow the words of Jesus, we will be happy and be in a right relationship with God.  Before us are the choices between good and evil, life and death.  Choose the life-giving words of Jesus.  

Preserving and Enlightening Society

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The stereotypical Catholic home in the early 1960s, so I’m told, had 3 pictures in their house: one picture was of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; one picture was of the Pope (which would have been Pope John XXIII); and one picture was of John F. Kennedy.  The first two make sense without explanation.  The third makes sense to any Catholic, because John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic elected president of the United States.  

On 12 September 1960, while still running for president, JFK gave a famous address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.  That speech specifically touched on his religion (there was then, as there remains today, a certain popular anti-Catholicism), as well as religious liberty.  He had many good points in that speech, talking about other important issues as well, including encouraging others to work together, rather than let confessional differences tear the country apart.  Of course, in that time, there was still a general Judeo-Christian culture, prayers were said even in public schools, and many businesses were closed every Sunday and Good Friday.

But, in that speech, JFK seemed to also suggest, if not outright say, that one’s religion should not dictate how one acts in a pluralistic society.  Because there are so many religions in America, when it comes to the choices that individuals make in politics, they should check their faith at the doors of the chambers of the legislature or the doors of the oval office.

Fifty years later, Archbishop Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, wrote a critical response to Kennedy’s speech, which, he says, did not so much talk about different faiths and the roles they play in American society, but sought to make politics a no-man’s land when it comes to religion.  In part of Archbishop Chaput’s speech, he cites part of the Gospel we heard today when he says, “Human law teaches and forms as well as regulates; and human politics is the exercise of power – which means both have moral implications that the Christian cannot ignore and still remain faithful to his vocation as a light to the world.”

When Jesus says today, “‘You are the salt of the earth’” and “You are the light of the world’” He does not add the caveat, “unless you live in a pluralistic and polyreligious country.”  In fact, Jesus spoke these words in a country that was under foreign occupation, with only a puppet king, whose strings were pulled by a pagan, Roman government, many of whose values directly contradicted God’s revelation in the Tanakh, the Jewish Scriptures.  No, Jesus tells us that we are to give the earth a certain flavor, and we are to provide for the world a certain light, so that others may see our good deeds and glorify our heavenly Father, the true God.

Salt in Jesus’ time wasn’t just about flavor, either; it was a preservative.  It kept things from becoming rotten.  And light wasn’t as simple as flipping a switch; it didn’t exist along roadways automatically when it became dark out.  Light required fuel of some kind, but that fuel kept people from tripping and harming themselves, and guided their feet to their destination.  Light helped individuals encounter each other even as the darkness of night surrounded them.

Brothers and sisters, I don’t think it’s grossly unfair to say that, in many ways, our society has become rotten.  People no longer encounter each other in the light, but seek to control and harm each other in darkness.  Why has this happened?  It would be too facile to say that it is because so many politicians (though not all) check their religion at the door.  But think of how many Catholics are in government today, and how many of them say, “My faith says X is wrong, but I can’t force my faith on others, so I’m going to support X.”  Reasonable people can disagree on how best to implement different aspects of the Gospel, but so many today don’t even think the Gospel has any place in American society.  

But politicians are not the only ones to blame for our current state of affairs.  It is also because Christians do not always try to be salt and light.  In fact, we have, in too many circumstances, become flavored with a taste that is not from the Gospel, and have been guided by a light which does not come from Christ.  We have fallen victim to the ideology that states that we have the freedom of worship, not the freedom of religion.  We can worship God however we want in our churches, but we cannot take the teachings of Jesus out of the church buildings and into our homes, workplaces, and even our government.  I believe that Kennedy sought to assure people that Catholics could be good Americans; but the result we see today is the same that Kennedy’s Irish forebears saw when they came to the US: Catholics need not apply or be engaged in American society.

If we wish to preserve what is good in society; if we wish to be a truly enlightened society, we must first be convinced by what Jesus teaches, and then live it out in all aspects of our lives.  Do we take the Word of God seriously when it says, “Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them.  […] Remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech”?  Or are those just pious words that are meant to do nothing else but bounce off the brick walls of this church and die in the air?

If we are not the salt of the earth and the light of the world, then our culture, our nation, our politics will continue to spoil, and will soon become rancid.  Darkness will surround us.  Our vocation, our call in Jesus, is to be salt and light.  To paraphrase Kennedy in another speech, let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the Catholic answer.  Let us be salt and light.