Not Safe, But Good

Feast of Christ the King
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In his wonderful work, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis has a dialogue between the three children and Mr. Beaver, where Mr. Beaver introduces the character of Aslan.  Mr. Beaver says that Aslan is:

“the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea.  […]Aslan is a lion–the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “…Is he–quite safe?  I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mr. Beaver.  “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver.  “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you?  Who said anything about safe?  ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.  He’s the King, I tell you.”

As we celebrate Christ the King, we celebrate the King to whom Aslan points, not safe, but good; the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, whom we, the sons of Adam and Eve, can embrace as our brother, but a Lion, nonetheless.

    Christ as a King is both a strong warrior who defeats the enemy at the gates, but also our brother, by our adoption by His Divine Father.  Words limp at such an apparent paradox.  Christ Himself tells parable about killing the enemies of the king, and says on the night before His Passion that the prince of this world is being cast out.  And at the same time He asks the woman caught in adultery, “‘Has no one condemned you?  Neither then do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on, sin no more.’”  He is the Good Samaritan who binds up our wounds, puts us on His beast, and takes us to the inn where He pays for our recovery; but at the same time He is the one who “will put those wicked men to a wicked end” for not taking care of His vineyard and harming and killing the messengers of the vineyard owner.  He is, in the Apocalypse, the Lamb who was slain, and yet who has a sword which comes from His mouth to strike down the nations that oppose Him. 
    Perhaps that is why we are presented with two distinct images of His Kingship in our readings: St. Paul’s description of the Lord as the firstborn of all creation, the head of the body, the Church, who has primacy over everything; and the innocent victim, standing before the merely temporal Roman governor, yet submitting to Pilate’s decision that would mean the sacrifice of Christ’s life.  Christ, like Aslan, is both approachable and terrifying; Lover and Lord. 
    Perhaps that is why our relationship with Christ the King is also so hard to explain and put into words.  The Lord says in John, chapter 15, “‘You are my friends if you do what I command you.  I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing.  I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.’”  But then St. Paul, who met the same Christ on the road to Damascus, refers to himself as “Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus,” in his epistle to the Romans.  St. Ignatius of Loyola would “baptize” his former life as a mercenary, and talk about himself as a knight serving the King of Kings.  While St. Catherine of Siena would describe the Lord as “sweet Jesus, Jesus, Love.”  The responsory from the post-Conciliar Divine Office for the Second Reading on the Memorial of Sts. Cornelius and Cyprian says, “We are warriors now, fighting on the battlefield of faith, and God sees all we do; the angels watch and so does Christ.  What honor and glory and joy, to do battle in the presence of God and to have Christ approve our victory.”  While St. Theresa of Calcutta saw Christ hanging on the cross, telling her, “I thirst” and asking her to quench that thirst by serving the poorest of the poor.  All of those images are true, as contradictory as they may seem at first glance.
    His Eminence, Cardinal Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, recently issued a pastoral letter to the Patriarchate which also expresses this tension.  He meditates on words from the Gospel of John, “‘I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.  In the world you will have tribulations, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”  The Cardinal writes:
 

[Christ] addresses these words to His disciples, who will shortly be tossed about, as if in a storm, before His death.  They will panic, scatter and flee, like sheep without a shepherd.
    Yet, this last word of Jesus is an encouragement.  He does not say that He shall win, but that He has already won.  Even in the turmoil to come, the disciples will be able to have peace.  This is not a matter of theoretical irenic peace, nor of resignation to the fact that the world is evil, and we can do nothing to change it.  Instead it is about having the assurance that precisely within all this evil, Jesus has already won.  Despite the evil ravaging the world, Jesus has achieved a victory, and established a new reality, a new order, which after the resurrection will be issued by the disciples who were reborn in the Spirit. 
    It was on the cross that Jesus won: not with weapons, not with political power, not by great means, nor by imposing himself.  The peace He speaks of has nothing to do with victory over others.  He won the world by loving it.

This letter was written for the Feast of Our Lady of Palestine, celebrated on 25 October, in the midst of yet another war in the Holy Land, the Land of the King of Kings and Prince of Peace.
    What can we do as we celebrate Christ the King, which is also the anniversary our our own Traditional Latin Mass Community in Flint?  We do our best to live in imitation of our King, Conqueror and Victim, Conqueror because He is Victim.  We do our best to put to death the works of evil, starting with ourselves and the planks that are in our own eyes, but also working to promote life by opposing the evils without and the splinters in the eyes of our neighbors.  We seek the victory and the triumph which so often are made manifest through the rituals of this beautiful Mass, doing so by the reality to which this Mass points, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, lived out in our own lives daily.  We do not shun the cross, but realize that Christ reigns from a the throne of a tree, and so we seek to reign with Him through our own daily crucifixions. 

    Christ is a King, and He is our brother.  We kneel before Him in fealty, and we run to embrace Him in love.  We acknowledge that He is not a domesticated animal, that He is not safe, but that He is good, in fact, Goodness Incarnate.  Christus vincit!  Christus regnat!  Christus imperat!  Christ conquers!  Christ reigns!  Christ commands!  He who is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.   

Rules or Relationship?

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Some people view Catholicism as a set of rules, or maybe even a particular type of morality or ethics.  They hear the Church rightly say that one ought to do this, or ought not to do that.  They sense, whether from reality or from caricatures in popular culture, that being Catholic is all about going to Mass each Sunday, going to confession, saying the rosary, listening to the pope, not eating meat on Fridays, getting married in a church, not having sex outside of marriage, not contracepting, etc.  And those are all aspects of the way that a Catholic, every Catholic, should be living his or her life. 

    But, as Pope Benedict XVI said, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”  And the encounter that Pope Benedict mentions is not just a meeting, but really a falling in love.  That is why Jesus teaches us today in the Gospel that the greatest commandment is the two-fold love of God and love of neighbor.
    When we love someone, we love not only that person, but the things that he or she loves.  When we truly love someone, our affections change to better match that person’s.  Our life becomes not about us, but about the other.  We see this start to bloom even in adolescence when a boy starts to care more about the things that his crush likes.  I think I have mentioned this before, but that’s how I started listening to country music: a girl I liked listened to country, and I wanted to have something to talk to her about.  But the love of the other fully blossoms in marriage, where one’s life is not one’s own, but is inseparably joined to the other, intertwined at the deepest levels, and the importance of the other eclipses the importance of the self and one’s own desires. 
    God desires that we each have an encounter of love with Him.  God desires not that we simply know about Him (even the demons can do that), but that we love Him, that we give our heart to Him, that He becomes more important to us than we are to ourselves, and that the things He loves become the things we love, which are really what will make us happy, since God, as our Creator, knows exactly what will fulfill our human nature. 
    “‘The whole law and the prophets,’” says Jesus, “‘depend on these two commandments.’”  The phrase, “the whole law and the prophets” means the entirety of Scripture.  All of what God has revealed depend on love of Him and love of neighbor.  Every genuinely Catholic practice–every law, every precept, every commandment–needs to find its base in this two-fold commandment of love, or else it is built on sand.
    This may not always seem obvious.  What, we might ask, does giving up fish on Fridays have to do with love of God or love of neighbor?  Is it because I’m supporting the fish industry, and those who work in it are my neighbor?  Not entirely, though I suppose it is love of neighbor in that sense.  But much more deeply, God has revealed to us that our desires are not always in accord with His will or with the truth.  We want things we shouldn’t.  And in order to help train our wills and our bodies not to go astray, God tells us that we should give up good things to focus on that which is even better: not fish in se, but on growing closer to God through restraining our human desires, even the good ones, so that we can more easily say no to the desires that take us away from God. 
    Or consider going to Mass every Sunday and Holyday.  Can’t I love go through a screen on the TV or the computer?  Can’t I offer worship to God from my couch?  In a word, no; not in the same way.  Is FaceTiming your spouse the same as sitting with her at the table, holding her hand, smelling her perfume, seeing the radiance of her smile in person?  And God not only gives us His presence.  He enters into us through the Eucharist so that we are even physically united to Him.  You cannot have that watching the Mass on TV or via Live Stream.  Each time we stand, or sit, or kneel it is like we are dancing with God, our bodies moving this way and that based upon how the sacred liturgy is progressing.  And our encounter with God culminates in Christ giving Himself to us, giving us today the same sacrifice of some 2,000 years ago on the cross, though doing it not in an unbloody way.  True love of God wouldn’t want to miss out on that for the world.
    Love of neighbor follows from our love of God, because when we love someone we love the ones they love, and God loves all of His children, even the difficult ones.  As we grow in our love with God, we cannot help but love our neighbor.  And if we are not growing in love of neighbor, then it’s a good chance that we’re not really growing in our love of God.  It is as St. John says in his first epistle: “whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”  Any authentic growth in holiness means that we are growing in love of our neighbor.
    Yes, Catholicism has a lot of things that we do or don’t do.  Yes, it has its own morality.  But it’s not just dos and don’ts.  It’s not just a moral system.  Catholicism is a love story between the individual and God, and therefore also between the individual and God and those whom God loves.  If you name a teaching or a moral precept of Catholicism, it will find its way back to love of God and love of neighbor.  “‘The whole law and the prophets,’” and the whole exercise of our faith, “‘depend on these two commandments.’” 

Same Words, Different Results

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

St. Thomas Aquinas

   In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When I served at St. Thomas Aquinas parish in East Lansing as a parochial vicar, I spent a fair amount of time in our parish school.  One day I was asked by a teacher to come over at the end of the school day to talk to a few students who had been picking on another kid, such that the other kid had locked himself in a bathroom stall and brought to tears.  I pulled the two students aside into a classroom and asked them what had happened.  They explained that they had continuously stolen and hidden the other student’s folder, seeing how upset it made him.  I asked them why they would do such a thing.  The responded that they didn’t think it would affect him so much.  I said, “That’s right; you didn’t think.”  After that point, things become a bit hazy in my memory, but I remember thinking to myself after those words came out of my mouth, ‘I have become my father,’ because my dad would say the same thing to me if I had done something wrong and had responded that I didn’t think such and such would happen.
    I was struck in today’s Gospel by the words that the servant uses to the master when his freedom is threatened: “‘“Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.”’”  Later that same day he hears those same words from another servant who owed the first servant much smaller amounts than the first servant owed the master: “‘“Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.”’”  But apparently the light didn’t come on in the first servant’s head, and rather than recognizing that he was now in the position of the master to be generous and patient, the first servant took immediate and decisive action to put the other servant in debtor’s jail until he could pay back what he owed.  Where the master was patient and lenient, the servant was intolerant and rigorous.  

    One of the great blessings God has given us is the Sacrament of Penance, what we often call confession.  And I try to offer generous times for the celebration of God’s mercy in this sacrament.  I am also pleased that so many people, from both our parish and from other parishes, take advantage of these opportunities.  I myself try to go to confession every two or three weeks.  Besides the primary effect of forgiveness of sins (especially if we are in a state of mortal sin), as well as giving us grace to avoid temptation in the future, one of the graces that God desires to give us is to make us more like Him, our Master, in His Mercy.  
    People can often confuse mercy with license.  Especially in today’s culture, where no one takes responsibility for anything, mercy tends to mean letting me get away with something I have done.  But a priest I recently heard at convocation said that, in order to receive mercy, we have to acknowledge what is just.  And this priest used the example of the prodigal son to back up his point.  We are very quick to jump to the part of the parable where the father runs out to meet his son and puts a ring on his finger, a robe around him, and sandals on his feet, and throws a big party.  But right before that, the son acknowledges that he has sinned against heaven and against his father, and he no longer deserves to be called a son.  This priest made the point that it was because the prodigal son made that admission in justice that the father granted mercy and restored him to his previous place in family life.  Imagine if the son would have come back and simply said, “Could I have a job?”  
    Now, these two points may seem contradictory.  The parable from today’s Gospel highlights mercy, while the parable of the Prodigal Son seems to highlight justice.  But both are truly operative, and both guide how we show mercy.  In the Gospel parable the servant says that he will pay the master back.  He admits the justice.  And that admission of justice opens up mercy, a mercy which does not have a timeline.  It restores the relationship immediately, and even cancels.  And we are invited to have that same level of mercy.  When someone admits that they have wronged us, we should be ready to grant them mercy, just as God grants us mercy as soon as we confess our faults in the Sacrament of Penance.  As long as we will try not to commit that sin again, even if we think it would take a miracle to avoid those temptations, then God will forgive us.  If someone admits to us that he or she is wrong, then Christ calls us to be like the merciful Father and immediately grant mercy.
    To drive home this point even more, the Lord says elsewhere that the measure we measure out to others will in turn be measured out to us.  If we come before God, admitting our faults, and expect God to forgive us, then we should also forgive those who come to us and admit their faults.  If we do not, then how can God grant mercy to a heart that is hardened?  If we have no mercy for others in our life, then we have no room for the mercy of God, either.  If we are not willing to receive another’s act of contrition, then how could God receive ours?
    Probably many of us of a certain age have had those moments where we think: ‘I have become my parents.’  And maybe sometimes that idea scares us.  But it should be the goal of each one of us to become like our heavenly Father, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.

What Doesn't Belong to God?

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    At some point in elementary school I came across a word that looked similar, but was also different.  I couldn’t quite make out if it meant the same thing as the word to which it looked similar, or if it might be a different word altogether.  I asked my teacher how I was supposed to pronounce the word c-o-l-o-u-r, and what its meaning was.  I was sure it was supposed to be pronounced cah-LUHR, but was surprised that both the pronunciation and the meaning was the same as our word color, c-o-l-o-r, and that this was simply a British spelling.  I have always preferred our American spelling as much more obvious and logical.
    When we hear the Gospel, we likely are colored, however you might spell it, by our American experience.  Though the words “separation of Church and State” never appear in Constitution, it has been so ingrained in our minds that we probably hear this Gospel and figure that Jesus was advocating the same some 2,000 years ago.  I will admit that I have probably preached a homily or two on the same point.

Cyrus

    But look at our first reading today.  God speaks through the prophet Isaiah about the Lord’s anointed, Cyrus.  Cyrus was not a king of Israel.  He was not a Jew at all.  He was the king of the Persians, who had recently defeated the Babylonian Empire, which had exiled the two southern tribes of Jews.  But God calls Cyrus his anointed, though he was altogether pagan.  Still, Cyrus would start to provide for the return of the Jews to their homeland, and even for the building up of the temple, which had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem.  God is clearly demonstrating, through Isaiah, that even this pagan ruler was in God’s hands.  There was no separation between God an any reality.
    This idea, that what I do in politics and what I do in religion have no bearing on each other, is an intriguing idea.  But it cannot be called Catholic.  Because for the Catholic (as for the Jew before him), God is God of everything, not just some parts of the world.  Though others may not recognize it, God holds sway over everything in the created world, and we cannot compartmentalize aspects of our life into Church and State, or said differently, religion and politics.  If we really claim to follow God, then God has a say over everything I do, not just what I do within these four walls.  If we owe God everything, then every act of our life belongs to God, even that which belongs to Caesar.
    To be clear, I’m not advocating theocracy.  I’m not advocating that we rush to rebellion to overthrow the government in order to set up our bishops as rulers.  But if what the Church teaches is true, and truth applies to everyone, not just those who profess it in church, then our goal would be that all our laws would reflect the truth of what God has revealed, not just for Catholics, but for everyone.  
    Instead, we are used to the tired trope, “I personally believe X is wrong, but I’m not going to force that belief on others.”  We usually hear it from baptized Catholics who advocate the heretical view that abortion should be legal.  And people get very defensive about the abortion issue and how we seem to be forcing the Catholic Church’s teaching on others.  So let’s apply this logic to other moral teachings, which the Church holds dearly, and if a Catholic supported it, he or she would be in heresy.  Imagine a politician saying, “I personally believe that slavery is wrong, but I’m not going to force that belief on others.”  Would you vote for that politician?  How about, “I personally believe that human trafficking is wrong, but whom I am to judge another person?”  Or, also consistent, “If a person’s conscience tells him that he should break into a house to get more money, that person should follow his conscience.”  I would hope that no one would support such ridiculous propositions.   But it’s precisely the same argument that people use for advocating that abortion should be legal so that those who think it’s ok can get one.  
    We do live in a pluralistic society, with many different religions.  And there is some good in not having a particular religion being forced down our throats.  Imagine that baptists were in charge, and they created a law that said that Bibles cannot be printed with the books we Catholics include but they tore out.  That wouldn’t be right.  But many of the laws that we should have do not have to be particular to one religion.  You can know abortion is wrong without being Catholic, just like you can know stealing is wrong without being Catholic.  We don’t eliminate all our laws against stealing just because we, as Catholics, hold theft to be immoral.  
    And further, the same Jesus who said, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God,” also said that if we are value family more than Him, then we are not truly following Him as He desires.  Certainly if father and mother, brothers and sisters come in second place to Christ, so should the Republican or Democratic parties.  
    We view things with our American understanding because that has been our culture that has pervaded much of what we do and how we think.  But Christ is not American, and His teachings don’t always square up with our Constitution.  We may pay taxes because they belong to Caesar, but when it comes to how we live our lives, including our politics, it is all subject to God and His will, because to God belongs all that is.

Knowing God's Will

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I feel like St. Paul could have written this part of his epistle to us today: “watch carefully then how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil.”  Certainly, all of Scripture is applicable in every age, but it does make me pause in awe that a letter which some scholars say was written around the year 60, still speaks directly to us some almost 2,000 years later in our own evil days.
    But besides warning us not to live foolish lives, but live with the wisdom which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle continues, “Therefore…try to understand what is the will of the Lord.”  God’s will is not always apparent or comprehensible.  Or, we hear the cliché phrase, “God’s ways are mysterious,” why makes me think of a meme that says, “God’s ways are mysterious, but yours don’t have to be; use your turn signal.”  In all seriousness, how do we know the will of God?  How do we know if we’re doing the will of God or simply following our own will?
    One factor is determining what God’s will is is what He has revealed through the Church, whether through the Scriptures or through the Magisterium.  God cannot contradict Himself.  So if what you think God is telling you to do contradicts the Scriptures or what the Church has revealed as part of the deposit of faith, then it’s not the voice of God.  God will never tell you to murder someone, that is, take an innocent life.  Or, I remember in college seminary, my spiritual director was telling me generally about a woman who came to him for spiritual advice.  She was convinced that the Holy Spirit was telling her to become a priest.  He assured her that it wasn’t the holy spirit that was telling her such a thing.

St. Ignatius of Loyola

    A second factor is how we are living our life.  St. Ignatius of Loyola, in his famous rules of discernment, says that a necessary pre-supposition for determining if God is speaking to us or if it is coming from an evil spirit is whether or not we are in a state of grace.  Because when we follow God’s moral law, then God’s will will seem enjoyable and peaceful.  However, if we are living contrary to God’s moral law, then God’s will will seem burdensome and cause us turmoil.  So, as a second characteristic, are we living in a state of grace, not conscious of any mortal sins, or are we going from grave sin to grave sin?
    Knowing God’s will is much easier through prayer, especially daily times of silence with God.  When we have especially a major decision to make, do we take it to God first?  Do we pray to God, telling Him what we want to do, and asking if that is in accord with His will?  Do we take time to try to listen to His voice in hearts, in our conscience?  That daily communication creates the habit of giving God our thoughts, and listening to His thoughts.  Like a marriage, communication is key to growing in holiness. 
    Now, I know that with young families, prayer time can seem as likely as winning the lotto as you get the kids up, get them dressed, get them fed, get them cleaned, get them to different activities, get them to bed, etc.  It can be so easy, at the end of the day, to want to watch a little TV or find some distraction.  And that’s not always bad.  But is time made, each day, even if just for a couple of minutes, to bring yourself before God, present to Him your thoughts and desires, and give Him time to respond.
    Patience is also important.  Because, even if we are making time for God, even if we create short or long moments of silence, God is not at our beck and call inasmuch as He doesn’t have to answer us in the timeframe that we want.  When I was in eighth grade, I wanted to know my vocation and future career, what I should do with my life.  So I prayed to God each day, asking for His guidance.  And it took over a year before I heard anything that I understood to be the will of God.  It’s not that God wasn’t answering my prayers before, it was that He was saying, “Not yet.”  And so, when trying to find out the will of God, often times we will need to wait.  True, sometimes decisions have to be made, and I’ll talk about that in a bit, but, as much possible, we should wait for God to answer us.
    Again, going back to St. Ignatius of Loyola’s rules for discernment.  We should consider if we are choosing between two goods, or between good and evil.  The choice between good and evil doesn’t need discernment; don’t do evil.  And, as mentioned earlier, we should strive to be in a state of grace.  If we are in a state of grace, though what God calls us to do may be difficult (and require the virtue and gift of the Holy Spirit of courage), it will give us peace and joy.  We will find delight in that choice.  If it causes us anxiety and discouragement, and seems to lead us away from God, then we can have some confidence that it is not what God wills. 
    On the other hand, if we are in a state of grave sin, what seems enjoyable and easy will be what is bad.  What seems to cause us angst and troubles our heart will be what is God’s will.  When we are used to going against God, going for Him will not seem like it is what we want to do, and the evil spirit will try to keep us blissfully numb to the possibility of turning back to God.
    Lastly, if we do not find ourselves in a time of union with God, what St. Ignatius calls desolation (as opposed to consolation, which is a time of union with God), we should not reverse course and change decisions we made in consolation.  For example, let’s say a person had a problem with sins of the flesh, but had gone to confession, had asked God to help him or her with getting rid of the temptations and helping to live a chaste life, and through daily prayer that person decided to cancel the Netflix account because it had become a near occasion of sin.  If that person fell back into sin, he or she could be tempted to say that Netflix wasn’t really the problem, so he or she can resubscribe.  That’s not going to help the person know the will of God, because a decision made in consolation should not be reviewed simply because of desolation. 
    Sometimes, despite our best efforts to know the will of God, we don’t seem to get an answer.  We put the question before God, we seek His will in daily prayer, we live in a state of grace, we are patient, but we still have nothing.  Sometimes, God allows us to make a decision without giving us input, because He loves us and trusts our ability to choose well.  We should line up all the positives of the decision, and contrast it with the negatives of the decision.  We should rationally look into what consequences that decision could have.  And if we’re not hearing from God, then we can proceed to make the decision, conscious of the fact that perhaps God will advise us later, or will make His will more clearly known to us, which we should follow as soon as we are aware of it.
    Sometimes, too, the will of God is made manifest to us without any questioning.  For me, this happened in my first assignment, where the bishop told me that I was going to St. Thomas Aquinas parish in East Lansing.  I had no place to pray about if this was the will of God: God’s voice in our diocese, Bishop Boyea, informed me of how he had discerned God’s will and what that would be.  For couples, it could be the unexpected conception of a child.  There’s no longer discernment about what God’s will is: He has made it known through a new life in the womb of the mother. 
    If you want a more in-depth treatment of this subject, Fr. Tim Gallagher has a great book called The Discernment of Spirits: An Ignatian Guide for Everyday Living.  I think the most important thing is that we are making a habit of seeking to know God’s will.  If we are open to God’s will, and not simply desiring that God rubber-stamp our every whim or desire, then we will have a familiarity with how God makes His will known to us.  And to make it through these evil days, we should always do our best to seek the will of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Doubts and the Synod

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of the jobs of a shepherd is to make sure the flock stays in good pastures and is protected from the wolves.  Good pastures are those that feed the soul well, not with junk food that tastes good going down, but which doesn’t actually nourish the body.  The wolves need not be people, though they sometimes can be, but can also be ideas which are dangerous to the flock.  And, to be clear, I do not intend any of what I am about to say to be a personal attack.  Personal attacks, called ad hominem, are logical fallacies.  Plus, if we look at the ideas, rather than the person, our effect can be much longer lasting.
    Recently, five cardinals wrote a set of doubts, or dubia, to the Holy Father concerning the synod.  The five questions regard whether Divine Revelation can change based upon current cultural or anthropological ideas, whether so-called same-sex marriages can receive blessings, whether synodality is a constitutive dimension of the Church, whether sacramental ordination of women can be conferred, and whether repentance is a necessary aspect of sacramental absolution.
    To be clear, I don’t claim to be a Doctor of Theology.  I have a Baccalaureate of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and a Master of Divinity degree from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.  I am nowhere close to as well-educated as the eminent cardinals who raised the doubts to the Holy Father.  But I do feel well-qualified enough to help guide you as your shepherd on what the faith is.  I don’t have time to expand on all these dubia, but wanted to respond to a few, namely so-called same-sex marriage, and the ordination of women.  I will also end by talking about the synod.  Some answers may seem more obvious than others, maybe all of them will seem obvious, but as your pastor I want to make sure that you know, to the best of my ability, what the Church teaches so that you are not confused and led astray by false ideas.
    First, blessings of same-sex unions.  From the beginning, as Pope Francis affirmed, marriage is between a man and a woman, for a life-long union, open to the procreation of children by natural means.  No government can change the definition of marriage, since government is not the creator of marriage.  The Church cannot change the definition of marriage because the Church is not the creator of marriage, either.  The Church is simply the steward of what God has revealed to us, especially through Christ.  And when it comes to blessings or prayers of blessings, those are times where God gives His approval or sets apart for sacred purpose persons, places, or objects.  To be specific, the Church says that blessings are types of “sacred signs that resemble the sacraments: they signify effects, particularly of a spiritual kind, which are obtained through the Church’s intercession [by which] men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions of life are sanctified.”  The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith explained in 2021 that the Church does not have the authority to give blessings to unions of persons of the same sex, affirming that any blessing has to conform to the design of God, which same-sex unions do not.  It even went so far as to say that we cannot bless sin, which may seem obvious, but affirmed that homosexual unions are sinful.
    That same response did rightly affirm that persons with homosexual attractions can receive blessings individually if they are living in accord with the Gospel.  And while that may seem uncaring, love cannot be true love if it is separated from the truth.  Love does not allow the other to do that which is destructive to one’s salvation.  It also does not meant that there is no room in the Catholic Church for those who have a homosexual attraction.  Catholic means welcoming to everyone, and we do welcome every person, and encourage them, even as we encourage ourselves, to follow Christ more closely in every aspect of our lives, including our sexuality.  But we cannot bless any situation which is in direct opposition to God’s design. 

    Secondly, on the sacramental ordination of women.  From the beginning, sacramental ordination has been reserved to men, not because men are better (the Church strongly affirms the equal dignity of men and women); not because men are holier (the holiest person in human history is a woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary); simply because it was the will of God according to His Divine plan.  This was affirmed in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis by Pope St. John Paul II in 1994.  The pontiff wrote: “Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed…in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”  Sounds pretty settled, right?
    Of course, someone questioned it, and so the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith responded to that doubt and wrote, “[The teaching on the reservation of priestly ordination to men] requires definitive assent, since…it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium…[and since] the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office…has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be hold always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of faith.”  So, no room for doubt.  It belongs to the deposit of faith and cannot be changed.  Not by anybody at any time.
    So why these and other questions?  What is the point of the synod?  I know that there are some theories that there are people who want to try to change Church teaching.  I’m not so naïve to say that no one fits into this category.  I’m sure there are some who are attending the synod hoping to change things, things which cannot be changed.
    But I also want to hope, and I truly believe, that some of this is simply to engage in a conversation about issues which many consider closed issues.  There is a benefit to engaging in conversations with people who do not believe the same way we do, even on settled matters, like the Divinity of Christ.  Isn’t that the point of evangelization?  And yes, sometimes we’re evangelizing our fellow Catholics.  We don’t fail to engage the subject, as long as we stay in the truth and do not deny the doctrine that others are questioning.  So I’m not one to say that the synod has no point.  Perhaps this is a desire at the highest level to evangelize those who are baptized Catholics, but who do not know the fullness of the faith that has been taught.  Perhaps not.  But there is at least a way to see these questions being discussed at the synod in a positive light. 
    When we hear about these dubia, I encourage us not to immediately demonize those who question.  Rather, educate yourself about what the Church teaches: not from the media, not from hearsay, but from official teachings of the Church like the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  If we hold fast to the teachings of the Catholic Church, those things that cannot change, then while the waves break around us, while the storms batter us from without or within, we will be safe in the Ark of the Church which will bring us safely to the harbor of the saints in heaven, where we will worship our Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Have No Anxiety

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
    “Have no anxiety at all.”  St. Paul, have you met me?  It seems like in 2023 all we have is anxiety.  Hamas just attacked Israel, who has declared war on them.  We have this new “synod on synodality” which, depending on whom you talk to, is either going to change all these doctrines of the Church (most of the ones that are mentioned are teachings that can’t be changed, not even by the pope, FYI), or is an exercise in heresy that will result in a schism, a breaking of unity in the Church.  The economy is still struggling, and everything seems like it costs twice as much as it used to.  People are leaving the Church in droves, which is causing challenges for parishes and dioceses.  And yet, the Apostle to the Gentiles tells us today, “Have no anxiety at all.”  
    How do we live without anxiety?  And this is coming from the man who, more times that I would like to admit, have tossed and turned in my bed over the world with which I deal.  I imagine you have each had times where anxiety kept you up: maybe about your household finances, maybe about the well-being of your children and/or grandchildren.  Anxiety can especially difficult when you’re really good at thinking.  Because that mind that is used to processing information tries to process all information, and there are many things that are outside of our control.  And when we can’t resolve those issues, we become anxious.  We worry.  

    But St. Paul doesn’t leave us hanging.  He gives us practical advice: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious…think about these things.”  That may still seem like a pie in the sky idea, but it actually is quite practical.  
    Because anxiety comes from focusing on things beyond our control, or beyond our immediate control.  We think about the things that trouble our heart.  We can so often want to take the place of God and try to control things, which are, all too often, beyond our control.  Notice that St. Paul doesn’t say, “whatever is beyond your control, whatever might happen, whatever those things about which you can do nothing, think about these things.”  
    So think about these things, instead.  Think about what is true.  First and foremost, think about God.  This is part of the importance of having a relationship with God.  Satan wants us to forget about God and who He is.  He is our loving Father who wants what is good for us.  He never sends us anything evil.  Do we sometimes have to endure bad things?  Yes.  But God is not sending us evil.  He is always there for us, as well.  He never leaves us, no matter how bad things get.  
    Also, what is true about us?  First and foremost we are children of God.  Again, Satan wants us to forget about reality.  That means who God is, but also who we are.  We are not the sum of our failures.  We are not our sins.  We are not the external circumstances that are impressed upon us.  We are beloved sons and daughters in the Son of God.  
    Think on what is gracious.  When we think about what is gracious, we think about what is kind, what is courteous, what is pleasant.  But it comes from Latin word gratia, which can mean grace, but can also mean thanksgiving.  In the preface I say, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,” and in Latin it’s “Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.”  Do you want to rid anxiety from your life?  Start thinking about the things for which you are grateful: family, a job, friends, food, a house, or anything else.  It’s easier to focus on the things we think we lack, but it’s useless.  It just takes away from our joy that gives us pleasure in life.  It is harder to think about things for which we are grateful, but it provides much better effects.  And in those darkest moments of our life, where maybe it feels impossible to think about gracious things, have a good friend to help you out.  
    It can be so easy to be anxious because there are so many things outside of our control.  Our minds can go toward all the negative things because they seem to press in on us and demand our attention.  But we don’t have to focus on those things.  And it’s not spiritually helpful to focus on all the bad.  Instead, focus on what is true–both concerning God and us–and be grateful.  The world will always have evil, at least until Christ returns.  It will always scream for our attention.  But it doesn’t have to steal our joy and our hope, because those are in Christ, and Christ can never be taken away from us, not by war in the Middle East, not by Church politics, not by recession or inflation or anything else.  Have no anxiety.