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.   

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.  

Whose Side Are We On?

Third Sunday in Lent

St. Ignatius of Loyola

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I have never done the Ignition 30-day retreat, but many priests I know have, and they talk about how powerful it was for them.  In particular, there is a meditation called “The Two Standards.”  This meditation reflects on two camps (standards being an old word for flags): the camp of Satan, and the camp of Christ.  One Catholic author describes it thus:
 

Imagine the [kingdom of the evil one] to be the vast and wide plain of Babylon (hell).  Satan, in his pride, is seated on a high throne of fire and smoke to intimidate and impose his power.  […]
Imagine the evil one calling his numerous demons to this throne and sending them forth, throughout the whole world, to every person and place.  Imagine this vast army of diabolical creatures going forth on their mission of death and destruction. […]
What is their mission? […]  Saint Ignatius says that satan instructs his demons to tempt God’s people in three initial ways: To first desire riches in their heart. To seek vainglory, honors and worldly recognition. To puff up their pride.

The author, reflection on this meditation, the continues describing the camp of Christ:
 

Christ is found in a humble and low plain near Jerusalem.  He is standing there with crowds around Him.  It is a beautiful and peaceful place.  Imagine the scene of Him with a crowd of faithful followers around Him. […]
One by one, Jesus chooses person after person to share in His divine mission.  He calls them to Himself with gentleness, interior strength and authority.  And then He sends them on a mission.  […] with hearts set ablaze with love they eagerly go forth to joyfully spread His mercy and truth. […]
This is what they are to preach and to encounter. […] They are to preach about poverty.  Interior spiritual poverty and even the value of leaving all for Christ.  If they are rejected by some, then they must rejoice and not lose heart, even if people hold them and their message in contempt.  They are to be humble and receive any humiliation in love.  [from https://mycatholic.life/books/ignatius/part-two-ignatian-meditations-arranged-according-to-the-liturgical-year/meditations-for-ordinary-time/two-standards/]

At first, it may not seem like much of a choice.  The camp and standard of Christ seems so much better, and intellectually we know we should choose that one.  But how often do we go after riches, vainglory, honors, worldly recognition, and embrace the vice of pride?
    The Gospel today reminds us that our Lord is tearing down the camp of the enemy.  He casts out the fallen angels and spirits that oppress and posses God’s children.  Christ is the stronger man who conquers the enemy and regains His brothers and sisters for the kingdom of God.  And because the Savior is also the Creator of the universe, when Christ battles Satan, it’s not even really a battle; Satan has to concede.  To pretend that Satan could ever win is like pretending our legos are going to rise up and defeat us. 
    Having said that, we still have to choose a side, a standard.  For whose cause do we fight?    Do we fight for God or against Him?  How do we know which side we are choosing?  St. Paul lays out a good list today of ways that we’re on team Satan: immorality, impurity, greed, and obscene talk.  The Apostle says that these are all signs of idolatry, of making other things gods in our life.  St. Ignatius, as I mentioned above, had also mentioned making gods out of money and our ego.  We could also say that if we’re breaking one of the Ten Commandments, we are choosing something other than the rule of God.
    On the flip side, choosing the standard of Christ means doing what we can to “live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us.”  It means making the choices that Christ made to humility, obedience, and service.  It means being grateful to God for those things that we have, knowing that they are gifts from God to which we are not entitled.  Choosing the standard of Christ and living in loves means exercising patience, kindness, gentleness, not rejoicing in evil, but rejoicing in the truth, as St. Paul says in his first epistle to the Corinthians. 
    If we are to fight in Christ’s army, then not only do we follow His banner, but we also protect ourselves with His armor.  The best armor against the assaults of the enemy is prayer and service.  Do we turn to God in prayer throughout our day?  It may not mean staying in a church or chapel from 9-5, but making the sign of the cross throughout our 9-5 job, or letting quick little prayers (we used to called them pious ejaculations) like “Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!” or, “Jesus, I trust in you!” Or, “Mary, conceived without original sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee” come from our lips at home, in the car, or in the office or factory.  Do we guard what we watch and that to which we listen, to make sure that we’re not inviting in spies from the enemy’s camp into our mind?  Do we read the Word of God, guided by the Church’s Magisterium, so that we can truly be those blessed because we hear God’s word and observe it? 
    Lent is a wonderful time to recommit ourselves to fighting for Christ in His army.  It is the perfect time to ask Christ to set our hearts ablaze with His love, or rekindle those fires that have started to smolder out.  Christ is putting an end to the kingdom of the prince of this world.  Let’s choose the kingdom that will give us eternal happiness in heaven, where God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit reign for ever and ever.  Amen.    

What do you Fear?

Epiphany of the Lord

            On a most cloudy, 42-degree day, on Saturday, 4 March 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in for his first term as president of the United States of America.  After taking the oath of office, President Roosevelt gave his first inaugural address, including one of the most famous phrases he ever uttered: “let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” 

            Fear is a very powerful motivator and catalyst.  Think of the small child, lying in bed in the dark, not able to sleep, heart pounding almost out of his chest at the thought that the creaking of the house is actually a monster waiting to get him.  Think of the adolescent, willing to try any illicit activity because he is afraid of not being popular if he doesn’t do what the crowd wants.  Think of an adult, tossing and turning in bed, afraid that he will lose his job and afraid of what that will mean for his family.  Fear can really make us act.

            Fear is what overtook King Herod.  He was afraid that his kingdom was threatened by this newborn King of the Jews, as made known to him by the magi from the East.  His rule was already quite tenuous, as it was under the benevolence of the Romans, and amidst a people who did not accept him as their king.  He was afraid of losing all that he had built for himself.  And so he tries to use the Magi as his spies, to find the place of the newborn king so that Herod can kill the child and eliminate His reign.  And we all know the story: after the magi return by a different route, and Herod hears nothing, he orders the death of all male children ages 2 and younger, in the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, those first ones who died in place of Christ.

            And yet, as Jesus reveals Himself today in the Solemnity of the Epiphany; as He makes Himself known not just to the Chosen People but also to the Gentiles, to those outside of the Chosen People, represented by the magi, His message is not one of fear.  The magi come, and they see the Mighty God in the body of a little child.  This same child, after many years, proclaims to the apostles, the disciples, and to us today: “Do not be afraid!”  Herod had nothing to fear, if only he truly would have done Jesus homage as the King of Kings.

            And yet, even though Jesus tells us to be not afraid, as He reveals Himself to us, we still fear.  And the fear can lead us to do many things that we otherwise wouldn’t.  Think back 13 years ago to the fear that permeated society because the computers couldn’t handle the number 2000 for the year.  Or more recently, the perceived danger due to the end of the Mayan calendar on 21 December.  Or the recently averted so-called fiscal cliff.  Despite Jesus telling us year after year, “Be Not Afraid,” we still seem to act in fear, and it causes us to act in ways of which we would otherwise be ashamed.

            Of what are we afraid?  What personal kingdoms do we fear losing that we think Jesus is going to make us give up?  What things are we so afraid to lose if we lay them down at the feet of Jesus, the King of Kings?  Power?  Control?  Wealth?  Security?  Lifestyle?  A grudge?  How hard it can be to trust Jesus and not be afraid to put everything at His feet!

            I know it’s certainly hard for me.  I’m a type A personality (no shock for most of you, I’m sure!), and I love to have things under control.  I love to plan out events and how they’re going to go.  I like to have contingency plans in case something goes wrong.  It’s not wrong to want to keep things ordered, but they have to be ordered according to the will of God, not my will.  And it is hard to let Jesus have control, because, it means that I might have to change.  And nobody likes change.

            But the happiest people in life are those who laid their kingdom, whatever it was they were attached to, at the feet of Jesus and did not let their fear keep them from letting Jesus direct their lives.  Look at St. Ignatius of Loyola: he had everything figured out as a mercenary.  Then his leg was severely damaged in battle, and while recuperating he was eventually to not let his fear control him (though this took a great deal of battling with himself), and he became a knight for God.  Or American’s own St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, who gave up a life of great wealth in order to serve the Church in American, especially the African Americans and Native Americans who did not receive the same level of education because they were on the fringes of society.  It would have been so much easier for St. Ignatius to continue his soldiering; it would have been so much easier for St. Frances to live in the lap of luxury in Italy.  But they were able to conquer their fear with the help of God, and even though it meant that they had to abandon familiar people, places, and lives, they found life so much better in serving Jesus. 

            When King Herod feared a rival power, it led him away from God.  When we act out of fear, especially fear of having to make changes in our life because we are more devoted to Jesus, we move away from God.  When, instead, we choose to trust God in the face of fear and allow Him to truly be King of our hearts, we find that we lose nothing of who we are meant to be, and gain everything, because we have Jesus.  Do not be afraid to trust Jesus and give Him control of your life!  Will you have to change?  Jesus calls all of us to conversion.  But that relationship with Jesus, no matter what we have to abandon in order to follow Him, is the pearl of great price, which is worth more than anything the world could ever offer us.  “Do not be afraid!”