Attachments

First Sunday of Lent

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  When I was in college, Facebook was just starting to be a thing.  At first I refused to get on Facebook because I felt it tried to redefine the meaning of friend.  After a few years, however, I finally caved and set up my own account.  As the years progressed, I got more and more involved and I got sucked in to wanting to have a lot of Facebook friends, though I wanted to know the people in real life, not just online.  As a parish priest, this wasn’t too hard to do, as more and more people from the parish wanted to be Facebook friends.  When the diocese announced new assignments, I would get new requests from future parishioners who wanted to check out my personality via Facebook.  I started to post more and more pictures, and would give everyone a happy birthday greeting as Facebook reminded me.
    Fast forward to a couple of months ago.  I was speaking with a friend who had pulled back from Facebook.  This friend encouraged me to do the same simply as a way to disconnect from unnecessary time on social media.  I agreed to limit my Facebook interactions to twice a day, and backed off of posting pictures and even birthday greetings (so in case you wondered why I didn’t tell you Happy Birthday on Facebook, that’s why).  What I noticed startled me.  I had grown so used to checking Facebook throughout the day, especially on my phone between activities or even while eating meals or watching TV, that my thumb almost naturally wanted to click on the app on my phone every time I went do to something else on my phone.  My thumb seemed to automatically slide up over the app.  It was at that moment that I knew I needed to disconnect majorly from Facebook, though I still post my homilies and post pictures for the parish through my desktop account.  One of my Lenten practices is not to use the Facebook app on my phone at all.

    I think the thing that made Facebook so alluring is that I had fomo: the fear of missing out.  I also subconsciously wanted to brag about where I traveled, or wanted to keep track of the fun things other people did.  Wishing people happy birthday or congratulating people on engagements or babies being born was a good use of Facebook.  But even though my current phone was cordless, I certainly had created an invisible cord between me and my Facebook app that made it harder to back off of Facebook.
    Lent is a perfect time to check the sins and unhealthy habits that have become like second nature to us.  We might not think, at first, that some of our habits are such a big deal.  We may even have good aspects that go along with unhealthy habits or sins, as no action is usually entirely bad.  But as we begin our Lenten observances, taking a step back from things we know we don’t need but which we act like we do need them gives us a chance to focus more on love of God and neighbor.  If you’re anything like me, there are probably things that are not, at their core, sinful.  But they become sinful because we give them so much time and attention or we use them as a crutch to carry us through suffering that we don’t want to undergo.

    Think about abstinence from meat last Wednesday and on Fridays: objectively speaking, it’s not the biggest deal in the world not to eat meat on those days.  We eat much more beef, poultry, and pork than any other generation in the history of the world.  And yet, give us one day where we’re not allowed to do something, and sometimes we can go crazy.  We may even enjoy fish or seafood on days when we get to choose it, but if the Church tells us we can’t do something, we can interiorly throw a temper tantrum that we can’t have what we want when we want it.  When something we want is threatened, we can act quite irrationally.  We become like Gollum in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings who became so attached to the One Ring that it consumed him and made him crazy for the Ring, though the Ring didn’t care for him.
    And in that regard our annual Lenten observances help us to clear away unnecessary things, of any kind, and help focus us more towards God.  Again, they don’t have to be bad to be an unhealthy attachment.  They can simply be neutral attachments that we make unhealthy because of our dependence on them.  
    And the key is not simply giving them up for 40 days, but where we go during those 40 days and where we go after that.  During Lent, do we use the extra time or the sacrifices to draw us closer to God?  Do we unite the ways in which we miss a certain type of food, or certain apps or online activities to the cross of Christ?  And when Lent is over, will we go back to unhealthy attachments by splurging in those foods or apps, or might we recognize that we don’t have to use those things as much or at all in the future?  There are so many different things we can give up that I can’t give a hard and fast rule for whether we need to drop something entirely from our lives or not.  But it’s a good thing to consider.  
    As we hear our Lord go into the desert to fast and to be tempted, we, too, enter into the Lenten desert to leave behind us things that hinder our ability to live as the saints God wants us to be.  Don’t let the fear of setting aside something beloved keep you from the greater love and relationship you can have with God by giving up something unnecessary, however precious you think it is.  Lent helps us to remember what we heard in the Gospel, “‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.’”  [The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen].

Not Mine

Feast of the Holy Family

    One of the things that we learn from a young age, which is not necessarily good, is the concept of “mine.”  Certainly there is a natural, perhaps genetic, reaction to items that we need to survive.  But anyone who has dealt with a toddler who has learned the word, “mine,” can attest that it quickly goes beyond basic necessities of life like food and drink, and becomes the M.O., the modus operandi, or way of operating, when it comes to just about anything.  And toddlers have a grip strength that seems to defy logic.  Hopefully, the child grows out of this obsession with mine, though some adolescents, and even adults are still fixated on what is mine, such that they sound more like the seagulls in “Finding Nemo,” or like Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings.”
    Contrasted with the idea of mine is the family, as we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family today.  Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, had experienced difficulty in conceiving, and had wept copiously in the temple, such that Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk.  But she, with God’s help, conceived and gave birth to Samuel, and, as promised, she returned Samuel to God after she finished weaning Samuel.  
    This probably does not make sense to us.  We would never give up a child.  But this theme of a child that belongs to God runs through the Old Testament.  Think of Isaac, the son of Abraham.  Or Samson, whose father and mother couldn’t conceive, but who received the blessing of a child as announced by an angel, as long as the parents didn’t drink alcohol or eat unclean foods.  And their son, Samson, could not cut his hair.  In fact, the Mosaic law commanded that every firstborn son had to be presented to the Lord in the Temple and redeemed with a sacrifice, as Mary and Joseph did with Jesus, which we will celebrate at Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.  So offering one’s child to the Lord was not unknown to the Jewish People before the birth of Christ.
    But even after the birth of Christ, we should offer our families to God.  No, I’m not saying that when you child is misbehaving you can drop him or her off at the church and not have to worry about the child again.  But we should be ready to offer our family spiritually to God each and every day.
    Because, after baptism, before we belong to anyone else, we belong to God.  Yes, naturally we belong to our human family, but the bonds of baptism bind us to God in a way that supersedes our bonds to the human family.  That is how Jesus can say that if we cannot give up father and mother, we cannot truly be His disciple.  Most of the time we don’t have to give up family to follow God, but if our family asked us to do something wrong, our first allegiance should be to God.

    For husbands and wives, that means that your spouse, who is probably the most precious person to you in the world, doesn’t really belong to you.  He or she belongs to God, and your vocation as a spouse is to help your spouse get to heaven, because that’s where God wants him or her to be.  In the Episode III of “Star Wars,” Anakin Skywalker turns to the dark side because he cannot stand the idea of his wife, Padmé, dying, and so the Sith Lord, Emperor Palpatine, tricks Anakin into following him with the promise that Palpatine will help save Padmé’s life.  He forsakes all the good he could do for the opportunity to hold on to his wife.  Ironically (spoiler alert), Anakin himself ends up killing Padmé in his anger towards her for not going along with his conversion to evil.  Certainly, husbands and wives should love each, and sacrifice their own good for the other.  But your spouse belongs to God first and foremost, who allows you to be a good steward in caring for your spouse.  But you do not fully possess him or her.
    For parents, this applies to children, as well.  Your child is yours.  But your child is primarily God’s.  You are called to help the child know God and follow God.  Sometimes children will thank you for this and make this part of your vocation easy.  Sometimes children will not like you making sure that you know about God and about how following Him leads to perfect happiness.  And, to a certain extent, we can’t control how children end up.  But parents are responsible for doing all that they can to help their children grow in the faith through prayer, Bible reading, instruction, and even discipline to help children grow in virtue.  From the second you have your child baptized, you acknowledge that your child is “on-loan” to you from God, and God will want to collect on that loan with interest.  God doesn’t want your child to remain a child in the faith, but to grow to adulthood in his or her relationship with God.  That is the interest God expects on what He entrusts to you.
    So please, by all means, care for your family members: your spouse, your children, your parents, your siblings.  But do so recognizing that they are not primarily yours.  We cannot be toddlers when it comes even to our families and say “mine” all the time.  To paraphrase St. Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians, you are not your own.  You belong to Christ, and Christ to God the Father.  May we each find ways of offering our family to God each day, and helping them get to our true home in heaven.

Seeking the Lost

 Third Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  I think that we all have had moments like the woman who lost her coin.  It may not have been for money, but I’m willing to be we have all had those times when we are looking for something, we can’t find it, and our mind won’t rest until we do find it.  So we tear the house apart looking for our lost item.  I would remind you that St. Anthony of Padua is a great resource when we have lost something.
    How amazing is it that our God tells us that He is like that woman, searching for us like she searches for a lost coin?!  Of course, unlike coins, we can move ourselves away.  I suppose the metaphor for us would be more like searching for a small frog that likes hopping around the house.  After all, it’s not like we get put somewhere and just stay there.  When we’re lost, it’s because we’ve walked away from God.
    But God keeps coming after us.  He never gives up on us.  Even if we try to run far away from Him, He is always right there behind us, beckoning us back, like a parent of a toddler whose child tries to run away, while the parent never lets the toddler out of his sight or reach.  This devotion to us makes sense only with the logic of love, in the same way that a shepherd going after one lost sheep and leaves the ninety-nine.  The math doesn’t add up, unless one is calculating with love.
    But, as we are called to be those disciples, that is meant to be our mentality, too.  As followers of Christ, God calls us to go after the lost sheep who have wandered away, or even the sheep who have not been part of Christ’s flock, but whom God desires to be one of His own.  This is one way that we live out the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, and admonish the sinner.  
    When we do this, it must be with love.  God is love, and so if we wish to draw others to Him, we will only be successful to the degree that we counsel, instruct, and admonish with love.  To tell someone that it’s stupid to question the faith, or to condemn someone’s ignorance, or to yell at someone for something wrong that he or she has done does is not to seek after a lost sheep, but to hunt for one with a rifle; is to trash a house while searching for the lost coin.  
    I know that sounds obvious, but when we love the faith and treasure our relationship with God, as I know we do, it can seem painful to us when that is rejected.  It’s like parents who are so hurt when a child rejects what they say that they discipline in anger, rather than out of love.  Sometimes disciplining in anger, not is love, is not even intended, but it happens.  And so, when we know we’re going to talk to someone who disagrees with us on the faith, or is questioning something near and dear to us, or maybe has left a life of virtue for a life of sin, we should pray for that gentleness of Christ, and to show our love, even when correction is necessary.
    When we counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, and admonish the sinner, we also imitate God when we not only acknowledge, but respect, a person’s free will.  Love never forces itself on another.  It always respects the other person’s freedom.  As Bonnie Rait sang, “I can’t make you love me if you don’t.”  We cannot force another person to see the light.  This is especially frustrating, and I know I have metaphorically banged my head on the wall when there’s someone who doesn’t see how their actions are leading them away from God, or hurting themselves, or, most often, some form of both.  It’s especially hard when it’s someone who is close to us, perhaps a family member or dear friend, who doesn’t see the lies that they’re buying.  

    The analogy that comes to mind is fromthe movie “The Return of the King,” when Samwise, Frodo, and Gollum are climbing the stairs of Cirith Ungol.  Gollum has been poisoning Frodo’s mind to suggest that Sam will try to take the One Ring away and will hurt Frodo.  Gollum then, while Frodo and Sam are sleeping, throws away their food supply, and when Sam awakes to see this happening, starts attacking Gollum.  But Frodo takes Gollum’s side, and sends Sam, who has been nothing but loyal to Frodo, away.  Sin darkens our minds, and doesn’t let us see clearly the pain that we are causing.  And often we don’t see that until we’re snapped out of it through recognizing how bad things have gotten, just as Frodo finally realizes that Sam has been his friend and the one who has truly helped him when Gollum leads Frodo into the lair of the giant spider-like creature, Shelob, so that Shelob can kill Frodo and Gollum can take the ring.  
    Because God desires the lost with a great passion, that should be our passion, too.  As we hear about all the fallen-away Catholics, think of the great numbers our parish could swell to if we were able to bring back even a percentage of those who have strayed.  Pray for those who are away, especially if you’re going to talk to them later.  Pray to both your own and the other person’s guardian angel to protect the conversation from any outside diabolical influence.  Pray for that love of God to be communicated in what you say and how you say it.  Pray to be as convincing as possible, while also respecting the other person’s freedom.  And then pray afterwards that the words you have spoken will be confirmed by the Holy Spirit and that the same Holy Spirit will open that person’s heart to the truth and love of God.  In that way, we will be like our God, who desires not the death of the sinner, but that he repent and live.  In that way we will be like the one who searches for us when we sin, God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Gollum

 Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gollum (aka Smeagol)

    Many of you know how much I love the “Lord of the Rings” Trilogy.  And in the Trilogy there is an intriguing character named Gollum (also called Smeagol).  When he was younger he went by the name Smeagol, and he was one of the river folk, not unlike a hobbit.  But then he killed his brother, who had found the Ring of Power (an evil talisman), and then was banished to live on his own.  During this exile, he used the name Gollum, reflecting his change from a good-hearted lad to a man closed in on his desire for the Ring.  Eventually Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, takes the ring from him, which he later gives to his nephew, Frodo.  Gollum, still closed in on his desire for the Ring, which he treasures above all things, seeks out Frodo to take the Ring back.
    J.R.R. Tolkien, the author, was a man throughly surrounded by his Catholic faith.  And so you see signs of the Catholicism throughout his work, and the screen adaptations that followed much later.  The Ring, as something evil, can be seen as a cross, as Frodo, who is one Christ-figure, carries it to Mount Doom.  Gollum can easily be understood as what happens when one closes oneself in on evil desires and on oneself.  
    I bring this up because in our Gospel today, Jesus cures a deaf man with a speech impediment.  Imagine being deaf and mute during the time of Jesus: it was a life in many ways, closed in on oneself, not because of sin, but because of the lack of ability to communicate in any great way with the outside world.  Indeed, it is the man’s friends who bring him to Jesus.  And Jesus, to heal him, says to the man, “‘Be opened!’”  Jesus opens this man up to new life, especially physically, as his ears are opened and his speech impediment removed, but even interiorly, to the life of grace.  
    God wants us to be open to His grace and His life which He desires would flow through us like a spring of water.  The life of grace irrigates the desert of life that is ours when we are closed in on ourselves and our desire for sin.  Grace makes us more alive, and allows us to interact with the world in new and spectacular ways.
    Tolkien depicts this in the person of Gollum.  As Gollum tries to steal the Ring, Frodo catches him, and slowly wins Gollum’s trust, even calling him by his old name, Smeagol.  As this happens, Smeagol is re-created, and becomes not a wretched, hacking despicable creature, but a joyful, fun, and even serving individual.  Even Frodo’s choice of a new name, really the original name, is a return to Smeagol’s original youth and innocence, before he was corrupted by the evil Ring and turned in on himself.  Frodo, again, a Christ-figure, is the one who frees Smeagol from his past darkness and restores him to the light.
    Sin turns us toward ourselves and away from God.  While we have a specific sin of selfishness, every sin is selfish.  Love is selfless, and so as we serve God we become less concerned about ourselves and more concerned about others.  Sin, which is opposed to God, is therefore opposed to love of others and cares only for the self, which makes one a shadow of how God created us, and exiles us from God, from others, and even from our true self.  Think about any sin, and you can see the effects of selfishness in it.  Greed is fairly obvious, and we care more for money than God; pride is where we care more for ourselves than for God and others; hatred is where we are more concerned with our injuries caused by others and getting back at them (thus, making us feel good because we got our revenge), rather than being concerned about forgiving the others; lust seeks to use the other person for our own sexual desires and pleasure, whether that person physically close to us or on a screen.  Even smaller sins like gossip are about making sure that we are in control of a narrative, or even that we attempt to make ourselves look better by putting others down.  In all those sins and more, we are closed in on ourselves rather than being open, first and foremost to God, and then also to the people He loves, our fellow human beings.
    Jesus wants to open us up.  He desires a fuller life for us than we can provide when we only concentrate on ourselves.  But the choice to accept God’s grace to open rests with us.  God’s grace always does the first and most important work, but our response is also part of the process.  We have to come to God, or our friends need to bring us to Him.  
    But Smeagol also serves as a good warning, that this process of being opened to God is not a once-for-all event; the choice to allow God to open us is a choice we need to make every day.  Smeagol, who later (wrongly) feels betrayed by Frodo, reverts to his old self.  He turns back in on himself and on his desire for the evil Ring consumes him again, eventually leading to his demise.  So for us, each day we have the choice to open ourselves to God or not; to be a desert and burning sands, or a stream and spring of water.  Ephphatha!  Be opened!