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. 

Catholic Diversity

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            If there is one value that modern-Americans hold dear, I think the virtue would certainly be diversity.  We don’t want to be the same.  We want variety.  After all, it’s the spice of life!  We want everyone to feel welcome.  In fact, we take diversity to an extreme by mandating that no one can say another person is wrong, or that his or her choices are bad.  Otherwise we lose diversity.  In some countries, like Canada, even simply calling certain actions and lifestyles bad can get one thrown in jail for “hate-speech,” and can get one branded as a bigot.

            So today’s readings probably seem strange to us.  Why all this attention on foreigners?  What’s the big deal?  Doesn’t God love everyone, no matter what?  Why does Isaiah make such a big deal about the Gentiles, that is, any non-Jew, ministering to the Lord, loving His Name, and becoming His servant?  Why does St. Paul say that he ministers to the Gentiles “in order to make my race jealous and thus save some of them”?  Why is Jesus so mean to the woman who simply wants her daughter freed from the torment of a demon?  Why this talk of, “‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’”? 

            We have to remember that God didn’t call every nation to Himself at first.  He chose Israel, the Jews, as a nation “peculiarly his own” as Deuteronomy says, with the word that is so hard to pronounce.  Deuteronomy continues that it was not because the Jews were the largest, or the wisest, or the fiercest nation on earth that they were chosen.  Rather, it was because they were the smallest, the weakest nation on earth that God chose them.  Why?  Why choose the smallest to begin salvation history?  Why not choose other nations at the same time?  To be honest, we don’t know.  That is only known in the mind of God.  It is the mystery of divine election.  All we can do is have faith in a loving and omniscient God and know that His choice is always for the best.  And it doesn’t simply have to do with salvation.  Why did God allow you married couples to marry each other?  Why not someone else?  Why did God give you the children that He did, with all their gifts and talents and their shortcomings?  We don’t know.  We simply worship the God who is Love and pure Wisdom itself.

            But getting back to salvation, God reveals through Isaiah and St. Paul and Jesus that even though He chose a particular nation as His own, that nation was called to invite others into the special relationship with God, the covenant.  The Jews were not supposed to be elitists.  They were supposed to bring the blessings of a right relationship with God to the other nations so that they might be joined to this nation that God chose and also receive His blessings.  But the Jews, time and time again, did not even value their special relationship with God, and rather than inviting the other nations into their relationship with God, chose to turn to pagan gods, no-gods really, and make themselves one with the other nations.  And so, as St. Paul says, because of the disobedience of the Jews, the Gentiles are able to be grafted onto the tree of Israel through Jesus, who made the two one, and share in the joys of a right relationship with God, receiving the same mercy that God first showed to Israel. 

Jesus does this with the Canaanite woman.  He tests her faith to see if she has the faith which Israel is supposed to have.  We may not like the words, but those words, spoken from God Himself, are the exact words which allow the woman to say that “‘even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.’”  Even Gentiles should be receiving the overflow of love that God has poured upon Israel.  And, based upon her faith, the requirement of every action of God in a person’s life, including our own, the woman’s daughter is freed from possession.

We as a nation, “enlightened” as we are, celebrate diversity.  For too many it is the good upon which all other goods are based.  This is the extreme, and extreme which is not virtuous but actually vicious.  When we condemn those who speak out against people doing evil deeds because that’s just the way they are; we need their variety in order to be truly diverse, we pervert the idea of proper diversity, which only welcomes all that is good.  We welcome every person, but not everything that person might do.

On the other hand, we go the other extreme when we feel like it and try to judge when we have “enough” diversity.  Recently, Bishop Boyea joined with the other bishops of Michigan in  support of immigrants and undocumented persons.  While recognizing the legitimacy of a nation to protect its borders and keep out those who seek to do it harm, the reality of the situation is that there are thousands of people who have never known anything else but life in the United States, even though they or their parents may have arrived here illegally.  Most of these people are not drug dealers or criminals, but very helpful members of society who pay taxes and often take jobs than many other natural-born Americans choose not to take: the dirty jobs, if you will.  And yet there is a real push to deport all those who entered the country illegally to be deported, even if that means that it separates a family, or causes American citizens who are children to be sent back to their parents’ mother countries.  The bishops and I are not saying that we have all the answers.  But we do have to ensure that whatever our actions at a national and State level, they respect the dignity of the human person, the right of a family to be united, and the proper diversity that immigrants bring to our nation.  Any serious student of the history of the Catholic Church in American recognizes that we are a community of immigrants, some who came legally, others who came illegally, and who were not welcome on these shores by many of the Americans who came before us.  We were not the kind of “diversity” that the Americans of that day wanted. 

God’s love is poured upon His Chosen People, both Israel of old, and the new Israel, the Church, who has been grafted on to the olive tree of God.  But that love is meant to be poured out upon others so that they, too, will experience the joy, the love, the warmth of a right relationship to God through the Body of Christ, the Church.  Let us truly be Catholics, not just in name but in deed, so that, while not welcoming any action or deed that is morally wrong, we welcome every person to join with us in the properly diverse, that is, catholic, Church that is our family.