Captain Jack Sparrow's Compass

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    When the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie came out in 2003, I was a bit skeptical.  How could you make a good movie based upon a ride at Disney World?  But, the movie was quite good, and led to a number of even decent sequels following (some better than others).

    One of the main characters is Captain Jack Sparrow (played by Johnny Depp), who is a pirate.  He always seems to get in and out of the oddest types of trouble through the strangest set of circumstances.  His goal, especially in the first movie, is to get back his beloved ship, the Black Pearl, of which he was mutinied when he was commanding.  To aid him, he has a strange compass, which doesn’t point north.  It’s not until later that we learn that this compass always points to what his heart desires most, which makes it a little complicated when he falls in love with one of the female leads, Elizabeth Swan (played by Keira Knightley). 
    Jesus today in the Gospel talks about the kingdom of heaven as a great treasure, or a pearl of great price.  Once a person finds it, they give up everything in order to have it.  To those in the parables, the compass would have pointed to heaven (if that were possible).  There is something about heaven that makes it worth everything else that we have. 
    And in some sense, we all probably can intellectually agree with that evaluation.  Heaven is eternal happiness with God.  We no longer experience pain, sorrow, death, or any of the fallen realities of this life.  We see God face to face, and God, who is love, surrounds us and embraces us eternally.  We worship God in His majesty with all those who are saints, whether canonized or known only to God.  That sounds pretty good.
    And yet, like Captain Jack Sparrow, the compasses that reflect the desires of our hearts, do not always point to heaven, but sometimes go every which way.  Perhaps we feel that no one else knows about the treasure in the field, so we figure we can do some other things before getting back to the treasure.  Or we tell the pearl merchant to hold the pearl on lay-away, and will come back some other time to pick-it up.  But we start to value other things ahead of heaven, and we chase after those these, even when we’re not sure what we will find, or if it’s even worth it.

    Part of our call as disciples is to ever-purify our desire for heaven.  I think the last time I preached on this Gospel I referenced the Kenny Chesney song that sings, “Everybody wants to go to heaven / but nobody wants to go now.”  Whether we’re parents training our kids, or simply training ourselves, we have an important role in making sure that we’re fixed on the trail of heaven, like a bloodhound seeking out an escaped convict, or Captain Jack Sparrow looking for his beloved ship. 
    Sometimes, the call to make sure that we’re on the road to heaven means ignoring the other sirens (Greek mythology, not emergency alerting devices) that call to us, and seem very attractive, but actually lead to destruction and death.  There are so many things that we, as followers of Christ, do not need to see or hear, because they lead us away from God.  Of course, we like to think that we are stronger than we are, that we can handle those sirens without being led astray.  But more often than not, we’re weak, and we will run headlong to destruction given the chance.
    At other times, we cannot avoid things that distract us from heaven, because they are all around us, and so we train ourselves to remember just how precious heaven is, or focus on other things that will not lead us astray.  I remember being in college seminary, which was on the campus of a small, Catholic, liberal arts co-ed campus.  As soon as it started to warm up in Minnesota, the college girls would bring out their towels and soak up the sun in the quad.  Our priests would sometimes remind us that, as we walked to class on those warm, sunny days, it was often good to examine just how beautiful the sidewalk could be, how many cracks were there, what weeds were popping up through the concrete, etc., just so that we wouldn’t be tempted to take that second, interested, lustful, sinful look. 
    Our hearts are often a mixed bag.  Age has a way of purifying that which we desire.  Older people tend to be quite serious about where they are going after they die.  But God doesn’t promise us that we will reach 80 or 90 years.  He promises to give us sufficient grace each day to say yes to heaven, and then we, in response, have to decide if we want to accept that grace or not.    Yes, at church, if we had Captain Jack Sparrow’s compass, our hearts would (hopefully) point to heaven.  But our goal is that the compass always points to heaven, not just for an hour on Sundays.  May we truly recognize how precious heaven is (and how sad and easy it can be to lose heaven), and have the strength to give up lesser realities and lesser desires for the eternal happiness of heaven.

From the Heart

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            In case there are any guys out there who are not otherwise prepared and have not gotten flowers or made reservations for dinner, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.  It’s a day that we focus, in one sense on love, but in another sense, on the heart.  From the very earliest days that we celebrate this holiday in school, hearts are important to this day.  We make hearts out of red paper and doilies.  We might give those little card-stock Valentine’s Day cards that say, “You’re My Valentine” with little hearts on it.  We might even give out Sweethearts candy with cute sayings like, “Be mine” or “True Love.” 

            The heart is also important in our Gospel today.  This passage is part of the Sermon on the Mount, the same place where Jesus gave us the Beatitudes, like “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”  At this point, Jesus gives us a law, not new, but the fulfillment of the Law that God gave to the Israelites on Mount Sinai.  This fulfillment of the law does not abolish the old, but as Jesus says, fulfills it.

            And this law has a lot to do with the heart.  Whereas in the Law given on Mount Sinai, certain acts were condemned, like murder and adultery, Jesus tells us that those acts stem from something much deeper.  They stem from the heart.

            Because long before the act of murder takes place, there is a hatred that stems from the heart.  And so, in the Kingdom of God, where all people live as God desires, not only murder must not happen, but even unrighteous anger, so that one person no longer says to another, “raqa,” which means in Aramaic, “empty-headed”; we might translate it colloquially as, “moron.”  If we are harboring a grudge against another who has wronged us, or even if someone has done nothing to us but we still harbor hatred towards them, then we are not living according to the Kingdom, and we might even be endangering our place in that kingdom. 

            The same goes for adultery.  Long before a person has sex with a person who is married to another, the desire to do so is in the heart.  So, Jesus tells us, using a man as an example (ladies, don’t feel that you’re off the hook when it comes to looking at men), when a man looks at a woman with lust, he “‘has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’”  The objectifying of another person as an object of sexual pleasure starts the person down a path which could lead to the sin of adultery, and begins not when the couple “hooks up,” but when the desires are unchecked in the heart.  Again, this is not what God intended for the human heart, and already shows a departure from the way that life is supposed to be in the Kingdom.  The human person is never an object to fulfill a need, but is a subject with inestimable dignity because he or she was created in the image and likeness of God.  This is why, as shocking as the teaching is, soon-to-be-Blessed Pope John Paul II could say that the sin of lust could occur even with a married couple, if one or both of the spouses was simply looking at or using the other spouse as an object of pleasure.

            This can seem really hard.  The bar is certainly set very high for us.  But, by the grace of God, this is possible.  And the payoff is literally “out of this world!”  As our first reading tells us, “If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; [God] has set before you fire and water…life and death, good and evil, whichever [a person] chooses shall be given him.” 

            By ourselves we cannot keep the fulfillment of the Law that Jesus gives us.  There are too many times when we are drawn to anger: when someone cuts us off while driving; when a co-worker gossips about us; when a professor gives us a lower grade than we believe we deserve on an exam, paper, or project.  It is in these moments, and all those when we feel the onset of deep anger and hatred that we need to turn to the Lawgiver Himself, Jesus, and ask for his grace that we might be able to have His peace and cast out that hatred from our hearts so that it does not poison us and lead to other hateful acts.

            There are too many times in our very sensual culture when we are exposed to images of a human person with barely a fig-leaf on; when a salacious add pops up on the computer; when internet pornography is just a click away; when a movie adds a steamy sex scene.  It is in these moments that we need to turn to Jesus to ask Him for His grace to keep our hearts and minds pure so that we do not dwell on those thoughts and passions, and then have those passions develop into actions with others or by oneself. 

            The great news, too, is that if we should fall in a major way with anger or with lust, we have a loving God who will welcome us back if we are truly sorry and will forgive our sins through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  That even if we break the fulfillment of the Law that Jesus gives us, because of His death and resurrection, we can come back into a good relationship with the Lawgiver, against whom we have sinned. 

Part of the way we express our hearts at the Mass is by how we greet each other.  In November, the greeting dialogues will change a little, but will remain, as they are now, a way of expressing the peace that we need to have before offering our gift at the altar of God.  As the priest, the person who acts in persona Christi capitis, in the person of Christ the Head, I offer you in the name of Christ, God, in whose name Jesus came, as I will say, “The Lord be with you.”  No change there.  Or, from time to time, expanding on what I am giving you as I greet you in the name of Christ, I might say, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all,” expressing the gift of the Trinity, based upon 2 Corinthians 13:13.  Not much different.  But, your response will change slightly, reflecting the words of 2 Timothy 4:22, and will be, “And with your spirit.”  All of this is simply to prepare our hearts to receive the Word of God and the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

Christ has set the bar very high.  He has commanded us examine our hearts to see where our love truly is.  But if our hearts are configured to Jesus’ heart, then we know that we have eternal life waiting for us.  Let us lift up our hearts to the Lord, that our hearts will lead us to act justly and lovingly towards others, and so fulfill the Law that Christ has given us.