Evaluating with Catholic Wisdom

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    When I became a chaplain for the Michigan State Police, I learned very quickly that State Troopers have a different way of thinking of things.  Troopers generally will sit facing the door, and will often evaluate the room for potential threats.  Because they see so many horrible things, they tend to have a very dark sense of humor as a coping mechanism.  But they really do have a different way of thinking of things from the average citizen because of their training and experience.
    While we are not Troopers (though we do have one or two who come here from time to time), as Catholics we should have a particular point of view.  There is a certain way that we should look at the world which is not simply based upon our own experience or training, but based upon the wisdom of God.  We hear about that prayer for wisdom in our first reading; about a wisdom that comes from the Word of God in our second reading, the Word of God that is not a wisdom from a thousand years ago, but a wisdom that is living and effective; and in our Gospel the Lord talks about a wisdom that goes beyond a surface reading of the Law, to a deeper, full gift of self from an individual.  
    That is why we should talk about our Catholic faith, not so much as a group to which we belong, but rather a way of life that we live each day, to the best of our ability, following Christ and, as St. Paul says, Christ living in me.  Yes, there are a set of beliefs that we have, without which we cannot honestly refer to ourselves as Catholics, but it’s more than just things that we take into our minds.  Being Catholic involves allowing God to transform us and the choices we make by His grace, so that all of our life reflects choices that make sense based upon Jesus, whom we follow.

    And while we are probably sick of hearing political commercials, or getting texts about how this candidate or that candidate is a threat to democracy and will ruin our country for decades to come, I thought it would help to applying this theme of Catholic wisdom to a very important choice we have before us even right now, if we’re voting absentee, or in November if we go to the physical polls.  I promise you that I do not intend to endorse or reject any particular candidate or party.  That’s not what we do as the Catholic Church.  We do our best to inform you of the issues, to help you take in the wisdom of God, so that you can live that wisdom not only in the church on Sundays and holydays, but so that you can live that wisdom of God, based upon His Revelation, the Word of God, in every aspect of your life, including your political views.
    One of the first priorities of the Catholic Church is the dignity of every human life.  This is very counter-cultural.  Voters in Michigan, including, sadly, many Catholics, and voters across various political parties across the US treat human life based upon whether it has value to us or not.  But if we are truly living with the wisdom of God active in our life, we value every human life: the infant in the womb; the poor person on the street; the person who looks like she has it all together; the dying elderly person in a nursing home; and everything in-between.  Every other right flows from the dignity of the human being and his or her right to life.  If you can get rid of a human being because it has no value to you, then no other policy makes any difference because they all assume that every person is alive and treasured as a creation in the image and likeness of God.  So how does my vote support life?
    A second priority that comes from our Catholic wisdom is solidarity.  Solidarity means that we recognize that we are part of a human family.  Now, I don’t mean this in a secular humanist way, like the only thing which should unite us are the lowest common denominators.  Rather, solidarity says that, because Christ has died for every person, the other person has a right to my care and concern.  So how does my vote support a worldview where I am my brother’s keeper?
    A third priority that should influence all that we do, including our politics, is subsidiarity.  While we are all united to each other in solidarity, we do not have equal authority over everything.  Subsidiarity says that the smallest institution that can deal with responsibilities should do so, and larger institutions should only intervene when the smaller institution cannot adequately provide solutions on their own.  I’ll take education as one example.  The institution that should have the most say over its own life is the family.  But sometimes families cannot do everything on their own, so they rely on school districts to help them educate their child.  But sometimes even an individual district cannot provide for its own needs, so the State perhaps gathers money from everyone to support every district.  And maybe even in a few cases there are things that the State cannot do, so they turn to the federal government for guidance and funding in limited ways.  But the federal government shouldn’t set particular lesson plans for individual teachers in individual schools.  Likewise, we rely on the federal government for national defense, and that’s not something we rely on only one family to achieve national safety, though we do rely on other intermediate groups between the family and the federal government for local and State safety.  So when we vote, are we considering if a particular candidate or party respects subsidiarity and does not encourage infringement by larger institutions that which can be done by a smaller institution, even as small as the family?
    Lastly, living and voting based upon the wisdom of God calls us to consider the common good.  We live in a very selfish culture, where I predominately consider what is in my best interest.  Instead, God calls us to look beyond ourselves and consider others and what is best for them, not just what is good for us.  When I vote, am I thinking beyond what works best for me, and considering what works best for others?

    What do we do if we cannot find a candidate who fulfills all of these?  We do our best to choose the candidate or party who most fully supports these four main categories, as long as we do not choose a candidate because of an evil that he or she supports.  
    In all areas of our life, including our political life, we should live according to the wisdom of God, not the wisdom of the world.  When we live only according to our own wisdom, we limit ourselves to what our own minds can design and imagine.  When we live according to the wisdom of God, we tap into the guidance that comes from the Creator of all the universe, whom nothing can limit.  May we bring that wisdom with us to the voting booth, and to each part of our life every day.

True Dichotomy

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  So often we’re nudged in the direction of a false dichotomy.  That phrase, false dichotomy, might sound foreign, might even sound like an obscure body part, but it’s the wrong assertion that there are only two choices.  For example, a person might say, “You have to vote for a Republican or a Democrat,” when, in fact, there are other political parties for whom you can vote.  Or, less weighty, you have to decide whether or not you can put pineapple on pizza.  As I tend to be the pop culture reference guy, it’s like Anakin in “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” saying to Obi Wan, “‘If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.’” 

    But not all dichotomies are false.  Scripture, and especially our epistle today, talks about the dichotomy between sin and grace, death and life.  Sin brings death, grace brings life.  And St. Paul talks about the Romans had previously been slaves to sin and death, but now were raised to life through grace, “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 
    But this is not just St. Paul.  It’s the overarching theme in the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation.  In Genesis, after God creates everything good, culminating in the creation of man and woman in His image, our first parents have life.  They are living in the grace of God.  But then, Eve, followed by Adam, disobey God; they sin.  And by sinning, they welcome death into the world.  They are expelled from the Garden of Eden, and separated from the Tree of Life, so that they experience death. 
    And so throughout Genesis, we see that when evil is allowed to fester, it leads to death.  Think of the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  But, when people follow God, they find life.  Think of Abram leaving Ur because God calls him to go to Canaan, and then becoming Abraham, the father of many nations.  The same could be said for Exodus, where God leads His people from slavery to sin in Egypt to freedom in following His law in the Promised Land.  Of course, throughout the journey, some disobey God, and they find death.  While others, like Joshua and Caleb, follow God, even when unpopular, and they enter the Promised Land.
    This same overarching theme repeats itself in the Books of Joshua and Judges, and then with the Kings of Israel.  The prophetic books are basically warnings from God through His prophets to live according to God’s will, because if they continue in their sin, they will die.  This culminates in the dispersion of the Northern Kingdom of Israel after they start worshiping false gods and oppressing those for whom God has a special love: widows and orphan; and the exile of the Southern Kingdom of Judah to Babylon after they, too, engage in idolatry and mistreatment of the poor and vulnerable.
    Of course, nowhere does this dichotomy appear clearer than with our Lord, who calls Himself, “‘the Way and the Truth and the Life.’”  To follow Him is to have life; to reject Him is to choose death.  The Savior even takes our rejection and the consequence of that rejection–death–upon Himself in His crucifixion, but because He was faithful to God He rises on the third day.  And the rest of the New Testament unpacks that choice between life and death, and helps those who follow the Lord to know what choosing life looks like to the nascent Church.  The Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul’s epistles, the epistles of St. Peter, St. Jude, and St. John all talk about how we can have eternal life and reject the death of sin.
    And at the end of the Bible in the Book of Revelation, we see the cosmic battle between good and evil, a battle that God wins convincingly.  But the Spirit also warns the churches that they have to continue to follow God to have that life.  It was not enough to choose life once or earlier; life must be chosen each day.  In the end, sin and death are defeated forever, and the fullness of the reign of God shines forth, with eternal life for those who remained faithful (and eternal punishment for those who rejected God).
    So which do we choose: life or death?  By our fruits, Christ tells us, you can tell what we choose.  Each time we sin, especially grave sins, we invite death into our lives.  Each time we follow God, we invite eternal life into our lives.  Indeed, though we often think of the judgment as Christ telling us where to go, either to Hell, or to Purgatory or Heaven, really we make that choice each day of our lives.  While the just are surprised that they served Christ through service to the poor, and the wicked are likewise surprised that they ignored Christ through ignoring the poor, they knew that they had served or ignored the poor.  In that way, their salvation or damnation was not a surprise, because they knew their choices, and whether or not they choose to do follow what God had instructed for eternal life.  Sometimes it was one act of following the Lord at the end of one’s life, like St. Dismas, the good thief, who received paradise for his defense of Christ crucified.  At other times it was more choices for the Lord, with some rejections sprinkled in, like St. Peter.  Or, in a negative sense, one great act of betrayal from Judas led him to despair of any chance of salvation.  But Dismas nor Peter nor Judas was ignorant of the choices they made and how each could affect eternal salvation.
    So where will we come out in this great drama and battle between life and death?  By baptism Christ claimed us for Himself and eternal life, and gives us the grace to stay faithful to the choices of life each day.  Each day the enemy works to enslave us once more to death.  Neither Christ nor the devil chooses for us.  We choose if we want death or life.  Praised be to God who gives us all the graces necessary so that we can accept the gift that salvation is, won for us by Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever. 
    

Connected to God

 Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
    I greatly appreciate all of your prayers, emails, messages, posts, and offers to help when I was in quarantine due to COVID.  It is a beautiful thing to have a parish family come together in prayer and assistance when another member of the family is struggling.  I know that we have some parishioners who are still going through COVID, some with very strong strains, so let’s make sure that we’re keeping them in prayer and doing what we can to help them, as well.
    I was very happy that my case of COVID was very mild, and I never lost my sense of taste.  The hardest part for me, though, was being on my own, without the usual face-to-face contact with the outside world.  I was well-stocked with food, but a few parishioners dropped off food after a reception at St. Matthew for Fr. Jeff’s Mass of Thanksgiving, or a funeral luncheon that took place at St. Pius X.  It was a beautiful thing even just to see their faces through a door or window.  You would think, living on my own, that I would be used to alone time.  But most of my vocation is dealing with others, and having personal contact with others, which is something of which I was deprived, for the health and safety of others, during my time of quarantine.

    As we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, we look to our own baptisms, quite naturally.  Do you know the date of your baptism?  Do you know where you were baptized?  Baptism washes us clean of original sin, and makes us sons and daughters in the Son of God, which also makes us members of the Church.  By baptism, we are connected to God by a bond which not even death can sever.  By baptism, we are sealed as belonging to God, and will be baptized no matter where we go after death.  
    But we are connected to God through Baptism.  And so, even in the midst of our physical separation from others, we are always connected to God, and, therefore, always connected to everyone else connected to God.  Because of baptism, God carries us in His arms, like a shepherd, and can feed us, not by dropping off food at our front door, but with His love and His grace, which is truly His life.
    This is part of the “kindness and generous love of God our savior,” that St. Paul talks about in the second reading from his letter to Titus.  And it is, “Not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy.”  God does not need us.  God lacks nothing without us, or without any part of His Creation.  And yet He chooses to connect us to Himself through baptism and shower His love, His grace, His truth, His life down upon us so that we can truly be happy, so that we might be “a people as his own.”
    And if we are God’s people, then our response to such a love is “to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our…savior Jesus Christ.”  If God has held nothing back from us, not even His Only-Begotten Son, then what can we hold back from God?  If, when we were baptized, the Holy Spirit came upon us and made us adopted sons and daughters in the “beloved Son” of God, then our response is to do our best to live in a way that shows that we belong to God.  
    I talk a lot about sharing the Gospel with others, and we need to.  Words matter.  Words about Jesus matter.  Others need to hear the Gospel, and withholding that from them is not acting in accord with who we are as children of God, who want others to have the same connection to God that we have through baptism.  
    At the same time, people should know that we are Catholic by the way that we live our life.  What we say, how we drive, how we treat people, where we spend our money: all of that should show that we are connected to God.  That’s one of the things that has always attracted people to Catholicism throughout the centuries.  The early Romans saw how women and children, and slaves were not treated as property by Catholics, but brothers and sisters.  Barbarians noted the peace that Catholics had even in the midst of great trials and sufferings.  Pagans would see how Catholics would care for the poor, without expecting anything in return.  And even in our recent times, we can think about how much difference St. Theresa of Calcutta made by caring for those who were untouchables, those whom society had thrown off as garbage.      Through baptism we are connected to God, not as slaves, but as adopted children.  Through baptism, God claims us as His own.  Let’s make it our aim to strengthen those bonds each day through prayer, and let others see, by what we say and do, that we belong, that we are connected, to God.