Year C 2nd Sunday of Lent

Readings: Gen 15:5-12.17-18; Ps 27:1.7-9.13-14; Phil. 3:20-4:1; Lk 9:28b-36

Transfiguration is a big word. Big words seem to intimidate us and so obscure the meaning of what is being communicated. So, it is important for us to realize that nowhere in today’s Gospel do we encounter the word transfiguration. Instead, we hear that Jesus "took Peter, John, and James… up the mountain to pray" and "while he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white" (Lk. 9:28b-29). Transfiguration means nothing other than being changed. The change God seeks to bring about in us through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit is not just in appearance, it goes far deeper, as St. Paul indicates in our second reading when he writes that Christ "will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself" (Phil. 3:21).

This leads us to ask the question, what is the power that enables the Lord to subject all things to himself? Is it the power of almighty God to bend all things to his holy will by hook or by crook? If Jesus is the revelation of God, we can automatically rule out that answer, not because God is not all-powerful- omnipotent, to use another big word- but that Jesus never does that, ever! The power that enables Jesus Christ to subject all things to himself, which is the power that created and redeemed the world, and is now at work conforming our lowly bodies with his glorified body, is love, which is given as grace, a free gift to all who accept it.

It is clear from St. Luke’s account that the three disciples were not sure what they experienced. This is different from not knowing what they had seen. They saw Jesus’ appearance change, his clothes become dazzling white, and they saw Moses and Elijah, who represent the Law and the prophets, respectively. Their response was silence, as was Abram’s. In both instances perception is enhanced by the obscuring of their senses. Abram, Peter, John, and James knew what they had seen and what they had heard, but it was only in the silence of their hearts and through subsequent experience that they came to understand what it meant.

We talk about Lent as a time of baptismal renewal in preparation for Easter because it was through our baptism that Christ began his work in us, conforming us to himself. What happens in baptism? Well, like Abram’s encounter with God and the disciples witnessing Jesus’ changing in appearance and his conversing with Moses and Elijah, more than we could ever say, write, think, feel, or paint. When we bless water to use for baptism, the celebrant prays that "all who are buried with Christ in the death of baptism [may] rise also with him to newness of life" (RCIA, par. 311). Death, then, is how Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, changes our lowly bodies "to conform with his glorified body." The first and most obvious effect of our dying, being buried, and rising to new life in baptism is that we become members of Christ’s body, the church.


It is by passing through death to new life that Christ conforms us to himself. We began Lent on Ash Wednesday by being marked with ashes in the shape of the cross with the words, "Remember you are dust and to dust you will return." These words were spoken by God in Genesis to our first parents after they were disobedient (3:19). Earlier in Genesis, God breathed life into the creature fashioned from the elements of the earth, in Christ Jesus, God gives us his Word, his very breath, which is not only life-giving, but the source of life! Indeed, cruciform is the shape anyone’s life takes who truly follows Christ.

Lent is about dying to ourselves, mortifying, that is, killing our sinful behaviors through penitential practices, which is how we cooperate with God, expressing our desire for that change he is bringing about in us, making us ever more who we already are, who we are created to be, which is not someone else, but our true self. We must not forget that Lent isn't an exercise in negativity. It is not a time, as Resurrectionist Fr. Harry Williams put in an Ash Wednesday homily many years ago, "to indulge in the secret and destructive pleasure of doing a good orthodox grovel to a pseudo-Lord, the Pharisee in each of us we call God and who despises the rest of what we are." Jesus Christ is not only proof that God loves us, he shows us how much God loves us. Hence, the means we use during Lent to willingly conform ourselves more to the Lord are all positive: prayer, fasting, and intentionally performing acts of charity daily and doing none of these things ostentatiously.

In thinking of death we must not evade the fact that someday we will die. Death, as philosopher Martin Heidegger observed, is the horizon against which we, as human beings, live our lives. This is captured well by the Latin phrase memento mori, which means remember death. The use of this phrase, appropriated by long ago Christians, pre-dates Christianity and is said to have been whispered in the ear of conquering Roman generals by a slave as the conqueror rode his chariot through Rome in a parade celebrating his conquest. So, my dear friends in Christ, let us gently remind ourselves and each other over the course of this Lent that we are, indeed, ashes and dust, but let us do so with an eye toward Easter and with the understanding that, in and through Christ Jesus and by the power of his Spirit, God accomplishes great things working with these materials, like bringing life from death because God is love and love is stronger than death.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

A queda de John Edwards: terá a imprensa o poder de vetar candidatos presidenciais?

Mais uma boa história do POLITICO.com, através de Michael Calderone, sobre a influência da pressão mediática na incrível queda de John Edwards:

«Over the past few weeks, the world has learned quite enough about John Edwards – from the lies he told in trying to cover up an adulterous affair to the compulsive vanity that left some people close to him questioning his judgment and even his grip on reality.


Democrats who seriously considered making Edwards the party’s 2008 presidential nominee could be forgiven for asking: Now you tell us?


The revelations about Edwards, contained in two best-selling books, have undermined one of the favorite conceits of political journalism, that the intensive scrutiny given candidates by reporters during a presidential campaign is an excellent filter to determine who is fit for the White House.


While the media “usually does well” in vetting candidates, said presidential historian Michael Beschloss, “Edwards is a good case” in which it didn’t.


And that failure is worrisome in a changed political world where politicians - be they Barack Obama or Sarah Palin - can burst upon the national stage and seemingly overnight become candidates for higher office.


The media, according to Beschloss, now has “a much bigger responsibility than it used to.” In the past, he said, the political establishment “would usually have known the candidate for a long time, and if there were big problems, they probably would have known about those, and tried to make sure those people wouldn’t be nominated.”


That did not happen with Edwards, even though as a Senator he had run for president once before, in 2004, ended up on the Democratic ticket as John Kerry’s running mate, and was a known quantity to many top Democrats.


In 2008, there were conversations among some Edwards staffers, according to “Game Change,” the new book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, about the responsibility of coming forward with what they knew about Edwards, perhaps leaking to the New York Times or Washington Post, if it looked like he might win the nomination. But there is no evidence they ever did.


Two stories by the National Enquirer that ran before Iowa described Edwards’s affair with Rielle Hunter. But the mainstream media went to sources within the Edwards campaign to try to confirm the stories and got nowhere. No one in the campaign would confirm them.


Those staffers are the ones who should be held accountable, Marc Ambinder wrote in response to the question he posed on The Atlantic’s website: “Should Edwards Aides Be Shamed And Blamed?”


“It’s your responsibility to quit the campaign and not enable it,” he wrote. “If you enable it, you are responsible in some ways for the fallout. Your loyalty isn’t an excuse for that.”


The failure to follow up aggressively on the reporting by the National Enquirer, which has nominated itself for a Pulitzer Prize for its Edwards coverage, has served as fodder for conservatives and others convinced the media has a double standard when it comes to vetting Democrats and Republicans.


"I feel sorry for the liberals who were duped by Edwards,” said Cliff Kincaid editor of the right-leaning watchdog organization Accuracy in Media. “They were the real victims of the failure to vet Edwards.”


“Now we know that Edwards was a phony in more ways than one,” Kincaid added. “Our media, especially progressives in the media, were in love with Edwards because of his liberal views. But he wasn't in love with them. He was in love with someone else—and it turns out it wasn't his wife.”


Not everyone agrees that the media completely dropped the ball, including a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, who might have had the most to gain from any Edwards disclosures.


“Edwards was pretty thoroughly vetted but there are limits to what the press can reasonably be expected to uncover, said Phil Singer, Clinton’s former deputy communications director, “and events that take place in the bedroom are probably at the top of that list.”


Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, said that there isn’t a “simple yes or no” answer when looking at whether Edwards was fully vetted. What news organizations can cover, he said, comes down to a question of resources.


“News organizations just don’t have the horsepower to go out when there’s fields of eight people in each party to do the level of vetting it would take to uncover that,” Lemann said of the Edwards affair.


And with numerous candidates in both parties to cover, it’s not surprising that news organizations largely ignored the report of a “love child” between Edwards and Hunter just a few weeks before the Iowa vote.


Still, simply because the media missed the affair doesn’t mean Edwards wasn’t given scrutiny as a candidate. Throughout 2007, there was a series of reports that undermined the image that Edwards had sought to project by contrasting his populist rhetoric and focus on poverty with the reality of a candidate with hedge fund ties and $400 haircuts.


“I thought we did a pretty good job back in ‘07,” said Washington Post reporter Alec MacGillis, “to the point where we were getting a lot of complaints from them.”


In April 2007, MacGillis and then-colleague John Solomon reported in a front page story how Edwards—who spoke of “two Americas” during the 2004 campaign—went to work for a hedge in October 2005. The Post story ran about a week after POLITICO’s Ben Smith reported on Edwards’s $400 haircuts at a top Beverly Hill stylist.


Then in August the Wall Street Journal reported that as an investor, “Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.” It damaged Edwards not only because of the campaign’s anti-poverty theme, but because he announced the presidential run from New Orleans.


Christopher Cooper, who reported the story for the Journal, said that the theme of his story and others in 2007 was that “he was not the man his politics suggested.” And Cooper noted that Edwards “was in a pretty deep fade by October,” when the first Enquirer report appeared.


But the campaign went on, and staffers—largely unaware of the truth about Edwards’ relationship with Hunter—continued batting away infidelity rumors. Several former Edwards staffers told POLITICO that without direct knowledge of an affair, they passed on misinformation that came down to them from the top.


“I was told that it was not true by John Edwards and by others,” said one former staffer. “I fought back against the story going beyond the Enquirer; I just stuck with what I knew to be the facts. I didn’t make moral arguments.”


Andrew Young, the former aide who described his own efforts to help Edwards cover up the scandal in his book “The Politician,” said that based on conservations with top staffers, he believes knowledge of the affair was more widespread than ex-staffers will now admit.


“Anybody who was around Edwards and Rielle for those months,” Young said in an interview with POLITICO “it’s virtually impossible for any of them to claim they didn’t know something was going on.”


But he concedes they now have “plausible deniability” since Edwards staffers were not openly discussing anything specific about an affair.


Those within the Edwards orbit between 2004 and 2008 have gone on to a variety of careers in Democratic politics, advocacy organizations and the Obama administration: senior adviser Joe Trippi remains a top Democratic strategist: national press secretary Eric Schultz is now communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; adviser Jennifer Palmieri is senior vice president for communications at the Center for American Progress; campaign manager David Bonior’s chairman of American Rights at Work, and deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince is a spokesman for Special Envoy George Mitchell at the State Department.


POLITICO reached out to over a dozen former Edwards’ staffers who either would only speak without attribution, declined to comment, or were unavailable following multiple requests.


One former staffer said that in asking who should be shamed or blamed—the issue Ambinder raised on his blog—it’s difficult to draw a clear line of who knew and didn’t know.


“I’d say only a handful of people knew, and they didn’t truly know,” said the former staffer. “And those people, for whatever reason, were not involved in the campaign.”


Young as well as Heilemann and Halperin wrote that Josh Brumberger, Kim Rubey and David Ginsberg likely knew about Edwards’s affair with Hunter. All three stopped working for Edwards in 2006, though Ginsberg and Rubey came to Iowa in the days just before the caucuses.


Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, who ran the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004, doesn’t believe senior staffers should be held accountable for what they knew about their candidate’s behavior. “I would cast no harsh judgment on most of these folks, many of whom I know,” he said.


“I would assume that with the exception of a couple of people who did seem aware of the problem, and actually tried to do something about it, most people were either not aware or didn’t want to be aware,” Shrum said.


One former staffer thinks most people would agree with Shrum.


“I think, for the most, part people understand that we worked on the campaign for the right reasons, that we were trying to make a positive contribution to our country and to progressive causes,” the staffer said, “and that we weren't responsible for the bad personal (and public) judgment of the candidate.”»

Sugestão CASA BRANCA: Máquina Política

O CASA BRANCA regressa hoje a uma rubrica que tem andado um pouco esquecida por cá, mas que prometo retomar com regularidade: as sugestões CB sobre o que de mais interessante vai aparecendo na blogosfera.

Hoje destaco o MÁQUINA POLÍTICA, blogue recente, e muito interessante, do João Luís. É, podemos dizer assim, um dos principais «concorrentes» deste humilde blogue, porque trata do mesmo tema: a política americana.

Com actualizações diárias, num estilo que reúne boa informação e escrita escorreita, os temas do momento na América são apresentados com rigor e conhecimento. Vale a pena a visita.

Aqui vai o link:
http://maquinapolitica.blogspot.com

Mensagem Semanal: Obama ainda não desistiu do «bipartidarismo»

Who do you trust? The One who loves you!

In the wake of the massive earthquake, registering 8.8 on the Richter scale, that struck central Chile early this morning, I am praying for the people of that area and for the people who inhabit the islands being threatened by tidal waves resulting from this massive tectonic shift. I posted this prayer intention as my status on Facebook this morning. A friend responded that she couldn't imagine being on one of the islands now on alert and anticipating a tsunami. I reminded her that here along the Wasatch Front in Northern Utah we live in proximity of a pretty large fault-line ourselves and that someday, in all probability, we, too, will have a massive earthquake. Indeed, this is a scary realization. This realization, which is a fact, is also my thread for this Lent.

These facts about the world, among which is the fact I alluded to yesterday- memento mori (i.e., remember death)- the fact that we will die, leads all of us, inexorably, to ask questions about life. Heidegger said that death is the horizon against which we, as human beings, live our lives. Christ's resurrection, not just as an historical fact, but as we experience it in the events our lives, gives us a glimpse over this horizon (mandatory Καθολικός διάκονος cultural allusion: Ozzy's Over the Mountain 1982 with Randy Rhoades, of course), beyond which we otherwise could not see.

The questions posed by memento mori are, What is the meaning of my life? In what or whom do I place my hope, that is, my trust? What really matters? If I am really honest, most of the time I just kick these questions down the road, like an empty, rusted, old aluminum can.

Picture from BBC News

In my reading of Ascend during these days of Lent, I came across this in a portion entitled Is death beautiful?: "The Christian doesn't fear death. For Christians, the experience of death is often [not always] something very beautiful... the concept of Christian death...involves a great act of trust [in] and love of God... Why can Christian death be called beautiful? Because the dying person knows, without a doubt [hope is certainty about one's destiny], that he or she will be happy forever and that one day God will raise up his or her body...We'll be released from sickness, loneliness, addiction, poverty, injustice - whatever made our lives painful" (pgs. 50-51).

Addressing, yet again, the perennial question about whether natural disasters are God's punishments, the authors of Ascend, both of whom are Roman Catholic deacons, write: "Natural disasters and other catastrophes are not evidence of the punishment of God. For example, your authors live in Southern California, with full knowledge that one day a huge earthquake will strike, perhaps killing hundreds and destroying cities. Shall we then blame God?" It is a rhetorical question, whereas, the question, In what or whom do you place your hope?, which is another way of asking what someone who examined your life would say you value the most, is most definitely not!

This post is not a note of either pessimism or optimism, but of hope. Perhaps it is a provocation to point to the One, not only in whom we find hope, but who is our hope, which is certainty, not sentiment. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and love are not gifts God gives me to evade reality. On the contrary, these gifts are precisely what allow me to engage the reality of my life daily in all its depth, with all of the triumphs, joys, pains, and sorrows I experience. In this way, I "can collaborate in the salvation of the world[:] by accepting the sacrifice of the circumstances through which [I am] made to pass" (Is It Possible? vol. 3).

Daily during this Lent I am reminding myself that I am ashes and dust, but I do so looking forward to Easter in the realization that, in and through Christ Jesus and by the power of the Spirit, God shows me what truly great things he accomplishes working with these materials. In other words, calling to mind the pity God takes on my nothingness gives me hope! With St. Paul, "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in [me] will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). Maybe, as Green Day suggests, it's not so much a question, as "an answer learned in time."

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Reforma da Saúde: para evitar risco de 'filibuster', a Administração Obama admite usar figura da «reconciliação»

É uma possibilidade que os democratas estão a ponderar utilizar: passar o ObamaCare com maioria simples de 51 senadores. Mas, nesse cenário, os republicanos podem ter resposta ainda mais feroz...

"a little voice inside my head said 'don't look back, you can never look back'..."

The Ataris' remake of Don Henley's Boys of Summer. Man, I love this song and this version of it! "I thought I knew what love was, but did I know?" Nothing!

Alas, without looking back we refuse not only to see who we are, but how God is helping us become who we are created to be. Nonetheless, in the spirit of Lent: memento mori

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Cimeira da Reforma da Saúde (VI): seis horas de reunião resumidas em sete minutos e meio

Cimeira da Reforma da Saúde (V): Obama e John Boehner, líder republicano no Congresso, sem acordo

Cimeira da Reforma da Saúde (IV): Obama critica métodos de Eric Cantor

Cimeira da Reforma da Saúde (III): Obama joga no seu terreno preferido e conta exemplo pessoal

Cimeira da Reforma da Saúde (II): Obama para Jon Kyl - «É fundamental responder à questão»

O Presidente tentou lançar um espírito bipartidário e identificou aspectos positivos no que disse o senador republicano Jon Kyl, do Arizona. Mas lembrou: «Mesmo quando muitos estão zangados com Washington, há que responder àqueles que não têm protecção de saúde»

Cimeira da Reforma da Saúde (I): Obama para McCain - «Já não estamos em campanha»

Barómetro: 51 por cento de aprovação

Sondagem ABC/Washington Post:
-- Aprovação: 51 por cento
-- Reprovação: 46 por cento

Nota: mais à noite, será feita aqui, no CASA BRANCA, a devida cobertura de «cimeira do Health Care», que decorre esta quinta-feira, na América

Some exciting stuff

As stated in my blog header, my purpose for blogging at all "is to foster Christian discipleship in the late modern milieu in the diakonia of koinonia." I really do think that as a deacon, as a parish director of religious education, and as a Christian that being present and active on-line in this day is not optional, it is necessary. The Holy Father apparently agrees, as he encouraged priests during this year of the priest to be present on-line and, yes, to blog! Maybe he assumed that, like St. Stephen, who was supposed to be serving at table while the apostles preached, that deacons were already up and engaged on-line! I don't know!

In addition to revamping the look of Καθολικός διάκονος, I have also been at work revivifying our parish RCIA blog, which went on-line a few years ago, Vivre l'Evangile, which means "to live the Gospel" in French. Why, French, you ask? Because my parish, The Cathedral of the Madeleine, is a fracophone way of being The Cathedral of the Magdalene. It also has a connection to he work of the great French philosopher, Jacques Maritain.

This revamping is timely as we have been transitioning to the full implementation of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults in our parish, moving to a year 'round process that includes a pre-catechumenate, year-long catechumenate, and period of mystagogia after initiation. Our next group of catechumens, for whom we will celebrate the Rite of Acceptance on a Sunday of Easter, will be members of our first year-long catechumenate. This requires a revamping of our catechumenate program. I cannot tell you how excited I am that we will be using Ascend: The Catholic Faith for a New Generation as our text, our point of reference. Needless to say, I was excited this morning to find this video on the Ascend blog, The Catholic Story:

I find this video very inspiring, but not as inspiring as I am finding reading the book, which I am working through a chapter a day during Lent. As I told one of the authors, Deacon Eric Stoltz, who I am privileged to call a friend: "God always surprises me during Lent. Yesterday, I just picked up your book and started to read. It is what I needed. I don't know why, other than it just reassured me of a lot of things, mostly of God's love and the way God works in the world and in my life." Another dear friend, Fran, informs me, via a comment, that she reviewed Ascend for her diocesan newspaper (i.e., the Diocese of Albany, New York), The Evangelist.

I am also excited about using the St. John's University (Collegeville, MN) Seeing the Word lectio divina for our Sunday dismissals, beginning in the fall. Dismissals constitute our catechumens' direct engagement with sacred Scripture during their catechumenate and their period of enlightenment and purification. Through the good efforts of the Director of our diocesan Office of Liturgy, Timothy Johnston, the Cathedral is one 30 parishes nationwide piloting this program during Lent.

Those preparing to be fully incorporated into Christ's Body, the Church, at the Great Easter Vigil this year, participated in the Rite of Election/Call to Continuing Conversion this past weekend. This is always a joyus event for our local church. So, by the grace of God, Lent is proving to be a fruitful time, a springtime, a time when life bursts forth, not despite our Lenten discipline and austerity, but precisely because of it!

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Presidenciais 2012: núcleo duro de Obama já prepara, discretamente, a reeleição

... e não será fácil a corrida para a reeleição, pelo menos se a Taxa de Aprovação se mantiver como está.

Num exclusivo POLITICO.COM, Mike Allen conta como três dos mais próximos colaboradores de Obama (David Axelrod, Anita Dunn e Jim Messina) já preparam a batalha eleitoral de 2012:

«President Barack Obama’s top advisers are quietly laying the groundwork for the 2012 reelection campaign, which is likely to be run out of Chicago and managed by White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, according to Democrats familiar with the discussions.

For now, the planning consists entirely of private conversations, with Obama aides at all levels indulging occasionally in closed-door 2012 discussions while focusing ferociously on the midterm elections and health care reform, the Democratic sources said. “The gathering storm is the 2010 elections,” one top official said.

But the sources said Obama has given every sign of planning to run again and wants the next campaign to resemble the highly successful 2008 effort.

David Axelrod, White House senior adviser, may leave the West Wing to rejoin his family in Chicago and reprise his role as Obama’s muse, overseeing the campaign’s tone, themes, messages and advertising, the sources said.

David Plouffe, the Obama for America campaign manager, described by one friend as "the father of all this," will be a central player in the reelect, perhaps as an outside adviser.

"The conversations are beginning, but decisions haven't been made," a top official said. "If you look at David Plouffe's stepped-up level of activity with the political organization [as an outside adviser on the 2010 races], that is obviously the beginning of the process."

Anita Dunn, former White House communications director, will be intimately involved, too. Brad Woodhouse, the Democratic National Committee’s communications director, enjoys rising stock and would be a logical choice to be communications director for the reelection campaign, the sources said.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett are likely to remain at the president’s side in Washington, while exercising major influence over the campaign. Pfeiffer, communications director of the last campaign and always a trusted insider, has a higher public profile every day.

Other central figures are likely to be DNC Executive Director Jennifer O'Malley Dillon; her husband, Patrick Dillon, who is deputy White House political director and is likely to bring his extensive gubernatorial contacts to Chicago; Mitch Stewart, executive director of the DNC's Organizing for America; Jon Carson, national field director of Obama for America; and White House political director Patrick Gaspard.

The DNC sees Republican challengers ramping up earlier than ever and has decided to begin defining potential opponents early. Operatives are already assembling research and drafting unflattering narratives to push about the leading possible 2012 candidates.

Even though the planning is still very preliminary, the campaign is likely to launch in just over a year. President Bill Clinton opened his second presidential campaign in the March after his first midterm congressional elections, and President George W. Bush opened Bush-Cheney '04 a month later in the political cycle.

Aides expect Obama to hew to a similar schedule. A president’s reelection campaign — “the reelect,” as Obama intimates are already calling it — is a massive, lavishly funded machine that hires hundreds of people and spends hundreds of millions of dollars to carry out the mechanics of a national campaign, while the candidate and many of his top aides continue their day jobs of running the free world.

Obama's campaign will get a head start from the large machine he has built at the DNC, including Organizing for America, the successor to his grass-roots campaign operation.

OFA is now a DNC project with staff in all 50 states and has worked to keep Obama's army active through engagement on health care and other issues.

Messina, the likely manager, largely ran the operations part of the 2008 campaign after joining it in June 2008, while Plouffe focused on the big picture. Advisers said Messina is valued for his relationships on Capitol Hill, where he has been chief of staff to Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of MontanaSen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, as well as Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), and advised others on their campaigns, including Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

“Jim can bring the bare knuckles, and he can make sure members are advocating for the president,” a colleague said.

The question of where to locate the campaign has not been decided by the president, and is the subject of much internal speculation.

Top sources say they will be surprised if the headquarters is not in Chicago, which will always hold a certain magic for the president and first lady Michelle Obama.

Obama for America senior staff felt there was a huge advantage in having distance from insiders in Washington who were constantly giving advice and asking for things. And Obama advisers see the advantages George W. Bush reaped by basing his original campaign in Austin, Texas, giving it a beyond-the-Beltway aura.

"We were able to focus on nothing but the campaign," said one Obama for America veteran who plans to saddle up again. "We didn't play the inside-Washington game, and that's a huge piece of who we are.''

However, some top advisers are skeptical that running the campaign from Chicago would have the same advantages that it did last time, since face-to-face contact will be necessary among top officials from the different arms of Obama’s operation.

''It was hard enough to get people to move there in 2007," one Obama for America alumnus said.

A compromise might be to follow the example of the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign and put the office in Virginia, a swing state.

The themes for Obama’s campaign are not yet chosen, but a top adviser said not to expect a radical surprise: “He knows who he is."

Reforma da Saúde: antevisão da «cimeira bipartidária» de amanhã

Barack Obama está a tentar relançar as pontes políticas para um acordo final no Senado que evite um filibuster no 'ObamaCare':

A Deacon's Prayer

Dear Lord, be with me now as I assist the priest in the Holy Eucharist. Let my mind and heart be focused upon the mystery of your Presence, the mystery of Your incredible self-gift. You want to share your body and blood with us all. Help me to know your personal love for me as I proclaim your word, intercede for the needs of your church, and distribute the precious blood which is life for us all. In my small tasks at your holy altar draw me closer to your through simplicity. Especially teach me, Lord, that you have called me to this altar so that I might be graced to share in your own eager availability and so serve the spiritual and corporal needs of your church. Amen.

-- from A Deacon's Retreat by Deacon James Keating

A deep diaconal bow to my dear friend, brother, enabler, and internet co-conspirator Deacon Greg Kandra, from whose blog The Deacon's Bench on Beliefnet, a daily must read, I gently lifted this lovely prayer composed by a fellow deacon.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Being Catholic in Utah

This evening I was to pointed an article that ran in the Deseret News back on 1 February: Catholicism has a rich, varied history in Utah. This very brief article is accompanied by seventeen pictures, which tell the story of the Catholic Church in Utah over the past 30 years, or so. I have to say that with our centennial coming to a close yesterday when we observed the dedication of the Cathedral, which is a solemnity for the parish and so was a reprieve from Lenten discipline, that the local news media has been very good to the Catholic Church and the Cathedral over this past year. Something that Bishop Wester pointed out at the end of our noon Mass yesterday.

As it is Lent and I work with the people going through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults at the Cathedral, I am reminded that this year marks my 20th anniversary as Catholic. I was thrilled that among the pictures accompanying the Deseret News story, was the picture below:

This photograph features Fr. Tom DeMan, OP, who was the pastor of the University of Utah Newman Center/St. Catherine of Siena parish when I became Catholic. Fr. Tom, who served there with Fr. Thomas Kraft, OP (Tom and Thomas then, Peter and Pete at the Newman Center now), prepared me to enter the church, baptized, confirmed, and brought me into full communion. Of the two students in the picture, I remember Consuelo (the darkhaired girl) who was finishing her studies and leaving as I was arriving. This must have been some kind of official photograph because I never saw Fr. Tom wear a Roman collar. He wore his Dominican habit a lot. When he was not in his habit he wore khaki pants and polo shirts with Birkenstocks. The first time I met him I thought he was the custodian or a plummber because he was in work clothes fixing a pipe in the sacristy.

At Easter I hope to find and post the picture of me being baptized.

While I am on the subject of being Catholic in Utah, you may have heard that His Eminence, Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago and president of the USCCB is here. After touring the campus, he spoke at BYU this afternoon about faith in the public square, and dined with the LDS Quorum of the Twelve this evening.

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Reforma da Saúde: Barack lança jogada de risco e faz nova insistência no Senado

Mesmo depois da perda da supermaioria no Senado, com a derrota de Martha Coakley no Massachussets, Obama não desiste da Reforma da Saúde e fará, nos próximos dias, uma nova tentativa de conseguir uma aprovação bipartidária de um texto único que resulte das duas propostas já aprovadas no Congresso (a primeira na Câmara dos Representantes, a segunda, mais modesta, no Senado).

É uma jogada de alto risco, porque falta, pelo menos, um voto para chegar aos 60 que evitem um filibuster de bloqueio. Mas convé lembrar que os republicanos ainda estão em clara minoria no Congresso -- e esta será uma grande prova sobre se existe ainda uma réstia de vontade de cooperação por parte do GOP...

«WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is upping the ante on health care.

In a last-ditch effort to salvage his overhaul of the sector, the president unveiled a $950 billion plan that lays the groundwork for his party to try pushing its legislation through Congress without Republican support.

Mr. Obama's plan, released ahead of a televised health summit with congressional leaders Thursday, didn't include any additional nods to Republican ideas. Republican leaders denounced it, suggesting that the summit is unlikely to lead to bipartisan breakthroughs. White House aides said the president was prepared to incorporate Republican ideas into the framework set by the Democratic bill, almost daring Republicans to remain opposed.

The proposal is an attempt to jump-start one of the President's top priorities, which has been nearly paralyzed since Democrats lost their 60-seat supermajority in the Senate on Jan. 19.

The chances of reconciliation succeeding remain iffy. House Democrats passed their version of a health overhaul in November by a narrow 220-215 margin, and some of the yes votes are uncertain now that some House lawmakers don't like aspects of the Senate bill. Democrats have more breathing room in the Senate but the procedure carries political risks and Republicans could use delaying tactics.

White House aides said the proposal keeps the best features of the Senate bill, while making insurance more affordable for lower- and middle-income Americans. It would extend insurance to about 31 million Americans by providing them with tax credits to offset the cost of coverage and expanding the Medicaid federal-state insurance program.

"Starting from scratch doesn't make sense," said White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, rejecting Republican calls to begin again.

The Obama plan also scales back a tax on high-value or "Cadillac" insurance plans, which had roused opposition from unions and others.

Republicans are expected to call at the summit for more targeted legislation that curbs malpractice lawsuits, creates high-risk insurance pools for sick people and allows consumers to purchase insurance across state lines.

"I don't think that people like this any more than…the approach that came down the pike earlier," said Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip. "People are incredulous. I just think they are wondering, does the White House not get it?"

President Obama's health plan adds about $75 billion to the 10-year cost of the $871 billion Senate health-overhaul bill, and includes new taxes.

White House aides said they were satisfied that the new tax would help control health spending over the long term even though it no longer does much to fund the bill in the short run.

Couples who make more than $250,000 would see higher Medicare taxes under the Obama plan. The Medicare payroll tax would be extended to cover unearned income from dividends, interest and other sources.

To raise money for more generous subsidies helping lower earners buy health coverage, the Obama plan would make deeper cuts to Medicare Advantage, a program under which some seniors get their Medicare benefit through private insurers.

Like the Senate bill, the Obama plan doesn't include a government-run health plan or "public option" to compete with private insurers. That idea, a favorite of liberals, was part of the House bill.

Mr. Obama has largely tied his own fate and that of his party to the fate of the health-care measure, and his job approval numbers have fallen along with support for the plan.

Most Democrats in Congress have already voted yes on a version of the plan. Advocates for pushing through an overhaul argue that those up for re-election will be forced to defend those votes anyway, and will be better off if they have something to show for their effort.

The White House has begun to make the case that using reconciliation would not represent an extraordinary step. The "extraordinary step" would be for Republicans to filibuster the bill, Mr. Pfeiffer said. The president simply wants an "up or down vote," he added.

The new White House plan contains stiffer penalties for most Americans who don't carry insurance and for businesses that don't provide coverage for workers. By 2016, consumers who lack insurance would have to pay a flat annual fine of $695 or 2.5% of income, whichever is higher. Lower earners who couldn't afford coverage would be exempt from the fine.

Employers who do not offer insurance coverage would face fines of up to $2,000 per employee, up from $750 per worker in the Senate bill. Firms with fewer than 50 workers would be exempt, and small businesses would get $40 billion in tax credits to offset the cost of coverage.»

in Wall Street Journal

Tim Pawlenty, possível candidato republicano a 2012: «Obama será um 'one-term-president'»

Para o governador do Minnesota, mais do que provável candidato às primárias republicanas de 2012, os problemas da economia vão condenar Obama à derrota em 2012. Mesmo um republicano moderado como Pawlenty parece estar a aderir à estratégia-Fox do 'quanto pior melhor'. Preocupante...

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/Video-Embeds/2010/February/Pawlenty4/?WT.mc_id=EmbedNewsPlayer

Hierarchy update

The Holy See announced this morning that Fr. Terry LaValley has been named bishop of the Diocese Ogdensburg, New York and that Msgr. Joseph Bambra will be the next bishop of the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania. It is very rare that a priest is named the bishop of the diocese he is from, but both of these men are from their respective dioceses. Both bishops-elect are 53 years-old.

These appointments, which fill vacancies without creating new ones, leave only three vacant Latin Rite dioceses in the United States: Harrisburg, PA; LaCrosse, WI; Springfield in Illinois. Additionally, there are two archbishops (Brunett of Seattle and Beltran of Oklahoma City) and two bishops (Skylstad of Spokane, WA and Higi of Layfayette in Indiana) serving past the canonically mandated retirement age of 75. All of these prelates have submitted their resignations to the Holy See, the Holy Father has yet to accept them.

The Holy See has been most generous to the churches in the United States, not letting churches linger for long without bishops. The pace of episcopal appointments last year and now this year is likely unprecedented.

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Obama aos governadores de estado: «O plano de estímulos está a funcionar»

He is if he changes

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the death of Monsignor Luigi Giussani. I am tempted to follow that first statement with the phrase, "founder of Communion and Liberation," but that is just too pale to apply to Don Giussani. Much better to write that through Giussani God gave a powerful charism, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, to the church and to the world, a charism that struck me in 1993 when I read a little pamphlet that was sent out with issues of the Italian magazine 30 Giorni nella chiesa e nel mondo (i.e., 30 Days in the church and in the world). The booklet was entitled He Is If He Changes. I was a Philosophy student at the time, a convert of some three years who was eagerly looking for connections between the philosophy I was studying and theology, about which I knew little. He Is If He Changes was a tremendous help, as was Anglican theologian John Macquarrie's Hensley Henson lectures delivered in Oxford during the 1993-94 academic year, published as Heidegger and Christianity, but I digress.

Giussani died the same year as his friend, a great supporter of the Movement, the pope who, in 1982, elevated CL to an "Association of Pontifical Right," John Paul II. In fact, Giussani pre-deceased JPII by only 42 days. Because John Paul II was very ill, he did not go to Milan to celebrate the funeral of his friend, but instead sent then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as papal delegate to preside at the liturgy. Ratzinger, too, was a friend of Giussani's and, not only a friend of the Movement, but involved in the Movement. This great theologian who succeeded John Paul II is said to have told another priest that Giussani "changed my life." Now, as Pope Benedict XVI, his papal household is managed by members of Memores Domini, a part of CL, the members of which live consecrated lives (i.e., vows of poverty, obedience, and celibacy) in the world and with whom the Holy Father gathers for School of Community.

In his homily at Don Giussani's funeral, then-Cardinal Ratzinger said: "Fr Giussani always kept the eyes of his life and of his heart fixed on Christ. In this way, he understood that Christianity is not an intellectual system, a packet of dogmas, a moralism, Christianity is rather an encounter, a love story; it is an event." These words are echoed towards the beginning of his first encyclical as pope, Deus Caritas Est: "Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction" (par. 1). It is fitting that Giussani entered eternity, realized his destiny, the destiny to which he encouraged so many to "see," teaching us that it does not lie over the horizon, but is present here and now, a Presence that accompanies us always and everywhere, on the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter.

Beyond all the grandeur, all the papal approval is the fact that Giussani changed my life. As I write I can feel my heart swelling with gratitude to God for him. It is Luigi Giussani who taught me how to be a witness of what I have seen and heard, that is, of what I experience.

Addendum: My dear friend Suzanne over on Come to See shares something very wonderful about Giussani in her post Shouting and other expressions of love.

Don Giussani- pray for us!

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What's the big idea?

If one thing is evident as we enter into the second decade of the twenty-first century it is that the time of big ideas is over. It seems that the era of big ideas really got going in the nineteenth century, when great systems were hatched, these are all-encompassing ways of looking at the world. I am thinking here of Hegelianism, Marxism, Kantianism, Darwinism, Freudianism, et. al. Even Christians got in on the act, constructing large theological systems rooted in various schools of philosophical, scientific, even in schools of nascent social scientific (i.e., sociology, economics, psychology) thought. It was not until the twentieth century that these ideas, these systems, showed us in horrifying clarity that ideas have consequences.

Whatever other deficiencies Nietzsche's thought has, his basic thrust and parry is to reject and prophetically denounce these largely inhuman and inhumane systems, which, in his day, grew to include parts of European Christianity. It was Fyodor Dostoevsky who explained that the only predictive power most of these systems could muster was through coercion and manipulation. Søren Kierkegaard who, much like the prophet Hosea, in the specific instance of Danish Lutheranism being infected with Hegelianism, offered a critique of Christianity for whoring after these overarching systems. Oh, the horrors of the age of ideology! A good thing about all the new media (i.e., cell phones, iphones, internet, Skype, etc.) is that it all helps to level things by toppling many of these imposed ideologies and the not-so-sacred hierarchies each generated, but these, too, can be dehumanizing.

"In the time when new media was the big idea/that was the big idea" (from U2's song Kite). To illustrate, not with a big idea, but an experience, I point to an article from The Front Porch Republic that my dear friend Suzanne recently brought to my attention: Facebook and Friendship, which, in turn, points to an October 2008 article in the New York Times magazine by Hal Niedzviecki in which he writes about inviting his 700-or-so Facebook friends to a party and only one bothered to come. Yes, I understand the irony of this paragraph, the paradox inherent in getting my point across in this way!

There is good news, that is, euvangelion (Greek- eu= good; angelion= message): Christianity is not a big idea! It is a singular person, a human being, Jesus Christ, the one who died and rose from the dead. Pope Benedict made this clear this past Christmas through his homilies by stating plainly that Christ is God's sign who "makes himself small for us." He becomes "so small so that we [can] understand him, welcome him, and love him." So small does Jesus become "that our hands can enclose him." This small idea is something I can deal with today.

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Mensagem semanal: Obama faz nova insistência pela Reforma da Saúde

Kathleen Sebelius: «Obama lutará pela opção pública»

Em entrevista a Rachel Maddow, a secretária da Saúde da Administração Obama recupera a questão da opção pública - aprovada na Câmara dos Representantes, mas que ainda não passou no Senado:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Parshat Acharei Mot

In Torah, Leviticus chapter ten to be exact, the first two verses to be even more exact, we read about an episode involving Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu. Like their father, Nadab and Abihu are designated priests of the LORD, as are all males of Israel belonging to the tribe of Levi. In this episode, these two sons of Aaron enter the portable tabernacle to make an offering of incense to the LORD. The fire they offer and the manner in which they offer it is not in keeping with what is commanded by the LORD, it is, in the words of Torah "a strange fire," an aysh zarah (Lev. 10:1). No sooner than they made their strange offering a fire that "went out from the LORD consumed them and they died before the LORD" (Lev. 10:2).


Most often this story is interpreted flatly, which is to say that we read as though Nadab and Abihu messed up, enraged God, and were struck down for doing something that was not permitted. Turning yet again to Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's magnificent work, 36 Arguments For the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, which I am not so much reading as mining, she puts into the mouth of a Hasidic rabbi an interpretation of the strange fire offered by the sons of Aaron straight out of Jewish kabbalistic midrash, an explanation given by the Arizal (i.e., one Isaac Luria, a sixteenth century Galilean rabbi, mystic, and master of kabbalah- Arizal meaning Lion), which is a mystical interpretation, one that is at odds with more conventional interpretations.

The rebbe begins by citing the third verse of Leviticus chapter ten to the effect that Aaron was speechless. In typical English translations, it is stated even more clearly: "And Aaron held his peace." The rebbe goes on: Aaron's "silence was not only of words but of all reaction." Keep in mind this is in response to two of his sons, his heirs, being struck down! "Not a single tear crossed his cheek. Not a groan or wail escaped his lips," our interpreter says. The rebbe asks, "Was he speechless from horror? From grief?" "Maybe from self-protection, afraid to cross a line when, at that moment, the Judgment from On High had descended? Or was [Aaron's] the silence of an understanding that has answered its own question?" What does he mean here, to what is our Hasidic rabbi alluding? "What", the rebbe asks, "could have kept him from crying out after them?"

It is here that the rebbe pulls in Arizal "[i]n the last dr'ash that the Arizal gave before his death..." he compares the sons of Aaron "to the fawns of the gazelle." According to the Zohar, which, quoting Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, is "[t]he most famous work of kabbalah," with its origins in the thirteenth century, the gazelle "requires the serpent's bite in order to give birth." Based on this comparison, the rebbe, says, "Nadab and [Abihu] were...sacrifices, to hasten the coming of the Moshiach" (i.e., the Messiah). Hence, "[d]o not make the mistake of thinking that" the strange fire could be "idol worship." After all, the nephews of Moshe Rabenu (i.e., Moses our rabbi, the Lawgiver) would never give in to idolatry! So, on this kabbalistic interpretation, "[t]he strange fire was the redemptive fire that leaps out to purify the world, consuming the innocent only to return them back again in to the holy service, as it will always be, the gilgul turning round and round until the redemption of our days." He ends with, "may it be in our lifetime, Amen." For those of us in Utah, with our famous Gilgal Garden, it may be interesting to note that Gilgul neshamot is a kabbalistic term meaning something like "cycle of souls". As such, it is also something of heretical concept, as reincarnation is not found anywhere in Torah.

Of course, the more conventional reading of this astounding episode, is set forth by Robert Alter in his magisterial The Five Books of Moses. Alter tells us that Nadab and Abihu "would have filled the fire pans with glowing coals, not actual fire." He also points out that the adjective we transliterate as "alien," "strange" (i.e., zarah), or, in the case of the English Standard Version, to which I linked, "unauthorized," which is also an interpretation, one that certainly would not permit the kabbalistic interpretation given by the Arizal, likely means "unfit." Zarah, according to Alter, probably "indicates in cultic contexts a substance or person not consecrated for entrance or use in the sacred precinct, which is what prompts later translators to use "unauthorized." Alter further observes: "The consensus of of modern interpreters, with precedents in the classical Midrash," as opposed to mystical, that is, kabbalistic Midrash, "is that the fire is 'alien' because it has been taken from a profane source - e.g., coals taken from an ordinary oven."

Since the source of the coals is not given in the text, it remains an open question. It is the source of the fire, I think, on which the kabbalistic interpretation turns, as it could not be taken from a profane source and, as the rebbe points out, because it is unthinkable that Moses' nephews would engage in idolatry. The other axis on which the mystical interpretation turns is Aaron's peaceful response to his sons' being struck down. It is inconceivable to the rebbe that holy Aaron, the first high priest, would not be moved by sight of his sons being consumed by fire. But was it not Aaron's idea to fashion the ēggel hazâhâḇ, the golden calf (Exo. 32:1-4)?

Even today, for cultic (i.e., worship) purposes we do not light the sanctuary candles around the altar with a match, but with a beautiful brass taper, though we light the taper with a match.

In the words of John Cleese from Monty Python's Contractual Olibgation album: "And it came to pass that Saint Victor was taken from this place to another place... Here endeth the lesson."

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Histórias da Casa Branca: festas de chá contra Obama

Texto publicado na rubrica «Histórias da Casa Branca», site de A Bola, secção Outros Mundos:

«A contestação a Barack Obama tem tido diversas proveniências. A fatia mais preocupante de desiludidos é aquela que resulta dos independentes que o apoiaram, em massa, no duelo com John McCain. Mas há uma franja crescente de americanos (e são quase todos brancos...) que encontra nas "Tea Parties" a forma de exprimir a sua aversão pelo «poder de Washington».

Em 1773, dois anos e meio antes da Declaração de Independência, colonos ingleses furiosos com o governo britânico atiraram para as águas do porto de Boston uma enorme quantidade de caixotes de chá.

O episódio ficou conhecido como Boston Tea Party – e tornou-se num ícone de uma das idiossincrasias de um certo estilo americano, que ainda perdura: a tendência de estar contra qualquer interferência do poder federal.

Mais de dois séculos depois, o acto de rebelião daqueles colonos ingleses, disfarçados de índios, continua a povoar o imaginário dos quem vêem nos mais altos responsáveis políticos de Washington inimigos potenciais.

Com um Presidente como Barack Obama, essa reacção tende a ser atiçada. A agenda transformadora de Obama tem sido interpretada por facções mais radicais da Direita americana como um ataque aos valores fundamentais dos EUA.

As palavras de ordem daquelas manifestações peculiares são, necessariamente, contra os «gastos excessivos», o agravar do «défice monstruoso» ou a «interferência do governo na livre iniciativa».

Mas, no meio de ideias mais ou menos aceitáveis, têm aparecido pérolas como a de que a Reforma da Saúde seria uma forma de Obama «legitimar o aborto livre». E há, claro, aquelas franjas minoritárias que insistem em lançar medos primários sobre um sinistro «plano das minorias que elegeram Obama para fazer mal à América».

A questão é que o descontentamento crescente, com o prolongar da crise económica, está a dar palco às novas 'Tea Parties', onde Obama é rotulado de «socialista». O que começou por ser um movimento descoordenado, com ideias pouco consistentes politicamente, passou a ser, nos últimos meses, um fenómeno multiplicado por centenas de cidades na América.

Mesmo um Partido Republicano tentado a virar-se à direita tem tido um certo pudor em avalizar estes novos movimentos. Os principais políticos conservadores estão a recusar os convites dos organizadores das «festas contra o Presidente», assustados com aquilo que por lá se diz.

«White people's party?»
No geral, os manifestantes inspiram as duas deixas no que ouvem da boca de radicais como Rush Limbaugh ou, mais recentemente, Glenn Beck, estrelas de talk shows de rádio e TV.

Mas a presença de Sarah Palin, ex-governadora do Alaska e vice do ticket presidencial republicano em 2008, tem dado uma projecção mediática inesperada a estas bizarras «festas de chá» contra Obama.

Palin já foi criticada por elementos do seu próprio partido por se juntar a estas manifestações radicais. Mas este é um claro sinal do radicalismo que está a contagiar o actual momento político na América.

Como bem notou Keith Olbermann, autor de um programa de opinião na MSNBC, estas novas Tea Parties deviam passar a chamar-se... 'White People Party'. «Onde estão as pessoas de cor nestes movimentos?», questiona Olbermann, de forma pertinente.»

"I could possibly be fading, or have something more to gain"

Mazzy Star's Into Dust is our traditio for this first Friday of Lent.

I remember being at a diocesan meeting a few years back and talking about how a newly established parish in our diocese was faring. The parish was having Mass in a movie theater and holding religious education classes in a building in a cemetery. Sr. Patricia said you could look out the window at the graveyard. Memento mori, indeed.

Of course, we tend to lift our gaze above the plane of earth to the horizon beyond and yearn, that is, desire that for which we are made: the eternal. Death is the gate of eternity and it looks to me a lot like the images in today's video: awful. Please do not conflate awful with ugly. Use it precisely= full of awe.

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A pergunta (pertinente) de Keith Olbermann: «Onde estão as pessoas de cor nas Tea Parties?»

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Ataque ao défice: Obama cria comissão especial

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I always find it amazing how we conflate words, especially words that are important. For example, we conflate infinite and aeternal (i.e., eternal). Both words have negative prefixes (i.e., in and ae), but finitude has to do with space and aeternity with time. When we discuss the divine nature we say God is infinite and aeternal, that is, God is not bounded by space nor limited by time. A little closer to my point, we also conflate repent and guilt, as well as guilt and contrition. On my view, which arises from my experience, guilt is what leads me to contrition, which means being truly sorry for my sins. In this way, true contrition leads to true repentance. On Monday I quoted the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, who sums this up well: "To repent is not to feel bad but to think differently." So, while contrition is necessary for repentance it is not sufficient in of itself. What allows us to move through guilt to contrition and ultimately to repentance, to perceiving things in a new way, is mercy. God's mercy, as Brit Hume recently, controversally, and correctly pointed out, much to the chagrin and even embarassment of some of his colleagues in the news media, is Jesus Christ.

This brings me finally to the conflation that concerns me this morning, the conflation of justice and equality. As Bishop N.T. Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham, England and a leading scholar of the New Testament and the early church, pointed out last summer in an article for The Times of London, in which he addresses a vexing issue that gives rise to a lot of confusion precisely because of the frequent failure to make important distinctions when we address it, "the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls...never means 'treating everybody the same way', but 'treating people appropriately', which involves making distinctions between different people and situations." It strikes me that our unwillingness and increasing inability to make important, if sometimes detailed, distinctions between different people and situations is the pressure point at which we try to jam these two words together. Stated simply, justice and equality are not the same, there is no identity.

The Holy Father makes much the same point as Bishop Wright in his Lenten message this year, in which he takes as his starting point Romans 3:21-22: "The justice of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ." He begins his message with a reflection on the fundamental meaning of justice and by quoting one Ulpian, an ancient Roman jurist, to the effect that justice is "to render every man his due."

Our Lenten disciplines of intensified prayer, fasting, and alms-giving are time tested means of growing in our love of God and neighbor, whom we are to love without distinction, which is very difficult. Nonetheless, what it means for me to love one person concretely looks different from what it means for me to love another person. A major factor that determines this is my relationship with that person. It is not unjust for me to recognize that I have more responsibility towards wife than I do to any other woman, even my mother, or to my children than to other young people, etc. Above all, I am incapable of being perfectly just because I am limited. For example, I am neither infinite nor aeternal. So, with the psalmist, I pray: "Do not call your servant to judgment for no one is just in your sight" (Psalm 143:2).

Mercy is what brings justice and equality into conversation. God is merciful. In Christ, God gives us Divine Mercy. In his encyclical Spe Salvi, the Holy Father pointed out that "[g]race does not cancel out justice" (par. 44). Mercy is certainly a grace, the greatest of all the many graces, that is, gifts our good and loving God showers on us. Not surprisingly, Pope Benedict explains this dynamic very plainly:

"God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value. Dostoevsky, for example, was right to protest against this kind of Heaven and this kind of grace in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. Evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing had happened" (par. 44).

This is not to assert that evildoers cannot and will not sit at that table, they can and will because Jesus Christ is our invitation to the heavenly banquet. The Holy Father's observation prescinds, I believe, from just this point. In the end, we all want the same thing: happiness, fulfillment, completion. Heaven is all of that and more. Even though it is what we are made for, let's be honest, heaven is not our due. At the end of the opening paragraph of his Lenten message, Pope Benedict asks a question posed by St. Augustine long ago: What is our due when we desert God? It is a rhetorical question which merits a one word answer: hell. But condemning us is inconsistent even with God's justice because God made us, we did not make ourselves (this is an observation that requires some explanation). God's justice requires that He take pity on our nothingness. The giving of His only begotten Son is proof positive both that God loves us, not mention how much, and that God is just. "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10).

Before we protest that we would never desert God, let's be mindful that deserting God is a very succinct definition of sin. In other words, we would and we do desert God. Another, more traditional, way of defining sin is preferring something, some activity, even some person to God. For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

A deep diaconal bow to KRad for today's title, which I adopt as my Lenten focal point this year.

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