"Not everyone can receive this saying"

I suppose the day after the birth of a child is a good time to post about issues related to the Church's teaching on marital sexuality, but not (and hopefully never) from the perspective of moral superiority or crowing. Having a child is a moment of great humility and awe that truly makes me wonder if I can manage the tremendous commitment and responsibilities that come with being a husband and a father. This kind of humility was described to me once by a non-religious friend in this way: after he and his wife had their first child he told me that before he held her, he looked at her and thought, "I can never care for her, love her, provide for her." After a few minutes after holding her he said he became pretty certain that nobody else could do as good a job. True confidence is born from humility.

I find it lamentable that so many people disagree with the conclusion arrived by Pope Paul VI in his encyclical letter Humanae Vitae without reading it and seriously engaging the points that he raises, especially in light of the fact that the predictions he made about the societal effects of making the means of birth control cheap and widely available are true, which causes many (including myself) to revere Humanae Vitae as truly prophetic. By prophetic I do mean accurately predicting the future like some kind of divine fortune-teller, but prophetically giving witness, like Jeremiah, to the natural and inevitable consequences of certain courses of action, thus requiring the prophet to tell people things they do not want to hear, often provoking virulent and even violent responses. In writing about the consequences that would naturally follow making methods of contraception cheap and widely available, Paul VI wrote that such a change

could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection (underlining emphasis mine)

Pope Paul VI and then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla

On this basis alone dismissing the conclusions arrived at with no consideration for the solid foundation on which the Church's teaching in this regard is based strikes me as truly operating on the basis of preconceptions that either arise from or give rise to an ideology. Pope John Paul II courageously called the ideology to which this perfunctory and absolute rejection is part "the culture of death." It is certainly the culture of self first, the rejection of the kind of self-emptying love that constitutes the very heart of the one vocation to follow Christ, which is what makes marriage a truly Christian vocation. It always bears noting that what JPII proposed as the remedy to the pervasive "culture of death" was not a the "culture of life," but the "culture of love," which implies life and much more. Indeed, for Pope Paul VI to go along with the spirit of the age in this regard would've been an abject dereliction of his duty not only to preserve the depositum fidei, or even to transmit it, but to apply the Gospel, which, given the fallen-ness of the world in which we live, is always deeply and profoundly counter-cultural, to the issues of the day.

Nonetheless, the fact that Humanae Vitae is a very progressive statement about the positive nature of conjugal love gets lost in the political and ideological clamor that any mention of it inevitably enjoins because, as truth tends to do, it convicts consciences. After all, the letter begins with these very pastoral words:

The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships.

The fulfillment of this duty has always posed problems to the conscience of married people, but the recent course of human society and the concomitant changes have provoked new questions. The Church cannot ignore these questions, for they concern matters intimately connected with the life and happiness of human beings

Section 12 of Humanae Vitae is particularly relevant to what I want to convey:

This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.

The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman. And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called. We believe that our contemporaries are particularly capable of seeing that this teaching is in harmony with human reason

NFL Hall of Fame linebacker and coach, Mike Singletary (who is not Catholic) with his wife Kim, 7 children, a few in-laws and a grandchild

One thing that often goes missing, even among those who support the Church's teaching and endeavor to live by it, is that the various methods of Natural Family Planning (NFP) (which no longer includes the so-called rythym method and has not for decades) are not just natural means of contraception. When we teach it in this way the inevitable and understandable response is, "What's the difference between using, say, a barrier method (a diaphragm and condom, being sterilized) and a so-called natural method?" Well, if we are merely proposing NFP as an acceptable method of contraception, it is a distinction without a moral difference. Of course, not only are Christian couples not required to have every child they can possibly have, but that they have a moral responsibility to limit the number of children they bring into the world to the number they can materially support and spiritually and emotionally nurture. It is exactly in charting this course that the Church gives us sound moral guidance, which also leaves room for the wild unpredictability that real loves requires.

Living the Gospel in any aspect is always a matter of the heart, it always encompasses our intentionality, thus making it important not just to do what is right and good, but to do good with the intention of doing good, as a response in freedom. This means recognizing and embracing the inherent sacrifice this normally entails. The self-emptying sacrifices to which marriage calls us are no less and, in fact, are often greater than those that arise from priestly or religious vocations. In this realm the sacrifice takes two forms: parenting and seeking to master our sexual desires by working to develop the virtue of chastity and working towards to real intimacy in marriage, which is more spiritual than physical; enjoying having sex together doesn't seem to pose too great a problem for most couples, but praying together daily certainly seems to present issues. It seems that prayer, not sex, is the final frontier of intimacy!

It is easy to miss what Jesus teaches about marriage in the nineteenth chapter of the Gospel According to St. Matthew because He is also discussing celibacy and continence, becoming a "eunuch" for the kingdom of heaven. After His teaching on the impermissibility of divorce, Jesus' disciples say, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." To which the Lord responds, talking directly about marriage, not celibacy and the continence to which it gives rise- "Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given" (verses 3-12- ESV). Of course, marriage as a vocation arises from Christ's teaching. It is a vocation because it is a sacrament. Not all vocations are sacraments, but all sacraments draw us more deeply into the divine life of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, enabling us to heed to the one vocation to follow Christ.

"Joy to the world. He's risen, Alleluia!"

It's not Easter morning for me without Keith Green singing his Easter song. Doesn't it feel so good to say and sing Alleulia once again?! As St. Augustine wrote about those who believe in and seek to follow Christ long ago-We are the Alleulia people!

Program note to both my readers: Because today is really what everything is all about, I will post just once more this month, on Friday, for our first Easter traditio. In the meantime, may God fill you with joy and hope througout this holiest of seasons, especially over the days of the octave. I look so forward to the beatification of Bl. JPII a week from today on Divine Mercy Sunday.

Christos Anesti

Χριστός ἀνέστη

Christos Anesti!

Going to church: it’s important because it’s not about you

I recently read an article in which the author seemed surprised that so many young people find church boring. The surprise was confirmed by ”googling” some variant of "church" and "boring," which apparently yielded millions of returns, most of which are posted by young people who are either made to go to church, or who experience a strong parental expectation that they will attend church and face parental disapproval if they do not. For anyone who currently has teenage children, or who has had teenagers or even for those of us who simply recall being a teen, perhaps the greatest hallmark of this period of life, at least in Western societies, which invented adolescence, is truly believing that it is all about you. Hence, one of the greatest challenges adults have is to show young people that while they are important and have value beyond their wildest imaginations, true happiness is not found in being selfish, but by being selfless, in imitation of Christ. Going to church is an invaluable means to this end. Of course, it is not the only means, but it is an indispensable one. Studies show that the best predictor as to whether a person will continue attending church as an adult is if s/he grew up going to church, whether they were bored or does not seem to be a factor. Attending church during one’s teenage years seems to be particularly crucial for practicing one’s Christian faith as an adult.

So, might I humbly suggest that, at least from a Christian perspective, going to church is not primarily about you? I mean, if all we’re proposing is indulging the already self-indulged, then we are beaten before we begin. Sure hikes are nice. I find spending time in nature very spiritual, but it is not a substitute for going to church. In my experience, nothing becomes more quickly outdated and irrelevant than fervent attempts to be relevant, to be hip, to be with “it”. This is not an excuse to be slackers when it comes to our corporate worship of God. After all, God is deserving of the very best we have to offer in music, in devotion, in the churches we build to God’s greater glory.

In a world of constant and rapid change, more than ever, we need stability. I very much like the way I once heard Archbishop Niederauer address this very issue in a homily. He said that people frequently shared with him their preference for going golfing, skiing, boating, hiking, or even working in their yards on Sunday to attending Mass. His reply, which I paraphrase, was beautiful because it was a simple call to discipleship: Jesus did not say, “Go golfing in memory of me,” “Go boating, skiing, hiking, to the mall, or out to brunch in memory of me.” Rather, Jesus said “Do this in memory of me.” As he spoke those words of Christ he made a sweeping gesture around our beautiful Cathedral here in Salt Lake City. He went on to say how none of the things people often prefer to going to church were bad things, on the contrary, they are good things, but they are made better, that is, more meaningful by our participation in the liturgy in faithfulness to Christ’s summons. You see, it is both/and, not either/or. Likewise, dealing with the issue of church and boredom is also a both/and proposition. We certainly need to find ways to help young people see the importance, the vitality, the beauty, the importance of going to church, but we will not succeed by trying to come up with something new every time a young person, or a group of young people complain that church is boring. Another aspect of this that I will but mention in passing is tradition, which is not stultifying and static, but life-giving and dynamic. I guess my plea is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

As a Catholic, the liturgy is the rock to which I cling in the rapids of life. Last New Year’s Eve I was waiting for a Mass at which my oldest daughter, who is fourteen, was singing in the choir, to end. For some reason I made a conscious decision not to attend this liturgy, opting instead to do some work in my parish office. Nonetheless, I desperately wanted to be there at the end of the Mass when the choir sang the Te Deum. You see, my Dad had just been diagnosed with the cancer that over the course of the next few weeks would take him from us. I was hurting and sad, but I felt a deep need to give thanks to God at the end of a difficult year, which I recognized as a great grace from a loving Father. I walked into the church, removed my hat, knelt and joined my heart to this beautiful hymn, being sung in Latin no less. The church was not full (it seats 1,100), but there was a decent-sized congregation, maybe two hundred people. The choir was comprised of all young people most of whom were probably bored. But I know these kids and I know that if I could ever express to them how much I needed what they offered to God that night on my behalf they would agree it was worth it to be there on New Year’s Eve, delaying their plans, their parties, their fun. I am certain that I was not the only one in the church that night who had this need. This is but one example of how going to church is not about you, one that shows why it is so vitally important that you go.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Jesus Christ makes all the difference in the world!

As with most things in my life, excepting God and my family (thank God), I have a pretty ambivalent relationship with blogging. On the other hand, I would be lying to say that I don't enjoy blogging. I would also not tell the truth if I were to write that I don't feel like it is something of a burden at times, but one internally imposed. Since I am always in discernment about my on-line activities, I appreciate very much Sarah Payne's article on E-zine, Why You Shouldn't Be a Blogger. While I could answer her point-for-point in writing and take some exceptions to her piece, I will take her challenging piece and add it to my Lenten discernment.

Along these same lines, just when I am about to despair, things start to pick up. My post from last Saturday on the incompatibility of Christian faith and Qu'ran burning was published on-line over on the English site of Il Sussidairio, which is always gratifying. As with my initial post on Archbishop Sheehan's challenging pastoral letter, more gratifying still was a conversation sparked by my post on Christian-Muslim relations.

The particular issue addressed was concerning my assertion, which I have made on these pages before, that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, which is the meaning of the Arabic word Allah, which word is used in Christian liturgies that precede the advent of Islam by centuries. My first and most direct response would be, after the manner of Jesus, to answer a question with a question: Did Israel of old worship the same God, that is, the God of and who is Jesus Christ? Of course this is what we call a rhetorical question because I assert that we worship the same God, but failing, or even refusing to see Jesus as God, like the Israelites of old and of today, Muslims have not received the invitation to call God "Father". It also bears noting that as Christians we are not a people of the book. We are the people of the resurrected and living Lord, who sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in and among us, thus making us temples in whom God dwells.

Nonetheless, it is easy for me to see how what I wrote can be taken as something that tends towards a certain religious indifference. In defense of Miroslav Volf, whose Christianity Today interview about his new book in which he addresses this question, it is too much to say that he leaves out the fundamental reality that God is love. (1 John 4:8.16) While he certainly does not mention this in his interview, which is very short, I cannot say that he omits this in his recently published book, which I have yet to read. Of course, this will be something for me to pay attention to when I read it. It is fair enough to say that my treatment deals exclusively with the question, what is God, and does not really address the infinitely more important question, who is God? The answer to the latter question, of course, is that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I do not believe for one moment that the quote I employ from Nostra Aetate can be dismissed as political because I think a decree by an ecumenical council, even one that is not dogmatic, cannot be dismissed with the wave of a hand. It is worth pointing out that at the time Nostra Aetate was promulgated, the troubles we now experience were not yet realized because even the Islamic world, under the influence Nasser and the rising Ba’athists, was embracing secularism.

What does it mean for a Muslim to revere Jesus as a prophet? It means that the one we revere as our risen and glorified Lord is seen by the Muslim as one who speaks the authentic words of God, even if he does not revere Jesus as the Word made flesh. This is altogether different than how a Communist might revere the man Jesus. Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of God bodily dwells, is, indeed, an "ontological" and "insurmountable difference between our Allah and their Allah." Jesus Christ, in whom the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, makes all the difference in the world! (Col. 2:9) After all, the only answer to the question, why be a Christian, is Jesus Christ!

Living as I do in Utah, God as He is worshiped by Muslims is certainly more recognizable to me than the God of the LDS, who even describe the Father as having "a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s." (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22) It was Lorenzo Snow, an LDS prophet, who said of God the Father (who the LDS insist is both separate and distinct from the Son and the Holy Spirit): "As man is, God once was; and as God is, man may become." They also hold that the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob "have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones, and are not angels but are gods." (Doctrine and Covenants 132:37) I do not mention this to start an argument, just to note the relative and objective difference with regard to various understandings of God and how well they measure up to the revelation of God in Christ Jesus, which revelation, as Dei Verbum explicitly teaches us, has two modes of transmission- Scripture and Tradition. (par. 10)

I guess the question I pose in my article is what challenge does Christ- Allah made flesh for us- give to us who follow Him with regards to the Muslims, who see God as full of mercy and infinitely just, but not fully as love? To wit, surely not burning the Qu’ran and denouncing them as monsters, people we hate! Indeed, to say that God is love implies the Trinity because love requires an Other and, as St. Thomas Aquinas noted long ago, love is profuse. So, at least in Western Trinitarian theology, we see the Holy Spirit precisely as the love between the Father and His Only Begotten Son, who for us and for our salvation became our Lord, Jesus the Christ born of the Virgin Mary. How does one give faithful witness to the love of God given us freely in Christ? I know that burning the holy books of others who worship God, even if they do not fully know Him, is one way not to give such faithful witness.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Christians and Muslims: Qu'ran burning re-visited

With the encouragement and apparently under the supervision of so-called pastor Terry Jones, who did not carry through with his own threat to burn a Qu'ran last 11 September, another person in Gainesville, Florida, claiming to be a pastor, that is, a minister of the Gospel, one Wayne Sapp, actually burned a copy the Islamic holy book. The burning, which took place on Sunday, 20 March, dubbed by these folks as International Judge the Koran Day, was witnessed by around 30 people, took place after Sapp conducted a mock(ery) trial of the book.

After Sapp made his case against the Qu'ran, the jury took all of 8 minutes to find it guilty. Given that the book had been soaking in kerosene for about hour prior to the verdict, an appeal would seem a slam dunk for the defense, assuming it had one. As the book burned some of the congregation posed for pictures alongside the barbecue on which it burned. One attendee, a supporter of Jones named Jadwiga Schatz, said she was alarmed by the increasing "threat" of Islam in Europe. She went on to say that, at least for her, Muslims "are like monsters", before going on to state- "I hate these people."

In a post during Christmas, Notes from Eurabia, I quoted a Dutch seminary professor, a lay Christian, who said of the situation in his country, "we would have nothing to fear from Islam, if we were Christians. And it often seems that today the Dutch are afraid of everything: of having children, as they are of immigrants. But fear is the exact opposite of faith." This stands in stark contrast to hate-mongering rooted in fear of the other. It is a good day to remember JPII's motto and constant exhortation: Be not afraid!

Predictably, all too many Muslims in Afghanistan were eager to live up to the worst stereotype, which is the lens through which people like Schatz view all Muslims, just as people like Schatz, Sapp, and Jones are all too representative of Christians in the minds of many. Today riots continue in the country where, the AP reports, "Anger over the burning of the Muslim holy book at a Florida church fueled a second day of deadly violence half a world away in Afghanistan, where demonstrators set cars and shops ablaze Saturday in a riot that killed nine protesters." The report continues that the outrage "even brought violence to the normally peaceful northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday, when a crowd of protesters — apparently infiltrated by insurgents — stormed a U.N. compound in an outpouring that left four Afghan protesters and seven foreign U.N. employees dead."

All of this makes very timely an interview that appears in the current issue of Christianity Today, which arrived in my mailbox just yesterday. The interview, conducted by CT's Mark Galli, is with Protestant theologian Miroslav Wolf, who teaches at Yale Divinity School. The occasion for their sitdown was the publication of the professor's new book, which I am eager to read, Allah: A Christian Response. The title of the piece is Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? Of course, for Catholics the answer is unequivocally, Yes.

How can I use the word "unequivocally" when answering this question from a Catholic perspective? In the first instance Allah is simply Arabic for "God". Arabic-speaking Christians use the word in liturgies that pre-date the advent of Islam. The Shahada, the Islamic statement of faith, when translated in its entirety (i.e., we don't translate it into, say, English except the word "God"), is "There is no God but God". More explicitly and definitively, we look to Vatican II's Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate:

The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting. (par. 3)

Volf, in answering Galli's question, "Okay, then- do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?" says something notable: "First, all Christians don't worship the same God, and all Muslims don't worship the same God." He goes on to clarify by saying, "I think Muslims and Christians who embrace the normative traditions of their faith refer to... the same Being, when they pray, when they worship, when they talk about God."

This brings up a great question, namely what normative Christian tradition do Jones and Sapp embrace? I also wonder whether I worship the same God in whose name they claim to act.

Volf insists that there are several things that should never be forgotten when engaging the question about whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God. The first is that for both Christians and Muslims God is one. Secondly, God is merciful. Thirdly, God is just. Volf goes on to give a very good lesson on God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- one God in three divine persons: "Some Jews and Muslims accuse Christians of being idolatrous for believing the Trinity." Volf rightly points out that Jews and Muslims who think this "fundamentally misunderstand the Christian understanding of the Trinity. It's not that we worship three distinct entities who sit on three thrones next to each other; we worship one undivided, divine being who comes to us in three persons" (no doubt Volf is not implicitly endorsing modalism here- he is walking the tight rope of orthodoxy). He goes on to say that the explicit denials of the Trinity found in the Qu'ran "are denials of an inappropriately understood version of the Trinity". Hence, what Muslims deny about God as a Tri-unity of persons "ought to be denied by every right-believing Christian".

Volf ends the interview on a note very reminiscent of Pope Benedict's take on these matters:

We've come up with this idea that Muslims are our enemy, and the Muslim terrorism and extremism are the most important enemies we should be combatting. I think this is bogus. Terrorism is an important issue, but it pales in significance compared to the hedonistic character of the culture we inhabit. to have Muslims as our allies in combatting de facto hedonism is a very important thing.

To have a robust conversation between Muslims and Christians about what provides for good living, a life that's an alternative to hedonism, is what's required of us at this moment. Just like evangelicals at one point discovered Catholics can be their allies, I think in a much more attenuated sense (because we are dealing with two religions) , Muslims can be our allies in struggles for a proper way to live in the world today.

I would add that any meaningful Christian/Muslim dialogue must also include a serious discussion about religious freedom, which JPII put right after the right to life as the most fundamental of all human rights. The deliberate and even constitutional denial of this right in many Islamic countries, even to the point of persecution unto death, must begin to be rectified. By insisting on this, let's not forget that it was not until Vatican II, specifically the Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignatatis Humanae, that the Catholic Church formally made this important concession. It began with acknowledging something that was not new, namely that "[t]he truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power". (par. 1)

Building on the axiom above, the Catholic Church then formally recognized- the oft-repeated "error has no rights" notwithstanding- "that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits." (par. 2) The council also declared "that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right." (par. 2)

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

I'll have the filet o' fish with no tartar sauce, please

Prompted by a post on Deacon Greg's blog, known in these parts simply as The Bench, my mind turned to something I originally posted back on 6 October 2006, which only serves to remind me just how long I have been at this weblog thing- In the words of Homer Simpson, "The internet? Is that thing still around?" This being the last Friday before Lent, a time during which Friday abstinence becomes obligatory for Roman Catholics, I thought it was opportune to re-post this more than four years on. To the best of my knowledge, the Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence issued by the U.S. bishops in 1966 has never been superseded or amended:

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In November 1966, on the heels of Pope Paul VI's Apostolic Constitution, Paenitemini, in which Paul proposed to renew "penitential discipline with practices more suited to our times," the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops set forth a Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence. This statement by the U.S. Bishops still constitutes the normative application of the Holy See's directive for Catholics in the United States. Today being Friday, let us explore this a little and see what fruit it bears.

Some preliminary notes are required before wading in to what our bishops teach. In the early Church, Sunday was the day on which Christ's Resurrection was celebrated. Of course, it remains so today and has throughout the Church's entire history, but even observing Sunday as the Lord's Day seems to be imperiled (see Pope John Paul II's Dies Domini). Appropriately, elements of the Jewish Sabbath are observed by faithful Christians on Sunday, the Lord's Day, just as Christian fasting finds its roots in Jewish practice. Another early Christian observance, in addition to the little Easter of each Sunday, was a little Good Friday, a memorial of the day on which Christ died for us. While we feast on the resurrection, we fast and abstain in solidarity with Christ's suffering as an act of penance and solidarity with each other and those who suffer, on the crucifixion.

Fasting is one of many ascetical practices that is currently poorly understood and, hence, little practiced. Ascetical is derived from the Greek word askesis, which means "exercise, training, discipline." This is the kind of thing St. Paul is writing about in passages from his letters, like 1 Corinthians 9,24b-27, in which he writes: "Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified." The ascetical life, writes Fr. Thomas Ryan, CSP, in his book The Sacred Art of Fasting: Preparing to Practice, "is either the project of appropriating the divine gift of grace or, more frequently, the work of purification." He continues in his recovery of the word ascetic by stating that ascetical "practices are methods designed to restrain the influence of sin and maximize union with God". If there is one area of the work of Richard Foster and Dallas Willard, both of whom I admire very much, I take issue with, it is their unbending criticism of asectism, seeing it and writing about it as if it were a dirty Catholic word. Just as many evangelical Christians devalue the word religion, so too with ascetism- those nasty old practices of monks and nuns in the Dark Ages, that are a distortion of Christ's teachings. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Foster's and Willard's work goes on to show.

Fr. Charles Cummings, O.C.S.O of Holy Trinity Abbey in Huntsville, Utah (just a little North of me, a community that has nurtured and strengthened me over many years), writes in his book Monastic Practices, as quoted by Fr. Ryan, "The more I try to make Christ the center of my life and thoughts and actions, the more I feel every pull and tug that draws me back from the radical, loving surrender of myself. I am not totally free to run toward the one I love. Instead, I feel enchained, entangled by a thousand little threads that together form a strong rope binding me to myself. Detaching myself from these bonds is largely a matter of self-discipline and asceticism. Paradoxically, [the spiritual life is fraught with paradox]self-discipline sets me free for God. Self-discipline is a training in freedom. I am free to take something comfortable and pleasurable, or to eat and drink more, or to sleep longer, but I am also free to refrain from these things and not let myself be held bound by them" (bracketed words are mine).

I hope that lays a little necessary groundwork before returning to the issue of Fridays as penitential days. Last Friday I quoted from a recent document by the U.S. Bishops on penitential practices and provided a link to their pamphlet. Today I want to return to that point in time when Friday abstinence from meat was rescinded as a requirement of Church law in order to show that what the bishops, and the Pope, were hoping for was for Catholics to freely enter into Fridays with a renewed fervor, not to abandon penitential practices altogether. With no further adieu, let us see what we have been taught.

"Christ died for our salvation on Friday," begins the 1966 statement. "Gratefully remembering this, Catholic peoples from time immemorial have set apart Friday for special penitential observance by which they gladly suffer with Christ . . . Since the spirit of penance primarily suggests that we discipline ourselves in that which we enjoy most, to many in our day abstinence from meat no longer implies penance, while renunciation of other things would be more penitential." We might well ask, What other things? Here are few suggestions, alcohol, television and movies, desserts, or, for married couples, by mutual agreement, sex. Those are just for starters, try giving up one of those things, thus whittling away at the threads of the rope that binds us, as described by Fr. Charles. Do these things with prayer and almsgiving. As an example, if you typically spend $10 or $20 having a few cocktails on Friday, give that money to the poor. Fasting and abstinence undergird prayer and almsgiving, these practices do not replace them. In fact, fasting and abstinence are incomplete without praying and giving because the practice, the discipline, is not an end in and of itself, is a means to an end- loving God and neighbor.

"For these and related reasons, the Catholic bishops of the United States, far from downgrading the traditional penitential observance of Friday, and motivated precisely by the desire to give the spirit of penance greater vitality, especially on Fridays, the day that Jesus died, urge our Catholic people henceforth to be guided by the following norms.

"Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance throughout the year . . . Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the entire year. For this reason we urge all to prepare for that weekly Easter that comes with each Sunday by freely making of every Friday a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ. . . Among the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance which we especially recommend to our people . . . we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat. We do so in the hope that the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law . . . Our deliberate, personal abstinence from meat, more especially because no longer required by law, will be an outward sign of inward spiritual values" [sounds quite sacramental...hmmm].

The bishops continue, "Fridays, please God, will acquire among us other forms of of penitential witness which may become as much a part of the devout way of life in the future as Friday abstinence from meat . . . Let it be proved by the spirit in which we enter upon prayer and penance, not excluding fast and abstinence freely chosen, that these present decisions and recommendations of this conference of bishops will herald a new birth of loving faith and a more profound penitential conversion, by both of which we become one with Christ, mature sons and daughters of God, and servants of God's people".

All emboldened words are my emphasis. So, this Friday let us ask ourselves, how are we doing? How well are we exercising our freedom as children of God in Christ by virtue of our baptism? Are we achieving the maturity that God, through the Church, calls us to, or are we still children waiting to have rules imposed on us? Are we lazy, waiting to grow spiritually with no effort? Would we expect to be able to run a marathon, play professional sports, build a beautiful table, with no training or effort? Just a few questions to ponder.

"Repay no one evil for evil"

Having posted last night about Cardinal George's desire to make hearing confessions an important part of his ministry after his retirement from being the archbishop of Chicago, this morning I encountered something via Quaerere Deum on the absolute necessity to forgive. The brief piece, which originated on Desert Wisdom, is about a Russian monk, Elder Sampson Sievers, who passed back in 1979. Like Dostoevsky's remarkable Elder Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov, Elder Sampson was a spiritual father to many. I guess the best equivalent in the West would be a spiritual director, often conceived of, from the Celtic tradition, as a soul-friend. However, the relationship between a person and her/his spiritual father is a different, deeper kind of relationship. It doesn't take on the kind of pragmatic "let's get down to business" character that seems to comprise a lot of what passes for spiritual direction in the efficient West.

The post on Desert Wisdom says that Elder Sampson "was a man well-equipped to speak on the subject of forgiveness. As a young novice monk, he was arrested by the Communist authorities, shot in a mass execution, and thrown into a common grave. By Divine Providence he survived the shooting, and was pulled out of the grave still breathing by his brother monks and nursed back to health. Later he was arrested again and spent nearly twenty years in Communist concentration camps. But he never held onto bitterness and resentment: He completely forgave both his executioners and his torturers. In his later years, when he was serving as a spiritual father to many people, he was especially tough when his spiritual children refused to forgive someone, even for some petty annoyance. He said: 'I’ve always concluded: this means that they still have not gotten the point, that the whole secret, that all the salt of Christianity lies in this: to forgive, to excuse, to justify, not to know, not to remember.'"

I find this both beautiful and troubling. The reason I find it troubling is the exhortation not to remember evil and even to justify evil. I see why I should not dwell on on evil. I even see that to forgive means, to some extent, to excuse evil, but do I really have to both forget and justify evil? Given his experience, Elder Sampson's teaching cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand. There was a conversation I participated in last week about the absolute need for one who follows Christ to forgive as Jesus taught us in last Sunday's Gospel, and He demonstrated by praying for those who killed Him even as the were nailing Him to the Cross: "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father" in the recognition that God "makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust" (Matt.5:43-56).

It is undeniable that we are to pray for our enemies and love those who persecute us. This falls into the category of easy to say, difficult to live. However, what about really egregious things? In no way do we realize that, unlike our blessed the Lord, we are not yet perfect as our Father heaven is perfect than when it comes to the need to forgive. As Elder Sampson directed, forgiving requires at least excusing evil, if not justifying it or forgetting it. Forgiveness, certainly for truly evil acts deliberately committed, as well as very often for trifling things, must be a choice, but it requires grace, too. I believe that this grace takes the form of remembering how much we need God's mercy, Jesus Christ (i.e., "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"). Nonetheless, we sometimes first have to pray for the grace to pray for another, to truly desire the best for him/her. For many who have been gravely harmed by another this is a process, a two steps forward and one step back proposition (or even one step forward and two steps back, depending on the day). The need to forgive, to be merciful because God has given us mercy, always, inevitably, and necessarily brings up the issue of justice.

I his encyclical Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict reflects deeply on justice and mercy. I think he lays things out more clearly than does Elder Sampson: mercy cannot cancel out the demands of justice:

"To protest against God in the name of justice is not helpful. A world without God is a world without hope (cf. Eph 2:12). Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so. The image of the Last Judgement is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope; for us it may even be the decisive image of hope. Is it not also a frightening image? I would say: it is an image that evokes responsibility, an image, therefore, of that fear of which Saint Hilary spoke when he said that all our fear has its place in love. 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).

We cannot neglect weighty matters, that is, our stance towards thos who deliberately commit truly evil acts. Take as an example our opposition as Catholics to the death penalty: I can’t fail to recognize the point-of-view of someone who has had a spouse, a parent, a sibling, a child, a near and dear friend who was brutally murdered and accept their very human response to such an occurrence, which often, at least initially, sees justice as an eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth. We must help them see that result of such a stance, particularly in the face of evil, only has the effect, as Tevye, from Fiddler on the Roof, sagely observed, of leaving everyone blind and toothless.

In recently counseling someone who is dealing with the rape and murder of someone close to him, he told me about how a close friend had mocked his opposition to the death penalty and his faith by saying to him about the murderer: "I guess you can look forward to shaking hands with that bastard in heaven." The scandal of Christianity is that, while this is not a certainty, it is a possibility. Further, it is a possibility we are called to help bring about. This is how we help accomplish God's purpose, assisting in the divine work of bringing life from death. It is hard work, indeed!

In light of these provocations, as a Christians, let us recognize how far our hearts from are from where they need to be, from where we want them to be (if we are serious about being Jesus' disciples). In order to do so, we have to be reassured of what the Holy Father teaches us; with God there is justice, even for those who ultimately recognize their need for divine mercy. This is no different from what St. Paul wrote a long time ago:

"Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' To the contrary, 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom. 12:17-19- ESV).

"If there's Lord above... give me something in to believe in"

It is funny how much blogging becomes part of my life. Not having posted for two days seems like a long time. I think the Friday traditio is a good way to get back in the saddle. Today I do so with Poison's Give Me Something To Believe In. The heavy metal/glam/hair bands of the '80s were nothing if not melodramatic, but many times they struck heart chords. For my money the best songwriter in the group is Brett Michaels.

So-called existential angst is part and parcel of the human condition. As Christians, we attribute this to our fallenness, which is the result of original sin. I recapitulate the original sin each and every time I sin; those times I usurp God and seek to be self-determining, deciding for myself what is right and what is wrong with no reference to God or other people. This usually takes the form of me putting myself first, looking out for number one, as it were. Nothing could be more antithetical to following Christ, who calls me to self-emptying service of others, the most important feature of the diakonia to which I am all called first through baptism and then by ordination.

Writing about Israel to the church in Rome, St. Paul said- "As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all" (verses 28-32 underlining emphasis mine).

God's mercy is Jesus Christ. Hence, I don't need something to believe in, but Someone and not just any old body, but someone who believes in me, not just enough to die for me, but to rise from the dead for me and to remain with me by the power of His Spirit! As Pope Benedict declared at the end of his first Easter Urbi et Orbi message back in 2006: "Christus resurrexit, quia Deus caritas est!", or "Christ is resurrected because God is love." The Gospel isn't free, but it doesn't cost money, it costs me everything, but what I receive is infinitely greater that what, even at my best, I am capable of giving.

Let's not forget the veterans of today's conflicts, especially those traumatized and shaken, wounded physically, mentally, and spiritually, by asking that they come to see and leverage God's love and mercy for them, just as we pray for ourselves. As Brett's heartfelt lyrics remind us, especially when he remembers his friend, experience always trumps ideology.

"Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heaven"

Time is a funny thing. Even though it was only Sunday, it seems like forever since I last posted.I am tempted to make this post one of those entries where the writer lists his complaints is an off-beat intentionally humorous way in an effort to laugh away his feelings, but I am not going to do that. Rather, I am going to point to the need we have to worship God, to always and everywhere give Him thanks through Christ our Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

One of the things I frequently get to do as a pastoral minister is to give others advice, counsel, suggestions on how to deal with the challenges they face. So far this year I have had numerous and on-going opportunities to follow my own counsel, which is what keeps what I share with others (hopefully) from being abstract theories about which I have read, or, even worse, empty clichés and pious platitudes that help no one, but sound good perhaps to me in the moment, but leave both people feeling empty and dissatisfied. That the Lord is not just good, but is Goodness is axiomatic, a given, an atomic statement, everything prescinds from this, which is why each time we participate in the Eucharist, we are invited to taste and see His goodness by eating and drinking Him. This is reality at its most fundamental and concrete.

I am grateful this morning that Morning Prayer began with Psalm 36, which includes this strophé: "Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heaven; your truth to the skies. Your justice is like God's mountain, your judgments like the deep."

In light of a long conversation I had last night with someone struggling with what I can only describe as a great evil before encountering my own comparatively minor tribulation, I was thinking again of the Holy Father's magnificent encyclical Spe Salvi, to which I turned for my homily on the beatitudes a few weeks ago. This morning I re-read paragraph 37, which begins-

"We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we cannot eliminate it. It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.."

Not being content to give us an abstract answer to the most existential and urgent human question, after invoking the Cross, Pope Benedict proceeds to cite an amazing and challenging passage written by the Vietnamese martyr Paul Le-Bao-Tinh († 1857):

"I, Paul, in chains for the name of Christ, wish to relate to you the trials besetting me daily, in order that you may be inflamed with love for God and join with me in his praises, for his mercy is for ever (Ps 136 [135]). The prison here is a true image of everlasting Hell: to cruel tortures of every kind—shackles, iron chains, manacles—are added hatred, vengeance, calumnies, obscene speech, quarrels, evil acts, swearing, curses, as well as anguish and grief. But the God who once freed the three children from the fiery furnace is with me always; he has delivered me from these tribulations and made them sweet, for his mercy is for ever. In the midst of these torments, which usually terrify others, I am, by the grace of God, full of joy and gladness, because I am not alone —Christ is with me ... How am I to bear with the spectacle, as each day I see emperors, mandarins, and their retinue blaspheming your holy name, O Lord, who are enthroned above the Cherubim and Seraphim? (cf. Ps 80:1 [79:2]). Behold, the pagans have trodden your Cross underfoot! Where is your glory? As I see all this, I would, in the ardent love I have for you, prefer to be torn limb from limb and to die as a witness to your love. O Lord, show your power, save me, sustain me, that in my infirmity your power may be shown and may be glorified before the nations ... Beloved brothers, as you hear all these things may you give endless thanks in joy to God, from whom every good proceeds; bless the Lord with me, for his mercy is for ever..."

In the combox of my last post, responding to a comment on the redness of my blog, I stated that it is the color of the Holy Spirit and of martyrs, that is, of spirit and blood, which why this morning I implore- St. Paul Le-Bao-Tinh, holy martyr, pray for us. Yesterday we remebered St. Josephine Bakita, whose story the Holy Father also relates in Spe Salvi. So, we implore her as well: St. Josephine Bakita, pray for us.

Experiencing resurrection in the here and now

Today I glanced over the notes from Fr. Carrón's most recent School of Community, in which he discussed the final chapter of the third volume of Is It Possible to Live This Way:? An Unusual Approach to Christian Existence. The chapter is about virginity and how it applies to the lives of all Christians.

As I scrolled down my eyes came to rest on the words of a letter written to Fr. Carrón by a woman whose father-in-law passed away suddenly (through a mutual friend, Carlo, I was able to learn that her name is Rossella). Given the circumstances I am living I was very struck by her words, not because I am bereft, but because her words are descriptive of, or at least consistent with, my own recent experiences:

God the Father, by Quellinus Erasmus II, 1682

"I also felt moved by the tenderness the Mystery had for us in these last few days, because He had us experience a fatherhood that is even bigger than this man’s. Pain did not crush us. Instead, it put us face to face with the need for conversion, so we had to wonder: we had to ask ourselves questions about the reasonableness of faith. Saying that not everything is over with death, and that he is in the Lord’s arms, is either just an idea, or it is because of the Presence that we have experienced ever since we encountered the movement. So, faced with something about which the whole world can only say, "I am sorry: I have no words"...the funeral, and friends have been the sign of a Man Who has entered our life, and Who can say, 'Woman, don’t cry!' So the question about my father-in-law’s destiny made me realize that this fatherhood dominates all my days, more so than my feelings (which otherwise would be low, due to the recent circumstances). Whatever happens, I am embraced."

"only mercy until we close our eyes..."

Last evening, between Evening Prayer and supper, I turned on the t.v. for just a minute and watched an episode of the Loretta Young Show on EWTN. The title of this particular show is Three and Two, Please. It originally aired 16 December 1956. In the episode, Loretta plays Sister Ann, a nun working in a Catholic hospital on Christmas Eve. What stands out in my mind is something she said to the rich, crotchety, sick, but lonely old man, Mr. Atherton, who is really longing for companionship, as she is disturbing him by re-arranging his private room in order to put a young boy, Guermo, who has not heard from his father and is worried about Christmas, in with him.

What follows is my paraphrase of the dialogue that struck me:

Mr. Atherton: Is there no justice in this world?

Sister Ann: In this world there is no justice, only mercy until we close our eyes, then there is justice.

This put me in mind of what the Holy Father wrote in his encyclical letter Spe Salvi:

"The encounter with [Christ] is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation 'as through fire'. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God" (par. 47).

As a deacon I am privleged to pour the water into the wine during the liturgy as I say, sotto voce: "By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity." Indeed, this is the point of the Incarnation, there is no other. "Create in me a clean heart, O God" (Ps. 51:10).

As Deacon Greg reminds us today, no matter how hopeless things look, through Christ, in Christ, and with Christ, there is always hope. For Christians, the theological virtue of hope is not synonymous with wish. Let those who have eyes see what hope looks like, it is not ephemeral, but real and concrete, like the babe born in Bethlehem.

Veni adoramus

"Love is like a cloud that pours a lot of rain"

Joanie Jett covers the late, great Gram Parsons classic Love Hurts. I turned 45 yesterday and "I've really learnt a lot...love is like a flame that burns you when it's hot." I checked, especially on my birthday with St. Martin of Tours, and since last week, now, and forever "our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29). This strikes me as a great traditio for a November Friday. Our Friday music this month is songs by our rock n' roll dead covered by the living.

Love Hurts is one of my favorite songs, but a version I really don't like is the popular one by the Scottish group Nazareth.

All holy men and women, pray for us

"Love is a burning thing.."

Language Warning- one word in the middle of the song

"... and it makes a fiery ring/Bound by wild desire." Somehow I think Johnny would approve. One of my parents' very first dates my Dad took my Mom to see Johnny Cash. To this day my Mom, who was not impressed, says, still with a little disgust in her voice, "I don't know who was more drunk, your Dad or Johnny Cash." Anyway, that was a long time ago and we all got here somehow. It's very earthy, but it is cool that our existence is the result of desire, both human and divine: "For our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29). Hence, Social Distortion singing Ring of Fire is our Friday traditio.

Since November is the month during which we commemorate our beloved dead, our Friday traditio will be kick ass covers of the songs of our beloved musical dead.

All holy men and women, pray for us

"I want to be a man of the Church."

"I want to be a man of the Church. I do not want to be called by the name of some founder of a heresy. But in the name of Christ, and to bear that name which is blessed on earth. It is my desire, in deed as in spirit, both to be and to be called a Christian.

Origen

"If I, who seem to be your right hand and am called presbyter [for me διάκονος] and seem to preach the word of God, if I do something against the discipline of the Church and the rule of the Gospel so that I become a scandal to you, the Church, then may the whole Church, in unanimous resolve, cut me, its right hand, off, and throw me away"- Origen.

This quote by the great Origen is the epigraph to Hans Urs Von Balthasar's Origenes: Geist und Feuer, or, Origen: Spirit and Fire .

"He couldn't make her love him/Couldn't make her stay"

Tom Waits' Get Behind the Mule is our hard won Friday traditio.

"I'm diggin all the way to China
With a silver spoon
While the hangman fumbles with the noose, boys
The hangman fumbles with the noose."

Christos Anesti

Chistos Anesti/Alithos Anesti

"Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Cor. 15:12-19).

Christos Anesti

Blogging: responsibility, accountability, and integrity

Blogging as a Roman Catholic deacon requires responsibility, accountability, and integrity. As a deacon blogger, I strive to be responsible, to have integrity, and to be accountable. None of this means renouncing my right to express myself freely. To that end, on the main page of Καθολικός διάκονος, I have written what I call Integrity notes. These notes have appeared on my blog for the better part of two years. In addition to dealing with issues of copyright and fair use, I also have an extremely clear disclaimer:

"Due to the fact that I blog as a Roman Catholic deacon, I strive to maintain accountability by keeping my pastor informed of my activities, inviting him to read what I post, and insuring that the authorities of my diocese are also aware of my blogging. This in no way implies that what I write reflects the views of my pastor, of the Cathedral of Madeleine, or of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, or even that my views are endorsed by any of the above. Neither does any of this imply a canonically granted imprimatur or nihil obstat. To wit: all thoughts and opinions expressed on this blog are exclusively my own, especially that which proves to be stupid and/or erroneous.

"Given the purpose of this undertaking, I also look to my readers to keep me honest, constructive, and charitable."

More importantly, my wife reads what I write and post on a regular basis, often at my invitation. While it is fair to say that our opinions diverge from time-to-time, she knows what I am doing, which is important to me because this also means being responsible and accountable.

Being responsible as a writer (even one whose preferred genre is uncreative non-fiction), also requires me to be honest and authentic. The way I see my efforts here is that at a time and in a culture when Christian faith is alternately reduced either to sentimentality or to morality, it is important to take an intelligent and adult approach to the way I express my faith by attending to all the factors that constitute reality, especially in the realm of contemporary culture (i.e., literature, film, music, theater, television, et. al.). In service to that end, it is inevitable that I will be provocative and challenging from time-to-time. By no means do I expect everybody to agree with all the conclusions I draw or my way of presenting certain issues. I certainly invite disagreement, especially when it results in intelligent discussion. On the rare occasion I post something I know will cause offense, I give warning in big red letters.

Passive-aggressive is a therapeutic way of saying coward. Because it is a poor way to conduct oneself, it is contrary to the Gospel: "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother," etc. (Matt. 18:15-17). So, if you have objections to what I write and you are a person with any integrity, you have three alternatives: state them to me personally by commenting on the post that provokes you, by e-mailing me, or talking to me in person; read it and remain silent; or don't read my blog. Otherwise, I have no interest in your critique.

I always do a self-reflective post on blogging during Lent. This year's came a little early.

What happens when language prevails over reality

Oscar Giannino's response to the challenge that his approach to life was too philosophical, helped me arrive at a judgment regarding my recent re-reading of some of Samuel Beckett's works, particularly when he said that "the prevalence of language over reality, condemns culture to being merely a descriptive shelf on which the prevalence of Non-being drowns, rather than the instrument for continuous transformation based on the person who wants Being."


With these words Giannino described well my repulsive attraction to Beckett. It is my thanatos urge to wallow in contingency with no reference to transcendence. At least it consists of dismissing my desire, as in the case of Godot, seeing my longing as pointless and absurd, a distraction from really living. I think this is where Camus stands out, he takes transcendence seriously and does not dismiss it as fantasy, he wrestles with meaning. I would love to see, even participate in, a serious discussion on Camus in a setting like the Meeting. Today, I cannot help but think about Camus at the Meeting. To my mind, it would have been a good milieu for him. I think of the fragment, preserved in the book Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, of remarks he made at the Dominican Monastery of Latour-Maubourg in 1948, in which he addresses the phenomenon of what he calls "lay pharisaism": "To me a lay pharisee is the person who pretends to believe that Christianity is an easy thing and asks of the Christian, on the basis an external view of Christianity, more than he asks of himself. I believe indeed that the Christian has many obligations but that it is not up to the man who rejects them himself to recall their existence to anyone who has already accepted them. If there is anyone who can ask anything of the Christian, it is the Christian himself. The conclusion is that if I allowed myself at the end of this statement to demand of you certain duties, these could only be duties that it is essential to ask of any man today, whether he is a Christian or not" (Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, pg. 69). In this same set of remarks, he also states that he "shall never start from the presupposition that Christian truth is illusory," even though he could not himself accept it (ibid).

I want Being, that is, what Camus' fellow North African, whose liturgical memorial is tomorrow (his mother's- St. Monica- is today), St. Augustine, called the life that is truly life! This requires passionate engagement. Even more it requires Christ risen from the dead! My dear Camus understood this quite well.

Having utterly failed at coherently tying this in- I love his novel Happy Death. To over think it to the point of risking getting my ass kicked, I think punk rock was an attempt to re-establish the priority of experience.

It is not what you value, but whom

Comforming Jesus to what we already believe is an ideological move, one that puts values before Christ, who is the Pearl of Great Price!