Catholicism: On the Social Aspects of Dogma

Agebatur in Spiritu in desertum-

The Holy Ghost and Movement

4^th of December to 11^th of December, 2009 ano Domini

As one watches the sun trace its path across the sky, removing the shadows draped across these ancient caves at Mar Sabba, one cannot help but wonder, what compels a man into the desert? What moves a man to this place? The theme on which this first treatise will develop finds its foundation on the question of the Holy Ghost as the cause of movement in the spiritual life. The life of the pilgrim is first and foremost of movement, movement away from the place of his fathers, the place of his comforts and joys, and compels into a land he knows not, among a people he knows not. This is the cost of discipleship, for the “Son of man hath nowhere to lay his head.” Yet it is not for the sake of isolation that the pilgrim travels. Rather, there is something in the destination itself that beckons the pilgrim forward. While the journey itself is certainly transformative, it is transformative only because of the goal held in mind that the pilgrim disposes himself to be open to change. To examine this matter more closely, two scriptural passages will provide the guideposts of such a discussion; the first is the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin to her cousin Elizabeth, the second is the Temptation of Christ Jesus. Through the lens of these passages, the experiences that I have had in the past week, both in the traveling to the Holy Land in general and Mar Sabba in particular will help to clarify some of the movements of the Holy Ghost within my pilgrimage.

When one examines the text of the Incarnation, one thing that jumps to one’s mind, and bears great fruit, is that Mary is immediately compelled to go and visit her cousin Elizabeth, who has herself been the recipient of God’s grace. There is no separation between the reception of the angel’s annunciation, her fiat, and her travels to the hill country of Judah. Upon her arrival, one sees the fruit of this movement of the Holy Spirit revealed, the gospel writer reveals that it came to pass “that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.” If I think of my own vocation, I become aware that the first step was only a call and not a revelation, much as the Matthew the publican was called before he could understand who Matthew the Apostle would be. Likewise, it is not until Mary is compelled towards her cousin that the fullness of what has transpired occurs, and this is the work of the Holy Ghost, for the Apostle says, “only through the Holy Ghost can one proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord.” (I Cor 12.3). It is here one finds the great hymn of Mary’s soul, the Magnificat.

For myself I ask, what is the purpose of this pilgrimage? Why am I plucked out of my native land with my routines and my habits? What is revealed to me in the traveling to a strange land? For these questions, the answers lie in two parts. The first is that in the journey, the Lord God is able to break through the habits that have prevented us from hearing his voice. The second reason is that in the destination awaits the Holy Ghost, waiting to reveal the splendor of the divine plan. To the first point, the holy author of Hebrews attests when he says, “Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith: To-day, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the desert, where your fathers tempted me, proved and saw my works, [10] forty years: for which I was offended by this generation, and I said: They always err in heart. And they have not known my ways. [11] As I have sworn in my wrath: They shall not enter into my rest.” (Heb 3.7-11) For forty years, the Israelites were ignorant, though God walked with them. Is this the case for me? Have my habits, holy as they might have been at once, become stale, and worse, prevented me from hearing God? Ah, the heart is yearning, but the mind is sluggish.

As regards the second point, scripture again bears testimony in the words of Moses to the people of Israel, “For until this present time you are not come to rest, and to the possession, which the Lord your God will give you” (Deuteronomy 12.9) and again in the praises of David when he proclaims, “I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear” (Ps 16.15) and “My soul hath thirsted after the strong and living God” (Ps 42[41].3). A man who travels merely for the sake of pleasure and the experience dreads the end, for it marks the end of the sensual excursion. But the pilgrim is finds his motivation only in the hope that the end is achievable, both in the immediate sense but also in the sense of the entirety of one’s life. Here again, we look to Mary’s travels to her cousin Elizabeth. Mary’s journey has just begun, and she probably did not expect much from the visit except the chance to help her kin. Yet she receives an immense amount of grace, for Elizabeth reveals to Mary the glory of what the Annunciation means.

As I examine my journey thus far, I am brought back to the village of Eidelein in Switzerland. In terms of the journey proper, Switzerland is but a pause, a necessary wait until our flight. But in these hours, I choose to involve myself in a plan that I had no knowledge of prior to stepping onto the train platform and talking to a friend who’d heard of a monastery in the mountains of Switzerland. As we travel past miles of Swiss countryside, pass spruces and firs frosted in gossamer webs of snowy mist, this is no longer just a pause, but a journey in and of itself, much as the pilgrimage is meant to be a journey within a larger journey, one never meant to be separated from the other. Due to a missed train, again what seemed at first a loss allowed a grace, for we were able to see a Swiss Reformed church. It’s auditorium style seating surrounding a raised pulpit in stark attire would stand in profound contrast to the baroque styling of the monastery we were about to see. The monastery was beautiful beyond words, gold leafing catching each ray of sunlight before casting it back down, resplendent in its newfound golden hue. The main altar stretched upwards beyond my grasp, surrounded by the heavenly host. Later that evening, as I board the plane for Tel-Aviv, I am struck by a question; what dost thou expect to find, o man? The answer to this is in another unexpected journey, this time out into the desert, which brings one back to the movement of the Holy Spirit.

The author of Mark says that the Holy Ghost εκβαλλει, almost, “threw Christ out” into the desert to meet the Σατανα, the accuser. Here one thinks of course of Moses, who went up the face of Mount Sinai, and was without food and water for forty days as he awaited the covenant of the Lord (cf Deut 34.28). There is an ascetical aspect to a pilgrimage that is necessary, not just a sense of sacrifice, but of genuine sacrifice. It is here that the writings of Saint Gregory of the Sinai proved so fruitful in conjunction with the visit out to Mar Saba.

In the desert, man is stripped bare of all his pretensions. He is left open and vulnerable. Christ is led to the desert to provide a crucible for his flesh, and through him, all humanity. The eloquence of the golden preacher commented on Christ’s own temptations when he said: “See whither the Spirit led Him up, when He had taken Him; not into a city and forum, but into a wilderness. That is, He being minded to attract the devil, gives him a handle not only by His hunger, but also by the place. For then most especially does the devil assail, when he sees men left alone, and by themselves” (Saint John Chrysostom, “Homily 13″ Homilies on Matthew: (sec 1))

How does one survive in the desert? How do these monks, living in hollowed out caves, sustain themselves? In the desert, one is confronted with one’s mortality, for there are no visible structures of support. One comes to realize that these men have dedicated themselves fully on the promise of Christ when he said to the Apostle, “my grace is sufficient for thee” (II Cor 12.9). Therefore, in the desert, one’s consolation comes from dwelling on the name of the Lord. Saint Maximus the Confessor spoke thusly of the matter: “There is nothing more fearful than the thought of death or more wonderful than mindfulness of God, “indicating the supremacy of this activity [of psalmodizing]” (74). Saint Gregory of the Sinai said, “For ‘the suffering of the heart endured in a spirit of devotion,’ as Saint Mark puts it, is sufficient to produce joy in them, and the warmth of the Spirit is given to them as a source of grace and exultation”(75).

Christ, led by the Spirit, brings himself to the breaking point, offered all for seemingly nothing. Yet because he has survived on nothing, he has gained all things. Again Saint Gregory of the Sinai points to the fruits of this life: “The true beginning of prayer is the warmth of heart that sacrifices the passions, fills the soul with joy and delight, and establishes the heart in unwavering love and unhesitating surety”(76) Where is my suffering in this? Where can I begin to live simpler? To speak of living simpler though betrays the power of the desert. Saint John Kilmakos says that “however exalted our way of life may be, it is worthless and bogus if our heart does not suffer”(79) and again Gregory of Sinai, “For unless, to use the prophet’s phrase, our loins are exhausted by the weakness induced through the exertions of fasting and unless like a woman in childbirth we are afflicted with pains arising from the constriction of our heart, we will not conceive the Spirit of salvation in the earth of our heart” (cf Is. 21.3; 26.18) (79).

These are weighty words. Long have I felt an attraction to this form of monastic life, a more austere life. As I stood in the Church of Mar Saba, the fragrance of her incense still hanging in the air, I remembered the silence of the Trappist abbey where I resided for a week. At 3:30 in the morning, one was given the sight of monks moving silently through the cloister, stepping into their choir cells, and beginning the divine office. To move in silence, walking gently with the Lord and seeing what he might unfold for your heart is of great temptation. Yet I know within my life, there are many comforts, and it would seem that these comforts must be stripped away if man is to see into the mind of God. Is this to be the purpose of this movement of the Holy Spirit? I of course, will not know the answer to this question until the end of my journey, for as Saint Gregory Nyssa says, “the Spirit breathes where He wills, and you hear his voice, but canst tell not whence he comes or whither he goes.” But what I do know is that I have been compelled to move, both physically and spiritually.

Buscano mis amores

yre por esos montes y riberas

ni cogere las flores

ni temere las fieras

y passare los fuertes y fronteras.

San Juan de la Cruz

The Spiritual Canticle

I’ll wander high and low//after the one I worship; never fear// the wild things where I go;//nor gather flowers; get clear//of all the mighty and over the frontier.

Fidelis autem Dominus est

The gospel reading today from Matthew falls in a series of healings. We know that Jesus heals, but we are blessed to receive insight into the mission of Christ in the way that he heals. The first is that Jesus heals within the context of faith. Second there is a salvific quality to Jesus healing, that being the forgiveness of sins. Last week, there was the story of the leper who approached Jesus and said, “Lord if you will it, you can make me clean.” [1] The Centurion then approaches Jesus, saying the famous “Lord, I am not worthy for you to enter into my house, but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.” [2] Jesus chastises his apostles for being afraid in the storm, for being of “little faith” [3] A lame man is brought to Jesus, and Jesus, seeing the faith of his friends, said, “Be of good heart son, thy sins are forgiven thee” [4] reminding the people around him that for him it is no more difficult to forgive sins then to heal sickness, for indeed, the two realities of sin and sickness flow from the same source. Today, we have the woman who reaches out, and because of her faith, she is healed.

The creation of the universe is ultimately a sign of God’s love, for he had no need for creation, but did it purely for the sake of creating. “By faith, we understand that the world was framed by the word of God; that from invisible things, visible things might be made.” [5] But through Adam and Eve, sin entered into the world, creating disorder, both in sin and in sickness, both resulting in death. So the Evangelist Matthew wants his audience to understand that Jesus has come to restore order, both in the natural world (as in the calming of the seas) but also in the souls of men. Matthew frequently shows those in need of Christ reaching out to him, for faith ultimately is the soul’s reaching out to God. But we must understand that this is a response to God’s first reaching out to us. “In this is love; not as though we had loved God, but because he hath first loved us, and sent his Son to be a sacrifice for our sins.” [6]

[2] Matthew 8.8

[3] Matthew 8.26

[4] Matthew 9.2

[5] Hebrews 11.3

[6] I John 4.10

Introduction (sections 1-4)

This commentary is meant to be mere reflection on the Pope’s encyclical “Caritatis in Veritate”. They will most likely evolve and mature as further contemplation is given to the writings of the Holy Father. The Holy Father’s writings are in regular type, emphasis in bold, and my comments bracketed and in italics.

1. Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. Each person finds his good by adherence to God’s plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. Jn 8:22). To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person. The search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and he reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us. In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan. Indeed, he himself is the Truth (cf. Jn 14:6).

2. Charity is at the heart of the Church’s social doctrine. Every responsibility and every commitment spelt out by that doctrine is derived from charity which, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the synthesis of the entire Law (cf. Mt 22:36- 40). It gives real substance to the personal relationship with God and with neighbour; it is the principle not only of micro-relationships (with friends, with family members or within small groups) but also of macro-relationships (social, economic and political ones). For the Church, instructed by the Gospel, charity is everything because, as Saint John teaches (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16) and as I recalled in my first Encyclical Letter, “God is love” (Deus Caritas Est): everything has its origin in God’s love, everything is shaped by it, everything is directed towards it. Love is God’s greatest gift to humanity, it is his promise and our hope.

I am aware of the ways in which charity has been and continues to be misconstrued and emptied of meaning, with the consequent risk of being misinterpreted, detached from ethical living and, in any event, undervalued. In the social, juridical, cultural, political and economic fields — the contexts, in other words, that are most exposed to this danger — it is easily dismissed as irrelevant for interpreting and giving direction to moral responsibility. Hence the need to link charity with truth not only in the sequence, pointed out by Saint Paul, of veritas in caritate (Eph 4:15), but also in the inverse and complementary sequence of caritas in veritate. Truth needs to be sought, found and expressed within the “economy” of charity, but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practised in the light of truth [This goes to the question of what is truth, asked by Pilate during the trial of Christ. The Johannine examination of the question is firmly grounded in the dual understanding of God, God as Love (1 Jn 4.8) and God as truth (Jn 14.6) and that the two aspects are necessary qualities of the other (cf. Jn 8.31-32 and Jn 3.16-19)]. In this way, not only do we do a service to charity enlightened by truth, but we also help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and authenticating power in the practical setting of social living. This is a matter of no small account today, in a social and cultural context which relativizes truth, often paying little heed to it and showing increasing reluctance to acknowledge its existence.

3. Through this close link with truth, charity can be recognized as an authentic expression of humanity and as an element of fundamental importance in human relations, including those of a public nature. Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space[I believe it was Hegel who said, "Love without rules is not love at all but rather its opposite." In this we understand that loves exists within a context necessarily dependent upon reality. To consider love without truth is to remove love from the very context it depends upon for its meaning and ultimately existence]. In the truth, charity reflects the personal yet public dimension of faith in the God of the Bible, who is both Agápe and Lógos: Charity and Truth, Love and Word.

4. Because it is filled with truth, charity can be understood in the abundance of its values, it can be shared and communicated. Truth, in fact, is lógos which creates diá-logos, and hence communication and communion. Truth, by enabling men and women to let go of their subjective opinions and impressions [Rather than being the product of socio-historical development, truth is that which stands outside of culture, reminding those within a culture where the culture is strong and weak. In this way, we can consider that truth is that which keeps man honest. Truth cannot be seen as a possession that belongs to a culture and left to its whims, but rather it is an objective yardstick by which a culture's worth is measure. This is extraordinarily contradictory to the claims made by current western society], allows them to move beyond cultural and historical limitations and to come together in the assessment of the value and substance of things. Truth opens and unites our minds in the lógos of love [The λογος of love, the rationality of love is of particular importance, because it once again brings into focus the nature of man. An emotion is a response to the presence of an other. Without rationality, that experience of being with an Other remains simply that, an isolated experience without further meaning. It is looking through the eyes of truth that man’s experience begin to gain meaning, to discover their narrative. This becomes the defining act of Christian life, that our experiences are seen through the understanding of Christ, and it is through Christ that our experiences gain meaning. If this fails to occur, we find that we are simply isolated realities unable to communicate, because we cannot engage the Other because how can one engage someone else’s experience?]: this is the Christian proclamation and testimony of charity. In the present social and cultural context, where there is a widespread tendency to relativize truth, practising charity in truth helps people to understand that adhering to the values of Christianity is not merely useful but essential for building a good society and for true integral human development. A Christianity of charity without truth would be more or less interchangeable with a pool of good sentiments, helpful for social cohesion, but of little relevance [Is this not what we have seen happen? When Christian communities, especially the old Protestant mainline, sought to engage charitable acts without the structure of truth (i.e. the reason for charity) they lost their identity and have as such become relevant only to those who seek to eliminate authentic Christianity from the world.]. In other words, there would no longer be any real place for God in the world. Without truth, charity is confined to a narrow field devoid of relations. It is excluded from the plans and processes of promoting human development of universal range, in dialogue between knowledge and praxis.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesare’a Philip’pi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?”And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli’jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Matthew 16.13-16

In today’s gospel, Jesus returns home. It is hardly a hero’s welcome, because the people look at him not as a miracle worker, or the Son of God, or even as someone special, because they have known him all their lives. This sense of complacency prevents them from truly receiving Jesus. The gospel tells us that Jesus “was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.” Without faith, Christ will not force himself on us, he will not force us to receive the gifts he offers.

It is difficult though, when one has had such great treasures for their whole lives. When someone has grown up their entire lives hearing about Jesus, or having the sacraments available to them, or just the grace of being Catholic, it can be easy to take these things for granted. We can become complacent in our thoughts on Jesus. We go through the creed and we speak of a God who becomes incarnate into flesh, is born of a Virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit. That Jesus is somehow God from God, light from light, true God from true God and it all becomes very ordinary. Consider now the question of Jesus to his apostles, “who do you say that I am?”

What shall we say then of Christ? He is greater than the one who gives us laws, for he is the creator of all laws. He is more than a prophet in the wilderness proclaiming the truth of God, because he is the way, the truth, and the life. He is more than a healer, for he is the source of all life. We proclaim him Jesus Christ, who was in the beginning, was with God, and is God. You see, we can’t just let the world turn Jesus into a nice guy who told us to be nice to one another. He did not come just so that we could get along with one another. He had something greater in mind, that being the salvation of humanity and the sanctification of the human being.

“Having declared that they who received Him were born of God, and had become sons of God, he adds the cause and reason of this unspeakable honor. It is that the Word became Flesh, that the Master took on Him the form of a servant. For He became Son of man, who was God’s own Son, in order that He might make the sons of men to be children of God.”

For in His becoming Incarnate we were the object, and for our salvation He dealt so lovingly as to appear and be born even in a human body. In Christ’s Incarnation, we are given the chance of redemption, a chance of sanctification that even the angels can never know. Oh, if we could only know what Christ has destined us to be, to remember our dignity! But as scripture tells us, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” Indeed, all of creation waits with eager longing for the revelation of the sons of God”

“Thus, then, God has made man, and willed that he should abide in incorruption; but men, having despised and rejected the contemplation of God, and devised and contrived evil for themselves (as was said in the former treatise), received the condemnation of death with which they had been threatened; and from thenceforth no longer remained as they were made, but were being corrupted according to their devices; and death had the mastery over them as king.” “There are, as it is, were two things, man and sinner. Thou art called man, is God’s doing; thou art called sinner, is man’s own doing. Blot out what thou hast done, that God may save what he has done.”

Man has always accused God of inept construction, blaming God for our sinfulness. When Adam sinned, he blamed the woman whom God had given him. Since our fall from grace, we have continually challenged God on his craftsmanship. Now God could have left us to our sin, our stubbornness and left us to the consequences of our decisions. Yet he constantly reached out to us. He gave the law to Moses, and still we turned towards a golden idol. God gave his people, Saul, David and Solomon, and still, both the rulers and people turned from God. He sent the prophets, Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Amos, all, and we drove them out of town, turning a deaf ear towards their calls of repentance. We told God, it’s too hard. It’s not possible to obey these commandments. If you wanted us to do these things, then why didn’t you make it easier for us to do them?

The Father, being all that is holy and just, could have just given up on us. When we cried out demanding why he didn’t make us better, he could have just said because I said so. When we accused God of being an unfair judge for punishing us for what seems to come naturally to us, he could have ignored our charges. But he didn’t. He tried one more time. God came down to answer our charges as a human being. The divine power that turned water into wine worked through the human hands of Jesus. The divinity of Christ that calmed the seas allowed the human feet of Jesus to walk on those waters. The divinity of Christ that forgave sins spoke through the human voice of Jesus when he said, “Your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more.” Christ took on our human flesh, to show us that our human nature could live in peace with the divine nature of God. But we chose to put Christ on trial, this time for real. We put Christ on because he claimed to be God and we demanded that he explain himself. John Paul the Great contemplated the meaning of man putting God on trial in his meditations of Good Friday,

“This is the definitive meaning of Good Friday; Man, you who judge God, you who order Him to justify himself before your tribunal, think about yourself, if you are not responsible for the death of this condemned man, if the judgment of God is not actually a judgment upon yourself. Consider if this judgment and its result, the Cross and then the resurrection, are not your only way to Salvation.”

“Oh happy fault that won for us so great a redeemer!” “The belief of the resurrection of our Lord from the dead, and of His ascension into heaven, has strengthened our faith by adding a great buttress of hope. For it clearly shows how freely He laid down His life for us when He had it in His power thus to take it up again. With what assurance, then, is the hope of believers animated, when they reflect how great He was who suffered so great things for them while they were still in unbelief!”

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

for he has visited and redeemed his people,

and has raised up a horn of salvation for us

in the house of his servant David,

as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,

that we should be saved from our enemies,

and from the hand of all who hate us;

to perform the mercy promised to our fathers,

and to remember his holy covenant,

the oath which he swore to our father Abraham,

to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,

might serve him without fear,

in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

to give knowledge of salvation to his people

in the forgiveness of their sins,

through the tender mercy of our God,

when the day shall dawn upon us from on high

to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of

death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Now we come full circle. Christ was not welcomed into Nazareth because a prophet without honor in his hometown. When we are reborn into the life of Christ through baptism, we become prophets, sharing in Christ’s prophetic voice, and as a consequence, we too become unwelcome in our hometowns. There are some who say that the Catholic Church is out of touch with today’s culture. Of course she is out of step with today’s culture! If we were of this world then the world would love us. But the Church, like Christ, is not of or from this world. If the world hated Christ to the point of death, why should we expect any different reception? We are in this world, but not of it, relishing not in its pleasures but anticipating the joy of the Kingdom to come. We live in the ordinary circumstances of temporal affairs, and it becomes our special task to throw light upon our lives so that those around us might come to know and praise the Creator and our Redeemer.

On the Solemnity of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

Today’s gospel readings falls within a series of readings that are absolutely beautiful in their description of faith. In today’s reading, we see a man afflicted with leprosy coming to Jesus for healing. Now, lepers were not outcasts because the Israelites of the time were mean, or lacking in compassion. Lepers were outcast because their disease was incurable, fatal and often highly contagious. Within divine revelation itself, God had dictated to Moses the guidelines of what should be done with leprosy. Lepers were alienated from friends and family, and prevented from rendering proper worship to God at the temple in Jerusalem.

But within the Gospels, leprosy becomes a symbol for something much greater within the human condition, that being the existence of sin. For the apostles, Sin was a disease that was incurable, fatal and highly contagious. It alienates us from our family, our friends, and prevents us from being able to approach God. But just as the leper cried out to Jesus, the act of faith we make when we cry out, “Lord if it be your will, make me clean.” In our liturgy we ask that the will of the Father be done on earth as it is in heaven, the will of the father being not condemnation unto wrath, but unto the purchasing of salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ (I Thessalonians 5.9).

Sin somehow destroys the person we were meant to be. It eliminates something necessary for us to approach God. In the passage right after today’s, the Centurion asks Jesus to heal his servant. But the Centurion recognizes that he is somehow lacking in dignity, “Lord, I am not worthy for you to enter into my house.” In our liturgy, we repeat his words, Domine non sum dignus. Dignus meaning worthy, whole, deserving. Lord, I am lacking, Lord I am not decent, suitable to receive you. But when we go to the first part of our Eucharistic liturgy, the Priest says, “Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God,” we say, “It is right to give him thanks and praise” which in the Latin is dignum et justem est: It is dignifying and justifying what we do. Somehow, through the mercy of God’s grace, what we do here at the sacrifice of the Eucharist, restores the dignity lost to us in our sin, that what was lacking in who we were meant to be, is restored unto us, a completely free and undeserved gift from Christ, who, like for the leper, wills that we be made clean.

Feast of Corpus Christi

For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

John 6.55

As some of you know, I am a convert to the Catholic faith. I am in fact, still the only Catholic in my family. And I don’t mean just my immediate family. I mean like I am the only Catholic in the family period.  It makes Thanksgiving a lot of fun. Anyways, in case you are wandering how I got to be standing in front of you fine people on the way to becoming a Catholic priest, it all started with a play. I had done theatre throughout my childhood and my senior year in High School was no different. The play was Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? And I was cast as the Parish priest in the play, which of course is ironic since I am now going to be a priest (God willing). Now, I was born and raised in Georgia, and I don’t know if any of you have been south of the Mason-Dixon, but Catholics are not exactly the most popular group in the South. You heard a lot of weird things about Catholics growing up. They worship Mary, they have idols. My dad even told me once that the Catholic Church is a cult. So I wasn’t going to go to the only Catholic parish in my home town. People might see me. So I drove 40 minutes north to the next closest parish in Macon, GA.

Now, if you have never taken a protestant to a mass before, I suggest you do it. The glazed, confused, mildly panicked look on their face is priceless, especially if they grew up evangelical-Pentecostal as I did. I still remember the day clearly. It was the first Sunday of Advent and the sky was clear and a deep, azure blue. I walk up these marble stairs, ascending to this 19th century, neo-gothic Church. I walk in and was immediately lost. There were these marble bird baths filled with water that people kept dipping their fingers in. There was this weird curtsy action that you had to do before you got into your pew. Finally, it seemed that some people had to kneel while others didn’t and all for different periods of time. Now I was by myself mind you, and I must have looked like I was about to bolt out the door I had entered when a kindly old usher smiled and welcomed me to Saint Joseph’s. I told him that I’d never been to a mass before, and he quickly handed me a Misselet and showed me how to use it.

June 3rd, 2009

Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga, martyr, and his companions, martyrs

The Sadducees in today’s gospel questioned Christ because of his testimony that life did indeed carry over after death. The Sadducees did not believe in life after death and as a result lived a life filled with corruption and decay. Today there are many who say the same thing, who say that this life is it, that there is nothing more to our existence. If there is no resurrection, then the only option that we have left is to eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die (I Corinthians 15.32). If this life is all that there is, then there is no reason to love God or our fellow human beings, for the only thing worth pursuing are whatever pleasures we can find.

But we believe in more. There exists within the human heart a desire, a yearning, a restlessness that pulls us towards that great unknown. This desire is nothing more than our response to God’s call to our lives, for He is not the God of the dead but of the living (Mark 12.26-27). We must respond to Christ’s call in our life. The saints are saints because they risked all things, endured all things and suffered all things (cf. I Corinthians 13.7) for the sake of the coming Kingdom of God. Today we celebrate the martyrs of the African continent, Charles Lwanga, Matthias Mulumba Kalemba and their companions. The Church is built upon the blood of her martyrs, because their blood testifies more eloquently then any treatise, than any other act of charity, about our belief in the resurrection.

These African martyrs herald the dawn of a new age. If only the mind of man might be directed not toward persecution and religious conflicts but toward a rebirth of Christianity and civilization! Africa has been washed by the blood of these latest martyrs, the first of this new age. Africa is reborn, free and independent in the faith handed on to all the saints (Jude 1.3). The infamous crime by which these young men were put to death was so unspeakable and so expressive of our times. It shows us clearly that this world needs a moral foundation, needs spiritual customs firmly planted in Christ to be handed down to posterity. Our faith is made possible by the testimony of the martyrs (See Pope Paul VI’s homily on the occasion of the martyrdom of Charles Lwanga and companions). Are you willing to risk everything to speak of the one who died for you?

May 25, 2009

Memorial Day

Fort Jackson in South Carolina is now the Army’s primary site for the basic training of its new recruits. While stationed there, I met many recruits who were only 17 years old, and still had a year of High School left before they graduated. The amazing thing about these men and women was that they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they would be sent over to Iraq and Afghanistan within three months of graduating High School. They knew that within three months of going to prom, they would be hiking the mountains of Afghanistan. Within three months of their senior class day, they would be patrolling the narrow streets of Fallujah.