What is your position?

To the upright I will show the saving power of God.

A curious adjective in English when you think about it, upright. What's even more curious is that it was used to describe the morality of a person for two centuries before it was used as an adjective to describe the physical position of being up right.

In one sense it juxtaposes us with the animals who walk on all fours or bent over. It's opposite would be upside down, which presupposes that there is an up side. There is a right position and a wrong position. There is a proper alignment.

Are you an upright person? Before you answer that I would have you look at another aspect of your life, your priorities. Then for all of us it becomes a more difficult question.

If we were to make a list of our priorities, not in the order we think we hold them, but based on which ones we give the most time and energy, would it still be upright?

How perfect

One day before Super Tuesday there is something too providential about the gospel's admonition:

Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.

From the far left who wants to talk about a "war on women" to the far right talk of "socialist agenda." The judging and condemning going on seem to be at least the worst in my lifetime.

This gospel does not mean that we are not to have principles and convictions. It does not even mean that we are not supposed to make reasoned judgements. Life should be a constant series of those.

It means we should not be moving beyond the judging of the policy to the attribution of motive, as if we can read what is in another persons heart. The language of the sinister plot (they want to take away your freedom to...), is antithetical to Christianity.

We love to think of ourselves as a religious country. Most of us think of ourselves as Christians. Yet, in our conversations, particularly the political ones it seems lately, we set our Christianity aside.

In this Lenten season perhaps it is time to monitor our judgments just a bit more.

What so good about it?

The true curmudgeon's response to "Good Morning." In the world of the Christian's world every morning is good because we know that each new day was made by God.

The gospel today is the famous, ask and you shall receive...passage.
And we all know that we shall not always receive what we ask for.
Instead the passage promises that God knows how to give us "what is good."
Here is where it suddenly gets tricky.

Moral good we know, in the sense that God has taught us through the Law, the Prophets, Jesus, and the Church what is right and wrong.
Here we are addressing another kind of good, what is good for us at a particular moment in our lives.

Our natural instinct is to avoid pain, and seek pleasure. In this way we are not too different from animals. It's why dogs will eat chocolate and drink antifreeze, because they taste good.

We are suppose to live on a different level. We have been given by God the capacity to transcend, to see the long view, the eternal view. We have the capacity to make choices with a view not just to the momentary pleasure or pain but with a goal of eternal life. But how often do we use this capacity?

We are like the person with a beautiful voice who refuses to sing. We have a gift, and let it go to waste. Look at any tv commercial or campaign ad. They all promise solutions that are easy, quick, and painless. And we, like the dog with the poisonous chocolate swallow it, because it's what we want to hear. We choose the animal life.

Jesus invites us to the truly human life, to use the incredible gifts of intellect and will he has given us, to see the truth. The medicine we need tastes nasty. The best road is sometimes rough. And there is such a thing a good pain.

Open your ears

One of the most frustrating things deaf children will do is close their eyes when you fuss at them. We close our eyes and input stops.
Once I was with a deaf child and his family in a very noisy place and when I said something, he said "Just close your ears." I then had to explain the impossibility.
On further reflection, while we cannot physically close our ears, we can and do close them to things we do not want to hear.
The people of Nineva listened and responded, and did do quickly.
Can we follow their example?

Pick you limit

In today's gospel we are given the Our Father, which if you look closely contains 7 petitions, from "hallowed be thy name" to "deliver us from evil." It's worth noting that Jesus only felt it necessary to repeat one, the one dealing with forgiveness.

Immediately after the our father we get

If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.

Every time we pray the Our Father we ask for God to offer us only limited forgiveness, to forgive us only as much as we forgive.

Is there a limit to God's forgiveness? Yes. And each one of us gets to choose our own personal limit. Every time someone wrongs us we have an opportunity to raise or lower the limit. The more we forgive the more we will be forgiven. The more we stay mad, and hold a grudge, the lower it goes.

Today if something happens, even something small, that offers you the chance to forgive, do it.

More than not eating meat

Today is the first Friday in Lent and not eating meat on Friday seems to be one aspect of Lent we are best known for. What few Catholics realize is that we are still supposed to abstain from meat in Friday every week of the year, or substitute some other penitential practice.. That last part seems to have gotten lost in the minds of most Catholics. All we heard was "outside of lent you can now eat meat on Friday." Another example of how we all have conscious and unconscious selective hearing.

The point of the reading from Isaiah today is that none of these acts mean anything in isolation. They must be linked to a larger life committed to not simply loving God in the abstract but showing that love through our care of the one creature made in God's image and likeness.

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.

Here Isaiah is not suggesting that actual fasting be abolished in favor of the above, but reminding us that more is required.

With the economy being what it is, the local outreach centers, food pantries, clothing closets are all in need of assistance. Lent is the perfect time for us to look right in our own neighborhood and ask how we can help. Perhaps this weekend or next is the time to clean out the closets. Throw away the junk, and give away those clothes that are still good but you never wear anyway.

Life and Death Decisions

In this second day of Lent our first reading is the stark choice offered by God in the Book Deuteronomy.

"Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom....
Choose life."

In reality all day every day we are making life and death decisions. With every choice we make we take another step toward one or the other.
Look for example at the so called seven deadly sins:
pride, greed, envy, anger, gluttony, sloth and lust.
Now look at their corresponding virtues:
humility(humilitas), generosity(charitas), kindness (humanitas), patience, temperance, diligence(industria), and chastity.
BTW, a married couple is considered chaste,as long as they are faithful; the word doesn't mean what some think.

Each time we choose one of these 14 we are taking a step one direction or the other.

Perhaps this Lent we can focus on the virtues, look for those opportunities we have during the day to take a step toward life. This list is by no means complete but it is a could place to start. Perhaps with practice by the end of Lent some will even be habits.