Making room for the supernatural

The rectory where I live is beautiful. A year ago before the new pastor and I moved in, they painted it all, they put in all new carpet and furniture. They spent thousands making it look better. What they didn't do was look at the infrastructure: the plumbing, the electrical, the HVAC. Unfortunately this can be a metaphor for our own Christianity. 

Today we hit one of the most difficult passages in St. Matthew's gospel.

I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 

This seems to run contrary to how we like to think of the message of Jesus, all about love and family. And it is.

We like to think of Jesus as someone we can turn to in time of trouble, someone who has come to help us.  St. Matthew reminds us that Jesus did not come to make you a better person. He came to destroy. Jesus did not come to improve us but to replace us. In each of us Jesus wishes to destroy the old self and replace it with a new self. As Ezikiel reminds us he wants to take away our hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh. He doesn't want to make your old life better, he wants to give you a new life. 

Most of us, deep down, want the impossible. We want both things. We want the new life and the old life. We want to hold on to our old self. We like our old comfortable stuff.  We know how it all works. Some of the old stuff is quite pleasurable. It makes us happy. We enjoy it. We want Jesus to come in and redecorate a little. He wants to gut the building and redo it all. And he wants to do it according his plans, not ours. 

When he had finished rebuilding us will we still love our family and friends? Of course. As a matter of fact we will love them better than we ever have. But they may not like us. We may set boundaries on people who to date have had none. We may speak out loud those truths that have been known for years, but gone unspoken. We may show real love, by challenging someone close to us to deal with a problem. 

But remember the first step is letting Jesus into the deepest part of us, and allowing him to rip out the old heart, the old self. And this is never a painless or easy process. He will show us things about our self that we do not wish to see. 

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Too often all we want Jesus and to do is help us with the first part, help us to find a happy comfortable natural life— which in the end we will lose. Jesus challenges us to intentionally lose that natural life, and here and now let him give us a supernatural life. 

Are we really ready to let Jesus in. 

Embracing the sacred

As a gift from God, every human life is sacred from conception to natural death. The life and dignity of every person must be respected and protected at every stage and in every condition. The right to life is the first and most fundamental principle of human rights that leads Catholics to actively work for a world of greater respect for human life and greater commitment to justice and peace.

So says our Church. But how willing are we to truly embrace it?

All to often I will hear certain people try to narrow it from all human life to all innocent human life. Here we must distinguish innocent in the legal sense and innocent in the moral sense. 

Which of us is morally innocent?

From conception until baptism we carry original sin and after the age of reason personal sin. 

By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins. (CCC 1263)

So the infant from baptism until their first sin after the age of reason would be innocent. The person who just received absolution would be innocent until they sin again. But most of us cannot claim to be morally innocent. 

Thankfully the Church does not teach that only the innocent lives are sacred. Every human life even the life of the sinner is sacred. 

We see that sacredness most clearly manifest in those loved ones who mourn: the families of those killed and the families of the killers. Does the mother of a criminal feel less pain when her child dies? A parent's grief is the perhaps the most perfect reflection of  God who rains on the just and the unjust without distinction. 

Today in place of the usual morning prayer I prayed what we call the Office for the Dead for all the dead. 

Until we embrace the belief in the sacredness of every human life, we may never find a way out of the cycle of violence. We will continue to find excuses  for the inexcusable on all sides.  

What is required is an individual change of heart, one person at a time. Every single human life from conception until natural death is sacred. In the deepest part of our conscience we know this is true. 

Consolation

In today's first reading from the Book of Hosea we hear once more how despite all that God has done for his children, they continue to turn away. And yet God cannot bring himself to unleash his "fierce anger."  

Why because his heart is filled with pity.  The word Hosea uses comes from the verb nakham which means to sigh.  It is the sigh of the parent whose kids has done something stupid and dangerous. It is the sigh as you throw your arms around the child simultaneously relieved that they are safe, but still wanting to kill them for being so stupid. 

Ben those of us who are well into the second half of life, can still all to often be foolish children. Sometimes we wander off the path because we a easily distracted. Other times we make a headstrong choice to go our own way. The good news is that God's love remains unchanged, he does not unleash his blazing anger. And you have to love the answer to the question why. Why doesn't God unleash anger?

For I am God and not man

Does the truth even matter?

In Matthew chapter 9 one sides sees miracles, the other the work of Satan.

He drives out demons by the prince of demons

Each sides witnesses the same events, but sees what corresponds to their already fixed opinion of Jesus. Neither was at that point in Matthew's Gospel able to see the Truth. Jesus is God, but one was certainly closer to the truth than the other. 

By shear providence I and my high school government teacher both live here in the Richmond area and I still run into him from time to time. I  am reminded of the things I learned so long ago about our country and how it should work. In those days public schools taught not only government and history, but civics. Pittsylvania County School a very traditional curriculum. 

We were taught that one of the bedrock principles that set our country above others was the presumption of innocence:

In America, a person is presumed innocent until they are found guilty in a court of law. 

A person had to be judged on the law and the facts. 

Today that presumption no longer exists. If anything, it is reversed. A person is presumed guilty until proven innocent. In a world where anyone can self-publish on the internet, the so-called court of public opinion has replaced the legal system. 

How many people writing about Hilary Clinton today have seen the evidence or even taken the time to read and understand the relevant federal statutes and precedent in order to make a reasoned argument? I certainly have not. We read what our favorite news outlets tell us and we judge the person guilty or innocent long before the matter ever reaches a court of law. And even when a person is not found guilt, or a guilty verdict is overturned by a higher court, we don't care very much. We have made our personal determination and we will not be swayed. 

Like the two groups in the gospel we see what we want to see. If we like the person, they could not possibly have done it. If we don't like them, they are guilty. It is not about law and facts; its about which side posts the most.

When non-believers follow the culture down such a path it is bad. When Americans who are also Christians behave in the same way it is scandalous. For Christians words like truth and justice are supposed to mean something. We are supposed to love our enemies. We are supposed to be in the world and not of the world. As Americans, principles like the presumption of innocence should not be empty words. 

The next four and a half months are going to be a real test of the Christianity of us all. The hateful speech and accusations from both sides are going to only intensify as election day draws nearer. We will all be tempted to become the Pharisees, interpreting the actions of those we don't like in the most negative way possible.  We cannot stop the vitriol but we don't have to participate in it. 

Whether one supports Donald or Hillary, we should all be able to see the humanity in each of them. Let us truly be Christian and find something to love in each of them. God does.

Step Two

Today we celebrate the signing the Declaration of Independence. We Virginians feel particularly proud thinking of the role that Jefferson played in the writing and approval process.  But what we can forget is that the Declaration did not make us a country, nor did the subsequent war, all they did was separate us from England. It was a great first step.

The other date which every Amercian ought to know is June 21, 1788, the date that the US Constitution was ratified by New Hampshire and The Untied States of America, the nation, was born. Here another Virginian must be remembered, John Marshall. Marshall understood what many did not. As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court he understood that we could never be, as we say today, one nation under God, if each state could simply ignore those laws it did not like. He understood that without institutionalized unity there could. be no nation. It would take the better part of a century, a civil war, and the death of more than 600,000 Americans  to resolve this debate. 

For the Church that unity is also essential. That is why in the creed  one comes first even before holy. That is why in chapter 17 of John's Gospel Jesus prays "that they may be one, as we are one...that they may be brought to perfection as one"  In order to preserve her unity the Church also needed a constitution, not human words on paper, but a structure established by Christ himself. Jesus knew that  if the Church was going to survive it needed a structure that could survive the ages and assure the faithful transmission of His message. 

Most Catholics know we trace the role of bishops to the apostles, and the role of Pope to Peter. But many have never asked where the priests come in.  If you were at mass yesterday you heard how Jesus, in addition to the 12 chose another group, 70 or 72 (manuscripts vary).  This was in perfect continuity with what God did for Moses.  In the Book of Numbers we read how a warn out Moses, asked God for help in governing the complaining people, and God had Moeses choose 70 elders, on which God placed some of the Spirit he had given Moses. 

God is unchanging and so with his new covenant in addition to Peter and the other apostles, Jesus who is God repeated the choosing of elders to assist the apostles. The Greek word for elder is presbyter, the title to which we are ordained even today. Common English uses the word priest as the translation.  

Because the hierarchical constitution of the Church was given by Christ not even the Pope can change it. He can tinker around the edges. He could allow Latin Rite priests to marry, women to be deacons; there is a biblical foundation for that. But no human can alter the fundamental structure of the Church. That constitution is not ours to amend. 

Independence from English rule is a wonderful thing to celebrate. But we should not confuse that with the self-centered notion of independence so rampant today. Even less should we think that this notion of freedom void of responsibility toward others is Christian. The first thing the Bible teaches us about humans is that we were created to be one. 

As we celebrate our freedom let us also call to mind our responsibility and let us pray as a Church and a nation for unity. 

Control that mouth

One of the most difficult commands in the Bible comes from Ephesians 4:29 where St. Paul commands us regarding speech.  He tells us what we are to say and what we are not to say.

On th positive side we are to say 

-good (Gk. agathos). 

-words for edification, words that build up

-words that a needed

On the negative side he tells us to never let go from our mouths words that are in Greek sapos. It comes from the verb sepo from which where we get words like septic, or sepsis. It means to putrefy, to rot.  

It is interesting that he doesn't use the verb speak, he uses the verb to let go or release. The image is that we have both kinds of words in our mouths. But we are only to let out the good ones, the ones that build up, the ones that people truly need. The rotten ones, the ones that tear down, the ones of no benefit to others. the ones no one needs to hear we should keep to ourselves. Just swallow them. Or better yet, don't let them form in your mouth. Stop them when they are just little thoughts. 

But St. Paul knows human nature, those septic words and thoughts are going to form at some point in all of us, first in the mind, then in the mouth. If we are Christians, we filter. We let out of our mouths only the good words, the ones needed to build up.  It takes incredible discipline. But there is no such thing as an undisciplined disciple. 

The truth about saints

Today we celebrate St. Junipero Serra y Ferrar, the Franciscan founder of the first of the Cakifornia missions who was canonized last year. Those who protested the canonization seem not to understand some basic truths of the faith. 

Firstly, moral sin, that sin which separates us from eternal life with God requires not only that the action be gravely wrong, but that the person knows it to be wrong, and freely chooses to do it. One could agree that his treatment of the native peoples was at times wrong, and simultaneously  say that it was probably not a sin because he did not understand it to be wrong. We should always be careful not to retroject 21st century standard onto persons of prior ages. In every generation we can only work with the information that we had. 

More importantly, we miss the point if we think that by declaring a person a saint, we are saying that they were without sin. Apart from Jesus and Mary (because of th unique gift given her) we are all sinners. Of course, Junipero Serra was a sinner and so are all of us, but we also hope to be saints like him one day. 

While we acknowledge his imperfection, today we celebrate not only the good that he did, but the good he has inspired and continues to inspire in others. We believe that by God's grace he stands with all the holy men and women around the throne of God, and we pray that we will have that same passion for spreading the Good News.