What do you tell yourself or others when there is doubt about the existence of God? I would like to recommend an interview with Dr. Rowan William, the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Church of England. The interviewer, John Humphrys, is from Channel 4 of the BBC.

The interview starts off in a genteel enough manner but builds into some rather intense exchanges. It is not a debate. In fact Humphrys begins by asking for a sales pitch - to be converted. Wisely, the Archbishop leads Humphrys to question his own questions in a manner similar to Socratic dialog.

It is a very good example of pastoral teaching, even if the inquirer does not seem to be entirely sincere. Take a look at the text or listen to the podcast.

St. John of God (1495 -1555) was born Joao Cidade in Montemor-o-Novo (Evora) in Portugal on March 8, 1495. He spent much of his life working in Spain for the Mayoral family in Oropeza as a shepherd. Later he became a soldier of fortune, enlisting twice in the army. After his second enlistment, which had taken him to Austria to fight the Turks, he traveled through Spain and North Africa. Juan Ciudad, as he was known in Spanish, settled in Granada and became a seller of books on chivalry and religion.

In 1537, St. John of God heard a sermon by St. John of Avila and underwent an intense conversion experience. His reaction was extreme. He destroyed his book shop and acted deranged for several days. He was finally committed to the Royal Hospital of Granada, since he seemed to have gone mad. A few months later, he left, calm of spirit, and put himself under the direction St. John of Avila. After a brief pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in southern Spain, he returned to Granada and took up his work in service of the poor.

He became known as Juan de Dios, John of God, because of his great love and service to the destitute and the ill. St. John of God was given a habit by the local bishop, who also confirmed the name everyone had given him. He was very good not only at soliciting money and support for his hospital but he also created a relationship between the donors and the recipients. Volunteers provided services and the recipients were encouraged to pray for their benefactors. He was at ease with all levels of society and was especially known for listening to people’s problems and offering encouragement if nothing else. St. John of God reached out to the most despised members of society, the prostitutes, and helped many to find other ways to support themselves and lead lives of dignity.

On his birthday, March 8, 1555, a day that would become his feast day, St. John of God went to his reward. The co-workers he had attracted, formed a religious order, the Hospitaller Brothers of St. John of God, to carry on his work all over the world. The core of St. John of God’s spirituality is hospitality - that virtue of acceptance and care that sees Christ in the guest at the door and among those most in need.

On Shrove Tuesday, while much of the world was at Mardi Gras, I was praying and sharing scripture with a small group of inmates at the county jail. Our scripture was the Temptation of Christ (Luke 4:1-19). One thing that emerged in our prayer and reflection was Christ’s acceptance of the Father’s way of rejecting power and advantage in the announcement of the Kingdom.

Why take the hard way? God could have redeemed us in many different ways. Why such a horrible death? Why did the Spirit drive Jesus into the wilderness after his baptism by John? Why was the Son of God fasting and praying for 40 days?

One of our group restated a common view that the offenses of humanity had become so severe that God demanded the most severe appeasement. I suggested that maybe the answer was in the persistence of evil in our lives. For so many of the men I was praying with, their lives had been damaged by forces beyond their control - poverty, addiction, and mental illness. (Hardened criminals generally don’t come to a prayer meeting in our jail. The faith of those who do come is something, I am sure that Jesus did not find in Israel and does not find in most respectable Christians.)

Christ, who was like us in all things but sin, chose to identify with the powerless and to put his faith in the Father through non-violence. Utter foolishness - according to St. Paul. In our suffering and defeat how could we be one with a God who was not defeated - a God who was not an utter failure? Did the Father exact this humiliation out of a some perverse pleasure unworthy of a human father?

That community of Divine love - Father, Son, Holy Spirit - Creator, Redeemer, Breath of Life come to the heart as love. Love can never be forced. True love can never come through power, glamour, or glitz. As we reflected and prayed it became more obvious to us that God can only come to us in compassion and that is how we come to him. Yet compassion is not compatible with power, wealth, and success - like a camel passing through the eye of the needle.

God with us. God like us. Powerless in love.

January 25 is the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (Acts 22). Most of us are familiar with the story. Saul - his original name - was a Pharisee who was persecuting the very first Christians. (At that early stage believers called themselves Followers of the Way. The name Christian would come about later in Antioch)

St. Paul was on his way to Damascus with documents authorizing him to arrest and bring back Christians to Jerusalem for trial by the religious authorities. Scripture makes no reference to a horse, which is usually part of the depiction of the scene in which St. Paul is blinded by a bright light and falls to the ground. He hears a voice utter the now famous words “Saul, why are you persecuting me.” In the exchange, St. Paul asks who it is that is speaking to him - the response, ”I am Jesus, the Nazarene..”

According to scripture, we know that Paul was from Tarsus and that he was also a Roman citizen. His letters to the early congregations (churches) are the oldest documents in the New Testament. They reveal a man who is thoroughly Jewish in his mode of thinking and speech. Yet he is Christianity’s link to the larger Hellenistic world.

For those who like to emphasize the important role of St. Peter in the development of the Church, it can come as a shock that he and St. Paul disagreed so strongly about the incorporation of non-Jews, or gentiles. Some of us contemporary Catholics - with a certain sense of ironic humor - see this conflict as the first among many between a Pope and a theologian.

What is most significant about St. Paul’s conversion is his acceptance by the leadership of the early Christian community. Although they had substantial reasons to distrust his sincerity, they forgave an enemy - even one who had been an accomplice in the stoning of St. Stephen, the first martyr. They forgave a man who arrested and imprisoned their family members and friends. The book of the Acts of the Apostles shows that the leadership and the community had their misgivings, but they helped the repentant Saul to demonstrate his conversion, acting as mentors, teachers, and friends. Some helped more than others, and many not at all, yet it was enough.  And as they say… the rest is history.

St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) is an interesting counterpoint to John Calvin (1509-1564) who preceded him. Both men are united by the City of Geneva. Calvin was its spiritual leader and made it a great center of the Reformation and St. Francis de Sales would become bishop of Geneva, although his headquarters were in Annecy, since Geneva no longer permitted Catholicism. Both men were well educated. Their fathers had intended for them to be lawyers and high government officials. Both studied theology and were perplexed by the issue of predestination - that certain people were saved and others were not because it had all been determined by God from eternity.

The notion of predestination overwhelmed St. Francis as a young student at Paris and almost crushed him, because he felt that he had been damned from all eternity for all eternity. He became physically ill and depressed and could barely get out of bed. Calvin dealt with it by assuming that he and members of his Reformed Church had been predestined for salvation.

St. Francis left his bed and in prayer at church, in front of a statue of the Blessed Mother, he affirmed his belief in God as a God of love. Our salvation rests on our faith and reliance on a God of love; on God who is love. This transformative experience would lead not only to a long life spent reforming and re-establishing Catholicism, but more importantly, suffusing that Catholicism with the gentleness of the Love of God.

This focus on divine love renewed a sense of spiritual priorities as seen in the Gospels. Exterior practices and observances, including penance and mortification, were second to a conversion of the mind, heart, and spirit. He led many back to Catholicism not so much by his learned teaching and writing but by the simplicity of his life as a bishop and his comfort in visiting the small towns and the countryside of his diocese at risk of his personal safety.

It might be easy for Catholics to focus on the triumph of St. Francis as a major figure in the Counter-Reformation, but this would miss the point of his life. St. Francis called people to an authentic Christianity based on the history and tradition of the Catholic Church. Yet his focus on the faith and its sacraments was a focus on the Divine Love. It was a protest against the emptiness of a faith based on predestination and severity and it was also a re-affirmation of a joyous faith of love as presented in the Gospels. His life and teaching presented a path of profound reformation and conversion for all Christians and those who seek God with a sincere heart.

St. Francis de Sales’ spirituality became a centerpiece for the religious order of The Visitation that he would found with St. Jane Frances de Chantal and for centuries of Catholics who would follow. St. Francis de Sales also inspired the founding of the Oblates of St. Frances de Sales and the Salesians of St. John Bosco.

His great works include: Introduction to the Devout Life, Treatise on the Love of God, and The Catholic Controversy.

The third Sunday after Christmas is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. On this day we recall that Jesus went out to the Jordan River, where his cousin John was baptizing, and himself entered into the water to be baptized. All four of the gospels tell of this event, in which the Spirit of the Lord came to rest upon Jesus, like a dove. Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that a voice spoke from the heavens, saying, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” John tells us that John the Baptist told his disciples, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

Jesus’ baptism was a life changing event for him. He went out into the desert to pray and to ponder and absorb the immensity of what had been revealed to Him as He stood in the water with John. This experience of coming to know that He is God’s Beloved Son was the foundation for His entire ministry. When He returned from the desert, He began going among the people and spreading the Good News that God cares about what happens to people here and now, that God loves even the most insignificant person, that loving actions speak louder that pious prayers, that joy and peace are signs of the presence of God.

Each of us, in our own baptisms, have been given the gift of sharing in the life and work of Jesus. This feast is a reminder to us of that great gift and of the fact that our response is to be like that of Jesus - to go out now and share the same Good News through our actions in our daily lives, with peace and joy and love.

“The majority of the world is struggling to survive under awful conditions, while the Church in the US seems preoccupied with in-house issues of liturgy, teaching, words, and a few issues in the US politics/power. The bulk of Catholics worldwide are struggling with poverty, the earth/resources/
globalization, immigration and how to love one’s enemies, not superficial issues. … The Church must become an alternative witness of hope and other ways to live than the dominant ones that are destroying people, cultures and the earth itself. The Church must become small communities living justice, caring for the poor.”

Megan McKenna, as quoted in “Prophetic Voices in the Church,” Observer, January 2008

December 29 is the feast of St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas Becket was born to an upper middle class family around 1118 in London. As a boy, he learned the ways of the upper class from family friends, including hunting, jousting, horsemanship, and how to behave as a gentleman. He was educated in civil and canon (Church) law in England, France, and Italy. Upon his return to England, he began working for Theobald, then Archbishop of Canterbury. Theobald was so impressed with his abilities that he gave Thomas a variety of positions, including Archdeacon of Canterbury. It should be noted, that one did not need to be a priest to serve in these positions. Theobald recommended Thomas for the position of Lord Chancellor when the position became open and Henry II agreed.

As Lord Chancellor, Thomas was one of the most powerful men in England. At the time, Henry II was actively trying to bring the Church in England under greater royal control. Thomas Becket helped in this by his collection of taxes on all landholders, including the Church. Church leaders in England rightly saw him as their adversary in the struggle.

Thomas was a friend of Henry II, to the degree that anyone could be a friend to a king in those days. They spent free time together and Thomas shared in the pleasures of the Court, including those common to courtiers. Henry sent his son to live with Thomas for a while and the young prince became very fond of Thomas.

All was well until 1162. When Theobald died, the position of Archbishop of Canterbury was given to Thomas Becket. Henry II assumed that his loyal servant, companion in pleasure, and Lord Chancellor, would continue to be “his man” as head of the church in England.

Thomas Becket, on the other hand, became more religious. He resigned as Lord Chancellor and began to consolidate the power of the position of Archbishop of Canterbury. A series of conflicts arose between Archbishop and King over governance of the Church and clergy, control of lands, and the relationship with Rome. There were trials, exiles, reconciliations, excommunications, and much upheaval in the following years. Finally, four of Henry’s men killed Thomas in the Cathedral at Canterbury, believing they were doing so on the King’s orders. Edward Grim, an eyewitness to the event, reported that Thomas’ last words were, “For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death.”

Three years later, in 1173, Thomas Becket was canonized by Pope Alexander. But the story didn’t end there. Over the centuries that followed, the story of Thomas Becket was interpreted and reinterpreted. He was seen as enemy and as hero by those who followed. The site of his tomb was a popular tourist/pilgrim destination. His remains were moved to a shrine at Trinity Chapel in 1220 and continued to attract visitors. Henry VIII destroyed the shrine of Becket’s tomb and his bones, ordering that his name no longer be mentioned in England. In more recent times, plays, movies, biographies, and operas have all been written about the tumultuous history of Thomas Becket and Henry II.

Today, as we look at the modern world, we might think that such things could never happen now. Yet their tale should be a cautionary one for all of us.

What happens when the powers of the world clash with the mission of faith? What should be the role of religious leaders in the political sphere? What role should faith play in public life, especially for those chosen to govern a nation of people from many faiths? Does it work to have religious leaders govern a modern nation? Who should be governed by religious law - everyone or just clerics? When clerics break civil law, should they be subject to civil courts?

These questions and more are seething in world politics and international relations. We see countries in which religious law is the law of the land. We see countries in which members of faith-based insurgency movements are killing those they see as breakers of religious laws or as enemies of their faith. Candidates for political office are murdered, suicide bombers kill elected officials and members of the general public alike, and voters are advised to look to their faith in deciding which candidate merits their support.

Somehow, all this does not seem consistent with the will of a power whom we believe to be Love (1 John 4:16).

Maybe the better approach would be to look at the fruits of religious belief. Are the hungry fed? Are children, even the girls, educated? How do we care for the sick? Can everyone get the care they need? Do people have shelter from the elements - homes in which they can feel safe and raise their children in peace? Can ideas be exchanged freely, without fear of murder following? How do we treat the elderly? Do we treasure new life? Can we laugh with each other rather than at each other? Do we treat our enemies with respect and justice? Is justice tinged with mercy?

The great insight of the founders of the American political system was that in order for religion to be most free, and in practice most influential, it must be unhinged from politics. And as we select the politicians who will lead us in the next 2-4 years, we need to remember that stated religious beliefs are not necessarily the best measures of what the fruits of their leadership will be.

Christmas and New Years are times for that bane of all good people - temptation in the guise of Good. St. Ignatius Loyola is well known for this insight into the primary way good people fall from grace. One of the fool proof temptations is to get people so wound up in getting everything right, that they get it all wrong.

Here are some ideas:

Budget your time, money, and calories. Becoming exhausted, financially stressed, and sending your blood sugar into outer space are all great ways to make you feel down, miserable, and ready for a fight.

Prioritize you activities. Turn off the Christmas machine! It’s a time for celebration. Select activities you and your family really want to do. Get help. Delegate tasks. Indulge in just relaxing, breathing, praying.

Don’t try and solve family issues over the holidays. It can happen, but usually it only happens in greeting cards and holiday movies. Be peaceful and prayerful. Take care of yourself and avoid toxic people and situations. You have a much better chance of being successful in handling difficult relationships during less stressful times and occasions.

Decorations and “house beautiful” have nothing to do with a manger in Bethlehem. You and your loved ones will remember and cherish the warmth and the love that come from imperfect decor, meals, and people. The greatest gift you can give yourself and your loved ones is relaxation. Banish the junk food devil. Holiness is in simple slow food - nothing elaborate - just healthy and good.

Your daily examination of conscience should include rest, wholesome food, plenty of water, and exercise. Remember it’s supposed to be a holiday, not two weeks on a forced march. Make sacred time for yourself - alone with God or at least a good book.

Remember, the truest sign of grace and holiness is laughter. It is a time to have fun. Laughter brings us closer to our family and friends, boosts the immune system, and relieves stress.

Watch out for impulse anything — eating, spending, drinking, or decision making.

If you feel out of sorts, it is time to watch out for the four horseman of the holiday apocalypse: Hunger, Anger, Loneliness, Fatigue. Be peacefully aware of your moods and feelings. You determine how you will respond to people, situations, moods, and feelings. Live in God’s grace and so will the others around you.

When I was growing up, Yogi Bear was a popular cartoon. Yogi lived in “Jellystone Park” and, with his sidekick, Boo-Boo, took it as his mission to defeat the park ranger and get picnic baskets from the tourists. It was all very silly and funny to watch.

In the actual world, “Don’t Feed the Bears” was and is a serious statement. Bears are wild animals and play an important role in the environment. However, bears that get used to eating human food or bears that come close to humans can be dangerous. Cute little cubs have fiercely protective mothers who do not hestitate to defend them.

As an adult, I have come to observe that there are other beings who should not be fed. This is the story of one person’s encounter with one of those beings.

It had been a difficult day. The children were out of sorts. She was short of sleep. Her husband was worried about problems at work. Nothing seemed to be going right. To top it all off, like the proverbial cherry on the banana split, he had criticized her housekeeping or some such thing. (Later she couldn’t even remember what it had been.) She got the children to bed, the dog to the kennel and went to bed herself.

Usually, when she’d had a day like that, a good night’s sleep took care of the problem and the next day went better. But that night she couldn’t sleep. She was too angry. She kept going over and over in her mind what had happened and how unfair and unjust it all had been. The time dragged on and she couldn’t calm down. She tried praying the rosary, because often that helped her go to sleep when she was upset or worried, but that didn’t help either.

Finally, it occured to her to ask God to take away the anger and resentment so she could get some sleep. No sooner said than done! Her eyes were closed and she was lying on her side. She had the sensation of the blankets being flung back off of her - and at that instant, there was a cold, bright, bluish flash of light which stung her leg and then was gone. She no longer felt angry or resentful, but rather peaceful and ready to sleep. Thanking God, she drifted off to a restful night of sleep.

A couple of weeks later, she was talking with a friend about what had happened. The friend has the gift of healing, so she knew he wouldn’t think she was making it up. She described what had happened and he said that he could see, looking with his mind’s eye at the scene, what she had not seen. Behind her as she lay on the bed, a golden light appeared. (Golden light is often associated with the divine or the holy - as in halos around the heads in pictures of saints.) The golden light moved over her and exposed the deceiving spirit, forcing it to flee. The spirit had stung her as it left, in anger at being exposed. Then the golden light had covered her and let her rest.

I have often reflected on this woman’s experience. I had never really thought of anger, resentment, jealousy and the other negative emotions as spirits or as having any real “being” outside of the individual person. It would seem that I was mistaken.

I am now very careful about what emotional states I nurture. When I am angry, I try to remember not to feed that “spirit” by dwelling on how I have been wronged. Feeding these deceiving spirits only strengthens them and allows them to reach out and hurt others through me. They tell me I am the one who was hurt, but in my heart of hearts I know that “it takes two to tango” and despite what they might have me believe, I am rarely a totally innocent victim.

In these days of the ending of one liturgical year and beginning of the next, when the readings speak of the last days and of judgements to come, maybe we would all do well to make a sign and post it in our hearts, “Don’t Feed the Deceiving Spirits!”