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Posted by on Jul 26, 2011

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

Testimony:

Thank God for His mercy and grace. If not for His grace and mercy, I would have been so lost in drugs and alcohol and misery. He sent His son to die for each of us. What I have now is peace that passes all understanding, and His Spirit that lives in me to give me actual joy in life. finally joy and peace that I thought was in pain killers and booze. That wasn’t joy, that was being numb. Not now! Not anymore! Thank God for His grace. – blog comment on “Your Grace Is Enough for Me” by stormyweather

Reflection:

This testimony is a beautiful example of true reconciliation. It involves a transformative healing and could have come right out of the pages of the Gospel – The Good News.

Confession, or the Sacrament of Reconciliation, is high on St. Ignatius’ list of priorities for the First Week of the Exercises. The challenge for most cradle Catholics is focusing on a long Church approved check list of sins, as opposed to focusing on the person of Christ. The things that bother us the most are obvious if we are honest with ourselves. Often we can become neurotically obsessed with our own behavior in terms of small things, without facing major issues like alcoholic parents; sexual, physical, or psychological abuse; refusing to forgive. People in lifestyles or marriages that don’t meet Church standards can feel that somehow God is not interested in them; somehow He died only for the good people.

Most of the detailed lists cover symptoms of some type of break-down in our relationship with God as codified in the Ten Commandments or the Seven Deadly Sins: pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth. However, this can lead to a denial of our own feelings and cause damage in other areas of our lives. If my anger is always close to the surface, it is not really helpful to keep confessing it and beating myself up over it without looking more deeply at what its cause is. My marriage can be problematic and my sex life unsatisfying. However, if I just keep focusing on the symptoms instead of these deeper issues, I am wasting time and energy and building up to something that will be very bad for everyone concerned.

Sin, guilt, and remorse can be very complicated. Returning veterans from the Middle East have not sinned when they killed people if you believe in the just war theory of morality. That doesn’t mean that they don’t carry a great burden. When they lash out in destructive ways as part of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, marriages are lost, children are harmed, suicide can follow. Going down a checklist doesn’t even begin to offer the healing we all need in these and most situations. Let us look at ourselves, our loved ones, and all others with honesty and compassion as we embrace the forgiving Christ. We are worth everything to God. Perhaps the greatest sin when we don’t see ourselves as worth saving. God does not make junk.

people-walking-on-street

Examination of Conscience

Place yourself in God’s presence and know that you are with a trusted friend. Put out of your mind all thoughts of an avenging father figure or some tyrannical authority figure. You are with the God who came to dwell among us and shared all things we endure except sin. Jesus was open and frank with people who came and spoke with him. He expects no less from you. If you are upset or confused, listen for the healing voice of your Friend. Open your heart and listen.

Start with a thank you for being redeemed and saved and for protection. Ask the tough questions. Why did my child die? What do I do with my alcoholic husband? My heart is broken. Can you mend it? I tampered with evidence to get innocent people convicted. I fought for tax laws that would protect me and take food, healthcare, housing, and education from the poor. I did my best to be careful, but I killed women and children in that village. I think the Church is wrong when it says we should get rid of the death penalty.

Be open to finding out the facts. Have I brought these issues to a counselor? How do I start to change things and to make amends. What is the deeper issue here?

Talk with Jesus. Accept His forgiveness. When he says “Go in peace and sin no more,” what will I do to make that a reality? If you are glum or downcast, something is wrong. You have been pardoned. Stretch, breathe, cry for happiness. Break out in song. Jump for joy. This day salvation has come to your house.

Concluding Prayer

St. Ignatius, you signed your letters “pobre de bondad,” poor in goodness, and called yourself a pilgrim. Please pray for me to be open to what God is calling me to do to announce and build up the kingdom. Transform my petitions into questions of discernment and pray for us to remember that all of our true needs and desires are already known to God. Pray that I be taken beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.

In your writings and by your example we are reminded to pray for the Church and the Holy Father, for all who dwell in darkness and for the millions lacking food, water, and other necessities. We join our prayer with yours for true openness so that we can contemplate the Divine presence in all things and praise, reverence, and serve God Our Lord in action.Pray for us to have the courage to meet and to serve the Lord Jesus in the poor and the suffering.

Praise be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
Now and Forever. Amen.

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Posted by on May 7, 2011

Sharing in Divine Mercy

The second Sunday of Easter is known as Divine Mercy Sunday. The Gospel reading (Jn 20:19-31) tells of Jesus’ appearance to His disciples in the Upper Room on Easter Sunday evening. He appeared among them, wished them Peace, showed them His wounds and asked for something to eat. Then He breathed on them, the breath of the Holy Spirit,  and told them to forgive sins. He told them to continue the work He had begun, taking the Good News of God’s love out to all the world.

When I was growing up, the message of this Gospel’s story of the granting of power to forgive sin was generally presented in terms of the power of priest to forgive sins in the sacrament of Penance (now more often known as Reconciliation). However, as I listened to the Gospel proclamation last Sunday, the Good News I heard was of the gift given to all of us as followers and disciples of Jesus – the power to forgive those who hurt us in some way.

Forgiveness does not come easily to anyone. When hurts come along, it’s often much more satisfying to plot revenge, or bask in a stew of martyred pouting or otherwise hold on to the hurt. But Jesus knew something we often miss. The one most hurt, the one most diminished, the one who suffers most from such behavior is the one who engages in it! Perhaps that is why He was so quick to forgive those who had abandoned and denied Him just a few days earlier.

As we live our calling as followers of Jesus, we share the task of bringing forgiveness, reconciliation and peace to our families, communities, nations and world. Anything that stands in the way of this mission is to be suspect. We can’t forgive through our own power. Some wounds are just too deep for our human ability to heal. But Jesus is with us and He can heal them if we are willing to open them to His touch. And as we receive healing, we are called to pass it on, so that the waves of forgiveness and healing at last embrace all the people of the world. It’s truly a noble calling.

Peace be with you.

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Posted by on Oct 31, 2010

Who is Zacchaeus in Our Lives Today?

The Gospel reading for today, the 31st Sunday of Ordinary time, Cycle C, is the story of the tax collector, Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus lived in Jericho. He was despised by the people of the community because he was a tax collector. Being a tax collector in those days meant that he was free to extort as much as he could get from the people and had only to send a portion of it to the authorities at higher levels of government (ie, Jerusalem and Rome). He was the chief tax collector, taking money from all the tax collectors under his supervision and from his own work as well. The gospel notes that he was a wealthy man.

Now Zacchaeus was curious about Jesus and when he heard that Jesus would be passing through town, he went out with the crowd to see him. We do the same today when celebrities come through our own towns. However, Zacchaeus had a problem. He was a short man and there were lots of people in front of him. So he climbed a tree to get a better view.

Jesus saw him in the tree, stopped and called him by name to come down, saying that he (Jesus) would dine at the home of Zacchaeus that night. The people were horrified and scandalized. They asked if Jesus really could know who Zacchaeus was, that he was a terrible sinner? But Zacchaeus was touched by the healing love of Jesus in that moment and volunteered that he would return fourfold all that he had stolen and give half of his possessions to the poor. Jesus told all “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” (Lk 19:1-10)

This story got me to thinking. Who is Zacchaeus in our lives today?

It’s easy to point the finger of blame at celebrities who are promiscuous or who drink too much or who use illicit drugs. It’s easy to look at politicians who misuse their power. It’s easy to say that those who provide or seek abortions are great sinners. It’s easy to scapegoat people whose sexual orientation does not match our own.  It’s easy to gloat when a minister is caught in some sin he or she has denounced from the pulpit.

But I don’t think that’s the lesson we need to draw from this account. We need to look at ourselves and see the areas in which we fail. We need to ask ourselves who we cheat, from whom do we steal, whose hearts do we break? To some extent each of us is Zacchaeus.

Then I suggest we go a step further. Who are the people in our lives whom we blame for what is wrong in society? Who are the people we would choose to block from access to the goods of life? To whom would we deny education, health care, food, clothing, shelter?

Do we blame undocumented immigrants and seek to exclude them and their children from the goods and services they need to live full, healthy lives? Do we suggest that the children of the undocumented who are born here should not be citizens by birth, thereby denying them the protection of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution? Do we look down on the laid off teacher, the unwed mother,  or the disabled worker who receive unemployment, food stamps and Medicaid? Do we insist that people who can’t afford health insurance should just not get sick and/or need preventive care services? Do we say that only the well-to-do should be able to stay home with their young children and that mothers in poorer families should have to put their children in day care for long periods of time and work at minimum wage or less trying to earn enough to cover rent, food and childcare? Do we assume that all children of minority groups are probably gang members? Do we expect that the poor are somehow less intelligent and deserve to live in poverty?

I suggest that perhaps Zacchaeus takes many forms in the United States today. Some people we treat as if they were public sinners (Zacchaeus) because they are less fortunate or have made poor decisions in their lives. Somehow we are inclined to believe that those for whom all is going well are holy and specially rewarded by God for their good lives and that the opposite is true for those in difficult circumstances. Some of us are Zacchaeus in our world because of choices we have made that hurt others.

The good news is that Jesus came to bring salvation to us all, in whatever way we may personally be Zacchaeus and to whomever we treat with scorn or exclude as if he or she were Zacchaeus.  And why does Jesus come to bring this salvation? Because “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost” and because the Lord will “overlook people’s sins that they may repent.” (Wis 11:23)

Good news indeed. May we be open to receive that salvation ourselves and to support others whom we might otherwise push aside as unworthy of the grace and blessings of the Lord.

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Posted by on Dec 31, 2009

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

New Year’s Greetings and Wishes

New Year's Eve in Rio

New Year's Eve in Rio

It’s New Year’s Eve in Santa Cruz. A year has nearly ended and a new one is fast upon us. On top of that, the first decade of the new century is coming to a close. So much has happened in the past 10 years – for all of us. Some has been good. Some has been bad. Some has been just normal. That’s the way life goes.

Still, as Christians, we live with the belief and hope that God is in it all and brings good out of even the terrible times of our lives. The God who couldn’t bear to sit back in isolation from all of creation and from the human beings He created entered into our lives and history, to bring us all back into union again. It’s not up to us to become perfect and worthy of God. God became one of us and in doing so, made that re-union possible. We just have to let go of anger, jealously, hatred, fear, and all the other negative energies which we so easily hold onto and nurture. God will even help us let go of them.  It’s all a free gift!

So, at this time of a New Year and a New Decade, may the Love and Peace and Joy of God fill each of our hearts, so that no room remains for harboring the negative, life-draining spirits that lurk among us. May we look at each other and at ourselves and see the Face of God looking back at us. May we rejoice in the beauty of creation and of each person. May we trust that when the hard times come, as they certainly will, God will be with us personally, holding our hand and helping us through them. And may we move forward with confidence that we are loved and lovable, just as we are. Of course, there’s room for growth in love, patience, faithfulness, joy, and so forth, but we are each loved NOW, by our God who is absolutely crazy about us and just wants to hold us close in a huge, big hug.

What great good news that is!

Happy New Year.

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Posted by on Dec 14, 2009

An Advent Gift

An Advent Gift

Terry Hershey is one of my favorite columnists/bloggers. I look forward each week to his Sabbath Moment column. Today he offers this prayer. I suggest we all make it our own.

Our Prayer (and, Christmas gift suggestions)

Lord, in this Advent season, may we give
To our enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, our heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To our self, respect.
Amen.

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Posted by on Jul 12, 2009

St. Maria Goretti – July 6

St. Maria Goretti – July 6

See full size image

The feast of St. Maria Goretti often leaves me feeling conflicted. Maria Goretti died in 1902 of stab wounds inflicted during an attempted rape when she was 11 years old. On her deathbed, she forgave the man (a 20 year old) who had mortally wounded her. He was the son of the family with whom Maria and her family were living. After serving his prison term, he lived an exemplary life as a lay member of the Capuchins (one branch of Franciscans). He was present for Maria’s canonization in 1950.

Apart from the speed with which the canonization process moved forward, I find myself wondering what it was that distinguished Maria Goretti from the thousands of other girls and women who have been raped and/or murdered by men who should have protected them. What made her suffering and death different from those of the other innocent victims of violence and violation among the women of the world?  Surely she is not the only one who has forgiven her attacker? Would she have been praised or even forgiven if she had submitted without a fight in the hopes of living on? What happens to victims who are not killed? What happens to those impregnated by their attackers?

Violence against women and girls has been a technique/weapon of war for centuries. When we hear of it today ocurring in non-Western countries, we “tut-tut” about the incivility of such behavior. We speak of enemy combatants versus innocent civilians. Generally we simply expect the women and their children to be helped and supported by their families and communities, though we know this is rarely the case. And we look down on cultures in which a woman who is no longer a virgin can never find a husband (read “social identity and security”) or be accepted as a respected member of her community. 

But are we in the Western world all that much better in the way we respond to women who have been raped? Recently I heard a prose poem on National Public Radio that quoted women who had been raped. They told about the experience and the reactions of their families, spouses, friends, police officers and medical personnel. They spoke of the fear and shame and sense of vulnerability they experienced in the moment. And then they told of the aftermath – as spouses treated them angrily or forced themselves on their wives in a sort of reassertion of ownership of their wives’ sexuality. They told of insensitive law enforcement officers and medical personnel, who assumed that their lack of physical wounds or signs of having been beaten meant that they had consented to the violation.

The poem ended with words I won’t soon forget, “I thought they would understand.” It was clear that the more hurtful and profound rape was the emotional and social one that these women were now forced to live. These women who are our sisters, mothers, neighbors, and friends.

So I think there are some fundamental questions we need to ask ourselves as a Christian community. How do we care for and support the woman who was the victim of this terrible aggression? How do we help her feel safe in her home again? How do we help her if she finds herself pregnant and alone afterwards? What if she is still a child herself? What if the strain of bearing her rapist’s child threatens to drive her over the edge into madness? How understanding and accepting are we if she submitted in order to save her life and/or that of her other children rather than fighting to the death?

While it is beautiful to praise a child who resisted the advances of a much older man and died as a result, I pray that we not stop there. Please, may the terrible accusation, “I thought they would understand” never be leveled against us because we focus too narrowly and insist that only one path through that awful valley of darkness is the right and praiseworthy one!

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Posted by on Mar 14, 2009

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

A Weekend With the Holy Trinity

shackcoversm

There are all kinds of stories of growing up Catholic but very few that focus on that core of the culture that is the Sign of the Cross. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” This Trinitarian invocation begins and ends almost every event, every ritual, every meal – whether it is a blessing pronounced by the Pope or the gesture we learn from our parents before we can talk.

For all of Catholicism’s lengthy tradition, its mantras and catchphrases, Trinity Sunday is the only Sunday that fails to attempt in words what is incomprehensible. The priest who has a sermon for each Sunday looks into his bag or online list of stock themes, works hard on the presentation, and raises the white flag of surrender as he steps into the pulpit. The standard disclaimer is “We really cannot understand the Trinity. It is a matter of faith.” After confusing those who are awake in the congregation with St. Patrick’s shamrock “three in one” or various other analogies, he repeats the opening disclaimer and makes a hasty retreat to the Nicene Creed, where we sleepwalk our way through beautiful Trinitarian poetry that we ignore out of repetition. “…Light from light, True God from True God, Begotten not made, One in Being with the Father…”

For those of us who graduated from Catholic schools and had a good review of the Trinitarian controversies of the first three centuries and the further travails of this teaching in Church history, the sense of incomprehensibility grows.

William Paul Young’s allegory, The Shack, presents a weekend encounter with the Holy Trinity by a deeply wounded and grieving father. It is a mystical healing encounter that shows us that our concept of God has more to do with us than with the Divine. As a work of fiction it is easier for us to comprehend than the abstractions of theology. The contemporary setting and the issue of why the innocent are slaughtered make this central Mystery more accessible to us than the writings of the mystics who lived in different times and cultures.

I encourage you to read the book. Once you do, that automatic gesture – the Sign of the Cross will be the gift that it is – an entry point to the very life of God.

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Posted by on Oct 20, 2008

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

Fidelius and Diabolus: The Not So Gay Marriage Dialog

Image taken from oneyearbibleimages.com

Image taken from oneyearbibleimages.com

Diabolus: How’s it going?

Fidelius: You know we can’t talk – why do you persist?

Diabolus: That might be true if I were the Devil, but what if I’m your conscience?

Fidelius: There are no views but those of the Church.

Diabolus: True, but what about Church teaching, which acknowledges the “Sensus Fidelium” or Sense of the Faithful?

Fidelius: Stop bugging me Diabolus.

Diabolus: How do you know that’s my name?

Fidelius: You’re tempting me to think for myself. You’re torturing me.

Diabolus: No one can control your mind and heart. What’s bothering you?

Fidelius: I will take my counsel from my confessor, not from a post-Pepperoni heartburn!

Diabolus: “Pepperoni.” What a great name! Why don’t you call me that?

Fidelius: You are what you are.

Diabolus: And what is that?

Fidelius: The Tempter, the Evil One.

Diabolus: Have I ever suggested that you do anything wrong? Did I set your eye to wandering or encourage you to blow up when the Angels didn’t make the pennant?

Fidelius: Good people are tempted under the guise of good.

Diabolus: So, you’re a good person?

Fidelius: Yes. Generally, that is.

Diabolus: So then, why are you thinking about “it” again.

Fidelius: What “it”?

Diabolus: You know. Your conflict about gays.

Fidelius: They’re disgusting, you know that.

Diabolus: That’s not an uncommon opinion.

Fidelius: They make me squirm – and now they want to get married!

Diabolus: So, you think that it would be better to encourage them to stay with promiscuity as opposed to having a life of fidelity?

Fidelius: There can be nothing good in an act that is “intrinsically evil”.

Diabolus: So, you mean that you and Cynthia have never done anything “kinky”?

Fidelius: Shut up. We’re married.

Diabolus: My point exactly. You know, pleasure in marriage used to be called concupiscence.

Fidelius: What’s that?

Diabolus: You know – messed up like everything else after the fall of Adam and Eve.

Fidelius: So now you presume to teach me moral theology!

Diabolus: No. You learned it at that expensive Catholic college. Remember – the one you drank your way through?

Fidelius: Yeah, but it was after Vatican II. They weren’t Catholic anyway.

Diabolus: You mean like old Father Sullivan, who came to class in his cassock with the old yellowed pages on St. Thomas Aquinas?

Fidelius: He was different.

Diabolus: Yeah – he made you sweat to get a “C”. Not like the easy liberal that you gave you a “B+” for some beer can “sculpture” you threw together at the last minute.

Fidelius: Yeah, he was real.

Diabolus: Wasn’t he the guy that told you to have a happy sex life when you got married?

Fidelius: How do you know that? That was in confession!

Diabolus: Remember? I was there.

Fidelius: All I felt was so dirty.

Diabolus: You thought that he was going to throw the book at you.

Fidelius: Yeah, but he didn’t.

Diabolus: But there was a sin you didn’t confess.

Fidelius: What do you mean?

Diabolus: You remember. The time you stopped your fraternity brothers from beating up David Farnsworth, the fag?

Fidelius: He wasn’t gay – besides, “fag” isn’t politically correct.

Diabolus: Yeah. That’s why you found him dying in the AIDS ward a few years later at St. Mary’s, when you were helping the administration get their finances in order! A young guy out of business school and you go through the wrong door!

Fidelius: He never had a chance.

Diabolus: What do you mean? We all have free will. We all make choices.

Fidelius: His only moral choice was not to have sex.

Diabolus: He could have had a partner. You know – spend their lives together and all that? Maybe adopt a kid?

Fidelius: It would have been one mortal sin piled on another. He’d be deeper in Hell than he is now.

Diabolus: You don’t believe that.

Fidelius: Well, I heard Fr. Sullivan got to him before it was too late. But Purgatory’s no picnic.

Diabolus: So why did you pay for the Plenary Indulgence for him?

Fidelius: I didn’t pay for it. I just made an offering.

Diabolus: Strange. All this good will. Did you have a thing for this guy?

Fidelius: He was a guy. Got it? Like anybody. He deserved some decency, some respect.

Diabolus: But not a home.

Fidelius: He wasn’t homeless. He was making good money as an attorney.

Diabolus: No one to come home to; just work, parties, the bars …

Fidelius: He knew marriage was for straights. He was a good Catholic.

Diabolus: Yeah right. A gay can be a good Catholic; as likely as the Good Samaritan.

Fidelius: The Samaritan was real.

Diabolus: Maybe – or was he just a way for Jesus to show up the “good” people who had no compassion?

Fidelius: We can’t encourage gay culture. We’d be undermining the family; the basis of society.

Diabolus: Right. We can’t encourage a culture of life and fidelity.

Fidelius: It’s wrong. Remember, God made Adam and Eve – not Adam and Steve.

Diabolus: An interesting piece of demagoguery, but it doesn’t seem very compassionate.

Fidelius: The kids’ll get the wrong idea. They’ll think it’s okay.

Diabolus: Is that why so many gay people hate themselves?

Fidelius: It’s not my problem.

Diabolus: David became your problem when you saved him from that pack of apes.

Fidelius: I would have done it for anybody. Nobody deserves that kind of hate.

Diabolus: So where do you stop on this slippery slope?

Fidelius: It’s easy. The Church says, don’t beat ’em up but don’t let ’em get married.

Diabolus: That’s why you and Cynthia have only 3 kids – after 20 years?

Fidelius: We couldn’t have afforded more kids. You know that. With Cynthia’s problems it probably would have killed her.

Diabolus: So you love your wife more than God?

Fidelius: There’s a difference between God and the Church.

Diabolus: So who’s being the Devil now?

Fidelius: It’s in the Apostles Creed… “I believe in God, the Father Almighty.” Toward the end it says “I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”

Diabolus: Conscience. That weasel thing you picked up from those liberal priests!

Fidelius: It was a Vatican II thing. I had to write a paper on it.

Diabolus: So you did learn something!

Fidelius: Only because Fr. Sullivan made me re-write it 3 times.

Diablolus: I can’t imagine St. Thomas being on the side of conscience. He was a real theologian – and a saint.

Fidelius: Yeah. It’s a big thing for him – like it was for those Moslems philosophers he studied.

Diabolus: They only blow up stuff.

Fidelius: Conscience. You know – “formed according to the teaching of the Church.”

Diabolus: So why did Aquinas end up on the list of forbidden books so long?

Fidelius: He was accused of subjecting God to human reason.

Diabolus: Well I gotta go. Time “to prowl about seeking the ruin of souls”.

Fidelius: What about me?

Diabolus: You’re hopeless!

Fidelius: Hopeless?

Diabolus: Just the opposite, I’m afraid. No sale here today.

Fidelius: What about gay marriage?

Diabolus: Deciding that by a crowd? I like lynchings. Remember? But you know, it’s not my thing. You should look at that WMD “weapons of mass destruction” bracelet you wear.

Fidelius: It’s WWJD! What would Jesus do?

Diabolus: Yeah. I wonder. Later dude.. out’a here..

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Posted by on Aug 5, 2008

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

Saint of the Day – St. John Vianney: August 4


St. Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney (1786-1859) was the parish priest of the village of Ars and is known primarily by that title even in English, “The Cure d’Ars”. Canonized in 1925 St. John Vianney is the patron of parish priests. In many respects he is a thoroughly modern saint.

He was born into the midst of the French Revolution and into a devout rural family who worshiped in secret with outlaw priests who refused to become state functionaries. The upheaval of the revolution closed schools, hospitals, and other institutions. For the first time in human history, the state asserted itself without religion as it destroyed the old Catholic order – the Ancien Regime. The “Goddess of Reason” was enthroned in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Priests, nuns, and the Catholic nobility were killed, forced into hiding or exiled.

After the revolution subsided, Napoleon attempted to gain complete control of the Church in France and even took control of the Papal States, removing the Pope from Rome and bringing most of the Cardinals to Paris. In 1812 Napoleon’s fall began with the disastrous retreat from Russia in winter. The Industrial Revolution would follow, ending forever the cultural matrix of European Christianity.

St. John Vianney’s 73 years of life would span the trauma of the ending of the Divine Right of Kings to the rise of the rights of the common man. He would become emblematic of a Catholicism redefining itself, as it was torn from the 1,500 years of prerogatives and burdens of its affiliation with the state dating from the reign of the Emperor Constantine.

St. John Vianney began by re-asserting the centrality of God in his own life and supporting those in the parish who still practiced the faith. It is important to note that his vocation was in itself something of a miracle. Due to the upheaval of the times, he had no formal education until he was 20 and had great difficulty with Latin. To make matters worse, he got drafted by Napoleon and ended up as a deserter in hiding. An unlikely amnesty made it possible for him to return to his studies. If there hadn’t been such a severe shortage of priests, it is possible that he would never have been ordained.

His personal example of holiness in terms of his prayer and his charity to all made a deep impression. Sunday had become just another workday. Taverns were places of dissolution and much of the social order had broken down. “Dances” were part of a wild party scene involving promiscuity and adultery. Orphans and the disabled were exploited and left to fend for themselves. Over several decades, he led a movement to remedy these problems and to encourage religious devotion, while promoting service to others.

When the bishop attempted to assign St. John Vianney to other parishes, the community protested until the bishop relented. By our standards, his personal acts of penance and mortification, his meager diet, and short hours of sleep, appear to be excessive and even harsh. Reports that he was assaulted by the Devil at night strike us as bizarre, maybe even pathological. Yet they were witnessed by men in the parish who came when they heard the commotion.

Interestingly, he was not severe with his parishoners or penitents in the confessional. In fact, he was known for having won over a prominent woman who was a Jansenist and led her from a severe and demanding conception of God.

Not all of his fellow priests agreed with his approach or pastoral style. In fact, we might say that his special gifts in his historical circumstances may have created the ideal of the parish priest as a solitary super hero, like the desert fathers or the anchorites of the early Church. This calling is something one can respond to, but it cannot be fabricated and put on like a suit. Fr. John Cihak, in “St. John Vianney’s Pastoral Plan”, helps us understand how his example can guide parish priests today.

There is one major factor that is alluded to in the wonder of St. John Vianney’s life and ministry, but it is especially important for all of us who are parishioners today. God worked extensively in the life and ministry of St. John Vianney through his family, those who sheltered him as a deserter, and the people of Ars. Whether the pastor is single or married, the position is one of the most exposed and the most lonely. In denominations with a married clergy, and in the case of Eastern Rite Catholic priests and Latin Rite Catholic deacons, the spouses and children of clergy have a special opportunity and burden that only we can support by our prayers, understanding, and kindness toward them.

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Posted by on May 30, 2008

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

Feast of the Day – The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Sacred Heart of Jesus - Fronhofen Pfarrkirche

The Feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated 19 days after Pentecost each year. It is always on a Friday.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart began to develop in the Middle Ages, but it was considered a private devotion, not a specific feast day. Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque  (1647-1690), a French nun and mystic, promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart in its current form and over time it was adopted as a formal feast. This devotion also includes Mass and Communion on the first Friday of each month.

A friend of mine was raised Catholic in an Irish family in Rhode Island. One day we were talking and laughing about some of the funny things that had happened when we were girls. She told of the time a non-Catholic friend of hers was visiting her family for the first time. The friend, a young man, commented that he was always shocked when he went into Catholic homes and was immediately confronted with a statue or picture of Jesus, with his heart showing – pierced and bleeding. He said something about how glad he was not to find that image in her parents’ home. He had begun to think that all Catholics were somehow off balance with this insistence on having the image around them. Then they went around the corner into the living room, and there was the picture on the wall, where it couldn’t be missed by anyone!

My friend and I were working together at the time. As we went around the corner into my home office, what was on the wall, but a picture of the Sacred Heart – more modern than the traditional one in her home, but unmistakably still, the Sacred Heart. We just laughed and knew again how much we had in common!

So what is it about the Sacred Heart? First, it’s important to remember that it’s not really about worshipping a physical human heart. The Feast of the Sacred Heart reminds us of the overwhelming love of God for us, as seen in the love of Jesus for us. As the Son of God, second person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus became one of us, lived as one of us, died as one of us. God’s overflowing love poured through Jesus to us. It still does. Symbolically, Jesus’ pierced heart is a reminder that love is not always easy. It can be costly. Love flows out of the heart of God as the water flowed out of the heart of Jesus when pierced by the centurion’s sword. Nothing can stop that love’s flow but our refusal to accept it.

The Sacred Heart also reminds us that Jesus always forgives. God always forgives. Nothing we can do will keep God from loving us and forgiving us. We can turn away, but God is always there calling us back. Hoping we will once again accept love and mercy. Because God’s mercy is unfailing, all we need do is ask and accept it.

In celebrating the Feast of the Sacred Heart, we are called to love as Jesus loves, forgive as Jesus forgives and be compassionate and merciful as Jesus is compassionate and merciful. A tall order for our human hearts, but one to which, with the help of Our Lord, we are called.

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Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

Easter Communion or Condemnation?

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To receive communion during the Easter season has been a long established precept of the Catholic Church. It is a practice that we should examine more closely. To receive Christ in the Holy Eucharist requires one to be in the state of grace – free of serious or mortal sin. We are advised – wisely – to put our souls in order. We are to turn away from sin and return to the community through the grace of absolution. There must be peace and love in our hearts and a definite change in our lives.

Fr. Burke, a Discalced Carmelite from Australia, expands on the notion of communion in terms of our living out the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in our shared lives as Catholics and Christians. In his article, “St. Teresa and Two Spiritualities in the Church Today,” at http://www.carmelite.com/, Fr. Burke explains St. Teresa of Avila’s views on legalism as opposed to true and complete union with God and each other. It is well worth reading.

Fr. Burke has put into words what I have been feeling ever since I read selections from the popular blog, Cafeteria Closed, by Gerald Naus, who writes as Gerald Augustinus. Naus came to the United States from Austria in 1997. A former Jehovah Witness, he became a Catholic in 2005. His views are decidedly Restorationist. Unfortunately, they are generally stated in tones of arrogance, condescension, or condemnation. His posts on culture, politics, and religion are inflammatory and provocative, akin to those of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, except that Catholicism is now the justification for neo-fascism. Naus’s recent post, On the Status of Palestinian Education, uses photos and a few inflammatory lines to libel all young Palestinian men. One might argue that many of Naus’s views are Catholic in the officially regressive sense, but there seems to be little of Christian charity or communion about them. From this narrow point of view anyone who does not agree with him is wrong and should be attacked. As a major blogger, Naus has a large following in which to sow his seeds of dissension.

You will know them by their fruits. (Mt 7:20)

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Posted by on Mar 22, 2008

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

Good Friday: Identifying with Christ or Christ Identifying With Us?

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For those who love Christ, remembering His passion and death is always an occasion for sorrow. However, such human acts as compassion are never simple. The pain of the impending loss of a loved one – anticipatory grief – can be worse than the actual loss. In fact, when death finally comes, we often feel guilty about experiencing relief. My friend Jim lost his father when Jim was in eighth grade, after a protracted two year battle with cancer. When we talked about it a couple of years later, Jim confessed that he still felt more relief than grief.

Of course, we couldn’t experience compassion without a close identification with the other. This becomes very complex in the person of the Christ. He did not fight his enemies. He did not curse. He did not condemn. He forgave. He blessed. This human-divine reaction to an injustice that is almost as inconceivable as it is enraging provides no adequate psychological outlet for the post-Freudian soul. How can we proclaim and fight for justice if God Himself did not? Tragically, the consolation in the Gospels and the wider testimony of the New Testament – that no evil, no matter how overwhelming, how senseless, can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus – escapes us. (Romans 8:38-39) Instead of experiencing this Passover of the Lord – the Blood of the Lamb on the door posts and lintel of our home that spares us from the Angel of Death – we run out into that night of despair by focusing on the ways we have been complicit with that evil.

When we hear that we are saved from a life defined by suffering and pain without meaning and no exit, we can think that we were saved from something we deserved. “Evil as you are … who among you would give his son a scorpion when he asked for bread?” (Loosely taken from Luke 11: 11-13) is a stark reminder to the disciples that Jesus could not conceive of His Father wanting anything less than we ourselves would want for our own children. Just as our children are all too much in our own image and likeness, we are in God’s. The teaching and life of Jesus in this regard is at odds with the vengeful patriarch of the Old Testament who punishes and chastises. (Lest we be tempted to think that Jews hold or held onto to this concept, we should remember that Jesus was not the only Jew who presented a view that had grown beyond it. The are interesting similarities between Jesus and his contemporary, Hillel the Elder.)

Enter God’s protectors:

“Ah hah! Now he has said it on his very own blog! Your own words condemn you. God doesn’t care about sin, you say. There are no consequences, no punishment, no reckoning. You present a God who is merciful, but not just. If Christ did not die for our sins how was the Father appeased? How is he the sacrificial victim?”

The Blogger Offers a Parable:

Once upon a time, there was a wonderful teacher who healed by word and touch and saved people from all kinds of physical, psychological, and social maladies. He made the mistake of speaking truth to power and telling religious and civil leaders that outward observance only made them into whitened sepulchers. They waited for the right time and got a close friend to betray him, and they took him off to Guantanamo, and then transferred him to a third world country, where he was tortured to death by specialists trained at the School of the Americas. Like so many thousands of his time, he was supposed to have become one of the disappeared. Fortunately for us, He didn’t stay dead and he didn’t stay hidden. Strangely though, he left again, said he would return, and in the meantime the were supposed to wait for a Holy Wind to make everything clear.

Yet His disciples wanted an explanation. If He was truly God’s Son, how could this have happened to Him? If he really was the Messiah, how could he have failed? He was just as maddening as those parables he used to tell them. Where are the answers? It was like one of those Eastern religions. “The question is the answer.” And that other junk the Beatles found in India, under the influence of something other than the great American mystic, Jack Daniels.

God finally sent them someone they could understand – sort of. “Like, well, yuh see, dude- God don’t need sacafices, ” The voice of the aging surfer was hoarse with too many years of funny cigarettes, his faced etched with too much salt and sun, his eyes opaque while he waited for the waves to rise. “It’s like, all ’bout love. All God wants is love. The torture and sufferin’ part, that’s what we do to us and each other. Man, like the Teacher Dude, the Guru Guy, like he couldn’t hang out forever. ‘Cause like, you guys were all brain dead on a kind a gnarly bad trip. Like he let it happen. The tube was closin’. Like there was just the wipeout; like really bad at Mavericks. He did it to show y’all that if yah stay in the water and go for it, sooner or later it’s gonna happen if ya stay true to the search for the Big One.  Dude, got some extra change? My old lady’s on me for the rent, like ya know.”

The words of reproach, as the seeker turned away, were familiar. “That sucks man. What a waste. I came to hear some guy explain some @$#%?! blogger’s crappy parable. I could’a been watchin’ the game on my big screen.” So he zipped up his jacket and marched straight home, out of the saving mystery, ignoring the glory of the sky, the dazzle of the water, and the carpet of color and bird song all about him.

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Posted by on Mar 20, 2008

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

Holy Thursday on the California Coast

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Holy Week on the California coast, from Pt. Mendocino above San Francisco to the Mexican border, is a place of spring time sun, deep blue skies, and blossoming flowers. At the Equinox, the ocean loses its grayness and picks up more yellows, subtle greens and muted turquoise. The salt air becomes more pungent, as the kelp forests put on new growth to accommodate the explosion of trillions upon trillions of sea plants and animals. The succulents and coastal chaparral burst out in purples, roses, and pinks, peppered with the bright yellow of sour grass blossoms. The Santa Cruz redwoods seem to stretch, fresh washed from the winter storms, looking forward to the morning and evening fog that gives them sustenance and flourishes their layered ecosystems that change every 20 feet upward, dancing in the dappled ray filled sunlight of the forest canopy.

It is a time of happiness and rejoicing. Sunglasses come out, flip flops slap the pavement, and shorts replace the winter denim, even though the day time temperatures are barely in the mid-60s. It is the coming of First Summer, before the Fog Season that begins on Memorial Day in late May and ends on Labor Day in early September. On the Central Coast, we host our first guests during Spring Break and settle in to enjoy the peaceful days before our June to August onslaught of shivering, fog-bitten visitors and their much welcome tourist dollars.

Aren’t we supposed to be down or at least subdued during Holy Week? How can we rejoice Saturday evening and Easter if we have somehow not rationed that joy? We should at least lament our unfaithful adherence to our Lenten resolutions – right? Christ’s terrible torture and death stayed the arm of a rightfully vengeful Father, so shouldn’t we show at least some token of fear for not being swept out into hellfire? If God’s Spring and Passover are any indication, maybe Cotton Mather had it wrong. Maybe we are a lot more than “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God.”

If we, and all creation, are the overflowing love of the Trinity, are we the products of a God who can somehow demand the death of the the Eternal Word Made Flesh, God’s very immediate recognition and instantaneous self-acceptance, who shares the eternal dance of the Three in the joy of the Holy Spirit? Yes, much of the language that shapes our souls is a reflection of the fallen world where the Word “pitched his tent” – the actual Greek expression we use in the Creed. Yes, Jesus died and saved us in his rising from the dead. Yes, Jesus is the Lamb of God. Yes, we are the reason, we are his motivation for sharing our lives and submitting to the capital punishment of being tortured to death by an occupying superpower. Perhaps, the gravest sin of pride is to even think that we were the cause. Yes, God as Love couldn’t bear to leave us to the fate of hatred, despair, and alienation.

Why should people celebrating their rescue be glum, depressed, lost in narcissistic guilt? Why is this night different from any other night? It is the Passover of the Lord. If we are not washed in joyful Spring, can we share the Passover meal? Can we have any part in Him?

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Posted by on Jan 25, 2008

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

Feast of the Day: Conversion of St. Paul – January 25

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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.

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Posted by on Dec 31, 2007

Novena to St. Ignatius Loyola – Reconciliation – Fifth Day – July 27 –

The Feast of the Holy Family

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The Feast of the Holy Family falls on the Sunday between Christmas and the Feast of Mary, Mother of God, January 1. The readings for the day focus on qualities that make for happy relationships between people, including members of families.

Sometimes when we focus on the Holy Family as the model for family life, we get bogged down with the perfection of Jesus and Mary, the holiness of St. Joseph, and the impossibility of actually living a perfect life ourselves. Then we write off their example as just another bit of pious nonsense that has nothing to do with the reality of crying babies, mortgage payments, difficult bosses, and all the other stresses that come with marriage and family. For those who are not married and/or don’t have children, the feast can seem irrelevant or even be a painful reminder of unfulfilled hopes.

So, I find myself wondering, what is it that makes a family, any family, “holy?” It seems to me that if the Holy Family is to be a model for the rest of us, that must mean that we are also to be “holy.” What made them holy?

Being holy does not mean having no problems or challenges in life. Holiness, it seems to me, lies in how we handle those difficulties that come in every life. After all, without the problems, difficulties, challenges, “crashes,” struggles, “hitting bottom,” or whatever we call it, we would never need to turn to God for help. We could just continue blithely on our way, assuming everything is fine, and in the best American cultural sense, be “rugged individuals” who can make it on our own.

But that isn’t what the spiritual life and journey are all about. Our spiritual lives are about learning from our mistakes, growing in wisdom, reaching out for help and community, being purified in God’s love, so that we can run joyfully to the Lord at the end of our days.

When we look at the lives of Mary, Joseph and Jesus, we find that they were filled from the beginning with many of the same challenges faced by other families. An unexpected, unplanned pregnancy, one outside the marriage; governmental demands that upset a family’s plans; taxes; inconvenient timing of a birth; the necessity to leave home and become refugees in another land; a child who feels grown up enough to go off on his own at the age of 12 without telling anyone where he’ll be; the death of a spouse or parent; a child whose life choices and career don’t meet the expectations of the family or community; the untimely death of a child. All these things were part of the lives of the Holy Family, as they can be part of our own lives. What made Joseph, Mary and Jesus holy as a family was their response to these challenges and their loving support of each other through them.

Joseph’s first recorded response to Mary’s pregnancy was compassion. He did not want to expose her to the penalties of the Law. He loved her and wanted her to be safe. When the angel told him in a dream that Mary had not been unfaithful, he accepted her as his wife. He made a home with her and supported her through the pregnancy and birth. He took her and Jesus to safety in Egypt, again following the instructions received in a dream. When it was safe, he took them back to their home in Nazareth cared for them and made a home for them.

Both Mary and Joseph must have “pondered” many things along the way. Many things did not make sense at the time. They really didn’t know what God had in mind. Jesus was a normal child. He had to learn how to be a man and how to respect and love the people around him. Mary and Joseph taught him by their actions as well as their words, just as we teach our children more by the way we act than by our words. It’s no surprise that people in families tend to share many gestures, facial expressions, attitudes and beliefs. The Holy Family would not have been different in this. The characteristics we seen recorded about Jesus were probably in great part those he learned from his parents.

In this week following the Feast of the Holy Family, as we enter a new calendar year, I hope we can take their lives as ones that exemplify the kind of relationships that result from heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and love (Col 3:12-17). These qualities are not ones that stem primarily from feelings, but rather they are attitudes and behavioral choices to which we are all called.

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