Giving the gift of life and Jesus' toughest commandment

Fifteen years ago last summer while driving to my sister's wedding in Carmel, California, in the midst of a political conversation in which I had been highly critical of both President Bush and the still fairly new President Obama, my then-fifteen year-old son said, "Dad, you just don't like anyone who is the president." There is no little truth in that observation. You know what? I wouldn't want to be any other way!

I am writing this to laud President Biden for commuting the death sentences of 37 federal prisoners (see "Biden commutes sentences of 37 of 40 inmates on federal death row"). There are forty total federal prisoners who've been sentenced to die. As someone who opposes the death penalty, I would've like for the president to have commuted all the sentences. I am not alone in this.

Nonetheless, I commend the president for commuting the death sentences of what amounts to a little under 93% of condemned federal prisoners. Responses to the president's act of mercy have been mixed (see "'A mistake': Biden faces backlash upon commuting sentences of death row inmates").

It disappoints me that the death penalty remains so popular among people in the United States. So many people of different political stripes favor the death penalty that many Republican and Democrat office holders and candidates tend to officially support it. President Biden, for example, was a supporter of the federal death penalty for a long time. In 2023 53% supported the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, while 44% did not (see Statistica).

I have personally been opposed to the death penalty since reading George Orwell's short story "A Hanging" my junior year of high school. Now, as a Cathoilc and a member of the clergy, I oppose the death penalty not only on personal grounds, but on religious grounds as well.

In August 2018, Pope Francis promulgated a change to section 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This same section, which sets forth Church teaching on the death penalty, was also altered by Pope John Paul II in 1997, just a few years after he promulgated this wonderful compendium of Catholic teaching. Here is what the Catholic Church's officially teaches on the death penalty:

Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide

For brief history of section 2267 through three the first three editions of the Catechism see "State Your Peace Tonight."

Too often being pro-life is reduced to being opposed to abortion. Opposing abortion, while neccessary, is not sufficient of itself to be pro-life. Being pro-life includes opposing the death penalty, physician assisted suicide, euthanasia, and certainly requires coginizance of the relevant facts concerning firearms (see Pew Research Center "What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.").

President Biden's commutation of 37 death sentences is good news. Forty of forty would've been better news. Stating this in no way diminshes the suffering caused by the crimes those sentenced to death committed both to their victims and the victims families. The death penalty does not bring either healing or closure to survivors of victims. It merely perpetuates the cycle of violence.

In his Sermon on Mount, Jesus addresses the lex talionis directly. The result of an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth is blindness and toothlessness. It is in this context that the Lord gives what is probably His most challenging commandment: "love your enemies" (see Matthew 5:38-48).

ADDENDUM:

Following President Biden's commutations of the death sentences of thirty-seven federal prisoners to life in prison without the possibility of parole, President-elect Trump vowed: "As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters... We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!" Being a country of law and order can be achieved without making recourse to the death penalty. No one is advocating for the release of violent criminals.

The Mystery of the Incarnation

Sunset marks the beginning of the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Tonight, we light all the candles! At the Easter Vigil, as the deacon enters the Church carrying the lit Paschal Candle, he sings three times, "The Light of Christ." The response to this is a sung, "Thanks be to God." Indeed, Christ is the Light of the world, the One who illuminates us. It's nice that we light up the Advent wreath this year on the Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year.

Our Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Advent is the closing prayer for the Angelus. Maybe it's the other way around. Either way, this prayer is one many faithful Roman Catholics don't just say daily, but three times a day. During Easter, we recite or sing Regina Caeli instead of the Angelus.

Beginning as it does with "The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit," followed by a Hail Mary, which, in turn, is followed by our Blessed Mother's fiat: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord: Be it done unto me according to Thy word," the Angelus is all about the Incarnation. So is the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

For Year C of the Sunday lectionary, our Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent comes from the first chapter of Saint Luke's Gospel. It follows the stories about the previously barren Elizabeth conceiving John the Baptist and her kinswoman, Mary's, miraculous conception of Jesus. Known as "the Visitation," this Gospel episode is the Second Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary.

Love of neighbor is the fruit of the Joyful Mystery of the Visitation. These two women were happy for each other. Elizabeth also recognizes and honors the freedom with which Mary assented to God's plan. "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb" are also words with which we're very familiar. As Gabriel foretold about the Blessed Virgin, "all generations will call you blessed." This began with that very generation.

Life is a miracle. It seems we increasingly see it as a burden. Human beings are the point at which creation becomes conscious of itself. Only we ponder the mystery of life, its meaning and purpose. When observed, Advent is a time to reflect on these things, these big questions. In a real sense, history both before and even after Christ's coming is Advent. Life is an Advent, an expectant waiting.

The Visitation, by James B. Janknegt, 2016?

Chatting with a friend online earlier today, the subject of Advent came up. Agreeing that we both really enjoy this season and try to observe it, we noted the advent nature of life, and the subject of hope came up. Insisting, as is my wont, that hope and optimism aren't the same thing at all, my friend averred "sometimes I feel like my hope comes from my pessimism." This summarizes my relationship with hope very well- it comes pretty much exclusively from my pessimism.

In my view, pessimism is what differentiates hope from optimism. I revisited something today from an article by Anglican bishop David Welbourne that appeared in the Church Times back in 2020. He wrote about an interview playwright Dennis Potter gave to television journalist, author, and Member of Parliament Melvyn Bragg shortly before the former's death. Potter was a man of Christian faith and Bragg, who was not, asserted that faith was merely dressing on a wound. I guess he was referring to the wound of death, the awareness of the shortness of life, something like that. "No," replied Potter, "it is the wound, faith is the wound."

Jumping ahead chronologically is Luke and liturgically, the righteous old man Simeon tells the Galilean virgin that faith is wound by letting her know that her heart would be pierced. When praying the Rosary, I have little narratives for each Mystery. For this, the Fourth Joyful Mystery, the fruit of which is obedience, I use the phrase "hope through suffering."

As our reading from Hebrews tells us, in coming to do His Father's will, Jesus did away with the offerings and sacrifices that constituted the rituals Temple worship. Leaping all the way to the twenty-second chapter of the Gospel According to Saint Luke, we see what the Father’s will was. Praying, Jesus implores, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done." This is hard to comprehend, like a young woman from Nazareth agreeing to bear the Son of God.

I think this petition from the Intercessions for Evening Prayer I of the Fourth Sunday of Advent rounds this reflection off beautifully:

In your life on earth, you came to die as a man
   -save us from everlasting death

A dream and making sense of reality

My post yesterday, through which I am trying to resurrect the Καθολικός διάκονος Friday traditio, focused on the last chapter of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware's book on healing for peace through the Sacraments of Healing (the link to the book is where you can read it for free online; see "Taking it 'as it comes'"). This chapter was about death as the ultimate healing. You don't have to be a Heidegger aficionado to grasp that from birth, life is a journey toward death.

Of course, for a Christian, death is not the end. Even so, death is a horizon over which we cannot see. Immortality, at times, can seem like a mere wish.

Last night I had a dream. My dreams tend to be pretty realistic, as opposed to fantastical. I kind of envy people whose dreams seem to be, well, more imaginative and fun. In my dream, I was on a bus in my hometown. The bus was driving down one of that city's main thoroughfares, making its way toward my house, which was just off the furthest northern end of this boulevard. The dream started with the bus pulling into a bus stop.

This stop would've been the last one before I got off the bus. Once the bus stopped, one person stood up to get off. I recognized this person as a dear friend. So, I stood up and greeted her enthusiastically. Moving past me to get off the bus, she managed a curt "Hi" with an equally curt glance. She exited without looking back. I sat there devastated. End of dream.

I woke up still feeling the way I did at the end of the dream. It took me a minute to realize that it was a dream and not an actual occurrence and to shake it off.

As I laid there reflecting on my dream, I realized the friend was amalgam of two friends but the appearanceo of the person in the dream wasn't in the least bit odd. They are people I met at different points in my life and with whom I've had quite different relationships over years. One has more or less "unfriended" me and the other has inexplicably gone from a relationship communicating back and forth to me checking in once in a while with answers indicating that with a short, polite reply the conversation is done- have a nice day.

I readily admit that I am not a great friend. Like most men my age in this culture, I don't really have many friends. While I am at it, I am not a great son, husband, father, or cousin either. Some of this is driven by the fact that I am an introvert. One aspect of growing older for me is being more gracious in accepting my limitations and knowing what they are.

I am not writing that out of self-pity, as easy as that is for me to do, but as a way of facing reality. Most days, I find myself older and none the wiser. Beyond that, like most middle-aged men, I have developed something of a hardened shell, a protective layer. It's a battle sometimes to keep sorrow from turning into self-pity. Sometimes I lose the battle.

Considering Met. Kallistos' wise observation that "the secret of true life is to accept each state as it comes," the only sense I could make of the dream that was not self-pitying is that the bus ride is my journey. On this journey, most people only travel with me part of the way. This is okay, maybe even how it's supposed to be. From my youngest years, I have found life a bit heartbreaking. Plus, all relationships wax and wane.

What I want to genuniely feel and say with deepest sincerity is "May God bless them on their journeys." I hope my probably not-that-great friendship was of some benefit to them along their way and that they know, somewhere in their hearts, how truly I appreciate their love, care, and concern for me.

I can see this as part of the interior work I mentioned in yesterday's post. With respect to the loss of friendship- trying to be grateful and not bitter while working through disappointment. Lord, hear my prayer.

Taking it "as it comes"

Friday in the Third Week of Advent. Time to reflect. Not just during Advent and Lent but all year, Fridays are days of penance. Days of abstinence and, hopefully, recollection. Today is an Ember Day following the Memorial of Santa Lucia last Friday.

On the recommendation of a trusted teacher, my spiritual reading for Advent has been a little book by the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. The book, Sacraments of Healing, published posthumously, consists of conferences for a retreat he led in 1999. While his overall theme is peace, he discusses the sacraments of healing: penance and anointing. To start, he sets forth a lovely Christian anthropology and he ends with a deep and deeply moving reflection on death.

Since today is a penitential day in a penitential season, I am focused on Metropolitan Kallistos' meditation on death. The aspect of his meditation that struck me, especially in light of the fact that I am turning 60 next year, is how, as a Christian, to live life, to pass through life's various stages.

Here I am going to get a little personal. For some reason, lately I have felt the need for affirmation. This feeling holds in all domains of my life: professional, ministerial, and personal. When I don't get it, I find myself feeling disappointed and even angry at times.This is not a wholly new experience for me. Quite the opposite. For some reason, in this season, this unhealthy need has been set in bold relief.

Admittedly, this deep need is quite juvenile and I am grateful for the grace to recognize this. I am even aware enough to know that it stems from some developmental issues.

Concurrently, this year more than other times, I have really struggled with praying. Nonetheless, I feel the Lord drawing me closer to Himself. One evening not too long ago, feeling unaffirmed and unappreciated, I was really struck by a palpable intuition from the Lord. He wants me to find my affirmation primarily in Him, not from Him, but in and through Him. As for the rest, whether I am affirmed or not, whether I am appreciated or not should be a matter of indifference. This has been reaffirmed several times since then. What this means for me right now is dealing with some disappointments.

Reading the final chapter of Ware's Sacraments of Healing, I came across this: "Surely, the secret of true life is to accept each state as it comes." True wisdom, it seems to me, is not verbose or complicated but direct and simple. As with most true wisdom, easier said than done. Along these same lines, there are a couple more things from this chapter I have been mulling over. One is from a Cecil Lewis poem, "Walking Away," that Met. Kallistos used:

How selfhood begins with a walking away

Reflecting on this, Ware states: "By hanging on to the old, we refuse the invitation to discover the new."

Lord, help me walk gracefully into a new season of life, always in the newness of life in You.

For our traditio today, let's turn to the late Rich Mullins. It's funny, Rich always thought he wasn't enough to lead people to Jesus. In honesty, none of us are. We lead people to the Lord, as Saint Paul insists, not through our strength but through our weaknesses, through our need and how He strengthens you and more than meets your needs. In and through Him, you come to recognize what it is you truly need and what you really don't need and, therefore, what you shouldn't seek.

Year I Monday of the Third Week of Advent

Readings: Numbers 24:2-7.15-17a; Psalm 25:4-9; Matthew 21:23-27

Authority is a big issue for Christians. Historically, authority is the main reason for the two major splits in the Christian Church: the East/West schism of AD 1054, when what are now known as the Orthodox and Catholic Churches split, and the protest or Protestant split in the sixteenth century, usually dated to 1517, when the Augustinian friar, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Wittenburg, Germany.

As human beings, we like things to be neat and clean. But God is not bound by our tidy ways of thinking. While the history of the Church with regard to its fracturing is contrary to God’s expressed will, through the Holy Spirit, God never ceases to answer the prayer of His Son that we all be one as they are one.¹

When you look at today’s Gospel from the perspective of a twenty-first century Christian, it seems absurd that the chief priests and elders asked Jesus, the Son of God, who is true God from true God, by what authority He taught what He taught and performed the miraculous deeds He performed. While always done in concert with the Father and the Holy Spirit, we can safely say, the Lord acted on His own authority.

It isn’t Jesus who provides the parallel to Balaam in our readings. Rather, it is John the Baptist. Both prophets came out of nowhere to tell others of the ways of God and to foresee, even if dimly in the case of Balaam, the Lord's coming. The Baptist comes into play when the Lord turns the tables on his interlocutors by asking them what they thought of the baptisms John performed.

It’s easy to see the chief priests and elders "of the people," which I prefer take as the inspired author being sarcastic, wanted to deny the divine nature of the Baptist’s ministry. His ministry, if you remember, consisted of calling Jews to repentance, that is, back to fidelity to the Covenant by the righteous observance of the Law and baptizing those who heeded his call. This was a scandal to these Jewish leaders. Jesus put these men on the horns of a dilemma. Maybe it’s more accurate to say the Lord highlighted the existential dilemma we all must face in the realization that choices have consequences.

There is a line from the chorus of the song “Freewill” by the band Rush that states this dilemma well: “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” By choosing not to decide in that moment, the chief priests and elders “of the people” only kicked the can down the road.

Ultimately, these men were forced to decide. Unwittingly, their choice to call for the condemnation and brutal execution of the Messiah, the Son of God, accomplished God’s purpose: the redemption of the world. So much for tidiness.

In His life and ministry as set forth in the Gospels, Jesus is always driving those who encounter Him to make a choice, to decide who He is for yourself. In the Gospels, this choice is somewhat evidence-based, especially regarding the miracles and wonders he performed.

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, himself a Roman Catholic, albeit in adulthood not a practicing one, summed this dilemma up very well:

“No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”² - And it is true: I cannot call him Lord; because that says nothing to me. I could call him 'the paragon', 'God' even - or rather, I can understand it when he is called thus; but I cannot utter the word “Lord” with meaning. Because I do not believe that he will come to judge me; because that says nothing to me. And it could say something to me, only if I lived completely differently (italics in original)³

Unlike many professing Christians, Wittgenstein understood his dilemma. He understood, quite clearly, that were he to acknowledge Jesus’s authority by professing Him as Lord he would need to live “completely differently.” Do you?

Don’t worry too much about Ludwig. From there he launches into a reflection on faith by asking: “What inclines even me to believe in Christ's Resurrection?”

It’s important to see, as we do in our Gospel today, that Jesus never asserts His authority by making a power move. In Christ, there is no coercion, only freedom. After all, He did not reply: “On whose authority? Being God’s only begotten Son in the flesh, by my own authority given me by my Father!”

It is important to always keep in mind that for Christians, freedom is first and foremost freedom for not freedom from. As Saint Paul insisted in his Letter to the Galatians: “For freedom Christ set us free.”⁴

And so, back to Rush:

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice

---

1 John 17:11.^↩
2 1 Corinthians 12:3.^↩
3 Ludwig Wittgenstein. Culture and Value, 33. Trans. Peter Winch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.^↩
4 Galatians 5:1.^↩

Year C Third Sunday of Advent

Readings: Zephaniah 3:14-18a; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18

Charity, which requires self-sacrifice, is the way to joy. By contrast, living only for yourself is the shortcut to misery and meaninglessness. This truth is clearly revealed to us in scripture, especially in the Gospels, which tell us of the life of the Lord. It is also the theme of what is perhaps the best-loved Christmas story in English: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol, as with most things Christmas-related, has been trivialized. Dickens, himself a Christian, albeit one with significant flaws, making him like the rest of us, did not write a story about a grumpy old man overcoming his grumpiness and finally joining in all the holiday cheer because, it’s just plain fun or on the premise “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Rather, A Christmas Carol is about a disappointed old man who, granted the great grace of visits by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, responding to God’s grace and becoming a new man, or, perhaps more accurately, the man he was destined to be before life’s concerns jumped in, bringing him to where the reader initially finds him: alone and miserable on Christmas Eve.

After his harrowing night, Ebeneezer Scrooge not only seems to be a different but a much younger man, embodying these words from T.S. Eliot’s poem “Little Gidding”-

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time¹

Scrooge’s change, his rebirth, his finding true joy was his heeding the Baptist’s call found in our Gospel for today. Doing these things are the fruit of repentance, proof that you have repented, that you’ve undergone a metanoia, a Greek word that denotes a transformation.

Becoming charitable is not the price you pay to earn God’s favor. Rather, being charitable is the result of realizing that, in and through Christ, you always already have God’s favor. Hence, each genuine act of charity is an act of rejoicing.

Today is Gaudete Sunday. It is the Sunday of the pink candle and the pink vestments (“rose” for those who prefer). The Third Sunday of Advent is called “Gaudete” because Gaudete is the first word of the Introit (that part of Mass that is sung prior to ringing the bell for everyone to stand). Gaudete is Latin for “Rejoice!” It is an imperative, urging us, maybe even ordering us, to rejoice. Note that “joi” is at the heart of “rejoice.”

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, Gaudete = “Rejoice in the Lord always: again, I say rejoice.”² This comes from our second reading today, taken from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. As the apostle wrote in his Second Letter to the Corinthians:

Each must do… without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work³

Charity should not be a once-a-year thing, acts you perform between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Being charitable is what it means to be a Christian. Being a Christian, at least on this side of eternity, amounts to becoming. It is a journey, like the one described by Eliot in his poem. In Christian parlance, caritas, the Latin word from which “charity” is derived, is a translation of the Greek word agape.

Scripture teaches that “God is love.”⁴ Agape is the word translated as “love” in this passage. Unlike English and most Western languages, koine Greek- the original language of the New Testament- has four words for love. Three of these are used in the New Testament. Eros refers to what we call romantic love; philos to brotherly love- think the city of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love; agape to self-giving, self-emptying love.

I think motherhood is the closest human analog to agape. It’s beautiful that during Advent, this year in the week leading up to Gaudete Sunday, that we celebrate Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe. Agape, self-emptying love, is the essence of the nature of the Most Holy Trinity.

It is through the Incarnation of the Father’s only begotten Son, whom the Father sent because He so loved the world, that we can begin to understand what the revelation “God is love” really means.⁵ A few chapters earlier in Philippians, in the “kenotic hymn,” we read this of Jesus:

though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness⁶

True charity doesn’t consist only of giving something to someone in need, as important as that is. It requires giving something of yourself. While well-intentioned, things like “Giving Machines” make giving transactional rather than relational. Frankly, I find it fairly easy to give money and donate items. It’s much harder to give something of myself, to give time, attention, and care. Vulnerability is scary.

Our Lord only ever gives Himself whole and entire. In the Eucharistic exchange, you pledge your entire self to Him. In response to His self-giving, you pledge yourself to others, to charity, to self-giving, self-sacrificing love. You pledge to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Like Ebeneezer Scrooge, doing this is how you discover true joy. Only the joyful can rejoice.

---

1 T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” Part V.^↩
2 Philippians 4:4-5; Roman Missal, The Third Sunday of Advent, Entrance Antiphon.^↩
3 2 Corinthians 9:7-8.^↩
4 1 John 4:8.16.^↩
5 John 3:16.^↩
6 Philippians 2:6-7.^↩

Advent & kwanzhanuaukamas

Apart from August, the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is, at least for me, the least wonderful time of the year.

About the only thing born anew this time of year in late capitalist societies is consumerism. My typical response to "What do you want for Christmas?" is, "For it to be over." What I mean by that is that I want secular Christmas, which runs concurrently with Advent, to be over and done.

I enjoy celebrating Christmas after all the hoopla has died down and it's actually Christmas. I love the week between Christmas Day and New Years. I love St Stephen, St John the Evangelist, Holy Innocents, Thomas a Becket, Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, etc., playing games, reading books, watching movies, eating good food, thinking about the New Year. I am no Scrooge. I actually love Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is a deeply Christian book.

This year, I made it almost to the Third Sunday of Advent before realizing I've had enough already. This is pretty good for me. I have been fascinated this year by the fact that Padre Pio's favorite liturgical season was Advent (for a short treatment of this, see "Padre Pio and Advent: A Journey of Renewal and Grace"). Of course, he lived in a Capuchin monastery, but still, his advice given in some letters is most helpful.

Here is a late Friday traditio that, I believe, captures well the spirit of this season. The Kinks' "Father Christmas":

In any case, here's to those who wait in quiet expectation, preparing their hearts to once again not merely celebrate, but experience the great mystery of the Incarnation, those and who ponder this great mystery in their hearts. The mystery of Christ, "hidden from ages and from generations past," we read in Colossians, and has now "been manifested to his holy ones... Christ in you, the hope for glory" (Col 1:26-27).

As for the rest, as John Calvin put it: "The human heart is a perpetual idol factory." For the Latinists, who are, rightly, suspicious of translations- from the 1559 definitive edition: hominis ingenium perpetuam, ut ita loquar, esse idolorum fabricam (Institutes I.11.8). "Man's genius, so to speak, is to perpetually make idols."

Kwanshanuakkhmasdinosaurias- a photo from my walk this morning