Closing the chasm between heaven and hell

Readings: Amos 6:1a.4-7; Psalm 146:7-10; 1 Timothy 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31

Jesus Christ, as our reading from 1 Timothy so directly states, is "the King of kings and Lord of lords" (1 Tim 6:15). Hence, it is Christ who bridges the infinite chasm between heaven and earth, as Saint Catherine of Siena mystically explained (Dialogues IV. III. VIII). It is also Christ who can bridge the chasm between heaven and hell. It should make a big difference in each Christian's life that someone has, indeed, risen from the dead, namely Christ the Lord.

You can wait for a sign, hope for the visit of a ghost, like the rich man's request for his brothers, or like the ghosts mercifully sent to Ebeneezer Scrooge, but the Sign of Jonah should be sufficient for us (Luke 11:29-32). The end of this pericope points towards Christ's resurrection. In a way similar to that of the rich man's five brothers, not only can you listen to and heed the words of Christ, you can believe He is risen of the dead. Proof of that belief is repentance.

Unlike the parable of the Good Samaritan, by all indications, in today's parable, Lazarus and rich man are both Jews. Hence, the bosom of Abraham and Abraham's appeal to Moses and the prophets. By contrast, in the story of the Good Samaritan, the man who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead, seems to be Jewish, a man making his way to the holy city of Jerusalem for religious observance (See Luke 10:29-37). Like the rich man in today's Gospel, it was the beaten man's fellow Israelites who didn't simply fail to help him but actively avoided and evaded him.

It is the Good Samaritan who makes himself a neighbor. And so, it is with reference to the Good Samaritan that the Lord instructs His followers to "Go and do likewise" (Luke 10:37). The rich man was indifferent to Lazarus. Just as doubt is not the opposite of faith, hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the opposite of love. Like love, hate requires some passion. Indifference requires nothing. It is nothing. Indifference to the suffering of another is a form of nihilism. Like many Gospel readings taken from Luke in this part of the Sunday lectionary for Year C, this one easily sends the preacher off in search of a loophole or an escape hatch.

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, by Heinrich Aldegrever, 1554

A major theme of Pope Francis' pontificate was our need to counter indifference by not being indifferent. In an excerpt from Pope Francis' homily given at a Mass in Saint Peter's Square in the summer of 2014, the Gospel for which was Matthew 11:25-30, is more cogruent with today's Gospel reading:

This invitation of Jesus reaches to our day, and extends to the many brothers and sisters oppressed by life’s precarious conditions, by existential and difficult situations and at times lacking valid points of reference. In the poorest countries, but also on the outskirts of the richest countries, there are so many weary people, worn out under the unbearable weight of neglect and indifference. Indifference: human indifference causes the needy so much pain! And worse, the indifference of Christians!

With everything going on right now, it is urgent that we overcome our indifference. Empathy is not toxic! But lack of empathy, which is indifference, is deadly. If we take our bearings from Christ, it is deadly in more ways than one. By this I don't mean engaging in more social media hacktivism.

It seems that we put far more emphasis on sins of commission than on sins of omission. Even when it comes to sins of commission, it is important to distinguish between sins of strength and those of weakness. God is very merciful when it comes to sins of weakness but, as scripture teaches, quite harsh when it comes to sins of strength, be they sins of omission or commission.

Both hate and indifference are potentially damnable. As a Roman Catholic, I believe in hell. I don't believe that hell is empty. As far as who might be damned, God decides. Between the horns of the false dilemma- between a slack universalism and the straw of man of "infernalism"- there is a lot of space. As Jesus often intimated, it probably won't be those who you think that will be damned, that is, the prostitutes, tax collectors, etc., but perhaps more "respectable" people.

In any case, the rich man had many opportunities, even daily opportunities it seems, to close the chasm between himself and Lazarus. He not only chose not to but may have only been vaguely aware of Lazarus' existence. The weak, sore ridden, hungry man, whose sores the dogs licked, who sat outside his gate day after day was of no interest to him. He seemingly wore fine clothes and dined sumptuously each day with a trouble-free conscience. One prophet to whom he could've listened was Amos, who declared "Woe to the complacent in Zion!" (Amos 6:1).

"That we may delight in Your will"

Friday means time for a traditio. As we approach the end of the ninth month of 2025, it seems to me like this year started just a short while ago. Tumultuous, I think, is the best word to describe this year, which marks the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. But, then, I think the past twenty-five years have been pretty tumultuous.

With a deep awareness that I am writing this on a "social media platform," albeit a somewhat outdated and outmoded one, I can't help but ponder how much of the tumult is a result of the the digital devolution. It's beyond my competency to quantify it with any precision. So, I will just assert that it's played a very large role.

The so-called "information super highway," far from being an equalizer has been a road to nowhere, tipping the balance of power in ways that were unimaginable to most of us twenty-five years ago. We are truly fascinated by nothingness virtually all day and every day. It isn't just information overload. It's overload of meaningless, pointless "content" designed to distract and divide us.

Much of this, of course, has to do with the algorithmic way most social media works. The result of this is living each day somewhere between outrage and despair as we make desperate appeals to other people who largely think like us. There is no substitute for person-to-person engagement and involvement in activities that enable us to engage with others.

Diversity is not a threat. It's lack of diversity we should be worried about. By "diversity," I don't mean some kind of forced social experiment. Yet, most people seem to want less diversity, especially diversity of opinion, and prefer their interactions to be mediated, filtered through the rage machine. This arises from and reinforces our passive-aggressive nature.

I think there needs to be a collective realization of all of the above and more. Then there needs to be a collective determination, a peaceful and determined social revolution, to take our personal and collective humanity back. In addition to grasping the deadly game of the algorithim, we need to understand the biology behind it, which is weaponized. Clifford Stoll's 1995 book Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway was quite prescient.

In light of recent events, I'm struck, once again, by how everyone feels compelled to put out a statement on everything and anything. We need to reclaim our right to remain silent!

These days, I limit myself to a two days a week of social media exposure. I take it as a healthy sign that when I dip my digital toe back into the stream I don't find the temperature of the water conducive to jumping in. The question is, to what end? Back to the biology, it isn't for any good end and seems to me more and more to be self-indulgent.

The closest experience I've had to jumping back onto a streaming social media platform is that of when I quit drinking a number of years ago. Now, when I am somewhere people are drinking, after a while you really start to notice a shift in behavior, one that seems invisible to those imbibing.

I am happy for this blog to be my primary medium. One of the main reasons is that, while I will certainly post a link on the other platforms for which I have accounts, only people who want to will read what I've written.

I am tempted to go into a lot more detail, giving examples of the assertions I am making. However, I'm not going to do that. My spiritual reading right now is a book that takes aim at the results of what I am trying to describe: "You are a disciple of the system that tutors you, where you turn on a daily basis for guidance on living." Hence, the author concludes, most of us are Disciples of the Internet.

One result of internet disciplehsip is the demand for quick, easy answers. It programs you for instant replies. As a result, any "notion of lingering before God doesn’t fit with the pace we’ve come to expect" (Experience Jesus, by John Eldredge pgs 1-2).

Our traditio for this Friday of the twenty-fifth week in Ordinary Time is "Most Merciful God" by Greg La Follette off his Songs of Common Prayer album. Being an Anglo-Catholic at heart, I love this album. Since Fridays are days of penance, this strikes me as quite appropriate. Penance is meant to bring back around, as it were. As Saint Augustine noted, returning to God is also a return to yourself.

What to make of the dishonest steward?

Readings: Amos 8:4-7; Psalm 113:1-2.4-8; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13

The parable of the unjust steward is one of Saint Luke's trickier passages. In the end, did the steward who was fired for squandering his master's wealth do right by his master or not? More precisely, did he do right at all? Drilling down, does he in anyway give us an example to emulate? After all, a 50% or even a 20% discount is pretty steep to settle duly incurred debts, even in a barter economy.

The reading I proposing below cuts against the grain more than a bit. It's interesting to engage in this kind of re-reading when it comes to ambiguous passages of Sacred Scripture. Admittedly, what follows is more of a theological reading than a strictly exegetical one.

It seems to me that the ambiguity of this passage arises from the figure of the master who had fired his steward for not acting shrewdly but expresses his pleasure after the same steward settles accounts with two of the master's debtors. How much does the master know about the details of these deals? There is nothing cut-and-dry about this pericope.

Nonetheless, the steward was commended by the same master who fired him for acting prudently in the settling the master's debts prior to his dismissal. This despite the fact that the steward was clearly acting in his own best interests, not necessarily those of his master. By giving big discounts to his soon-to-be former master's debtors, he hoped to procure employment or at least garner favor with these debtors.

This leaves open the question as to whether the master on whose behalf he was acting truly understood what this shady guy was really up to. It also leaves open the question about whether this dishonest man secured subsequent employment. I mean, who would hire a guy like that? Perhaps he wound up begging or digging ditches after all!

It doesn't seem to me that Jesus is encouraging his followers to act like this steward, even in worldly matters. Christians don't tout being wily, conniving, dishonest, and self-serving. Rather, the Lord encourages trustworthiness even in worldly affairs: "If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?" (Luke 16:11). It seems pretty clear that the steward served mammon while trying to make it look like he was serving his master. In this parable, the master is not directly analagous to God but I'll get to that in a moment.

Dishonest wealth, that is, worldly wealth, will fail you. If not before, it will fail you at death. Why? Because, as the tired cliche puts it, "You can't take it with you." But you can take with you honesty and trustworthiness. Living sub specie aeternitatis should enable the Christian to see that while being dishonest might pay now, it doesn't in the end. As the witness of many righteous people demonstrates, it is possible to serve God even when handling mammon, which we all must do to some extent.

Jesus' observation that worldly people are more adept at worldly affairs than His followers are is not an obvious exhortation to act like them either in worldy matters or matters pertaining to eternal life. Therefore, it is not an argument that undercuts what I am asserting, even if it is the tired way people have heard it preached about. It could just as easily mean the opposite.

Besides, wouldn't an exhortation to act like the shady steward be out of joint with the other teachings on money and wealth that we find in the Gospel According to Saint Luke, not mention the overall tone and tenor of Jesus' teaching on these matters? Do ends justify means? There is a lot at stake in this morally.

A two-verse extension of our reading from Luke, I think, helps us see things more clearly. As a result of the teaching set forth in our Gospel, money-loving Pharisees, Luke writes, "sneered" at Jesus. He responds to their sneering by saying, "You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). I think it a legitimate exegetical move to read back and assert something like, "While the master may not have been aware of the details of the deals his dishonest steward was cutting, you can't fool God."

That is my take and I am sticking to it. I think my take is also reinforced by the Old Testament reading from the Book of the Prophet Amos. Bear in mind that for the Sunday readings during Ordinary Time, the Church makes a great effort to harmonize the Gospel and Old Testament reading. The dishonest steward bears a remarkable resemblance to those the prophet lambasts. The main difference being, those Amos righteously castigates defraud the poor, while the steward defrauds his seemingly wealthy master.

Maybe we can harmonize this difference by saying that by being dishonest, defrauding, and finanically abusing others, especially the poor, we betray our master; God, to whom belongs everything that is. Yet, in His unfathomable goodness, the only begotton Son of the Father, as our reading from 1 Timothy reminds us, "gave himself as ransom for all" (1 Timothy 2:6). Because of this, even dishonest stewards can have hope.

Worldly confusion

"The world, the flesh, and the devil." Let's stick this morning with the world.

Anyone who claims to be humble is proud. The more someone insists he is transparent, the more opaque he turns out to be. Anyone who makes a big deal about being for free speech is eager to shut down any expressed view she doesn't like. It really is that simple.

We're so inured to these incongruities that we don't recognize the irony in which we daily swim. If anything characterizes the past 15 years or so, it is utter incoherence. This incoherence is across the board. It is not the exclusive domain of any one side. Ideology is blinding and makes you stupid. Ideologies abound and propagate.

In the words of the Eurythymics song "Sweet Dreams," "everybody is looking for something." Exactly what, many can't say. An endeavor with no objective amounts to wandering in the optimism that you'll stumble onto something. While maybe not all who wander are lost (I can only imagine Tolkien's response to the abuse of this assertion), some certainly are lost. It strikes me as good advice not follow anyone with that bumper sticker.

Saint Benedict responded well to the chaos of his time. At the end of his still magnificent work After Virtue, written more than forty years ago, the late philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre contrasted our age with that of Saint Benedict's. Benedict's milieu was what are often called "the Dark Ages." In 1981, MacIntyre wrote that we were entering "a new dark ages."

Contrasting our time with that of 1500 years prior, MacIntyre observed: "This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament." Hence, what we need, he insisted, is "another—doubtless very different—St Benedict." What MacIntyre sought to prescribe is "the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained."

This is what hope, as contrasted with optimism, looks like. It is our lack of consciousness about our predicament that is most worrisome. Beyond that, many remain content to let politics and political ideologies take the lead, which is to get things the wrong way around. Another philosopher worth reading in this regard is Giorgio Agamben, particularly his Homo sacer series of books. There is a convergence between MacIntyre's conclusion and what Agamben asset forth in his book The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life. Come to think of it, maybe the Saint Benedict we need is not one who is so very so very different.

As you might've guessed, given my usual lack of subtlety, our traditio for this Friday is the Eurthymics "Sweet Dreams." Why? In the immortal words of future senator Bluto Blutarsky, "Why not?"

As Philip Roth observed through the main character of his own favorite novel, Sabbath's Theater, Mickey Sabbath: "whoever thinks himself pure is wicked."

Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

Readings: Hebrews 5:7-9; Psalm 31:2-6.15-16.20; Luke 2:33-35

Today, the day after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, we observe the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. This serves as just one more example of how beautiful a gift is the liturgical calendar. It is a reminder about how important it is for us to let the liturgical seasons, solemnities, feasts, and memorials give shape and form to our spiritual lives.

While it is no longer obligatory to observe them, the week after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Church still has Ember Days. Ember weeks occur four times a year in conjunction with Ash Wednesday, Pentecost, and, in the wintertime, the Memorial of Saint Lucy. Following the pattern of Holy Week, Ember Days are Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Because they are penitential days, we observe these days by fasting and abstaining as well as praying more intensely and engaging in charitable activities.

A Marian devotion that is not much practiced by English-speaking Catholics in the United States is the Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. This devotion has been around since the fifteenth century. This Chaplet has its own set beads similar to a Rosary.

The Chaplet has seven sets of seven beads. After invoking a Sorrow, like one invokes a Mystery of the Rosary, you recite a prayer and then say one Our Father followed by seven Hail Marys. You repeat this seven times. Let’s not forget that, in biblical terms, seven is the number of fulfillment or completion. Like the Most Holy Rosary, there is a way to begin and end the Chaplet.

Seven Swords Piercing the Sorrowful Heart of Mary in the Church of the Holy Cross, Salamanca, Spain

What are the Blessed Mother’s Seven Sorrows?

1. St. Simeon’s Prophecy
2. The Flight into Egypt
3. The Loss of Jesus in the Temple
4. The Meeting of Mary and Jesus on the Way to Calvary
5. The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus
6. The Piercing of the Side of Jesus, and His Descent from the Cross
7. The Burial of Jesus

Praying the Seven Sorrows Chaplet allows us to meditate on these sorrows and grow in our feelings of empathy for our Blessed Mother's sufferings. This devotion also open us to becoming more empathetic towards the suffering of others and learn to better understand our own sufferings and is a way of offering them up for the Kingdom of God.

To Saint Bridget of Sweden, to whom our Blessed Mother mystically entrusted the Seven Sorrows Chaplet, were also revealed four principal graces and seven promises. Like the instructions on how to properly pray the Seven Sorrows Chaplet, I will leave it to anyone interested to explore these further. One of the principal graces is to have impressed on your mind remembrance of Christ’s passion.

“The martyrs endured their torments in their bodies; Mary suffered Hers in Her soul,” wrote Saint Alphonse Liguori, a Doctor of the Church. Continuing, he noted that “as the soul is more noble than the body, so much greater were Mary’s sufferings than those of all the martyrs.” Then, quoting another Church Doctor, “St. Catherine of Siena: ‘Between the sufferings of the soul and those of the body there is no comparison,’”¹ meaning the suffering of the soul is greater. Thus, is expounded the first sorrow, which is also set forth in today’s Gospel.

The other Gospel that may be read for today’s Memorial is from Saint John.² It is the passage in which the Lord, dying on the Cross, gives the beloved disciple to her as a son and her to him as a mother. In this, the Blessed Virgin Mary becomes our Blessed Mother. Sisters and brothers, let us be good children of so kind, so merciful, so tender and caring a mother.

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1 The Devotion of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, pg 4. The Fatima Center. ^↩
2 See John 19:25-27.^↩

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Readings: Numbers 21:4b-9; Psalm 78:1-2.34-38; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17

“Rather, he emptied himself… he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”¹ In doing so, God’s true nature was revealed by Jesus Christ. What the Lord emptied Himself of were all the false human ideas about the divine, under which many people still labor.

Known as the Kenotic Hymn, our reading from Philippines sets forth the theology of the Holy Cross succinctly. It was because Christ Jesus humbled Himself even to the point of accepting death on a cross (an unjust death), that “God exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.”² My friends, we've all been bitten by the poisonous snake, the devil. As Saint Paul wrote: "all have sinned are deprived of the glory of God."³ Our remedy is the Cross of Christ.

Jesus Christ is the fulness of divine revelation. Everything God could reveal He revealed in and through Christ. It’s important to note that God’s Son did not come into the world as the next Caesar or even as a member of the ruling class of His own people.

Instead, He came as a marginal person, a man from Nazareth, which prompted Nathaniel to ask, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”⁴ The Jews themselves were a marginal yet troublesome people who, by conquest, belonged to the Roman Empire.

The Lord’s ministry was never political activism targeting the Roman empire or Jewish authorities’ policies. Instead, He came to bring about a true revolution: to disrupt the workings of a lost and fallen humanity. Christianity is not an ideology, though some may try to make it one. It is something far more radical—a revolution that, at some level, subverts every political system, all of which will ultimately perish.

Standing in Saint Peter’s Square looking at the Vatican Obelisk, which was brought to Rome from Egypt, Msgr Lorenzo Albacete said, “It is the Church flipping the bird to all the ideologies of the world.” Being eternal, the Church has survived all political systems for over 2,000 years. In Saint John’s Passion narrative, Jesus tells a suspicious and agitated Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.”⁵

Christ shed all misconceived notions of divinity to bring about this revolution of love. But that is to state it too ambiguously. Our passage from Paul’s letter to the Church in Philippi puts flesh on the bones of what we find revealed elsewhere in scripture: “God is love.”⁶ Originally written in Greek, the word for “love” in this sentence is agape.

Being one of four Greek words that refer to different types of love, agape refers to self-giving, self-sacrificing love. This is the highest form of love. Christ on the Cross is agape par excellence. One reason Catholics have crucifixes everywhere is to remind us how much God loves us. Our Gospel reading for today bears this out, does it not?

God loved us so much that He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him “may have eternal life.”⁷ Elsewhere in Saint John’s Gospel, praying to His Father, Jesus says, “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”⁸

The crowning moment of Jesus’ earthly life was being lifted up on the Cross. This is why our Gospel for this year’s observance of the Feast of Christ the King is Saint Luke’s account of the Lord being mocked on the Cross.⁹ "He mounted the Cross," insisted Luigi Giussani, "to free us from the fascination with nothingness, to free us from the fascination with appearances, with the ephemeral."

During the Stations of the Cross, as we reach each station, genuflecting, the leader says, “We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you.” To which, while genuflecting, all respond: “Because by your holy cross You have redeemed the world.” By this and other devotions, we heed the exhortation of our Responsorial: “Do not forget the works of the Lord!”¹⁰ This is especially important when you experience difficulties in your own life. Christ is by your side even as you walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

How do we face our present circumstances? It isn’t by being sucked into the vortex of daily events through media and social media. Nor is it by sowing further division when there is already too much. It is by shedding His blood, according to scripture, that Christ “is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh.”¹¹

And so, as Pope Leo wrote on Friday, far from banging the drums of an unwinnable culture war fueled by political ideologies and propaganda, the Holy Father:

would like that today we may together begin to build a culture of reconciliation. We must meet one another, heal our wounds, and forgive the wrongs we did and did not do, but whose effects we still carry. There are no enemies — only brothers and sisters. What we need are gestures and policies of reconciliation¹²

As Christians, we face the harshness of reality by accepting the challenge of living the Gospel in its fullness. This not only goes against the grain of human society but often runs contrary to our own fallen nature. This includes obeying the Lord’s hard sayings: to love, earnestly pray for, and do good to those who hate you. To return good when what you receive is evil. To turn the other cheek. To walk the extra mile. To be a peacemaker. To make yourself a neighbor to those in need. Let’s not forget an important part of our Catholic tradition and heritage: to make penitential acts a part of our lives. Living in this self-sacrificial, other-centered, as opposed self-centered, way is revolutionary.

In last week’s Gospel, teaching what it means to be His disciple, the Lord said, “Whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”¹³ The cross is “the narrow door” referred to by the Lord in our Gospel from three weeks ago.¹⁴ In our Collect for this Mass, referring to the mystery of the Cross, we prayed “that we, who have known this mystery on earth, may merit the grace of redemption in heaven.”¹⁶ Finally, as the familiar hymn puts it, “only they who bear the cross may hope to wear the glorious crown.”¹⁶

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1 Philippians 2:7-8.^↩
2 Philippians 2:8-9.^↩
3 Romans 3:23.^↩
4 John 1:46.^↩
5 John 18:36.^↩
6 1 John 4:8.16.^↩
7 John 3:16.^↩
8 John 17:3.^↩
9 See Luke 23:35-43.^↩
10 Psalm 78:7.^↩
11 Ephesians 2:14.^↩
12 X. Pontifex- Sep 12, 2025.^↩
13 Luke 14:27.^↩
14 Luke 13:24.^↩
15 Roman Missal. Proper of Saints. The Exaltation of the Holy Cross.^↩
16 Charles W. Everest, “Take Up Thy Cross.” 1833.^↩

"Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother"

As someone devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, I would be remiss not to observe today's optional Memorial of the Holy Name of Mary in a public way, especially since I am unable to attend Mass. Besides, according to the Church, part of any authentic spirituality for a Catholic deacon is devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

As the Servant of God, Lucia dos Santos, one of the visionaries of Fatima insisted: "There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot solve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary." During her several apparitions, our Blessed Mother has begged those to whom she was made manifest to pray her Most Holy Rosary and exhort others to do so.

We live in uncertain time. It is tempting to fall into despair. In the face of the onslaught, we realize how little we control, how little power we have to influence thing. The greatest deception of social media is giving users a false sense of power and influence. The Blessed Virgin Mary can be our refuge, our advocate, our most effacacious intercessor. Let us render our Blessed Mother hyperdulia.

Saint Louis de Montfort insisted that one who prays the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary will never be led astray.

In the Divine Praises we say:

Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her glorious Assumption.

We end this section by praying Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother

Turn to Mary. Pray her Most Holy Rosary. Pray her Memorare often.

Our second traditio for today is a choral rendition of The Divine Praises:

What ails us?

A lot can, has, and will be said and written about the murder of political activist and organizer Charlie Kirk. On the other hand, probably not enough has been said or written about the political assassination of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and the wounding of Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their homes by the same "shooter" back on 25 June of this year. How quickly we forget and how manipulable we are and how selective our outrage.

Whatever is ailing us as a country is resulting in an alarming uptick of political violence. Hateful rhetoric is certainly one of the main culprits. At root, at least in my view, making something provisional, namely politics, ultimate is a huge problem. Too many people are finding ultimate meaning in the vacuity of politics.

Like wealth, politics cannot save you but it can surely damn you. Too many people are not content to think someone who holds a different view is merely wrong. Too often, someone who holds an opposing is seen as evil. What this amounts to something like- "If you don't agree with me, you're clearly acting in bad faith." Like money, politics easily becomes an idol, complete with saints and messiahs. Money, power, and sex are now and have always been Satan's greatest tools.

I admit to not knowing much about Charlie Kirk. I know enough about him to know that as the founder of Turning Point USA he often travelled to college campuses, setup a pavilion, and sought to engage in argument with all comers. On YouTube last fall, during the election, I watched some of these exchanges. At least to me, it was more political theater than serious engagement.

In my view, wise and prudent students spent their time in the library studying or in class. Nonetheless, these were the circumstances in which Kirk was maliciously shot and killed. An abhorrent and cowardly act. I am not going to try to investigate or adjudicate his murder on my blog. It isn't just sad. It's horrific and should be (yet another) wake up call to all of us, a prompt to dial it down several notches.

Now, this is not to say that I disagreed with Kirk on everything but there was plenty with which I did not agree. But this isn't really about the issues- both sides gave up serious engagement with issues about 10 years ago. We now mistake propaganda for legitimate political discourse.

The result of our seduction by propaganda is the "meme-ifcation" of politics. The motor of propaganda is the generation of slogans. Memes amount to sloganeering in the service of propaganda. A complex issue resolved in one or two pithy sentences.

What passes for conservatism in the U.S.today is not conservative in the least. It is a pretty radical program of the kind that make true conservatives wary. A conservative, after all, needs to grasp what it is s/he is trying to conserve. To write more on this would to be digress.

Lest, during this time of polarization, when many insist that you must pick one extreme or the other, I will note that I feel the same way about other media/political milieux on the opposite end of the political spectrum. I have long insisted that our decreasing ability to make important distinctions endangers us, like our refusal to find common ground on vexing matters. I would also say our political polarization is diabolical. In Greek diabolos is one who divides. This is the opposite of E pluribus unum- something like "from the many, one."

About 20 years ago, one of the bishops under whom I've served, a very intelligent and moderate man, in a conversation about politics in the United States, insisted that the worst thing that was happening in our country was the collapse of the political center. He was right, as we can now see. When the center doesn't hold, things fall apart.

Far from morally non-committal, moderates understand that prudence governs all the virtues. They also grasp that the object should determine the method, the contrary of the old saw "when everything looks like a nail, all you need is a hammer." Moderates, to put it provocatively, were usually the adults in the room and thus able to broker the kinds of political compromises our political system requires in order to function.

While not prophetic, the bishop's observation about the collapse of the political center was an astute observation. This same bishop, holding a PH.d in English literature, was a very literary person. Our regression from literacy back orality is just that, regress, not progress. If nothing else, it contributes to the erasure of memory, which, as anyone who has read 1984 knows, is vital in the service to truth.

To stick only with the victims of explicitly political violence: I lament Charlie Kirk's murder. I lament the murders of Melissa and Mark Hortman. I lament the wounding of John and Yvette Hoffman.

It isn't just "the other side" that bears the burden of making our political discourse more civil. Just like peace on earth begins with me, civil discourse begins with me. Christian faith is not a political ideology. The Church has survived and thrived in a multitude of political constucts and will do so until the end of time. This isn't to say that Christianity has no political implications: it certainly does. But being Catholic in one's political orientation makes it difficult to fit comfortably into any party or group.

As not only a Catholic but as a Catholic cleric, I try to take my political cue from Church teaching, particularly the Church's well-established but always developing social teaching. Catholic social teaching is erected on four pillars: dignity of the human person (this includes every, single person), the common good, solidarity, and subsidiarity. Solidarity and subsidiarity, like political conservatism and political liberalism, moderate each other.

Over the years Psalm 51, known by Roman Catholics as the Miserere, has been our Friday traditio several times. I can think of nothing more fitting for today than this psalm of contrition. So, Psalm 51 in Aramaiac, sung for Pope Francis, is our traditio today. Kyrie eleison.

Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings: Romans 8:28-30; Psalm 13:6; Matthew 1:1-16.18-23

Prevenient grace is the term applied by the Church's magisterium to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In Ineffabilis Deus, the papal bull promulgated in 1854, by which Pope Pius IX dogmatically declared our Blessed Mother's Immaculate Conception, we read:

the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conceptoin, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, we preserved free from all stain of original sin

Prevenient grace is often conflated with the broad term grace, which is multi-faceted. Prevenient grace is given without any effort on our part. You can't earn it. It shows that it is God who takes the initiative through Jesus Christ to bring about your salvation. You can only cooperate with prevenient grace or choose not to cooperate.

Prevenient grace segues nicely with our reading from Romans, especially the phrase "those he foreknew he also predestined."¹ The destiny of every person is eternal life. This is what God made us for and what Christ redeemed us for. Unlike the government of Oceania in Orwell's 1984, God does not force your cooperation. He will not make you love Him. In one sense God is no respecter of persons but in another, God respects us as persons made in His image.

We see this in Blessed Mary's fiat, her words to Gabriel: "be it done unto me according to your word."² While God preveniently chose Mary to be the mother of His Son, it was a risk. As creation itself shows, God is a risk-taker.

Conceived in the normal way but without the "stain" of original sin aided this young Nazarene woman to see things more clearly than those of us tainted by the fallen human condition. Nonetheless, God hinged the Incarnation on her free cooperation. Existence, after all, is not a puppet show, and we are not puppets. So, we must be careful when addressing predestination, misunderstandings of which have led to evil theologies, like the idea that God creates some people only to damn them.

As it turns out, like God, the Blessed Virgin, too, is a risk-taker. But isn't love always a risk? What has caused you more anguish and heartache than love? Next Monday, the day day after we celebrate the Exalation of the Holy Cross, we observe the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows.

On the flip side, what has caused you more genuine joy than love? Like her Son, who embraced the shame of the cross "for the joy that lay before him," Blessed Mary embraced the shame of turning up pregnant out of wedlock in a society in which that might lead to being to stoned to death for the joy that lay before her.³ Trusting God completely, this young woman, Miriam of Nazareth, enthusiastically embraced becoming the Mother of God.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the model disciple. She shows us how to follow Christ, her Son, how to trust Him completely. Trusting Christ is easy to say but hard to do, especially when your life goes sideways, like Mary's unexpected pregnancy.

I am quite certain that prior to the appearance of the archangel Gabriel, bearing the Son of God was not in the short or long term plans of our Blessed Mother. But when God called, she responded enthusiastically. She chose to take the risk, trusting God's holy will.

As to the genealogy that comprises most of our Gospel, a slightly updated passage from an Advent homily given by the Dominical theologian Father Herbert McCabe many years ago cuts to the chase:

Well, that is the Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ. The moral is too obvious to labour Jesus did not belong to the nice clean world of [Jan Karon, Eleanor H. Porter or Louisa May Alcott], to the honest , reasonable, sincere world of the [Washington Post] or [New York Times]. He belonged to a family of murderers, cheats, cowards, adulterers and liars. No wonder He came to a bad end, and gave us some hope⁴

. Excepting His mother, or course. There really is something about Mary. Today, we thank God for her.

---

1 Romans 8:30.^↩
2 Luke 1:38.^↩
3 Hebrews 12:2.^↩
4 Herbert McCabe, OP. God Matters, "The genealogy of Christ," pgs 246-249. Mowbray, 2000- [updated words in brackets]^↩

Not being a Christian disciple: let Jesus count the ways

Readings: Wisdom 9:13-18b; Psalm 90:3-6.12-14.17; Philemon 9-10.12-17; Luke 14:25-33

Being a Christian is now has always been more than mere belief. There is a difference between being a fan of Jesus Christ and His disciple. Written before Christ, our reading from Wisdom is about how inscrutable God's will can be. By contrast, our Gospel is about how Christ takes away this inscrutability by being very clear on what it means to follow Him.

Let's be honest, most of us would prefer a different answer. This is why when confronted with a passage like the one in today's Gospel, we're usually quick to attenuate it, to rachet it down a bit. We want to turn the volume down from eleven to a comfortable 3 or 4.

Following Jesus comes at a cost. Jesus + nothing = Everything. In our Gospel, Jesus tells two stories about the need to count the cost before following Him. The cost of discipleship is great. Jesus is the pearl of great price, the One you shouldn't prefer anything or anyone to. Half-hearted discipleship is no discipleship. The Lord has no accidental disciples.

In what or in whom do you place your hope? In success? In riches? In another person, even if that person is your parent or spouse (we can and do make an idol of the family)? In your dreams about the future?

Death is a given, which is why memento mori remains a worthwhile spiritual practice. Walking each day toward death's horizon should help you discern what really matters, making God's will less inscrutable to you. This is called living sub specie aeternitatis- "under the aspect of eternity." You can renounce your possessions or lose them at death.

It matters whether you see death as a horizon beyond which you presently cannot see or as falling into an annihilating void- the end. This difference is the difference between life and death. It is the difference between life and death because of the conclusions one draws about what matters in life and how one lives in light of what matters.

Jesus' summons to carry your cross is quite literally what it means to follow Him. Let's not forget that we are still in the part of Saint Luke's Gospel where the Lord, having "resolutely" set out, is journeying to Jerusalem (see Luke 9:51). What awaits Him in the Holy City is the cross, a fact that disturbs His disciples both then and now. For several Sundays we have been in a school of intensive discipleship.

The only way to resurrection, to life eternal, is through the cross. The cross is "the narrow door" about which Jesus spoke in our Gospel the Sunday before last (see "Year C Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time"). We are saved through suffering. This kind of brings us back to God's inscrutability.

Far from desiring to be inscrutable, ineffable, etc., God, who knows you better than you know yourself (if most of us are honest, this is no great claim because we don't know ourselves all that well!), wants you to know Him. This is why God reveals Himself. God revealed everything in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, in turn, shows and teaches us in scrutable ways (as opposed to inscrutable- scrutable meaning "capable of being deciphered or comprehended") the path of life.

In our reading from Philemon Saint Paul addresses his brother regarding Onesimus. Onesimus belonged to Philemon but left to accompany the apostle. It seems Paul, while being aware of Onesimus' irregular status, was happy to have him along, even calling him "my own heart."

In sending Onesimus back to Philemon, Paul points out that because all of them belonged to Christ, they were brothers to one another. This relation in and through Christ trumps all other relations (for Christians water is thicker than blood), in this instance, it certainly trumps the master/slave relationship.

Hence, Paul urges Philemon to receive Onesimus back, not as a slave, but as a brother, as "a man in the Lord," not an inferior. Hence, Philemon should receive this runaway back as he would receive the apostle himself. Through this, Paul calls Philemon to repentance, to metanoia (the Greek word usually translated as "repent"). In the New Testament, metanoia means not just to have a change of mind but to begin having the mind of Christ.

Having the mind of Christ means to understand things in a wholly different and transformed way. For Philemon to see Onesimus as a brother instead of as a slave, even if perhaps a relatively well-treated one, is a huge shift in perspective. Paul calls on him to relinquish his legal right to punish and control Onesimus in the way a master could punish and control a slave. Let's bear in mind the trepidation Onesimus may have felt as a result of Paul sending him back to Philemon.

Onesimus' return confronted Philemon with a choice. Far from an evasion, Christianity is a confrontation with reality, a deep engagement with one's circumstances. An engagement undertaken in the convinction that Jesus is Lord.

Busy and grateful or busily grateful

Busy-ness is hard for me. After a week or so, it starts to seem downright tyrannical. When I awoke on Monday morning, I steeled myself for the upcoming week (this week) and the week following (next week). Don't get me wrong. I am immensely blessed and my busy-ness is comprised of good things. Plus, so far, I'm keeping the pace. Deo gratias!

"Daunting" is the word that best describes my experience of these busier that usual times. It's not unusual for me to not feel up to the tasks. But what I find by keeping my routine the best I can, putting one foot in front of the other, and taking short pauses to reconnect with the One who walks with me, is not only that can I do it but that I can even enjoy it, despite definitely not wanting it to be my norm.

Even in normal times, people ask me how I manage all my roles and responsibilities. My somewhat sly answer is, "Sometimes better than others." Truth be told, it's all about priorities and knowing my limitations. Above that is staying connected to the Vine, knowing that I but a mere branch. What I have gotten used to at times is not getting to a lot of things done as soon as I'd like. I am a task in/task out, next, kinda person. During those times when my regular cycle is disrputed by the need to make trade-offs in order to attend to higher priorities, some things snowball. For example, as a result of this two week period, I will definitely have some digging out to do.

I don't mind divulging that I am doing my second Saint Michael's Lent through Exodus 90. My fraternity this year is smaller than last year. There are four us from my parish who are walking together. Spiritually, this is what I need right now, despite the commitment adding to my burden somewhat. Since it's Christ's burden, rather than increase my load, it lightens it. My three brothers, all from my parish, were all already friends. Their fellowship means a lot to me.

While I enjoyed last year, I felt the spiritual guidance was lacking in certain aspects. I also found some of it theologically off. This year, two Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, Fathers Innocent and Angelus, are our spiritual guides. At the risk of sounding like an older man trying to be "with it," I am vibing this year. I eagerly look forward to each day's reflection and prayer. Since fasting is the forgotten and deliberately neglected spiritual discipline, I enjoy that aspect of Saint Michael's Lent, as it is a discipline I try to practice regularly. It's nice to have companions.

I still remain fascinated by time, by its passage, by its relativity. It's hard to believe that we're approaching the end of the first week of September. I am very grateful that returning to this online endeavor late last year has borne the fruit for me that I hoped it would bear. In reality, it's been a bumper harvest. God is good and gracious. It helps that this has long been a labor of love. As the response to the Intercessions from Morning Prayer today puts it, In your will is our peace, Lord. Seeking to live in God's will is vital.

I have a road trip today. I need to go and return so I am back to meet commitments I have for tomorrow- the first of which is my Fraternity meeting- the other rather more formal. Otherwise, I would spend the night at my destination. Next week, I have a one day trip to Florida for a business meeting. (Deep sigh!)

I have been listening lately to some of my favorite contemporary Christian music. In particular, Phil Keaggy's 1993 Crimson & Blue album. It seems fitting that "Everywhere I Look" is our Friday traditio. Tenga un buen fin de semana a todos.