"Then I would turn myself to face me"

Things have been quiet around here lately. This is because I have been very busy. Between 17 August and 20 September, I was travelling every week. Only one of those trips was a personal family trip. Boy, did I enjoy being with my family!

Another couple of highlights from this time is leading the annual deacon retreat for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Spending time outside Chicago with the Catholic Relief Services Global Fellows was also incredible. As always, I have a lot to be grateful for. Being more grateful, as well as being more patient, even with myself, are a few of the things I've been focusing on.

Another thing that gives me joy is teaching theology to a small group of motivated high school students each week. This year, we are tackling the New Testament. Last year, my first doing this, was Old Testament.

In particular, I haven't been putting up the Friday traditio While I was very happy to have been diligent in doing that for virtually all of 2025, looking back, I realized that when I get busy, it is usually the first thing to go. And that's as it should be. Life over blogging (there's that faux verb again!). I posted fewer times during September than any month since November 2024.

As both of my readers know, 2026 has been a year of big changes and transitions in my life. While it's been difficult and taken a lot of adjusting, on the whole, these changes have been good. A little more than six months in, I feel like I have my sea legs. So, I am now making adjustments based on the big changes about which I wrote a lot early this year.

There have been some strange difficulties I've faced this year. I've also written, if vaguely, about these. All of these things have really made me seek the Lord with a renewed fervor and have sparked some personal changes. Not superficial, but deep changes, you know, those you know you need to start making but remain reluctant to do so. Why? Because not only is it work, it's work you can't accomplish on your own.

In short, interior renewal that is centering and isn't dependent on externals. Saint Ignatius of Loyola had one word for this: indiferencía. As another spiritual teacher has taught me, I am learning to practice more consistently "benevolent detatchment."

At the present moment, I am finding one book in particular very useful. Jim Finley's Merton's Palace of Nowhere. Finely's masterwork on Merton, who was Jim's spiritual director for the six years he spent at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, as well as his novice master, was originally published nearly fifty years ago, in 1978. I don't think this book would've "worked" for me until this year. But it's just what I need right now. Perhaps at some point I will share precisely how Finley's exposition of Merton's spirituality has helped me better appropriate Merton's teachings (it isn't a method). It's also been way too long since I've seriously engaged Pater Tom. Grace abounds.

One fruit of all of this is my need to not be busy seven days a week. Manning several demanding positions in my fulltime work for the diocese made me realize that, at least for the next several years, I don't have the time or the energy for parish ministry. Six and a half years ago, when I accepted a demanding part-time position with the diocese (this while still working a fulltime job), I was given the option not to be assigned to a parish. I don't regret continuing to serve the parish to which I've been assigned between then and now, but it's past time for a change. Once this transition is complete, there will be more news to follow in terms of what's next for those who care.

While I will be transitioning out between now and Easter, I am already mostly out. My transition began in July. Pastoral necessity put me back in the thick of things for the month of September. At this point, I am pretty sure I will be around for Christmas and Holy Week.

This discernment has been six months in the making. I've done this is in collaboration with both my current pastor and my bishop. I am also blessed with a wonderful spiritual director, who's helped me immensely this year. I've been through enough iterations of back-and-forth to know it's the right thing at the right time and for the right reasons. I have that peace that Saint Ignatius insisted is the confirmation of having discerned wisely, led by the Spirit.

I am preparing to leave for the annual deacon retreat for my diocese. It starts this evening and goes through Sunday morning. Please keep us in your prayers.

It's been way too long since our Καθολικός διάκονος Friday traditio has been something by David Bowie. Fittingly, Bowie's "Changes" is our traditio for this first Friday of October.

Year 2 Monday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Job 1:6-22; Psalm 17:1-3.6-7; Luke 9:46-50

The Book of Job teaches that sometimes bad things happen to good people. It teaches us that these bad things are not God’s punishment for sins and failures. After basically losing everything, Job declares, in the midst of his lament: “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). Job did not grow angry and shake his fist at the heavens, demanding God explain himself. He blessed the Lord.

A long time ago, someone told me that God doesn’t care as much about what happens to you as he does about how you receive it and how you handle it. That's hard to process. I still think God cares about what happens to me. But God certainly cares about how I handle what comes my way.

It’s never a question of God “cutting you off” from himself. Rather, it’s a question of your attitude towards God when experiencing dark and troubling times. God seeks to use everything that happens to draw me closer to himself. Do I trust him to let him do this, or do I withdraw, certain or maybe worried if God is somehow angry with me? This is an important question.

It’s important to trust God, our Father, with childlike trust, especially when dealing with life’s inevitable struggles, disappointments, and difficulties. More often than not- though not in Job’s case (his friends and even his wife are convinced Job did something wrong for which God is punishing him- they tell him this)- God reaches out to us through other people.

Sometimes God reaches out to us through the most unexpected people. Maybe the person who shows you God’s face, brings a ray of sunlight to your darkness, and encourages you is an unbeliever. Perhaps this person’s beliefs are very different from your own.

Maybe, like a lot of people these days, the person doesn’t really know what s/he believes and practices no religion. Still, such people see you suffering and, like the Good Samaritan, show you compassion, care, and kindness. As with Jesus, so with us: “whoever is not against you is for you” (Luke 9:50)

Unlike Job’s friends, let’s not get so carried away trying to be right that we neglect to be kind, caring, and compassionate. Foster hope in others. Be for others. Be that friend who offers encouragement.

Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Readings: Ephesians 4:1-7.11-23; Psalm 19:2-5; Matthew 9:9-13

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist. Fittingly, our Gospel reading is Jesus calling Matthew to follow him. In doing so, the Lord invites this tax collector to join his core followers: the Twelve.

Our reading from Ephesians, referring to spiritual gifts, insists, “grace was given to each of us.”¹ It is a grace to follow Christ, who calls everyone. I say he calls everyone, even though in our Gospel he says, “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”² Like Matthew, none of us are called because of our own merits. And some the Lord calls, like Matthew, like Paul, are surprising, to say the least.

What Saint Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth, I believe, still applies today: “Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world…”³

Jesus Calls Matthew To Be His Disciple

Both the call and the response are grace. Grace is a word we hear, read, and perhaps use a lot. Like a boat too long at sea, words used too often can acquire barnacles, taking on so many meanings that the core meaning is muted or even lost.

In his recent novel Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar provides a stunning “take” on grace:

What distinguishes grace from everything else? Grace is unearned. If you’ve moved through the world in such a way as to feel you’ve earned cosmic compensation, then what you’ve earned is something more like justice, like propriety. Not grace. Propriety is correct. Justice is just. There’s an inescapable transactional quality: perform x good, receive y reward. Grace doesn’t work that way. It begins with reward. Goodness never enters the equation⁴

The economy of salvation is non-transactional. Its structure is “gift-return-gift.” This exchange is not about redistributing goods or services. Rather, it’s about imitating God’s self‑gift and living out that gift concretely.

Grace begins with the reward. Christian life begins with the reward. The rest is living in loving gratitude for the gift given and received. This is what Saint Matthew did, transforming from a tax collector into an apostle and evangelist. This is how “to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received.”⁵

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1 Ephesians 4:7.^↩
2 Matthew 9:13.^↩
3 1 Corinthians 1:26-27.^↩
4 Kaveh Akbar. Martyr! Vintage: New York: 2024, page 279..^↩
5 Ephesians 4:1.^↩

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

Today the Church throughout the world celebrates the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. This feast marks the day when, in AD 326, the true cross, purportedly discovered by Helena, Emperor Constantine’s mother, was lifted up (exalted) for veneration in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Today marks the 1,700th anniversary of that event.

Like a few other major observances, such as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, this feast is observed today not only by Roman Catholics but also by Eastern Catholics and most Eastern Orthodox Christians. Today is also Pope Leo’s seventy-first birthday. It is due to the importance and universal nature of this feast that the Liturgy of the Word features three readings.

The readings for today’s feast seem to me perfectly harmonized. Elsewhere in Saint John’s Gospel, Jesus also alludes to our first reading from the Book of Numbers. This happens when, during the Passover celebration in Jerusalem, some Greeks asked his disciples to meet him. In declining their request, the Lord says, referring to his death, “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (See John 12:20-36)

Indeed, far from being a humiliation, Jesus being lifted on the cross is his exaltation, the revelation of who he really is. This is made wonderfully clear in our reading from Philippians. Saint Paul likely took this passage from what New Testament scholars agree was probably an early Christian hymn, now known as “the kenotic hymn.” This inspired passage shows us who Jesus really is. It does so by giving us a deep glimpse into God’s very nature.

“Because of this,” we hear in the passage, “God exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (Phil 2:6). The “this” that is referred to is his emptying himself (“to empty” is what the Greek word kenosis means) to become a slave and to be subjected to an unjust and, in the ancient world, deeply humiliating death. He did not use divine omnipotence to save himself. Rather, for our sake, he commended himself to the Father- this same Father who did not take the cup of his passion away from him.

It is on the cross that Jesus shows us the height, depth, and width of God’s love. On the cross, Jesus shows us that genuine strength is made manifest in weakness. He demonstrates that real power, which is the power of divine love (i.e., agape), is made perfect through weakness (2 Cor 12:9-10). Nearly two thousand years on, the cross of Christ remains a scandal not only to many non-believers, but to many Christians as well.

Returning to history, let’s not forget that the Church’s lowest ebbs came when she either exercised or sought to exercise worldly power. It is during such times that God sends saints, like Francis of Assisi, the 800th anniversary of whose death the Church is celebrating this year as a Jubilee, who remind us of the power of the Holy Cross.

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,
   By your holy cross you have redeemed the world
(Lectionary, Gospel Acclamation, Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross)

Year A Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Sirach 27:30-28:7; Psalm 103:1-4.9-12; Romans 14:7-9; Matthew 18:21-35

In today's Gospel, we are faced with one of Jesus’ most difficult teachings. Harmonized as it is with our first reading from Sirach, the Lord’s teaching about not just the importance but the necessity of forgiveness is set forth in a very direct way. In a word, today's teaching is provocative.

I dare say, forgiveness is a challenge to us all. It doesn’t matter whether it is about big or small things. And, in this passage, Jesus doesn’t leave wiggle room. This is what makes his teaching on forgiveness one of his most challenging , if not his most challenging.

What does it mean to forgive someone who has wronged you? It means intentionally choosing to let go of resentment, bitterness, and anger towards that person. Quite literally, as we see in the parable Jesus gives, forgiveness means choosing not to collect a debt owed.

Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting. Neither does it mean making wrong into right. While forgiveness is required for reconciliation, it isn’t the same thing. In many instances, though not all, forgiveness opens the door to reconciliation.

In recent years, much psychological research has focused on forgiveness. Far from weakness, forgiveness requires a great deal of emotional strength. Forgiving wrongs reduces your own negative emotions and cultivates compassion and understanding toward the one you are forgiving.

The person most freed by forgiveness is the one who forgives. Just as it is physically easier to smile than to frown, forgiving others is easier than being weighed down by anger and resentment.

From a Christian perspective, forgiveness is a grace. A grace is something you don’t deserve. You can’t earn grace. This is where Jesus’ teaching begins.

Perhaps the best way to approach the parable found in our Gospel is as an allegory. In this allegory, God is the merciful king who forgives an enormous debt owed to him by his servant. The servant, who has no way of repaying the debt, stands in for us sinners. The king graciously forgives his servant's huge debt.

You would reasonably expect, as the merciful king in this parable clearly does, that someone who has been shown great mercy would extend that same mercy to others. It’s almost shocking that the forgiven servant is so utterly merciless to the person who owed him a very small debt. If we stick with the allegory, the parable shows the predicament of the Christian who, as the old bumper sticker said, is not perfect, just forgiven, but who nonetheless refuses to forgive.

Just as we can truly love only because God first loved us, we can truly forgive because, through Christ, God has forgiven us.¹ We even pray this, also from Saint Matthew’s Gospel, together at each Mass: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”²

Jesus’ parable serves as an illustration of his teaching about forgiving as many times as I am wronged. It also further explains our quite pointed reading from Sirach. True forgiveness, as the Lord teaches it at the end of our Gospel, must be from the heart.³

As C.S. Lewis observed: “Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”⁴ In other words, it’s easier said than done. But forgiveness is not merely done for the love of a neighbor but is also done out of a just love of oneself and for one’s own salvation.

Because God is infinite, his mercy is infinite. As Pope Francis taught: “God always forgives us. He never tires of this. It’s we who get tired of asking for forgiveness.”⁵ This is good news!

To be like God is to be like Jesus, who shows us the face of the Father. To be like Jesus is to forgive. While it’s hard to be like Jesus, by God's grace, it is not impossible. As his followers, the Lord calls us to follow him; not only to do what he taught but to do as he did.

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1 1 John 4:10.^↩
2 Matthew 6:12.^↩
3 Matthew 18:35.^↩
4 C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity. Book III, Chapter 1, Section 7, "Christian Behavior.^↩
5 Pope Francis. Vatican Radio via America magazine: “God Always Forgives Everything: ‘He never tires of this. It’s we who get tired of asking for forgiveness.’” 23 January 2015.^↩

Year 2 Monday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Corinthians 5:1-8; Psalm 5:5-7.12; Luke 6:6-11

Today is Labor Day. Somewhat ironically, our Gospel is about “working” on the sabbath. It is always the work of a Christian to do good and certainly to save life.

From a narrow perspective, like that of Jesus’ interlocutors in our reading, the Lord’s relationship with the Law can seem complicated. But it isn’t, really. Before the time of Jesus and even during his time, for many rabbis, adherence to the Law was not just about keeping a list of rules, avoiding what was forbidden, and doing what was prescribed.

What is at stake in these kinds of incidents found in the Gospel is our relationship with God, both personal and communal. It is very human to make my relationship with God transactional. I do this or don’t do that. As a result, God does something for me in return. Conversely, when I fail to do what I am supposed to do or do what I’m not supposed to do, God will punish me.

Try as we might to make him that way, God isn’t like that. God loves us. His disposition towards us doesn’t change. His love is not conditional, dependent on our often-whimsical behavior. Jesus shows us this repeatedly.

Detail from Christ healing an infirm woman on the Sabbath, by James Tissot, 1886-1896,in public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By curing the man with a withered hand on the sabbath, in the eyes of at least some of those in the synagogue, Jesus violated the commandment forbidding work on the sabbath. He did the very thing some of those present were hoping he would do. They came looking for a reason, any reason, to condemn him.

He blatantly did what those looking to accuse him hoped he would do: cured someone on the sabbath. They were not swayed by the mercy to which the Lord appealed. Jesus is the Mercy King. In our epistle reading from yesterday, taken from his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul asserted that to love your neighbor by doing good to her/him is the fulfillment of the Law (see Romans 13:8-10).

Of course, Paul takes this directly from Jesus’ teaching. You see, the Law was given to provide a means to the end of loving God with your entire being by loving your neighbor as you love yourself. There is no higher commandment. All other rules are subordinated to the Two Great Commandments (sticking with Saint Luke's Gospel see Luke 10:27-37).

I can genuinely love because I am first loved (see 1 John 4:10). Far from a transaction consisting of a quid pro quo, obedience is my loving response to God, who is love.

Careful now

Readings: Ezekiel 33:7-9; Psalm 95:1-2.6-9; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20

The first part of our Gospel today is one of those passages that can easily cause more harm than good. It's a passage that requires careful handling. Being juridical in nature, it sets forth a procedure for resolving disputes within the primitive Christian community.

These procedures set forth in the passage pertain to serious matters, the kinds of things that today would lead to excommunication or serious ecclesial penalities, matters now codified in the Code of Canon Law. In other words, it doesn't green light providing grist for the rumor mill. It doesn't promote division within the community.

Nonetheless, the injunction to go to the person against whom you have a grievance privately with an eye towards reconciling is, on the whole, good advice. Now, there are situations, like instances of sexual or other kinds of heinous abuse, to which this does not and cannot apply. But then, the penal section of the Code of Canon Law and, in some cases, even criminal law are brought bear on such egregious matters (see first paragraph).

When dealing with everyday kinds of disputes or offenses, real or perceived, seeking to work it out person-to-person and then perhaps with a mediator is a good way ahead. It also cuts gossip off at the source. Ideally, we seek reconciliation, not judgment, and certainly not retribution.

During Ordinary Time, effort is made to harmonize the Gospel reading with the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures. Today, this could easily compound the problem. Not only can misreading and mishandling this passage cause harm, it can lead to abuse.

I think our reading from Romans provides us with much-needed perspective. It provides us with a Christian perspective. "Juridical" refers to judicial (i.e., legal) proceedings. Any good and well-ordered community requires such things (see first paragraph). What our "epistle" reading, which seems well-harmonized with the other readings, reminds us is the basis of Christ's law, namely the second of his Two Great Commandments.

Saint Paul stated it quite simply when he wrote: "the one who loves another has fulfilled the law" (Rom 13:8). Even more to my point, "Love does no evil to the neighbor" (Rom 13:10). In this passage, "love" is a translation of the appropriate form of agape.

By way of reminder, agape refers to self-giving, self-sacrificing love. Sometimes efforts are made to distinguish between liking and loving someone. This means that you can love someone and really not liking them. While I suppose this can be a useful distinction in certain circumstances, pressing this distinction too hard can make Christian love (agape) cold and mechanical, procedural and not personal. While love is a choice, not merely a feeling, it has an indispenable affective dimension.

Later in this same chapter of Saint Matthew's Gospel, in teaching about not the importance but the necessity of forgiveness, Jesus clearly states you must forgive your brother from your heart (Matt 18:35). Depending on the perceived offense or actual injury, this can be very difficult and take time, maybe a lot of time. But for Christians, it must be a matter of the heart.

Yesterday I read an article about the experience of an Evangelical pastor in a church he had pastored. Because of the way he was treated, he wound up leaving that Church scarred and somewhat broken. Several years later, while pastoring another Church in a different state, the current pastor of the Church he left, knowing what happened, invited him back to preach.

Reluctantly, the ousted pastor accepted. At the start of one of the meetings he was preaching at while visting his former church, in walked a man who had made him miserable while he served there. He wrote,

No, the man did not apologize for the torment he brought to my family, but it didn’t matter. God gave me peace. Forgiveness at that time was not conditional on what he did. Instead, it was a gift from God to me

Then it became a gift from the pastor to the man. Indeed, "love is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom 13:10).

Year 2 Friday of the Twenty-second in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Psalm 37:3-6.27-28.39-40; Luke 5:33-39

It is impossible to separate Jesus from what we now call Judaism. Without Judaism, Christianity is incoherent. Today’s Gospel sets forth the kind of cognitive dissonance Christ often caused and that the Christian life still causes today.

Today, this dissonance, which is kind of a dialectic, is often a painful source of division. “Dialectic” is a big word. In this context, it refers to a way of thinking and argumentation through which what seem to be contradictions are shown to be paradoxes. A paradox (another big word) is something that looks like a contradiction but, on close examination is shown not to be.

For an example of this, we need look no farther than today’s Gospel. Instead of dedicating themselves to prayer and fasting on certain days of the week, as the Pharisees and even the Baptist’s disciples did, Jesus’ followers ate and drank. They feasted instead of fasted.

Jesus doesn’t say his disciples don’t fast because fasting is no longer an important spiritual discipline. He uses an analogy: do you fast at a wedding after the bridegroom arrives? No! You feast.

Jesus is the bridegroom, and his bride is the Church. Every Eucharist is a feast, a celebration, especially Sunday Eucharist. This is why Sundays don’t count as days of Lent. To arrive at 40 day of Lent, you must subtract Sundays.

The Church still fasts. Catholics are obliged to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The normal way Fridays are still observed as days of penance is by abstaining from meat. But there is no Friday abstinence when a solemnity falls on a Friday.

Like all spiritual disciplines, fasting has rules. But when it becomes rule-bound, this discipline goes from being a means to becoming an end in itself. Turning these means into ends makes engaging in spiritual discipline worse than not doing them at all. The end to which all spiritual disciplines are but means is love of God and neighbor.As we read even the Old Testament: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (See Hosea 6:6 and Matthew 9:13).

As interesting and even important as this is, it isn’t the point of our reading. The point of our readings is about judging others. Saint Paul, who experienced plenty of judgment during his years of ministry, much of it quite harsh, wrote that he doesn’t even judge himself.

Many people think that self-judgment leads to more lenient judgment. While I suppose this is sometimes the case, I’ve found, in working with quite a few people over the past few decades, that a lot of people, probably most, judge themselves quite harshly. I know people who are very merciful towards others yet merciless towards themselves.

There’s a podcast I often listen to that is hosted by a pastor, Steve Cuss, who, along with his wife, is also a counselor. At the end of each episode that features a guest, Cuss has them endure what he calls “the gauntlet of anxiety-inducing questions.” The first of the three questions he asks is, “What’s one way that you treat others that if you started treating yourself the same way, your life would be better?"

Many times, the guest answers the question along the lines of, “My life would be better if I extended as much grace and mercy to myself as I do to others.” As Christians, we’re often sadly programmed to be quite merciless with ourselves from a young age.

Years ago, I participated in a memorial service for someone with whom I had the blessing to work as he returned to the church. Sadly and unexpectedly, Casey, who was a successful and much-beloved guy, took his own life. At each table setting at his memorial service was a card that read: “Be gentle with yourself and with others.” I keep this card on a shelf in my den as a reminder.

Time and again, Jesus shows us the face of the Father. God is not an angry tyrant. He is a merciful and loving Father, one who constantly works for your good. As scripture states it: “God is love” (1 John 4:8.16). God isn’t just love in a generic sense, but is agape, that is, self-sacrificing, self-giving love.

Christian morality makes no sense until you’ve experienced God’s love. Genuine morality is a loving response to the love of God. It is the fruit of a life grounded in and lived from God’s love, made manifest by loving your neighbor as you love yourself- don't too quickly forget not only to love yourself but let yourself be loved.

Year A Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Jeremiah 20:7-9; Psalm 63:2-6.8-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27

Following Jesus, being his disciple, is what it means to be a Christian. Where does Jesus lead those who follow him? To the cross.

While the Lord’s crucifixion was centuries away, the prophet Jeremiah experienced what the Lord, in today’s Gospel, tells his followers to expect. Despite himself, despite the ridicule he endures, Jeremiah can’t stop speaking. He can’t quit crying out. Try as he might to resist, he can’t quench the burning fire God places in his heart.

Now, we need to put what Jeremiah says into its proper context. He was calling Israel back to fidelity to her covenant with God. He warns his fellow Israelites of the consequences if they do not heed his inspired warnings. We know that the consequence was exile.

Despite his dire warnings, Jeremiah also spoke of hope through a new covenant God would establish. In addition to repatriation, God would, through this new thing, bring about internal transformation and a renewed relationship with his people.¹

It isn’t so much that God will directly punish them as it is that he will simply allow them to experience the natural consequences of their choices and actions. Even so, God remains merciful. God’s mercy is made evident by Israel’s return from exile. Instead of being absorbed into the Babylonian population, the Israelites maintained their unique identity as God’s people.

Being a Christian also means, as Saint Paul wrote in our passage from Romans, discerning God’s will. According to the apostle, the ability to know God’s will in the different circumstances life presents requires an internal transformation. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote about having the mind of Christ.²

It is by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, that one has the mind of Christ. Hence, a Christian life produces the fruits of the Spirit.³ One of the fruits of the Spirit is patience. Patience is also the fruit of the fourth Sorrowful mystery of the Rosary; the mystery itself being Jesus carrying the cross.

In the Salve Regina recited at the end of each Rosary (and that we frequently sing at Mass), we cry to our Blessed Mother as Eve’s “poor banished children,” making our way through “this vale of tears.” Being a Christian doesn’t spare anyone life’s sorrows, disappointments, and trials. The Lord’s response to Peter in today’s Gospel should dispel any notions of that.

You don’t have to go looking for crosses to carry. Inevitably, life will provide in this regard. Patience in suffering is made possible by hope. Hope comes not just from knowing or being told that Christ walks with you. It comes from experiencing his presence during times of trial and uncertainty.

Vaclav Havel, a Czech dissident during that country’s years under authoritarian rule and who later served his country as president, put it this way:

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. It is an orientation of the spirit and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons⁴

Taking Havel’s “take” on hope as her starting point, Tata Trapani observed:

Hope is the friend who sits with us in the dark, so we are not alone and shines for us so we can make it through. If we expect it to be more than this, we are doing it a disservice and we will always be crestfallen⁵

For Christians, hope is not merely a concept, an idea, an abstraction. Even to say that hope is the flower of faith, while a beautiful and, I believe, lovely and true image, is to pull up short. Logically, faith requires an object. In Christian terms, it requires a subject, that is, someone, not merely something.

For the Christian, this friend who sits with us in the dark and shines a light in that darkness has a name: Jesus Christ. And sometimes, more often than not I'd say, the Lord sends along friends, people, a person, someone willing to sit with us and shine a light in the darkness.

Turning to Havel again, hope “is a dimension of the soul and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world.”⁶ As human beings who bear the image of God, an image that cannot be eradicated, hope is a dimension of the soul. It is part of what it means to be human. Hope is that light, however dim or flickering, that keeps shining through the darkness, drawing our attention, even when completely distracted by circumstances.

Of course, the Lord doesn’t lead you to the cross to leave you there. He leads you there to take you beyond it, to life everlasting. But the only way beyond the cross is through it.

It’s easy to forget that Jesus’ cry of abandonment from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is the beginning of Psalm 22.⁷ It’s even easier to forget that about two-thirds through, this Psalm turns from one of lament to one of joy, culminating with these verses:

For he has not spurned or disdained
the misery of this poor wretch,
Did not turn away from me,
but heard me when I cried out.
I will offer praise in the great assembly⁸

My dear friends, attend to hope. Foster hope in others. Be that friend willing to sit in the darkness, who, unlike Job’s friends, can offer encouragement even if only by your silent presence. Above all, patiently trust in the Lord, who is always true to his word. As Scripture exhorts: “Cast all your worries upon him because he cares for you.”⁹

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1 Jeremiah 31:31-34.^↩
2 1 Corinthians 2:16.^↩
3 See Galatians 5:22-23..^↩
4 Vaclav Havel. Disturbing the Peace. Trans. Paul Wilson, 181-182.^↩
5 Tata Trapani. “Vaclav Havel on Hope.” Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology blog. 24 August 2023.^↩
6 Disturbing the Peace, 181-182.^↩
7 Psalm 22:2.^↩
8 Psalm 22:25-26.^↩
9 1 Peter 5:7.^↩

Passing over, not away

Ah, it's Friday once again. In addition to Dolly Parton, actor Tim Curry also died this past week. Not nearly as prominent as Parton, Curry was a tremendous actor. Like many actors of his generation, seeing it as a craft, Curry could act. He had amazing range.

Timothy James Curry (19 April 1946 – 25 August 2026)

Something I learned about Curry upon learning of his death is that his father, James Curry, was a Methodist minister. Beginning with the Second World War, James served as a Royal Navy chaplain. From what I can tell, it looks like he remained as a chaplain for some years after the war ended. As a result, the family, which included Tim's mother Patricia and his sister Judith, moved frequently.

Sadly, James died in 1958 from pneumonia. Tim was only 12 years-old. Prior to his fatal bout of pneumonia, like his son years later, James suffered a debilitating stroke. After his father's death, the family settled in South London.

In addition to enjoying and appreciating Curry's acting, I post this because I am still very surprised at how many prominent English people are children of clergy. Even John Mortimer's great literary character, Horace Rumpole, was the son of a Church of England vicar. Certainly during the time of Tim Curry's upbringing, English Methodists, which are an offshoort of Anglicanism, were very strict and kept things very simple.

Curry's range as an actor is demonstrated by the variety of roles he so successfully played. He rose to prominence in the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I remember driving from Ogden to Salt Lake City as a high school junior (fall of 1982) with my friends Anson and David to see this movie at the Blue Mouse theater. While we enjoyed our experience, let's just say we were not prepared for it!

Tim also played Rooster Hannigan in the 1982 film Annie as well as Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers. Memorably, Curry was cast as Pennywise the clown in the mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's It. In this role, he certainly did nothing to abate anyone's coulrophobia.

Among the roles he played on Broadway: Mozart in Amadeus and Alan Swann in My Favorite Year. Released in 1982, the latter remains a wonderful movie. The movie was adapated into a Broadway musical featuring the same title. In the film, Swann (based on Errol Flynn) was played by Peter O'Toole. Let's not forget that Tim also played Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island. Here's a link to a slightly spicey but very funny video concerning his interaction with Muppets. He did a killer impression of Mick Jagger on Saturday Night Live back in 1981.

Curry was also a world class gardiner and horticulturalist. Published late last year, Curry wrote a critically well-regarded and bestselling memoir: Vagabond. Tim also recorded four albums. He did some musical touring.

As mentioned previously, Curry suffered a debilitating stroke. This occurred in 2012 when he just 66 years-old. He was wheelchair bound from then until his death this past Tuesday. He continued working for several years after his stroke.

Our Friday traditio is a live audio recording of Curry singing "When a Man Loves a Woman" at a club in New York City way back in 1979.

An alternate traditio is Dolly singing a duet with Kenny Rogers: "Islands in the Stream." She and Rogers had a very special friendship. Kenny made no bones about the fact that he loved Dolly. She loved him, but as a friend, committed as she was to her marriage. The way she so warmly takes his hand moves me.

Knowing Jesus more and more

Matthew 16:13-20

Today's Gospel is one that makes it very easy, not to mention tempting, to get really theological. The temptation is twofold: 1) Christology or 2) ecclesiology. I suppose a third temptation is an apologetic for the papacy (maybe best labeled 2a).

This is not to say those things should be left unaddressed. It's perfectly legitimate and, at times, even necessary to do so, depending on the medium and on circumstances. I'm sure at one time or another, I've done all three with regard to this passage from Saint Matthew's Gospel.

But today, I feel impelled to make it more personal. After all, the question the Lord poses to Peter on the road to Caesarea Philippi is the question he poses to you and to me: "But who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15). I think the fact that he asks this question while he and his disciples were on the way, on the road, has some significance. As members of God's pilgrim people, we're all on our way. If we're moving, our understanding of who Jesus is changes, that is, deepens over time.

Something the late Rich Mullins said a long time ago kind of gets to the point I'm trying to make: "Life and living comes from God- it comes from Jesus- not from doctrine or good morals" (Les Sussman. Praise Him!: Christian Music Stars Share Their Favorite Verses from the Scriptures: 1998). I'm going to leave good morals alone apart from saying that reducing faith to morals is very common.

It's not that morals don't matter, like doctrine, they do matter. It's just, as Rich went on to say, "sometimes I think we put the cart before the horse." As far as doctrine, Saint Paul states it nicely in our reading from Romans: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!" (Romans 11:33). Words always fall short of the Mystery.

Jesus Walking, by Alexandre Bida, 1891

Christians know the answer to the question (it's what makes you a Christian): Jesus is Lord. He is the Messiah. He's the Savior, the Son of God, etc. But isn't reciting these titles, as accurate and truthful as I believe them to be, just saying things about him?

Without a doubt, each of us, as Depeche Mode insisted, has our own personal Jesus. This shouldn't be too shocking. After all, isn't it a good thing to have and cultivate a personal relationship with the Lord? But even short of a relationship with him, everyone has an image, an idea, of him.

One risk in having a personal Jesus is that we can make him not only personal but private. This is done by making him into my image instead of letting myself be conformed into his image. At certain times in history, even the Church has made the Lord into someone other than who he is. But even during dark times, there were always those, like Saint Francis of Assisi, who came along in the thirteenth century, when the institution of the Church was at a particularly low ebb, who've not merely professed that Jesus is Lord but who lived out the radical implications of this profession of faith.

Saint Anthony, the great Desert Father, was another such figure. One day in Church, he heard Jesus' teaching about selling everything and following him (Matthew 19:21). In response, Anthony did just that. Both of these show the need for community, for the Church.

The Church isn't built on the confession of a perfect disciple who had it all figured out at that moment on the dusty Galilean road. Not only would Peter go on to deny Jesus during his passion, he would be rebuked by Paul for falling back in with those Christians who continued to insist that even Gentile converts needed to adhere to the Law (see Galatians 2:11-14).

I firmly believe that Peter answered Jesus's question both correctly and sincerely. But let's not forget, he was still on the way, as am I, as are you. Peter still has a lot to learn about what it means to confess Jesus as Messiah, as Son of God. I do, too. I am encouraged that, as Michael Card sang, "There is a joy in the journey."

Mercy unbounded

Readings: Isaiah 56:1.6-7; Psalm 67:2-3.5-6.8; Romans 11:13-15.29-32; Matthew 15:21-28

An important aspect of today's Gospel that is often overlooked is that it is a Gentile, a Canaanite women no less, who recognizes Jesus for who he is: the "Lord, Son of David!" This is a messianic greeting. We can be quite certain that in the context of this passage, her greeting is not lost on the Lord. He knows that she knows who he is, even when many in Israel, perhaps even some of his disciples, did not.

In the Gospels, Jesus employs a variety of methods to teach. This pericope is an instance when he gives a powerful lesson using a tough technique. What is the lesson? The lesson is that God's care and concern, his goodnes and mercy, extend beyond Israel, beyond the chosen people. In our day, this is as true of the Church as it was of Israel.

Many spend a lot of time and energy drawing lines to determine who is left out. But in the bizarro world of God's kingdom, there is only us, no them. You know what? This remains downright scandalous to many people.

Without a doubt, the most fundamental aspect of Pope Francis' pontificate was reminding us of the scandalous way God manifests his love. El amor de Dios es para todos, todo el tiempo. You can't earn God's love. This is not true because you're so bad and God is so good (that is true of me, however). It's because you can't earn what you not only always have, but what you already always have and cannot lose. What scripture reveals we need to take to heart: "God is love" (1 John 4:8.16).

Our epistle reading today harmonizes nicely with the Old Testament and Gospel readings. In this passage from his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul lays out a great mystery. According to the apostle, it is because of Israel's disobedience that we, the Gentiles, have received God's mercy. You see, as Gentiles, we are unencumbered by the Law. For Paul, the Law exists to show us that we can't measure up to it. Only one perfectly observed the Law, Jesus.

Crumbs of Love, by Michael Cook, 2008

It is because of the mercy we have received, that Israel, whose "call is irrevocable," will receive mercy. This is what it means when you read, "For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all." La misericordia de Dios es para todos.

Up until he says, "O woman, great is your faith!", including his blowing off her intial plea, the Lord's answers might seem a bit harsh. The lesson is that this Canannite woman, so desperate to find relief for her daughter, due to her persistent faith, is an example of faith even to Israel. Such expressions of faith by non-Jews is a constant throughout the Gospel narratives.

Sometimes our preconceptions, which easily and often become misconceptions, get in God's way. This not only affects us, but it can easily affect others- "Send her away." Heaven forbid!

According to the oracle from Isaiah, it is

The foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,
ministering to him,
loving the name of the LORD,
and becoming his servants

This why all the nations of the earth will praise God.

Being vulnerable

Once again this week I teetered on not posting. Maybe it's late summer malaise. If so, it is exacerbated by coming to grips with so many things that are happening.

I've been thinking a lot lately about vulnerability. Like a lot words, "vulnerability" has taken onboard a lot of added meaning. We talk about the need to protect vulnerable people, as we should. "Vulnerable" in that sense seems a straightforward use of the word.

We also talk about "being vulnerable," more specifically, making ourselves vulnerable. This is almost always spoken about as if it's something one ought or even needs to do. This rather expands the word.

As to the encouragement to make one's self vulnerable, in the first place, I would say that to be alive is to be vulernable. It's easy to argue that is vulnerable enough! How much more vulnerable do you want to make yourself?

Well, to love is to make yourself vulnerable. I daresay most of us have had our hearts broken and not only by lovers but perhaps by parents, children, friends, fellow believers. Love is a risk. If the risk was removed, would it be, could it be, love?

All of this is a wind up to stating the reality that going into ministry, when done with proper awareness and discernment, is to make yourself quite vulnerable. Like marriage, this should scare you a bit. This is also why those in ministry can seem a little gun shy. It is also why, increasingly, quite a few people who go into ministry only stay for a season. Unless you've been on the other side (i.e., in ministry), it's difficult to explain.

I sometimes think I try too hard to tie things up with neat little bows. I'm not going to do that today, on this penitential Friday.

Our very late traditio, which I had ready on Friday, is Colin Hays' cover of Stevie Winwood's "Can't Find My Way Home."

Year A Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 19:9a.11-13a; Psalm 85:9-14; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-33

Last week’s Gospel found Jesus trying to get away to spend time in prayer. His plan was altered when, upon his arrival on the far shore, he encountered a vast crowd. Being “moved with pity for them,” the Lord cured the sick among them. After this, he performed a miracle by feeding thousands.¹

Remember that what prompted the Lord to seek out a deserted place where he could be by himself was the death of John the Baptist. It was grief that led him to desire to be alone with the Father. Our Gospel today picks up where the feeding of the 5,000 left off.

After his interaction with the multitude, the Lord still deeply desired to be alone to pray. This time he was able to go up the mountain by himself. The inspired author of Matthew seems to indicate that Jesus was on the mountain praying for quite a while. He planned to pray for so long, in fact, that he sent his disciples on their way while he stayed behind to pray.

When faced with life’s unexpected twists and turns, especially when faced with inexplicable tragedies, unexpected disappointments, and unforeseen setbacks, which leave you grief-stricken and/or feeling vulnerable and powerless, where do you go? To whom do you turn?

We live in an age when, even among people of faith, prayer easily becomes the last resort- what one does when there is nothing else s/he can possibly do. But the Lord’s first impulse upon learning of the violent death of the Baptist at the hands of Herod was to find a deserted place where he could be alone with the Father. Yet, even in his grief, he took time to serve others, even though that meant delaying his own plans.

More than healing the sick among the vast crowd, Jesus gave thanks to God, blessed it, and then broke the bread before distributing the food. This reminds us of something we hear each week in the Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father. . .”²

Out of prudence, we normally tend to avoid absolutes like “always” and “everywhere.” Yet, when it comes to giving thanks to God, we are exhorted to have no such reluctance, no such reticence. Sometimes this is more of a provocation than it is a consolation. Yet, this is exactly what the Lord models for us.

Saint Paul sums this beautifully in his Second Letter to the Corinthians:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. For as Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow³

My dear friends, as hard as this can be at times, this is what living out our baptism, living the Paschal Mystery looks like! As our Collect for today indicates, it is through Christ and “taught by the Holy Spirit” that “we dare to call [God] our Father.”⁴

After his time in prayer, Jesus set out to join his disciples, who’d already set sail across the Sea of Galilee. As they made their way across the water in the dark of night, they saw Jesus approaching them, walking on the water. Understandably, this frightened them.

The Lord assured them that it was indeed him and exhorted them, “do not be afraid.”⁵ Looking at this allegorically, the sea becomes the great mystery of life, wide, deep, often unpredictable, and at times quite scary. The boat is what we build to keep ourselves provisionally safe from the vicissitudes of life. But even in the relative safety of the boat, we know the power of storms at sea.

As long as the waters are calm, the boat seems a safe place. Those in the boat accompany one another during this sometimes-perilous crossing. As the wind whips up and waves start to rise and crash, here comes the Lord, improbably walking toward us. It is Jesus who transforms the waters into the vastness of God's love and mercy. He says to you, "Come."

Peter’s stepping out is what Paul wrote about when he insisted that it is by receiving God’s encouragement in our afflictions that we are able to encourage others experiencing affliction. It is by sharing in Christ’s cross that you already share in his resurrection. You need not even fear death. God, who is love, is stronger than death!

Peter knows full well that he cannot walk on the water on his own. He needs the Lord's help to do so. Jesus is all too happy to say to his eager follower, “Come.”⁶ Lo and behold, Peter steps out of the boat and begins to make his way across the water to Jesus.

Losing his focus on Christ, Peter suddenly becomes all too aware of himself. He begins to sink. But even then, Jesus immediately stretched out his hand and caught Peter. Fear, which is so tied up with focus on self, is often what holds us back.

The Lord repeatedly says to his disciples, “Do not be afraid.” In Saint Matthew’s Gospel alone, he says it three times. Besides today’s passage, he says this to Peter, James, and John after his Transfiguration, when they saw Moses and Elijah and heard the Father’s voice.⁷ Finally, the Risen Lord tells the women who came to the tomb, “Do not be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.”⁸

True prayer, the kind of prayer Jesus no doubt engaged in while on the mountain, results in self-forgetting. The consolation we offer to those who are afflicted in the midst of our own afflictions also requires self-forgetting, which arises from true prayer.

The sea of life is wide, deep, and unpredictable. We never know what tomorrow may bring, good or bad. And so, like Peter stepping out of the boat, let us squarely face reality by making an act of faith. Let’s do it by borrowing words from a famous prayer of Thomas Merton:

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone⁹

And so, with Peter, we implore: “Lord, save me!”¹⁰

---

1 See Matthew 14:13-21.^↩
2 Roman Missal. Preface VI of the Sundays in Ordinary Time, sec. 57.^↩
3 2 Corthinthians 1:3-5.^↩
4 Roman Missal. Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.^↩
5 Matthew 14:27.^↩
6 Matthew 14:29.^↩
7 See Matthew 17:1-8.^↩
8 See Matthew 28:1-10.^↩
9 Thomas Merton. “The Merton Prayer,” from Thoughts in Solitude.^↩
10 Matthew 14:30.^↩

Interior renewal, being grounded in Reality

It was touch-and-go as to whether I was going to post a traditio this week. Needless to say, it's been a fairly draining time. The good thing about this show is that it need not go on.

There are desolations aplenty. In his goodness, God also provides consolations. Among the consolations over these past several days have been continuing to read Jane Foulcher's Life Here Together: The Prophetic Gift of the Tibhirine Monks and listening to the episode of John Dear's "The Nonviolent Jesus" podcast with Jim Finley on God and the mystics.

The monks of the monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria

For six years immediately following high school, Finley was at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. Pater Tom served as his novice master and provided him with spiritual direction. Jim also wrote what remains one of the best books on the spirituality of Pater Tom.

First published in 1978, ten years after Pater Tom's death, Finley's Merton's Palace of Nowhere is still worth reading. In fact, I am going to re-read it in September.

I plan to also read How Far to Follow?: The Martyrs of Atlas, by Bernardo Olivera, OSCO. Not be confused with the famous soccer player of the same name, at the time of the kidnapping and murder of the seven Cistercian monks from Our Lady of Atlas Priory in Algeria in 1996, Father Olivera was serving in Rome as Abbot General of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OSCO).

You may ask, to whom or what do these monks called "Cistercians" strictly observe? It's a great question. They seek to strictly observe the Rule of Saint Benedict. Dating to the twelfth century, the Cistercians are a Benedictine reform movement.

While I have had the book for several years, I will probably also (finally) read The Rule of Saint Benedict: Initiation into the Monastic Tradition 4, which contains Merton's teaching as novice master at Gethsemani on Saint Benedict's Regula.

Anyway, kind of a data dump and a Cistercian one at that. Maybe should institute "Media Monday." I really feel the need for interior renewal. I have also started listening to the first season of Finley's podcast Turning to the Mystics. Pater Tom is the main focus of this first season.

Our traditio for this First First Friday of August is a chant of the Jesus Prayer. This is chanted in "Church" Slavonic. This seems appropriate both given what I wrote above and that Fridays remain penitential days.

It occurred to me on Wednesday that I missed last month's anniversary. 19 July 2006 was the date I began posting regularly here in this cyberspace. While I started blog nearly a year earlier with a few posts written over a few days, it wasn't until nearly a year later that this endeavor really took off. So, it's been 21 years in total, but 20 as far as this being a real effort.

Tragedy challenges God's love

No sooner did I finish my reflection on this week's second reading from Romans chapter 8 about the all-encompassing nature of God's love yesterday than I received some very shocking news. Some long-time friends of ours, while in Idaho for a family reunion, were shot. One was wounded and the other friend killed.

I have to be honest and admit that the reality of this senseless tragedy has not really sunk in. Our friends were not shot by someone they knew. It was a random and very senseless act of violence, the kind of which is all too prevalent in our society.

I suppose those who are interested can find news reports coming out of Twin Falls, Idaho (see here). They had merely stopped to recharge their electric vehicle when their assailant shot them. After his shooting spree, the man responsible for it killed himself.

In the face of something like this, there are no satisfactory explanations, no good answers. There is only shock, grief, and, certainly, anger. Instead, such horrific events prompt many, many questions.

First and foremost, the question "Why?" For those of us who believe not just in God, but in an all-loving, all-caring, benevolent God, a God who is also omnipotent, "Why does God allow these things to happen?" All I can say is, I don't know. It makes no sense to me.

To attempt to answer these questions in any satisfactory way is to dismiss the pain and anguish that prompts them. During his visit to Spain, Pope Leo warned against the danger of well-meaning efforts to “spiritualize pain, superficially attributing it to 'God's will' or to some mysterious plan of his.” To do this, he noted, runs the risk of minimizing or silencing suffering, thus hurting people. God neither wants nor wills human suffering (see here).

Yet, suffering happens. But Christ, Pope Leo insisted, “carries [suffering] with us and invites us to trust in him with perseverance,” hopefully noting that “with God, life is always reborn." At least this is our hope.

Our Gospel today offers some insight (see Matthew 14:13-21). On learning of the Baptist's death, Jesus headed to a deserted place. It appears he does so to mourn and grieve John's death.

But word apparently got out that he was coming. As he stepped onto the shore, a "vast crowd" awaited him. Far from being self-pitying and reproachful, the Lord was "moved with pity for them." And so, he healed those who were sick. Beyond that, enlisting the reluctant help of his closest followers, he miraculously fed them all.

This is Jesus Christ. Meek, gentle, merciful, and caring. Rather than be a heavenly puppet-master, he became one of us, entered fully into our human condition, thus humbly subjecting himself to all that is human, including the grief of death. We see this, too, in John's Gospel, when he weeps at the death of his friend Lazarus (see John 11:1-44).

Anguish, disttress, the sword, even death cannot separate us from the love of God given us in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. But sometimes in the face of reality, God, who is love, seems notably absent. But he's not.

God suffers with us and, in Christ, suffers for us. By his wounds, we are healed. Healing is often a long, slow process. Of course, we look forward to that ultimate healing. As I wrote this, the Holy Spirit brought to my mind this beautiful song written and sung years ago by Wayne Watson: "Home Free."

There are times when the walk through valley of the shadow of death is a very long and dark one. But Christ is with you every step of the way. Like the discouraged disciples Jesus accompanied as they made their way back home to Emmaus, it is often the case that we recognize him only when we look back.

When dealing with grave tragedies with which life is at times sadly fraught, God's love is scandalous in a different way, meaning he can seem absent or even non-existent. Cling to hope. Cling to Christ.

The scandal of God's love

Romans 8:35.37-39

Once again, I am reflecting on our reading from Romans. These inspired passages are vital for Christian faith. The beauty of reading Saint Paul is that he is no mere theoretician. He writes from experience. Hence, his short exposition on the heighth, width, and depth, that is, the infinitude (meaning "unbounded," infinity has to do with space and eternity with time) of God's love is no abstract discourse. These are insights born from experience.

Taking the infinity of divine love as a given, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux was fascinated with the burning intensity of love flowing from Jesus' Sacred Heart. This is how she realized that “If I had committed all possible crimes, I would always have the same confidence [in Christ's saving love]; I feel that this whole multitude of offenses would be like a drop of water thrown into a fiery furnace” (Footnote 133 in Pope Francis' encylical Dilexit nos, indicating this is found in Last Conversations. Yellow Notebook, 11 July 1897, 6.). Did you get that? Your worst sins are like a drop water in the "fiery furnance" of God's all-consuming love! Yes, "our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29).

For many Christians, Christ's love remains a scandal (from the Greek skandalon, meaning a trap or snare). Let's face it, while we like to identify with the prodigal, we can sometimes be more like the pissed off older brother. It was Henri Nouwen who thought that perhaps the Parable of the Prodigal Son should be called the Parable of Profligate Father. "Profligate" means "recklessly extravagant."

God's love provokes. Herbert McCabe, OP was a great provocateur in this regard. In a collection of writings entitled Faith Within Reason, he insisted:

God’s love does not depend on what we do or what we are like. He doesn’t care whether we are sinners or not. It makes no difference to him. He is just waiting to welcome us with joy and love. Sin doesn’t alter God’s attitude to us; it alters our attitude to him, so that we change him from the God who is simply love and nothing else into this punitive ogre, this Satan (italicization mine)

The importance of this point cannot be overemphasized.

Try as you might, you can't make yourself "right with God." This does not imply that God can't or even doesn't choose to sometimes reward meritorious acts. But only Christ can make you "right" with the Father. Your confessions, penances, reparations, works of mercy, etc., are not done to change God's disposition towards you.

Remember, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8) Such things can only ever be responses to God's love, done to alter your attitude to God and neighbor. Projecting human finitude, fickelness, and pettiness onto God is a reversion to paganism, with its tempermental and tempestuous gods.

A few chapters earlier in his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul writes, "God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8- italics mine). Soteriology is a fascinating part of Christian theology. Over two milennia, quite a few atonement theories have been set forth.

Among the classic atonement theories, each seems to me to capture one dimension of a multi-dimensional reality. However, try as many might these days, there is an ineradicable substitutionary aspect to Christ's death.

There is nothing more real than divine love. "God is love" (1 John 4:8.16). This is not reversible (i.e., love is not God). Think about how your life might change if you lived in the awareness of God's unchanging, never-ending love for you.

"Rend the veil and we shall sail"

As I slowly and by God's grace begin to emerge from my doldrums, hoping and praying for a better second half of 2026, today's traditio is an easy one. It's one that's more in tune with the spirit of the Καθολικός διάκονος Friday traditio. The last several have not only been discernibly out of tune, but only striking a single note. These last several posts I have felt much more myself. It helps that I am nearing the end of some restful and less stressful weeks.

My own screenshot from the Vatican Bolletino for 31 July 2026

Reviewing The Pillar's "Starting Seven" for today, I quickly noted that the only audience Pope Leo had scheduled for today was with "la Signora Patricia Lee Smith." After a quick check, not believing my initial take, I discovered that the Pontiff had indeed granted an audience to the one and only Patti Smith. Patti is often referred to as "the godmother of punk." There is even a video of the beginning of their meeting. You can watch it here.

Patricia Lee Smith w/ His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV- 31 July 2026

Like the Holy Father, Patti was born in Chicago. She is nearly ten years his senior. In both 2014 and 2021, during Pope Francis' pontificate, Patti played at the Vatican's Christmas concert. While Smith is not Catholic, she has a great devotion to Saint Francis of Assisi, whom she calls an "environmentalist saint." Of course, Pope Leo has declared this year a Jubilee for Saint Francis.

It's safe to say, using a contemporary locution, that she is "Catholic adjacent." It's no small thing to have a private audience with the pope. Leo must've wanted to meet her. He's a person both with great expanse and with depth- not a hollow man.

Provocatively, the first words to the first song ("Gloria: In Excelsis Deo") on her earth-shattering debut album, released in 1975 (51 years ago!) simply entitled Horses, are: "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine." For the unnuanced among us, you have unravel the thread a bit.

In his last Encyclical, Dilexit nos, on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Francis, commenting on the Little Flower's Sacred Heart devotion, which, as was her wont, can seem a little non-standard, insisted:

Those moralizers who want to keep a tight rein on God’s mercy and grace might claim that Therese could say this because she was a saint, but a simple person could not say the same. In that way, they excise from the spirituality of Saint Therese its wonderful originality, which reflects the heart of the Gospel. Sadly, in certain Christian circles we often encounter this attempt to fit the Holy Spirit into a certain preconceived pattern in a way that enables them to keep everything under their supervision. Yet this astute Doctor of the Church reduces them to silence and directly contradicts their reductive view in these clear words: “If I had committed all possible crimes, I would always have the same confidence; I feel that this whole multitude of offenses would be like a drop of water thrown into a fiery furnace” (sec 137)

In 1978, with the Patti Smith Group, she also recorded the album Easter.

Despite being Friday (the Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola), it is from Easter that today's traditio emanates. While the album features what is perhaps Patti's best-known song, "Because the Night" (co-written with Bruce Springsteen), that is not our traditio. Rather, it is the first track: "Till Victory."

Pope Leo XIV on the diaconate

I recently finished Elise Ann Allen's Pope Leo XIV: A Biography. Back in May, I pretty much read the entire book with the exception of Allen's interview with the Holy Father, which she conducted last summer. Allen's is a very good biography that gives the reader a good sense of who Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, is. I recommend it.

In her interview, she asked a couple of questions about the Synod on Synodality. She focused in on some of the major issues that have emerged from that eccelsial exercise. These issues have been taken up by different study groups. One of these issues is the role of women in the Church. A subsection to that is the proposal to ordain women as deacons.

The Holy Father, who I do not believe either as a priest or a bishop has a deep personal experience of working with deacons, takes up the issue in much the same way as the head of the papally-appointed commission, Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi, did (a good summary can be found here). That is to say, he pointed to the great need for a better understanding of the diaconate.

Specifically, the Pontiff asked why the diaconate as a permanent order of ministry has not been more widely implemented in the Church throughout the world. This would include South America, where his former Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, seems to have zero men serving permanently as deacons.

Noting that the debate over women deacons "will continue to be an issue," Pope Leo clearly stated that presently, "I don't have an intention of changing the teaching of the Church on this topic." He went on to give an exposition of what he meant when he said there are some important questions about the diaconate as a permanent order of ordained ministry that the Church still needs to address.

Deacon Robert Prevost with Pope Saint John Paul II

Pointing to a Wednesday catechesis he gave to "a fairly large group of English-speaking permanent deacons," he observed,

"This is one of the groups where deacons are better represented because there are parts of the world that never really promoted the permanent diaconate, and that itself became a question: Why would we talk about ordaining women to the diaconate if the diaconate itself is not yet properly understood and properly developed and promoted within the Church? And what are the reasons for that? (Allen, page 267)

In Lumen Gentium section 29, which is the magna carta of the restored and renewed diaconate, the Council points to the importance, perhaps even the necessity of the diaconate:

Since these duties [those pertaining to the diaconate as set forth in the preceding paragraph], so very necessary to the life of the Church, can be fulfilled only with difficulty in many regions in accordance with the discipline of the Latin Church as it exists today, the diaconate can in the future be restored as a proper and permanent rank of the hierarchy

Pope Leo recognizes the "significant inspiration at the time of the Council when the permanent diaconate was in effect reinstated [I love his use of the phrase "in effect" here, it shows how carefully he thinks and speaks], it has not become, in many parts of the world, what I think some people thought it would be earlier on" (all taken from pages 267-269 of Allen's book).

At the Council, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (i.e., Lumen Gentium) was divided into thirty-nine sections. Bishops at the Council voted on each of these seperately prior to voting on the entire constitution. Five of these sections specifically pertained to the diaconate. Four the five passed by comfortable margins. Only the proposal to ordain younger men deacons without having them make a vow of celibacy failed.

Pope Leo then proceeds to an important point Pope Francis made, which is that the Church doesn't need to clericalize everyone and all ministry. Overall, he calls for the Church universal to come to a better and deeper understanding of the diaconate as a permanent order of ministry in the Church. There is a lot of very good and important work that has been done on the diaconate by many people with a great expertise. This makes it so much more the shame that deacons, both in general and those with the requisite expertise, were not included in the Synod. In my view, what the Synod has produced on the diaconate so far, to put it bluntly, is very subpar.

The report by the commission appointed in 2020 by Pope Francis to study the diaconate (the second such commission he appointed- the first dissolved) is a hopeful sign that will lead to better effots, including when it come to synodality. As Deacon Ray Vann's Developing Diaconal Theology: A Study of the Diaconate and Actions in the Person of Christ the Head amply demonstrates, there really is not only widespread confusion, even among bishops, about the nature of the diaconate, but a hesitancy to really let deacons flourish, aiding the mission of the Church. This goes back to Ditewig's groundbreaking doctoral dissertation on deacons and governance in the Church.

One clarification is that there is no such thing as a "transitional" deacon. Once a deacon, always a deacon. As Deacon Bill Ditewig, one of those experts on the diaconate to whom I earlier alluded, oftens says in this regard: "Your bishop was not a transitional priest."

In my opinion (it is only that, my opinion), men destined for priestly ordination should spend 2-3 years serving as deacons prior to priestly ordination.