Diaconate: My Adventure Continues

In addition to being the liturgical Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, bishop and Doctor of the Church, tomorrow is also the twenty-second anniversary of my ordination as a deacon. On Saturday, 24 January 2004, the then-Bishop of Salt Lake City (later Archbishop of San Francisco), George H. Niederauer conferred upon me by his apostolic authority the sacrament of orders. Along with my marriage, the birth of my six children, it is certainly one of the the top ten days of my life.

Bishop George Niederauer presenting me with the Evangeliary during ordination, 24 January 2004

Bye-bye 2025: a quarter of the 21st century

In late 2024, I had a decision to make about Καθολικός διάκονος. This decision was basic: Do I keep at it or stop altogether? As an aside, I have grown comfortable with using "blog" as a verb.

I decided to keep blogging not out of any sense of obligation. After all, to whom am I obligated? My decision was based exclusively on how much I missed blogging regularly. In addition to being what I've taken to calling "a vehicle of growth" for me, I find writing enjoyable. I make no claim to be a gifted or even very good writer.

I don't do much free form writing these days. Sometimes, when something strikes me, I'll post something on culture, society, or politics. After the inaguration this past January, I composed a few posts about where I stand on matters political and economic. Frankly, my views haven't changed since I was quite young. Essentially, I am a pretty socially conservative social democrat. As such, I'm not a fan nor am I a member of either major party (or any political party- though in the past for "tactical" reasons I have been registered as both a Republican and as a Democrat).

I dislike both major parties for different reasons but also for some of the same reasons. I take my political cues from the social teaching of the Catholic Church. This makes me a political outsider. My faith doesn't just inform but shapes and forms my politics. My politics, to the extent that I am aware, does not shape my faith!

Even though I've considered conscientiously abstaining from voting, something I think is a legitimate moral stance, I vote in each an every election. Voting requires the use of prudential reason. Being a purist will get you nowhere politically.

Enough about all of that. Politics exhaust. Politics are provisional- "provided or serving only for the time being. synonym: temporary." As a Catholic, I believe it's helpful to take the long view. The Church has survived every political system in which she has found herself for nearly 2,000 years. Either Jesus is Lord or He isn't. Which side of that dilemma you choose makes all the difference in the world!

Including this one, Καθολικός διάκονος boasts 156 posts this year! That is the most since 2016, when I put up 161. In future, I envision somewhere between 140-150 post per annum. But, who knows? Readership on my "Blogspot page" has been encouraging. Sure it's a bit of an ego boost to see that people read what I write. I'm only human after all.

Most of my posts are homilies. It seems a shame to prepare and deliver them once and consign them to oblivion. More than an ego boost or a dopamine hit, it is my prayer and sincere hope that those who read what I post find it encouraging, challenging, consoling, thought-provoking, that is, useful in some way.

2025 was a fairly eventful year. Political chaos, the likes of which this country has not seen since the nineteenth century, ensued in January. Flooding the zone results in drowning. I see what we're experiencing as the logical conclusion of the drive toward the imperial presidency, which was more than fifty years in the making. Maybe we're simply having a stress test for our constitutional order. The death of my dearly beloved and much misunderstood and maligned Pope Francis on Easter Monday was an event. As was the selection of Pope Leo XIV as his successor. Adding to the latter event, Robert Prevost is from the U.S. Oddly, Ozzy Osbourne's death seems very culturally significant.

Each year there are losses along the way. Positing "a way" implies we're headed somewhere. It's absurd to view the grave as our destination. You don't just have a destination but a destiny. Nonetheless, an invitable aspect of aging (I'm not old, just not young anymore) is these losses pile up. Even as someone with hope, it is sometimes hard to bear the weight of loss. The good news is, I don't have to. Someone else has already borne that weight!

Looking ahead, I plan to continue posting most of my homilies and, on those Sundays I don't preach, a reflection on the readings for that week. I plan to continue the Friday traditio. I wavered a bit on the past month or so. I still have some news to reveal when the time is right. I hope to put up a few more posts on various topics. For the first time in a few years, I am reading the Bible in a Year- not a podcast, but actual reading according to a chronological reading plan. This will easily generate some (hopefully) thoughtful posts.

While I celebrated 20 years since starting this blog this past August, this coming July will mark twenty years since I began blogging in earnest. As a look at the history of my "Blogspot page" (how quaint to a Substack titan!) will show, I began this effort, which I originally entitled Scott Dodge for Nobody in August 2005. It wasn't until nearly a year later that I changed the name to Καθολικός διάκονος and started posting regularly.

So, 2026 will be a year of change and transition for me. It took me nearly the whole of 2025 to properly discern and decide to make some significant changes. I am grateful that I had the time necessary. I can honestly say that I am excited. I look forward to the New Year. I hope you are too, dear reader. I hope I can continue to extend my diaconal service through my little "Blogspot page."

Enjoy New Year's Eve. Blessings as 2026 begins. We'll catch up on the other side of midnight!

Twenty years of blogging here

It was 20 years ago today, 16 August 2005, that I first began this effort. I logged into the computer located in the office I shared with the parochial vicar in the rectory of The Cathedral of the Madeleine and started on a Tuesday afternoon. This blog first bore the title Scott Dodge for Nobody. I cribbed that name from a Sunday night radio program on local community radio (i.e., Tom Waits for Nobody).

As accustomed as I have become to using it, the verb "blogging" is bad enough. Therefore, I will resist celebrating my twentieth "blogiversary." How's that for backhanded?

My first post was "Intelligent Design- Religion & Politics." Over the next twelve days, this was followed by five more posts along these same lines. I had no idea what I was doing other than writing about something that had my attention at the time.

I won't forget how amazed I was at the ease of starting a blog and transmitting what I wrote to the "world wide web," as it was called much more frequently then than it is now. Such a capability is now so normal that the wonder and awe I felt 20 years ago seems naïve if not a bit stupid. Nonetheless, it remains a mind blowing experience for me. I was also intimidated.

I felt intimidated because I didn't think I had anything to write that was worth anyone's time. And so, after those five intial posts, I posted nothing until "How Occasional?" on 19 July 2006. It was then that I renamed my blog Καθολικός διάκονος. It was with that post that I began blogging in earnest.

While I was ordained in January 2004, my blogging is roughly coterminus with becoming a deacon. Since my earnest commencement (i.e., 2006), I have felt this to be part of ministry. Bear in mind that "ministry" is another word for service or diakonia. Perhaps this at least partly explains why, 20 years later, I'm still at it.

I care deeply about what I post. I don't aim to be spectacular or novel. Since this a labor of love, I don't have to be controversial or over-the-top to gain readers. As those who've read this blog for years know, I have wandered down a couple of paths before turning around. Even those By God's grace, were not fruitless forays. More and more I am realizing Eugene Peterson's wisdom in insisting that following Christ is "a long obedience in the same direction."

From 2007-2015, I blogged like a madman! I wrote about anything and everything. But I enjoyed it and learned a lot. Frankly, it was one of the best educational experiences I've ever had. Those were heady days.

There have been valleys, too. 2018 was the first time my blogging waned significantly. During both 2023 and 2024 I slowed down a lot. As readers know, after Easter last year I seriously considered folding up this virtual tent and calling it good.

One of the things that kept me from quitting last year was the thought of this anniversary. "One more year and some change," I thought, "until I reach a full two decades." What made me decide not only to continue but to rededicate myself to cultivating this little cyber space is the enjoyment and satifaction I derive from doing so. I like it. And last year, after awhile of not doing it, I missed it.

Since rejuvenating this blog last October, I have taken to deleting some short, kind of weird posts written during my overly prolific days of blogging. I don't go hunting for such posts. But as these pop up in the normal course of things, I schwack them. None of these are substantial contributions. It's easy to forget that for years this was my primary and even my only social media platform.

I have to say, the idea of reaching 20 years of blogging in earnest next summer is a driver for me to continue. It's also nice to be indefinite about blogging. I have no idea how long I might continue. I've poured a lot my heart and soul into this. As a result, I've grown tremendously. Writing publicly also serves as kind of grounding function as well as a reality check at times.

Back in the late oughts and early teens, blogging was all the rage. It seems like everyone had a blog. My start was likely the result of wanting to join in. Well, join I did! While it was cutting edge then, both my format and the platform I use are now what are politely called legacy.

I remember when Wordpress came on the scene and that became all the rage, supplanting Blogger, which had already been purchased by Google. I considered moving over to that platform. I even went so far as to set everything up there with the title Diaconal Digressions.

I can easily recall when paying platforms started: BeliefNet, Patheos, Aleteia, et al. at the height of this craze, I was nearly lured over to one of these. But, like switching to Wordpress, it didn't feel right. Now, of course, there is Substack.

For better or for worse, here I've stayed. Here I plan to stay until blogging days are done.

"Thy kingdom come..."

Readings: Isa 66:10-14c; Ps 66:1-7.16.20; Gal 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-2.17-20

God's plan will not be thwarted. His kingdom will come. His will will be done. Not only will God's kingdom only be constituted by those who do God's will, it will be inhabited by those who will what God wills. And so, act in the mighty power of God.

According to Paul, "the kingdom of God is not matter of talk." But neither is it, according to him, merely a matter walk, as it were, "but of power" (1 Cor 4:20). The word "matter" does not appear in the original Greek. Hence, "The kingdom of God not in word but in power" is a more straightforward and, I would say, accurate translation.

What is God's power? Well, God is power. God is power because God is love. This is so because God's very nature is love- agape. Agape is self-giving, self-sacrificing love. God's kingdom is brought about by the power of love, it is love, the kind of love given by the Father in the giving of His Only Begotten Son. To love as Christ loves is the power of the kingdom.

To experience the love of God in Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit. As the apostle insists elsewhere: "the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit" (see Romans 14:17). It is a matter of the heart.

The "Israel of God" to which Paul refers in our reading from Galatians is coextensive with the Jerusalem we heard about in our reading from Isaiah. Both are references to God's kingdom; Paul's in the here and now and Isaiah's, even though in context it is about Israel returning from exile- in the eschatological future.

In our Gospel, Jesus commissions and sends out seventy-two disciples. It is a test of their discipleship, of their apprenticeship with the Master. Seventy-two is the product of 12x6. Seven being the number of completion means six leaves us one short of completion. One way to understand and appropriate this is that God's kingdom will not be complete until the Lord returns. In the meantime, as His disciples, we seek make God's kingdom a present reality.

Let's be clear, the Church, even now, is not coextensive with God's kingdom. This is true even we extend the Church to include all the baptized, many of whom are not Catholic. Indeed, we should extend the Church in that way. We cannot determine the extent of God's kingdom present in the world. As we sing in the beautiful hymn Ubi Caritas- Ubi caritas et amor, ubi caritas, Deus ibi est- "Where charity and love are found, God is there."

Note that the hymn does not give a list activities, In harmony with Sacred Scripture, it is a matter of the heart being conformed to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Caritas, the root of our English word "charity," is the Latin word used to translate agape. As I am writing this, the lyrics to the Rush song "Closer to the Heart" pop into my head. That's how we sail "into destiny."

One's name is not "written in heaven" because one performs mighty deeds in the name of the Lord. You can perform marvelous deeds because your name is written in heaven. Note that Jesus, in our Gospel, "sent" out the seventy-two. He sent them out ahead of Him. Their mission was to prepare His way. Our mission now is no different than the one the Lord sent the seventy-two: to prepare the way of the Lord as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of Savior, Jesus Christ.

At long last, the Church's long season of Ordinary Time, lasting until Advent, has begun. As these readings show, there is nothing ordinary about his (or any) time. So, while it is perfectly alright to spend time relaxing, recuperating, and resting, time is too precious to be killed. Liturgically, "Ordinary" refers to ordering. During this time, time is ordered Sunday by Sunday, Lord's Day by Lord's Day, each one bringing us closer to Jesus' Most Sacred Heart (or leading us farther away?).

Eucharist and Evangelization both begin with "E"

Readings: Exodus 19:2-6a; Psalm 100:1-2.3.5; Romans 5:6-11; Matthew 9:36-10:8

Due to traveling, arriving home, and everything that goes along with that, I didn't really have time to compose a reflection on yesterday's readings. This is more of a sketch than a fully developed reflection. I think an interpretive key to the readings can be found at the end of our reading from Exodus: "You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6). This resonates with these words, referring to the enthroned Lamb, found in Revelation: "You made them a kingdom and priests for our God" (Revelation 5:10).

Indeed, as Christians and by virtue of baptism, we all share in the common priesthood of Jesus Christ. As it is stated in 1 Peter, we are "a royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9). It's weird to me that after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, which went to great lengths to reemphasize this reality, we seem bent on attenuating instead of amplifying it or even seeking to reverse it instead of moving it forward.

The highly revered Saint Oscar Romero, in one of his radio addresses, once insisted:

How beautiful will be the day when all the baptized understand that their work, their job, is a priestly work; that just as I celebrate Mass at this altar, so each carpenter celebrates Mass at his workbench, and each metalworker, each professional, each doctor with a scalpel, the market woman at her stand, is performing priestly office! How many cabdrivers, I know, listen to this message there in their cabs; you are a priest at the wheel, my friend, if you work with honesty, consecrating that taxi of yours to God, bearing a message of peace and love to the passengers who ride in your cab

This has bearing on the Gospel vis-à-vis our engagement with "the world." This also has to do with what it means to confess the Church as "apostolic." My guess is that when most Catholics are asked about what it means for the Church to be apostolic the answer would most likely have to do with Apostolic Succession. While this answer is accurate, at least to a certain degree, it is far from complete. An "apostle" is one who is sent. At the end of Mass we are sent, missa, meaning something like to be sent. We are sent on mission (i.e., missio). This is what the Church's apostolicity more than a historical claim.

Isn't this what Jesus, being moved with compassion, does in our Gospel for the Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A of the Sunday Lectionary? He calls and sends apostles to proclaim the Gospel, the Good News, to proclaim Him in word and in deed. The mission in which we (i.e., all of us) are sent to engage at the end of Mass is to evangelize.

Addressing the bishops of the United States last week, Papal Nuncio Archbishop Christoph Pierre highlighted a dimension that often seems to be missing from our Eucharistic Revival, which seems in many ways in competition rather than in concert with the Synodal Path Pope Francis has asked the Church to walk. He spoke about the internal contradiction of Eucharist without a mission, the danger of Eucharist as a self-referential end in itself instead of empowerment for the mission of proclaiming the Gospel to the ends of the earth, of evangelizing.

Christian leadership is not about establishing and then exerting power. Merely telling someone that Jesus is the answer to their deepest questions and longings is pretty thin gruel. Besides, our reading from Romans shows that as Christ's priestly people, our power lies in weakness, not strength. Engagement, what Pope Francis calls a "culture of encounter," is the way of Jesus. So, like Jesus, we engage, we relate, we have compassion.

Archbishop Pierre opened his speech by talking about Synodality. He tells the bishops, "If we have followed the Pope’s lead, then after two years, we should already know some answers to the questions that you are accustomed to hearing from me: Where are we? and Where are we going?" Continuing, he said,

Have we discovered answers to those questions? Do we know what are the true needs of our people? Through our encounters with others, how have we been changed? What have we discerned? What old ways need to be abandoned, and what new ways must we adopt in going forward? Are we prepared to give our people the insights we have gained?" In short, are we moved with compassion by the plight of so many people?

I suppose I could develop this more, but I am going to leave it as is. Especially after my rather odd experience at an evening Mass last night, the Mass I could attend after traveling all day, I really felt the need to address what I think the takeaway from yesterday's readings is for us now. You can read Archbishop Christoph's entire address here.

A complementary post on this Sunday's readings

I still don't wish to post anything self-pitying taking our reading from Job (see Job 7:1-7) as my launching point. As I was preparing for Mass for the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B of the Sunday Lectionary), I was deeply moved by Dismissal of Catechumens I found in Liturgical Training Publications's wonderful resource- indispensable for me- Sourcebook for Sundays, Seasons, and Weekdays.

With few modifications, I used it for the Dismissal for the Catechumens of Saint Olaf Parish at our 9:00 AM Mass tomorrow:

We’re all familiar to some extent with Job’s experience of drudgery, restless nights, days that seem to pass without meaning or hope.

Job Rebuked by His Friends, by William Blake, 18th century

Christ is God’s promise of joy, peace, and the fulfillment of all our hope. Seek him in the Scriptures and let them reveal to you how is already present in your lives. We pray that he will bring you to union with us around the table of his word and body.

Go in Christ’s peace

Given the stunning connection between our reading from the Book of Job and the Gospel of Mark this Sunday, I pray for some beautiful homilies; preaching that conveys the healing and wholeness Christ wants so desperately to impart. His desire to heal us was so great that not only did he die, he rose from the dead.

As Pope Benedict XVI so beautifully stated it at the end of his first Easter Urbi et Orbi message in 2006: Christus resurrexit, quia Deus caritas est! Alleluia!

These two posts, taken together, give you an idea of where I would go homiletically were I preaching this week.

Waiting, hoping, longing

We're nearly a week into this Advent season, this season of hopeful watching and waiting. It is accentuated this year by the pandemic. We're all, whether your religious or not whether you believe in God or not, waiting for it to end, for life to return to some kind of normalcy. Key to the ending the pandemic is the distribution of an effective vaccine that inoculates a person against the Sars-Cov-2 virus, thus preventing COVID-19.

In terms of the pandemic, our waiting is hopeful because three vaccines have tested effective vice the novel coronavirus. It is no longer a matter of if but of when. While the anticipated time between now and the when of vaccination may still be discouraging to those who have been forced to isolate the past 8 months or so, there is a light, the end is in sight, even if still off in the distance.

My point with all this is simply to note that during this particular Advent we need look no further than our own experience for what this season is all about. It's about hope-filled waiting. Hopeful waiting is perhaps best described by the word longing. Longing is the result of desire. Desire, in turn, is what makes us human beings. Being human means to be made in the imago Dei, the image of God.

What is it we long for? We long for satisfaction and contentment. In a word, we desire to realize some form of completeness, wholeness, holiness. So many songs and poems are about this longing. These show us how many different forms this takes. It is wholly unsurprising that the desire-induced longing that constitutes our humanity is often expressed in terms of erotic desire.

"Erotic" is not synonmous with "sexual." What is erotic both transcends and goes deeper than sex. So, far from being inappropriate, such the assertion that our longing inherently possesses an erotic dimension is highly appropriate. Consider the power of the Song of Songs, an erotic text if ever there was one! This book is considereed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims as holy writ.

A close-up from Bernini's The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, 1647-1652

The pandemic experience, too, is about longing for connection, for sociality, to be able to once again gather in parks, pubs, concert halls, movie theaters, cafés and restaurants, churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. Our desire to celebrate birthdays, deaths, graduations, and the like.

For many and to some extent for most, this time of pandemic is a bit like an exile. Just as the ancient people of God longed to return from exile, we, too, long for the promised land, a place of light, joy, and happiness.

We sing "Come, O, come Emmanuel" in the awareness that God is already with us. Moreover, we sing it in the awareness that there is nowhere we can be that God is not already there. Nonetheless, he is often present by his absence.

For my personal Advent devotion this year I am reading a lovely book by Carys Walsh entitled Frequencies of God: Walking Through Advent with R.S. Thomas. Who is R.S. Thomas? He was a Welsh Anglican priest and a very gifted poet.

Each day, Walsh takes one of Thomas's poems and reflects on it in terms of Advent. In yesterday's devotion she reflected on the poem Suddenly, which came after, as a companion piece, to the poem Kneeling.

In her reflection, Walsh wrote what is perhaps the single best two-sentence insight on Advent I have ever read: "Part of the mystery of Advent is that time collapses. We are waiting again for that which has happened, which also happens continually and will happen again at some unspecified time."

Our Friday traditio for this First Friday of Advent is not a song. It is the poem Suddenly:

As I had always known
he would come, unannounced,
remarkable merely for the absence
of clamour. So truth must appear
to the thinker; so, at a stage
of the experiment, the answer
must quietly emerge. I looked
at him, not with the eye
only, but with the whole
of my being, overflowing with
him as a chalice would
with the sea. Yet was he
no more there than before,
his area occupied
by the unhaloed presences.
You could put your hand
in him without consciousness
of his wounds. The gamblers
at the foot of the unnoticed
cross went on with
their dicing; yet the invisible
garment for which they played
was no longer at stake, but worn
by him in this risen existence.

Pandemic evangelization or lack thereof: Advent is coming

There is so much happening right now. It's hard to take all it in. Sars-Cov-2 continues its unabated path through the populations of the majority of U.S. states, increasing hospital occupancy to alarming levels and leaving more people dead. The presidential election is winding down with election day next Tuesday and all that comes goes along with that. In short, it's easy to despair and be overwhelmed.

It will be interesting to see where the Church stands once we've made it through these trying times. As a member of the clergy, though not one who makes my living from my service, it is tempting to worry. But why worry? Worry solves nothing. Parishes and congregations that have simply gone into maintenance mode, a kind of ecclesiastical half-life, will be surprised when not close to everyone comes back. Whereas those that have actively reached out, adapted in creative ways, viewed what's happened as an opportunity will be just fine and perhaps even better off. Things will be different when the pandemic ends.

As Catholics, we talk about this thing called "the new evangelization" a lot. Yet, at least where I live, I see a lot of missed opportunities for evangelization. This moment is ripe for evangelization. How does my faith help me in times like these? How can a more holistic practice of my faith assist me when things are difficult, strange, stressful? How many parishes have attempted to teach people how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, formed Zoom Rosary groups, conducted on-line Bible studies, discussed the USCCB's Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship during this election year? How many parishes have endeavored to teach parents how to conduct something like a children's Liturgy of the Word in their homes and/or recommended or helped with acquiring resources for these purposes? How much sharing of the practice of lectio divina, centering prayer, recommendation of useful apps, like 24/7 Prayer's Lectio 365 has occurred? How many of our clergy have a deep, consistent personal prayer life?

Livestreaming a Sunday Mass is great and probably something that should continue beyond the pandemic but it can't be all that is done. Even in this regard, how many parishes have worked on improving the production of their live-streamed Masses? How many have invested in better equipment, reviewed what they're doing, sought feedback, and made improvements? How many have developed social media strategies for outreach to encourage and help people?

Anyway, these are thoughts that have been running through my mind the past few weeks. Yes, it's easy to make recommendations. If I weren't working two jobs and still managing a certain amount of parish and pastoral ministry, I'd be better able to help with the execution of some of what needs to be done. I am past the age at which I think trying to do everything is a good idea. I am not worried. But I think that in the years following the pandemic dioceses will have to look at major realignments. For their part, parishes need to attend to adult faith formation and a much bigger portion of this formation needs to be focused on equipping people to practice their faith more holistically and practically.

What's bound to happen is that a lot of people who formerly attended Mass regularly and whose only practice of the faith was attending Mass every week or nearly every week (this is a lot of Catholics) will get used to not attending and, frankly, see very little difference in their lives as a result of not attending. This will be especially true of many people who've heard nothing from their parish during this period of time. I don't think it will be an angry response, it will simply be their new normal. Some will revert being Christmas and Easter church-goers and some will not even while perhaps continuing to identify as Catholics. Others will have perhaps discovered more support and uplift in other Christian communities, ones that have seized this time.

I know, a rather pessimistic picture but not entirely so. The pandemic with all its restrictions continues and will continue throughout the winter and into the Spring. There is Advent, Christmas, Lent, and likely Easter. What is the strategy beginning with, say, Advent, which starts in less than a month? Isn't this a major theme at the beginning of Advent: "Awake, arise, it's later than you think"? Parishes need to heed this call.

Strangely, I haven't been listening to a lot of music lately. So, choosing a traditio for the last Friday of October was a bit more challenging than usual. Because I love the Irish comedy Moone Boy, especially the Halloween episode, "Ghost Raft," which features this song, I chose to go with Enya's "Orinoco Flow" as done by Choir! Choir! Choir! There is a bit of bad language up-front. Won't it be wonderful when we can do things like this in-person again?

Καθολικός διάκονος: End of the year roundup

It's time to wrap up another year of blogging here at Καθολικός διάκονος. 2017 marked twelve years since I started this blog and 11 years of regular blogging. Posting a mere 116 times makes this year the sparest year since I began blogging in earnest way back in 2006. Nonetheless, I look forward to blogging in the new year. How much I will be able to do so remains to be seen.

It is a tradition for me to select a post from each month of the past year that I think is worthy of mention at the end of the year. Below you will find a pick for "post of the month" for each month of 2017. I would be happy to have both my readers share their post or posts from the past year from this blog.

Serving with my bishop, Oscar Solis, and pastor, Fr. Rene at this year's Confirmation Mass (I am on the left)

January- "We desire not only to know fully but to be fully known"

February- "Scripture, revelation- apprehending and living the truth"

March- "'Those who find themselves ridiculous'"

April- "Degenerate language; degenerating faith"

May- "A Sunday to consider deacons"

June- "Tobit and the importance of burying the dead"

July- "The war I must wage: destroying a piece of my own heart"

August- "Liturgy and the totus Christus"

September- St. Thérèse on love and unbelief

October- "On the Reformation"

November- "A deacon on a layman about deacons"

December- The Shroud of Turin: Short Take

Happy New Year to everyone who reads this. I pray God's blessing upon on you no matter who you are or how you arrived here.

Καθολικός διάκονος: 2016 Year in Review

The end is near. Well, at least the Year of Our Lord 2016. For me this year was very much a mixed bag. Culturally, 2016 was a devastating year. It began with the passing of David Bowie and Glenn Frey in January and culminated with the passing of George Michael and Carrie Fisher (whose death I learned about as I was composing this post). For me this year was a busy year. Frankly, it was much busier than I cared for it to be.

In July I marked 10 years of continuous blogging. However, August marked 11 years since I established this weblog (you'll notice 6 posts from that year- then a big break). It seems remarkable that still I have the desire to keep going, but I do. Way back when I started blogging regularly I grappled with why I blogged. It took me several years to realize that I blog because it is a vehicle of personal growth for me. Certainly I hope what I write is meaningful to others as well. If blogging had no value for me I wouldn't do it. It's too difficult.

This year I will finish with 163 or 164 posts, depending on whether I post anything on New Year's Eve. With the exception of 2005, which I am not sure really counts, it is the fewest posts ever. I figured out several years ago that "chasing" the headlines is no way to blog.

With that, below is a list of posts, one from each month, I think worth highlighting at the end of the year. It is something of a "greatest hits" compilation. I don't include my homilies for consideration. As always (though I've never had anyone take me up on the offer), I welcome any comments letting me know what, if anything, from my blog was meaningful to you this year.

December: An Advent Prayer

November: All right, then, have it your way

October: Visions of Scuppers: Doing the things that matter

September: "Why do you come here?": Dispatch from distraction

August: Without theories, facts make no sense

July: Criticizing the critics, going to bat for the Pope, and citing Nietzsche

June: "I was standing/You were there/Two world's collided"

May: Blogospherical bitching and missionary discipleship

April: More on sex by a believing deacon

March: Certain matters of sex and the believing deacon

February: I am not giving up alcohol for Lent

January: Epiphanising the Epiphany

Happy New Year. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, the solemnity of which we celebrate on New Year's Day, watch over you and frutfully intercede on your behalf in 2017.

A few things as I see them, literally

I make no claim whatsoever to be a photographer. However, I do enjoy snapping pictures when I am outside having fun, walking, or hiking. Below, as a Leap Year bonus, I offer a few of my pictures.

This first one is of a trail at a park near where I live. I took this picture last August:

Scott Dodge- 2015

The next picture is the same trail 6 weeks later:

Scott Dodge- 2015

The picture below I took today:

Scott Dodge- 2016

Last Sunday, which was another nice day, we hiked a trail for a mile or two with our three youngest children. As we were coming off the trail we saw what is captured in the photo below on the back of a sign:

Scott Dodge- 2016

On our way home today we stopped by the park where we sled in the wintertime to see if the snow had melted. It was pretty much all gone. As I stepped out of the car, the view was stunning. Below is what I saw:

Scott Dodge- 2016

Hopefully, that's a nice break from a lot of words. Hey, do something cool for Leap Year tomorrow.

A philosophical, theological, political ramble

It is something of an end-of-the-year tradition here on Καθολικός διάκονος to post an overarching philosophical-theological-political piece. This year's post was prompted by an article on The Atlantic's website: "Obama and the Wrong Side of History." I highly recommend reading the piece in its entirety. This post is not an effort to summarize the piece. I simply offer an inevitably incomplete and admittedly somewhat rambling reflection on the subject. What gave rise to my reflection is this from the article: "The problem with this kind of thinking [being on the right or wrong side of history] is that it imputes agency to history that doesn't exist." President Obama is not the only U.S. president who has believed in what is often termed "the Whig view of history," which is the belief that history=progress. That anyone, believer or unbeliever, could subscribe to such historical optimism in light of the twentieth century utterly baffles me.

As a Christian I don't believe history, understood as an impersonal, cosmic force, has any agency of its own. However, I do believe in God's providential involvement in the world. To attribute any deliberative agency to history as such strikes me as an echo of Marx's material dialectic, which arose from Hegel, and so is the result of the so-called Enlightenment. It seems to me that the Enlightenment is now bending back on itself, thus giving rise to a new dark age. Indicative of this new dark age is the rise of the superstitious fatalism so prevalent in the West today, which takes the form of materialistic determinism. The best example of this is the widespread belief in scientism, which belief requires a leap of faith utterly divorced from reason (stay tuned for my Christmas homily late tomorrow night for more on this). Because I believe God guides (for lack of a better term) history in a deeply mysterious, mostly unfathomable, and always unexpected way, I believe there is a right and wrong side. I think where the Church is at today in terms of worldly influence, which influence, I think, will further diminish, is providential and will actually further the reign of God in advance of the end of history.

Even though I have some philosophical qualms with his reliance on Jamesian pragmatism, I embrace Addison Hodges Hart's thesis, set forth in his very worthwhile book Strangers and Pilgrims Once More: More: Being Disciples of Jesus in a Post-Christendom World. To state my objection in an admittedly ham-fisted way, pragmatism as applied to religious belief by William James tends to avoid questions of true and false. This avoidance presents issues vis-à-vis Christianity; the most historical of the world's religions (I tend towards phenomenology with a Wittgenstinian twist). With Hart, I think that even if Christendom could be restored (a dubious proposition), it would not be for the best, as difficult and painful as witnessing its demise is for me. In the end, far from alarming us, the dismantling of Christendom should be an encouragement to Christians. Kierkegaard was right about this. In the words of REM, "It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine."

For those of us in the U.S., despite the woeful laments of the culture warriors and contra much of Western Europe, our country was deliberately conceived as not a Christian nation, but as precisely the antithesis of such, even if our founders maintained an ambiguous, deistic insistence on the transcendence of the human person. This led to the creation of a constitutional system that reflects this ambiguity, the implications of which are becoming clearer, especially after last summer's Obergefell ruling by SCOTUS. One could make a compelling argument that the majority's opinion in Obergefell, which many found so inspiring, is the predictable impact point of this (il)logical trajectory. All of this is a pretty big admission for someone like me, whose religious upbringing quite explicitly sought to imbue in me a belief that the U.S. constitution is divinely inspired. For what it's worth, from the age I cared about these things, I never believed that was true, but is self-evidently false, like the religion itself (Thought experiment: apply Jamesian pragmatism to Mormonism).

I also believe the "arc of history," to employ Obama's cherished phrase, which is largely determined by worldly powers, tends to arc towards the wrong side of history with very few exceptions. Even the exceptions tend become exaggerated over time, becoming unmoored from what is good and true, quite frequently leading to what I can only describe as illiberal liberalism. At least on my reading, a political study of the Hebrew Scriptures (i.e., the "Old Testament") reveals this. The books of Chronicles, which positively embraces temple cult and monarchy, is the exception to this, standing in contrast to the history presented in 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings, the latter of which prevails in the subsequent history of Israel, which culminated with the descendent of David appearing as the most unassuming king imaginable, leading to His rejection by His own (see John 1:11).

Perhaps the easiest way to determine if you're on the wrong side of history is to see if you're with the majority. Stated more succinctly, vox populi, far from being vox Dei, often (usually, if only eventually?) turns into vox diaboli. It bears noting that being in the minority in and of itself is no guarantee of being on the right side of history, which is far more difficult to discern than discerning whether you're on the wrong side. Not only in the end, but right now, neither history nor politics will save you. Political messiahs are ALWAYS false messiahs.

As he does so well because he does it with such charity, Rowan Williams, in his Christmas message for Christian Aid, as well as in his remarkable book, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel, makes the point that, ultimately, the winners are history's losers. He does it in a far more convincing manner than I ever could:

Cultural resistance and creative subversion

Is there a culture war? What a stupid question. It's stupid because the only appropriate answer is another question, Who cares? As a Christian I am tired of hearing about various options. I have the option to live my faith fully, which means engaging in and not running from society and culture. Hence, the only "option" I have found attractive in the least is the one whose creator told me in person he did not want it branded as an "option"- Dr Chad Pecknold's "Dominican Option". Another person whose work is starting to influence me in these matters is Dr Michael Martin. I highly recommend his book The Submerged Reality: Sophiology and the Turn to a Poetic Metaphysics.

Triumph of the Church, by Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1625

Let's be clear, the only leaven the Lord warned His disciples to be wary of was the leaven of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and Herod (Matt 16:6-12; Mark 8:14-21; Luke 12:1). While we need to avoid bad leaven (i.e., hypocrisy, condescension, and the corruption of worldly power), we are to be leaven: "He spoke to them another parable. 'The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened'" (Matt 13:33; Luke 13:20-21). There are innumerable ways to constructively engage contemporary culture. The least effective of these is by condemning it all wholesale. The fundamental issues and questions with which women and men wrestle remain perennial. As Luigi Giussani noted, it is precisely these fundamental issues and these existential questions that constitute our humanity.

You may have caught wind of the controversy surrounding the rejection of a Church of England-produced 60-second ad featuring the Lord's Prayer by Digital Cinema Media (DCM), the firm that handles advertising for Great Britain's three largest cinema chains. Neil Davenport, commenting on this rather unsurprising development for Spiked (a secular on-line publication), noted:

The banning of the Lord’s Prayer ad may seem like a minor story, but it exposes how bereft of meaning and purpose Western societies have become. The tragedy is that this uncertainty only acts as an invitation for anti-Western Islamists to pose their ideology as the principled alternative to that of decadent, hollow Europe. A nominally Christian country in which some people deem that a 60-second advert featuring the Lord’s Prayer is ‘offensive’ has surely lost the plot

So it seems that the question for us Christians is, How do we help our society regain the plot? My answer is, through culture, genuine culture, human culture, which does not prudishly ignore any aspect of reality as we experience it, or foster a bizarre, sentimental sub-culture.

As a result, our traditio for this final Friday of this Year of Grace is The Church of England's Lord's Prayer ad:

Given that I blew at least one mind by entitling a post "Eucharist as immanentized eschaton," let me note that by asserting that the Eucharist "immanentizes the eschaton," all that I was trying to say, albeit in a philosophical and alliterative way, is that in each and every Eucharist the Lord returns and the saints rejoice. In other words, when we participate in the Eucharist we participate in the wedding feast of the Lamb, in Christ's ultimate triumph. This is how the Eucharist becomes "the only place of resistance to annihilation of the human subject." In light of this, please note 2 things:

1. Resistance, despite not having the appearance of power, is not futile

2. Resistance is both joy-filled and beautiful

In the second chapter of his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, entitled "Concentration Camp," C.S. Lewis traced back to his early years at a terrible boarding school what, in time, became a major part of his contribution to helping modern Western society maintain or regain "the plot". Referring to the resistance of the boys to their awful headmaster, "Oldie," Lewis wrote,

We stood foursquare against the common enemy. I suspect that this pattern, occurring twice so early my life [the other time was his camaraderie with his brother vice their father after the death of his mother], has unduly biased my whole outlook. To this day the vision of the world which comes most naturally to me is one in which "we two" or "we few" (and in a sense "we happy few") stand together against something stronger and larger

We all know how Lewis engaged culture. He did so by engaging it creatively. Pope St John Paul II, rather than taking up arms and joining the armed resistance against the Germans after Poland was conquered, also chose cultural resistance, thus aiding his country in maintaining the plot. In addition to resisting the Nazis, the effects of this cultural resistance were strong enough to ultimately defeat Soviet-style communism more than 40 years later.

The important thing to attend to here is that Christianity, when practiced well, is a subversive force. Don't believe me? Forget Star Wars and read St Paul, a man who very clearly set out to creatively subvert the Empire- Star Wars is a very pedestrian story by comparison. One can also consider the conditions under which Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, became human. He did not become human as the emperor of Rome, Persia, or any other powerful empire, but, to borrow John P Meier's title, He became incarnate as "a marginal Jew"; a marginal member of a marginal people living under Roman occupation. Here's something simpler yet- just recite the Lord's Prayer.

Sketching the antinomy of the anatomies of heaven and hell

In my post "Metaphysical dialectics vs Sophiology" I linked to something I posted nearly six years ago on Catherine Breiallt's film Anatomie de l’enfer (i.e., "The Anatomy of Hell"), a movie based on her novel Pornocratie: "Opposing God to nature: the denial of the ontologically obvious."

Today as I organized my den I uncovered the composition notebook I was using back in 2009, one in which I took notes on Breiallt's film. Anatomie de l’enfer is a very sexually explicit movie. The male star, in fact, is none other than controversial pornographic actor and director Rocco Siffredi. Because of this I don't necessarily recommend the movie. Due to the nature of the film I give fair warning here that what follows in this post is not for everyone. It is rather more prosaic "take" on what I took up in my "sophiological" post on Saturday:

The woman, taking an unused tampon from the box, say, referring to her "period" - "We make such a big deal of it." Then, referring to the tampon, she says, "See the space it takes up and one can't even feel it?" The same space as most human penises. Proof that intercourse the act isn't what matters, but its meaning."

My question in response to this was, "Don't act and meaning go together? Can they be separated? We tend to focus on act w/out meaning, but where there is no act there cannot even be the possibility of meaning."

A still from Breiallt's Anatomie de l’enfer

Taking the wrapping off the tampon, she says, "Look. There's a whole device to make it look complex. So one can insert it without touching one's self, keeping one's virginity intact without exploring one's genitals while inserting the tampon." She goes on to describe it as being like giving herself an injection, "As if to staunch a wound that is painful and highly sensitive."

Here's what I wrote: "Pain of childbearing, a wound a alienation between woman and man?- She says the whole operation is laughable [Chesterton made a similar observation- he was wrong, as is "Woman" in Breiallt's film- sex is beautiful. I'll stick with Wojtyla's Theology of the Body, which has been badly exploited by some Catholics to point of being almost unrecognizable], but she can't laugh because "it foretells of something terrifying that lurks in the brain of whoever designed and put his servile signature on this infamous thing. A man for sure."

Reflecting on all of this again six years later in the aftermath of reading Lewis' Perelandra, I see even more clearly that the line between awful and awesome, the line between exhilarating and terrifying, is quite thin.

The Garden of Eden, by Marc Chagall

God qua God is not a man: "God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par 239). Just as we know that God is a tri-unity of persons only because God has revealed this to us, so we know that God, while being the source of femininity and masculinity, transcends both gender and sex:

God created mankind in his image;
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them (Gen 1:27)

Because we're creatures it is impossible for us to transcend either gender or sex. Our attempts to do so flow from the original sin, which is to displace God and put either ourselves, or our idols, which are nothing but our distorted self-projections, in God's place. In attempting such a transcendence we not only reject our creaturliness, but our very selves. Self-alienation is perhaps the most pernicious effect of the primordial sin.

Too often we misread the story of the fall and see the alienation, the breaking of communion between God and humanity, between human beings, and between humanity and nature, as not only being the woman's fault, but as having something to do with sexual temptation. Contra Springsteen, Eve did not tempt Adam "with her pink Cadillac." If we allow the Creation narratives to maintain their integrity we see that there was sex in the garden before the fall. While I hesitate to write posts like this one, it is well beyond time that we put sound theology into dialogue with contemporary culture precisely through culture to set forth an anatomy of heaven.

"‘Cause right now I need a little hope"

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God" (Rom 5:1-2). I am feeling hopeful on this Friday, which is also a Fall Ember Day. Nonetheless, we live in a very lonely society, which is why, my brothers and sisters, we're called to community and to invite those who don't belong to belong.

This week's traditio will keep us in the realm of Contemporary Christian Music. It's Sidewalk Prophets with "Save My Life."

Tell me what I need to hear
Tell me that I’m not forgotten
Show me there’s a God
Who can be more than all I’ve ever wanted
‘Cause right now I need a little hope
I need to know that I’m not alone
Maybe God is calling you tonight
To tell me something
That might save my life

Being overwhelmed and stultified

This is one of my "on-the-fly" observations on a subject that has been on my mind a good deal lately. In our contemporary world communication is instantaneous. As we witnessed with the earthquake in Haiti, the demonstrations in Egypt, and many other instances people can Tweet, or post to Facebook, Instagram, etc. what is happening as it happens from just about anywhere in the world. And so we are more aware than ever before of what is going on throughout the world without the media filtering our access to events. In many ways this is a good thing. In some ways it is not so good. This awareness threatens to overwhelm us and tends to overburden us. I don't know about you, but I upon hearing about certain things, I have the urgent feeling I need to do something. But when I consider what I might do, apart from posting something indignant on social media, or blogging about it, I am at loss. It usually amounts to providing some financial support to a worth group that is already engaged.

We have become awfully fond of saying or typing "That is a first world problem." Indeed, some of gripes and perceived indignities are not really very significant either in and of themselves or in light of what many of our fellow human beings face on a daily basis. Pope Francis was quite right to point out the gross immorality of wasting food when many people on the planet are starving, or doing what we can in our lives, in our homes, our yards, our neighborhoods, to be good stewards of the good earth God has given us.

While we need to be aware of what is going on in the world and respond appropriately, we need to understand that what we can personally do is really quite limited. In all honesty, what you can do to, say, stop ISIS, is quite paltry. We have to recognize, this reality as painful as it is. But we also need to grasp that living in the developed world, living in a Western country, has its own legitimate perils, which are indeed first world problems, which makes them, not trivial, but all the more grave and perplexing.

Clearly we live in culture that is in many ways spiritually and psychologically devastating, even if physically comfortable. Besides, like most people on planet earth, I can only live the life that I have, the life I have been given. I can't conjure up a different life and make it happen, at least not in a morally responsible manner. The more commitments we have vis-à-vis marriage and family, the less latitude we have to make radical lifestyle choices.

Spiritual poverty is the worst kind of poverty. That may sound outrageous in a world in which so many suffer from abject material want, which, again, we need to be interested in and engaged to the extent we can in alleviating. The spiritual poverty of the society I inhabit is stultifying to me. I choose the word "stultifying" deliberately. In the first instance to be stultified is "to lose enthusiasm and initiative, especially as a result of a tedious or restrictive routine." This brings up the need for us to come up with creative ways of engaging our spiritually desolate culture lest it overtakes us.

In my view, a leading cause of our spiritual poverty is that we're often too global at the expense of being local. We lack fully human communities, ones in which we engage each other in person and work for the common good of those among whom we live, seeking to solve local problems locally. Trust me, you don't have to go to a Third World country to find people who need help of various kinds. Maybe it's something as simple as visiting a neighbor who lives alone and who doesn't seem to have any family, or having that person to your house for supper, to give just one example.

Life with Christ, if it truly is life with Christ, is never tedious or, believe it or not, restrictive. It exciting and free. As the Catechism teaches- "The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to 'the slavery of sin'" (1733). This is one of those teachings that you shouldn't take anyone's word for. Why? Because it's something you can verify in reality through experience.

As Bob Dylan sang, "Gotta Serve Somebody." You serve where you are, in the circumstances in which you find yourself, not by imagining or wishing you were somewhere else. A good deal of the time all our social media advocacy amounts to nothing more than tilting at windmills. The question we need to ask ourselves each day is, Have I fully lived the circumstances in which I found myself today? This is where the ancient practice of the Examen is so valuable. After all, it was our Lord Himself who taught us, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Sufficient to the day is its own trouble" (Matt 6:4).

"Perverse and foolish oft I strayed..."

Michael Card singing one of my all-time favorite hymns, "The King of Love My Shepherd Is," is our Friday traditio this week. The tune to which Card sings this hymn was composed by St Columba, a sixth century Irish monk and missionary, who is credited with leading the mission that brought Christianity to Scotland. This is hymn is basically the twenty-third Psalm.

Card's 2006 album Starkindler: A Celtic Conversation Across Time, for which "The King of Love My Shepherd Is" was recorded, in the words one reviewer, was brilliant because instead of "writing an album's worth of original songs in a faux Celtic style, Card unearths the source material--ancient Irish texts and melodies, some stretching back to the fourth century. By doing so, he builds a bridge where the modern church can be reminded of and inspired by the faith of the Christian Celts."

...yet in love he sought me;
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me

Approaching milestones

My blogging has tapered off lately. I am not sure why other than feeling caught between too much to write about (the horrific evil that is Planned Parenthood, the proposed nuclear deal with Iran, Pope Francis' upcoming visit to the U.S., the kick-off of the 2016 presidential campaign, etc.) and nothing really to write about. Yesterday I did not even post a Friday traditio, which are usually my least viewed posts. I am very conscious of three things as I write this morning:

1- I am approaching 50

2- 16 August 2015 will mark the 10th Anniversary of Καθολικός διάκονος

3- This post is my 3,000th on this blog

All of this has made me rather reflective. While my blog, originally named Scott Dodge for Nobody after a late Sunday program from years ago on a local community radio station: Tom Waits for Nobody, began in August 2005, I did not begin blogging in earnest until 19 July 2006. But either way, 9 or 10 years is a long time! No, this is not a sign-off, just a reflection.

Over the years I have blogged on a broad range of topics. In my first few years I blogged about anything and everything. During the first several years I repeatedly pondered the question, "Why do I blog?" The answer that I settled on goes back to the meaning of "blog," which is short for weblog; maintaining a log, for me, is akin to journal-keeping. Of course, a weblog is a public journal, not a private one. I remember times when I tried to keep a private journal. I could never answer the question, "For whom am I writing this?" Frankly, posterity was not an audience I felt I could engage. Blogging for me is a vehicle of personal growth, a way to work things out while having to be responsible for what I write. This does not result in being less honest, but more honest. Like everyone else, I am prone to reacting to the circumstances in my own life as well as to events in the world. It useful to prayerfully gain some perspective when it comes to most everything. I still take seriously the words in my blog header, which serve as an epigraph of sorts. The purpose there stated is what informs everything I post in one way or another.

Looking back it is easy to see that, by the grace of God, I have grown more humble over time. I have to note that this year in particular has been very humbling for me. While I do not think of myself as old or feel particularly old, I do recognize that I am no longer a young man. As I age I become more aware of my limitations in every aspect: physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. I have come to realize that I am not very good at anything in particular. I don't have any special competencies or abilities that set me apart. While it's taken a year of wrestling with this insight, I am growing more comfortable with it and even finding a great sense of relief in just letting go of certain things. These days I cut myself off whenever I start to go back in time and think, "What if I had done [fill in the blank]." I don't want to live in the past, especially when that means fretting over not choosing an alternate path with the benefit of hindsight. I can think of nothing more useless. While there are still things I want to do and plan to do, there are other endeavors and undertakings that have left port and sailed out to sea- Bon voyage! Over the course of my life not being particularly good at anything has had the effect of making me commit to those things I need and want to do, often only after excruciating procrastination. I'll admit that my insecurities and fears surface daily, sometimes leading to anxiety and depression.

A book that I have come cherish over this past year, one I read slowly, just a little bit each morning, is Fr Lawrence Lovasik's Basic Book of Catholic Prayer. I love the plain sounding title. The book is what it says, a basic book on how to pray. It is a gem. Just yesterday morning I came across this quote from St Augustine's Confessions at the end of the chapter entitled "Pray to atone for sin" - "Our Father, who hast exhorted us to pray, who also bringest about what Thou hast asked of us; since we live better when we pray to Thee and are better: hear me as I tremble in this darkness and reach out Thy hand to me. Hold Thy light before me, and recall me from my strayings, that with Thee as my guide I may return to myself and to Thee. Amen." I was struck by the phrase "I may return to myself" from my strayings. I won't discourse on why that struck me, suffice it to note that it did.

This morning as I was quietly reflecting on how humbling life has been since roughly my last birthday I read in Fr Lovasik's book about the need to be humble in prayer (the next chapter is on praying with confidence): "Prayer must, first of all, be humble, for it is precisely to keep us mindful of our nothingness, sinfulness, and complete dependence upon Him that God has commanded us to pray." Like C.S. Lewis' observation that "Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done," this can sound harsh and lead to saying, "Forget it." But prayer is nothing at all if it is not grounded in reality, in the truth about ourselves, the world, and God. As our loving Father, God wants to save us from our nothingness and, through His Son and by the power of the Spirit, make us someone we can't even imagine, to make us into who He created and redeemed us to be. This "making" is sanctification. We must play an active role in our own sanctification, even while we realize that only God can finish the good work He has begun in those who believe (Phil 1:6).

Anyway look for a traditio next week. In the meantime enjoy this.

The Benedict Option crystallized and distilled

With gratitude to my friend, who is truly a companion, Fred, on this U.S. Independence Day all I am offering is this from Bishop Massimo Camisasca, who is a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St Charles Borromeo and bishop of of the Diocese of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla, Italy:

St. Benedict's goal was neither to save the Roman Empire nor to create a Europe. He simply understood that the essence of Christianity lies in free persons who come together to give their whole lives for the sake of the truest thing that ever happened to them

St Benedict

My liberty, my freedom, as a human being was not won or granted by any man, woman, or group of people, save One. It is Him I follow. Nobody can validly infer from this that I don't love my country. I do, very much. By a not-so-strange convergence, St Benedict's feast day is 11 July.

Come to think of it, there is one more thing I'd like to add. It is from Dante's Paradisio. The Pilgrim is speaking to Clemence, wife of Charles Martel:

Ah, souls deceived, devoid of piety, who turn your hearts away from the True Good, raising your haughty heads towards empty things! (Canto IX, lines 10-12- Mark Musa's translation)

Our need to touch Jesus

Readings: Wis 1:13-15.2:23-24; Ps 30:2.4-6.11-13; 2 Cor 8:7.9.13-15; Mark 5:21-43

Since this is a written reflection on the readings for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time and not a homily I am going to deliver from the ambo, I am going to do a lectio divina-like exercise. I will choose a sentence or phrase from each of the three readings as well as from our Psalm and then attempt a synthesis:

"For God formed us to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made us" (Wis 2:23).

"You changed my mourning into dancing" (Ps 30:13a).

"your abundance at the present time should supply their needs, so that their abundance may also supply your needs, that there may be equality" (2 Cor 8:14).

"Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction" (Mark 5:34).

This week we have been bombarded by the word "equality." It's difficult if not impossible to argue against the equality of people. I'll go one further, when thinking about people and God or people and the law, it's not even desirable to argue against the equality of persons.

As human beings it only takes a little experience to see that there are ways we're equal and ways we're not equal. To state a simple case-in-point, my drawing talents are not equal to someone who can actually draw. Equality becomes problematic when we begin to assert that equality erases differences that are part of the world, that arise from reality, that are embedded in nature, like the complementary difference between men and women. Erasing differences in the name of equality is not equality, but ideology. Ideology is served by propaganda. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not an ideology and relies on evangelization and catechesis, neither of which are indoctrination.

In our second reading St Paul tells us Jesus, who was rich, became poor so that we can become rich through our poverty. According to Paul, how do we become rich through poverty? By giving what we have freely to help others, putting the need of the one with less before our own wants. Our poverty is not merely a way we're all equal, it is the way we are equal. Luigi Giussani expressed this well when he said, "Existence expresses itself as ultimate ideal in begging. The real protagonist of history is the beggar: Christ who begs for man's heart, and man's heart that begs for Christ."

It's when you freely give Christ that for which He begs, your heart, that you stop merely existing and begin to live life eternal. It is by this giving yourself to Him body, blood, soul, and humanity that you are made infinitely rich. This is a paradox. The only way to unravel it is by trusting the Lord. It is by giving yourself to Christ that you experience the beginning of being restored to God's likeness, which, unlike the imago Dei that is ineradicable, is lost through our brokenness and can only be restored by God's grace given us in Christ through the power of their Spirit. Because grace builds on nature, it is by giving your heart to Christ that you experience your imperishable nature that comes from your being made in God's image.

Like the women in our Gospel who was afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years, you need healing. Once you grasp this need, in whatever way you become aware of it, you become a beggar. The woman Jesus healed became a beggar after she spent everything she had seeking a cure. Whether you turn to Jesus as your first option, or, like the woman in today's Gospel, come to Him in desperation, He will not turn you away. He will heal you and restore you by His amazing grace.

Jesus, I trust in You.