You are beautiful

Probably the greatest anthropological error in advanced societies today is the reduction of the human person to her/his sexuality. In short, you are not your sexuality. That sexuality is an important dimension of human being is beyond doubt.

From a holistic Christian perspective, human sexuality is a gift from God, a blessing. Your sexuality is not just a blessing for you. When well-understood and lived properly, it is a blessing for others.

To use Pope Saint John Paul II's frame, sexual union is the way you can most fully give the gift of yourself to another. Through this, the blessing can extend beyond the couple. The expansion of the blessing beyond sexual partners is not creepy in the least. How is it not weird? Easy, by maintaining the vital link between sex and procreation.

Eros can be transformed into agape. In his still magnificent first encyclical, Deus caritas est, Pope Benedict XVI provided a wonderful meditation on eros and agape (see sections 3-8).

Chastity is not the doctrine of "No." It's important to point out that for married couples, chastity does not mean sexual continence. One easily overlooked and progressive aspect of Humanae Vitae is Pope Saint Paul VI's positing of the "unitive significance" of sex in marriage (sec. 12).

What comes after "No"? In essence, the Church teaches that chastity is "the successful integration of sexuality within the person, ensuring the inner unity of one's bodily and spiritual being" (CCC 2337). This inner unity is vitally important. It's what it means to say the Christian approach to sexuality should be "holistic."

Not only are you not your sexuality, sexual acts aren't all there is to sex. To reduce sexuality to just having sex is a monstrous reduction, one that reduces your humanity and that of others. It is "monstrous" because we're all either witnesses to the effects of this reduction or have suffered ourselves and maybe even harmed others and not necessarily in grave and deliberate ways, though maybe in those ways, too.

To be clearer, just think of watching pornography. For many people today, this activity is considered to be fairly innocent. It's not and it never is. The prevalence of porn is nearly impossible to exaggerate. Talk about an abasement of our humanity as well as that of those who make porn!

Your sexuality is not the most important dimension of the mystery of your person. It isn't even the most interesting aspect of who you are. Insisting that human sexuality is a secondary dimension of the human person isn't to say that it doesn't matter. It is to say that it isn't all that matters or even the most important matter.

Let's be honest, sexuality is a place of great human vulnerability for most if not all people. Many, many people, women and men, bear deep sexual wounds that demonstrate the truth of our vulnerability.

I realize that along with my post on synodality, this post is more provocative on matters sexual than I have written for several years. As I wrote in my Integrity Note: "Stated simply, everything that appears here is my responsibility, especially that which turns out to be inaccurate or uncharitable."

Anyway, some thoughts for a Friday when I am not preaching. What is the important aspect of your person? You are created in the image of God. And the ontological reality that God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it flows from this.

As Pope Leo XIV asserted in Magnifica Humanitas: "No sin, failure, humiliation or exclusion can diminish the profound value of a human life that God has willed and called into being" (sec. 52). Yes, that includes you, your life. It's a concrete reality, not an abstraction.

Anyway, Twila Paris singing "How Beautiful" is our Friday traditio. We haven't had one in awhile.

John Robert Lewis on MLK Day

Sadly, this year Martin Luther King/Human Rights Day needs much more emphasis than any time in the recent past. Hence, I turn to one of my political heroes, John Lewis. In a 2018 interview with Vann R. Newkirk, II for the The Atlantic's issue on Dr. King commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of his assassination, Lewis humorously noted that Dr. King, from their first meeting, always called him "The boy from Troy." In this interview, Lewis spoke opening of Dr. King's influence on him.

Lewis, of course, went on to work for and closely w/ RFK (another of my political heroes) and then have his own distinguished political career. Referring to where his lifelong mission began, he remembered that "... in 1955, at 15 years old, I heard of Dr. King, and I heard of Rosa Parks. They inspired me to get in trouble." This what John Robert Lewis, elder statesman, would call "good trouble," which is not trouble for trouble's sake. Rather, it's standing up for what is right, good, and just in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. This what Fr Gutierrez dubbed has having hope.

In the photo, a young John Lewis is on the end of the row on the right

Closing the chasm between heaven and hell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What to make of the dishonest steward?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What ails us?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Easter concludes this Sunday with the Church's observance of Pentecost. Because Easter was late this year the season goes well into June. Even so, May remains the month of Mary and June is the month of the Sacred Heart.

Celebrated the Friday after Corpus Christi, this year the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus will be celebrated on 27 June. Typically, the Saturday following the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Roman Catholics observe the obligatory Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But, in years when the Memorial of Immaculate Heart of Mary occurs on the same day as another oligatory Memorial, both obligatory Memorials become Optional Memorials.

A photo from our living room

Since this year the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary happens on the same day as the Obligatory Memorial of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, who is a Doctor of the Church, its observance is optional. As a result, the celebrant has the option to celebrate the Memorial Immaculate Heart of Mary or the Memorial of Saint Irenaeus or neither.

It's a joke in our house that all holidays are about love. Yes, we poke fun at the overlyl sentimental view of holidays. I would say that the exception are national holidays all of which have become Veteran's Day. Of course, this does no justice to, say, Labor Day or our more recent national holiday, Juneteenth.

I have been known to say, quoting Jackie Moon, "Hey, ELE!" Indeed, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Memorial His Mother's Immaculate Heart are truly about love. A love so unfathomable that it ultimately lies beyond our comprehension.

Last week Cardinal Francis Leo, Archbishop of Toronto, Canada, issued what I think is a beautiful message for the "Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus." In addition to urging Catholics to consecrate themselves, their families, and their homes to Jesus' Sacred Heart, His Eminence urges everyone to read Pope Francis final encyclical letter Dilexit Nos: On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, which he promulgated last October.

Moving into undoubtedly controversial territory, though it should not be for Catholics, Cardinal Leo points out in his message:

Symbols are important as they convey meanings in what they represent, and they point beyond their own reality to something else, someone else. Our very own Catholic symbols help us to deepen our faith and shape our prayer life, not to mention the lives we lead and the choices we make. They are like bridges joining together the material and spiritual worlds, and reveal to us the Gospel truths. They showcase what our values are, what is important to us and how we intend to live our faith. We need to make sure that the symbols we use are consistent with our Catholic faith and not borrowed from ideological fora, promoted by lobby groups and endorsed by political movements. We ought to honour and respect our traditions and not compromise the integrity of the faith by using symbols that are contrary to God’s divine revelation. We do good to use our own symbols to tell our own story without resorting to trendy, misguided and inadequate symbols that do not represent us as Catholics but rather contribute to confusion, distortions and ambiguities about what the Catholic faith truly teaches regarding the human person, human nature, and natural moral law

Given Cardinal Leo's notanda, I am going to write about porneia again. My reason for so doing was a short article by Justin Giboney for Christianity Today: "Sermons with Benefits." It is a good article because Giboney starts with how Christians have too often made caricatures of ourselves in the realm of sexual ethics. But he also points to a recent attempt, a very amatuerish one at that, to insist that Church's sexual ethics have been wrong from the beginning.

On what foundation is such an audiacious claim made? The argument rests on the insistence that the Greek word porneia refers exclusively to prostitution. Let me just say, this would earn a failing grade in any New Testament exegesis class.

What I like best about Giboney's article is that it is not merely academic. In fact, it isn't academic at all. The author outsources the critique of the porneia-only-means-prostituion claim to others who, in the author's view, have countered it adequately. Links to both the claim and the rebuttal are available in the article.

The article is rooted in Giboney's own experience. There is so much Pope Saint John Paul II's theology of the body still has to offer all of us. This week, I repeat love is not sex and sex is not love. I will add, love and sex should go together. Yes, I used the word "should," which is practically blasphemy these days. Without putting too fine a point on it, there are reasons that married people, contra the prevailing narrative, report higher rates of sexual satisfaction.

I know first hand how tempting it is to acquiesce in these matters. Not giving in doesn't mean not caring and lacking understanding or even seeking to further understand and navigate the complexities of human sexuality. It certainly doesn't preclude just encountering each and every person as a person, as someone who bears God's image, and not as a persona, let alone a clinicalized abstraction. In the age of social media, it's easy to think of yourself and others as personae instead of as persons.

It bears noting, too, that for the first full month of his papacy, Pope Leo has but one prayer intention. Unsurprisingly, the Holy Father's intention is very much in tune with June being the month devoted to the Lord's Sacred Heart: "Let us pray that each one of us might find consolation in a personal relationship with Jesus, and from his heart, learn to have compassion on the world."

That's enough for now, I think. I can't help but post Aztec Camara's "Somewhere in My Heart" as our traditio this week.

Counsels of a council: principles and canons

Reading: Acts 15:1-2.22-29

Where I live, the Solemnity Lord's Ascension is observed the Sunday following the fortieth day after Easter. Stated more clearly, instead of celebrating "Ascension Thursday," we celebrate Ascension Sunday on what is otherwise the Seventh Sunday of Easter. So, we do not observe the Seventh Sunday of Easter.

As a result, for the readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter the second reading and Gospel for the Seventh Sunday of Easter may be used. This leaves the first reading from Acts 15 as the reading that cannot be replaced.

It is an important reading because it tells of the somewhat anachronistically-named "Council of Jerusalem." While what this reading conveys is something about a council not of the early the Church but the primitive Church, it is not, juridically speaking, a council in the fullblown sense of later Councils, like Nicea and Vatican II. This gathering was certainly synodal in nature.

Being a council (as opposed to a "Council"?), this meeting in Jerusalem, like Nicea and most subsequent Councils, canons or juridical decisions were promulgated. The immediate cause for this gathering was to adjudicate the claim that in order to be saved, Gentile converts to Christianity had to be circumcised. The matter was brought to Jerusalem by Paul and Barnabas.

Presiding over this proceeding was James the close relative of Jesus. He is known as James the Just. During their missionary activity among the Gentiles, among whom they were establishing the Church, so-called "Judaizers" were teaching, contra Paul and Barnabas, both the necessity of circumsision and even full-blown adherence to the Law.

After deliberating, named representatives were sent with Paul and Barnabas from Jerusalem to Antioch to deliver their judgment on this and other divisive matters pertaining to Christian praxis. Before taking up specific issues, a principle is given: not to place on anyone any burden beyond what is necessary. What did they deem necessary?

First, not to eat meat sacrificed to idols. Second, not to eat blood. Third, not to eat the meat of any animal that was strangled. Fourth, not to enter into unlawful marriages.

Now, each of the four canons or rulings are derived from Jewish law. It bears noting that the prohbition against eating the meat of strangled animals is omitted from some ancient manuscripts and sources.

The Greek word translated by the phrase "unlawful marriage" in our lectionary and in the NAB(RE) (the revision of the Revised Edition of the New American Bible consists only of a new translation of the Old Testament) is πορνεία. Transliterated, porneia- the origin of the English pornography. It is a Greek word used to refer to several specific sexual matters or all of them together, making translation very dependent on context.

In this context, I believe the best translation, as found in other versions, like the New International Version, might be "sexual immorality." The reason for this is that covers all the specific things to which the word refers: adultery, fornication, homosexuality, sex with close relatives, even sex with a divorced person, etc.

Whether one likes it or not, one of the things that made Christians stand out from the beginning in the ancient world of the Roman Emprie were strict sexual ethics. While Paul later attenuated the stricture against eating meat sacrificed to idols (i.e., don't do it if you're going to scandalize a fellow believer), he never wavered on matters pertaining to porneia.

Despite being quite easy to demonstrate, such an assertion these days strikes many as controversial. But then, we live in a time and culture that has all but reduced human personhood to sexuality. Calesco ergo sum?

Wisely, the council determined that circumcision, seemingly the most contentious issue, is not required of Christian converts. One can imagine the impact such a requirement might have on evangelization! Elsewhere, Paul takes this issue up with his characteristic directness. He emphasizes that one becomes a Christian through baptism and that baptism is open to men and women, slave and free, and to Jew and Gentile alike (see Galatians 3:27-29).

For Christians, water is thicker than blood- this, too, is a fundamental principle! This principle should be focused on all the more during Easter.

Speaking to Members of Pontifical Mission Societies, Pope Leo highlighted something that dovetails nicely with a reading concerning the intense missionary activities of Paul and Barnabas. After noting that "The promotion of apostolic zeal among the People of God remains an essential aspect of the Church’s renewal as envisioned by the Second Vatican Council, and is all the more urgent in our own day," the Holy Father went on to note "the importance of fostering a spirit of missionary discipleship in all the baptized and a sense of the urgency of bringing Christ to all people."

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Program note: as I mentioned last October when I resumed blogging in earnest here, this will be my primary participation in social media. I will maintain my other accounts almost exclusively for the purpose of posting what I write here. Comments, while moderated, are open. I don't mind comments on my posts on other platforms, which I may or not get to. It is past time for me to make this change. I project one more post during May: Friday's traditio.

Does forgiveness forego justice?

Readings: 1 Sam 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 Ps 101:1-4.8.10.12-13; 1 Cor 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38

When we encounter such challenging teachings it is very important, on the one hand, not to just explain them away, reducing them nothing, thus failing to be challenged when it comes Lord's most difficult teachings. On the other, it is important to try understanding how this might apply under certain circumstances.

Unlike other some other passages, like saying pluck out your eye, cut-off off your hand, etc., Jesus in today's Gospel is not speaking hyperbole. He talking directly "To you who hear," that is, to anyone interested in following Him. Especially during His Passion, He taught this by His example.

Loving one's enemy should be a hallmark of being a Christian. Without forgiveness, the world is a dark, brutal, and violent place. Hate and resentment are evils a Christian must avoid at all cost. Christians intentionally do not live by the lex talionis, which demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. While we may at times understandably and even sometimes justifiably get mad, seeking revenge by trying get even is not a Christian value. Rather, we strive, we struggle to live by what Jesus taught so explicitly in passages like today's Gospel.

Loving your enemy requires to do good to him/her. Loving your enemy requires you to pray for her/him. What is an enemy? An enemy is someone who "has it out for you," someone who actively seeks to harm, oppress, and/or harass you. Saul was David's enemy. He hated David so badly that he lauched a military campaign to wipe out David and his small band of men.

Why did Saul want to kill David? Because he saw David as his rival for power. As history shows, tyrants hate rivals and critics and so seek to eliminate anyone who poses a challenge. The most permanent way is by killing them. Yet, when David had the chance to easily kill his enemy, who was waging mortal combat against him, he did not take it. Rather, trusting in God, David chose to spare Saul's life, which he held in his hand.

For a Christian, loving your enemies is one of those things that should set you apart, make you stand out. It is what makes you salt and light for the world.

This brings up an important question: Are we to suffer injustice passively? Are we to ignore and not intervene or come to the defense or assistance of someone who is being treated unjustly? In the first instance, as with so many things, it depends. The lives of saints are rife with episodes of holy women and men enduring injustices and relying solely on God for vindication. Of course, due to the fact they're canonized saints, they were vindicated, even if, as in some cases, posthumously. When comes to myself, I need to be discerning.

the late Congressman John Lewis

I would say, even on Christian terms, injustice, especially towards the weak and vulnerable, should be challenged and resisted. Non-violent resistance is, at least for me, the most courageous form of resistance. Many people in the United States in the 1960s, like the late Congressman John Lewis, a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, set a beautiful example for later generations. Led by Dr. King, at its roots and to its very core, the Civil Rights movement was a Christian movement. So as not sound too triumphalist, one of the hallmarks of it being a Christian movement was that you didn't have to be a Christian to join in!

To be effective, resistance to injustice needs to be creative. It can be direct or indirect.

Often we want to fight fire with fire, to meet force with force. It usually takes a lot more courage, like the man in Tiananmen Square who stood in front of a tank, than attempting blow-for-blow confrontation. Through such actions, one uses one's humanity to appeal directly to the humanity of the other. The risk, of course, is that the one being appealed to may not respond in a human, let alone humane, way. As Christians, this is something we should understand deeply. Because the one engaging in this kind of direct resistance is willing to lay down his life for what is right on behalf of other people, it is an act of love, an imitatio Christi.

One of John Lewis' frequent refrains was, when faced with injustice, "never give up, never give in, never become bitter or hostile." He lived in the certainty that love, his love, would outlast the fear and anger of his enemies. He learned this through experience, by practicing it sometimes under life-threatening circumstances. Another beautiful thing John Lewis would say to younger generations as he grew older was, "make some noise and get in good trouble." Even so, he would also warn them never to hate, only to love, to do good, and, yes, to pray for those opposed to you, pray they will have a change of heart.

"One headline why believe it?"

So many thoughts, so many threads, so much going on. I am glad I returned to blogging because I can't take the pace of other social media platforms these daze. What is happening is nothing short of a media blitzkrieg. This is deliberate and done in the service of a far from transparent agenda.

Claims, counterclaims, counter-counterclaims, and so it goes into an infinite regress. "The common good" is just a phrase invoked on occasion. It seems to me that little is done in service of our common good.

Taken from Together for the Common Good, a U.K. Charity

What is the common good? The common good is that which seeks to enable and facilitate the flourishing of everyone. As such it is opposed to some socially Darwinistic society of winners and losers. The common good is the opposite of narrow and self-serving. It is the genuine ordo amoris as opposed to a narrow conception of this concept, which urges one to narrow rather than expand what might be called one's circle of concern. Especially if you're someone who's relatively well-off and comfortable, seeking the common good requires you look beyond your own interests and take account of the interests of those less well-off, especially those who are uncomfortable and struggling.

A few days ago, I listened to an episode of The Russell Moore Show featuring Robert Putnam ("Beyond Bowling Alone: Finding Community in an Isolated Age"). This is a vital conversation. Polarization has become the very nature of our politics. It is eating away at society and eroding our civilization.

Politics don't seem to any longer be about achieving ends that will enable flourishing. The means used to achieve desired ends, even when those ends aren't bad in and of themselves, seem to me aimed at creating further polarization, at winning and making losers. According to Putnam, whose body of work is worth enaging with, the answer is to connect with others and not primarily (or even secondarily) for political purposes. You may want to watch a recent film about Putnam, now showing on Netflix: Join or Die.

I love the old slogan of The Christopers: "It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness." While it is certainly better to light a candle, it is often easier and I would say sometimes necessary, to curse the darkness. But then, I don't want to promote the very thing I am arguing against. I was reminded this morning of a passage from the second chapter of Ephesians, the summary of which is verse 14:

For he [Jesus Christ] is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh

I also want to point to something from Pope Francis' his recent letter to the U.S. Bishops, g that has been overlooked and that applies more broadly than to immigration. Found in section 7 of his letter, the Holy Father warns about the imposition of "the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth." Introducing the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth obliterates any authentic conception of the ordo amoris and, hence, the common good. It's hard to think of anything less Christian.

Please join me in praying for Pope Francis, who remains in hospital. He's battling pneumonia and a respiratory infection. When it comes to matters of the common good, to abiding by a proper conception of the ordo amoris, one rooted directly in the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, I believe we need his witness right now.

While it certainly lacks subtlety, our Friday traditio, sticking with my distinctly '80s vibe during this early part of 2025, our traditio is Tears for Fears, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."

Addendum on agape

My post for yesterday was longer than intended. In thinking a bit more about agape (i.e., self-giving, self-sacrificing, kenotic love- Christlike love), which for Christians is the supreme form of love, I offer a few more thoughts.

Probably the closest human analogy to divine agape is the love of a parent for her/his child. More specifically, the love of a mother for her child. In lamenting over the inhabitants of the Holy City, Jerusalem, in Matthew, Jesus says- "how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings" (Matthew 23:37). Or, God speaking to Israel through the prophet in Isaiah: "Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you" (Isaiah 49:15).

This brings me back to 1 John 4:7-16, the passage in which the phrase "God is love" appears twice. The conclusion of this is: "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another" (1 John 4:11). It is through the love of God given us in Christ, which is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we become children of God (see Romans 5:5).

As God's children, we are sisters and brothers. For Christians, in light of our baptism, water is thicker than blood. As the Holy Father notes in section 7 of his letter to the U.S. bishops, it is certainly thicker than and even transcends other identifications and affiliations we may have.

Love that is agape is profuse, abundant, copious, extravagant, freely given. It is outwardly not inwardly directed. At the beginning of the Kenotic hymn found in the second chapter of Philippians, Saint Paul urges Christians - "Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus" (see Phil 2:5-11).

Hence, God's love is not something to be held onto merely for my own sake. Rather, as Jesus gave Himself freely, I am to give myself freely.

This post was originally longer. However, it was quite repetitive of the post for which is was written as an addendum. So, I stuck with brief a amplification of the meaning of agape.

Giving the gift of life and Jesus' toughest commandment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ADDENDUM:

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

Led by the Spirit means living antithetically

Readings: Sirach 15:15-20; Ps 119:1-2.4-5.17-18.33-34; 1 Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-37

Since this week is my once-a-month "light week," when I only serve at one Mass (usually the Saturday Vigil) instead of all three, I flirted with the idea of not posting a reflection on these readings. In ruminating on them today, I decided to post a very brief reflection. In our Gospel today, we hear Jesus teach thesis and antithesis- "You have heard that it was said... But I say you..."

Jesus' teaching sets forth exactly what Saint Paul writes about in our reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians, namely that the Christian is Spirit-led, not rule-driven. In other words, like the Pharisees, who, it is really important to point out, took righteousness very seriously, you can keep a thousand rules, even 613 rules deemed to be made by God either directly or indirectly by inference, and still not be righteous, not be holy as God is holy.

Now, it is important not to dismiss the Law or the rules legitimately derived from it. Jesus never does, as the beginning of today's Gospel clearly indicates: "Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law." Jesus never denigrates the Law. On the contrary, he reveres it.

Mistaking ends for means, it seems to me, is the fundamental problem. The end to which the Law was given to be the means is loving God and neighbor. Love is a matter of the heart. Hence, what it means to be righteous, rather than adherence to a set of rules externally imposed, while not foreswearing all rules, is a matter of your heart.

In the homily I heard last night, this Gospel reading was nicely described as "a psychology of human action." Living by rules, at least in my own experience and that of many other people to whom I've ministered over the years, psychologically speaking, often has the effect of making matters worse with regard to the things the Decalogue and Jesus, in upping the ante, prohibit. For example, food is rarely more tempting that when I've committed to fasting, even when I've only been fasting for an hour or two. It's easy to urge others to forgive those who have wronged them, but when wronged, how easy it is to start expounding on how karma is a b-i-t-c-h. I think we're all familiar with these psychodynamics.

Somewhere along the way, despite the influence of such works as The Imitation of Christ, Christians lost sight of Jesus' maxim, found at the end of today's reading- "Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one." Especially in this age of social media, how often do we Christians lose sight of such inspired exhortations like the one found in 2 Timothy: "Avoid foolish and ignorant debates, for you know that they breed quarrels"? This brings to my mind that much-used but often misattributed observation made by Mary Wollstonecraft: "Convince a man against his will, He's of the same opinion still."

Grace builds on nature. Given this, there is no way around the fact that most of us have some work to do. I know I do. While it is work I must begin and persist in doing, I will not complete it. As Saint Paul wrote: "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil 1:6). Until that day, we move forward in hope.

Increasing faith

Readings

Faith. What is it? Is it mere belief? If it is belief if and I just believe, do I have faith? What is meant by belief in this context? Is it what is often called "intellectual assent"? Intellectual assent can run the gamut from being deeply convinced to "Sure, why not?"

It's easy enough to say "I have faith," even when the person saying it isn't really sure what s/he means by it. I would say the hallmark of faith is repentance. By repentance, I don't mean, or don't exclusively or even primarily mean, being sorry for your sins. Jesus' call to repentance is not a threat. It is an invitation to live a new and different kind of life, the life of faith.

Jesus' point in our Gospel reading this week is that faith produces repentance and repentance is not just the door we wlak through to new life but also the path that leads to it. Even the fruit that genuine faith produces through your life is nothing other than grace at work in you. This is what leads to Jesus' conclusion in this pericope, which can sound harsh.

But Jesus isn't being harsh. He's seeking to move you away from your self-centeredness. He wants you to live in God's grace, not your own vainglory. Is God grateful to you for the good things you do? No. He did create and redeem you for these very things that constitute the life of faith. Sanctification is your cooperation with God's grace in living this way, this life of faith.

I think we have to be careful not to allegorize Jesus' teaching in this passage from Luke. In other words, God is not the master in Jesus' lesson. He's just using an example with which they're familiar. To tell his disciples that even when they've done all that they're supposed to do, they're still unprofitable servants is just a way of answering their plea to increase their faith. What is faith but our response to God's initiative toward us? God's initiative elcits (it doesn't solicit and it certainly doesn't force) a response from you.

We need to constantly trust God. As C.S. Lewis put it: "Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done" (from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer). I really think this is the point Jesus seeks to make to his disciples in our Gospel reading. When it comes to faith, you can't rest on your laurels. If for no other reason, you can't rest on your laurels because you don't have any laurels on which to rest.

This is faith: to respond again and again and again to God's initiative toward you and then recognize the results. True faith can never be merely believing, even believing fervently. When belief waivers, praxis should not. Do you want God to help your unbelief?

In a very brief explanation of this pericope, the late New Testament scholar, Fr. Raymond Brown, noted that Jesus seems to address the "idea" some of his disciples "might get... that they had done something great" (An Introduction to the New Testament, 250). But whatever truly great thing they might've accomplished is the work of God in/through them. It is grace that flows from faith.

This leads us back to Jesus' invitation to live a new life; to repent. As our reading from Habukkuk tells us: "the just one, because of his faith, shall live" (Hab 2:4). After all, it is true faith that makes him just.

So, if today or on any day, you hear God's voice, harden not your heart.

Moving with compassion

Readings: Deut 30:10-14; Ps 69:14.17.30-31.33-34.37; Col 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

"Go and do likewise" (Luke 10:37). This is how Jesus, of whom it can be said the Good Samaritan is an allegory, makes visible the invisible God. In turn, it is how Christians, by the Holy Spirit's power, make Jesus visible. A few verses beyond the end of our reading from the Letter to the Colossians, the inspired author makes it clear how God chooses "to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery... is Christ in you..." (Col 1:27). Lest you think my use of ellipses truncates what the verse says, after "is Christ in you" comes these words: "the hope for glory," which brings the verse and the sentence to a close.

What is "the hope for glory"? "Christ in you."

Too often the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are disconnected. To make any sense at all, they must always be kept together. Maintaining this tension is a task for Christian theology. As the "preeminent" one, Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, the "concrete universal." The very one for, through, and in whom all things exist is the same one who dialogues with the scholar of the Law.

Had he been content to let things be, this scholar would've passed at least the academic portion of the test with flying colors. But by needing "to justify himself," he posed another question. This other question is simply a different way of asking "Who can I exclude from my care?" Jesus, in his answer, made the scholar aware that it was not enough to give the correct answer.

Who is my neighbor? My neighbor is the person I encounter who needs my help. Pope Francis speaks often of a "culture of indifference." In Evangelii Gaudium, which is the charter of the Franciscan papacy, the Holy Father noted:

To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us (sec. 54)

It's easy to love (or hate) humanity. Humanity, however, is an abstraction. In truth, while you might be more or less favorably disposed toward an abstraction, you can't love it.

You can only love a person, someone you meet, someone with whom you cross paths. Now, as in Jesus' day, you don't know from day to day or even from hour to hour whose life might intersect with yours at a specific time and in a given place. In our fast-paced society, we cross paths with so many people, way more than in ancient Galilee, even the "big city" of ancient Jerusalem. This is a challenge. We often operate on sensory overload.

So, the real and very troubling question becomes: When you see someone in need, do you pass by on the other side of the street or, worse yet, do you just indifferently step over them? Or, like the Samaritan, are you moved with compassion?

Being compassionately disposed toward another certainly requires discernment. It would be impossible for you to meet all the needs of even one person, let alone the needs of everyone you meet who moves you to compassion. What matters is that you don't avert your eyes, ignoring not what you see but who you see.

Our first reading from Deuteronomy insists that to truly observe the Law you must first have a change of heart, a conversion. External adherence to a set of rules has never been enough, even before Jesus came along. This reading urges us to look inside ourselves. At the end of the day, to know what the Law requires you don't need a spectacular revelation or disclosure. No, it is "already in your mouths and in your hearts." This is the point Jesus makes to the scholar after undoubtedly expanding his definition of neighbor. Hence, all that is left is "to carry it out."

C.S. Lewis starts Mere Christianity with a section entitled "The Law of Human Nature." In this section he writes about something that goes some distance toward explaining just how the command of God is already on our lips and in our hearts:

I am only trying to call attention to a fact... that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us. That time you were so unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money— the one you have almost forgotten —came when you were very hard up. And what you promised to do for old So-and-so and have never done — well, you never would have promised if you had known how frightfully busy you were going to be. And as for your behaviour to your wife (or husband) or sister (or brother) if I knew how irritating they could be, I would not wonder at it — and who the dickens am I, anyway? I am just the same.

That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much—we feel the Rule or Law pressing on us so— that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility

One point I am trying to make here, which, I am convinced is something Jesus saw quite clearly, is that, like the priest and Levite, who were perhaps going up to Jerusalem from Jericho when they passed the half-dead man, religious observance is often used as an excuse for not doing that which should be done. Another point, I suppose, is this truth is as evident in our failure as it is when we manage to do "like" the Good Samaritan.

To summarize, the essence of being a Christian is to make yourself a neighbor. Coming as it does from the same root as the English word for "vicinity," the Spanish word for neighbor, vecino, means someone in proximity to you. Hence, your neighbors are not just the people who live next door or across the street. Most of us don't stay home all day. Quite literally then, our vecinos change over the course of most days. Recognizing this, we should always move with compassion.

On the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade

If what was leaked from SCOTUS yesterday is true and Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned, it is a not a time for triumphalism by those who have worked to overturn it. Rather, it's time to take up the responsibilities opponents of Roe have had all along. Foremost among these is materially assisting women and children, ensuring that they're housed, fed, clothed, and have access to healthcare. During the long regime of Roe, these social policies have proven effective at reducing abortions.

Especially if you are a Christian, gaining a legislative victory cannot be the end you seek. Such an outcome can be but a means to the end of creating a civilization of love. Pope John Paul II did not contrast what he called a "culture of death" with a culture of life. Rather, he advocated for building "an authentic civilization of truth and love" (Evangelium Vitae, sec. 6).

In short, overturning Roe returns abortion back to the democratic process. At least in the beginning, it becomes a matter for the states. While there will be states like Oklahoma, Alabama, South Dakota, etc. that effectively ban abortion, there will be other states that either codify Roe, as New York has already done in anticipation of it being overturned, or even expand abortion. So, the outcome is far more complex than many have assumed.

While this is an immensely difficult issue for women- those on both sides of the abortion debate- many legal scholars here and abroad have noted over the years that the fundamental problem with the abortion settlement in the U.S. is that it was made by judicial fiat and not democratically. Again, if/when the anticipated decision is handed down, it simply returns the matter to the people.

In case you haven't noticed, democracy is a messy business. Demonstrations resulting from this Court ruling will no doubt be vociferous, maybe even vicious. But these, too, within reasonable legal limits, are part of our constitutional system and a healthy part at that.

Above us only sky?

I somehow came to learn about Colin Heber-Percy's Tales of a Country Parish: From the Vicar of Savernacke Forest just in time to use download it on Audible for listening during a weekend getaway with my wife. Written during the first pandemic year, 2020, it is a remarkable book. One of my favorite features of the book, which is organized according to season, beginning with Spring, when the pandemic started, are the suggested musical compositions to listen to at the end of each section. These have been nothing short of revelatory for me.

Having taken today off because I didn't want to rush back to work after a weekend away, I listened to Tales of a Country Parish during my long walk this morning. Here along the Wasatch Front of the Rocky Mountains, it's a lovely Spring day. It now looks like rain, which we very much need. Predictably, my walk and listening were interrupted by a phone call I had to take. Boy, do I look forward to the day when, apart from people near and dear to me, family and friends, I won't have any urgent calls to take.

My reason for posting this, apart from the fact that I rarely just sit and write anything in my little cyberspace anymore- a stark contrast to my blogging of yesteryear!- is because in listening to his book, I heard Heber-Percy (he is the narrator of his audiobook) read something that threw me back to last Friday, writing about there being no heaven.

Commenting on "John Lennon's atheistical urging in his song 'Imagine' to abandon the notion of heaven" the author states this has never bugged him. This resonated with me. Besides, concocting such a place is a case-in-point of many critiques of Christianity, opening Christians to the charge of not really being concerned about the here-and-now or with what we now refer to as social justice. I agree with the good vicar when states that abandoning such a notion "might even be a good idea."

The lyric that bothers Heber-Percy is Lennon's assertion that above is only sky. He asks if Lennon ever bothered to look up. "The sky is an endless wonder," he continues, "our canopy and our context, a far-off boundary, and as close as our breath." Only sky, indeed!

Thinking about the here-and-now in this context, Saint Paul's Letter to Philemon comes to mind. Philemon, as I think at least one of my two readers will know, was an individual, not a community. Philemon, a Christian, owned slaves. Well, he owned at least one slave. The one slave we know he owned was named Onesimus. Onesimus, also a Christian, left Philemon to travel with Paul.

What occasioned Paul's Letter to Philemon was the need he felt to send Onesimus back to his master. Understandably, the idea of this hits our 21st-century consciences very hard. This makes it all the more important to read what Paul writes most carefully. Basically, his appeal to Philemon is that through Christ, he (Paul), Philemon, and Onesimus enjoy equality.

Paul begins this missive by calling himself "a prisoner for Jesus Christ." He refers to himself in this way another time in the short letter. He asks Philemon to receive Onesimus, who Paul calls "my own heart," not "as a slave but more than a slave, a brother."

Rather than being "pro-slavery," Paul here is pro-fraternity. He's being subversive in an affective and effective way. For Christians, the revolution looks more like an evolution. Being an evolution, there are mutations. While it certainly has political implications, the Christian revolution is not essentially political. Activism not only has its limits but reaches and seems to quickly spill over reasonable limits.

Being loved is true freedom. It is by loving the concrete, real person, the one whom we encounter, as opposed to the abstraction of humanity, that we set them free. Love is always revolutionary. Love is what makes God's kingdom a present reality as we await its fullness.

"Tell the good Lord what they did"

It's Friday again. The last, or ultimate (as opposed to penultimate) Friday before the beginning of the holy season of Lent. I wrote about Lent last week.

This week I want to put up something like the third installment of posts on the necessity for Christians to forgive. As I mentioned in the second installment, I was surprised that my first post, which came about as the result of an experience I had praying the Our Father while praying the Rosary, prompted some argument from a few other Christians.

In this installment, I simply want to invoke some words of Jesus as handed on by Saint Luke. These are words from last Sunday's very challenging Gospel: "Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36). Since this passage parallels Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, we can see it as Luke's way of stating what Matthew states when he has Jesus saying: "So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48).

It bears repeating that, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, God's defining characteristic is hesed. In short, to be holy is to be merciful. While mercy extends, at least for a Christian, to all aspects of life, it certainly includes forgiving those who've wronged you. It even means forgiving your enemies. Jesus takes it further: Christians don't just forgive their enemies, they do good for them, pray for them, and, yes, even love them. Way easier said than done! What a provocation!

Just like the purpose of the Law is to lead those who sincerely follow it to greater love of God and neighbor, the disciplines we elect to practice, or engage in with more intensity, during the "time gift" of Lent should serve the same purpose. Maybe a good preparation for Lent is to spend some time thinking about who you need to forgive. This can be followed by engaging in the work of forgiveness, perhaps, in some appropriate instances, prudentially initiating a path to reconciliation. This can be the beginning of a thorough examination of conscience that can help you confess well before Easter.

This Friday's traditio is a very penitential song by Tom Waits, one from his brilliant album Mule Variations: "Get Behind the Mule"-

Christianity: spirituality of the Good News

Readings: Jer 17:5-8; Ps 1:1-4.6; 1 Cor 15:12.16-20; Luke 6:17.20-26

The "Sermon on the Plain," Saint Luke's parallel to Matthew's much better known Sermon on the Mount.

Blessed are you who are poor...
Blessed are you who are now hungry...
Blessed are you who are now weeping...
Blessed are when people hate you... on account of the Son of Man.

These beatitudes are followed by these woes:

Woe to you who are rich...
Woe to you who you are filled now...
Woe to who laugh now...
Woe to you when all speak well of you...

It should not be necessary to point this out, but it is. These are not eight discrete statements or even two sets of four discrete statements. The statements in both sets are interconnected and the sets are themselves interconnected. Obvious, right? Again, this should be clear. Why do I think it's important to point this out? Because there are people who, advocating for things that are not part of the Gospel, sometimes even contrary to it, mistakenly believe that the disapprobation they experience is the realization of the fourth statement of the first set.

A famous quote by the saintly Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Brazil, Dom Hélder Câmara, suffices to explain what I mean. Dom Hélder once quipped: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."

As our first reading from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah exhorts us, we must learn to trust God. Trusting Jesus, who is the living water, is how you become a strong, fruitful tree instead of a barren bush. We can discuss the relationship of works to faith all day. According to Jesus, you must produce good fruit. His close relative, James, gets this absolutely right in the second chapter of his New Testament letter.

Pope Francis frequently speaks about the sin of indifference toward the poor, the elderly, the marginalized, the traumatized. This is to hit the nail on the head. Hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the opposite of love. A Christian cannot be indifferent to the poor, the hungry, or the grieving. As Catholics, we have the Corporal Works of Mercy: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick and those in prison, bury the dead.

Lent is on the liturgical horizon. Maybe this year either in lieu of or along with what you're giving up, I urge you to take up something. Not just anything, but take up a way to engage in at least one of the Corporal Works of Mercy. This is as vital for your spirituality as is prayer.

Any spirituality that can be considered Christian needs to include the fundamental spiritual disciplines taught to us by the Lord himself: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. I think these correlate nicely to the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. Prayer corresponds to faith. Fasting relates to hope. Almsgiving is really just another word for charity.

Just as hope is the flower of faith and love is their fruit, almsgiving, love of neighbor (keeping in mind that, as the Good Samaritan recognized, my neighbor is the one who needs my help), ought to be the result of prayer and fasting.

Mary & Simone: inimitable women

Reading is perhaps my greatest pleasure. Walking is a close second. Third, well, use your imagination...

While I read a lot, I suppose, I don't read nearly as much as I think I should or as much as I want to. Above all, I love being an undisciplined reader. As I grow older, I realize there is a warp and a woof, a trajectory, a natural coherence to what I read, when I read it, and the sequencing of what I read. I have never liked to read anything assigned to me. Given that, it's amazing I earned a doctorate. Trust me, while I am somewhat proud of my achievement, I don't put too much stock in the title "doctor." For those who poo-poo holding a Doctor of Ministry, I would bring my painfully researched 220-page dissertation to their attention. Yes, I am threatening t have you read it!

18th Century Russian Icon of Saint Mary of Egypt

As an example of "natural coherence," last night I finished Robert Zaretsky's excellent The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas On the heels of that, this morning I started Amy Frykolm's book on Saint Mary of Egypt- Wild Woman: A Footnote, the Desert, and My Quest for an Elusive Saint. The coherence between these books, between these two truly wild women- though I suspect Weil would take great umbrage at being called "wild"- is that both lived lives that really can't be replicated and certainly not lives you would recommend to anyone. Considering this, perhaps rather than "wild," their lives should be called extraordinary, or, better, yet: inimitable. I think Weil would be at least alright with the latter adjective.

In the Preface of Wild Woman, Frykolm cites literary critic David Jasper, who wrote this about Mary of Egypt:

Mary of Egypt's silent life... teaches little or nothing, but in the act of reading it provokes puzzlement and a demand to be taken seriously. It has a harshness which claims no validity by any external standard and no possibility of reenactment- hers is not a life actually to be lived- but it makes its excessive demands in ways that are socially disruptive and destabilizing pgs 11-12)

I like very much that Frykolm includes what is for many an uncomfortable fact that Sophronius' text includes: Mary is said to have liked sex, really liked sex.

Leaving home and going to the city of Alexandria, Mary engaged in prostitution. While there were quite probably other factors in play, the story, as it is handed on, seems intent on telling us that it was was not only out of necessity. "She liked sex so much," Frykolm writes, "that she didn't even [always?] charge money for it... even though she could have used the money" (pg 6).

There are several explanations as to why Sophronius' text deal with sex the way it does- one way is to denigrate it, but Frykolm, without dismissing other possible reasons, settles on desire, Mary's insatiable desire, which is what led her to the Holy Land where she had her encounter at the church and with icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the church's courtyard. This strikes me as a good explanation.

Simone Weil

Both women had what might be, albeit somewhat pathetically, described as "Christian conversion" experiences. Mary's experience occurred on the Feast of the Holy Cross at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Weil had three profound experiences: one in Portugal, one in Assisi (not at Saint Francis's Basilica, but in a church), and the third at the Benedictine monastery of Solesmes when she was experiencing one of her crushing migraines. Would that more Christian conversions were socially disruptive and destabilizing, like Jesus's own ministry, about which I am currently reading via The Gospel According to Saint Luke.

While Weil's non-silent rather vocal and literary life was far from silent- though writings could've easily never come to light (what a shame that would be)- her life, too, makes "excessive demands in ways that are socially disruptive and [potentially[ de-stabilizing." Zaretsky begins his comments on Weil's inimitability, by quoting her friend, Simone Pétrement, who asked: "Who would not be ashamed of oneself in Simone's presence, seeing the life she led?" He follows this by admitting "This has often been my experience with Weil." Reading Weil, he continues, "is always a revelation and a reproach." Elaborating, Zaretsky admits

I have never met, and will never meet, the expectations she had of herself and others. But, to be honest, I have also felt at times the irritation and impatience that many who met her also felt, exasperated by her extreme character, confused not just by some of her philosophical ideals, but also by her insistence upon enacting them in our lives. "What I cannot stand," she told her students, "is compromise" (pg 158)

But compromise we (I) do and often.