Life and how to live it

Readings: Wis 7:7-11; Ps 90:12-17; Heb 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30

Jesus is the Wisdom of Father made incarnate. Jesus is the Word of God.

In terms of first of these assertions, St Paul wrote: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:24). As to the second, C.S. Lewis rightly noted: "It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true Word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him."

In today's Gospel we see what the sacred author of the Letter to the Hebrews meant when he wrote: "the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart" (4:12).

You see, holiness is not merely the observance of externally imposed proscriptions and prescriptions. The rich young man in today's Gospel knew and kept the commandments from his youth, yet still he recognized something was lacking, namely life, the life that is really life, the life the only Jesus can give: eternal life. This lack, this need, is what caused him to approach Jesus. But let's be clear, Jesus did not tell the young man that keeping the commandments was stupid, unimportant, or even unnecessary. It seems to me that what Jesus frequently sought to teach in this regard is the importance of not mistaking means for ends.

As an observant Jew who knew and kept the commandments, which were the 613 mitzvot- 613 individual rules the observance of which made one an "observant Jew"-, the young man would've been considered "righteous" or "just" in the eyes of his fellow Jews. But this was not enough for him, as it is not enough for anyone who honestly interrogates his/her own heart. Observance of the commandments is what we might call a necessary but not sufficient condition for achieving what we truly desire, which is only to desire that for which we are made. I think it's also important to point out that this is not something anyone had to tell him; he knew it.

Jesus, looking on the young man with love, quickly discerned that it was the young man's attachment to his apparently considerable possessions that kept him from experiencing life, from experiencing the hundredfold Jesus promised to His disciples. Indeed, our attachment to and seeking our fulfillment in and through earthly goods is a common obstacle, especially in wealthy Western societies. What do you think will give you security, money or God? The question today's Gospel invites us to ask ourselves is, "What keeps me from experiencing life, true life?" or, "In what or who do I place my hope?"

We must careful when discussing the hundredfold lest we fall prey to the prosperity Gospel, which means that if you give a $100 you can expect to receive $10,000 in return. This is not at all what Jesus promised, note in the list Jesus gives His disciples in telling them of the hundredfold He includes "persecutions"... "Blessed are you..." (Matt 5:10-11).

Wisdom is worth more than earthly riches. If the wisdom of God seems like foolishness, then it stands to reason the wealth of God is experienced through poverty, that is, through detachment from earthly things. The ultimate wisdom is to know Jesus: "Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ" (John 17:3).

All of this was summed well by Pope Francis in his Angelus address today:

The young man [in today's Gospel] did not allow himself to be won over by Jesus’ loving gaze, and therefore could not change. He said that only by accepting with humble gratitude the love of the Lord do we free ourselves from the seduction of idols and the blindness of our illusions

Metaphysical dialectics vs Sophiology

Yesterday after finishing the second novel of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, Perelandra, I began reading Michael Zantovsky's biography of Václav Havel, Havel: A Life. Havel is someone I admire very much. In my reading of Zantovsky's book today, specifically the chapter on Havel's seminal play The Garden Party, I found something that seemed to me to apply to what I will call the innovators at last year's and this year's Synods on marriage and the family.

While Havel was certainly making reference to Czechoslovakia's communist system, most, if not all, of his insights can be applied to any and all who seek to foster ideology instead of truth. What Havel referred to as "metaphysical dialectics" (not a complimentary term) seems to me something that the innovators play at. According to Zantovsky, the meaning of "metaphysical dialectics" is "fostering a 'proper' ideology, by means of which it was possible to affirm or reject absolutely everything as need be, and often to affirm and reject something simultaneously" (71).

I think it's important not to leave things hanging there as simply an accusation. It's necessary to point to the truth that gives lie to the ideology. This is where Lewis comes in. Perelandra is an amazing book. As much as I enjoyed it's prequel, Out of the Silent Planet, I reveled in the second book of the trilogy. In the penultimate chapter of his novel, Lewis delivers a wonderful reflection on a very deep truth, a truth that ideology has been hard at work seeking to supplant for a long time, but especially over the course of the past 50 years in Western societies, the truth about how deeply embedded in creation is masculinity and femininity.

Before leaping to Lewis, this is not a new issue on Καθολικός διάκονος; see "Opposing God to nature: the denial of the ontologically obvious." Some years ago now, Juan Manuel de Prada observed, "The battle that is joined today is not ideological, but anthropological..." What God seeks to do in and through Christ, in and through the Church, is to restore us to our "authentic nature, permitting [us] to emerge from the Babelic confusion fomented by ideology" (see "Catholic Spain Has a New Herald").

As Dr Elwin Ransom, professor of Linguistics at Cambridge University, reaches the top of the mountain from whence he will be transported from Perelandra (Venus) back to earth (he visited Mars- "Malacandra" in Out of the Silent Planet), he encounters two eldila (superhuman extra-terrestrials), which are Malacandra (Mars) and Perelandra (Venus) personified. Yes, think men are from Mars and women are from Venus. In trying to describe how the two affected him, or were perceived by him, Ransom "said that Malacandra was like rhythm and Perelandra like melody," or "Malacandra affected him like a quantitative and Perelandra like an accentual metre." But the narrator, a friend and colleague of Ransom named, oddly enough, Lewis, finally states that "what Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender."

Erato, Muse of Lyric Poetry, by Edward John Poynter, 1870

"Everyone," Lewis notes, "must have wondered why in nearly all tongues certain inanimate objects are masculine and others feminine." He goes on to note that this is not merely a function of language and that gender is not "an imaginative extension of sex." In other words, according to Lewis, "Our ancestors did not make mountains masculine because they projected male characteristics into them. The real process is the reverse."

On Lewis' view, "Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental one than sex." He goes on to observe that sex is "merely the adaptation to organic life of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings." Think about these poetic words from Genesis:

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

The Hebrew word translated "mankind" is a neuter word. While there are sometimes biological mutations, there are no neuter human beings. All human beings are in some way engendered.

"Female sex," Lewis points out, "is simply one of the things that have feminine gender; there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless... the male and female of organic creatures are rather faint and blurred reflections of of masculine and feminine." Then, digging deeper, as did Dante, Lewis confirms this even among the pagans of old. No longer calling them "Malacandra" and "Perelandra," but by their earthly names, Ransom says, "My eyes have seen Mars and Venus. I have seen Ares and Aphrodite." The humbled human being then asks these eldila how the earthly poets of old knew of them: "When and from whom had the children of Adam learned that Ares was a man of war and that Aphrodite rose from the sea foam?" The professor's question is given a rather detailed answer that is summarized poetically: "Memory passes through the womb and hovers in the air. The Muse is a real thing. A faint breath, as Virgil says, reaches even the late generations."

I hope and pray that last phrase is true because it seems the ideology being deployed is quickly erasing memory and polluting the air. Sophia, Lady Wisdom, infuse our memory and purify the air that we may once again hear the kithara of Erato.

Prayer on a Friday morning

This morning after serving at Mass and doing my diaconal duty, which I love, of purifying and carefully putting away the sacred vessels and straightening up the sanctuary, I found myself alone in church with the Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament. Not knowing when else over the course of the day I would have the opportunity to pray the Rosary, I stayed and prayed.

After praying up to the first Sorrowful mystery, instead remaining in place sitting or kneeling, I decided to pray while walking in a circle around the church looking at the stained glass windows, which I love, and, more particularly, the Stations of the Cross. The parish church where I now serve is a contemporary church building. It was built in the late 1960s. I have no doubt many of my fellow Catholics would find it either ugly or nondescript and unappealing. I do not think that at all. In fact, I quite like it. 

Confessional St Olaf's Catholic Church Bountiful, Utah

As I was making my way around the Church for the first time I stopped and stood looking at the Station that shows Jesus falling for the second time. As I did so it occurred to me that the Stations of the Cross are like a long meditation on the fourth and fifth of the Sorrowful mysteries (i.e., Jesus carrying the Cross and His Crucifixion). Then I was struck by the thought that perhaps, like integers, the "space" between each mystery of the Rosary is infinite. There can be no end of meditating on and contemplating the mysteries of our Lord's birth, life, passion and death, and resurrection, on the great Paschal mystery we celebrate all the time, the very mystery that God in His goodness is always at work drawing us more deeply into.

As I continued my walking and praying I ventured into one confessional and then into the other before winding up kneeling before the altar to finish my prayer. Apart from what I shared above, my experience this morning was indescribable. As I was praying in our parish church, which is located in the heart of our city, I think I experienced something very much like what Henri Nouwen must've had in mind when he wrote: "The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it."

Year I Twenty-seventh Friday in Ordinary Time

Readings Joel 1:13-15. 2:1-2; Ps 9:2-3.8(16).8-9; Luke 11:15-26

Today’s first reading, from the Book of the Prophet Joel, sounds a little scary. In this passage Joel, who was a prophet in Israel before the time of Jesus, is calling the priests of Israel to repentance, to return to God, to be faithful to their covenant with God.

A covenant is simply a solemn, binding, and formal agreement entered into by two parties. The covenant between God and Israel is simple: “I will be your God and you will be my people” (Ex 6:7). God said to Israel through another prophet, Jeremiah, “Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people.” (Jer 7:23). Through Joel, God is only asking Israel to keep their end of the covenant.

You entered into God’s covenant when you were baptized. You entered into this covenant with God through Jesus Christ. This covenant was ratified, or made official, by the Holy Spirit. This is true even if you were baptized when you were a baby. If you were baptized as a baby your parents and godparents made very solemn promises to do everything in their power to raise you to practice our Christian faith and to “keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbor.” This covenant is renewed when you are confirmed and, not just at your First Holy Communion, but every time you receive communion, including this morning.

In Holy Communion the Lord gives Himself to us whole and entire. In return, He invites us to offer ourselves to Him completely. When we say “Amen” before we receive Christ's Body and Blood we are telling the Lord that we are for Him, not against Him, that we are committed to do His will in loving response to His great love for us, which He poured out on the Cross.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we recognize that we sometimes, perhaps even often, fail to keep our part of the covenant. Confession is where you go to repent in just the way Joel is calling on the priests of Israel to repent in our first reading. You may be saying, “I am not a priest. Why does that apply to me?” It applies to everyone who is baptized because, by our baptism, we are made members of God’s prophetic, royal, and priestly people.

In today’s Gospel Jesus explains that it is impossible to cast out evil spirits in the name of the devil. He reasons that if the devil casts out demons by his own power he would undermine his on-going efforts to separate people and the world from God. Jesus tells those who question His power, “But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you (Luke 11:20). We know that Jesus did what He did by the power of God because Jesus is God and so the Kingdom of God is now at hand. Christ’s continues His presence in the world by means of the Church, which includes us.

In the creed, which we recite every Sunday and on solemnities, we say of Jesus that “he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” This is an article of our faith. In St John’s Gospel Jesus says something very much like what God said through Jeremiah: “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Jesus gave us two great commandments- to love God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength; to love your neighbor as you love yourself (Matt 22:37-40; Luke 10:27). This is how we are for Jesus and not against Him.

When we’re sent forth at the end of this Mass we are sent forth to keep these commandments, but we do so, not because we are scared of God, but because we know God loves us and we want to love Him in return. Jesus is the proof of God’s love. There is no way Jesus loves us more than by giving Himself to us in Holy Communion. This morning let us come forward and renew our covenant with God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

"You never told me about the fire"

The end of September and the beginning of October have been very slow here on Καθολικός διάκονος. I have had several commitments that have prevented from posting regularly. I hope to resume writing here more regularly. My lack of posting certainly hasn't been the result of lack of things happening in the Church and in the world. I suppose the three biggest stories are Russia's involvement in Syria, the on-going Planned Parenthood pettifoggery, and the Ordinary Synod on Marriage and the Family now taking place in Rome.

I followed last year's Extraordinary Synod very closely and have maintained contact with the issues that arose from it. It has since occurred to me, however, that Synods produce documents. The definitive document a Synod produces is a post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation. Let's face it, documents don't necessarily produce results, especially ones that only seek to exhort.

Probably the two best known post-synodal exhortations since Bl Pope Paul VI inaugurated the Synod of Bishops after the Second Vatican Council are Pope Francis' Evangelii gaudium, which was the exhortation after the Synod on the New Evangelization, which took place while Benedict XVI was still pope, and Pope St John Paul II's Familiaris consortio, the exhortation following the 1980 Synod on the family. In any case, I am very doubtful that the exhortation following these synods will improve on Familiaris consortio, but we'll see.

The dirty little secret is that in many dioceses and parishes marriage preparation is minimal to non-existent and ministry to married couples with children is pretty rare, at least in my experience. But, hey, it's only the future of the Church in each place we're talking about. I suppose we can always just hang our hats on the Lord's promise not to abandon the Church. But we should be well-aware that there are places where Christianity formerly thrived that the Church now either exists only very minimally or does not exist at all, even as the Church Universal remains. It seems to me that every diocese in the United States should be taking pastoral challenges to marriage and family very seriously.

Family Life, by Vincent Evans- City & County of Swansea: Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Collection

It would be nice if this year's Synod was not dominated by discussions and debates about further weakening the bonds of holy matrimony and other issues that only fall tangentially within the scope of the Synod. I read where on Canadian bishop took the opportunity to make an intervention on ordaining women deacons. He's a bishop who was invited to participate and so I guess he can speak about whatever he wants. I will grant that in the lineamenta, the preparatory document for the Synod, women in ministry was mentioned. Now I am not saying that what His Excellency brought up isn't a topic worthy of discussion, it is. But it struck me as a bit beside the point given the enormity of the challenge that needs to be addressed.

In a recent interview with Billboard Stevie Nicks confirmed that her song "Sara" was about aborting the child she conceived with Don Henley. She said that if she had married Henley and given birth to a girl she would've named the child Sara. I am pretty sure that one of the ways women who have had abortions are encouraged to heal is by naming the child. So, I hope this song was something that helped her heal from her abortion. Women are told a lot of lies about abortion and many who believe them wind up crushed.

Our traditio this week is Fleetwood Mac's "Sara"-

Sara, you’re the poet in my heart
Never change, never stop
And now it’s gone
All I ever wanted
Was to know that you were dreaming
(There’s a heartbeat
And it never really died)

God is love and loves you, no matter what

This morning I read Mark 14:43-52, which tells of Judas leading "a crowd with swords and clubs who had come from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders" (43). Judas' purpose was to identify Jesus and see that He was arrested. The signal by which Judas let the crowd, or mob, know it was Jesus was by kissing Him.

It's easy for us project our thoughts and feelings about Judas onto Jesus in that moment. I think it's important to remember that Jesus' disposition towards Judas did not change, even then. Jesus loved Judas, even in that critical moment no more and no less than He loved him previously. Why do I mention this? Because I think we are prone to doubt our Savior's love for us when we have sinned. I realize that this may be a case of me projecting my thoughts and feelings onto you.

God is not fickle, like us. God, who is a communion of love- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- is always at work through the circumstances of our lives bringing about our greatest good. What is our greatest good? Union with Him, to participate, even now, the divine life of the thrice holy God, who is love. It is never a question whether of whether God love us. God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it. Yes, sometimes knowing this is excruciating. The relevant question is always, Do you love God?

All sins are not the same. Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed, "It is not the sins of weakness, but the sins of strength that matter." I think this is true. Sometimes we fail because we're weak. But sometimes we sin in quite deliberate ways, like Judas in his betrayal.

In the Act of Contrition we confess to God, "I have sinned against You, whom I should love above all things." It is so vitally important that we grasp this simple fact: Your failure to love God never, ever causes God, who is our Father because of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, to stop, cease, or temporarily take a break from loving you.

In St Matthew's Gospel we read that after betraying the Lord, realizing what he had done, Judas flung the 30 pieces of silver into the temple and went out and hanged himself (27:5). Think about how different things would've been, if, instead of hanging himself, Judas had flung the money into the temple and beat feet to find Jesus and express his sorrow, instead of deciding to take his own life, which decision was far more fatal than his decision to betray Jesus. I can only surmise that Judas concluded, in the wake of his betrayal, that Jesus stopped loving him. All we need to do to verify this is look at how differently Peter's denial turned out. It's easy to imagine Peter slinking away from the courtyard that night and never being heard from again.

Brennan Manning, that ol' ragamuffin, once that said that he believed the only question Christ will ask us on judgment day is, "Did you believe that I really loved you?" Knowing you are loved no matter what is the only foundation on which to build a happy life.

"Thoroughly wash away my guilt"

It's been refreshing to remind myself over the past week that even if I don't blog about events they still happen. There is so much going on in the world right now that it's difficult to keep up, let alone process. Beginning this evening and extending to mid-day Sunday I will be leading the annual retreat for my brother deacons of the Diocese of Salt Lake City. I would appreciate any prayers you might be willing to offer that God will bless our time together. Our specific focus will be on the various aspects of what constitute diaconal spirituality. To that end, we'll discuss Christian spirituality in general and diaconal spirituality in particular. We'll consider prayer, specifically praying Morning and Evening Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. We'll also discuss the importance of immersing ourselves in Scripture as well penitential practices and the centrality of the Eucharist. Each of these take their origin from what deacons do in the liturgy: lead the prayers of the faithful, read the Gospel and preach, lead the penitential litany, set the table of the Lord and dismiss the faithful.

Anyway, it's Friday, a day of penance during which we remember what our Lord Jesus Christ did on the Cross. It is a cliché to note that we all have our crosses to bear, but we do. We never need go looking for suffering because it has no trouble finding us. It is the Cross of Christ that can keep our suffering from being meaningless. By implying that suffering can be meaningful and even put at the service of God in His on-going mission to reconcile the world to Himself, I don't mean to imply that we will know the specific reasons why we suffer. By and large human suffering is mysterious, made even more so by our Christian belief that God is all-loving, all-good, and all-powerful. In reality, a good portion of my own suffering is simply the result of the choices I make, not all of them bad choices. We can suffer for doing what is right and good.

Because there is so much manifest suffering in the world right now it seems fitting to have as our Friday traditio the Choir of New College Oxford singing Psalm 51, Miserere Mei, Deus:

"Have mercy on me, God, in accord with your merciful love; in your abundant compassion blot out my transgressions" (v 1).