"And as funny as it may seem..."

I have a pretty involved post on Eucharist and liturgy that I was going to finish and post today. Frankly, it's a bit heavy duty for what I want our Friday traditio. to be. Without a doubt, there's no end to other pressing matters about which I could weigh in. In reality, I am exhausted with what's going on in the world, which is not to say that I don't care. I do, very much.

I am even more exhausted with social media. The idea that posting something on Facebook, X, Blue Sky, MeWe, et al. has any effect at all is delusional. So many people are deluded into believing they are in some way influencing opinion and that opinion, in turn, has impact on decisions, etc. What it really achieves for the most part is more and more ideological polarization. In almost every case, the algorithm kicks your ass and takes your lunch. No matter your politics, when you're raging on social media, you're literally raging with the machine. And I don't mean "literally" in a lazy colloquial sense that really means figuratively. More than a paragraph on this would be self-defeating.

Life is temporary. Temporary, to widen the scope, means timebound. Temporality is an antonym of eternity. Because life is temporary, everything in life is temporary. While "I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come," something I profess each Sunday, it is something I have to take on faith. Let's be honest, even though I believe on the basis of what God has revealed in life eternal, I can't claim to really know what happens after death.

Friendships, which run the gamut from friendly acquaintances to deep connections that move between philia and eros, are almost always temporary, despite our adolescent assertions to the contrary. This is not helped by the fact that we are, despite our internal urge to protest, fickle and contradictory creatures. One minute I can't get enough of someone or s/he can't get enough of me. The next, you're an annoyance, a bother, a needy beggar who needs to just go away. Of course, it's rare that someone will say, "We're done, leave me alone." Let's face it, there are those we can't live with or without. That's life. C'est la vie. Que sera, sera, pick a pithy cliché.

In our automated society, in which everyone is a therapist well-trained in that vaunted therapeutic method of posting memes, which largely consist of out of context quotes by authors with whose work the erstwhile therapist has no acquaintance (Nietzsche in this realm has superseded Freud), and everyone who's ever crossed me is a narcissist, life is not only a cliché but a bad one. Just as constant complaints about the narcissism of others is a sure sign of genuine narcissism, serious people, like myself, are usually the least serious people.

I have to say, staring down the barrel at 60 is a bit daunting. It's not the end of the world, but it brings me closer to the end of the world. This awareness is, uh, let's go with sobering. I have to say, I've been enjoying watching an episode of One Foot in the Grave each night. I read an article this week about this very thing: "I pride myself on being a miserable middle-aged man." I probably enjoyed it more than I should have. My only quibble is with the denial inherent in the assertion of middle age.

Speaking of the end of the world, here in northern Utah we've been having late July/early August weather. What I mean by that is high 90s to low 100s. It's as hot as hell. I was notified, via my "smart" devices of a "fire weather warning." Maybe I can use this as preparation for awaits me at the end of the world. I mean that somewhat humorously, I think. I hate the heat. Since I, too, can qualify as an online therapist, I may have something like reverse seasonal affective disorder.

Julian of Norwich's "all will be well" remains for me a well-intended proposition that may yet turn out to be true. My hope is in the name of the Lord. For me, hope takes the form of something deep within me that features a rather sharp, defiant edge. This defiance has saved my life, literally.

I will end with saying how very spiritually useful I have found reading Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour Trilogy. His three novels are a continuous story about World War II. The final installment, which I am now finishing, is Unconditional Surrender.

Guy Crouchback, the main character, is from an aristocratic English west country Catholic recusant family. The novels are loosely based on Waugh's own experiences during the war. Crouchback is Waugh's creation of who he really wanted to be but was not. The second novel of the trilogy, Officers and Gentlemen, culminates with the Battle of Crete. Waugh was in this battle, which resulted in Germany taking Crete. While Waugh's is a fictionalized account, it is written in such a way that only someone who has experienced war could've written it.

Through it all, I find Crouchback's deep and abiding faith, which is neither naive nor sentimental, something of a balm for my soul. While I would say I am not naive when it comes to faith, I do tend to be a bit sentimental. At times, very sentimental. At the risk of being pedantic (a mode that is easy for me to lapse into), I would distinguish between sentimentality and affectivity. Affection is inherent to faith.

While it is probably a repeat (I don't know, I haven't looked), David Lee Roth singing "That's Life" is our Friday traditio. It was either that or "Goin' Crazy," which is also on Roth's Eat 'Em and Smile album. At nearly 60, I can repeat myself now and then, n'est ce pas?

Written by Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon, "That's Life" was first recorded in 1963 by Marion Montgomery. The song was made famous by Frank Sinatra, who recorded it three years later. At least for me, this is reminiscent of "I Did It My Way." Along with John Lennon's "Imagine," "I Did It My Way" is one of my least favorite songs.

When it comes to being a showman, nobody out does Dave:

Year I Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10; Psalm 98:1-4; Matthew 5:38-42

In our reading from Saint Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, in a passage anyone interested in ministry should study, the apostle uses his own experience in ministry to show his brothers and sisters how not to receive God’s grace in vain. He exhorts them and us to follow the teachings of the Lord set forth in our Gospel regardless of circumstances.

One thing Paul is clear about: this is not easy. A Christian follows Christ, according to the apostle:

by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness,
in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech,
in the power of God;
with weapons of righteousness at the right and at the left
through glory and dishonor, insult and praise

If we remain content to live by the lex talionis, which requires an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, then we are no different than the pagans who surround us now as they did the Christians of ancient Corinth. Living differently, even weirdly, by adhering to the Lord’s teaching come what may is precisely how the Lord’s salvation is made known.

In our Gospel, which comes from the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is not speaking elliptically, parabolically, hyperbolically, or figuratively. Rather speaks plainly and unequivocally. The way of the Gospel is the path of maximum resistance as it pertains to our natural and socially reinforced tendencies. The lex talonis seems to be the human default setting.

Endeavoring to become like our Lord is how we receive God’s grace in earnest. What the Lord calls His followers to in this passage is radical trust in and total dependence on God, on God’s provision and God’s justice. Jesus doesn’t just tell us; He shows us by walking His talk.

Too often in the aftermath of some bad experience at the hands of another, I hear something that starts like, “I’m a Christian, but…” This disjunction is usually followed by an intention to do something not in line with the hard teachings of Jesus. Yet, we often persist in justifying ourselves.

Don’t receive God’s grace vain. The Lord perhaps provokes us as much as He consoles us. Take heart. A provocation, by definition, is something for your calling. You are called to eternal life.

Year C Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Readings: Prov 8:22-31; Ps 8:4-9; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

It may surprise many to learn that Christian theology does not begin with the Most Holy Trinity. Christian theology begins with Jesus Christ. It is Christ who reveals God as Father. It is Christ who sends the Holy Spirit to remain present in, among, and through us. It is by means of the Holy Spirit that the Father and Son come to dwell in us.

Perhaps the best way to conceive of the Holy Spirit is as the love between the Father and the Son personified. When we contemplate the phrase that occurs twice in the span of eight verses in the fourth chapter of First John, “God is love,” lest it be narcissism, love requires a lover and beloved.¹ Since love is profuse, that is, outward-looking, it bears fruit.

Love is at the heart of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. It is love that enables us to make sense of our profession of one God in three divine persons. Because love is fruitful, when someone has experienced the love of God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, which experience is what makes you a Christian, you are impelled to share this Good News.

In theological terms, a mystery isn’t something unknown. Rather, a divine mystery is known because God has revealed it. While we cannot apprehend divine mysteries by reason alone, what God reveals is not and cannot be contrary to reason.

This is why the best definition of theology remains the one given by Saint Anselm of Canterbury in the eleventh century: faith seeing understanding. Far from being unknowable, divine mysteries are endlessly knowable. No matter how much you know, grasp, understand, there is always more. One of the attributes of God, after all, is infinitude.

This is just what Jesus is getting at in today’s Gospel, which, again, is taken from the Last Supper Discourse from Saint John’s Gospel. By taking from what the Father has given Him, which is literally everything, the Son gives us the Spirit to guide us into all truth.² All the Father had to reveal He revealed through the Incarnation of His Son. Here we are nearly 2,000 years later being drawn ever more deeply into the mystery of God in Christ by the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth.

Let’s not forget that, according to Sacred Scripture, “the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past… has [now] been manifested.” What is this mystery? “Christ in you.”³ Christ comes to be in you through the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who, through our trials and tribulations, our woes and sufferings, our afflictions, produces genuine hope where otherwise there would be despair.

Hope is the most difficult of the three theological virtues to understand. One thing is certain; hope is not optimism. Hope lies on the far side of optimism. Hope is that tiny flickering flame that is left when your optimism has run out. Very often, optimism is about what I want. Hope, by contrast, is about seeking, knowing, doing and accepting God’s will come what may. It is the realization that my ways are not God’s ways.

I believe that philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was correct in his insistence that it is better to show than to say. This is what the saints do for us. Through their lives, they make what is abstract concrete. Their witness makes the metaphysical existential, the transcendent immanent, the hard to grasp graspable.

On Trinity Sunday 1925, a non-descript man was making his way up Granby Lane in Dublin, Ireland to attend Mass at Saint Savior’s church. While walking he collapsed. In the next day’s edition, the Irish Independent newspaper reported: “An elderly man collapsed in Granby Lane yesterday and, on being taken to Jervis Street Hospital, was found to be dead. He was wearing a tweed suit, but there was nothing to indicate who he was.”

Matt Talbot, used Under a Creative Commons License

Once at the hospital, while treating him, the doctors discovered that he had wound a chain around his waist and more chains around an arm and a leg, as well as cords around the other arm and leg. The chains found on his body at death were not weird self-torture. Rather, they were a symbol of his devotion to Mary, Mother of God, to whom he had entrusted himself completely. This man’s name was Matt Talbot.

Talbot was born into a relatively poor working-class family in Dublin. Like a lot of young men of that time and place, Matt started working full-time to help support his family at the age of twelve. His first job was with a wine merchant. To make a long story short, by the age of thirteen, he was considered a hopeless alcoholic.

Fifteen years later, broke and unable to drink on credit, Matt waited outside a pub he frequented hoping a friend would invite him in for a drink, a favor he had extended many times to broke friends. After several friends walked past him into the pub without inviting him in, he went home. Upon arriving home, Matt told his mother he was going “to take the pledge” and give up alcohol.

Matt followed through on his promise, pledging not to drink for three months. “The pledge” also consisted of making a general confession and attending Mass daily. At the end of three months, he took the pledge for another six months and then for life. Through an austere, prayerful, penitential manner of life, he remained sober for the rest of his life, right up until that Trinity Sunday when he collapsed on Granby Lane.

As it turned out, Matt was not hopeless. Hope was all he had. It was through his affliction that he came to understand hope, to live in hope. “It’s as hard to give up the drink as it is to raise the dead to life again,” he noted. “But” he insisted, “both are possible and even easy for our Lord. We have only to depend on him.”

The first several years of his sobriety were very difficult for Matt. But he prayed, attended Mass, went to confession, read and learned about his faith, supported the missions and charities from his modest earnings. In other words, he made use of the means of grace that Mother Church provides for all her children. During two general strikes, being single and living a very austere life, Matt gave money to fellow strikers who were married with children.

After he sobered up, Matt sought to repay all his debts. Once, while in the throes of alcoholism, Talbot stole a fiddler’s fiddle and sold it for money to buy booze. After he was in his right mind, he searched for the fiddler whose instrument he stole to pay him back. He failed to find him and so he gave the money to have a Mass said for the man whose livelihood he took.

Venerable Matt Talbot became a beacon of hope. He led an austere life of deep, even mystical prayer. But apart from knowing that he was “religious” and went to Mass a lot, his fellow workers, neighbors and even his siblings did not really understand the depth of his sanctity until after his death. He was quiet, soft-spoken, unremarkable, unassuming, someone who’s yes meant yes and no meant no. In the eyes of the world, he was literally a nobody.

Of course, not every Christian (or even most Christians) is called to live a life of extreme penance like Matt Talbot. We are, however, called to place our hope in Christ with the same love and devotion, to have the same commitment to our Savior, recoginizing our need and honoring what He has done for us.

And so, you don’t need to look for the Trinity up in the sky, or in some abstract philosophical construct, as useful as these can sometimes be. God is always right in front of you, if you have eyes to see. Another of God’s attributes is omnipresence. Being a Christian is an existential commitment, a commitment to living each day in what is now and has always been a peculiar way. Genuine hope is weird. As Flannery O'Connor put it: "You shall know the truth and the truth will make you odd."

Walking with the Lord can sometimes seem like a dry and dusty path to nowhere. But Venerable Matt Talbot, along with other holy women and men, shows us what it means to walk the road of faith, which gives us access to the grace in which we stand.

---

1 1 John 4:8.16.^↩
2 John 16:13.^↩
3 Colossians 1:26-27.^↩

"A Long [Week] in the Universe"

Two competing but untimately reconcibilable narratives: ICE raids are the reason for the L.A. protests. And,these protests are, quite clearly, planned and materially supported by organized groups. Hence, the L.A. protests have been violent and destructive from the get-go by design.

This is the circus that passes for our politics. I could unpack this more but will forego such commentary. Nothing will come of such theater one way or the other. Of course, most reporting on what is happening in L.A. is predictably, even woefully, incomplete. As usual, there is a lot going on that is easy enough to find out if you look but that complicates the simplistic narrativeswe have foisted on us day after day. It isn't just theater, it's a particular kind of theater: an annoying morality play. Morality plays are neither complex nor subtle nor interesting.

It would be hard for me to care less about what's on tap for tomorrow, either the upcoming "big" event or the protest against it. In any case, looks like rain.

Used Under a Creative Commons License

What is causing a reconsideration of hardcore immigrant deportation policies are complaints by farmers and those in the hospitality business. Such complaints, which do not seem to be falling on deaf ears, bring into bold relief how important immigrant labor is to the functioning of our economy. This should prompt another attempt at comprehensive immigration reform.

This reform would necessarility include, among other things, a guest worker program. Such a program would protect immigrant laborers and allow certain industries to remain profitable. While securing the border, there are ways to move forward as a country on immigration, even to create a win/win situation. Neither side is inerested in that, this is clear. It is also way I am on neither side.

Today's Friday post is a bit delayed. It's been a busy week. As I am sure you know, there are different kinds of busy. For me this week, it's been the annoying and not terribly productive or enjoyable kinds of busy-ness.

My wife and I did celebrate our thirty-second wedding anniversary. This means we watched So, I Married an Axe Murderer. Apart from that, we kept things pretty low-key.

We love So, I Married an Axe Murderer. It's a fun movie. It also came out the year we were married. We saw it twice at the dollar movies because that was entertainment we could afford at the time. I can't say that we've watched it each and every year of our marriage. We have watched it nearly every year. I still have the CD of the film's soundtrack, which consists of great early nineties music.

I was 27 when we married. So, as of four years ago, I've been married for longer than I was single. I keep waiting for marriage to "get" easy. I have to remind myself that any marriage involving me will likely never be easy.

I also keep waiting to reach that age when I will have things figured out. In the latter case, I am not referring to life's big questions, but merely to those things that pertain to my own life. I am quite certain I will never be a wise man, old or otherwise. I am okay with that. A certain amount of foolishness seems to suit me well.

If I may be permitted to blog about blogging for a moment, I am pretty happy with 2025 thus far in terms of this effort. I am especially happy with the fact that I haven't really missed a Friday traditio and the year is nearly half over! Because today's is so late, I don't admitting that I had to force myself to step up.

I am preparing to lead a series of seven adult study sessions on Pope Saint John Paul II's 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae. This to mark the encyclical's thirtieth anniversary. I hope to do another series on Pope Francis' Apostolic Letter on liturgical formation, Desiderio desideravi, followed by an Advent study of Isaiah's Servant Songs.

Our traditio for our first Friday back in Ordinary Time (even though today is the Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, a Doctor of the Church- a good day to find lost things), which is the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time is from the soundtrack for So, I Married an Axe Murderer. The song? "Long Day in the Universe" by The Darling Buds. In all honesty, the song barely features in the movie, but it's on the album and I like it:

Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church

Readings: Genesis 3:9-15, 20; Psalm 87:1-3.5-7; John 19:25-34

Our readings tell of two trees. In the lush verdant garden, there is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On a barren, dusty hill outside the holy city, is where we find the tree of life.

While the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is living and flourishing, its fruit tempting and seemingly irresistible, two intersecting pieces of dead wood make up the tree of life.

Just as there are two trees, there are two women (in our Gospel more, but one on whom we turn our focus). Both are mothers: Eve, the mother of the all the living and Mary, the Mother of the Church, the Mother of all reborn through baptism. The first woman, desirous of becoming like God and seeing the delicious fruit, partakes of it, despite God’s dire warning. The second sits grieving underneath the tree of life, the fruit of which is the bleeding, dying body of her only Son.

Between these two poles unfolds the time and space of God’s plan of redemption, in effect from the foundation of the world. In his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul sets this forth succinctly:

creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God¹

It is vital to grasp that the death and resurrection of His only begotten Son is not God’s Plan B. Jesus Christ is and was from the beginning not just God’s Plan A, but God’s only plan. As Paul notes, this is a great mystery. Stated analytically, this mystery is about squaring divine providence with human freedom. We certainly have no time for that now.

Maybe it is because we are made in God’s image that we have an inherent desire not only to be “like” God but to be God. Maybe this is what gives birth to the human desire to determine for oneself what is true, right, and just.

This original sin is at the root of every personal sin. First and foremost, each sin is a sin against God, whom should be loved above all things. Sin consists of loving myself above all things. This is deadly both temporally and eternally. The serpent strikes at your head by exploiting your human vulnerability; your creatureliness ultimately betrays the lie of any divine pretensions.

How is this deadly blow thwarted? In the theo-drama that is salvation history, it is foiled by a humble, nondescript teenage girl in the village of Nazareth with the words, given in reply to archangel’s announcement that she is to bear God’s Son, “May it be done to me according to your word.”² Her selflessness is what breaks the cycle of human self-absorption, our fascination with nothingness.

The Marian principle is the heart of the Church. The Marian principle is nothing other than her selfless fiat, her total “Yes!” to God. Mary is the creature who places the analogia entis (i.e., the relationship between the beings in creation and the being of God) into bold relief. In contrast to Eve, Mary does this by accepting the lowliness of creaturehood.

On 18 November 1964, at the end of the Third Session of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Saint Paul VI, in his weekly General Audience, noted:

Mary… occupies a very singular position; she too is a member of the Church, she is redeemed by Christ, she is our sister; but precisely by virtue of her election as Mother of the Redeemer of humanity, and by reason of her perfect and eminent representation of the human race, she can rightly be said morally and typically to be the Mother of all men, and especially ours, of us believers and redeemed, the Mother of the Church, the Mother of the Faithful [translation mine]³

Somewhat controversially, due to ecumenical worries, Pope Paul declared that he was ending this session of the Council “in the joy of recognizing Our Lady's rightful title of Mother of the Church ‘Mater Ecclesiae’.”⁴ Mary is Mother of the Church. Being deeply Marian, the Church, in turn, is our mater et magistra- mother and teacher.

Mary was in the midst of the earliest Christian community at the beginning of the Church at Pentecost.⁵ The Church exists to elicit, enable and sustain and our total “Yes!” to God.

On 11 February 2018, the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, which marked the one hundred sixtieth anniversary of the Blessed Mother’s apparitions to another humble, nondescript young woman- Saint Bernadette Soubirous, Pope Francis signed the decree inserting the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church into the Roman Calendar, to be observed the Monday after Pentecost.

Don’t hesitate to fly unto our Blessed Mother. Go to her. Stand before her, sinful and sorrowful. Implore her not to despise your petitions, but in her maternal care and concern, to hear and answer your prayers. Pray the Rosary often, daily if possible. Pray the Memorare. Now that we are back in Ordinary Time, pray the Angelus three times a day: morning, noon, and evening.

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1 Romans 8:20-21.^↩
2 Luke 1:38.^↩
3 Pope Paul VI. General Audience, 18 November 1964. ^↩
4 Ibid.^↩
5 Acts 1:14.^↩

Pentecost- Mass During the Day

Readings: Acts 2:1-11; Ps 104.1.24.29-31.34; 1 Cor 12:3b-7.12-13; John 14:15-16.23b-26

Today, sisters and brothers, is a glorious day! Our observance of Pentecost is second in importance only to Easter. Yes, Pentecost is more important than Christmas. Sadly, we often do not observe it as if this were the case.

Pentekostos in Greek means fifty. Pentecost, then, is observed fifty days after Easter. Originally Pentecost was (and remains) one of the eight major festivals around which the Jewish religious calendar revolves. The Hebrew name for this celebration is Shauv’ot, which means “weeks”.

For Jews then as now, the first of the three days of Shauv’ot, calculated from the first day of Passover, is fifty days. Because Greek was the lingua franca of the ancient Mediterranean world, Shauv’ot was called Pentecost. Originally a summer harvest festival, in time Shauv’ot became the commemoration of God’s giving Torah through Moses on Mount Sinai.

For observant Jews, Shauv’ot is the time each year to renew one’s acceptance of Torah. It is the time one recommits to adhere to God’s law. This bears some similarity to the renewal of our baptismal promises at Easter.

Far from supplanting or replacing Israel, as Saint Paul observed in his Letter to the Romans, the Church is “a wild olive shoot” grafted onto the olive tree that is Israel. As a result, Christians, according to Paul, “have come to share in the rich root of the olive tree.”¹

Therefore, the apostle warns Christians in ancient Rome, not to boast against the natural branches of the tree- not to boast against the Jews. “If you do boast,” he warns, “consider that you do not support the root; the root supports you.”² This is why, during another period of intense anti-Semitism, Pope Pius XI emphatically insisted “Spiritually, we are Semites.”³ No Law, no Gospel. No Torah, no Pentecost. No Moses, no Jesus. No Israel, no Church.

The reason so many Jews from throughout the known world were present in Jerusalem, was to observe Pentecost. But this event became one much greater than God revealing Torah. The descent of the Holy Spirit, who is now the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence in and for the world! This is the beginning of the fulfillment of the words of the risen Lord in the account of His Ascension found in the previous chapter of Acts that the apostles would give witness to Christ’s resurrection beginning at Jerusalem.⁴

Just as Christians are not, in essence, a people of the book, as is sometimes supposed, but a people of the resurrected Lord, Jesus is not a new Moses. He is Messiah and Lord as well as God and man.

As God, He is giver of Torah. As man, He is the one- the only one- who fulfills the Law. Jesus accomplished in His own person what neither Israel nor the Church can achieve without Him. The Law is holy, we are not. Christ alone is why we can call the Church “holy.”

Pentecost is reckoned to be the beginning of the Church because it was then the Gospel began to be preached, was received in faith and, as a result, people were baptized. Being verum corpus Christi, Christ’s very Body, extended through time and space the Church is utterly essential for salvation. Without the Church, there is no salvation.

Pentecost, used Under a Creative Commons License

Our Gospel reading comes from the Last Supper Discourse found in Saint John’s Gospel. Obviously, the disciples were distressed about what the Lord was telling them would happen. In light of His impending death, they wondered how might God’s kingdom might be established. The Lord tells them that if they love Him and endeavor to keep His commandments, which is to love each other as He loves them, He will send them an Advocate to remain with them always.

The Holy Spirit, whose mission is not to reveal novel things- this is the stuff of sects and cults- but to continually remind us of all that Jesus taught and guide us deeper into this mystery. As Saint Paul insists in our second reading, you cannot arrive at the truth “Jesus is Lord” apart from it being revealed to you by the Holy Spirit.⁵

Theologically, mysteries are not things unknown. Instead, they are known because God reveals them. While divine mysteries are not discoverable by reason alone, they are consonant with and even constitutive of reason.

In this sense, a mystery isn’t unknowable as much as endlessly knowable- you will never reach the end because there will always be more to know. That doesn't mean we can't know anything. God has given us reason and revelation, scripture and tradition.

Being the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence in, among, and through us, the Holy Spirit is how the Lord fulfills His promise to remain with the Church always until He returns. Hence, the Holy Spirit does not bear witness to the Holy Spirit but to Jesus Christ, our kyrios and theos, our Lord and our God.⁶

The descent of the Holy Spirit is the third of the Glorious mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary. Its fruit is God’s love for us. Christ’s love for us is sealed by sending the Spirit as the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise never to abandon His Church. When she is unfaithful, He is ever faithful.

Elsewhere in his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul, reminds members of the Church in Rome, “you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.”⁷ “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,” he continues, “the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.”⁸

On this Pentecost, let us reaffirm our commitment to live life in the Spirit. This is life in Christ, it is ecclesial life, the apex of which is what we’re doing here now: Eucharist. Indeed, life in the Spirit is rooted in gratitude. It is rooted in gratitude to God who demonstrated His love for us by giving “his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”⁹

“We do not pretend that life is all beauty,” Pope Saint John Paul II pointed out. “We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain,” he continued. “But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through his own pain to the glory of the Resurrection.”¹⁰

And so, as this Easter season ends, let’s continue to live in the light of Christ’s Paschal Mystery- the mystery of His Death and Resurrection. Let us remember, in season and out, always and everywhere, “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!”¹¹

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1 Romans 11:17.^↩
2 Romans 11:18.^↩
3 G.M. Willebrands. Church and Jewish People. Paulist Press, 1992, p. 60. ^↩
4 Acts 1:8.^↩
5 1 Corinthians 12:3; Matthew 16:17.^↩
6 John 20:28.^↩
7 Romans 8:9.^↩
8 Romans 8:11.^↩
9 John 3:16.^↩
10 Pope John Paul II. Angelus, 30 November 1986.^↩
11 Ibid.^↩

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.