"Just sees what he wants to see"

I am pretty sure that my reflection on last Sunday's readings was my least popular post ever (see "Guarding against the desire for more"). As I ruminated on this a bit (I've blogged too long to obsess over such things), I wouldn't change a thing. The past few times we have cycled through Year C of the Sunday lectionary, I have been struck by how challenging St. Luke's Gospel is during this long stretch of Ordinary Time between Pentecost and the Feast of Christ the King. This is especially true, it seems to me, for the Sundays that fall during these hot summer months. As Jesus teaches his School of Discipleship whilst on the way to Jerusalem, we are provoked virtually every week. Jesus shakes us out of our lazy notions about what it means to follow him as well as our self-serving ideas about the kingdom of God.

One of the great benefits of blogging independently and doing it for absolutely free is that people can take it or leave it. As I have written many times before, at least in the first instance, I blog because I find it personally beneficial. If others find some benefit from reading Καθολικός διάκονος, so much the better. It comes as no surprise at this point in my life, ministry, and blogging that people are happy to leave what makes them uncomfortable. As Tolstoy observed a long time ago: "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Jesus is relentless in his call to conversion to those with ears to hear and eyes to see, especially those of us who are relatively well-off and comfortable. By no means do I exempt myself from this critique. Heaven knows I need to change A LOT to be conformed fully to the image of Christ.

It occurred to me this week that in attempting to meet the Enlightenment-generated demand for certainty, Church doctrine since about the mid-eighteenth century, began to be formulated in a highly reductive and hyper-detailed manner, seeking a clarity and precision that is just as illusory in the realm of divine revelation as it is in the natural sciences. Inherent to this shift is the risk of getting it wrong. In no aspect has this tendency been more pronounced than in the realm of human sexuality. Of course, this is the result of a very reductive and quite unnatural formulation of natural law.

The Second Vatican Council's insistence that truth is hierarchical (see Unitatis redintegratio, sec. 11), it seems to me, provides a lever to help the Church overturn this reductive tendency. Contrary to what many think, sexual morality and whatever ethics might flow from it are not first order theological concerns. In fact, sexual morality is a third order issue. Recognizing Church teaching on sexuality is not dogmatic is a first step to dealing with the genuine complexity and ambiguity of human sexuality.

It has been noted that a major hallmark of spiritual maturity is the ability to deal with ambiguity. Ambiguity is nothing other than humility in the face of the complexity of reality. Other names for ambiguity are "mystery" and "wonder." Doctrine should never reduce mystery to human measure or seek to eradicate wonder. When it comes to the complexity of the human person, this is nothing less than a reflection of the imago Dei, the very source of our humanity.

To tie the first and second part of what I wrote above together, while the imago Dei is ineradicable, our likeness to God is lost through sin and restored by grace. As the Angelic Doctor noted: grace builds on nature. Hence, the orders of grace and nature not only complement but complete each other.

My next to youngest son, who is 10, has developed a great love for The Beatles. While, like everyone, there are a few Beatles' songs I really like, I cannot say I am a great Beatles fan. This is simply the result of never having gone through a Beatles phase in my life. One of The Beatles' songs I like, a song with which my son was unfamiliar until last Sunday, is "Nowhere Man." So, "Nowhere Man" is our Friday traditio for this summertime week: