Cyber community

In a spirit of Lenten goodwill, I direct the anonymous poster, who obviously took offense to my post In the Catholic Church deacons are clergy, which I posted more than a month ago, to another post, Deacons are clergy, part III- A correction. Part II was about permanent deacons and celibacy. However, I fail to see what relevance the issue had to my post Soul Strumming.

Just as I am reminded from time-to-time by readers, like Adrian, who help hold me accountable for what I post, I remind readers that I do not mind publishing anonymous posts as long they are relevant and not negative or critical. Just as I am willing to own everything I write here, including mistaken posts, which I do not delete, like the original deacons are clergy post, I expect commenters to write with the same integrity. I dislike passive-aggressive behavior, especially when I engage in it. So, let's help each other out.

Making justice our aim

"Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan's plea, defend the widow. Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool" (Isa. 1,16-18).

I have fully recovered from Thursday's Go-Gofest. It did take almost two full days. This brings me back to the subject of Lent, the Church's springtime. Lent is about change, about blossoming, about becoming individually and together what God created and redemed us to be. This means, as we are exhorted in the reading from Isaiah, which is the reading for Lauds today, making "justice [our] aim". In that regard I have been focusing a lot recently on the issue of immigration. I would like to shift gears and shine a bit of light on our system of justice, that is, our courts, etc. As with immigration, I do not claim to be an expert. However, there are experts, women and men who daily work for justice, whose work is not just a way of earning a living, but a contribution to humanity. One such person is attorney Ron Yengich, who is Utah's best defense attorney. Ron is also a parishioner at The Cathedral of the Madeleine. In fact, it was Ron who reminded me, by giving me a holy card, of the anniversary last fall of the election of Il Papa Buono to the Chair of St. Peter.

Ron Lafferty, left, and Yengich review Lafferty's
murder case in Provo courtroom in September 2002.
(Stuart Johnson, Deseret Morning News)
In the most recent issue of our diocesan newspaper, the Intermountain Catholic, there is an article by Barbara Stinson Lee, the paper's editor, on Ron and his work. While encouraging anyone interested in justice to read the entire article, I want to post the beginning of Ron Yengitch (sic): Why We Defend the Guilty:
"Criminal Defense Attorney Ron Yengitch (sic), a member of Cathedral Parish, has a forgiveness story. It involves a woman whose son was killed by one of Yengitch's (sic) clients. During the sentencing phase of the trial, the victim's mother was given the opportunity to speak. Instead of railing against the perpetrator of the terrible crime, she spoke instead of healing.

"'She told the judge my client had apologized and that putting him in prison for life was not going to help her heal,' Yengitch (sic) said. 'It wouldn't bring her son back.'

"Courtroom scenes like that happen periodically, Yengitch (sic) said, and they are graced moments.

"'People think jail or prison time is a slap on the wrist,' he said, in an interview with the Intermountain Catholic. 'There are no slaps on the wrist in the American justice system any more. There are kicks in the crotch or slaps on the back of the head. Then, there are actual executions, but there are no slaps on the wrist'".

This last observation should give us all pause, especially in light of our faith, in light of what God's word tells us. I think of the movie Office Space, a film I like a great deal. When the main characters realize that their illegal activities, ripping off the company for which they work, are in danger of being discovered, they begin to worry about their punishment. When Michael Bolton begins to consider what their judicially mandated punishment would be upon their convictions, he laments loudly about being sentenced to serve time in "a federal pound-me-in-the-a** prison". Of course we laugh on cue. I can think of two films that might be educational, even formational, in this regard as we move through Lent: American Me and American History X. I give fair warning, these are not easy films to watch, let alone to digest.

Returning to the IC article, Yengich insists that "[s]howing mercy does not mean we are taking guilt lightly." He reminds us of something important right at the heart of Catholic moral theology with a real world example: "guilt is often relative to circumstances. Who is the drug addict and who is the supplier? Most people sell drugs to supply their own habits. What would happen if we, out of mercy, offered treatment?" Hmmmm . . . I wonder. I worry about Christians who think getting what is deserved is what justice is all about. It is not. Such an idea is contrary to God's justice. After all, dear brother, do you really want what you deserve? I can tell you that I, for one, do not, either for you or for me. I frequently throw myself at the mercy of the heavenly court. Thank you Jesus.

Indeed, we are washed clean in baptism and cleansed again and again through reconciliation, of which penance is but a part. I am so thankful for, not to mention awestruck by, Christians who serve, who daily exercise the ministry (i.e., diakonia) proper to our baptismal vocation, which is confirmed in our anointing with sacred chrism, also known as Chrismation. Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, tells us that lay Christians "are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world.

"What specifically characterizes the laity is their secular nature. . . the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity. Therefore, since they are tightly bound up in all types of temporal affairs it is their special task to order and to throw light upon these affairs in such a way that they may come into being and then continually increase according to Christ to the praise of the Creator and the Redeemer" (par. 31- emboldening and underlining mine). Put simply, the laity do all God's heavy-lifting in the world. On this view the most important role of the ordained is to give support and encouragement to the laity in their ministry of sanctifying the world.

Il Papa Buono, pray for us.

Over on Cahiers are two more posts relative to this topic: Immigration: A Catholic Response and Barak Obama and the language of hope.

Something cool for today and tomorrow as a make up for last week

To make up for missing last week and to show that I am not really a party pooper to all you V-day-o-philes (note the name of the store they go into in Our Lips Are Sealed), a double dose of the Go-Gos, whose bassist is/was Kathy Valentine, for this week's Καθολικός διάκονος traditio, and a day early. So, here are the the cuties of the LA punk scene. Yes, the L.A. punk scene. If you knew it, then you'd know. The sound quality on We Got the Beat is not great, but this early video, filmed in London, is a great flashback. The song works much better with a raucous, particpating, out-of-control audience.

That's more like it, home at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go- L.A. 1981.

Go-Go music really makes us dance
Do the Pony puts us in a trance
Do the Watusi just give us a chance
That's when we fall in line

Yes it does:


Yes, there are a million and one other things I should be doing. Help!!

Last week's missing traditio

V-day in way too many offices. Title: Preparing for the V-day Club Scene, or Work, the way it was meant to be. You make the call.

Today is not Saint Valentine's Day

Secularly today is Valentine's Day, the day of inventive lingerie, like red teddies, as well as champagne, chocolate, and various lotions and oils. Valentine, along with Christopher and others whose historicity was highly doubtful, were removed from the liturgical calendar in the 1969 revision, which was part of the reform initiated by the Second Vatican Council.

Instead, today we observe the memorial of Sts. Cyril & Methodius. These two brothers, who lived in the ninth century, were missionaries to the Slavs and beyond. In 1980, the late, great Pope John Paul II, a Slavic pope who had only been wearing the shoes of the Fisherman for a few months, in an ecumenically magnanimous gesture to our Orthodox sisters and brothers, named these great saints as co-patrons of Europe. Hence, Europe has three male patrons and three female patrons: St. Benedict, St. Cyril, St. Methodius, along with St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (a.k.a. Edith Stein), and St. Catherine of Sienna

Sts Cyril & Methodius were born in Thessalonica (Thessaloniki/Salonica- fascinating city, previously referenced on Καθολικός διάκονος- the Church to which St. Paul addressed two letters). Cyril was educated in Constantinople. Together they went to Moravia to preach the faith. They translated liturgical texts into the Slavonic language and invented the Glagolithic and possibly also the Cyrillic alphabet. After Cyril's death, Methodius went to Pannonia, where he was assiduous in the work of evangelization. In the complicated international politics of the time he suffered much from attacks by his enemies, but he was always supported by the Popes.

I am not opposed to the observance of Valentine's Day, but neither do I feel compelled to dive in, epecially given that this year we are already in Lent. Besides, as a Christian, without sounding too sanctimonious, glib, or maudlin, everyday is a celebration of love, even in Lent.

I also want to draw attention to last Monday, 11 February, which marked the 150th anniversary of the Blessed Virgin's first apparition to St. Bernadette Soubrious at Lourdes, France. While I may not have blogged about it, we observed it with our faith community, that is, our parish. I also want to draw attention to two items I posted today on politics over on Cahiers- Making a prudential judgment based on reason: Immigration and Two questions.

The absolute priority of God's love

"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.

"This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him" (1 Jn 4,7-16-underlining and emboldening mine).

The Last Supper, by Boninsegna

I do not presently feel either the need or the desire to be original. I am trying to listen, both to God and to other people. Frankly, in my job and my ministry I get tired of hearing myself. Last evening I had my first series of meetings with people who are preparing to either enter the Church or complete their Christian initiation at the great Easter Vigil. It was a blessing and a privilege to listen to their stories, their questions, their hopes, and concerns.

The above passage is what I want to convey to each of them because it is God's word, not mine. Receiving the sacraments is just that, receiving. Therefore, the only question is, Will you receive what God, who is love because He is Father, Son, and Spirit- a communion of persons- wants desparately to give you? Jesus on the Cross is the sign of God's desparation for you, for me, for us all. This is the ONLY question, there is no other one. This what that God wants to give us is a who, a Person, His Son, Jesus Christ, who calls us to be His friends.

Please, please, please do not reduce Christianity to moralism, this is perhaps the worst distortion of the Good News that is Jesus Christ because it is the most common distortion. To that end, I post again that wonderful passage by Fr. Radcliffe, who writes: "The Church has nothing to say about morality until our listeners have glimpsed God's delight in their existence. People often come to us carrying heavy burdens, with lives not in accord with the Church's teaching, the fruit of complex histories. We have nothing to say at all until people know that God rejoices in their very existence, which is why they exist at all" (What is the Point of Being a Christian? pg. 59). As to burdens, let's turn again to scripture, to St. Matthew's Gospel, eleventh chapter, twenty-eighth to thirtieth verses, where Jesus, speaking to you and me, says: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."

Diaconal dialogue with the Holy Father

Each year as the bishop of Rome, the Holy Father meets with the clergy of his diocese, that is, his auxiliary bishops, priests and deacons. While deacons are formed and trained to follow Jesus the deacon, to serve and not be served, to not seek approval and ego gratification, it is necessary from time-to-time, as in all human endeavors, to be encouraged, especially by our bishop. In our diocese we receive constant encouragement and affirmation from Bishop Wester. Since his installation last year, Bishop Wester has taken a keen interest in the diaconate, in his deacons. Of course, we always had a great friend and father in now-Archbishop Niederauer, but I digress. During this meeting the Holy Father was asked a question by one of his deacons. The following is the Zenit transcript of the dialogue, to which my dear friend Rocco, over at Whispers, drew my attention:

"Holy Father, I would like first of all to express my gratitude and that of my brother deacons for the ministry that the Church so providentially has taken up again with the [Second Vatican] Council, a ministry that allows us to fully express our vocation. We are committed in a great variety of works that we carry out in vastly different environments: family, work, parish, society, also the missions of Africa and Latin America -- areas that you indicated for us in the audience you granted us on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the diaconate of the Diocese of Rome.

"Now our numbers have grown -- there are 108 of us. And we would like for you to indicate a pastoral initiative that could become a sign of a more incisive presence of the permanent diaconate in the city of Rome, as it happened in the first centuries of the Roman Church. In fact, sharing a significant, common objective, on one hand increases the cohesion of diaconal fraternity and on the other, would give greater visibility to our service in this city. We present you, Holy Father, the desire that you indicate to us an initiative that we can share in the way and the manner that you wish to specify. In the name of all the deacons, I greet you, Holy Father, with filial affection."

Pope Benedict XVI replied:

"Thank you for this testimony as one of the more than 100 deacons of Rome. I would like to also express my joy and my gratitude for the Council, because it revived this important ministry in the universal Church. I should say that when I was archbishop of Munich, I didn't find perhaps more than three or four deacons, and I very much favored this ministry because it seemed to me to belong to the richness of the sacramental ministry in the Church. At the same time, it can equally be the link between the lay world, the professional world, and the world of the priestly ministry -- given that many deacons continue carrying out their professions and maintain their positions -- important or those of a simple life -- while on Saturday and Sunday they work in the Church. In this way, you give witness in the world of today, as well as in the working world, of the presence of faith, of the sacramental ministry and the diaconal dimension of the sacrament of Orders. This seems very important to me: the visibility of the diaconal dimension.

"Naturally as well, every priest continues being a deacon, and should always think of this dimension, because the Lord himself made himself our minister, our deacon. We can think of the gesture of the washing of the feet, with which he explicitly shows that the master, the Lord, acts as a deacon and wants those who follow him to be deacons, that they fulfill this role for humanity, to the point that they also help to wash the dirtied feet of the men entrusted to us. This dimension seems very important to me.

"On this occasion, I bring to mind -- though it is perhaps not immediately inherent to the theme -- a simple experience that Paul VI noted. Each day of the Council, the Gospel was enthroned. And the Pontiff told those in charge of the ceremony that he would like one time to be the one who enthrones the Gospel. They told him no, this is the job of the deacons, not of the Pope. He wrote in his diary: But I am also a deacon, I continue being a deacon, and I would like to also exercise this ministry of the diaconate placing the word of God on its throne. Thus, this concerns all of us. Priests continue being deacons, and the deacons make explicit in the Church and in the world this diaconal dimension of our ministry. This liturgical enthroning of the word of God each day during the Council was always for us a gesture of great importance: It told us who was the true Lord of that assembly; it told us that the word of God was on the throne and that we exercise our ministry to listen and to interpret, to offer to the others this word. It is broadly significant for all that we do: enthroning in the world the word of God, the living word, Christ. May it really be him who governs our personal life and our life in the parishes.

"Now, you have asked me a question that, I must say, goes a bit beyond my strengths: What would be the tasks proper to the deacons of Rome. I know that the cardinal vicar knows much better than I the real situations of the city and the diocesan community of Rome. I think that one characteristic of the ministry of the deacons is precisely the multiplicity of the diaconate's applications. In the International Theological Commission, a few years ago, we studied at length the diaconate in the history and also the present of the Church. And we discovered just that: There is not just one profile. What they should do varies, depending on the preparation of the persons and the situations in which they find themselves. There can be applications and activities that are very different, always in communion with the bishop and with the parish, naturally. In the various situations, various possibilities arise, also depending on the professional preparation that these deacons could have. They could be committed in the cultural sector, which is so important today, or they could have a voice and an important post in the educational realm. We are thinking this year precisely of the problem of education as central to our future, and the future of humanity.

"Certainly the sector of charity was in Rome the original sector, because those called presbyters and deacons were centers of Christian charity. This was from the beginning in the city of Rome a fundamental area. In my encyclical 'Deus Caritas Est,' I showed that not just preaching and the liturgy are essential for the Church and for the ministry of the Church, but rather equally important is the service of caritas -- in its multiple dimensions -- for the poor, the needy. Thus, I hope that all the time, in the whole diocese, even if in distinct situations, this continues being a fundamental dimension, and also a priority for the commitment of the deacons, even if not the only one, as is also shown in the early Church, where the seven deacons were chosen precisely to permit the apostles to dedicate themselves to prayer, liturgy and preaching. Also afterward, Stephen found himself in the situation of having to preach to the Greeks, to the Jews who spoke Greek, and thus the field of preaching was amplified. He is conditioned, we could say, by the cultural situation, where he has a voice to make present in that sector the word of God. In that way, he makes more possible the universality of the Christian testimony, opening the doors to St. Paul who witnessed his stoning, and later, in a certain sense, was his successor in the universalization of the word of God. I don't know if the cardinal vicar would like to add something; I'm not as close to the concrete situations."

You can read Cardinal Ruini's comments by clicking the word Zenit above.