"God alone is my rock and salvation"

Tonight is one of those nights I wish I had something really catchy to post, but I don't. Life can be scary and disorienting if you let it, but I don't. Reality doesn't scare me only because I trust in God. Tonight it bears reiterating that karma is far inferior to grace. With karma you always and inevitably get what you deserve; with karma what goes around comes around (how does reincarnation as a cockroach sound?).

Grace works differently, as the U2 song indicates- "Grace/She takes the blame/She covers the shame/Removes the stain/It could be her name." I mean, if I only get what I give, then, if I'm honest, I should not expect very much, if anything, except probably winding up with a negative balance. Besides, to truly love means to give with no expectation of return, which is why truly loving another is a form of ascesis. It is a difficult thing to gaze at myself as Christ gazes at me.

In times like these the Psalms are a great comfort that provide me a way to realize, that is, make real the strength God gives me to live my circumstances. Tonight I think especially of Psalm 62, which begins:

"My soul rests in God alone, from whom comes my salvation. God alone is my rock and salvation, my secure height; I shall never fall. How long will you set upon people, all of you beating them down, As though they were a sagging fence or a battered wall? Even from my place on high they plot to dislodge me. They delight in lies; they bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse. Selah. My soul, be at rest in God alone, from whom comes my hope. God alone is my rock and my salvation, my secure height; I shall not fall. My safety and glory are with God, my strong rock and refuge. Trust God at all times, my people! Pour out your hearts to God our refuge! Selah" (verses 2-9).

The word "סֶלָה" transliterated as selāh (i.e., Selah) sparks curiosity. It does not mean "rock," but is often translated as such. The Hebrew for "rock" is סֶלַע, or sela'. There are several possibilities given for what selāh might mean: "stop and listen," or "forever," or, from a root word, even "to weigh." I don't know why I wanted to introduce that, but it is curious for the average reader to repeatedly encounter this word while reading the Psalms.

Happy Cyril and Methodius Day!

Contrary to popular belief, today, at least on the reformed Roman calendar, we mark, not the liturgical memorial of St. Valentine (i.e., one Valentinius), but of Sts. Cyril and Methodious, the great missionary brothers who evangelized the Slavs. On the Eastern calendar their feast is observed on 11 May. St. Cyril is credited with devising the cyrillic alphabet, which is the alphabet associated with most Slavic languages. However, Catholics who abide the by the liturgical calendar associated with the extraordinary form of the Mass (i.e., the old Latin calendar) still observe today as St. Valentine's day.

The Roman calendar, like so much of the liturgy, was reformed following the Second Vatican Council. The reason for St. Valentine not having a memorial on the reformed calendar is that St. Valentine's existence, like that of St. Christopher and a few other "saints," cannot be pinned down with any certainty. It is likely that St. Valentine, as he came to be remembered and memorialized, was a composite figure. He is listed as a Roman priest/martyr and, as such, appears in some Roman martryologies, though none that date back to the times of Christian persecution, but only in some dating back no later than the fifth century. The name Valentinus is also associated as a North African martyr, as well as the bishop of ancient Interamn, which is modern Terni. All of this information is readily available in the on-line Catholic Encyclopedia.

Sts. Cyril and Methodius

One of the reasons for reforming the Roman liturgical calendar was to eliminate the feasts of saints whose actual existence was dubious. Christianity is, after all, an historical religion and saints are real people, this is no small thing.

The same Encyclopedia article goes on to state that "popular customs associated with Saint Valentine's Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e. half way through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair." As a demonstration of this idea, many historians point to lines 309, 322 386 of Sir Geoffrey Chaucer's poem, Parliament of Foules, which the poet later re-titled Book of St. Valentine's Day of the Parliament of Birds:

309 For this was on seynt Valentynes day,
310 Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make,
311 Of every kinde, that men thenke may;
312 And that so huge a noyse gan they make,
313 That erthe and see, and tree, and every lake
314 So ful was, that unnethe was ther space
315 For me to stonde, so ful was al the place

Of course, this should do nothing to dampen having a romantic supper and evening with your beloved. Enjoy! Clarifying this, in my estimation, does help to insulate faith from a kind pie-eyed, squishy sentimentalism and remind us that hedonism is never alright. In any case, true love is a kind of ascesis.

Choosing life over death; what it means to follow Jesus

Today's readings are truly challenging. As Christians, we too often act as through Jesus taught us no positive commandments, no dos and don'ts. Today's Gospel, taken from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, puts that notion to rest. Instead, we are taught that the commandments are not enjoined on us from without, that is, they are not externally imposed. Rather, they are proposed, set before us as the path to life, thus they are not just life-changing, but life-saving.

More often than not keeping God's commandments is a choice. Sometimes we make it more complicated than that, which is called rationalization. Today's reading from Sirach makes this clear. It also tells us that keeping the commandments will save us, not because we are capable of making ourselves perfect, but because keeping them is an act of trust in God, who sets before you "fire and water" and leaves you free as to which to choose, that toward which you "stretch forth your hand." So, God sets in front of you "life and death, good and evil" and whichever you choose "shall be given" you. God commands nobody "to act unjustly, to none does he give license to sin." This why the psalmist sings "Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!"

Jesus teaches His disciples at the beginning of today's Gospel, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 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, until all things have taken place" (Matt. 5:17-18). Of course, Jesus fulfilled the Law in his own person, which only He could do. He emphasizes the importance of keeping the commandments and of teaching others to do so as well. Only after this does the Lord proceed to move us from an empty, external adherence to the Law to a full, internally-accepted change, called metanoia, meaning repentance or conversion. He does this by setting forth the so-called theses and anti-theses. The former being what the Law says, the latter being what it means to choose life over death, good over evil.

"You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with brother will be liable to judgment" (Matt. 5:21-22a).

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart" ( Matt. 5:27-28).

"It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.' But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery" (Matt. 5:31-32).

"Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, 'Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.' But I say to you, do not swear at all...Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.' Anything more is from the evil one" Matt. 5:33-34.37).

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well" (Matt. 5:38-39).

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:43-44).

These weeks leading up to Lent are a good time to assess how you are doing with regard to the things that really matter.

The need for humanity in the so-called cyberworld

With last Sunday's near fatal crash of my blog, I have been reflecting all week on blogging. My reflection was intensified somewhat by the decision of a friend to discontinue blogging for wholly healthy and good reasons. From time-to-time I like to step back and evaluate my on-line endeavor, which I began tentatively back in August 2005 and took up in earnest in July 2006. Since then blogging has constituted part of my daily life. Yesterday I decided to "Google" Καθολικός διάκονος. Predictably, most of the returns were links back to this blog. More disturbingly and downright puzzling were several links to sites like sex-while-dating-child-support-parents.searchforsinglesmeetsingles.com and get-laid-without-being-broke-file-divorce.searchforsinglesmeetsingles.com. Huh? I can't think of another arena of endeavor in which one's brand, if you will, can be so easily high-jacked and associated in any way with purposes with which it is so at odds. Overlooking the fact that nothing could be more contrary to the tone and tenor of what I post here, such sites are a truly sad commentary about what many people look for on-line.

From Make Better Shirts

What people are looking for, whether they know it or not, is fulfillment, satisfaction, happiness. What makes it sad is that seeking hook-ups, looking at pornography, even playing W.O.W. for hours, or days, on end, will never result in any of the above. The nature of addiction, which results in wanting and needing more, more, and still more of whatever it is you are addicted to, even unto death, demonstrates this quite well. Nonetheless, I am happy to join with others who seek to be salt and light in the cyber realm, pointing people to what (more accurately, Who) can truly satisfy.

I have never had site meter on this blog, nor will I ever. Up until late last summer I truly had no idea how many people visited Καθολικός διάκονος on daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Well now, Blogger automatically applies Google Stats to all blogs and with a few mouse clicks I can pull up and look at not only how many people visit, but where they link here from, and what posts they look at. For those of you who are concerned about privacy, there is no individual information provided, all data is aggregated. The reason I mention this is because sometimes in the daily stats I will see a huge surge in visits to my blog from some weird source, like this one "local news update. Welcome to the digital jungle!

On a much more positive note, I found that my blog made the Our Sunday Visitor reader's choice The very best of the Catholic Web list. I was even more surprised that I had been submitted under the opinion category by a friend, who was a professor of mine, Susan Windley-Daoust, who wrote: "Good intellectual thoughtful op-ed on matters in the Church and spiritual life by a deacon in Salt Lake City." Dr. Windley-Daoust blogs under the name Ironic Catholic. I appreciate this endorsement very much and certainly hope those who visit Καθολικός διάκονος find all that and even more. Not just by way of a courtesy quid pro quo, I highly recommend adding the IC (as her blog is known by the cool kids in the Catholic blogosphere) to your favorites.

Having to reconstruct the design of my blog was an opportunity to freshen it up a little, while maintaining continuity with the past. One thing I did not change was my statement of purpose, which appears under the title. I really worked at shaping and honing this for a long time. Therefore, I truly mean that "This is a public cyberspace in which I seek to foster Christian discipleship in the late modern milieu in the diakonia of koinonia and in the recognition that 'the Eucharist is the only place of resistance to annihilation of the human subject.'" The quote at the end of the sentence is from Archbishop Francisco Javier Martinez.

The Internet and our ever more advanced means of communication bring many advantages to us, but also present many threats and pitfalls to our common humanity on a deeply existential, that is, relational level. The so-called cyberworld is just another aspect of the real world, albeit one that expands our notion of reality and alters, at least to some extent, our relationship to time and space. Over and above the concerns with which I began this post are other concerns about how all of this impacts us both individually and collectively. I have been struck of late by a series of commercials by Sprint Mobile that do a far better, not to mention more entertaining, job of highlighting these concerns than I could do by writing about them:

"I wanna tell you, oh, how much I love you"

I thought that Led Zepplin lead singer Robert Plant's cover of Phil Phillips' Sea of Love, which he did with his short-lived post-Zepplin group The Honey Drippers (that also featured his Zepplin bandmate Jimmy Page along with Jeff Beck), would work for this particular day. I chose this song largely due to the fact that, in addition to being the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, today is my lovely wife's birthday. So, hearkening back to an earlier era, I dedicate this to her.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us
St. Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us

"Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heaven"

Time is a funny thing. Even though it was only Sunday, it seems like forever since I last posted.I am tempted to make this post one of those entries where the writer lists his complaints is an off-beat intentionally humorous way in an effort to laugh away his feelings, but I am not going to do that. Rather, I am going to point to the need we have to worship God, to always and everywhere give Him thanks through Christ our Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

One of the things I frequently get to do as a pastoral minister is to give others advice, counsel, suggestions on how to deal with the challenges they face. So far this year I have had numerous and on-going opportunities to follow my own counsel, which is what keeps what I share with others (hopefully) from being abstract theories about which I have read, or, even worse, empty clichés and pious platitudes that help no one, but sound good perhaps to me in the moment, but leave both people feeling empty and dissatisfied. That the Lord is not just good, but is Goodness is axiomatic, a given, an atomic statement, everything prescinds from this, which is why each time we participate in the Eucharist, we are invited to taste and see His goodness by eating and drinking Him. This is reality at its most fundamental and concrete.

I am grateful this morning that Morning Prayer began with Psalm 36, which includes this strophé: "Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heaven; your truth to the skies. Your justice is like God's mountain, your judgments like the deep."

In light of a long conversation I had last night with someone struggling with what I can only describe as a great evil before encountering my own comparatively minor tribulation, I was thinking again of the Holy Father's magnificent encyclical Spe Salvi, to which I turned for my homily on the beatitudes a few weeks ago. This morning I re-read paragraph 37, which begins-

"We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we cannot eliminate it. It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.."

Not being content to give us an abstract answer to the most existential and urgent human question, after invoking the Cross, Pope Benedict proceeds to cite an amazing and challenging passage written by the Vietnamese martyr Paul Le-Bao-Tinh († 1857):

"I, Paul, in chains for the name of Christ, wish to relate to you the trials besetting me daily, in order that you may be inflamed with love for God and join with me in his praises, for his mercy is for ever (Ps 136 [135]). The prison here is a true image of everlasting Hell: to cruel tortures of every kind—shackles, iron chains, manacles—are added hatred, vengeance, calumnies, obscene speech, quarrels, evil acts, swearing, curses, as well as anguish and grief. But the God who once freed the three children from the fiery furnace is with me always; he has delivered me from these tribulations and made them sweet, for his mercy is for ever. In the midst of these torments, which usually terrify others, I am, by the grace of God, full of joy and gladness, because I am not alone —Christ is with me ... How am I to bear with the spectacle, as each day I see emperors, mandarins, and their retinue blaspheming your holy name, O Lord, who are enthroned above the Cherubim and Seraphim? (cf. Ps 80:1 [79:2]). Behold, the pagans have trodden your Cross underfoot! Where is your glory? As I see all this, I would, in the ardent love I have for you, prefer to be torn limb from limb and to die as a witness to your love. O Lord, show your power, save me, sustain me, that in my infirmity your power may be shown and may be glorified before the nations ... Beloved brothers, as you hear all these things may you give endless thanks in joy to God, from whom every good proceeds; bless the Lord with me, for his mercy is for ever..."

In the combox of my last post, responding to a comment on the redness of my blog, I stated that it is the color of the Holy Spirit and of martyrs, that is, of spirit and blood, which why this morning I implore- St. Paul Le-Bao-Tinh, holy martyr, pray for us. Yesterday we remebered St. Josephine Bakita, whose story the Holy Father also relates in Spe Salvi. So, we implore her as well: St. Josephine Bakita, pray for us.

Failed technical experiments in blogging

Okay, today I got the bright idea to update my blog template because Καθολικός διάκονος has had the same look for a year now. Well, it was a failed experiment that ultimately forced me to delete my blog and start over again. Even though I back my blog up as a .xml file at least every month and usually more frequently, some elements were irretrievably lost, like my list of people who read my blog.

Every failure is an opportunity to start again. So, I urge all my long-time readers and any new readers to "Follow" Καθολικός διάκονος. I refer to it as my list of people who encourage me. I guess like Paul, I only urge people to follow me to the extent I follow Christ and I am very certain I am not nearly the disciple Paul was ( 1 Cor. 11:1). I invite you join me on this on-going journey of faith, hope, and love.