Lenten Reading

I am hoping to put up a series of Lenten posts again this year, but in the meantime -- as I collect some ideas and eke out some extra writing time -- I thought I would post links to some articles I'm reading.

This first, from Fr. James Schall, S.J., is a piece on the importance of doing serious daily reading. His point is that it is frightfully easy to slip into consuming all sorts of media and forgetting to avail ourselves of ultimate realities and the things that matter most. Theology, is after all, a science of sanity: of seeing the world in truth in its most important and foundational aspects, of training our minds to see what is real.

Thanksgiving Meditation

Luke 17:11-19:

“As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten persons with leprosy met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” And when he saw them, he said, ‘Go show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”

The word thanksgiving has two parts, both of which we’re quite familiar with. Thanks and giving. However, the word has some implications that need addressing; it hints at several questions that need answering before we know exactly what we’re talking about.

                        1. Who is thankful?

                        2. And to whom  are they thankful?

                        3. And, finally, what are they thankful for?

Let’s take these in order:

The answer to our first question is fairly obvious, we are celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday and we are the ones that are supposed to be thankful.

The answer to the second question is, sadly, much less obvious these days than it was when the pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving hundreds of years ago. God, the provider of all good gifts, is the One to whom we principally give thanks. In our secular culture today the holiday just means a kind of general thankfulness. We can and should thank our parents, our spouses, our grandparents, our teachers, our coaches, our co-workers, and anyone else that is generous toward us, but in the end Our Loving and Infinitely generous God is the giver of all gifts — but more on that in a moment.

Answering the third question is the most difficult. If for nothing else most of us are thankful that we get a day or two off of school or work and that we get to eat a big meal and we get to watch football and perhaps even go hunting. This is a good start, but perhaps we can delve a little deeper into the things for which we’re thankful.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth”…

As Catholics we are thankful that God created the world, that he brought about human life and that through the miracle of birth he brought us into the world. When we stop and think about it we also know that if it weren’t for God’s all powerful love at every moment of every day, the world would instantly cease to exist. He created the world in love and holds it in being. Each beat of our hearts is a gift.

What else?

As Catholics we know that, even when we were in a state of wretchedness and sin God sent his only Son to save us from the wretchedness of sin and from an eternity of isolation and despair. We are thankful for this inconceivably generous gift of salvation.

We are thankful that Christ taught us through the gift of his Gospel how to live a life of beatitude and lasting joy.

We are thankful that Christ endured the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with thorns and ridicule of the crowds, that he carried his glorious cross and that he died for us to save us from sin; we’re thankful that he founded His Church and that he endowed it with the Sacraments and that He abides with us in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Here is one final question: how do we give thanks?

Are we one of the nine lepers from this Gospel passage that are healed and wander off having forgotten who it was that healed them? Or are we the one leper that returns to Christ and falls at his feet overcome with gratefulness?

How often do we thank the Lord for the gift of cleansing in Baptism? Do we run back to him like the prodigal son for the grace of forgiveness and a restored relationship in the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Do we thank him with all of our heart for the unparalleled gift of the Eucharist?

The word Eucharist literally means thanksgiving. Each time that we participate in the Mass, we join with the Jesus the Lord in giving thanks to the Father and in offering Him Christ’s one, perfect, holy and living sacrifice.

Do we remember that every Mass is a true re-presentation of Christ’s self-giving on the cross? Do we esteem that gift as we ought?

When we join ourselves to Christ in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it is a perfect offering of thanksgiving that we make to the Father.

As we prepare for Thanksgiving next week, let us be mindful of the most important gifts we have received and let us be mindful of the One who has given them.

Let us pray,

O glorious and generous God, Grant to our eyes an eternal vision: grant that we may see all things in light of your creating power, your redeeming love and your eternal providence. By the outpouring of your Holy Spirit, fill our hearts with gratitude for all things in this season of Thanksgiving and may our giving of thanks lead to our offering you praise, and may our praise lead to adoration. We ask these things +. Amen.

Meditation on the Philippians Christ Hymn

Greetings friends,

After a lengthy summer hiatus from the Smoldering Wick I'm back with a slew of new posts to mete out over the coming months. This first one is a meditation that I gave a few weeks back to the youth at our parish, Our Lady of the Lakes in Balsam Lake, Wisconsin.

It is fashioned after my favorite preacher, Fr. Robert Barron of the diocese of Chicago and Word On Fire Catholic Ministries.

+   +   +

Sept. 28, 2011

A reading from St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians:

“Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but [also] everyone for those of others. Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who,

though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;

and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself,

becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Because of this, God greatly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name

that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.” – Philippians 2:3-11

Let us pray: Lord Jesus I believe that you are here; I believe that you want to speak to me through your Word the Sacred Scriptures; I want to hear your voice and to feel your presence; You left heaven to become a man and to die and to rise for us—help me to place all my trust in you; you taught us what it means to be fully human—help me to model myself after you. Amen.

At Mass this past weekend we listened to several outstanding readings from but one of them, the reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Church at Philippi, is of utmost importance.

We know that Jesus died and rose again somewhere around the years 33 or 35 A.D. and that St. Paul wrote this letter as early as 54 A.D. But this passage is most likely a hymn that Paul is merely referencing so it is even early. These words, which I am about to read to you are a hymn or song about Jesus probably composed within a 10 or 15 years of his death!

The theme of this passage is what it means to have humility, but these words also tell us—very beautifully—who Jesus Christ is.

Throughout the New Testament the various authors are trying to relate to us a number of very important things, but there is one all important fact that they drive home over and over and over again. And this is the decisive fact at the core of our faith, namely that Jesus is God.

Jesus is God, the Gospels say.

Jesus is God, the epistles say.

Jesus is God, the Acts of the Apostle’s and the Book of Revelation say.

Jesus is God.

Jesus is God.

If you’re going to take one thing from the NT it needs to be this:

Jesus… is… God.

Back to St. Paul’s letter and this ancient hymn about Jesus. St. Paul is writing to a church that he founded, but he might as well be writing to our parish. He references this hymn as a lesson about humility saying:

“Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but everyone for those of others.

He continues:

“Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus.”

This word attitude is the Greek word for mind — he says, have the same mind that Christ has… wow. What is the mind of Jesus, what is his attitude?

St. Paul goes on to tell us:

“[Christ], though he was in the form of God,”

Jesus is God; Jesus is God.

“[Christ], though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.

Jesus is God; God is love, is all-generous, is totally self-sacrificing.

““[Christ], though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (or servant), coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance.

St. John says, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son…

For God sent the Son into the world.’

The Son of God, the 2nd Person of the Trinity, ‘God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God’, as the Creed says, became a man. The infinite became finite. The all powerful became a weak and fragile baby, born in the humility of a barn.

St. Paul goes on:

“He humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

In St. John’s Gospel Jesus says, “No one takes my life from me but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again; this charge I have received from my Father.”

Jesus is God.

Death is the result of our fallen, sinful nature, Christ was perfect. Though He was fully man, He didn’t have to die; in perfect humility He chose to submit to death — even death on a Cross.

Every time we see a crucifix we should be stunned. That’s not simply a man dying a brutal death. That is God: the Word by which the Father created the universe, by whom we are held in existence every second of every day of our lives. And yet there He is: dying an extraordinarily painful death. For you. For me. For the whole world.

St. Paul concludes:

“Because of this, [because of this act of ultimate and incomprehensible humility,] because of this God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,  to the glory of God the Father.”

What is the mind of Christ that St. Paul encourages us to have? Humility. Self-sacrifice. Love. Not self-seeking but self-giving. Pouring out everything we have for the glory of God the Father. Why should we be humble and self-sacrificing? The God of the universe humbled Himself to a degree that we cannot even begin to comprehend. And He charges us to do the same.

Let’s close in prayer:

Lord you not only showed us the way of love, you also made it possible. Empower us by your grace, which you won for us in your passion, death and resurrection, to turn to you in all things. To live with humility, and not pride. Watch over us this week. Be at work in us, God.  Protect us and those we love. Help us to keep you always foremost in our minds and in our hearts, for you live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.

Developing An Abiding Love for God's Law

Happy those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked,

Nor go the way of sinners, nor sit in company with scoffers.

Rather, the law of the LORD is their joy; God's law they study day and night.

They are like a tree planted near streams of water, that yields its fruit in season;

Its leaves never wither; whatever they do prospers.” (Psalm 1:1-3)

I'm sure you're wondering about the title of this meditation. Well, give me a moment to explain. Rest assured, I'm not advocating a return to the practice of the Law of Moses, sacrifices and ritual ablutions — though that certainly sounds interesting! Rather, I'd like to discuss the importance of the moral life and the appropriate lens for understanding the Church's Moral Teachings in an age of lawlessness and pseudo-freedom.

One of the most important insights that my professors imparted to me during my time at the University of Dallas was Dr. Mark Lowery's summary of the secular vision of the moral life as an ebb and flow between autonomy (defining morality for ourselves, literally ‘self-law’) and heteronomy (obeying an imposed and alien code of conduct, literally ‘other-law’).

There are countless examples of this tension between libertinism and puritanism throughout history, but we can also see it in individual lives. For example, many individuals devastated by the emptiness of a life lived according to autonomous morality often seek a strict regimen to which they can simply submit. Then, when they grow weary of the imposing edicts, the pendulum swings back in the other direction — back and forth, back and forth.

With the pendulum ever swinging between these two extremes, Pope John Paul II provides the Catholic answer. Dr. Lowery, echoing John Paul II, terms the Catholic vision of morality as 'Participated Theonomy'. That's a mouthful, I know, so let's break it down a bit.

By 'participated' we mean that the moral vision is something intricately tied up with each of us and, indeed, is written within our very nature; 'theonomy' simply means 'God-law'. So, in the Catholic vision, the moral life is something profoundly human, and yet unchangingly ordered by God from the beginning of creation. Furthermore, since God is all good and all loving, we know that the way that He created us is with our utmost fulfillment and delight in mind.

I realize these ideas are somewhat abstract and the terminology is dense, but bear with me: the pope’s vision is a worthy one to pursue.

John Paul wrote an entire encyclical on the moral life and it’s dependence on Truth entitled Veritatis Splendor, or ‘The Splendor of Truth’. In every page he puts forth the Catholic vision with his characteristic precision and passion. Here is a just one passage that beautifully illustrates that vision:

“Man's genuine moral [freedom] in no way means the rejection but rather the acceptance of the moral law, of God's command: 'The Lord God gave this command to the man...' (Gen 2:16). Human freedom and God's law meet and are called to intersect, in the sense of man's free obedience to God and of God's completely gratuitous benevolence towards man. Hence obedience to God is not, as some would believe, a heteronomy, as if the moral life were subject to the will of something all-powerful, absolute, extraneous to man and intolerant of his freedom. If in fact a heteronomy of morality were to mean a denial of man's self-determination or the imposition of norms unrelated to his good, this would be in contradiction to the Revelation of the Covenant and of the redemptive Incarnation. Such a heteronomy would be nothing but a form of alienation, contrary to divine wisdom and to the dignity of the human person. Others speak, and rightly so, of theonomy, or participated theonomy, since man's free obedience to God's law effectively implies that human reason and human will participate in God's wisdom and providence.” (Veritatis Splendor, 41)

In saying that “human reason and human will participate in God’s wisdom and providence,” the pope concludes that the whole man participates in this divine schema, which is written into our very existence. What does all this abstraction amount to though? Let’s try a concrete example.

Our age is, of course, one in which the pendulum between autonomy and heteronomy has swung wildly toward the 'autonomous' end of the moral life spectrum. This swing is perhaps best typified by the sexual revolution, which featured the introduction of widespread contraception, abortion, fornication, pornography, divorce, and homosexuality.

Many Christians of various traditional stripes, be they Protestant or Catholic, responded to the sexual revolution by simply saying, 'that's bad' — which indeed it was and is, in most respects. But, sadly, most Christians could only point to Revelation in defending their denunciations. Arguing, 'because God said so' to a post-modern, post-Christian culture doesn't tend to get one very far though. Even if the believer personally maintains a 'participated theonomy' vision, his argument from Revelation will certainly be received as heteronomous.

On the other hand, Pope John Paul II, with the weight of the Catholic Tradition behind him, pointed to a much more substantial response. The Polish Pope knew that our generation needed something more than a 'no' in order to be able to turn to and embrace the truth about human sexuality. He also knew that at its very core the Catholic moral life is never a 'no' but always a resounding 'yes'.

“...We must not be content merely to warn the faithful about the errors and dangers of certain ethical theories. We must first of all show the inviting splendor of that truth which is Jesus Christ himself. In him, who is the Truth (cf. Jn 14:6), man can understand fully and live perfectly, through his good actions, his vocation to freedom in obedience to the divine law summarized in the commandment of love of God and neighbor.”  (Veritatis Splendor, 83)

In revealing 'the splendor of truth' to the era of the sexual revolution, John Paul had his work cut out for him. He began his papacy in the midst of the scandal of Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, which affirmed the ancient and unquestioned Catholic teaching against contraception. One of the pope's tasks was to demonstrate that the teaching against contraception was not a heteronomous imposition by an out of touch old celibate, but, in fact, a reflection of the truth about the human person.

In addressing this issue — which the pope did beautiful in a number of documents, but most particularly in his Theology of the Body — John Paul at once debunks the revolution's philosophy and defends the natural law position by pointing to the unity of body and soul and the dignity of the human person. He calls us to look at the way God made us and to express our sexuality according to the dignity that it bears; in a word he implores us to take heed of our God-implanted nature and live according to it. In doing so, the pope notes, we become more free, not less.

We’ve spent some time already this Lent distinguishing true freedom from false freedom. An essential part of the process of growing in freedom through conversion is coming to see God's Law, whether that be the Natural Law or the Divine Law contained in Revelation itself, as an enormous gift and not as an artificial restraint. 

John Paul says,

“’Patterned on God's freedom, man's freedom is not negated by his obedience to the divine law; indeed, only through this obedience does it abide in the truth and conform to human dignity… In his journey towards God, the One who "alone is good", man must freely do good and avoid evil. But in order to accomplish this he must be able to distinguish good from evil. And this takes place above all thanks to the light of natural reason, the reflection in man of the splendor of God's countenance. Thus Saint Thomas, commenting on a verse of Psalm 4, writes: "After saying: Offer right sacrifices (Ps 4:5), as if some had then asked him what right works were, the Psalmist adds: There are many who say: Who will make us see good? And in reply to the question he says: The light of your face, Lord, is signed upon us, thereby implying that the light of natural reason whereby we discern good from evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else but an imprint on us of the divine light". It also becomes clear why this law is called the natural law: it receives this name not because it refers to the nature of irrational beings but because the reason which promulgates it is proper to human nature.” (Veritatis Splendor, 42)

In our age of autonomy, the Magisterium is seen as invasive and disruptive of the 'privacy' of individual consciences — to use the terminology of the Church's opponents. But, as a Catholic, to trust your conscience, is to first entrust it to formation by right reason and the guidance of Holy Church, aligning it with the truth.

"Conscience is not an independent and exclusive capacity to decide what is good and what is evil. Rather there is profoundly imprinted upon it a principle of obedience vis-à-vis the objective norm which establishes and conditions the correspondence of its decisions with the commands and prohibitions which are at the basis of human behavior." (John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem, 43; as cited in Veritatis Splendor, 60)

For Israel the Law represented the lone path to salvation, a blessing of infinite proportion. Oh, that we might cherish and honor the gift of God's Law the way that the Psalmist does, proclaiming:

How I love your teaching, Lord! I study it all day long.

Your command makes me wiser than my foes, for it is always with me.

I have more understanding than all my teachers, because I ponder your decrees.

I have more insight than my elders, because I observe your precepts.

I keep my steps from every evil path, that I may obey your word.

From your edicts I do not turn, for you have taught them to me.

How sweet to my tongue is your promise, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Through your precepts I gain insight; therefore I hate all false ways.

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path.

I make a solemn vow to keep your just edicts...

Accept my freely offered praise; LORD, teach me your decrees.

My life is always at risk, but I do not forget your teaching.

The wicked have set snares for me, but from your precepts I do not stray.

Your decrees are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart.

My heart is set on fulfilling your laws; they are my reward forever...

You are my refuge and shield; in your word I hope.

   (Psalm 119, 97-114)

This Lent may we turn anew to God thanking Him for the grace of the Law and may we plead for both depth of understanding and discipline in living it as we seek to draw closer to Christ the Pantocrator, the ruler of all.

May the grace of ever deeper conversion be yours, in these holy days!

Christ the Pantocrator

Lenten Call to Conversion: Growing in Freedom

In our previous meditation we concluded with some thoughts on conversion and freedom. It is to this subject that I would like to turn again here.

In discussing conversion I used the image of turning over our souls to Christ. In conversion we seek to do more than simply run up a new flag; we seek to transform our ships into a different sort of thing altogether.

Pope Benedict, in his recently released second volume of Jesus of Nazareth, says that until his Resurrection, Christ's disciples—and indeed his whole Judean audience—were welcome to take or leave his teaching much as we would the teachings of any itinerant philosopher. Without the Resurrection, the Pope writes,

“[Jesus] would no longer be a criterion; the only criterion left would be our own judgment in selecting from his heritage what strikes us as helpful. In other words, we would be along. Our own judgment would be the highest instance. Only if Jesus is risen has anything really new occurred that changes the world and the situation of mankind. Then he becomes the criterion on which we can rely.”

For those choosing a life of discipleship of Christ, the Word spoken by the Father is not one criterion by which we can direct our life, to use the Pope’s language. Christ is the criterion. For Christian’s there can be no holding back. To return to our analogy a final time, we find freedom in total surrender, entrusting the galley, the engine room, and every last cabin; entrusting our marriages, our careers, our wounds, our aspirations, our finances, our sexuality, our hobbies, etc. — in a word, our all. For if Christ is who we believe he is, what folly it would be to hold anything back!

One of the fallacies of the modern world is the false division of religion and spirituality. You’ve probably heard someone say, “I’m a very spiritual person, but I’m not religious.” In an age of ‘tolerance’ where the only thing not tolerated is concrete belief, it’s much safer to be ‘spiritual’ than ‘religious’. Spirituality is tame, but Christ is not tame. Turning to Christ, as the Catholic Apologist Peter Kreeft likes to say, will cost you no less than everything. 'Spirituality', in the popular understanding of the phrase, does not cost anything, you can fit it in on the weekends—unless something else comes up. The Christian religion is a question of totality, and that’s what we’re ultimately driving at.

The Church is oft criticized for clinging to an outdated set of moral principals. There is a spectrum of theories as to her motivation, but the cleverest critics ascribe to Mother Church the intention of keeping the faithful — or the ‘bamboozled’, as the skeptics would have it — shackled to this primitive yoke so as to dominate them and keep the coffers filled.

By looking at the terror in the modern world caused by 'liberation', it might prove helpful to turn to a image employed by G.K Chesterton. In his characteristically prophetic way Chesterton describes the liberating power of truth compared with the pseudo-liberation of libertinism:

“Many a sensible modern must have abandoned Christianity [under the pressure of the conviction that] priests have blighted societies with bitterness and gloom… I look at the world and simply discover that they don't.  Those countries in Europe which are still influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and colored dresses and art in the open-air.  Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground.  Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea.  So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries.  But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.”

  

Let’s grant the validity of this attack for a moment, and see where it’s gotten our culture.

We have seen the fulfillment of modernist liberation in a number of areas. In just one example from among many, when modern man liberated woman from the servility of her traditional callings, he replaced the old chains with new ones. Modern man says to woman, ‘Men have been able to exercise their sexual passions without repercussions since the dawn of time, now it’s your turn: take this pill, and if that fails, feel free to kill the child within you.’ What has this ‘freedom’ amounted to: objectifying her with pornography in a multi-billion dollar industry (surely most the profits going to men), the psychological, spiritual and biological trauma of abortion on demand, the ever increasing pressure to fit into the mold of sexual iconography poured out from Hollywood, and the loss of the joy of wifehood and motherhood.

Looking around himself and seeing a world grasping for fulfillment, Chesterton asks modern man to reconsider Christianity:

“The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

The modern notion of freedom as the ability to do whatever we’d like has been tried, and has been found wanting.

This Lent let us return in our hearts and in our minds to the true understanding of freedom, to the freedom that Christ offers: freedom from sin. The true understanding of freedom is a mere liberation from constraint. As St. Thomas Aquinas says, “To will evil is neither freedom nor a part of freedom.” True freedom is the ability to achieve the heights of human vocation, the virtues, classical and theological. St. Thomas, in his characteristic precision, describes freedom thusly:

“Sinning is nothing else than a deviation from that rectitude which an act ought to have… Were the craftsman's hand the rule [in his] engraving, he could not engrave the wood otherwise than rightly; but if the rightness of engraving be judged by another rule, then the engraving may be right or faulty. Now the Divine will is the sole rule of God's act, because it is not referred to any higher end. But every created will has rectitude of act so far only as it is regulated according to the Divine will…”

In closing, I would like to illustrate the traditional understanding of freedom as the ability to do the good with a lengthy quote from one of my favorite contemporary authors, Thomas Howard. In his wonderful book On Being Catholic Howard writes:

“[The paradox of freedom] is visible, of course in gymnastics. Those godlike young men and these pixies from Hungary and China: How have they won through to this state of affairs in which discipline and mastery and control seem synonymous with beauty and freedom and perfection? It is a state of affairs altogether beyond the reach of all who do not feel it worth their while to abandon everything for the pursuit of this crown.

         "Or music. The tenor. The pianist. The oboist. They seem positively to exult in the challenge put to them by the score and to mount up with wings like eagles, transforming the impossible task into soaring and leaping joy. How did they win their way through to these precincts of freedom, while the rest of us croak and fumble with the keys in a melancholy way?

         "The paradox, of course, could be chased all through the fabric of human life. The freedom to do something is not easily won. The greater the perfection sought, the greater must be the remorselessness of our own self-abandon to the discipline that constitutes the steps up to the summit where freedom reigns in great bliss.

         "To be Catholic is to see the force of all this and to see all of it as testifying to that which is true of our humanity itself. Concupiscence has undone us. We can scarcely crawl, laden as we are with all sorts of venality and cravenness and pusillanimity and meagerness of spirit and sloth. But there, in the precincts where our humanity dances in all the glory with which it was invested when it was created and crowned with the imago Dei: Oh, that we were there! as the old carol puts it.”

I again encourage you: open your hearts to Christ anew in this Lenten season. Ask the Lord for the grace to follow him and for the grace to grow in freedom in serving Him in all you do.

May the grace of conversion be yours this Lent!

Into the Desert With Christ

Today we celebrate Ash Wednesday. As G.K. Chesterton would say, Ash Wednesday is the one feast day in the entire liturgical year that every sane man willingly celebrates, for it marks the one reality of Christian doctrine that is irrefutable in everyday existence: the sinfulness of mankind.

Nevertheless, sin isn't a subject we postmoderns like to dwell on very much. We like to explain our culpability away with psychological and sociological excuses, leaving, if any, only the faintest trace of blood on our own hands. We like to dwell on the 'positives', not the 'negatives' of our faith. After all, we wouldn't want to be judgmental--especially of ourselves.

I have recently be rereading some of the works of Chesterton in a class led by professor Thomas Loome, the founder of Loome Theological Booksellers in Stillwater, MN. In going through Chesterton's great work Orthodoxy and discussing it with parishioners from St. Michael and St. Mary and the good professor, I've been blown away by the weight that Chesterton attributes to the doctrine of sin, and specifically original sin.

I'll share a short anecdote from our class. One of the students questioned Professor Loome about Chesterton's dismissal of the modernist notion of 'progress', since Chesterton laughs it away, noting that we are indeed become, if anything more sinful, not less.

"Surely," the man asked, "there are wonderful advances being made in fields of medicine and technology and in countless other areas, no?"

"In light of eternity, I believe Chesterton would answer--and I with him--those advances mean very little indeed."

The professor then shared a story about a similar line of questioning he received from some nuns in the late 60's or early 70's. He had just provided a spiritual conference on something or other for the convent and a few of the nuns took exception to his words.

"Why do you have to dwell on the negatives so much," they queried.

"I suppose it's because if there were no sin in the world to fight against--no sin in me or in you--then we'd have no need for that [pointing to the Crucifix]! If we're so perfectible than why did Christ die on the cross?"

As we journey into the desert with our Lord over these 40 days. We remember that Christ died for a reason, namely, to save us from the death of sin. We can squabble about the methods of sanctification and justification that Christ opened for us--though I'd prefer not too--but the crux of the matter is the Cross. We are lost in fallenness without Christ, but in His perfect and limitless love the Father chose to send His Son that we might have life and have it to the full.

We've all heard that Lent is 'a time to draw close to Christ'. But what does that mean? How are we supposed to share with him the desolation of the desert when we're sitting in our comfy homes and riding in our comfy cars and shopping at our convenient grocery stores? To answer simply, we are called in this time of penance to humbly examine our lives for the ways that we have not yet surrendered to Christ's healing mercy.

The great baptist preacher John Piper uses an analogy that I think is quite helpful. Without Christ we are like renegade privateers sailing about looking for treasure to hoard in the deepest, strongest holds of our ships. The process of conversion includes willingly surrendering every last nook and cranny of our ship to our new captain, Jesus Christ. Sometimes, through our blindness we forget that there is still that secret chamber filled with Aztec gold or Incan silver.

In the season of Lent the Church offers us a time to scour the boat, looking for every last article of booty that we can turn over to our beloved captain. Because, even if we've been sailing under Christ's flag for many years, we'll find that we are always still holding out in some way--even if on the face of it it may seem trivial.

Like any analogy, there are always gaps in the application that need some clarification.

Conversion isn't a process of losing freedom as we replace the tyranny of sin with the yoke of some new tyranny. Quite the opposite, conversion is a process of liberation. If we are coming to Christ for the right reason, we will find that the narrow path, is indeed the path of freedom. My next post is going to discuss conversion and freedom so I won't say anymore on it now.

I encourage you to open your hearts to Christ anew. For we have fallen and turned from God, every one of us--and like the father of the prodigal son, our heavenly Father is eager for our return. He stands half way down the road throughout the day gazing in our direction, awaiting our return, eager to forgive our transgressions.

May the grace of conversion be yours this Lent!

Meditation on St. Blase and Martyrdom

Today is the feast of St. Blase, bishop and martyr. Very little is known about St. Blase, but we do know that he lived at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth centuries, that he was a gifted physician and holy man, known for his ability to cure. He was appointed bishop later in life and he lived in what is present day Armenia, which is East of Turkey between the Caspian and Black Seas. And, most importantly, we know that he was tortured and martyred for his faith. Also, we are told that while he was being led to his execution, St. Blase cured a boy that was choking to death on a fish bone. Because of this event, and his reputation as a healer, Blase’s popularity grew as early as the 9th century; ever since he has been frequently invoked for cures to throat ailments and diseases of every kind. And to this day we maintain the unique ceremony of throat blessings on his feast day.

Before we get to the blessings of throats though, I thought I would offer a few thoughts on the subject of martyrdom.

Martyrdom is not a thought that we’re very comfortable with and it’s not a issue that we expect to have to deal with here in America. Rather, we conceive of martyrdom as something that went on in the early Church when Christianity was more controversial. But did you know that more saints won the martyr’s crown in the 20th century than in any century in the history of Christianity? It is estimated that in the past 2,000 years roughly 70 million Christians have died for their faith and that an astounding 65% of those died in the 20th century—mostly at the hands of communism in places like the former Soviet Union and China and at the hands of militant Islam in places like Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and the Sudan.[1]

Reflecting on this gruesome truth, it is surely a blessing to be in a place like America where we can practice our faith without fear of persecution. Nevertheless, we need to be careful not to take this freedom for granted and grow overly easy in our comfortable position. A priest I once knew liked to say, “It used to be a martyr was someone that was burnt at the steak, but these days it’s someone who gets a burnt steak.” His point is that in every moment of temptation—temptations from the slightest thoughts of pride to the temptations of gravest sins—we must choose to follow God and surrender to the Cross. Our Lord said to his disciples and says to us today, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”[2]

One of the many 20th Century Saints put it this way: “As a Christian you should always carry a crucifix with you. Place it on your desk. Kiss it before you go to bed and when you wake up. And when your poor body rebels against your soul, kiss your crucifix!”[3]

We American Catholics are not at risk for religious persecution, but we are at risk of something far greater: lukewarmness. Our Lord says in the book of Revelation: “I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, 'I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,' and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked…Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent.”[4] These are harsh words indeed; they were written for a wealthy and comfortable Christian Church in Asia Minor toward the end of the first century. But they could easily be for our Church.

We are tempted to think that because Christianity is a religion founded on love that it is a passive and comfortable religion. But looking at the central symbol of our faith we remember that the Christian image of love is the Cross. As Christians we are privileged to know that love means far more than our secular culture defines it as; we know that it means being nailed to a tree so that others might live, it means being beheaded in witness to the Truth of God’s saving power, it means willingly dying in a Nazi concentration camp to save another’s life—it means giving all, like our Lord and like St. Blase.

In our zeal for union with God we should often remind ourselves of the words from the Letter to the Hebrews read at today’s Mass, “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of drawing blood.”[5] Those words are certainly true of me, and I would guess they are true of most all American Catholics. Nevertheless, if ours is to be the crown of daily martyrdom (of taking up the cross in little things all the days of our lives) then let us persevere in attaining it—and let us constantly implore the martyrs for their prayers.           

So, as we ask the intercession of St. Blase during the blessing of throats in a moment, let us ask Our Lord both for the grace of healing and the grace of perseverance. St. Blase, pray for us!

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[1] http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=26402

[2] Mark 8:34

[3] St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way, #301.

[4] Revelation 3:15-19

[5] Hebrews 12:4