Family
I believe that it was Tolstoy who said, "behind every family is a mess."
But, you know, it's a mess worth digging through. I don't really want to say too much about this point. I just want everyone to take some time to think about their families. Yes, family members can hurt us in both unexpected and deep ways. We will all probably need years of counseling as a result of living with all those crazy maniacs. But, nobody else in this world can look at you with such an easy, natural love.
Make an effort to return that gaze.
I pray that God will effect healing in each of your families. Pray for mine.
Can't Plan For Crazy
“The gunman who slaughtered 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school may have snapped because his mother was planning to commit him to a psychiatric facility.”
We know that gun laws don't protect us from law abiding citizens. We know that gun laws don't protect us against criminals. However, would stricter gun laws protect us from crazy people?
Are we willing, as Americans, to compromise the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution to protect ourselves from this unpredictable element of society?
Newtown
When I was a layman I did a lot of work with teenagers. My home parish had (and continues to have) an outstanding LifeTeen program. Our teen years some pretty amazing years. Indeed, they are painful. However, they are wondrous. When you're on the cusp of entering the adult world everything is exciting. Everything is new. But, unless you have experienced great trauma as a child you are never quite prepared for just how cruel the adult world is. This, I think, is why teens are always asking the theodicy question. How can there be an all good, all knowing, all powerful God and there still be suffering in the world? It seems that one is mutually exclusive of the other. Either God exists or suffering exists. Either that or God is a sadist.
My answer is simple yet unsatisfying. Evil exists in this world so that love can exist in this world. To put it more precisely, the same underlying principle that resides in the human powers of action that allows us to commit the greatest atrocities is the same principle that allows us to commit the simplest act of love. We call this power of action freedom. If we are to be free to love, then we must also be free to not love. This is a simple fact of our human world. The possibility of real love could not come about in any other way. Like I said, however, this answer is true but it is unsatisfying. It leaves a bitter taste in our mouth.
We desperately want to the world to work another way. Deep down inside we want the world we thought existed when we were children. We want to be sheltered from the adult world. We want heaven. As children we were protected from the brutality that characterizes most of human experience. But, as we get older we gain entry into the brutality of the adult world – the real world. It's in our teenage years that we are first fed the vile bitterness of real human suffering. We all know this. We have all experienced it. I think this is one reason why we become so outraged when a child is exposed to the adult world. We know that children aren't ready. Hell, we aren't ready!
When we see images of children crying, terrified, eyes closed, following rescue personnel to safety, we react. We react with every fiber of our biology and every ounce of our spirit. Rightly so! Who wouldn't? Who couldn't? But it's not just their plight that we are raging against. It's also our own. When we see senseless tragedy all the hard won comfort we achieved in our world comes crashing down on our heads. We become scared children again, looking out on a world that we can't fully understand. A frightening world where everything is reaching out to harm us and those who we love.
When this fear takes hold of us we eventually turn to God. Even the atheist does, if only to mock God's existence. Some turn to him for comfort and shelter. Others turn to him with seething anger. Eventually we blame God that children were murdered. Why? Do we think that God has failed because there is a tragedy of unspeakable sorrow? It seems that this is our instinct. But why? Why do we think that God is supposed to make things better? Why do we assume that he is some divine safety blanket who exists to shield us from sorrow, pain, madness, and suffering? Because he has told us to call him Father. When we become those terrified children we look for a savior. Aren't fathers supposed to protect their children? God seems no better than any deadbeat dad.
My own natural tendency is cynicism. This is born from my own battle scars. Maybe you have the same ones? When there is a tragedy I start looking for God's used car salesmen. I look around to see who is trying to sell me God and I want to know what they're selling. Are they selling a God who is a safety blanket? Will be comfort me in the darkness and feed me in times of famine? Will be he carry all of my suffering? Will he make me feel good about myself? Will he make me feel safe in this world? Will he save all his children? When a salesman is offering something too good to be true, it probably is.
We must learn to hold some difficult things in tension. First, we must remember that God gave each of us the freedom to love or to not love. When we chose not to love God isn't happy. He empathizes with those who are harmed. He empathizes with the one who choses to harm. However, he isn't going to interfere with the freedom of the one who has chosen to not love. If he did, we would not be truly free. Without the freedom to do evil we would also lack to freedom to love. So, the question shouldn't be, "Why does God allow bad things to happen?" Instead, the question should be, "Why do people chose not to love?"
This is a question without an answer. Seek your own heart? When have you chose to not love. Why? Why would you chose to not love? You've done it, I've done it. We chose to not love all the time. Why do we fail to do the one thing that we all want? If you can figure that one out, let me know.
Finals
Advent is the time of year when we are called to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. Part of this preparation is the process of purgation. We must un-clutter our lives to make room for the Lord. He greatly desires to dwell within your heart. Everyone must determine for themselves what must be purged. One must clear a space, so to speak.
Those of us nailed firmly to the wood of the desk are not exempt. It is my hope to consider both final papers and assignments to be part of this process. As each task is completed there will be more room for the Lord in my mind and in my heart. The anxiety that accompanies these tasks will be replaced with an urgency. I must hurry and finish cleaning my house because the Lord is coming. He will not delay.
Blessed Advent! Pray for all the students who are super stressed right now. They may not realize how much they need your spiritual support. Also, I will not be as active online until I am once again free to pursue extracurricular activities.
The Magazine
Do you have an iOS device? Have you ever wondered what to do with the Newsstand App? Well, even as The Daily is being shuttered by News Corp there are other options. There is hope that there is viable content that is being produced for the Newsstand App. Marco Arment, the creator of the indispensable iOS app Instapaper and host of the podcast Build & Analyze on the 5by5 network, has entered into the publishing venture with his relatively new venture simply titled The Magazine.
I'm a fan of Marco even when he is wrong. This sentiment has perfectly translated over to The Magazine. I don't, in fact I cannot, agree with all the articles. However, each article is excellent. As a Dominican friar it provides me an opportunity to step into ideas and concerns that I don't always share. It's a pleasant way to encounter a way of living life that is radically different than my own. Yet, the readers share many of my interests, dare I say obsessions. They are nerdy superstars. As a fellow nerd I appreciate the opportunity to share in these common concerns.
If you too are a nerd or even an aspiring nerd I would recommend subscribing to The Magazine. It is only $1.99 a month. If you don't like it you can always unsubscribe. Don't expect to agree with every article. You can, however, expect well written content from people who care just a little too much about the intersection of technology and culture.
Just search The Magazine in the iOS Newsstand Store. If you don't know how to do that, this magazine is probably not for you.
The Sameness Mentality
This tweet by @rare_basement (a girl) arrived in my twitter timeline today:
"why cant i be pope. this is the WORST sexism"
Actually, I'd say it is the BEST sexism. Why? Well, the reason she can't be pope is that she can't be a Bishop. Why? Because you must be a guy to validly receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. Why? As John Paul II put it, the Church doesn't have the authority to change what Christ established. The Church's authority is limited. She cannot augment the Deposit of Faith that was passed to the Church by Christ through the Apostles. She is a steward of God's decrees. She is not an innovator, modifier, or redactor of the Catholic faith. Christ alone has the authority. A ramification of this is that the Church can't change the all male priesthood because Christ established it. Even if the Church wanted to admit women to the priesthood, she doesn't have the authority to do it. She can't.
So, why does this get branded as a form of sexism? I think it has to do with two contemporary mentalities. The first is that there is a belief that the sexes are in a power battle. The second is that there is a belief that the solution for a perceived lack of equality is to deny the distinction between the sexes and impose structures that support this denial.
There was a famous song performed by the characters Annie Oakley and Frank Butler in the production "Annie Get Your Gun." It captures the mentality of the "war between the sexes." Everyone knows the words, "Anything you can do I can do better." Men and women are typed as being competitors in a struggle for power and prestige. There may be some truth to this in our society today. However, such a competition ought not exist in the community of the faithful. We must reject the "conflict theory" view of human life. Power, if it may be so called, resides simply in holiness, not position.
Joined to this mentality is the erroneous belief that equality equals sameness. While this is a common belief it is more false than the conflict theory approach. At least there is evidence for conflict theory! However, sameness is an assertion. It is an authoritarianism of the secular will. Biology and the whole of the natural order deny the proposition of sameness. Nietzsche would call the imposition of sameness a perfect example of "slave morality." He would be mostly correct. Even the contemporary virtue of diversity is opposed to the sameness mentality. But for some reason such diversity is anathema in our culture when applied to the sexes. But the Church is a great supporter of diversity. She is not bound by the errors of any particular culture or time.
When all things are considered the Church, and the faithful Christian, is able to affirm the dignity of each person and of each difference that expresses the perfection of humanity. It would be an act of violence against the dignity of the diversity of God's creatures if we were to embrace the sameness mentality. We would do violence to both masculinity and femininity if we were to confuse the two.
This is one reason why it doesn't make sense to have women as priests. We call priests father for a reason. Their function in the Church is essentially fatherly. It is not essentially motherly. A mother can never be a father, nor can a father ever be a mother. For one to try and replace the other would be to do violence to the dignity of both fatherhood and motherhood. One only needs to point to the disfunction of our contemporary culture as a proof of this.
When women want to be fathers or when men want to be wives or both desire to be neither there is something profoundly wrong with society. We definitely have these problems in our own society today. What I have said here will be nonsense to the worldly. However, we are not supposed to be of this world. We are in the world but not off the world. Many people say that this problem will be solved by helping restore the family. Maybe the beginning is really through reforming the priesthood?
From the Pope's Pen
A very interesting Motu Proprio was published today. It's actually pretty awesome when one considers the ramifications. I know at least one provision in the document that will be very controversial:
“§ 3. In particular, the diocesan Bishop is to ensure that charitable agencies dependent upon him do not receive financial support from groups or institutions that pursue ends contrary to Church’s teaching. Similarly, lest scandal be given to the faithful, the diocesan Bishop is to ensure that these charitable agencies do not accept contributions for initiatives whose ends, or the means used to pursue them, are not in conformity with the Church’s teaching.”
In short: No George Soros money.
This document doesn't just clarify the rights and responsibilities of the Bishops with respect to Charitable institutions and giving in their local Church. It actually sets down some pretty awesome rules for the way in which Charitable work must not be considered apart from the sanctifying mission of the Church.
This is an important document for reigning in groups that work on the fringe of Catholic teaching or with only the barest amount of Ecclesiastical Oversight.
I'm looking at you Pax Christi. Orthodoxy is essential to the mission of service.
I'm looking at you Priests for Life. Ecclesiastical oversight is essential to the mission of service.
Stop
Seriously people.
Stop trying to blend religions. Christ said that he is the way, the truth and the life. Nobody, I say it again, NOBODY comes to the Father except by him.
Let me simplify:
Jesus Saves ... that is all.
There is no guru, no method, not alternate. There is no other claimant to the throne of heaven.
All salvation is from Christ and his Church. it doesn't matter how you feel about this. It doesn't matter if you disagree. It doesn't matter how comfortable you are with God or his Church. The reality is simple. There are not many ways to heaven. There is only one way.
God does not need to accommodate himself to you. You need to accommodate yourself to God. I know that every teacher, soccer coach, guidance councilor, priest, pastor, and <insert authority figure here>, has told you that your opinion really matters. They have puffed us up so high with a level of pride that will eventually condemn us. But in this area, your opinion doesn't matter. Humility requires you to change. Humility requires you to submit. Humility requires you to turn to God. It doesn't work the other way around.
Stop trying to impose your preferences on God. He is God! To him all knees will bend. His job is to be God, our job is to love him with everything ounce of our very being. Don't fool yourself. God doesn't need you. He doesn't need your approval. He doesn't need your consent. Nothing you do can add anything to his glory.
Rejoice! God doesn't need you.
God wants you!
Seek his face.
Idolatry
I'm disturbed.
I'm really, really disturbed.
The more I listen to people, even priests, the more I'm convinced that most people have replaced God with an idol of their own making. My first realization of this came to me when one of the brothers was recounting a story about a class he was taking. The professor wanted to know how we can account for God condoning and commanding violence in the Old Testament. One student said that she was uncomfortable with a God like that. Wait. What!!!?? Seriously!!!??
This sort of thing sends me SO ANGRY!
This is only one example of the way people recreate God in our own image. I hear people do it all the time. Philosophers and Theologians are always trying to make God less than what he is. I think they are genuine in their desire for God. However, they often lose sight of the ramifications for their statements.
They want God to be surprised. They want God to be changed by our prayers. They want God to suffer along with us. But, what they don't realize is that if God does any of these things then he is not God – he is unworthy of worship. Let me break it down:
- Surprised God = God lacking knowledge
- Changed God by prayers = God lacking in knowledge & goodness
- Suffering God = God lacking power
In the end, all of these things do violence to the absolute perfection and transcendence of God. If God is limited in his knowledge, power, perfection, goodness, etc., then he is not God, he becomes a thing among other things.
The young lady wasn't comfortable with a God who commands violence. I'm not comfortable with a God who lacks the ability to command violence. I'm not comfortable with a constrained God. I'm not comfortable with an image of God that isn't God!
I don't want this post to be about the philosophy of God. I simply want to point out that God is more than all these things. The world says that God needs to be relevant. What it means by this, however, is that God needs to be an emotional salve for my emotional wounds. On the contrary, God is not relevant in this way. The world wants us to believe that God needs us.
No!
God doesn't need any of us. It is the fact that God doesn't need us that makes his love for us all that more great. We don't increase his glory, we don't add to his goodness, we can't change him, we can't effect him. We can't DO anything for God. But, it is because of all this that his act of creation is so awesome. We do nothing for God, but he does everything for us. His love for us is unmerited, undeserved. There is no way for us to merit or deserve his love. He simply grants it because he loves us.
It's that simple.
So, who cares if you aren't comfortable with God! The reality of God doesn't hinge upon your comfort level. But, your existence hinges upon God's reality.
We can't punish God with our doubt or disbelief.
We must learn to not explain away God's actions. We simply need to try and understand the vastness of the mystery of God. We need to smash the Golden Calf in our mind and turn again to the true God who is infinitely transcendent.
God is beyond anything you can conceive of in your mind.
If you can conceive of God ... that's not God.
Martyrdom
I've been thinking a lot about martyrdom.
A number of Catholic authors have been writing about this. It is being said that historically there are 5 stages of persecution. We are currently at stage 4. The current relations between the Church and our State and our popular culture are near the breaking point. I was recently informed that a stable, healthy women's religious community is daily praying for the grace to endure martyrdom. I know these women. They're not crazy. Their foundress isn't an odd character. These women are reading the signs of the times. The signs all say WARNING!
There are two types of martyrdom – red and white. Red is, of course, being killed out of a hatred of the faith. White is the long process of the death to self. It is essentially what we would recognize as the traditional way to holiness. But I think that secularism has bred a new sort of martyrdom. One that has only become tangible in this post-Christian era.
I don't know exactly what to call it. I'm thinking it's color is beige. Why beige? Beige is boring, bland, and forgettable. This is the only sort of Christianity that is acceptable to contemporary secular culture and the secular state – Beige Christianity.
Similar to white martyrdom it has a self-inflicted dimension. By trying to encounter the world we have accommodated ourselves to the world. We have abandoned the radical counter-cultural impetus of our holy religion. We have set it aside of our own accord. Our internal solidarity has been abandoned. Our liminal identification has been abandoned. Our non-identity with any particular time or culture has been abandoned. This is the insight of the traditionalists. They sense that our identity as Catholic's has been compromised. Unfortunately, their response has often been an irascible and poorly reasoned impetus toward traditional expressions of the faith. Their insight is not a bad thing, but it doesn't really address the heart of the problem. It only treats the symptom.
The other part of this martyrdom is imposed from the outside. This is secular society actually imposing its ideology on the Church. This imposition has a double movement. There is the enticing aspect that draws individual Christians away from an authentic practice of the faith by presenting things that appear to be desirable rewards for becoming secular. I have in mind both the popular media and popular culture. Through these very powerful forces we are attacked both in body and in mind. The other aspect is a coercive movement. Here, the force of law is used to compel the Church to comply with secular ideology. The HHS Contraception Mandate is one clear example. However, there are a lot more examples. Everything from zoning regulations to tax code laws can be used to the disadvantage of the faith.
You could call this a bureaucratic persecution. It has the effect of sapping the energy and resolve of the faithful. It's the spiritual equivalent of standing in line at the Motor Vehicle Department. It's a progressive process of taming those aspects of Christianity that would challenge the sentiments, morals, and assumptions of the secular world. It makes us lazy Catholics with flabby souls. It itself isn't beige, this persecution makes us beige.
We can only resolve the problem if we first realize that we are being subtly persecuted. We are like the proverbial frog in boiling water. But, now that we're aware we must re-evangelize others, pulling and pushing them out of their lethargy. We must regain a sense of our destiny as Christians. We must boldly reject what the secular world has done to tame the faith. We must reject an anthropomorphic God. We must restore a sense of the sacred. We must restore our public devotional life. We must stand-up to the powers of this world who would try and bend our consciences to their will. We must cease accommodating ourselves to the world and we must cease accommodating ourselves to the worldly.
Either we'll convert our culture and we'll be free to seek white martyrdom, or the red martyrdom will begin. Either way, Christ is triumphant.
