My Addiction

I think I have a food addiction. The first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning is breakfast. I can’t go more than a couple of hours without craving the stuff. I routinely snack on sunflower seeds at my desk. In the post-lunch afternoon, attempting to abstain leads to severe drowsiness. I have to further admit that it isn’t just food. Almost every day, I drink a pot of coffee in the morning and a half pot in the afternoon. If I’m in an exceptional mood (good or bad), the afternoon coffee is replaced by a massive 44 ounce Mt. Dew from the soda fountain at whichever gas station is the most convenient.

I’m a mess, and it’s a condition that I know is not sustainable. Sooner or later, it will catch up with me. I don’t want to be like the guy in my office who, every day at lunch time, pulls out his carrots and celery and yogurt. I see that, and it makes me want to cry.

It seems like it should be so easy to just tell myself to exercise some self-discipline. My dirty little secret, though, is that I have next to no self-discipline. It’s kind of like saying that the first step to being a saint is choosing not to sin. It sounds so easy, and yet I still find myself crawling back to the confessional with the same list of transgressions again and again.

So, I’m out of the closet, so to speak. Even though I can run a 5K, that 40 extra pounds that I’m carrying around makes it a lot harder than it has to be. I need to make a change.

I’m not writing solely in physical terms, here. Over the last couple of years, I’ve discerned that my body and my spirit are united through my person. I don’t mean for that to sound mystical. What I mean is that where I’ve discovered a weakness of the will affecting my physical body, there’s usually an analogous weakness of the will that affects my spiritual life. I cannot remain a self-indulgent glutton physically while expecting to make any progress toward holiness, and by holiness I mean the kind of communion with God that was intended by our Creator. Unlike an angel, the human person has both body and spirit.

Having recognized the need for change, the next question is how to go about it. Do I quit cold-turkey, or wean myself gradually? I don’t know that the absolutist, cold-turkey approach could be maintained. It might work for alcoholics, but food is kind of fundamental to life. I’m going to go for the gradual wean, with a goal of management. I suspect that will be easier on those around me. My wife was relieved, this past Lent, to learn that I wasn’t giving up coffee, and it wasn’t because she drinks the stuff. I’m not sure about the spiritual analogy, though. It just won’t do to say, “I’m not going to stop sinning, I’m just going to sin less.” Yet, I think most spiritual directors would agree that trying to erase all of one’s faults at once is a recipe for failure. Pick the most glaring, they would say, and focus on that one.

The man that I am is not the man that I want to be. That’s not meant to be a statement of self-loathing. Rather, it is a recognition that I am far from perfect, and that improvement is possible and desired. I hope that I never reach a state where I think that improvement either is not possible or is not desired. The transformation that I’m looking for won’t take place without effort, and the sooner I begin, the better off I (and hopefully, those around me) will be.

I Got Forkus Prime!

Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say, echoing her patroness St. Therese of Liseux, that the secret of sanctitiy was not to be found in the doing of great things, but rather in the doing of little things with great love. I think that a corollary might be that the secret of joy is found not in rejoicing at the great momentous occasions, but rather in finding reasons to rejoice in the daily mundane occasions. It is the kind of sentiment that G. K. Chesterton wrote about in Orthodoxy:

It is a good exercise, in empty or ugly hours of the day, to look at anything, the coal-scuttle or the book-case, and think how happy one could be to have brought it out of the sinking ship onto the solitary island. But it is a better exercise still to remember how all things have had this hair-breadth escape: everything has been saved from a wreck.

Any item that we handle during the day can be a source of joy and gratitude, some things even more so than others. I have a particular example in mind.

We have many forks in our silverware drawer. Most are inexpensive stamped steel. There is one fork, however, that stands out as having superior quality. From the heft, to the material, to it’s curvaceous form, that fork is definitely the elite of the fork drawer. I’ve taken to calling it Forkus Prime.

Forkus Prime has the uncanny ability to brighten my day. When I make my morning breakfast (not to be confused with afternoon breakfast or evening breakfast) and reach for a utensil, I receive a mini-burst of joy when I find Forkus Prime waiting for me. Moreover, I find that the joy persists beyond the moment. Even in the face of a grouchy, pregnant wife, my mood is elevated because “I got Forkus Prime!” It is amazine how I can be affected by such a simple thing.

I have considered splurging for a whole drawer full of Forkus Primes. I suspect, however, that the mini-burst of joy would become severely diluted. In plenty, I would find it exceedingly difficult to achieve Chesterton’s ideal of rejoicing in all things as though they were the only thing saved from the shipwreck. It is much better to play the lottery every time I reach into the drawer in the hope of finding the occasional Easter egg, however humble it might be.

I admit that I still have a long way to go. The ideal would be to rejoice in all the forks, not just Forkus Prime, and not just the forks, but the eggs, toast, and plate as well. I can sometimes accomplish this, provided that I’m already in a reasonably good mood.

Only Forkus Prime, however, has succeeded in changing my foul mood to fair, and for that I am thankful.

Channeling Chesterton

In the May 2010 issue of First Things, David Hart writes a review of the recently published 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists. Predictably enough for a contributor to First Things, Hart is unimpressed by the arguments submitted by the new atheists for their disbelief. There was at least one paragraph that I particularly liked, in which Hart almost seems to be channeling G. K. Chesterton:

The principal source of my melancholy, however, is my firm conviction that today’s most obstreperous infidels lack the courage, moral intelligence, and thoughtfulness of their forefather in faithlessness. What I find chiefly offensive about them is not that they are skeptics or atheists; rather, it is that they are not skeptics at all and have purchased their atheism cheaply, with the sort of boorish arrogance that might make a man believe himself a great strategist because his tanks overwhelmed a town of unarmed peasants, or a great lover because he can afford the price of admission to a brothel. So long as one can choose one’s conquests in advance, taking always the paths of least resistance, one can always imagine oneself a Napoleon or a Casanova (and even better: the one without a Waterloo, the other without the clap).

Nuclear Dreams

Nuclear power has been getting renewed interest lately as a carbon-free source of energy. I agree that a nuke plant will (or should) produce energy without any atmospheric emissions. If you're worried about global warming and the greenhouse effects of carbon dioxide, then nuclear power should look pretty attractive.

I have some experience in dealing with spent nuclear fuel. It is some seriously radioactive stuff. It has to be handled and transported in big, expensive, and heavily shielded containers. It is commonly stored in large pools of water, for both shielding and cooling purposes. I don't believe that nuclear power will ever be implemented on a large scale in the United States because no political agreement can be reached on how to deal with the spent fuel.

The last best hope of the nuclear industry was going to be the storage facility under Yucca Mountain. That facility, which would concentrate the nation's spent nuclear fuel in one safe location rather than distributed across the country, was all but abandoned after environmental impact statements could only guarantee that there would be no leaks for 10,000 years. Instead, we end up with fuel stored in distributed pools that have a much higher chance of leakage.

Dreams of a nuclear future will remain nothing more than dreams until somebody solves the problem of spent fuel storage.

Red Letters

I have a friend who, when discussing the Bible, often refers to the words in red. Some publishers print the gospels using red ink for all of the words that are a direct quotation of Jesus. My friend believes that the words in red deserve special attention.

The gospel passage for Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter is John 3:16-21. I don't own a red letter Bible, but my Revised Standard Version published by Ignatius Press does not indicate that the passage is a quotation. I had always assumed, therefore, that it was inspired commentary by the evangelist John. However, my New International Version published by the International Bible Society (it was a gift) treats it as a continuation of the direct quote in John 3:10-15.

So, depending on which Bible you happen to pick up, the often-cited John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.") might or might not be written in red. It makes no difference to me, but for some, like my friend, it does matter. But how? Whether red or not, the words are inspired and inerrant, and even the words attributed to Jesus are subject to interpretation by translators working from manuscripts in a language other than that which was spoken. The words were spoken in Aramaic, the oldest manuscripts are in Greek, and we typically read them in English.

It might be interesting to argue over where the closing quote belongs, but I think that it's ultimately irrelevant.

Barriers to Faith

There was another conclusion drawn from that Knights of Columbus/Marist poll highlighted in April's Columbia upon which I would like to comment. Catholic millenials, while more likely than their peers to believe in God, are less likely to attend religious services.

These statistics raist important questions relevant to evangelization. For instance, what does it mean to say that faith is an important part of young Americans' lives, while they are nonetheless dissatisfied with their experience of religious institutions? What form must Christian witness take among priests and the lay faithful if young people are looking for spiritual answers, but don't think they can find them by going to church?

It is not without a sadness that I admit to sharing, to some degree, the sentiment of the millenials toward the institutional Church. I love the Church, which is the Body of Christ. It is a great tragedy that our experience of the Church often becomes an obstacle rather than a conduit to a grace-filled life of communion with God.

I have read many beautiful words about the liturgy. I have no doubt that every mass is a sublime mystery that affords us the opportunity to participate in the paschal sacrifice of Christ - his suffering, death, and resurrection - in a real and efficacious way. We are united with the entire Church - militant, suffering, and triumphant - in praising the Father with the Son through the Holy Spirit. I believe this to be true, but it's so hard to see past my own distractions and the mundane ordinariness of the liturgies as they are often celebrated. The glorious reality is hidden behind so many layers of humdrum and sloppy ritual that I have to keep reminding myself why I'm there and hoping that the grace penetrates through all of those layers. Only rarely is the liturgy of our common experience as edifying as it should be or could be.

Scandals in the Church come and go. The long Lent of 2002 was a painful period, and I had hoped that the blood-letting, however severe, would be quick. Yet here we are, eight years later, and sordid details from the disordered lives of figures representing the face of the Church to the world continue to surface. The Church, as a human institution, failed utterly in its moral responsibility. Bishops and diocesan officials have been revealed to be very capable of making erroneous judgments. Formerly revered figures like Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, have been exposed as frauds. The fact that even such authoritative and holy a figure as Pope John Paul II were misled leads to what Patrick Madrid has dubbed "the Maciel Effect." When no endorsement can be trusted, the only logical stance that remains is skepticism toward everything.

The barriers to faith seem to grown higher day by day.

Millenials and Marriage

The April issue of Columbia magazine features a report on a poll recently conducted by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion and sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. The poll focused on the moral and religious attitudes of the Millenial Generation, defined as those who came of age around the year 2000 and are currently between the ages of 18 and 29.

The poll results reveal that millenials place a high value on spirituality, marriage and family. Their top two long-term priorities are growing closer to God and getting married. However, they seem awfully confused about how to get there. It's as if, finding themselves in Columbus and wanting to go to Cincinnati, they happily bought a ticket to Cleveland.

I say this because, while millenials value marriage, they don't value sex. Sex and marriage, in the millenial view, don't have anything to do with one another. No only that, they also fail to see that sex and any moral dimension at all.

Millenials are less likely than previous generations to judge issues related to sexual morality, such as premarital sex, same-sex marriage and same-sec relationships, as morally wrong. And Catholic millenials - along with other Catholics - even more commonly consider these as either morally acceptable or not moral issues at all.

Denying that sex and marriage go together does nothing to change the truth consistently proclaimed by the Church, whether in the language of Paul VI (procreative and unitive aspects) or John Paul II (total self-donation). The millenials seem blissfully unaware that their attitudes toward sexual relations undermines their chances of ever achieving what they claim are their top priorities. Every mile that they travel toward Cleveland takes them farther away from Cincinnati.

Grrr!

I am really irritated today. First, I write my first blog post in a week, and the whole thing disappears somewhere into Blogger. Then, I find that our school's social studies program is teaching our children that an indulgence is "an official pardon for a sin given by the pope in return for money." Three times on their review sheet, they have to repeat this erroneous definition!

Since this is a history class, I'll quote from a history book, John Vidmar's The Catholic Church Through the Ages:

Finally and most famously, there was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence is the remision of the temporal punishment due to a forgiven sin, granted by the church, and effective before God. With each act of confession and absolution, a penance was (and is) attached which requires the penitent to make some sort of "atonement" for his sins. In the early church and right up to the late Middle Ages, these penances could be physical and public: e.g., standing outside a church each Sunday for a number of weeks or years, having certain privileges and rights revoked, going on pilgrimage (to local shrines for lesser sins, or distant and more prestigious shrines for greater sins). Increasingly, as these penances disappeared, the notion of getting souls out of purgatory gained ground. And this could be done by donating money to charity and for Masses to be said on behalf of the deceased. Chantry chapels appeared, at which priests did nothing more than say Masses all day for various intentions. One papal official wrote: "The Lord desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should pay and live."

Some preachers used indulgences as part of their act. The most notorious of these preachers was the German Dominican Johannes Tetzel. Most bishops in Germany did not permit him to come into their dioceses, such was his reputation for an almost circus-like performance. But Albrecht and the diocese of Mainz were out of money, and so Tetzel was invited to preach a new indulgence - for the building of the new St. Peter's in Rome on the condition that half the money went to the diocese of Mainz. This drove Luther over the edge.

Note: the indulgence does not forgive the sin. The indulgence reduces the temporal punishment for sin. The Church, through the power of binding and loosing granted by Christ to the apostles and recounted in the Bible, has the authority to grant indulgences. It is not necessary to donate money to the Church in order to get an indulgence.

Parenthood - To Do or To Be?

Is parenthood a matter of what you do or a matter of what you are? If being a mom or a dad is an active verb, then parenting can be reduced to a skill set, and one is a parent whenever the skill set is accessed. As soon as the kids are gone, accoding to this mode of thinking, I no longer have to worry about being Dad. I can just be Kurt.

Although it might not be put that way, the attitude seems frightfully common, and I strongly believe that it’s a bunch of bunk. Parenthood is a state of being. If you have children, you are a parent. You can drop your babies off with a hired caregiver and drive away, but that doesn’t change your state as a parent. Becoming a parent carries with it an ontological changes not unlike the kind of change associated with vocations to priesthood or married life, albeit in the natural order rather than sacramentally.

My wife has a friend who provides childcare out of her home. She related that a mother had recently called her and asked if she could drop her children off for the afternoon. “I need a break from being a mom,” she explained. This thinking is wrong because even after she drops the kids, she’s still a mom, and to act otherwise is a betrayal of her responsibilities. I understand the difficulties. She can say that the kids are driving her batty, and she needs an afternoon of peace to regroup, but she can no more pretend to not be a mom than she can pretend to not be a wife. That is to say, she can pretend, but it will only be pretend, and it will not be without consequences.

There are at least two reasons this is so, both of which are subjective. The first is internal to the individual (i.e., how he or she sees himself or herself), the second is external to the individual (i.e., how other, especially the children, see the individual). The first involves, potentially, the weakening of the moral imperatives of parenthood. The second revolves around the dilution of parental moral authority.

I’ll leave it to the reader to fill in the blanks.

The Ghosts in the Vials

A New Zealand couple recently sold at auction two vials that they claimed contained the souls of a pair of ghosts exorcised from their house. Like many, my first reaction was to dismiss their claims as superstitious foolishness, but consider a pair of cultural markers.

The first is Nintendo’s popular Zelda video game franchise. In The Ocarina of Time, there are ghosts called poes that come out at night time on the field of Hyrule. If Link (the hero of the story) defeats a poe, he can capture it in a glass jar and sell it to an old woman in the village. It sounds an awful lot like our New Zealand couple, and maybe they got the idea from Nintendo, but I wonder where the Nintendo game developers came up with the idea.

The idea of capturing souls was a central plot element in Dean Koontz’s book, Forever Odd, the second in his Odd Thomas series. Odd Thomas, for those unfamiliar with the character, has a gift: he can see the spirits of dead people who, for whatever reason, have not moved on from this world. In Forever Odd, the antagonist is an occultist who has discovered Odd’s (Odd is the heroes first name; Thomas is his surname) gift and wants to possess it. She proposes to do this by capturing his soul in a stone that, she says, already contains thirty other souls. This would be done through a dark voodoo rite to capture his ti bon ange. Presumably, the process is similar to that used to make zombies.

I’d love to be able to shrug all this stuff off as so much hokum, but is it? All my life, I’ve heard exorcists warning about the dangers of trying to communicate with spirits, and the New Zealand couple claim that their two haunting ghosts (an old man thought to be a former resident of the house and a powerful and disruptive little girl) “turned up after the couple experimented with a Ouija board.” Even the Bible relates that Saul visited a witch who summoned the spirit of the prophet Samuel. When we profess in the Nicene Creed our belief that God created all things, seen and unseen, we are stating our belief in a supernatural reality inhabited by spirits – angels and demons and perhaps ghosts and disembodied souls.

We have not been told that it doesn’t exist; we have been told to avoid it, because it is dangerous. Folks who play with fire eventually end up getting burned, and in this case, the burning can be eternal. Remove the Ouija board from the story of that New Zealand couple, and there would be no haunting, no need for an exorcism, no auction and no buyer. As for the buyer, I don’t want to know what he or she has planned for the ghosts in the vials.

Old Man's War

This post is not about the John Scalzi book, which I read and enjoyed very much. Rather, it’s about one man’s struggle to defend his castle against invasion by a foreign species.

My sisters (the local ones) and I got together on Sunday to celebrate Dad’s 83rd birthday. I think that it’s fair to say, and I don’t think that he would disagree, that he is an old man. For years, he has fought an on-going war against the neighborhood squirrels. It has become customary for his grandchildren to give him squirrel-themed gifts, as a way of poking fun at his single-minded crusade.

Dad has never been a hunter. His war is strictly defensive in nature. If the squirrels leave him alone, he’s content to leave them alone. He is convinced, however, that the squirrels are boarding his home via the power lines and squatting in his attic. They are mounting an invasion, and they must be repelled. He has deployed live traps, not out of humanitarian concerns – he will not extend the rights of the Geneva Convention to his furry-tailed rivals – but rather because a rifle enfilade in town would alarm the neighbors and invite an unwelcomed visit from the local constabulary.

There have been times, as in any war, when mistakes have been made. He has learned the hard way that a ground-based live trap is as likely to catch a skunk as it is a squirrel. Any squirrel that is so unfortunate as to be captured (and let’s face it, they wouldn’t have been caught if they weren’t guilty) cannot look forward to a prisoner exchange. In this war, Dad doesn’t take prisoners – they are permanently removed from the conflict with what I am certain the old man considers swift justice.

The war continues. The squirrels keep recruiting new troops to send on their raids. Their supply of reinforcements at times seems limitless. The old man, on the other hand, has just grown another year older. Eventually, the commander’s baton will have to be passed on to a new general. Either that, or the rodent menace will finally have its victory.

Kings and Princes

I’ve been reading the biblical books of Kings and Chronicles lately, and I am struck by how quickly and thoroughly the People of God slip from faithfulness to apostasy. A cursory survey of the history of heresy should be enough to convince ourselves that we, as Catholics, are not immune to the same temptations.

As rulers, sons don’t necessarily follow their fathers. Hezekiah was King fo Judah at the time when the northern tribes of Israel were conquered by Assyria and sent into exile. He was faithful and true to God. The scripture says of him, “Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook” (2 Kings 18:5-7a).

How is it, then, that his son turned out so rotten? “Hezekiah rested with his fathers. And Manasseh his son succeeded him as king . . . He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the detestable practices of the nation s the Lord had driven out before the Israelites . . . He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshipped them . . . He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking him to anger” (2 Kings 20:21, 21:2, 3b, 6). Manasseh led the people of Judah astray. In doing these things, was he out in front of the people, or was he reflecting the will of his constituency? Does it matter? Is it really an excuse to say before God that you’re just giving the people what they want? Isn’t that the excuse that Aaron tried to give in building the golden calf?

The point that I’m drawing from all of this is two-fold. First, no matter how I live my life, my kids are going to have to make their own choices. While I can hope and pray that they grow up to be righteous adults, they might disappoint me and choose to swim in the cultural soup of the world. God will judge them; it’s out of my hands. Conversely, even though I might be a worm’s turd, my kids might turn out well, as Manasseh’s grandson, Josiah, did.

The second point that I’m drawing is that I can’t count on the prevailing culture to keep me honest. The fact that I live in an area that is predominantly Catholic doesn’t mean that I can assume that the cultural morals are always going to be based upon and informed by Catholic principles. Manasseh worshipped idols in the Jerusalem temple. We cannot assume that everything condoned by our local parish is spiritually good and healthy and pleasing to God. Rather, we must always return to the trustworthy sources: Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium.

30% More Beef

Burger King has been running radio advertisements for their new Steakhouse Burgers. Their big selling point appears to be that their burger has 30% more beef than McDonald's 1/3 pound Angus burger. Who, I asked myself, needs 30% more beef than 1/3 pound in their hamburger?

Then I saw a television advertisement, and now I gotta have one! I haven't given in to the craving yet, because the nearest BK is thirty miles away. Apparently, though, I am the guy that needs 30% more beef.

Healthcare Prediction

I would like to make a prediction. If the healthcare reform legislation currently on the floor of the House of Representatives is passed, healthcare costs will rise, and Republicans will say that it is because of the legislation forced through in a very partisan way by the Democrats. On the other hand, if the current bill is defeated, healthcare costs will increase, and Democrats will say that it is because of Republican obstructionism that blocked the reform that was needed. Either way, costs are going to go up, and somebody will get the blame. That's called spin, and it's one of the things I hate about politics (others including, but not limited to, the corrupting influence of money and the character assassination committed upon opponents).

My personal opinion (it's worth what you pay for it) is that the Democrat bill will do more harm than good by doing two things (setting aside for the moment the evil of Government-funded abortion). First it will start us down the road to a system of nationalized healthcare in which attempts to control costs will be made by bureaucratized boards who effectively ration care. These are the famous "death panels." They won't explicitly condemn anyone to death, rather they will rule that your loved ones don't qualify for the medical treatment that will extend their life. The second harm of the Democrat-favored reform is the damage it will do to the already fragile economy, in the form of increased taxation.

That's not to say that we should do nothing. We need to address tort reform and pre-existing conditions. There are, of course, details that would need to be worked out, but I see no reason why such focused and limited reform cannot be drafted and enacted in a bi-partisan fashion. The cost of premiums would be adjusted by market forces to accommodate the new coverage requirements.

Unless, that is, some of the politicians controlling the process are only really interested in feathering their own beds. If that is the case, then our only hope is to defeat them completely.

Incredibly Sacred

Anybody with children has probably seen the Pixar film, The Incredibles. It tells the story of two super-heroes, Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl, who get married and then to into a super-hero relocation program after the trial lawyers turn public sentiment against the "supers." The two have children and try to raise them in anonymity.

There is a scene in the film where their son, Dash, who has the gift of super-speed, is frustrated that he is not allowed to use his ability. He has a special gift, he argues, to which his mother replies that everyone's special. "Which is another way of saying no one is," he answers glumly.

Why do I bring up this scene from the Incredibles? Because of something that I read this weekend, in which the author was trying to assert that "everything is sacred: all places, all of creation, all of the times in our lives are sacred." To apply Dash's logic, that means that nothing is.

I can agree that all of creation is good, and can lead to an encounter with God. It's possible to meet God in a grove of trees. But in that case, you don't encounter God there because the grove is sacred, the grove becomes sacred because that is where you encounter God. When Moses encountered the burning bush, the voice told him to remove his shoes, because he was standing on sacred ground. This is sacred ground. When Moses left the area and left the presence of God, he was, presumably, no longer on sacred ground, and could place his shoes back on his feet.

Every sacramental celebration is an encounter with the divine and is, therefore, sacred. They typically take place is a consecrated space - a space set aside in a special way for sacramental celebrations. The consecration makes the space (i.e,, the church or chapel) sacred. When we start speaking in the language of universal sacredness, we risk losing our appreciation for the unique character of the truly sacred. If the grocery store is sacred, then why not offer mass in the bread aisle?

I hope that the words I quoted were just not well chosen, and that they would be withdrawn and revised if questioned. It is representative, however, of a dangerous attitude. We cannot afford to treat the good as sacred, nor can we afford to treat the sacred as merely good.

Remember how we started with the Incredibles? Well, the villain in the Incredibles is an inventor who goes by the name of Syndrome. Just before he's captured by Syndrome, Mr. Incredible learns that Syndrome has killed off nearly every other super. "You mean you killed off real heroes so that you could *pretend* to be one?" Syndrome replies, "Oh, I'm real. Real enough to defeat you! And I did it without your precious gifts, your oh-so-special powers. I'll give them heroics. I'll give them the most spectacular heroics the world has ever seen! And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that *everyone* can have powers. *Everyone* can be super! And when everyone's super-- [chuckles evilly] --no one will be."

Apocalyptic Dreams

I had an interesting dream the other night. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and I was at work. It was dark outside, and we were all sitting in our cubicles without any electricity, while the secretary went from person to person letting us know that the boss was sending us home.

Why was it dark, why was there no electricity, and how did I know that it was three o’clock? Given the tradition that Jesus died on the cross at three o’clock and that darkness covered the land while the earth shook and rocks split (see Matthew 27:45-56), the whole thing was frightfully apocalyptic.

The Phone in the Confessional

National Public Radio reported Wednesday that a French company has set up a telephone service for folks who want to confess their sins, but aren’t contrite enough to actually go to a church to speak with a priest. The French bishops are, understandably, not on board with the project.

To it’s credit, the service advises callers that anyone in a state of mortal sin needs to make a real confession

Stories like this one often remind me of the parish in Northern Virginia that we belonged to during my navy years. One of the confessionals had a telephone handset on the wall next to the screen. The telephone was to be used any time that Father Most, who was hard of hearing, was on the other side of the screen. The phone in the confessional led me many times to wonder whether one could, in fact, call-in a confession. The validity of the sacrament, after all, does not require any physical contact between the penitent and the confessor. Priests routinely bless television audiences, and some might argue that, if the priest offering the blessing intends it, the blessing could even extend to viewers of encore presentations. Could a viewer with a DVR then rewind the program and receive multiple blessings? There’s a hint of snark in the question, but the question remains, I think, legitimate.

And yet, a blessing is not a sacrament, and there is a lot of material that suggests that the sacraments do not have an infinite range (in the normal order of things – God, of course, is not rigidly bound by such rules, as the Centurion would surely attest). Viewing a televised mass from home does not fulfill the Sunday obligation, yet listening to a mass from an adjoining chamber (e.g., a crying room for parents of infants and toddlers) does. It is not, therefore, a line-of-sight phenomenon.

There are practical considerations in the matter of confession, as well. Privacy and the potential for eavesdropping is very real concern. There may be other concerns as well, on a pastoral level. There exists, as in all things, a potential for abuse. It is, I am convinced, a bad idea, and it is probably a violation of Canon Law [UPDATE: Yep, Canon 964], making it illicit. Whether or not it is licit could change over time. The question that I am asking is whether such a confession would be valid, and I think that the answer is that if the priest hears the confession in real time and says the words of absolution, the sins are absolved, subject to all of the usual disclaimers (nothing intentionally withheld, penance performed, etc.).

If I’m wrong, please let me know!

Cohabitation and Marriage

The New York Times recently reported on a Study by the National Center for Health Statistics which found that “couples who live together before they get married are less likely to stay married.” This is not news to anyone who cares about traditional marriage and pays attention to statistics and attitudes towards the social institution. What was surprising and shocking, to me at least, was a statistic cited by the authors of the study.

The authors found that the proportion of women in their late 30s who had ever cohabited had doubled in 15 years, to 61 percent.

Can that statistic possibly be correct? Note that the authors define cohabitation as “people who live with a sexual partner of the opposite sex.” The statistic suggests that, if you randomly select any ten women in their late 30s, six of them will have lived with a lover. The definition, however, might not rule out married couples. Most of us, when speaking of cohabiting couples, specifically mean unmarried couples. Later in the article, however, we learn an additional statistic.

The study found that, over all, 62 percent of women ages 25 to 44 were married and 8 percent were cohabiting.

That suggests that the study did not lump married couples in with unmarried cohabiting couples. In other words, the 61 percent figure would be applied to cohabitation outside of marriage. Taking a peak at the full report is not reassuring. The authors of the study did indeed exclude married couples from the cohabiting numbers. The percentage is actually higher (63 percent) for women in their early thirties, and the report is based on information gathered in 2002, so the numbers today are probably even worse.

Fear for the future and pray for your children.

(H/T KJL@NRO)

Holy Fear

Is it possible that preparing for mass by reading the selected scripture passages ahead of time can be a distraction? Too often, when I do so, my mind focuses on a particular phrase, such that throughout the Liturgy of the Word, I'm thinking about that one phrase - how the other readings are affected by it, how other non-selected parts of the scripture are affected by it, whether the celebrant will say anything about it in his homily, how it affects our broader spiritual life.

Almost invariably, the phrase upon which I've focused goes completely unnoticed by everyone else. It goes unmentioned in the homily, which I was only half-listening to because my attention was elsewhere. Truly full, conscious, and active participation in the mass, it seems, requires a self-discipline that I have yet to achieve.

The idea that commanded my attention this Sunday was holy fear. In the first reading from the Book of Genesis, we hear of God's promise to Abram (this was before his name was changed to Abraham). In obedience to God, Abram offers a sacrifice of a heifer, goat, ram, turtledove, and pigeon. All day long, the carcasses sit there, and Abram has to chase away the gathering vultures. As the day draws to a close, nothing has happened.

What happens next is what grabbed me: "As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram; and lo, a dread and great darkness fell upon him" (Genesis 15:12).

God was about to act, and after chasing vultures all day, maybe Abram was questioning whether he had heard God's instruction correctly. We don't know why, but we know that Abram fell into a state of darkness and fear.

How can this be related to the other selected readings?

In Luke's gospel account of the Transfiguration, "a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were afraid as they entered the cloud" (Luke 9:34). In Matthew, the fear comes when they hear the voice: "When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces, and they were filled with awe" (Matthew 17:6). According to Mark, they were afraid ever before the cloud or the voice from heaven: "And Peter said to Jesus, 'Master, it is well that we are here; let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.' For he did not know what to say, for they were exceedingly afraid" (Mark 9:5-6).

Fear, it seems, is the natural response to an encounter with the divine.

Jesus, however, "came and touched them, saying, 'Rise and have no fear.'" (Matthew 17:7) The responsorial psalm (which, regrettably, we didn't hear in our parish) tells us, "Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yea, wait for the Lord!" (Psalm 27:14)

Fear of the Lord is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and scripture (Proverbs 1:7) says that it is the beginning of wisdom. It is impossible not to be filled with awe when exposed to the full divinity of the creator of the universe. However, courage is also a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Like Abram, we must wait for the Lord, even when his promises seem delayed in coming. Even when his presence fills us with awe and fear, we still must be courageous in our obedience to his will.

It is easier said than done, as my personal failings demonstrate. God gives us sufficient grace, however, to make such courage and obedience possible for those who accept and cooperate with that grace.

The General Law of Wives

“All other things being equal, the ideological space between a male writer and his wife will shrink over time, with the husband moving the greater distance.”

Conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg presented his General Law of Wives in a recent Goldberg File, then went on to demonstrate the law in action based on the evolution of Paul Krugman’s writing over the years and a recent profile of Krugman in the New Yorker. Goldberg also cites a former boss of his who had worked in the Johnson administration. Although the law specifically applies to writers, it also appears to hold true for politicians and policy wonks. The James Carville and Mary Matalin union might be the exception that breaks the rule.

I don’t know how, if at all, the General Law of Wives applies to non-writers. If you’ve suffered through my little ramblings, you already know that I’m no writer. The mind of an engineer, my wife will surely tell you, is not like the minds of most other (i.e., normal) people. I like to think that, after 17 years of marriage, I’ve dragged my wife over to my way of thinking. Amy, bless her soul, allows me to persist in that belief.

The Bible supports Jonah’s law. Solomon, for all of his wisdom, was led astray by his wives: “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods …” (1 Kings 11:4). It has always amazed me that the gift of wisdom did not protect Solomon from folly. Knowing what is right, good, and true, and doing it are two entirely different things.

Solomon was not alone among the kings of Israel and Judah that were led astray by their wives. Ahab was led by his wife Jezebel to worship Baal (1 Kings 16:31). Jehoram, as King of Judah, turned from the ways of his father, Jehoshaphat, and did evil “for he married a daughter of Ahab” (2 Kings 8:18). Jehoshaphat’s great failure as King of Judah was his alliance with Ahab, the King of Israel, sealed with the marriage of Jeshoshaphat’s son to Ahab’s daughter. The corruption and apostasy of the wife spread to the husband.

Hasn’t that been the story ever since the serpent talked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit?

Truth be told, neither Amy nor I had far to move, ideologically, and our spiritual progress has been in the same direction. We were pretty like-minded when we were married. I hope that a casual observer can see, though, why I worry about my future sons and daughters-in-law. It is important to me that my own children find spouses that don’t disregard religious truth and liturgy. If the General Law of Wives holds true, then I should especially worry for my son(s).

Almsgiving, Prayer, and Fasting

There's been a change of season, and we suddenly find ourselves in Lent. I'm surprised to say that I'm going to miss Ordinary Time, and with all the snow that February has brought to Ohio, I hope that the season of Winter ends soon, too.

Lent is a time of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. In the gospel for the Ash Wednesday mass, Jesus addresses all three. Although all three are good, motives are important, he tells us. Almsgiving is a matter of charity and justice to our fellow man. Don't, therefore, make it about yourself. Don't announce your generosity so that other will think well of you. I can't help but wonder whether we're doing the right thing when, for example, our Knights of Columbus council has a public relations officer, whose job it is to announce our good works to the world. Our intention is to let people know that we are active in the community, but does that intention contradict gospel principles? Similar advice is often given regarding the Church: if only people knew all of the good that she does, they would attack her less. I suspect that attempts to improve the public image of the Church by trumpeting her good works would only create knew avenues of attack. That does not mean that we should actively conceal our good works. The point is not that our works be hidden, but that they not be done just to be seen.

Our Lord's advice on prayer and fasting is similar. He assumes that we will pray and fast (you do fast, don't you? I need to work on it!). Again, the point is that we should not do it in order to be seen doing it. It's not a condemnation of public prayer. If you go out to eat at a restaurant, don't refrain from blessing the food because other might see you. Rather, bless the food because you are thankful to God for his providence in supplying the food, and not because other diners might see you pray and think well of you.

The season of Lent is about conversion. My own conversion seems to be an ongoing process. Though I might wish that it were done and over with, God has instead decreed that it will occur daily. Every day requires a turning from sin. Every sin requires a reconciliation with God, for sin damages that relationship. Paul reminds the Corinthians that we should seek this reconciliation so that God grace will not be received in vain. I mourn for all of the grace that has been poured out upon me, seemingly to be wasted.

Our reconciliation and conversion is more than just external. Yes, God wants obedience, but what he desires is that our hearts be turned to him. Obedience will then be a fruit of love.

Unequal Rosaries

Not all rosaries are created equal, and I think that I might need to get myself a new one. The one that I've been favoring lately just isn't getting the job done. It looks nice, but it fails in functionality. It gets tangled in my pocket, and the loops are always falling apart. I pulled it out to use it the other night, and ended up with a crucifix and one bead in one hand and a mass of tangled beads in the other. I had to untangle the mass while praying the creed before I could even start to reattach the crucifix. It seems that it is more suited to decoration (I did say that it looks nice), than to prayer.

I have another rosary that works much better for prayer. It has a knotted fiber cord with rounded wood beads. It never tangles in my pocket. The only thing that gives me pause in using it is the fact that the centerpiece features a piece of dirt from an alleged Marian apparition site, with the name of the place prominently embossed. The local ordinary discourages pilgrimages, and there is enough questionable fruit associated with the place that I would prefer to steer clear. The rosary was a gift, and the giver told me that the Blessed Virgin herself blessed the rosary. That's kind of hard to verify, and it only increases my skepticism.

I have another gift rosary from another alleged apparition site. This one is supposed to contain a piece of paper from a book that was blessed by the Virgin Mary. These two rosaries are nice, but I can't help but feel like using them for prayer carries with it an implicit endorsement of the alleged apparitions. I wish that I still had the rosary that I received when I was initiated into the Knights of Columbus, but that one was lost somewhere years ago.

So, I'll be keeping my eyes open for a suitable rosary - one that won't get tangled up in my pocket and won't fall apart. One that doesn't promote an apparition that hasn't been approved by the Church. One that's made for prayer. I might just revert to the trusty finger rosary that I use when I run.

As for the one that I've been using: it will go back to a display state, ready if I should need it, but not in primary circulation.

Hitler Rails Against Pope Benedict

Ohay, I finally watched this one and just had to share it.

A Valid Marriage

It's no secret that the social institution of marriage is in a sorry state these days. Even sacramental marriage is suffering as evidenced by the large numbers of declarations of nullity granted by diocesan marriage tribunals in this country. I was once told by a tribunal administrator that American culture is dysfunctional with respect to marriage.

The Catholic Church has attempted to counter this trend by requiring those wishing to be married to participate in six-month marriage preparation programs and weekend retreats for engaged couples. In most cases, I think, these are viewed by engaged couples as hoops that they have to jump through in order to have their wedding presided over by a priest in their parish church. Some, no doubt, decide that they don't want to jump through the hoops and end up getting married out of the Church. For baptized Catholics, who are bound by Canon Law, the resulting union in invalid due to lack of form.

What are we to do about the marriage crisis in our Church?

The Archdiocese of Phoenix has decided that the current marriage requirements aren't rigorous enough. Rather than six months of preparation, Phoenix requires nine. In addition, all engaged couples will be required to complete a full course of instruction in Natural Family Planning. I applaud the intention and goals of these measures, but I can't help but think that the unintended consequence will be an increase in marriages that lack proper form because the couples decided the hoops are too onerous.

At the other end of the spectrum is a recent column by Fr. Peter Daly. His pastoral approach seems to be based on a pastoral imperative to deny the sacraments to no one. I might be reading too much into what he has written, but I believe that he is suggesting that if a couple wishes to be married in the church, but does not want to comply with all of the pre-requisites for a church marriage, the marriage ceremony should be performed anyway. God will work out the validity and the sacramentality. The problem here, however, is that the couple that refuses to submit to the disciplines of the Church at the time of the marriage probably does not possess the capacity to give consent to enter into marriage, as understood by the Church, at the time that the vows are exchanged. In other words, their union is no more a valid marriage than is that of the couple married outside of the Church, except that they have an ecclesiastical stamp of approval that reinforces an attitude that the Church has no role to play in how they conduct their personal lives.

There has to be a proper balance somewhere. Catechesis on marriage is incredibly important, but it has to be done well before a couple becomes engaged. Ideally, young adults should know what the Church teaches about marriage before they even start dating. Once they make the decision to wed, it's not unreasonable to ask them to undergo additional specific catechesis. There should, however, always be some room for pastoral prudence. Some couples approach marriage with a better spiritual formation, and others have legitimate reasons for not being able to fulfill all of the usual conditions. That's why Canon Law allows provisions for bishops to relax the requirements of certain canons.

It's a mistake, however, to allow the laws of the Church regarding marriage to be held hostage by engage couples. Pretending the laws don't exist solely to keep titular Catholics from leaving the Church does nothing to strengthen the Body of Christ. The Church teaches with authority. To pretend otherwise is to undermine that very authority.

I Gotta Have Faith

There is a brand of evangelical Christianity that preaches a gospel of worldly success. It is sometimes referred to as the “health and wealth” gospel, promoting a “name it and claim it” theology. It seemed to reach a fever pitch a few years ago when the Prayer of Jabez suddenly rose to prominence from obscurity in Chapter 4 of 1 Chronicles.

The danger in emphasizing such a message is that is implies that poor health or poverty is the result of a lack of faith, and that true believers will be rewarded by God in this life. Jesus, however, never promised riches; he promised the cross and persecution. Paul did not boast of his stock portfolio, he boasted of his trials. Even when we consider the great modern witnesses of Christ – Mother Teresa of Calcutta or Pope John Paul the Great – we see examples not of reward in this life, but of loving union with the sufferings endured by Our Lord.

And yet, the name it and claim it crowd just might be on to something.

In the gospels, it seems as though those with the greatest faith are healed by Jesus with the least effort. Most of the miracles performed by Jesus include a physical sign that foreshadows the sacraments – the rubbing of mud onto the eyes of a blind man, for example. The Centurion’s servant, however, was cured without Jesus even needing to go to the house, based on the faith of the Centurion. The woman with the hemorrhage was healed because she believed that she would be, if only she touched the hem of Jesus’ robe.

In contrast, when Jesus returned to his home territory, the people did not believe, and there were no miracles.

In addition, Jesus tells parables that suggest that, if we ask persistently, God will answer are prayers – “Ask and you will receive. Knock and the door will be opened.”

That leaves us where we started. What about the poor and the afflicted? Are they poor and afflicted because they lack faith? My thought on the matter is breaking down along two parallel questions. First, is it appropriate to pray for relief? Second, if a prayer is unanswered, does it indicated a lack of faith in the pray-er?

Why wouldn’t somebody pray to be relieved from poverty or illness? We’ve come to see suffering in all its forms as bad, something to be avoided. Yet, we are told in the letter to the Hebrews that Christ himself learned obedience through what he suffered. We certainly are not greater than our master, so if suffering was good for him, why would it not be good for us? Our suffering can be redemptive, when it is joined to those of our Savior. And so the saints not only do not avoid suffering, they embrace it, because it strengthens their identification with Christ. Their example seems to indicate that true faith will not seek material prosperity.

And yet, such prayers can be offered selflessly. Building a hospital or an orphanage requires funding. It would be silly to think that a saint would not pray to God to provide the funds for such an endeavor. A young mother dying of cancer, should pray for healing not for her sake, but for that of her children. A business owner should pray for the success of his company, not so that his wealth will increase, but so that he will increase the greater good of the community by boosting the local economy.

So material blessings from God can and should be prayed for, but only for unselfish reasons. As St. John of the Cross taught, even prayer, if offered for selfish intentions, can be a source of sin.

What then, are we to conclude from prayers that seem to go unanswered? The short answer is: nothing. I know a man who has hemophilia. At one point, he was told by somebody whom I’m sure had good intentions that if he prayed with sufficient faith to be healed, then he would be. He prayed. As far as I know, he still has hemophilia. Does that mean that his faith is somehow defective? By no means! This man’s faith exceeds my own (perhaps my faith is more defective than his). Although he has hemophilia, he continues to live, to contribute to the greater good of the community, and to share the gospel. No less a person than St. Paul complained of a thorn in the flesh, which he prayed to God to remove. The thorn remained. Are we really to conclude that St. Paul lacked faith?

We know that God answers prayers. We cannot know, however, why he answers some and not others. He has his reasons; that should be enough for us.

Presidential Smarts

While travelling last week, I found myself stuck in a Tennessee ice storm (how often does that happen?). With a little time on my hands, I chanced to peruse a recent copy of Newsweek magazine. What I learned is that the failure of President Barack Obama's policy agenda is his own fault. You see, he's just too smart. He's leading with his head rather than his heart, and those of us who don't want to go where he would lead our country are just too dim to appreciate his brilliance.

This is the smartest president in modern history, maybe even the smartest ever. We would all be better off if we just let him do all our thinking for us.

Haven't we been here before? Haven't we, fairly recently, had apresident who was hailed as being magnificently intelligent? Just consider the classic Dan Aykroyd skit from Saturday Night Live, in which he lampooned the celebrated smarts of President Jimmy Carter, the last smartest president ever, then ask yourself, just how did that administration work out for us? By the time he left office, we faced unemployment, inflation, and high interest rates. Fifty Americans had been held hostage in Iran, and our military was humiliated by a botched rescue attempt.

Maybe the ability to quote Reihold Neibuhr should not be the criteria upon which we judge the intelligence of the man (or woman!) we place in the oval office.

Called to Make Noise

Most of those who comment on the story of the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5:1-20 focus their reflection on the reaction of the villagers. They see the afflicted man, clothed and sane, and they are afraid. Then they hear about their lost pigs, and they plead with Jesus to leave. They would rather have the poor soul still possessed by demons if it would give them back their herd of swine. Their priorities are grossly misplaced.

There are two points, however, from the last few verses that I rarely see anybody raise.

First, the man is not told to remain silent about what has been done for him. Throughout the Gospel of Mark, we repeatedly see Jesus heal people only to turn around and tell them to keep it a secret. The reason for the messianic secrecy is not clear, but it might have to do with Jesus recognizing that too much publicity could create crowds that would have a negative impact on his ministry. Jesus doesn’t do this with the Gerasene, through. To him, he says, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.” Not only does he not command him to secrecy, he tells him to talk about it!

The second point is a vocational one. The Gerasene, having been rid of his demons, wanted to follow Jesus as one of his disciples. Jesus had a different mission for him, though. This, I think, highlights the idea that vocational discernment, while personal and subjective to the individual, is not purely private. Some might think that they are called or want to be called to a religious vocation. God, however, might have different plans. Vocational discernment, then, should never be a case of a young man saying, “I want to be a priest,” or an older man saying, “I want to be a deacon.” Rather, it should be a case of the man saying, “I think that I’m being called.” At that point, the Church must help the soul who thinks that God is calling him to discover just what vocation God is calling him to embrace. It’s possible that, like the Gerasene, the call is to be a light to friends and family rather than to ordained service.

Picture the Scene

When I try to imagine the scene of this past Saturday’s gospel selection for mass, I can’t help but raise my eyebrows and ask, “What the heck was going on?”

Jesus had just selected his twelve apostles and returned to his home. “The crowd came together again,” Mark tells us, “so that they could not even eat.” (Mk 3:20). I can picture the crowd pressing in upon him, seeking to be cured of their diseases. A few verses earlier, just before he picked his apostles, Mark related how Jesus “told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they should crush him.” (Mk 3:9) Perhaps the crowd was getting out of hand, maybe even on the verge of a violent riot.

The unruliness of the crowd did not go unnoticed. “And when his friends heard it, the went out to seize him, for they said, ‘He is beside himself.’” (Mk 3:21) The crowd was large enough and loud enough to attract the attention of the friends of Jesus. It’s not clear to me whether these “friends” were apostles, disciples, or friendly acquaintances. Later, Mark will specifically mention his mother and brethren (Mk 3:31), so these are probably not they.

Those attempting to intercede appear to be concerned not about the state of the crowd, but about the state of Our Lord. “He is beside himself.” This is where my eyebrows start going up. With the crowd pressing in, what was Jesus’ behavior, evoking the concern of his friends? When we say that someone is beside himself, we typically mean that the person is in a highly emotional state. This is a stark contrast to my usual image of Jesus as a man firmly in control of his emotions. I can picture his anger at the money changers in the temple or at the Pharisees, and I can picture his sorrow at the death of Lazarus or the impending doom of Jerusalem. Even in these moments of emotion, however, I never imagine Christ as “beside himself.” What was going on here?

The gospel passage read at mass stops here. For Mark, though, this is only the beginning of the paragraph. What happens in the next verse is directly related to the two preceding verses: “And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out demons.’” (Mk 3:22) My eyebrows are now fully raised.

What caused the scribes to reach this conclusion? Was it the behavior of the crowd? Was it the apparent mental state of Jesus? Was it the actions of his friends? Was it a combination of the three? I really don’t know how to picture the scene!

A Counter-Cultural Canon

Sometimes, being counter-cultural is no fun, especially if you’re doing it not because you want to, but because you are obliged to.

I’m speaking of Canon 1250.

The Code of Canon Law is binding on all Latin Rite Catholics. Eastern Rite Catholics have their own code (the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches). Canon 1250 is the law that stipulates that every Friday is to be a day of penance. The standard form for the penance is abstinence from meat, but Catholics in the United States are allowed to substitute some other form of penance. Following the Second Vatican Council, most Catholics were told that they were now allowed to eat meat on Friday, and the requirement for a substitute penance was never heard. The American Bishops’ reasoning, it seems, was that abstinence from meat wasn’t enough of a sacrifice: “Since the spirit of penance primarily suggests that we discipline ourselves in that which we enjoy most, to many in our day abstinence from meat no longer implies penance, while renunciation of other things would be more penitential.”

I’ve been thinking about Canon 1250 ever since I saw it mentioned recently on another blog (God Is With Us), and I’ve concluded that it truly is a counter-cultural canon. I say that because Friday, in American culture, is anything but penitential. We have casual Friday and Friday Fun Day. Friday ends the work week and initiates the weekend. Friday night is the time to party. I would be so much easier to do penance on Monday or Wednesday.

But the Code says Fridays are penitential, in memory of Our Lord’s Passion.

Perversely, I try to have it both ways. I celebrate the end of the week, but I do it without eating meat. The abstinence acts as a reminder of my Catholic identity, but it hardly rises to the level of penance. I have, regrettably, given in to the temptation to minimalize, doing the least necessary to comply with the letter of the law, while happily whistling past the spirit of the law.

It is yet another sign that my conversion is incomplete.

I want to be obedient. I recognize the authority of the Church not only to teach doctrine, but to regulate the spiritual disciplines of her members. When the world calls us to celebration, but the bride of Christ calls us to prayer and sacrifice, I pray that I will have the wisdom and courage to follow where He would lead.

Oh Lord, purify my heart and rid me of my selfish inclinations.

Pacwa on Samuel

The non-Gospel Lectionary readings for the first two weeks of Ordinary Time are coming from 1 Samuel. We've heard of how Hannah's prayer was answered with the birth of Samuel, how Samuel served Eli and was called by God to be a prophet and judge. We've heard how Samuel annointed Saul king of Israel, and of Saul's disobedience. Very soon, Saul will annoint David and, after Saul's death, David will become king of Israel.

With Samuel on the mind, I've been listening to some of Fr. Mitch Pacwa's Old Testament Prophets series. Episode 5 covers young Samuel and Episode 6 covers Samuel as kingmaker and king breaker.

Interesting stuff, worth a listen.

Wouldn't It Be Nice If . . . ?

Every now and then, the scriptures contain a hint of something that leads to a “wouldn’t it be nice if” supposition. Sometimes, the supposition has a lot of historical support and can be found in the early Church tradition or the exegesis of the Church Fathers. At other times, there’s no support for it at all.

One example of this is in the lineage of Mary. It is widely believed that Mary, like Joseph, was descended from the line of David, giving Jesus not just a legal claim to the royal lineage, but a natural one as well. The Gospel of Luke, however, contains the detail that Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron. Wouldn’t it be nice if, like her kinswoman Elizabeth, Mary was also a daughter of Aaron?

Jesus was (is) a divine person with a divine nature and a human nature. He was also the prophet, priest, and king par excellence. In his divinity, he possessed all of the qualities necessary for this triple role from eternity. In his humanity, however, these roles would need to be acquired according to human tradition.

The royal claim is clearly established through Matthew’s genealogical map from Abraham through David to Joseph, the husband of Mary.

The role of prophet is not passed on through blood lines; rather, God calls the prophet. This call and public commission by God the Father was given to Jesus after his baptism by John, when the Holy Spirit descended upon him and drove him into the desert to be tempted.

But what about the priestly office? How does Jesus lay claim to the priesthood in human terms? There were two kinds of priesthood under the Torah, and both were handed on by bloodline. Intercession between God and man was entrusted to the descendants of Aaron, and they were assisted by the tribe of Levi.

If Mary, like her cousin Elizabeth, was descended from Aaron, then it all gets wrapped together nicely. The royal claim is through Joseph, the priestly claim is through Mary, and the prophetic claim is through the events of the Baptism.

The Catholic Encyclopedia entry for the Blessed Virgin Mary indicates that Mary might have been both. Her father, Joachim, might have been a descendent of David and her mother, Anne, a descendent of Aaron. For the most part, though, the most we can do regarding the lineage of Mary is speculate.

A Future Without Down Syndrome?

As the father of a child with Down syndrome, I have mixed feelings about Dana Goldstein’s piece in The Daily Beast, ”A Future Without Down Syndrome?”. On the one hand, it’s always nice to read of parents who have come to embrace the treasures that their non-typical children are. But on the other hand, I am a little disheartened by some of the underlying assumptions: particularly that only the “very religious” or the uneducated would choose to carry to term a baby diagnosed with Trisomy 21, or that advocates are motivated by a desire not to see their child’s peer group shrink.

Ms. Goldstein, unfortunately, reflects a significant portion of American society. Too many people, it seems to me, have children for the wrong reason. Their motivations are fundamentally selfish, and they are devastated if the child is born with imperfections. The birth of a child should never be the cause of depression! (Yes, I realize that post-partum depression is real. I don't think we're talking about that here, though."

There is a curious statistic cited. “According to a study published last month in the journal Pediatrics, between 1979 and 2003, the number of babies born with the condition increased from nine to about 12 per 10,000 births.” Just how that statistic is reconciled with the contradictory, and oft-cited, statistic that as many as 90% of Down syndrome pregnancies are terminated by abortion is a mystery. Methinks maybe I should take a peak at that study.

As with many on-line articles, the comments provide some “interesting” perspectives.

Baptized for Our Sake

During Lent, as we approach Good Friday, the Lectionary leads us, in the gospel selections for the weekday mass, through progressive miracles performed by Jesus in the Gospel of John and His conflict with the Pharisees. As I followed along last year, I couldn’t help but wonder where I would have found myself. The man Jesus was teaching some pretty radical things and making appeals to authority to which no man could claim. My conclusion at that time was that the raising of Lazarus would have been a game changer for me. I might have had doubts before that, but certainly not after.

Today, the Church brings to a close the Christmas season by celebrating the Baptism of Our Lord. In the events of the Baptism, we see a public manifestation of God the Father recognizing in Jesus the authority that he already possessed. Some might argue that, on a human level, Jesus didn’t know his mission until after his Baptism. Pope Benedict XVI, however, warns against trying to psychoanalyze our Lord and the impact that his baptism by John had upon his self-awareness. “The texts give us no window into Jesus’ inner life – Jesus stands above our psychologizing.”

Imagine being present in the crowd that day. John was widely regarded to be an authentic prophet, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in Israel hundreds of years. John himself not only denied that he was the Christ, but testified that another was coming who was much greater than he. John was not fit to untie the thong of his sandal, and he would baptize with the fire and the spirit, rather than with the mere water that John used. One day, while baptizing in the Jordan, a man comes out with the crowds, and John says, “Behold the lamb of God!” The man wants John to baptize him, and John tries to demur, saying, “I need to be baptized by you!” The man insists, and John obeys. Then something truly amazing happens. The heavens open, and the spirit of God visibly descends upon the man, and a voice from heaven declares the man his Son!

All four gospels are in agreement regarding the phenomena that accompanied the Baptism of Jesus. For a person present at the Baptism, it would not have been so hard to accept the controversial claims of the man Jesus. It would not have taken the raising of Lazarus. My personal conclusion is that the descent of the Holy Spirit and the affirmation of the Father were not for the sake of the Son. The Son knew who he was, but no one else did. It had been thirty years since the angels announced the birth of the messiah to the shepherds and the magi had brought him gifts. Now that he was to begin his public ministry, it was necessary to renew his divine certification.

Whenever I purchase gasoline, the pump is marked with the Auditor’s seal. The presence of the seal certifies that I’m getting what I think I’m getting. Placing the seal on the pump does not change the way the pump works, and it doesn’t change what comes out of the nozzle. It gives me confidence that it is what it says it is. In the same way, the dove and the voice after Jesus’ Baptism gave those who witnessed it confidence that Jesus was who he said he was.

Jesus didn’t need the Baptism, we did.

Gold Standard Feminism

I often listen to National Public Radio while driving to and from work. NPR’s late afternoon/early evening news program is called “All Things Considered”, and on Wednesday evening, ATC aired a remembrance of feminist theologian Mary Daly.

I must live a sheltered life, because I had never heard of Ms. Daly. The ATC profile, however, had me laughing out loud at points. For example, we are asked to believe that the Catholic Church feared Daly because she was a radical lesbian feminist. According to Ms. Daly, the Trinity was derived from triple goddesses in ancient culture. The patriarchy stole all of women’s creativity, creative energies, and religion.

The fact that she was a member of the faculty in the theology department of a major Catholic University (Boston College) for more than thirty years, speaks rather negatively of our Catholic universities. Could it be that, rather than fearing her, the Church thought it best to either ignore her kook theories or actually present the authentic deposit of faith, which was at odds with what she was selling?

Professor Lawrence Cunningham of the University of Notre Dame noted that Daly could be described as the “gold standard for absolute feminism.” In other words, if Daly was a 10 on the feminism spectrum, then every other feminist would be something less than a 10, therefore allowing them to describe their views as “moderate.”

I really want to believe that most people would hear her theories and find them to be nonsense. The fact that many people apparently took them seriously makes me wonder whether our society is in need of a reboot.

Rhetorical Excess

Rhetoric can be a dangerous thing, especially when it resorts to hyperbole and exaggeration without making it clear that the author knows that he’s exaggerating. When any left-wing ideologue referred to President Bush as the second-coming of Adolph Hitler, it did nothing to strengthen their criticism of his policies. If anything, it revealed that the person employing the comparison didn’t really appreciate just how evil Hitler was. When this tactic was used too often, it diminished the stature not of Bush, but of Hitler. After all, if Bush was just like Hitler, then Hitler couldn’t have been too bad. It’s a false, ridiculous, and repulsive line of argument.

It’s unfortunate that the tactic is resorted to by both enemies and friends.

There is an article today at Catholic Exchange by Colin Mason, the Director for Media Production at the Population Research Institute. In it, he argues that many groups are presenting themselves as Catholic while promoting an agenda that is at odds with what the Catholic Church teaches. He specifically cites Catholics for Choice, Catholics United, and Catholics for Health Care Reform. I whole-heartedly agree with most of what he has written. Where he loses me is when he brings up the reaction of press and of the executive director of Catholics United to criticism by Deal Hudson.

For pointing out the obvious, Hudson was summarily crucified in the press and by Catholics United. Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, shot back that “abortion is legal in the United States, and there’s not much either Catholics United or Deal Hudson can do to change that.” He promptly went on to demolish his own Catholic credibility by insisting that his organization was neither “pro-abortion rights or anti-abortion rights,” but “pro-common ground.”

Deal Hudson was criticized. You could stretch things a little and say that he was attacked. He certainly was not “summarily crucified.” To say as much belittles the reality of crucifixion.

Hudson has a scandalous past. He has rehabilitated himself admirably, and I trust that he has repented. He can defend himself, presumably without suggesting that any criticism of him is comparable to executing God.

Complications and Happiness

The feeling comes upon me every now and then: the desire to pull up stakes and relocate the family.

Some enterprising pollster recently decided to measure people’s happiness and catalog it according to geographic location. Ohio, it turns out, is way down on the list of states, ranked according to happiness. We are 44th out of 51. The District of Columbia, so it appears, is now a state. I can’t help but wonder why Puerto Rico and Guam were left off the list. Any relocation that we might make based on the happiness ranking, however, would have to be fairly far. None of the states bordering Ohio ranks any higher than 34th, and both Indiana and Michigan fare even worse than we do. The closest state to rank in the top ten is Tennessee at 4th. Ah, Tennessee, with its rolling hills and its country music! I could learn to like Tennessee.

It’s never going to happen, though. Especially now.

We’re in the middle of a construction project on our 80 year-old house, and we’re taking on a bunch (for us) of new debt in the process. We now “own” the house even more than we did before. We’re not going anywhere. The accumulated complications of life aren’t going to offer us an easy way out, not that I ever really expected that they would.

The temptation to look around and see greener grass anywhere other than in your own yard is a powerful one. It also usually turns out to be an illusion.

I used to scoff at people who warned me that my teen-aged kids would drive me batty. “Not mine,” I would insist. “I’m raising mine right.” I don’t scoff anymore. Instead, I wonder that God has entrusted such a responsibility to me, and I hope and pray that I don’t screw it up too much. I know that all too soon, they’ll be moved out, accumulating their own complications. I only hope (selfishly, I know) that they don’t move far.

Shepherdless, Hungry Sheep

In the liturgical calendar, Christmas continues for another week. We don’t begin Ordinary Time until after the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord this coming Sunday. In this Christmas Tuesday following Epiphany, the Church has selected as the gospel reading for the mass Mark 6:34-44, which recounts one of the instances in which Jesus multiplied the loaves. Where does this passage fit into the Christmas season?

As I read Mark’s account, two observations come to mind. First, the convergence of signs and symbols that I noted in my post, Something About Christmas, continues. Second, the numbers are significant.

“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” (Mk 6:34) God’s people were like sheep, so He sent to them the Lamb of God. They were without a shepherd, so He sent to them the Good Shepherd. “You give them something to eat.” (Mk 6:37) Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means “house of bread” and was laid in a feed box. God gave the Israelites manna in the desert, but Jesus identified himself as the “true bread from heaven” and the “bread of life.” “He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (Jn 6:35) The Eucharist is woven throughout the gospels, from the Christmas narrative, through the miracles of Christ, to the Last Supper and the passion, death, and resurrection. It is truly the source and summit of our lives.

The numbers (five thousand fed with twelve baskets left over) are significant. Don’t take my word for it, though. Two chapters later, in Mark 8, Jesus feeds four thousand with seven loaves and seven baskets left over. When the apostles then misunderstand His words about the leaven of the Pharisees, thinking that He’s talking about physical bread, He seems to become a little exasperated. “’Do you still not see or understand? Are you hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see; and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets did you pick up?’ ‘Twelve,’ they replied. ‘And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ They answered, ‘Seven.’ He said to them, ‘Do you still no understand?’” (Mk 8:17-21)

We can only guess at what the numbers mean, since scripture isn’t explicit, and our culture doesn’t place as much symbolic meaning in numbers as Hebrew culture did. One interpretation, which I believe comes from Dr. Scott Hahn, is that the fives and twelve refer to the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) and the twelve tribes of Israel, whereas the four and sevens refer to the four cardinal directions and completion or perfection, such that the two miracles of the loaves represent the extension of God’s covenant to all people, and not just to the Israelites.

Whatever the numbers might mean, Jesus seemed to think it was important that the Apostles understand the significance. We can only trust that the point He was making has been transmitted to us by the successors to the Apostles, such that we get the teaching, even though it isn’t explicitly explained in this passage of scripture.

Happy Anniversary

My wife created this wonderful video last year, on the occasion of our 16th Anniversary. Today we celebrate our 17th.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com