What's Going on in the Church?

This is a talk I gave Tuesday evening to a group of Cursillo leaders, who meet periodically to deepen their study of the Faith. I thought you might like to see it as well.

A lot of folks are reading things, hearing things, coming from bishops, coming from Rome, that raise questions, cause concerns, invite criticism from outside and inside. Some common issues of “change”:

Ø The pope issues a statement about who can be saved, who is fully Catholic, and are other “churches” really churches. What’s that about?
Ø Bishops keep talking about who can receive holy communion—there seem to be different answers. What’s going on with that?
Ø It seems like things keep changing at Mass. There’s talk about a new translation of the Mass itself, plus things about the readings; plus there was the decision by Pope Benedict to allow wider use of the form of Mass that supposedly went out with Vatican II. And other things. What’s up with that?
Ø We are the trends for the Church? In some places we hear parishes and schools combining and closing; other places are bursting at the seams. What does it mean that so many Hispanics are coming into the U.S.? What about vocations? Are we going to have married priests or women priests?

That’s a lot to cover—and I hope these will prompt questions on your part as well.

Zoom Out, Zoom In

If you use a computer, you know you can use a “zoom in/zoom out” feature in various computer programs. You hit a button, and you can zoom in on a map, or on a document you are working on—you can have a few words fill up the entire screen, or have a map of your own street! Then you can “zoom out” and see the entire country.

When it comes to our experience as Catholics, we live and operate most of the time in a “zoom in” situation. To show what I mean, let me do a little survey.

I’m going to ask some questions about Mass attendance—just to be clear, I’m not fishing around for whether you get to Mass every Sunday. I’m assuming you do; I’m not trying to embarrass anyone. Rather, I’m curious about where you usually attend Mass.

If you were at Mass outside your own, home parish anywhere in the last month, raise your hand. Keep your hand up if you did that twice in the last month. Keep your hand up if three times. Okay, hands down…another question. While I’m not going to, what if I were to ask you to get up and describe three different parishes, where you have routinely attended Mass in the last year—how many of you could stand up right now and have something to say?

How many of you attend Mass all or mostly in Latin? Spanish? Another language other than English? Okay, that serves my point.

I’m not saying this is good or bad; it just is how it is. Our experience of the Church tends to be our own parish, or a handful of parishes right around us, and the people we know from there. Beyond that, it’s the diocese, maybe Covington diocese if you’re from Cincinnati. But that’s pretty much it.

Even then, there are things that happen in our archdiocese I bet most of us aren’t part of. We have several parishes where there’s a significant African American membership. Same with Spanish-speaking Catholics. A few Asian communities. We have a number of parishes where Mass, either the old form or the new—is regularly offered in Latin. There are several Catholic churches in our own archdiocese that aren’t Roman Catholic, but they are fully Catholic. How many of us can name those churches?

(Answer: St. Anthony Maronite Church, Cincinnati; St. Barbara Byzantine Church, Springboro, St. Ignatius Maronite Church, Dayton.)

And this Archdiocese is one of six in Ohio; one of hundreds in the U.S.—and the 60-plus million Catholics here are less than 5% of the whole world’s Catholics!

The oldest person here—do you care to say how old? You were born in ____, meaning you can remember Archbishop ____, and Pope ____? You can remember some of what happened before Vatican II. Do you remember when the fast before Mass was 3 hours? How about when it was from midnight? Can you remember when Pope Pius X lowered the age of receiving first communion? That happened in 1910, almost 100 years ago.

That seems such a long time ago, for our usual way of living—but in the life of the Church? Not so long! We’re still being influenced by events well before that—for example, many of the “new” trends in Biblical scholarship were “new” before that; the “new” Social teaching of the Church was “new” in the 1890s(!); and “new” trends in liturgy go back to about that time as well!

Not only do we live in a “zoom in” situation as far as location and culture, we also live in a “zoom in” situation as far as time—we’ve experienced only a small slice of the life of the Church. That skews our perspective. On the one hand, we view some things as “permanent” because they’ve been around for a few decades—but that’s not permanent in the life of the Church. Yet on the other hand, we think the changes we’ve experienced are about recent history, when in fact they really go back centuries.

These are things we see better when we “zoom out.” See what I mean? So let’s “zoom out”…

Vocations and the Church: growth or decline?

We hear about a priest shortage. We’re experiencing it right now, in our archdiocese. If we zoom out, and see the bigger picture of the world, we discover that there are worse shortages in many other places, and there are far better vocations, in others.

In Central and South America, many Catholics see the priest, for Mass on Sunday, every several weeks. In between, they have no Sunday Mass, only having the Scriptures read and maybe a communion service.

Meanwhile, there are very few parishes in this country where you can’t have Sunday Mass, either in your own parish, or a parish nearby. For example, I am pastor of two parishes, but they are a half-mile apart, and each has three Masses for Sunday.

Our vocations to the priesthood have been down in this country for some time, that’s why we’re in this situation. Only they are trending up in recent years, for our Archdiocese. And in a number of dioceses in the U.S., they are way up, and have been up. In others, the situation is turning around.

Even though the situation in the U.S. is getting better, it’s not good enough yet. More older priests are passing from the scene than new ones coming on. The good news is, the worst is behind us, and things are slowly getting better. Depending on what we do, the situation could be getting a lot better.

The situation in Europe is terrible—but there are bright spots even there.

What color is the face of the Church?

Meanwhile, in Africa—vocations are exploding: up over 80% from 1978 to 2004! They are also way up in Asia. Of course, they’ve got to keep up with an even-faster growing Catholic population in those places.

You and I tend to think of the U.S. as the center of things; but while we’re less than 5% of the whole Church worldwide, for every American Catholic, there are almost 3 African Catholics. One of the top cardinals in Rome, in charge of liturgy and sacraments, is Arinze, from Nigeria. As it stands, only one in five Africans is Catholic, but the Church is growing there, same in Asia. The face of the Catholic Church, to us, may be European and white—but in reality, it’s more African and Asian.

So when we have these discussions about Catholic issues in the U.S.—about “decline,” “crisis,” celibacy and women’s ordination—how weird all that must sound to so many other Catholics, where they’re worried about: how can they build enough churches and schools? How can they have enough people to teach new Catholics? They have laypeople baptizing and witnessing marriages, not because of declines in priests, but because of a flood of converts! In Africa, they face ongoing persecution, as well as in many places in Asia. In Iraq, the Catholics are being persecuted, but vocations are up!

Our part of the Church in the U.S. is so healthy in some ways, and challenged in others—the sex abuse scandal was very much a U.S. and European crisis, and we’re wounded by it in ways other parts of the Church are not. Many of the things we’re wrestling with are special to us, because of that.

But again, when we “zoom out,” we see these things in perspective. The same is true if we “zoom out” as far as time is concerned.

Liturgy: Backward or Forward? Neither: it’s the Center.

This is where we can talk about the Mass, liturgy, and some other things that come up, where people get excited, and say, “we’re going backward”!

So, for example, we have the Mass.

Almost everyone attends Mass entirely in English. Another survey: how many of you, in the last month, heard anything said or sung, at Mass, in Latin—anything at all, that you remember? Did you, yourself, help sing it—I mean, was it a hymn or a prayer everyone prayed? Was that something unusual, or normal for you?

The Surprise Content of Vatican II

Most Catholics in the U.S., and I would bet most in much of the world, have gotten very accustomed to Mass being almost entirely in their own language. This is something that happened in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. It has become normal, and as I say, almost universal.

But how many know the following:

Ø Vatican II did not mandate that Mass must be said in the vernacular? Instead, it said that this could be an option?
Ø That Vatican II did not “abolish” or outlaw Mass continuing to be celebrated in Latin—even in parishes, on a weekly or daily basis?
Ø That Vatican II did mandate that, where the option for the vernacular would be pursued, that the people still learn to sing or say together some of the Mass in Latin?

I cite this because language is something very powerful and intimate for us all. This was a big change in the life of the Church. And a lot of folks think that the change is all “behind” us. But in reality, the change is not past, it’s present—we’re in the midst of change, as a result of Vatican II. Again, let’s “zoom out”…

The Liturgical Movement and the Council

The issue of using the vernacular long predates Vatican II. It was brought up at the Council of Trent, because the leaders of the Protestant movement brought it up, but at that time, the Church elected not to go that direction. No, they didn’t “condemn” it as something that could never happen—they said, in effect, “not now.”

In the century or so leading up to Vatican II, it was becoming routine to use hymns, in the vernacular, at Mass, instead of some of the sung prayers called for at Mass—which were in Latin.

You see, when you have Mass, in Latin, English or whatever, many people don’t realize that the music for Mass is not something “added” by the musician, chosen by a liturgy committee.

Rather, the Mass itself—I mean, the Missal, the book of all the prayers and readings to be used—already gives us the text of the music to use! Not many people know that—I bet not many here, knew that.

But what happens at most Masses is that we don’t use all that music; instead, we use hymns, such as “All Creatures of our God and King” or “On Eagles Wings” or what have you. This trend, however, did not begin with Vatican II—as I say, it goes back about a century before.

Are you curious why? Of course you are!

The reason is that the music that was being substituted for is Gregorian chant, in Latin. Why it happened we could talk about, but that’s more than we have time for. It started in Germany and happened in a lot of the Church—including in this country! It had become widespread into the 1800s, and various folks tried to respond to this.

This is when the “Liturgical Movement” got started, in the mid-1800s! This led to Pope Pius X calling for a restoration of Gregorian chant in 1903! And this “new” movement in the liturgy continued to work itself out, playing a major role in the work of the Second Vatican Council!

My point is, right or wrong, the goal of all this wasn’t to be rid of all that musty old chant, but to restore it! That is surprising, if you view the Council from too narrow a point of view. When you view the Council, instead, from the larger “zoom out,” then what the Council said takes on a very different meaning: In Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the Council Fathers called for Gregorian chant to be given “pride of place” (Paragraph 112).

What’s funny is that if you go to a parish, and they sing the opening Introit, in Latin chant, they are fulfilling Vatican II; but if you go to a parish—most parishes in this country—and you hear, “Glory and Praise to our God,” they are actually being “pre-Vatican II”!

And if we see that in this one point, we might wonder, how does this apply when we look at everything that came out of the Council? See how that works?

It’s not about Latin—it’s about the center

At this point, some will ask, what’s so special about Latin? The answer is, it’s not about the Latin per se. It’s about something else. To return to the question that I started with, “what’s going on in the Church,” the basic answer is, the Church is striving to get back to the “middle”—the mainstream.

The “middle,” the “mainstream” of what?

I mean the middle, or mainstream, of the overall direction of the Church, viewed not from the point of view of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Centreville, Ohio, USA, in AD 2007—but the center, the mainstream, of the Church worldwide, the Church in her 2,000 years of existence, in the context of God’s total plan of salvation back to the beginning of time!

How is that for a “zoom out”?

The most powerful portrayal of this idea—staying on the “mainline”—comes from G.K. Chesterton. On the back of your handout is a long quote by him, but it’s so good, I invite you to look at it with me, if you haven’t already read it. It’s too long to quote now; it’s too good not to quote at all.

This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic.

The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The next instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism, which would have made it too unworldly. The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable. It would have been easier to have accepted the earthly power of the Arians. It would have been easy, in the Calvinistic seventeenth century, to fall into the bottomless pit of predestination. It is easy to be a madman: it is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one's own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob.

To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom -- that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect. —G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter 6.

Here’s a shorter quote, from the same chapter. He’s commenting on the scandal, to the modern mind, of “monstrous wars about small points of theology.” “It was only a matter of an inch,” Chesterton says; “but an inch is everything when you are balancing.”

This is the idea I have in mind when I say the Church isn’t so much going “forward” or “backward” but aiming toward the Center, the mainstream—staying on course; balancing. And that invites to ask: who’s setting the course, and doing the balancing?

The answer is, of course, by the Holy Spirit!

And the Holy Spirit has made it easy for us to find that: we find all this located in something we have a word for, it begins with a “T”…Tradition. A major “source” or repository of our lived Tradition is found in the liturgy!

The Church has music and prayers that go back so far, we don’t know how old it is—we can find evidence of Gregorian Chant, and the Mass itself as we know them, about the year AD 600. But we know they weren’t “invented” that year! So we know it all goes back well before 600—how far before? We can only speculate.

But notice, then, that we’re knocking at the door of the early Church! There is very good evidence that Gregorian chant has roots in, and is an evolution of, the chants of the Temple in Jerusalem! That takes it back to our Lord’s time, and beyond that, no one can say!

Gregorian chant, like the Mass itself, is something remarkable, that can only happen in the Church: something that developed, slowly, gradually, over what seems to us such a long time—but the advantage of this is that is cannot be described as the product of particular human beings, and their agendas; it can only be described, as Pope Benedict did, in his recent letter Sacramentum Caritatis, as the work of the Holy Spirit!

The pope makes this point very strongly—not so strong as to claim the liturgy cannot be changed, at all; but at least to say, we should be very, very humble in approaching liturgical change, because we’re talking about something God did, through the Church, and something we can only dimly claim to understand.

This is why it’s important, in the life of the Church, at least to try to restore and return to the use of chant—not because it’s the only way, but because it’s so much a part of who we are, that we conclude:
(a) God must have done something really great through it, because it was part of the Church for almost all of our history; and
(b) we are kidding ourselves if we think we really understand what that was, and therefore we can come up with a replacement. Therefore
(c), without it, we may be missing something really important in our liturgy. The Church never claims to know all the answers to every question—this is one of those places. So we tend to be rather conservative about “reinventing” something that has been given to us. That’s why we change slowly!

So this goes to all the liturgical questions that get people excited. Why Latin? Why the old form of Mass? Is it really true the priest might turn around again? (Yes, it’s true—because it’s not true that the Council said he had to turn in the first place!)

This is all about the Church trying to get Vatican II right—and to make sure we view what Vatican II had to say in the context of what God has done in the whole history of the Church; but not only how we view the Council, but to make sure we get the Council right—i.e., we carry out the right vision, and stay…in the center.

Who is Herman, and who said he knew ticks?

Our Pope has coined a very useful term and idea, but it’s an expression that needs some explaining. He uses the term, “hermeneutic of continuity.” Huh? Who’s Herman, and what’s that he knew?

Hermeneutic is a word that describes the way we interpret something. I am wearing glasses, I just started, since I turned 45 earlier this year. I see the world a bit different, looking through these glasses. For one thing, you are all a lot less fuzzy than you were the last time I saw you!

The “lens” through which we view our world, and events in our lives, is our “hermeneutic.” As Americans, we all view world events through a particular “hermeneutic”—or pair of spectacles—we call “9/11.” If that hadn’t happened, aside from how the world itself would be different, clearly we would also view the world, and even our own, particular lives, differently. See how that works?

So what the pope is saying is this. When we talk about the Second Vatican Council, or even this or that particular change or movement in the life of the Church, or the life of our own parish, he calls for us to use the hermeneutic, or lens, of continuity. He is suggesting that, as an alternative to what he thinks we’ve been using: a hermeneutic of rupture.

How many people have heard someone talk about “the old Church” and “the new Church”—the Church pre-Vatican II and the Church post-Vatican II? We all use language like that, don’t we? We, or people we know, have lots to say about how different things are, for our Church since Vatican II. For that matter, we can see that happening for our country and our world, apart from the Council, true?

See what we’re doing there? We’re looking at things through the lens of “rupture”—how things are different. The pope isn’t saying that’s altogether wrong or bad—but that it’s not enough. Particularly in talking about the Church.

Why? Because the Church is a living organism, right? We call it a…Body…the Body of Christ!

A lot of the things people are talking about fit well into this choice of “continuity” or “rupture”—and the ongoing task of trying to keep the Church at the “center”—meaning, in the mainstream of where we’ve been going, and are going, led by…the Holy Spirit.

So why did the pope “bring back the old Mass”? He himself said: it was not helpful to have people think there was something wrong with it; and he also said that if we think the Mass, since Vatican II, is something essentially new, there’s something wrong with that idea.

He said, in his letter announcing his decision about allowing widespread celebration of the old form of Mass, that he hopes the two forms of Mass will influence each other. Can you see what he’s getting at there? I would argue he’s trying to assure we stay…at the Center. On the right path.

Recently the Church issued a statement about Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and who is “the True Church.” I haven’t actually studied this document, so I can’t say much about it—but can you see this is all about the same thing: staying with the mainstream?

I.e., there’s been at one extreme the idea that views things very narrowly—only formal members of the Catholic Church even can be saved—and very broadly: it doesn’t matter if you’re Christian, let alone Catholic! This document is simply trying to enunciate the “Center”—which happens to be the ancient teaching of the Church. And it is correcting the false idea that Vatican II departed from “the Center.”

And so it goes.

The changes we are experiencing—and we may find unsettling—aren’t as dramatic, in the life of the Church, as they are for us.

If you’ve been on an airplane, it can hit a pocket of turbulence, and you can shake, rattle and roll—and you remember a lot of prayers you thought you forgot! And yet, all that happens and you are still on course, heading for your right destination.

A lot of folks believe the Church is “off course”—and for all I can say, they may have very valid points. You can view that negatively, or positively: we can be bothered by the turmoil, and worry about the outcome; or we can be grateful for yet another way the Holy Spirit “writes straight with crooked lines”—i.e., this, too, is part of His “course correction.” The passengers in the plane may be in a panic—and the clergy and theologians—let’s make them the flight attendants!—may be confused too; but the Pilot—the Holy Spirit—knows what He is doing; even when passengers and the flight attendants try to grab the helm and make things even more unsettled.

Butterfinger

They call you sticky fingers for a reason!

What Kind of Candy Are You?

Biretta tip to Catholic Fire

Which leper are you? (Sunday homily)

Ten lepers were on their way to the Temple.

The first leper said to the second leper,
“That Jesus didn’t have much time for us, did he?
Not very pastoral, is he?”

“I know,” said the second leper.
I wanted to tell him everything he needs to change!
What about lay involvement?”

The third leper said to the fourth leper,
“You know, when I was a kid,
they’d have used the old prayers—I like those better!”

The fourth leper said to the fifth leper,
“Why’d that leper bring her kids?
How was I supposed to talk to Jesus with them around?”

The fifth leper said the sixth leper,
“You know, Jesus could have healed me years ago!
Do you know a good lawyer?
I think we have a class-action lawsuit!”

The sixth leper said to the seventh leper,
“I could go back and thank Jesus—but he knows I’m busy:
I’ve a lot to do—sports and chores and stuff.
it’s not like Jesus needs me to go be with him.”

The seventh leper said to the eighth leper,
“Look, we’re all OK, but—that Samaritan!
Did you see how he dresses?
Those tattoos, those earrings—
You know, he must be one of those types,
if you know what I mean!”

The eighth leper looked around.
“Yeah, it’s not like I’m prejudiced or anything,
but why don’t they stay with their own kind?

“Say . . . where’d that Samaritan go, anyway?”

“Just as well,” said the ninth leper.
“He would’ve just made trouble.”

And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.

Ten lepers walked down the street. Which one are you?

Political Desperation Fever begins to spread

There is a condition that grips the hearts and minds of politically concerned Americans (and those of other countries, I suppose, but I haven't any experience there) as elections approach, and until I come up with a better name, I'll call it "Political Desperation Fever." It manifests itself principally in a conclusion that may be stated thusly: "but we can't afford to lose this election" or alternately, "we can't afford to have ___ win." I have seen this among conservatives, but I suspect liberals are susceptible as well.

The other manifestation is the immediate corollary: "therefore, we must support ____" or we must tolerate such-and-such a compromise because...(insert first assertion here)."

So, the Fever is now focused on Hilary Clinton as the mortal peril--i.e., we cannot survive her election, that is the claim--and therefore, we must support Giuliani (or someone else, if Giuliani's campaign falters).

So there is a debate on the pages of National Review Online, with one commenter echoing an evangelical's rationalization for backing Giuliani--even before the primaries begin!--and then others critiquing the argument.

There are, of course, lots of things to talk about here: how good or bad would Giuliani be? How much credence should sensible people give to his rhetoric and promises? Even taking as a given that Hilary Clinton is awful on prolife issues, how reasonable is it to catastrophize about her election?

About Giuliani the supposed friend of social conservatives: gimme a break! The credulity with which people accept his promise that he'll appoint only sound judges to the Supreme Court is almost morally imputable--i.e., many of the people who say they believe it, I think cannot be that stupid, so they must be deliberately insincere. Giuliani has a record of appointments in New York City--consult the record; and he said, during a debate, his idea of a "strict constructionist" judge might well uphold Roe v. Wade, so that gives up the game right there.

A President Giuliani will be in a position to frustrate and weaken the prolife movement in ways a President Hilary Clinton never could, because so much of the movement must work within the Republican Party. It would be wonderful if the Democratic Party also had a significant prolife movement, but prolifers are barely tolerated in the Democratic Party. So if legislation will reach the floor of Congress, it will do so through the GOP for the time being.

The leadership within the party can be very corrupting--as we've seen with President Bush, who has led the GOP from being a party of small government and spending restraint to being enthusiastic backers of big spending and intrusive big government.* Meanwhile, remember when Bill Clinton was president, the GOP did a far better job of providing opposition to spending and advancing issues dear to social conservatives, and we made progress, far more than under the prior George Bush, or this one!

* Update ca. 2:45 pm: in fairness, the GOP had started down the wrong path before this. The GOP Congress started moving away from fiscal discipline later in the Clinton Administration, and decided--foolishly in my judgment--to make Clinton their only issue, and it cost them in 1998. But they were models of rectitude by comparison to their actions under Bush.

I have no idea what a President Hilary will be like, but it's a bit much to expect people to agree with you that you know it will be a disaster all around. Of course we know she's terrible on prolife issues--but then, so is Giuliani. At least if Hilary wins, we can hope for vigorous opposition to her.** Of course she'll name terrible justices, but to replace whom? It's not at all clear that should she get to name anyone to the court, her replacements will make things any worse (i.e., if she replaces Stevens, Ginsberg or Souter?). In any case, why assume Giuliani's will be better? It will be far easier for the GOP to oppose Hilary's nominees, than their own presidents.

** Update ca. 2:45: this is what the tub-thumpers for Giuliani specifically, or anyone trying to stampede you into desperation, hope you forget--that the President cannot do anything she or he likes, but must act with Congress. How amazing it is that the exact same political group who said you couldn't push for everything you wanted, when it was a GOP Congress and a GOP president, are now coming to you saying, hysterically, if Hilary wins, she can pass everything she wants! How stupid do they think we are?

What's more, people also forget how much progress the opposition made, during the Clinton years--on prolife issues and across the board. If you are a conservative or a Republican (the terms used to overlap), the years 1994-1999 were years of policy progress across the country. If you look at all 50 states as well as Congress, lots of GOP candidates won, taking control of state houses as well as Congress, and policies were enacted, that would please GOPers and conservatives. Meanwhile, a lot of that has been eroded under Bush.

Meanwhile, some claim Hilary's presidency will be a military disaster. Well, show me your crystal ball, and then I'll believe you know something. I think it's very reasonable the first woman president of the U.S. may feel the need to prove she's tough enough, or at least be concerned not to make a wrong move that suggests she's soft?

The bottom line is that we can, do and will survive...or not, but not on the basis of a single election. Everything does not hinge on who is president. The world will keep spinning, and if Hilary becomes president--or Giuliani for that matter--the task will be to respond and keep fighting. There are no permanent defeats...or victories, in politics--or at least, very few.

Private Patriots and Public Traitors

There's a very interesting story out yesterday and today, about a private intelligence firm that hacked into Al Qaeda's communications, got ahold of a video of bin Laden, and provided this information to the White House.

According to the Washington Post, it wasn't long before someone in the government leaked this information to the press; ABC and Fox News (and others I think) posted excerpts of the video; al Qaeda promptly shut down its communications system; and the work carried out, for several years, to penetrate the enemy's systems, was all tossed aside.

NPR led off this morning with a breathless story along the lines of, "oh my, what in the world is a private intelligence company?" with inquiries into whether this was worrisome--as if the idea that only the government has reason to be concerned about such things, or should handle it.

This recalls the stories, previously, about how outrageous it is that there are "private" security firms that--gasp!--not only allow their employees to carry guns, but they use them! Again, as if somehow we're all safer when government uses such power. Of course, I realize the major part of the Blackwater story was the concern that this power was misused; but still there has been a strong undercurrent of suggesting that the problem lies precisely in Blackwater and others being "private" and worse, "for profit"!

In this case, the story is developing. But the private company, SITE Intelligence Group, did a good thing in penetrating al Qaeda's network, and a further good thing, in sharing the fruits of its work with the government. Someone -- it seems at this point to be someone in the government -- did something materially treasonous, although I doubt that was the intention. The effect is the same. One can only wonder for what motive--my guess would be for venal reasons, which is only more disgusting, really.

Realize that part of the damage of this is that the next private actor who comes up with something useful but secret that helps our cause against the terrorists will think twice about sharing it with the government.

Also, I want to know--did ABC and any other media outlet contact the government before going to press with this? Did anyone in the government even ask that it not be disclosed? Did the media refuse that request? There was a time, and I think it's still often true, that folks in the media will hold off upon such requests; and that the government has either failed to make the request, or to realize, until too late, what was at stake.

Sounds from (this) priest's day

"Did you hear? One of our local boys died--first casualty of the war from Piqua..."

"Father, what vestments do you need for the nursing home Mass today?"

"Hmmm... green--but, what time is it, anyway? Five after 10? Oh my!"

"The dogs are cute...they aren't staying for Mass, are they?"

"You'll have five folks to visit in their rooms after Mass."

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit..."

(from a very confused elderly woman--at Mass): "Help! help! This isn't working!"

"Blessed are they who hope in the Lord."

"Help, I can't reach it!"

"Janitorial, come to Room 103; Janitorial to Room 103..."

"This is my Body..."

"Help, someone did this wrong! Come fix it!"

(to same confused woman): "Do you want to receive communion?" "Yes!" "Okay, be very still and quiet now...the Blood of Christ" (administered with an eye-dropper).

"I'm going to put my hands on your head and pray silently...then I'm going to anoint your head and your hands..."

"Father, I've been away from the church twelve years..."

"Fr. Tom, Linda and Tony won't be at the staff meeting today...let's get started."

"Father, the family of that boy just called..."

"Can you come and pray with us just a short while?"

"If I don't make it back by 5, will you open up church? I have a wedding rehearsal at 5:30."

"Father ___, can you visit the hospital for me? I won't make it down today. Thank you so much!"

"Saints of God, come to his aid..."

"He loved Ohio State football."

"Here, take some sandwiches with you, Father!"

"Father, you called about a grant application? Give me your email, I'll send it to you..."

"_____ is on the line, he wants to follow up that proposal he sent you..."

...as of 4:28 pm; wedding rehearsal and then school board at 7 pm.

To live in the midst of the world without wishing its pleasures;

to be a member of each family, yet belonging to none;

to share all sufferings; to penetrate all secrets; to heal all wounds;

to go from men to God and offer Him their prayers;

to return from God to men to bring pardon and hope;

to have a heart of fire for charity and a heart of bronze for chastity;

to teach and to pardon; console and bless always.

My God, what a life! And it is yours, O Priest of Jesus Christ!

--Father Henri Lacordaire, OP, 1802-61.

The Vision will have its time (Sunday homily)

In the first reading, we heard the prophet cry out:
“Violence! Ruin!”
Habbakuk could have been watching the TV news.
Or he could have been part of Sunday’s Life Chain—
in downtown Troy, at 2pm—to protest legal abortion.

With Habbakuk, we might ask: Why? When?
“Write down the vision,” the Lord answers:
“The vision still has its time” to be fulfilled: “Wait for it.”

You and I, as Christians, are the prophets in our time;
We have a message about the dignity of life
that isn’t always heard.
What I’m going to say now, isn’t easy to hear.

Our world has embraced contraception.
Most people, most Christians, don’t see why this matters.

For one thing, sometimes the pill causes an early abortion.
But there’s a deeper issue.

If we go out at night, and we gaze up at the canopy of stars,
are we not filled with awe?
Don’t we ask, “Wow! What is God saying to me?”
If we can marvel at mountains and oceans and stars
and know God’s truth is written in them,
Shouldn’t we look at our bodies and see the same thing?

But artificial means of family planning say,
“there is no message”;
Or, if we go that route, we choose to ignore the message.

In that mindset, the life-giving part of us
is a problem to be contained or overcome;
or, it’s something we feel free to set aside.

Someone might ask, why are artificial means wrong,
but Natural Family Planning is not wrong?
If we use Natural Family Planning
for the wrong reasons, then it, too, is wrong.

But the difference is this:
Natural Family Planning treats
the body and its gifts with honor.
It listens to and works with the language of the body.
NFP makes both spouses full partners—
rather than this being one spouse’s job.

But the most important thing

is that it fundamentally accepts

that we are partners with God in being life-givers.
We are stewards of a gift, not the controllers of it.

NFP works better than people realize;
and artificial means fail more often than people like to admit.

Here’s something very striking:
Couples using NFP face divorce far less often.

The key to NFP is that it presupposes sacrifice—dying to self.
No, it’s not easy—but what could be more Christian?

Does this Vision seem quaint and old-fashioned?
Wait for it—it will have its time.
After all, we see daily how the alternative vision is working.

In a few decades, our world has changed radically.
We’ve gone from contraception on demand
to abortion on demand.

From conceiving human life in a moment of intimate love,
to treating human life as lab experiment and a commodity,
to be used in research and development.

Is there a connection? There is a prophet who foresaw this.

Pope Paul VI, in 1968, wrote a letter called Humanae Vitae.
He placed artificial birth control in the context of
our dignity as pro-creators.

Think of it: God made humanity in his own image:
when a man and woman are in union,
the image of God is complete:
man and woman—creating life!

But Pope Paul said: we risk seeing ourselves
no longer as servants of God’s design,
but as “arbiters of the sources of human life.”

Another prophet, Pope John Paul, in 1987 said
before long, “the researcher will usurp the place of God…
as the master of the destiny of others…”
reducing human life to it’s worth as a
“pure and simple instrument for the advantage of others.”

These prophets have been proven right.
We now destroy human life in pursuit of “research.”
Again, even though we have alternatives.

Some will say, there are other life issues—and they are right.

No one understood this better than Pope John Paul.
The reason he warned us against the death penalty
was not because criminals didn’t have it coming—
but because our using it, as a society,
makes us less human, not more.

He warned us that we risked forgetting
that Life itself is a Gift—
even when we misuse it; even when it involves suffering—
even then, it does not lose its infinite value.

Indeed, so beautiful is life
that some of its beauty we only see
at moments that are otherwise terrible.

Pope John Paul himself showed us this in his final months:
his strong body, crippled, his powerful voice, silenced—
and yet he remained an Apostle of Christ to the end!

“The Vision still has its time,” God told the prophet.
You and I are the prophets now—we must share the Vision!
Like Habbakuk, we might wonder if anyone will listen.
But, with Timothy, the Holy Spirit gives us power.

The Vision will have its fulfillment: wait for it!

What younger Catholics want at Mass

Every generation, younger folks become attached to things that gives their set-in-their-ways elders fits. The same is true in matters of faith and liturgy.

Here's an example, from the Georgia Bulletin, the paper of the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

To the Editor:

I am 16 years old, and for the past 11 months I have attended the traditional Latin Mass weekly, while still attending the Novus Ordo Mass during the week. Because of this, I decided to address certain points made by Carroll Sterne in the Sept. 6 edition of The Georgia Bulletin. Mr. Sterne speaks about the type of Mass that someone of a younger generation is drawn to, and I thought that a teenager’s point of view might be helpful.

Mr. Sterne in his letter gives voice to the opinion of many of today’s liturgists when he says that no one from a younger generation would be drawn to the Latin Mass (many take this even further and assume that we would not like a reverent Novus Ordo Mass either). This opinion causes many of those who plan modern liturgies to do veritable back flips in an attempt to draw teenagers and young adults in. Sometimes this works, but it has a side effect: by doing these things, liturgists show that they have absolutely no faith in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to change the lives of those in my generation. My generation knows about this lack of faith, we are able to see it every time we go to a “teen Mass” and experience priests ad-libbing prayers in an attempt to make them more relevant to us.

This lack of faith backfires; it sends us the message that we also should distrust the power of the liturgy, and it also can turn the Mass into something of a joke.

After experiencing this for months, I attended a Traditional Latin Mass and experienced something that I’d never seen before: Here was a priest who expected my life to be changed without adding anything to the Mass in an attempt to bring this change about. This priest had perfect faith in the power of the liturgy, and it showed. It was beautiful. The traditional Mass did more to change my life then any “relevant” teen Mass ever did.

Ethan Milukas, Peachtree City

Biretta-tip to Fr. Z.

I've been banned!

...by the fiesty folks at 'Spirit of Vatican 2' 'Catholic' Faith Community.

Here's how they rate me:

PH = Phariseeism
C+ = Extreme clericalism
T = Traditionalism
F = Funny Languages
UM = Ultramontanism
POD = Pious, Overly devotional

Well, I really think they were unfair. I personally think I deserve a "BS" for "Bells and smells," and "NLU" for "Not Like Us."

The site is newly linked in the colum at your right.

Just reading Matthew may yield surprising insights...

(I originally and briefly included this in my "what's doing" post nearby, but thought it might be better as a stand-alone post.)

One of the prevailing views of the first three Gospels is that even if a single human author brought each Gospel text together, he relied on at least two, pre-existing, written sources, from which he took existing text and inserted into his Gospel. This conclusion is reached by noting the similarities of large sections of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and yet there are similarities between two but not three, suggesting a source other than Mark--the presumptive source of what is common in all three.

I am not in a position to dispute with scholars on this point. However, one expectation growing out of this consensus theory is that the Gospel texts will be "uneven"--i.e., at various points, you can see the "seams" where the author/editor "stitched" things together. If you have a Catholic Bible with extensive notes, such as the New American Bible, or the Catholic Study Bible, you will see this reflected in the notes: "here the author inserts text from 'Q'" (the suppositional second source-document for Matthew and Luke), or words to that effect.

Well, in the seminary, Father Tim Schehr -- not commenting directly on this theory of the Gospels -- recommended something interesting: try reading the text as a unity. Sometimes surprising things come to light.

In the case of the Gospel of Matthew, thus far--we are about midway in chapter 8 -- the unity of the text seems very strong. Many treat the section dubbed the "Sermon on the Mount" (realize this way of sub-dividing the text does not come from Matthew--he writes a continuous narrative) as a grab-bag of various teachings and sayings by the Lord, inserted by Matthew here. But a funny thing happened as we simply read it: it seems to have very clear themes running throughout the "sermon," and indeed, the section immediately after seems to launch from content of the sermon.

Near the end of the "sermon," our Lord warns about who are true disciples, and who are not, and he says, "not everyone who says, 'Lord, Lord,'" will be well received; he will say, "depart from me." Recall that the entire sermon was given in the hearing of the crowds, but with the disciples front-and-center. Then he comes down the mountain, and right away, someone approaches him, and calls him...Lord. It is the first time anyone calls him that. It is a leper. Our Lord's response indicates, he is a true disciple: he is well received. Then, someone else approaches, and calls him Lord, twice -- it is the centurion, a pagan Roman! He is presented, if possible, even more favorably, as a model of faith, than the leper. After this, the Lord arrives at Peter's house, and there finds Peter's mother-in-law sick. The Lord heals her.

But note: no appeal from Peter to come and heal; none of the disciples gathered around the Lord have yet to call him Lord! They are silent: they are observing and learning. We don't know if Peter even knew his mother-in-law was sick, but if he did, his inaction compares unfavorably with the centurion, who said, "I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof"--and it's not even necessary--just say the word.

One of the facile things people say about the Gospel of Matthew is that is so Jewish. Well, it is Jewish, but so are all the Gospels, Luke to a lesser degree, but still. What they go on to suggest is that it reflects an exclusive mindset: you have to be Jewish to be Jesus' disciple. And the indications I've just cited, along with many others, show the flaw of that idea.

Not only does Matthew show the first two people to be received as disciples to be outsiders--a leper and a pagan Roman--the latter is praised by the Lord as showing greater faith than any in Israel--and on that occasion, we hear many will come from east and west (in context, meaning Gentiles), to recline with Abraham, while "the children" (i.e., some of them) will be cast out. Also, remember the opening genealogy of Matthew, a text many simply ignore. But you will find Matthew highlights several people in the list who are outcasts -- a prostitute and someone involved in incest -- but two people who are non-Jews: the aforenamed prostitute, Rahab, but also Ruth.

And recall the story of the Magi, told only by Matthew: Gentile star-gazers are more open to Jesus and come seeking him to worship, while the Jewish religious and political leadership only a few miles away, either misses it, or is uninterested (note even after the Magi visit, the scholars do not come to Bethlehem to investigate), or come, in Herod's case, to kill.

What's doing

Sorry for no posts for a few days. It's been an interesting week so far:

Monday morning I drove out to Saint Louis. I did so first to look at a baptismal font I might like to acquire for St. Boniface Parish (the jury is still out), but then to visit my brother, who lives in St. Louis. I had a nice visit with the fellow, Michael, with the baptismal font, who told me its history -- it came from a parish in Kansas City -- and who showed me his warehouse of reclaimed religious articles. It is a melancholy sight, reflecting the closure of churches and the odd choices of pastors in altering church interiors. Michael and I chuckled over some of the more modern artwork that found its way to him--"good luck selling that."

As I wasn't meeting my brother and his wife until six, and I had some time to kill, Michael directed me to the Shrine of St. Joseph in downtown St. Louis. I found it with no trouble, but alas it was closed. It is a building from the 1840s, and currently the towers are being repaired. It is supposed to be beautiful inside, sorry I missed it.

I fiddled around in a bookstore, and had a drink, before meeting my brother; actually, I met my sister-in-law, as she was preparing dinner, but my brother was still hard at work. Over the years, he's started a number of business ventures, some have done better than others, although he's done well for himself overall. At 58, he's once again working on a new business venture, and working 16-hour days, including lots of physical labor. I told him, over dinner, it was just like our dad, who ran a one-man business, selling and delivering candy and snack items, until his 70s. At my present age, 45, I'm as old as he was when he had a third (of seven) children on the way.

Tuesday morning, after a nice walk around Forest Park in the center of Saint Louis and breakfast, I drove back to Piqua, got back around 4 pm. I would have gotten back earlier, but cutting up to U.S. 36, just east of Indianapolis, seemed a good idea. Little did I know it was "Drive your Farm Combine Day" in Indiana. No one to blame by myself. It was very pretty country.

Tuesday evening, I met with a group of St. Boniface Parishioners to ask their help on our "Rebuild St. Boniface" project--they are going to ask their fellow parishioners to make pledges to support critical repair and maintenance needs coming due.

Wednesday morning, we had our second Latin Mass--according to the current Missal. I was curious how many would show, since I didn't promote it this time. Would the novelty have worn off? Would people forget? Would anyone be irritated? A good crowd showed, mostly the regulars, and they seemed to do even a little better with the Latin responses; and some came clearly because of the Latin. If you are interested, mark your calendar: first Wednesday of every month, 8 am, St. Mary Church, Piqua. We are using the English texts for the collects and the readings, but everything else is in Latin (except when the priest forgets, as I did for one part yesterday). We are singing Latin hymns and will be doing the proper antiphons.

Other than simply returning calls, and sorting through mail, I spent a lot of time on the baptismal font project yesterday. I had to find out of the dings and nicks in this font can be repaired (jury is out); I got an idea for an alternate plan, that I made some calls to investigate. I almost forgot, but I did make it to a "Clergy Appreciation" lunch at the Kiwanis meeting. I was very heartened when one of the local Baptist pastors made a strong pitch for this Sunday's "Life Chain" to oppose abortion, and thanked him afterward.

Last evening, I had my weekly treat: the Bible study. We are looking at the Gospel of Matthew, and we just wrapped up the Sermon on the Mount. I learn more as I do this, and it seems to be fun for those involved. Again, if you are interested, 7 pm pretty much every Wednesday (we skipped on 4th of July, and when I was out of town), at St. Boniface, in the school.

(In a separate post, I share some thoughts on Matthew.)

After the Bible study, I met up with a group that gathers every Wednesday, and we had some beer and wings; I persuaded several of them to try deep-fried pickles, and they agreed they were good, and they proved my 3rd law: almost anything good is better deep-fried (better-tasting of course; I make no health claims). It was 10:30 when I got home.

This morning I got to sleep a little late and surf the 'net a bit, and post here; now I have to go have Mass at one of the area nursing homes. We have four, so once-a-month for each one.

Don't forget the poor (Sunday homily)

We might wonder what, exactly,
sent the Rich Man to hell.

The Parable gives us hints:
It wasn’t that the Rich Man didn’t do enough;
but rather—he didn’t do anything:

He didn’t even give scraps from the floor…
He provided no comfort to a sick man—
who had only dogs to show him mercy…
And he didn’t even bother
to bury Lazarus after his death.

Yet, when he saw Lazarus, in the Bosom of Abraham,
he recognized him! So it wasn’t that he didn’t know.

Three years ago, Charles Chaput,
the Archbishop of Denver,
gave a homily on these readings.
He said the following that gets it right:
“If we ignore the poor we are going to go to hell.”

We are all poor in God’s eyes.
Yet Christ, the Richest one of all, left Heaven,
and came to the gate where poor humanity lay dying.
We had all been shut out by Adam’s sin,
but Christ did not leave us to die outside the gate.

Rather, he went to die, outside the gate!
He became poor, for us; to make us rich!

Many of us are rich in material things,
at least by comparison to the rest of the world;
but we are all rich, rich as rich can be,
in the gold of eternity, God’s forgiveness,
the life of the Holy Spirit.
We are rich in Christ.

We know people who are poor in spiritual things—
they don’t know the Lord,
they are on a path of destruction.
But that’s their problem, not ours.

Yet if we forget the poor, we are going to go to hell.

And there are poor in material things—
whether at the “gate” of our nation,
the richest on earth;
or people in Piqua who need help.

This is what our St. Vincent de Paul Society does;
this is what Catholic Social Services does—
remember that, when someone complains
about sending money to that fund.

But we have a duty not only to charity,
but also to pursue social justice:
charity means direct help to those in need;
social justice means action
to change the structure of society.

If we have a good education,
what are we doing to ensure others get one?

If we have a job, what are we doing
to insist our business and political leaders
make jobs and development
a priority for our local community?

What is the governor doing?
The state legislature? City commission.

Better: what are we doing to get them to act?

The Rich Man couldn’t do it all. He didn’t have to.
He just had to do what he could.
His eternal mistake was he didn’t even do that.

Whaddyacallit?

Father Zuhlsdorf at his popular and useful site, "What does the Prayer Really Say?" has a survey on the best terminology to distinguish the two forms of the Roman Rite, or Roman Mass, now in use.

Two forms, you say? Yes--the usual, "ordinary" form that is most familiar is according to the Missal adopted after Vatican II, what you experience in most parishes.

The "extraordinary" form, or usage, is according to the Missal revised by Blessed John XXIII, the pope who summoned the Second Vatican Council. This older, longstanding form of the Mass is called by many names, most frequently (but somewhat misleadingly) "Tridentine." I consider that somewhat misleading because very many mistakenly suppose it originated with Trent; when, in fact, it long predated the Council of Trent in the mid-1500s, back at least as far as the 600s. Of course, there have been some changes all along the way, even up to 1962, as noted (it came to be called Tridentine because Trent regularized the normal form of Mass for almost all Roman Catholics).

Well, anyway, what shall we call this older form of the Mass?

Father Z has a survey--go vote if you wish. You can find comments there to see what people advocate; you will find my arguments for a particular vote if you really want to know.

Some exegesis on 'Lazarus and the Rich Man'

As I sit here, trying to derive a homily for Sunday, I sometimes find it helpful to do some exegesis on the passage. I wrote out my notes, and they follow.

Jesus said to the Pharisees:
"There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen
and dined sumptuously each day…."

Why did the Lord tell this parable to the Pharisees? Was he speaking to a particular group? Was he visiting someone’s house, looking around at the guests at a meal? What might the Lord have seen as he approached the house?

If you look at the larger section of the Gospel, to discover the setting for this, the only hint you get is back at Chapter 14, it begins, "On a sabbath he went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully." Whether all that follows took place at that dinner is not clear, but it’s possible.

"And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,"

—note the vivid contrast in what "covers" each: "purple garments"…"sores."

"who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table.
Dogs even used to come and lick his sores."

The contrast—between what a dumb animal does and what a human being fails to do—is striking.

"When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.
The rich man also died and was buried,"—

Was poor Lazarus not buried? Why not? Was this part of the Rich Man’s failure, that he didn’t even notice, or care, about a corpse at his doorstep? Or was he not buried because the angels carried him away? If he was not buried, that of course would be a noteworthy injustice, as burying the dead is a very fundamental act of mercy, a duty we owe one another.

"and from the netherworld, where he was in torment,
he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.
And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me.
Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue,
for I am suffering torment in these flames.'"

Note: the Rich Man recognizes Lazarus! He knows his name.

"Abraham replied, 'My child,"—
This comment makes clear that the Lord’s parable is about a Jew, not a pagan.

"…remember that you received what was good during your lifetime
while Lazarus likewise received what was bad;
but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented."

We might here ask the question: just what did condemn the Rich Man to torment? Was it merely because he was rich? The text might be read as saying something like that--or even, "you were fated to have your good times in time, and bad in eternity--that's how it works sometimes!" But that would be very hard to reconcile with the rest of what is revealed to us by God. Being rich, per se, is not a sin, but it can be a snare.

The parable seems to raise the question: what was the Rich Man's responsibility regarding Lazarus? The details of the story suggest that the Rich Man's sin was the total lack of concern, his complete passivity: he didn't even provide scraps of food, worthless to himself; he provided no help to a sick man, so that only dogs could be counted on to provide comfort; and--if this is the meaning--he neglected a corpse. There is nothing to suggest the Rich Man had to divest himself of his wealth, in order to be saved. But he ought to have done something for Lazarus, but he did absolutely nothing.

Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established
to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go
from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’"

The reason someone might wish to go from torment to Abraham’s bosom is obvious; but for what reason might anyone wish to take the opposite journey?

"He said, 'Then I beg you, father, send him to my father's house,
for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them,
lest they too come to this place of torment.'"

Interesting: the Rich Man shows some concern for his fellow man. One could take that a couple of ways: (1) Does this reveal that someone in hell can still have a decent impulse? Or (2), does it serve rather to advance the narrative—to prepare for the final part of the story—and therefore, should not be read as suggesting someone in hell is capable of such impulses. I tend to the latter, because it seems to me the nature of damnation—of being "lost"—suggests the sparks of decency have been extinguished. But that reflects my own view of salvation and damnation.

"But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.'"

This is worth noting here. You will hear people make rather breezy comments about the Four Gospels, trying to contrast them one from the other, and in doing so, will create oppositions between them, and their messages, that the texts themselves don’t support. So, for example, folks will say, "Oh, Mark emphasizes the humanity of Christ, John the divinity." Well, there’s a kernel of some truth in that, but really, that’s so misleading: they both present our Lord as very much God, and very human.

Or, someone will say, "Oh, Matthew is very Jewish, while Luke—who was a Gentile—goes the other way." So many flaws built into such a facile contrast. I may be wrong, but I don’t recall anything definite on whether Luke was ever a Jew—i.e., he might have converted to Judaism or been on the way to doing so. But in any case, folks who say such things haven’t read either Gospel closely enough. Matthew, for example, begins with the genealogy, which many people skim past.

It is very revealing, including the highlighting of many Gentile ancestors of our Lord, who—if you look closely—was adopted: i.e., he is presented as belonging to Joseph’s lineage, and yet, the text makes crystal-clear that Joseph had nothing to do with the conception of Jesus. Of course, this doesn’t call Jesus’ Jewishness into question, but in the context of the genealogy, with several Gentiles included, it presents the picture of the Church that St. Paul preached: of the Gentiles being "grafted in." And if you go carefully through Matthew, you’ll find lots more—i.e., all in anticipation of Matthew’s closing scene, where Our Lord says, "Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations…"

Then, here, in Luke, you have something like this phrase, which is remarkable—Our Lord is saying, the Law and the Prophets are sufficient. Our Lord would say many times that they point to him, that he is the Message of the Law and the Prophets. Sounds like something that was supposed to be in Matthew! Yet here it is in "very Gentile" Luke.

My point is not to deny contrasts and differences among the Gospels, but to point out that many make far too much of them; and many try to come up with shorthand descriptions of the individual Gospels that distort the picture.

"He said, 'Oh no, father Abraham,
but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
Then Abraham said, 'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'"

Many have noticed the following. First, of course, that we know Our Lord will die and rise from the dead—and many will still not be persuaded.

Second, some find very interesting that there was a Lazarus, who died and rose from the dead, and yet folks were not persuaded by that. They note additionally, Abraham did not actually refuse this latter request.

This is fascinating, no question, but I should note, however, a caution on the latter point: the raising of Lazarus from the dead is part of the Gospel of John, not Luke; Luke nowhere mentions it, or that Lazarus, if memory serves. So while there may be an historical connection, there is no textual connection—we cannot assume, without other evidence, that Luke is expecting his reader or hearer to know that other story, because it may not have been written yet, and we don’t even know if Luke knew about that other Lazarus. Yes, it’s a spectacular story, but so many things Our Lord were spectacular, and he raised others from the dead. We know Luke doesn’t include the story, but we don’t know why. If John did write his Gospel after Luke—we really don’t know—but if he did, it’s possible he had this parable in mind. But since John doesn’t include this parable, one might wonder—did he know about it?

For some, this may seem too esoteric; but many mistakenly combine different stories into one, or assume that if someone named "Lazarus" is mentioned more than once in the Gospels, then of course they all must be the same person. In fact, the Lazarus described in John is not a poor beggar, abandoned by all, but a man of some means, with many friends. I am at a loss to reconcile the two Lazaruses; if someone knows how that is done, please share. In the meantime, it seems better not to try.

Now, above I faulted those who make too much of each Gospel’s particular features, so I want to be careful not to do so myself. But this parable—which only appears in Luke—shows one of the things he is known for emphasizing: the reversal of rich and poor, mighty and lowly. Some find Luke the most "revolutionary" Gospel—if Liberation theologians preferred Luke, I could see why.

(By the way, "liberation theology" is not entirely bogus—it has many valid points. It’s error lay in focusing far too much on salvation in this world’s terms, through political or social change. And that is usually how it is with teachings that are deemed error or heresy—it’s not that they aren’t true, as far as they go, but rather, they don’t go far enough. Or they aren’t broad enough—they make too much of a true insight, but in isolation from the broader truth, and thus arises their error.)

This Gospel, along with the first reading, are naturals for a homily on social justice, as were last week’s readings. FYI.

A few more notes.

Somewhere or another, I've seen Catholic apologetics use this passage to support praying to the saints, i.e., asking the saints to intercede for us. They point to the following details: the Rich Man seeks Abraham's help (i.e., Abraham is a saint, although we are not accustomed to calling him that), as well as Lazarus'; and it shows people in eternity well aware of, and concerned for, people in this life. I.e., those who don't pray for the dead, and/or don't seek the intercession of the saints, often say, "I wonder if people in heaven know anything about what's going on here." Because, of course, if they did, you'd have a hard time explaining why they don't pray for us...and if they know, and pray, then merely thinking about someone in the next life, and wishing they would pray for you...oops! you just prayed to someone in heaven, asking for intercession!

While you can make these points, I'm not sure you can go further, and assert that Our Lord, or Luke, intended this parable to address these questions.

Finally, someone may wonder why the Rich Man is sometimes called "Dives." If memory serves, that is a Latin word for "Rich Man."

What will you do for social justice? (Sunday homily)

You might have been wondering
what the Prophet Amos was describing.

When he says, “diminish the ephah, add to the shekel,”

he’s talking about inflation.

When he says, “we will buy the lowly for silver,
and the poor for a pair of sandals”—
he could be describing predatory lending.

When he refers to being eager for “the new moon”
to be over, he’s talking about how work and business
encroach on the Sabbath.

In our time, there is no Sabbath anymore—
no day of rest. Business seven days a week.

Many of our parishioners
cannot come to Mass for Sunday due to work.
Their employers could give them schedules
that allow for worship of God—but they don’t.

We hear that first reading, and we may wonder:
OK, what can I do—how can lift up the poor?

This is where our Faith calls us
beyond charity to social justice.
Charity means we give direct help to those in need:
food, clothing, or help with the electric bill.
Social Justice means we do our part
to change the structure of society.

We might want to express thanks to businesses
that give their employees a break on Sunday;
even better, maybe we can minimize
the business we do on Sundays?
After all, if we go shopping on Sundays,
someone has to work, to take care of us.

St. Paul calls us to pray for kings and people in authority.

But in our time, we can go further:
we can make our views known to people in authority.

To lift up the poor—our community needs jobs!

On Sundays, we pray for that to happen;
but as good stewards, each of us has the right—
and I would argue, the duty—
to tell our Governor, and our legislators,
we need them to act.

We have an election coming up this fall in Piqua.
Our city commission has a role to play.

So, again, we pray for those seeking office—
but each of us have a duty to tell them how urgent it is
that they make jobs and development happen.
For another couple of weeks,
we can still register to vote:
one day, God will ask us how well we used that privilege.

To our younger parishioners: you can’t vote yet,
but you can still get involved; you can speak out.

In today’s bulletin you’ll find names and addresses
of our governor and state legislators,
and how to register to vote.

In the Gospel, the Lord talked about stewardship.
As citizens, all of us are stewards together
of our community.

We often talk about what those people
in Washington, or Columbus, do—
but now, the question is, what will the people in Piqua do?

Do you get used to glasses?

I picked up my "seamless" bi-focals today. They worked fine in the shop; but they are a little odd, since then.

Apparently, my head moves--more than I knew--because when my head moves, what I see, changes. And I now have to get used to holding my head a certain way to see things.

One gets used to this?

Oops it's Wednesday already

Well, if you're interested, here's my week so far...

Monday: went down to Dayton and visit a book store. Stopped at the grocery on the way back.

Tuesday: school Mass for younger children (we have one school, but two campuses--campi?--between both parishes). Worked at my desk most of the day, stopped in at the girls' volleyball game, then to an enrollment-marketing meeting, then to Adult Faith Formation committee meeting, lastly 4th Degree Knights had a steak-fry. Saved that for last! Home after 9 pm.

Wednesday: worked on homily at home this morning, in office all afternoon. Most of yesterday and today, I've been preparing materials for an effort to raise money for building needs at St. Boniface. The parish faces $176,000 in very urgent repairs, plus another $260,000 in necessary repairs that need attention before long. (Since so many others raise $ via web sites, you'll see more on this soon.... But if you feel so inclined, make check payable to St. Boniface Parish, 310 South Downing Street, Piqua, Ohio 45356. Be sure to specify "building fund" on memo line or in a note, so it goes to this project--and thank you!

The bells just rang the Angelus; in a bit, I'll head over for the weekly Bible study, then get home by 8 pm. An early evening!

Tomorrow will be a busy day: more work on the fundraising effort, preparing my own talk, give blood, staff meeting, visit the hospital, wedding rehearsal, then the big meeting.

Thankfully, all the other things that need attention seem a bit calmer this week, knock on wood.

The Father is not angry; but He is looking for us (Sunday homily)

What do the Scriptures today teach us about God?
He welcomes us back; yet the false god must be destroyed.
God is merciful—but also just.

The readings raise the question: is God angry?
From the first reading, it seems so.
But that’s not really what’s going on.

God did not need Moses to explain mercy to him.
See, what’s really happening is that
Moses needs to have the insight—to plead for mercy.
That’s why it happens this way.

Look at the Parable:
The Father is not angry; but he is filled with longing.
He “caught sight” of the boy while “still a long way off.”

When do you usually notice a speck on the horizon—
is it not when you’re out there, searching and hoping?

Jesus tells us: if we are away from the Father,
we may happily forget all about Him—
but He never forgets about us!

The lost son came back to re-earn his Father’s favor.
But notice: the Father ran to him, embracing him!
God’s Favor is a gift: we respond to it—it changes us;
but we never earn it!

Parents: this sort of embrace
may be the easiest gift you’ll give your children—
all it costs is your pride.

If we have bad memories, we can’t go back,
but we can be compassionate now.

This is a great time to talk about
the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Will the priest be angry or think less of you? No.

Like the Father in parable, when a parent welcomes back a child,
friends or siblings embrace again—
in what way is that awful or demeaning—it’s wonderful!

For the priest, that’s what the confessional is.
It’s one of the best experiences of being a priest.

Some will say, it’s been too long—I don’t know how.
Don’t worry about it.

I’m going to take a couple minutes to review how;
there’s a handout, at the doors, that will help;
but in any case, just ask the priest!

Here’s how you do it.
First, pray and reflect on your life.
If we do this frequently, we won’t have
dark corners in our lives we’re afraid to face.

This handout gives questions you can use,
and the basic form of confession.

When you come to the priest, you choose:
face-to-face or anonymously.

Make the sign of the cross.
After the priest says “welcome,” or a prayer,
you say, “Bless me father, for I have sinned.
It has been”—say how long—
“since my last confession. Here are my sins.”

No, you don’t have to do just that way,
but this helps get you started, so you don’t feel awkward.

Tell your sins, and only your sins—not the stories,
not what wrong things other people did!
It can be very easy to get off-track.

Don’t leave out any mortal sins—
mention them by type and number.
This can be awkward, but here’s why we do this:

Reconciliation requires a starting-point of honesty.
Sometimes we hedge or minimize.
If we go to a doctor, we don’t just say,
“I hurt somewhere” or “sometime,”
but we say, “I hurt here”—
“it hurts once a week” or “once a day.”

You don’t have to mention all venial sins.
But the confessional is the spiritual garbage dump—
Feel free to get rid of it all!

The priest may give advice or ask a question.
Don’t worry—we never repeat anything.
We prefer to forget everything we hear!
I pray to forget, and I do!

We will give you a penance, which is a prayer,
or something you do, as your part of the healing.

The priest will ask you—or help you—
to say an “Act of Sorrow.”
Most important, as part of a longer prayer,
the priest will say, “I absolve you”—this is when
the Father forgives and forgets your sins, forever,
and clothes you once again with a robe of salvation.

We do this every Saturday—9 am at St. Boniface,
3:30 pm at St. Mary—the priest is waiting for you.
Wednesday evenings, 5 pm, in St. Clare chapel.

If those times don’t work, call us.
All you have to say is,
“meet me in the confessional, so I can be anonymous.”
We’ll be waiting.

Every Mass we have a sacrificial feast—
not a calf, but the Lamb, the Son of God.
But we don’t come casually;
If we have been away from the Father,
if we need to be brought back to life,
that’s what the Sacrament of Penance is for.

Our Father is not angry—but He’s looking for us:
to welcome us back, to forget and heal,
and to give us back the dignity that belongs to us.

What about usury?

In my August post about the "sub prime lending" problem, a couple of posters complained that I didn't discuss usury. I might point out, neither did they.

I wonder if they discovered what I did: that the Catechism of the Catholic Church says almost nothing about it, other than saying its a bad thing.

So what is usury? It's lending money at excessive interest. At one time in the tradition, it was understood as lending money at interest at all, but the Church came to see that there is time-value to money, and that it is not in itself illegitimate to charge a reasonable interest for the use of money, any more than it's wrong to charge a reasonable rent for the use of property.

I did find the following the Compendium on the Social Doctrine of the Church:

341. Although the quest for equitable profit is acceptable in economic and financial activity, recourse to usury is to be morally condemned: “Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them”. This condemnation extends also to international economic relations, especially with regard to the situation in less advanced countries, which must never be made to suffer “abusive if not usurious financial systems”. More recently, the Magisterium used strong and clear words against this practice, which is still tragically widespread, describing usury as “a scourge that is also a reality in our time and that has a stranglehold on many peoples' lives”.

Common sense tells us that with lending comes risk--and a lender has to be able to cover that risk, or else lending would cease. Does anyone think we would be better off without lending as a tool of finance?

So back to the sub-prime situation. I guess what commenters want me to say is usury is bad. It is. But since the key distinction lies in "excessive" interest, then how shall we determine what is "excessive"?

I really don't know. So, while I readily believe some of these lenders were usurious, I don't happen to know which ones. Nor do I really have much confidence in the various attorneys general or other politicians who get on the warpath about such things, that they are going to make suitable judgments.

Here is an interesting situation involving something that seems clearly usurious: so-called payday loans. Unfortunately, I can't find the link, but a few weeks ago, I read something surprising. A non-profit agency decided to try to offer pay-day loans at the minimum amount necessary to break even--and the rate, when risk and defaults were taken into account--was surprisingly high. That isn't surprising, really, is it?

But we all recoil at the idea of people being charged exhorbitant rates for such things, or for check-cashing.

I'll leave it to you to suggest how we know when the interest charged is "excessive." Let us move onto the next question: what do we do about it?

If you say, the state should regulate it, should cap the interest rate, my response is, okay, fine--then what?

Do you really suppose the folks who were getting such loans will still get loans at the better rate? Some perhaps, but not all. So what will they do?

You and I know full well what they will do: they will get loans other ways. We know from whom, too. The mob charges usurious rates, and has other ways to deal with default, and the reasoning, while abhorrent, is otherwise sensible: they can't sue you, so how do gangsters enforce their claim on the debt? They cause some other harm.

Now, of course, we can go after such rackets and we do.

But I do think it's good to ask whether we need to outlaw everything that is morally abhorrent. Sometimes we realize that the solution is a lot harder to identify than the problem.

Someone will make a facile comparison with abortion: i.e., since we seek to outlaw that, then we must seek to outlaw everything that is wrong. But of course that's not true. Sometimes the difficulty is in identifying a workable solution; sometimes it has to do with the gravity of the wrong. The greater gravity of abortion should be manifest; plus, it is a very clear-cut wrong, whereas the definition of "usury" hinges on very subjective or situational elements of "profit" and "excess."

So, you wanted a post on usury. Usury is bad. Don't do it, you may go to hell.

20/25; 20/30

Many of you are not aware of a secret conspiracy, the origins and purposes of which are obscure -- but many of you are well aware, because you and I are its targets. You know: books that have sat on your shelves for years are replaced with lookalikes but with smaller print; labels on packages that you pick up are clearly printed differently from what everyone else has; the signs at church, that give the hymn numbers, clearly use fuzzy letters, but everyone pretends they're no different.

Well, I gave in, and went to Wal Mart to have my eyes checked. You may laugh, but I had my eyes checked for glaucoma and cataracts, by a real doctor of optometry. Plus, I was going to see an opthamologist, but that office said, no, don't come here, we do surgery--go to Dr. Bigley at Wal Mart in Troy! (And I invite everyone to go see Doctor Bigley--I met him, but his wife is also a doctor there; and he was very helpful and quick.)

I held out some hope he'd say, "Father, there's nothing wrong"--but not much. I knew I was seeing worse. My scores are the headline, I think I got the sequence right. So...I need bifocals.

Well, then the optician showed me the lenses, and talked me into "no-line" bifocals. It cost me more. Was that a bad buy? I went low-end on the frames, and got clip-on sunglasses. Every day, I turn more and more into my dad (although he wore the flip-up types; these don't flip up).

I was all pysched up to having to wear glasses, only I have to wait; they don't grind them there, which I should have expected.

What do you think I paid for all that? And guess what the answer was to my question: how often do I need to re-do my eyeglass prescription?

Practical benefits of confession

Last Thursday and today, the other two priests and I heard confessions for the schoolchildren; we do it every other month. It's not easy fitting into the schedule: it takes the three of us about six hours, over two weeks, to do it; longer if we arrange for a short penance service beforehand, which is helpful as a way to help the children learn to see this as (1) a communal experience as well as personal, (2) to situate this in the context of prayer, (3) to have an opportunity to give a homily with instruction on the sacrament and (4) to go through an examination of conscience.

Maybe someday we can do it every month, but as I say, it's not easy.

This is a pause in the day, after that, before a staff meeting in a few minutes.

Some thoughts on the sacrament of confession:

* It really matters that you specify your sins...aloud. Sometimes this feels awkward, and believe me, as a priest, I don't want to go digging. Many people are awfully general.

Here's the thing: every sacrament has "matter" and "form." The "matter" of the sacrament is an essential part of what is used, what is transformed, so that you receive God's grace. In baptism, water is the matter; in the Eucharist, bread and wine. See a pattern?

Now, do you realize what the "matter" of this sacrament is? It is the sins you confess!

God's purpose, it seems to me, is to take what is worthless to us, and even harmful, and transform it into something awesome. This is part of what's amazing about this sacrament. Every other sacrament, we bring something wholesome and good to be made better. But here, we bring something truly awful and ugly--and yet he is eager to take it all the same.

Also, our specificity is how we "connect" with God in allowing specific healing. We can either say, "I need healing (generally)" -- okay, and maybe you'll get it...generally. But how much more we need specific healing--and this is how we unlock the door for that. The act of specifying our sins is also an act of acknowledgment and consent regarding these specific areas.

The analogy I often use is with a doctor: you may be embarrassed to mention a specific ailment, but if so, you can hardly expect the doctor to do much with, "I don't feel good." When you uncover and say, "this is my wound," that opens new opportunities.

A final thought on this. Someone else made the point that frequent confession means there is never anything in our lives, that is sinful and dark, that we haven't confronted and dealt with--no rocks we haven't turned over; no dark recesses we are afraid to face. Sometimes someone will come to confession, and remember something from the past, and it will be a real burden. When we frankly confess, and do it frequently, there's nothing lurking to bother us, down the road.

* It's hard to improve on the "short and sweet" approach. A lot of folks dwell on their feelings in confession, or they talk about the context: "I did ___ because..." Now, to some extent, of course, circumstances change the nature of the sin. "I missed Sunday Mass because I had no way to get there."

But I'm talking about the tendency to move, rather quickly, from confessing ones own sins, to confessing the sins of others. "It was because of how rotten she was to me."

There is a real temptation to lapse into self-justification: "I wasn't that bad," or "I better than usual." Again, to some degree, it is good to arrive at a point where you can see yourself with some clarity, both for good and bad. God wants us to acknowledge our sins, but he also wants to know when things are getting better, too. But there is a fine line somewhere here, where we cross over into a place where we're looking at our merits, rather than giving thanks for what God has done for us.

My point is, one can avoid all this by keeping to a concrete, straightforward agenda. This is the wisdom of the "old fashioned" way of doing this:

"Bless me + Father for I have sinned. It has been ___ (how long?) since my last confession. These are my sins..." Then confess your sins specifically, by kind and number, with only enough detail to clarify what the sin is. End with, "for these all my sins, including all those I cannot now remember, I am truly sorry." Answer any questions simply, hear whatever counsel may be provided, accept your penance (This means you have a choice; if you can't do that penance, if it's something you can't easily do, simply say so. The priest should know to offer something else. If not, you can have another priest "commute" your penance to something else.), offer your act of contrition, then listen and receive the absolution the priest gives in the person of Christ, through the prayer of absolution.

It's not that you aren't welcome to be friendly and exchange pleasantries with the priest. That's fine, and since it often helps deal with tension or fear, that's good. This need not be grim or frightening. But at the same time, if too much is "added into" the celebration of the sacrament, the structure and meaning of the sacrament can be obscured. We can derail ourselves from our central purpose--which, if you realize it later, may be unsettling.

Finally, knowing the basic form of the sacrament, and being thoroughly familiar with it, gets rid of one of the reasons people avoid the sacrament: "I don't know how to do it." Going to confession can be a tense experience, and not knowing what to do doesn't make it any better. So often, it's how we start something that is stressful; once we're underway, it's easier. At the pool--how do I get in? Behind the wheel, learning to drive; a new priest, how do I start Mass?

This is the genius of Catholic spirituality, with our oft-criticized "rote prayers." Lots of times in life, we lack the energy or wherewithal to summon up prayers "off the cuff." In times of crisis, that's the last thing we may want to do. That's when the prayers and rituals we repeated so often come into play, and we know how to pray. The prayers, in a sense, "pray for us," and we are carried along. Let me tell you, when people are lying in a hospital bed, barely able to move, these prayers are a great comfort. And they help us know what to do, when otherwise we would be lost at sea.

Off-the-cuff commentary on Philemon

As I said in a prior post, I am not putting my homilies for this weekend online, as they pertain to parish finances, and good or bad (some of both in both cases), that's not really for everyone's ears or eyes.

Well, as I listened to the readings at all six Masses, I had time to reflect on the second reading, from St. Paul's letter to Philemon. I wonder--did anyone hear anything in the homily yesterday or today address this letter?

It concerns Onesimus, a slave who ran away from Philemon. Verse 18 -- "And if he has done you any injustice or owes you anything, charge it to me" -- may refer to a theft, although that's a guess.

Now, this raises a subject of interest to us: the institution of slavery, something that has been around for a very long time, and by the way, still happens, both under new guises and pretty much as it always did. One of the criticisms of Christianity, particularly at its inception, is that apparently, Christians didn't seem too bothered by slavery. This letter perhaps, but more, other passages in Scripture, referring to slaves being obedient to their masters "as to the Lord," are cited to buttress this point.

Well, a couple of things we might mention. While slavery is odious no matter what, we should realize the nature of its practice is varied widely over the millenia. We tend to think of the most cruel manifestations of it, particularly as was practiced in our own country, not realizing how differently it was practiced in other ages -- i.e., the ancients moderated it in ways moderns did not. Also, realize the great reason we are offended is that we have inherited a notion that all humanity have essential dignity and worth, and are most fundamentally equal in that regard, even if not equal in many others. We might ask, where did this notion come from? It came from the Bible, particularly from the New Testament, which nonetheless was not novel in this regard, but drew on the Old. More than that, it came from the Church--i.e., this message did not preach itself, it was spread as the Christian Faith spread.

It is worth noting that slavery faded as a social institution for many, many years, only to be brought back in the modern age--I mean, around the time of the great explorations by Europeans of Africa and the New World. One might wonder what changed--well, what changed at the waning of slavery was the gradual conversion of Europe. What changed again involved several things, but notable was this came in the wake of a Renaissance. "Renaissance" means rebirth--did you ever wonder what the coiners of that term thought was being born again in their midst? It wasn't Christianity, but the values and vision that preceded Christianity. It was about this time that individual nation-states began to come into their own. And, it was about this point that the shift of power between Church and state slid decisively -- and thus far irreversibly -- toward the state. It was the real beginning of the idea of the secular state.

Well, of course, most of us have been taught, in school, that the new "modern" ideas were great advances. And I am not suggesting there weren't great advances involved. Yet let's be clear, that it was in this context that the "great explorers" went out, decided to work together with slavers from Africa -- not Christian -- and create their own systems in the New World. The Church denounced them, and they--as well as their political patrons--said what politicians and their allies in the media, in academia, and in business (don't kid yourself, "embryonic stem-cell research" is big business!) say to this day: the Church should shut up and pray.

So, all this is to give context.

One more thing, of course, is that we wonder about why Paul and Peter and others did not call for abolition of slavery. We might recall that they did not have the great blessing we do, of the real ability to change our governments; or, for those in the world today who don't actually have the legal means to do so, still have the idea of doing so, because of the great spread of this idea. So we consider it very normal to talk about changing such things; where, in Paul's time, just how might someone make such changes? That was insurrection. They might be forgiven, I think, for not seeing that as particularly promising. In any case, our Lord did not establish the Church to be a political movement, yet its clear enough in the New Testament that it would, in time, have great political ramifications. The Sanhedrin and the Roman authority were able to see that; or else the Christians who presented the Gospels in that light, saw it.

So what's all this got to do with our text? Well, if you look at it closely, you can see this at work repeatedly.

Paul begins by making himself someone in bondage: "a prisoner," writing to Philemon, "our beloved co-worker." The tone of the letter suggests Philemon would view Paul with great deference--and here he makes himself a slave, like Onesimus! That might have been rather awkward for Philemon.

Then, Paul alludes to the authority he enjoys -- "to order" Philemon about -- an authority that can only be moral, it has no other teeth. So now who is the master? Paul repeats, he is a "prisoner." (NB: I am commenting on the entire letter, about half of which you heard at Mass.)

There are many clever turns of phrase throughout, so there is no question Paul is sending a clear message, but on the surface might seem rather meek. "I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that the good you do might not be forced but voluntary." At first blush, this might seem terribly deferential to a slave-holder; ah, but I can't believe it isn't a poke at the fact that Philemon uses force--on Onesimus!

So Paul says, have him back, "no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother, beloved especially to me, but even more so to you, as a man and in the Lord."

Now, we might hear the reference to Onesimus as a man as the revolutionary part, but not so--it was the reference to him as a "brother." Actually, this is not even as strong as Paul has been elsewhere, when he says we are no longer "slave nor free," and so forth, because all are made new, and one, in Christ.

What we refer to as "Western Civilization" (now supposedly so secular that the European Union can't bring itself to acknowledge its debt to Christianity!) is so suffused with these ideas that while many congratulate themselves on casting off the shackles of religious influence, they really have no idea. No one does: can we really imagine what the world would be like if everything that was a result of the spread of the Gospel were somehow extracted from our language, our institutions, our laws, our mores, our customs, our categories of thought? The idea of "universal human rights" sounds, and is offered as, thoroughly secular. But again, where did this idea come from?

Well, we have nothing to tell us how Philemon responded, but we do know what became of this idea, which Paul presented so forcefully in his many letters -- of all barriers broken down or made insignificant in Christ -- it changed the entire world.

Happy Birthday Mother!

Very Busy

I'm too busy to write much of a post, but people like my little "day in a life" posts, and I don't know that I'll have much to post for the next few days.

For example, I'll be giving a financial report to both parishes this weekend, so that means (a) preaching at all six Masses and (b) not posting my homily here. I consider these matters the business of the two parishes, not the world's business.

Also, that means preparing two budgets, because each parish keeps separate accounts, and meeting with two different finance committees. Maybe other pastors with multiple parishes do it better, but this is a pain, because a number of expenses are shared, many are separate but impinge on each other, and so forth.

In a few minutes, I'll meet with a couple preparing for marriage; then I'll run to a campsite for the cub scouts, to eat a hotdog with the boys. I really think every boy should be a scout, at least for awhile. I say that as one who was not a scout, but I wish I had been; and I see how much good scouting does for many boys. In particular, I think scouting helps with their spiritual lives, because, in my experience in two parishes, the scout packs have integrated spirituality with scouting, and thus the boys are encouraged to see spirituality as something for them as boys. Boy Scouts, in my limited experience, reinforce personal morality and religious practice as masculine. (Question: do scouts offer a merit badge specifically for serving at Mass? I wonder how one would make that happen?)

Then, I have to be at 4 pm Mass to preach, then offer 5 pm Mass.

Oh, there's lots of other things -- school, fundraisers, meetings, staff, pastoral council, and so it goes.

Piqua's first (mostly) Latin Mass in 30 years

The sky was not rent, the earth did not split open, as we had a Latin Mass this morning for the first time, publicly, in I'm guessing 30 to 40 years.

In fact, it's very likely this is the very first time Mass was offered this way in Piqua, as I did not offer the former usage, which is what so many think of when they hear "Latin Mass." Rather, I offered the Mass according to the current Missal, "by the book."

The Mass was actually not all in Latin: in addition to the readings being in English, I also used the English orations, mainly because the people would not have had those texts available. I did, however, do the preface in Latin; I could have done it in English (I would have sung it better). But pretty much everything else was in Latin, including the Roman Canon.

I stumbled a bit on the pronunciation, and the prayers I have memorized, in English, I don't have memorized in Latin--so I had to refer to the book in ways I found awkward, such as for the "Per Ipsum." I am using the Solemnes' Ordo Missae in Cantu book, which is beautiful, but not well laid out--the page-breaks come at awkward points in the prayers; they might as well have made it a bit thicker, and then move text to the next page for more natural breaks in the text. Plus, they didn't include everything the priest needs, so I had to switch back between that and the Sacramentary. Next time, I'll copy and paste what I need in one book, but that's a pain.

We had 20-30 people, which is a normal size for a Wednesday morning; many of our regulars, some parishioners who don't always come to daily Mass, and some new faces. Some of our others I imagine chose to go to the evening Mass instead, which is fine--that's why I did this on Wednesday, to provide a choice.

I did a longer-than-usual daily homily, on why this is worth doing, which is below.

Why have Mass in Latin?

There are some who wonder why we are doing this—
why have Mass in Latin?

I’d like to offer these reasons.

First, because people have requested it.

Understanding not everyone cares for this,
it is important to point out many people want it.
For me, as your pastor, my approach has been
that if someone requests something legitimate,
on what basis would I refuse that request?

Now, some do not think Mass in Latin is legitimate.

Someone said: “I disagree with
the introduction of Latin to the Mass in any way.”
But there is a misunderstanding there:
Latin is not being “introduced to the Mass”—
the Mass is already in Latin!

So another reason to do this might simply be
to correct this misunderstanding.
Someone might think I’m doing something “naughty.”
Not at all!
If you went to a Cinco de Mayo festival,
would you be surprised to hear Spanish?
If you visited a synagogue, would you think it strange
to hear them pray in Hebrew?

A third reason to do this is
because this helps remind us who we are.

We are Roman Catholics—
we belong to the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church.

Many don’t realize that not all Catholics are Roman.
In Iraq, there are Chaldean Catholics;
in Lebanon, Maronite Catholics;
in Eastern Europe, Byzantine Rite Catholics.

This may surprise you, but it’s not that Latin is important.

What’s important is being connected
with our own heritage and identity.

I am not sure, but I wonder if some
of our fellow Catholics think of themselves
as “mere” Catholics—instead of particularly “Roman.”

In one respect, they are right: being Catholic—
that is, embracing the whole of the Faith
as the Apostles have handed it down—is the main thing.

But the Church, like our incarnate Lord himself,
has never existed in a generic fashion.
The Son of God, in coming to earth,
did not come as a generic everyman;
he became a particular man—
born into a particular nation, at a particular time.
We can only speculate about
all the reasons He chose this.
But it is part of what did happen, all the same.

In the same way, the Church—
in the century after Pentecost—
was conceived and formed in many particular cultures,

and these cultures are intricately woven into
the identity each particular Church.
Our Roman Church is but one of the many sister Churches

that make up the One, Catholic Church.

Of course, it might have been otherwise,
just as Our Lord might have chosen to be born,
not in Palestine as a Jew, but perhaps in Europe,
or Africa, or North America.
It could have happened that way, but it didn’t.

Another reason to do this is it opens the door
to experiencing some beauty that we would miss out on,
if we exclude everything involving Latin.

How can you sing Salve Regina unless you sing it in Latin?

There is a cadence, and a haunting beauty,
to the prayers of Mass that is only experienced in the Latin.
That’s not to say we must do it that way all the time,
but it is a reason to do it some of the time.

Finally, this represents a different way of praying.

Now many people find it hard to pray
in an unfamiliar language.
I understand, because I am one of them.
When I first offered Mass in Latin, it felt strange to me.

I can’t say that I prefer it.
This is the first time I’ve done this,
so I apologize in advance
if I mispronounce anything, or stumble.

So why do it?

Because there is an experience here
that you discover once you get past the strangeness.

Many people find they pray better and more fruitfully,

precisely because they aren’t using their own, usual language.

Such folks have a contemplative part of themselves,
and they want and need to “sink down” into their prayer.

For them, prayers are offered in their own,

familiar language actually distract them from prayer, rather than helping.

It makes sense. Different things “speak” to us.
For some, it’s ideas, intellectual concepts;
for others, it’s art; others, music or movement.

This is the genius of Catholic spirituality,
something for everyone.

So, I understand this isn’t for everyone.
It is offered for those who will find it fruitful.
Until today, this option was not available,
anywhere around here, for some 40 years!

We provide Mass at nursing homes;
we provide Mass occasionally for Cursillo,
we have “low” and “high” Masses,
we have Mass for our Sisters of Charity,
school Masses, graduation Masses, and so it goes.
Surely there is room for one Mass, one time a month,
on a weekday, that meets this need?

I aim to do this for a year, to see how it goes.
If it meets a need, if it draws more people, that’s good isn’t it?

True Humility (Sunday homily)

Our readings are a lesson in humility.

We all need it; we all get it in, well, humbling ways.

I had Mass one time, someone else gave the homily—
and after Mass, people shook my hand, saying,
“Great homily father!”

Humility.
We’re all for it—especially in others!

What does it mean to be “humble”?

First, let’s be clear what it does not mean:
It’s not being a doormat.

If we don’t think we’re nothing,
It isn’t God who says that!
Wrestling with self-esteem is a hard battle.

My point is, God never tells us
to tear ourselves down.
Sometimes people take verbal or physical abuse.
This is not “humility”!

The second reading shows the City of God,
Angels gathered, celebrating, paying tribute:
Who are they honoring?
The “assembly of the firstborn”—that’s us!
Does that sound like God thinks we’re nothing?

If someone we know is facing abuse—
We need to tell them what God says:
“You are precious—and you don’t have to take it.”

If humility isn’t putting ourselves down,
What is it?

Humility is listening to God tell us who we are.

We think we’re big-stuff,
God knocks us down a peg;
If we think we’re nothing,
God tells us how precious we are:
In both cases, we need to listen!

We need to listen
When God calls us to change our lives;
We need to listen
When God says, “you can do it!”
We need to listen when God says, “I forgive you!”

If we listen to God tell us who we are,
We don’t need to “demand our props”—
We don’t need to go along with the crowd.

If we listen to God tell us how precious we are,
Our sins don’t destroy us, our limits don’t define us;
God determines human worth.

A day-old human embryo, a dirty beggar on the street,
An “alternate lifestyle” on parade, a terrorist on a plane.
Saint or sinner, wrong or right,
All are precious in his sight.

What is humility?

Humility says, “I know who I am in God’s eyes—
And that’s enough.”