The Other Unnecessary Yoke: Revenge

If you have not caught on yet, I really love Zion National Park.  A lot.  It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life.  It is an appropriately named park.  ‘Zion’ is from the Hebrew the name of a mount on which Jerusalem was built.  It was a sanctuary in that it was highly and easily defendable.  With its towering walls, the city of Jerusalem which was set on Mount Zion was practically unbeatable.  In both the Old and New Testament, Mount Zion became an image of God’s Kingdom and its protection.  The nations of the world were to steam towards it. At the end of the Bible, in the Book of Revelations, the new Jerusalem appears as the fulfillment of heaven.  Entrance to the city is offered but never guaranteed.  In fact, Jesus tells us to enter through the narrow gate.  Why? Because only the unyoked could pass through the narrow gate.  Last post, I wrote about how the yoke of self-centeredness prohibits us from entering heaven.  There is another yoke, born from self-centeredness that is even more deadly.  This yoke is the grudges and lack of forgiveness we carry about needlessly.

  

This yoke is properly called, I would suppose, the yoke of wrath.  Wrath is anger that seeks revenge.  Anger of itself is merely an emotion that alerts us that we have been hurt.  At that moment we have one of two options.  We can either dismiss the anger through forgiveness or we can allow the anger to fester into a yoke that will crush us.  That yoke then leads us to bitterness, vengeance, and further away from God.  In Dante’s poem, The Divine Comedy: Inferno, the wrathful occupy the 5th  circle of Hell, wallowing in a swamp where the angry forever are at war with one another and those who hold grudges or repressed anger drown for eternity in the venom of their own anger. Does not sound pleasant.  Nonetheless, this effectively happens when we do engage in wrath and why it becomes an iron yoke which keeps us from entering the narrow gate.

    In my continued reading of Fr Larry Richards’ book, “Surrender: The Life Changing Power of Doing God’s Will”, he talks about how the hurt and anger we carry hurts us and everyone else around us.  Mostly it hurts the individual insistent on carrying it.  The only way to relieve ourselves is to forgive.  It is the only way to throw this particularly cruel yoke from our backs.  In fact, when we act on the anger, passively or actively, we only press down harder on our own yoke.  Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.  It has an eternal consequence.  A consequence we actually pray for every time we pray the Our Father.

    Every time we pray the Our Father, we are either making a profession of faith or are actively condemning ourselves.  “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Read that line over and over again.  Spend some time praying about it!  Either this line will awash over us with great consolation or it will terrify us to our core!  That line becomes a standard.  Why would God set such a standard?  Doesn’t He understand the great harm and hurt others have done and even continue to do to us?!   What about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?

    In Matthew 5: 38-42, Jesus addresses this. “You have heard it said ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.  But I say to you…turn the other cheek.”  Why?  First, He knows His Father is not primarily about the revenge business.  Jesus’ presence among us itself speaks to this.  Were the Father interested in revenge against those who try to hurt Him through rebellion (sin), there would be no Jesus.  There would be nothing but divine wrath constantly tormenting us.  There would be no hope.  The Father sends the Son specifically because He is NOT interested in revenge; one who loves is not one who is enslaved by the hurts inflicted by others!  Love naturally leads to mercy.  One who is without mercy or is quick to judge is one in whom love has not fully found a home.  If God is not interested in revenge then neither can we be.

    The second reason is that God wants us to be joyful.  There can be no lasting joy where there is anger and a desire for revenge.  Jesus wants to remove such awful weights from our shoulders and enable to free us to walk uprightly and in true freedom and joy.  We benefit from our own exercise of mercy!  We know from physiology that anger has drastic negative affects on the individual: ulcers, high blood pressure, heart disease, and a whole host of physical and psychological disorders which diminish the quality of our lives.  Why would any sane person want to carry around such things?!   Mercy to the benefit of all!  A loving God wants us free from such constraints, such burdensome yokes!  There is no sane reason to keep this yoke.

    It comes down to our own oftentimes heroic decision: to no longer hold against others the damage and harm they have done.  Humility makes us realize it is not a standard we want other to hold to us and certainly not a standard we want God to hold with us.  There is no necessity to carry the yoke nor drink the poison.  None at all!  Step into the sanctuary of Zion and allow God’s mercy to wash upon you and free you.  Let go of the weight and burden of grudges and anger!  God wants better for you.  He will not pry the yoke from you.  He will, however, lift it off your shoulders should you allow Him to.

The Unnecessary Yoke

  

In Matthew 11:28-30, we hear Jesus say to his disciples, “Come to me , all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me , for I am gentle and humble of heart.  Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.”  A yoke, for those who do not know, according to Merriam Webster dictionary, is a ‘wooden bar or frame by which two draft animals (oxen for example)are joined at the head or the neck for working together or an arched device formerly  laid on the neck of a defeated person.  It was a sign of servitude or slavery.  A person yoked, unlike an animal, was enslaved and defeated.  This passage come at the end of chapter 11 in which Jesus both chastised those who fail to put faith in Him and to thank His Father for those who do.  There are two yokes: one the people are currently wearing and one that he wishes to give us that alleviates the burden presented by the first yoke.

    So what are the yokes?  For the last month, I have been reading Fr Larry Richard’s book, “Surrender, the Life-Changing Power of Doing God’s Will.”  For the last several weeks I have also been studying humility.  In all this, it occurred to me in a much deeper way than before that the two yokes are self-centeredness and love.  Two yokes diametrically opposed to one another.  I would imagine that if one becomes accustomed to a weight, even a crushing weight, one adapts.  The yoke of this world, self-centeredness, is indeed a crushing weight.  It is a yoke that no Christian is called nor created to carry, it is an unnecessary yoke.

    It is easy to imagine that it suffices to claim the name of Christian to so many even though they still posses this yoke of iron.  This yoke tells us that happiness and peace come from self-satisfaction.  It is the primary message of this world and of our society.  It is highly destructive and wholly enslaving.  It is a perpetual drug that tells us if we just keep taking more hits that eventually we will find happiness in a lasting fashion.  But it never really works, does it?  One of the greater epiphanies I ever had happened to me when I was 24.  I realized that no amount of money would ever be enough.  I realized that no promotion or power would ever be enough.  I realized that no amount of worldly good, toys, and pleasure would ever be enough.  I realized I was living a life of perpetual want with no way to win.  It is the inevitable conclusion when we focus on the self, it leads to a profound emptiness that no worldly thing can fulfill.
  
    The yoke of Jesus removes the blinders from our eyes and gives us true clarity of vision.  Because it is bound in truth, it is easier and satisfying.  Selfless love is its own reward.  Love gives us the joy and contentment our hearts so desire.  It gives us peace in this life (despite the storms that rage around us) and becomes a  wellspring of God’s grace to eternal life.  In Matthew 6: 19- 20, Jesus reminds us to not accrue treasure for ourselves that by their nature can and will be destroyed, but to accrue treasure in heaven that can never be taken away nor wither away.  This yoke, because it is the yoke Christ Himself carries, is mostly carried by Him.

    I am finding, in my own life, that the more I allow the yoke of Christ to be the only yoke, the happier I am.  It comes down to a choice.  Which yoke?  The yoke that oppresses me and leads me to fields that will never satisfy?  Or the yoke carried by Christ that leads to the fulfillment of all our deepest and worthiest hopes and desires.  Christ does not make this decision for us.  We have to make it for ourselves.  Our choice determines our destiny in this life and the life to come.  I would imagine there are so many who do feel weary and tired.  I would imagine that we want to be free of worry and a slavish devotion to desires that will always remained unfulfilled.  Selfless love, in the person of Christ, is the way that breaks those fetters.

This concept is not foreign to the people of Jesus’ time.  Like the people of today, they wanted the basics, they wanted freedom from the Roman Empire, they wanted life as good as it gets.  Even among those who were satiated in the world’s goods, even these could not find rest for their souls.  They chased after anyone who said they could provide a better life.  When Jesus comes, he also says he can lead them to a better way, a better life.  But not in the way they were looking for.  They were looking for a physical satiation.  Anyone who does so is locked in self-involvement.  Self-involvement is the yoke of a defeated person; a yoke that can only crush under the weight of its undoable expectations.  What Jesus came to do was remove that yoke and give us a much lighter constraint to our actions.  His yoke was the yoke to selflessly love as God selflessly loves.  He came to utterly change the focus of each person. 

  The yoke of this world, because it is bound in selfish desire, can only lead to sin.  The yoke of this world leads the person to act as if all in this world is for their disposal.  Other persons becomes means to an end to self-gratification.  It leads to various addictions because the high afforded always goes away and needs to be re-engaged with. The yoke of this world keeps us in constant worry, seeking to hoard as much as we can for ourselves, while others suffer.  This yoke is necessary for all of the seven deadly sins. The yoke of the world can so blind us that we become like the rich man of  Luke 16: 19-31, who is so self-absorbed that he fails to even notice (let alone help) Lazarus, the beggar who laid at his door.  It causes to withhold our time, energy, and resources from God in fear that we won’t have enough.  It fills us so much that we can do all this and still demand that God give us more and become indignant and doubtful of God when more is not given.

It might sound like a weird thing to call selfless love a yoke.  Yokes do provide the person driving the team a way of maintaining direction.  The one who selflessly loves has to continually lay their own self-interest aside.  As was pointed out in the homily last week,  the humble person (without humility we cannot selflessly love) is set free from worry about oneself as is able to completely give themselves as a gift to others and to God.  It was also pointed out that without this love and humility we could never be exalted by God to the Kingdom of Heaven.  As God gives us the grace to love, to be humble, and to be freed from the shackles of selfishness, He rightly expects that we will utilize this grace and take His own yoke, that is, His own love, and make it our way of life.

Humility: The essential virtue that opens all possibility

A few weeks back I was in Zion National Park.  One morning my friend and I decided to hike a trail called "Angel's Landing".  It rises almost 1500 ft above the canyon floor below.  It was an ambitious hike, especially for one with 2 bad knees, a bad left ankle, and...well let's just face it...one who is carrying the equivalent of a 7th grader, weight-wise, everywhere he goes.  Going up was interesting.  More often than not I sounded like Darth Vader having an asthma attack in an echo chamber.  But after saying to myself both internally and out loud that I would not be conquered, I forged on with my friend.

  After a myriad of switchbacks and a walk through a canyon that bred a false sense of security, we came to an even more daunting set of switchbacks that led to what is called Scout Lookout.  Scout Lookout sits at roughly 1250 ft above the canyon floor.  When I looked at the trail that led to Angel's Landing, I knew I was in over my head.  The last part was cut into rock, with all the people scattered on it looked more like a busy anthill than trail, and required what is called scrambling (more an exercise of climbing than walking). I knew in all honesty, that even though I had been able to make it so far, that given my weight, my bad joints, and a slight fear of heights, that it would not be wise to go any farther.  I knew, however, were I to lose the weight, finally do something about my knees, and get in better shape, that this hike could be a possibility.  It wasn't now.  I had to be honest about that even though it did embarrass me to admit it.  Had I tried, others might well have had the unenviable task of hauling me back down and I am sure would have possibly traumatized some.  I do not tell this tale to cast myself in a downward light.  It is the truth.  The truth, at the end of the day, is what is important and worthy of being acted upon.  One cannot see the truth until one engages in humility.

In preparing for the homily this weekend, a homily focusing on Luke 14: 1, 7-14, an instruction from Christ on humility, I came upon on article by Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio.  http://catholicexchange.com/why-humility-opens-doors-4/  In it I found some very profound understandings of just what humility is.  I was caught with the line, "Humility does not mean looking down on oneself or thinking ill of oneself.  It really means not thinking of oneself very much at all."  Humility opens oneself to truth.  Where there is truth, one will also find God, the author of all truth.  St. John the Apostle reminds us time and again that the very nature of God is love; the complete self emptying of oneself for the good of the other.  Humility opens us to love because it opens us to properly respond to love God has already shown for us.

Humility naturally, beautifully, and powerfully leads us to move beyond ourselves and our own concerns.  It frees us from the preoccupation with self that shackles us with the chains of worrying about how we are perceived, the necessity to manipulate how we are thought of, the necessity to flaunt our wealth, power, or status, and all else that keep us from experiencing the true freedom of being those made in the image and likeness of God.  Dr. D'Ambrosio puts it so much better than I can:
The humble are free to forget themselves because they are secure.  They accept the fact that, as creatures, they are small, vulnerable, and not ultimately in control.  But they know there is a Creator who is great, omnipotent, and totally in control.  And they know that they’ve been made in the image and likeness of that Creator.  That makes gives them a dignity that they don’t have to earn and can never be taken away.  Though they’ve tarnished the divine likeness through sin, they know that the Creator came down from the heights of heaven to become human and fix what they couldn’t fix.
So when they mess up, the humble don’t have to cover up.  They just say “please forgive me,” give thanks for God’s mercy, and move on.  And when their creaturely limitations cause them to fail, they are not surprised.  They realize that they are not God.

All this is simply a way of saying that the humble are in touch with reality.  If the definition of insanity is being out of touch with reality, then our proud world with its “nice guys finish last” illusion is clearly insane.

Since the humble are secure, they are strong.  And since they have nothing to prove, they don’t have to flaunt their strength or use it to dominate others.  Humility leads to meekness.  And meekness is not weakness.  Rather, it is strength under control, power used to build up rather than tear down.
The humble are not threatened either by God’s greatness or the reflection of that greatness in the talents of others.  In fact, this is what naturally catches their eye and absorbs their attention – the goodness of God, wherever it may be found.

The form of prayer that extols God’s goodness is called praise.  The activity that honors God’s goodness in other people is called affirmation.  The humble take delight in praising God and affirming people.

The reason the humble take the last place of honor at the table is not because they think ill of themselves, but because they are preoccupied with honoring others.  And the reason people ask them to move higher is because they know this admirable attitude is rare.  In fact it is actually divine.  It is exactly the way the three Divine Persons relate to each other.  The Father glorifies the Son, the Son glorifies the Father, and the Spirit is so preoccupied with glorifying the Father and the Son that most of us feel we really don’t know much about Him.

Life is infinitely more freeing when the preoccupation with oneself and it heavy yoke are lifted from our shoulders.  Humility frees us to love and to serve.  It frees us from earthly constraints and frees us from the deceit and machinations of the devil.  It is Satan that continually tempts us towards endless self-involvement. So self deceived is he that he spreads the deception that happiness can only be found through self gratification and being served.  This is what he himself believes.  It is an empty and pain filled spiral in that deception never brings about connection with reality.  It is only distorts and frustrates.  One cannot find joy, contentment, nor peace in self-indulgence; any joy garnered is temporary at best and below expectation usually.  It is one of the main reasons we live in such a bitterly divided and angry society.  Because God wants better for us, we should as well.  The first step to experiencing the freeing love and joy we are called to and created for, first comes through humility.

Let us pray for and strive for that humility.  Let us move beyond ourselves and seek the truth.  Let us in truth know who we are, who God is, and who we are before God.  It is humility that we are given the strength to forge ahead unencumbered by the chains of self-preoccupation. It is in humility that we no longer need the accumulation of wealth, power, pleasure and honor to define us or satiate us.  It is in humility that we are no longer shackled by the fear of other people's perceptions of us. It tells us where God's action is already present and where it needs to be deepened.  The person who is humble is the person without fear and who possesses great strength and uses said strength to build up others...and takes great joy in doing so.

To Love and be Loved

The strongest human desire is that of being loved.  It is in the deep recesses of the human heart a burning desire to be loved, to know that someone else treasures, needs, and wants our very existence.  It might well be the impetus that drives us to do the vast majority of what we do.  While in the desert southwest, I noticed a massive concentration of the new age movement.  While talking to a friend about the experience it occurred to me that people are driven to such things because they want to feel love.  They want to feel affirmation in a world that can be very cold and callous.  They want to be told they are good people and all the struggles they go through count for something.  I believe that many who come to Church look for the same thing.  We want to feel loved.  We want to feel as if someone notices and appreciates the struggles we deal with and gives some credence to who we are.  Many leave because they don't feel that.  Many rarely practice the faith because they don't feel that.  I posit it is because we need to tweak our approach a bit.

In the Scriptures, when it comes to love there is a correct order, an order that God Himself models.  The relationship between God and ourselves never begins with "You love me" but with "I love you".  When God establishes a relationship with Israel, it is not because they first approached Him in love, but that he loved them.  Wednesday of last week was the Feast of St. Augustine.  In his memoirs, known as the Confessions of St. Augustine, he acknowledges how God loved him far before Augustine loved God.  He acknowledges how his own heart was restless seeking to be loved until he turn to love God.  It was only after Augustine sought to love rather than to be loved, that the door of God's grace was able to flow in abundance upon him.Augustine came to understand and preach that in order to feel that base desire of being loved, we first had to love.

St. John Chrysostom reminds us that love is primarily an open gift of oneself for the good of another.  Love, by its nature, is outward bound.  It flows from the self as pure gift.  Without the outward flow, the inward flow becomes blocked.  God's love is there long before our response, but our understanding and cognition of it is stymied until we allow ourselves to selflessly love.  This is why love is properly a virtue and not an emotion.  Virtues always seek the good of another, emotions always seek the good of oneself.  If we are to ever properly feel the love of God in its fullness, then we must love God first.

This greatly impacts the practice of faith.  No longer do I come to the Church primarily to receive but to give. I don't come to get something out of it as I come to Church to primarily come to give God my love, adoration, and thanksgiving.  Ironically, it is in giving that thanksgiving offering to God that I receive the fullness of His love, most clearly and powerfully shown through the Eucharist.  That love provokes us not just for an hour on the weekend, but throughout our lives and powerfully get gently transforms us.  It becomes the fulfillment of our desire to be loved.  It continually build upon itself, drawing us closer and closer into a satisfying relationship with God and consequently with His people.

All of this hinges, though, on our own personal decision of focus: Is my life about the search to love or be loved?  One side produces little fruit and the other produces abundant fruit.  One leaves us on a continual search never finding what we are looking for; the other leads us to fulfillment.  If we are to be loved, we must first love.  In love, we open ourselves to God and His will to totally love us.  Sacred Scripture reminds us to be still and know that God is God.  That stillness will never come, as I can attest to, with a preoccupation with self; it only comes with a willingness to love both God and our neighbor.

Musings from the Desert: What occupies my mind while on vacation

This week, I am on vacation out west.  I am currently in Zion National Park.  It is beyond beautiful.  I have been doing a fair bit of hiking, which leaves me the mental room to think and pray about things.  All the rush rush rush of parish life is put into suspended animation for me (not for my poor secretary who I am sure is ripping her hair right about now), so my mind starts to fill with ponderables. Since I still carry my disdain for TV with me, I read when relaxing.   In order to start preparing for the summer camps of 2014 (yes, those themes for the camp take months of prep work) and I know we are focusing on the theological virtue of hope, I downloaded Spe Salvi (Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical on hope) and Fr Larry Richards' new book "Surrender: The Life Changing Power of Doing God's Will.  It was a fortuitous download.  It has got me thinking about what it is we hope for.

I would assume most people who say they believe in God would say they want to go to heaven.  Two questions come to mind: 1) Why? and 2) Do they appreciate what it takes to get there.  Given that my pretty little noggin is not pre-occupied with new buildings, budgets, classes, vocation work, pastoral ministry and such at this moment in time, I have let this swirl around in my bonnet for awhile. So here we go:

Why do we want to go to heaven?  I am sure it beats the alternative.  But why do we want to go?  I guess what we picture heaven as being comes into play.  I like hiking.  I have done quite a bit of it this week.  Maybe heaven is full of incredible hiking trails with awesome vistas..I could have  all eternity to hike unencumbered by other concerns.  Maybe it is full of fishing, knitting, or whatever my favorite activity is.  Maybe it will be being surrounded by my loved ones.  Notice a trend?  It is all about me.  What I like.  What I want.  Entrance into such a realm is dependent upon whatever  terms I set.  If it is nothing more than being a 'good' person by whatever standard I set and truth be told, usually it is a low standard for myself and high standard for others.  You'll notice that I have not once brought up God.  God, in this definition of heaven is nothing more than a co-tenant of heaven...the guy in the penthouse you never see except in the elevator.  He is nothing more than someone else that happens to be there as opposed to the King of Heaven and the Lord Creator of all things visible and invisible. Here is where the party ends.

Heaven isn't a reward for not being a total tool of a human being where I get to further indulge whatever earthly desires I have.  It is what is was created to be...a place of complete union with God...a place where the relationship we wanted with God, a relationship set on His terms, comes to its ultimate existence. We become totally united with Him who created us for the specific purpose of such eternal union.  Our time here is an answer to God:  Do I wish that eternal union and am I willing to show that through my own actions, words. priorities, attitudes, and foci?  The hinge lies in our ability to respond through grace to the call to love God and love one another.  The only true response to God's love is God's love...an utter selflessness by which we serve, we surrender, we place others first in all things.  We can either choose such love and become saints in heaven or reject such love for selfish desire and choose hell.  As Fr. Richards says in his aforementioned book ever so bluntly, "We have one of two choices: we can become saints or go to hell."  Heaven is not a virtual playground for self-indulgence.  It is not a realm where I get to dictate whatever I want and call it heaven.  What it is is so far beyond our comprehension, that our paltry flights of fancy and whimsical longings cannot come close to what it is.  But one must love God and neighbor, as the Scriptures so often remind us is we can even think that heaven be a possibility. 

So, do we appreciate what it takes to get there?  Christ tells us that the path to heaven is a winding narrow path.  It is not easy.  To use an analogy: Today I hiked a trail that rose 1250 feet in altitude from the trailhead over the course of 2 and half miles.  I am seriously overweight and have two not so good knees and a bad left ankle.  It was quite the endeavor to make it to the top.  Over and over again I said to myself (and sometimes out loud) that I will not be conquered.  I would not let the weight of years of poor decisions about my health keep me from making it to the top.  But to get there I had to use a body that I did not provide for myself.  I had to walk a path I had not created.  I didn't get to determine the steepness, widths, cutbacks, and altitude of the trail.  I had to walk the one that laid before me.  Fortunately I had a friend with me and a 2 liter water bladder and liter camelbak to give me the hydration I needed to stay on the trail. Now, the vista was worth every bit of the struggle. 

By the same token, I must follow the path to heaven as the path has been laid out.  Every step requires a death to self and an embracing of love.  I cannot let the weight of sin so weigh me down as to prevent forward motion. As I walk the path, I have to trust that the builder of that path knew what He was doing when the path was created.  He provides nourishment for me to keep making those steps through His grace and especially the grace given through the Sacraments. Why a 'good' Catholic can think for a second that heaven is within reach when they can't be bothered with the sacramental life of the Church makes about as much sense as me hiking the Angels' Landing Trail 

(yes, that was really the name of the trail) without hydration.  We have the Communion of the Saints and the Grace of God to accompany us on this journey.  We must act and believe that we will not be conquered by sin and by selfish desire.  It is not an easy journey, but again what lays at the top is so far beyond out wildest dreams. 

Heaven is not a place of perpetual self-indulgence...that would be hell...being stuck for eternity with that which even in this own life could only momentarily satisfy at the cost of being eternally separated from that which can eternally satisfy.  To have that, and hence heaven, means taking the narrow difficult path and living a resounding yes to God's love by showing that love ourselves.  That will reflect in how we treat others.That will show itself in the time and energy we give to God.  I have often said that I find it odd that those who say they want an eternity with God in heaven cannot be bothered to spend a hour with Him of Sunday (usually with some lame excuse how they don't need Church to have God...usually a divine candy machine who dutifully dumps out goodies in response to whatever requests I have) or a half hour a day doing something to use His grace to build up the relationship we are called to have with Him.  God is not a happenstance co-tenant of heaven; he won't just happen to be there to indulge your passions:  heaven is result of a relationship desired with Him.  Too often we agree with Billy Joel's loathsome lyric "I would much rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun." It is all about me having fun...not having fun and being other centered is hellish and fun and self-indulgence are heaven.  Sorry, Mr Joel, like so many in this world it is time to drop the mirror, there, Narcissus, and get over yourself.  Heaven is where there is eternal joy and hell eternal regret.  Take the narrow winding path.  It will be worth it.

And that is the kind of stuff that I think about and pray about whilst on vacation. :)

Why We Need Miracles

Last Sunday, a horrible accident happened on Missouri Route 19, near Center Mo.  It is a stretch of road I have traveled many times.  A young lady was trapped in her car and there was great difficulty in extracting her.  She had been hit by a man who chose, allegedly, to get behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated.  As she laid pinned to her steering wheel, she asked those trying to rescue her to pray aloud with her.  I would bet this is not something they hear often.  From nowhere a priest shows up, anoints the young lady with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, assures everyone to be calm and then seemingly disappears in to the ether.  No one knows who he is.  He does not match the description of any nearby priests, all of whom would have been at Mass in their respective parishes that morning.  Was he a priest on vacation?  Was he an order priest on his way to a parish?  Who knows?  Was he an angel, as some speculate?  Who knows?  What matters is that God heard the young lady's prayers and intervened.

In reading the comments sections of the various postings of this story, there were many who wanted to rally around this as a miracle.  There were also those who scoffed at such a notion.  The anti-Catholic haters made their appearance as did the militant atheists. The objection I saw over and over again is why did this accident even take place?  If God loved this young lady so much why did he allow her to get in an accident?  The whole thing was just dumb luck in their eyes.  For many more, it is a moment of grace.  We need those.

We need them because the world is unfair and capricious.  The reason the young lady was in the accident was because a young man thought it fine to get behind the wheel of a car intoxicated.  Because of his poor use of free will, other people ended up paying a dire price.  This is nothing new.  This doesn't make this young man a special kind of evil. It just points out how the stupidity of our own actions bear directly on others.  No choice happens in a vacuum.  It is why Catholics are called to be in battle with sin; it hurts others as well as ourselves.  The victims of these events are often collateral damage of human selfishness.  This young lady also made a choice.  She chose to turn to God in her distress and ask those helping her to do so as well.  He answered.

The odds of a priest being on that road on Sunday morning are overwhelmingly small.  Yet he is there.  Most priests do keep their oils in their cars for just such an emergency.  It would not be irregular for a priest to do what this priest did.  It is part of our call.  I have had to do this myself.  It is also part of our calling to bring calm in the Lord; to settle down moments of panic.  It is refreshing to see a positive story about a priest doing what we do everyday in some form or another.  Even if it were an angelic intervention, how interesting is it that it comes in the form of a priest offering the Anointing of the Sick?  This would be something for anti-Catholic Christians to ponder.

The Christian faithful needs these miracles and moments of grace.  The world is growing more and more isolating and violent everyday.  Our news is an endless repetition of savagery, inhumanity, callousness, and greed.  Bloodshed and violence are heaped onto our plates everyday.  Fear of our government and economy grow as we watch our freedoms and resources ebb away little by little.  It instills a sense of helplessness and ultimately doubt in God's care for us.  Moments such as this event have a way of reminding us that God does care, does intervene, and does reach out to those who trust in Him.  He carries us in our troubles, agonies, and problems that are a part of this life.

The non-believer, however, has no choice but to scoff, mock, and dismiss.  As their only hope is in this world  and the short lifetime we are given here, the sense of hopelessness only sets in deeper as they see the same things we do.  They either ignore it through total self-consumption or rage against religion because it doesn't protect them from the free choice of others nor does it give them all they want, in the quantity they want, and it isolates them from any divine compassion.  They need there to be no miracles and no divine power.  If such things do exists, they know that all of their reality is built on sand and that they are blowing the one chance they  have at happiness.  This is why so many are so angry.  Life with no God is an angry and desolate place; an exercise in futility that no amount of money, power, honor, or pleasure can satiate.  It is something I want no part of. Furthermore, it is not reality.

Over the course of the priesthood I have been called to, I have seen so many things that can only be qualified as miracles, as moments of grace by which God makes know his care for me and for those around me.  They remind me not only of His goodness, but the goodness I am called to live in conjunction with others.  It is the regulator when I am ready to do something knowingly sinful, knowing that others will be hurt by my exercise of free will.  Miracles are necessary to remind us that God is watching and He does respond.  They remind us to stay on course and not let the evil we see so regularly bog us down into depression, doubt, and hopelessness. 

Attitude towards Evil

    In last weekend’s homily I talked about the row happening in the Texas State House as pro-abortion and pro-life groups clash over the proposed sweeping legislation  that would outlaw all abortion after 20 weeks in Texas and that abortion clinics be held to the same standards that all other medical facilities are held to in Texas.  This would close all but 5 abortion clinics in Texas as the majority, though they claim to be about women’s health, do not bother to raise themselves to standard health practices that all other medical facilities must carry.  This is telling, but I digress.  In the midst of the protest from the pro-abortion side, very ugly and evil things have been said.  From praising Satan to saying awful things about he Church to thuggish outbursts of wrath, the other side is not exactly doing themselves any favors in the PR department.  But the images of the anger, the audio of the chants being said, and the rabid ’abortion on demand and without apology’ attitude are off-putting because they are deeply disturbing and thoroughly evil.   This is about the wanting to slaughter infants in the womb; they mask their intent by wrapping it up in the euphemism ‘pro-choice’, but the choice in question is abortion.

    Abortion is evil.  There is no way around this.  It is perpetrated by groups who prey on scared women who under ordinary circumstances would not make such decisions.  It requires a dehumanization of the child in the womb.  This is very dangerous territory.  The dehumanization of a group is first and foremost necessary in the extinction of that group.  Slave owners had to dehumanize the black man and woman so as to justify their owning them as if they were livestock; to justify their buying and selling of human beings. Nazi Germany had to justify their mass slaughter of Jews, handicapped, homosexuals, mentally challenged, and such by dehumanizing these groups.  It is unsettling to admit, from a purely non-emotional viewpoint, it is what has been done with the pre-born in this country and around the world.  Its wanton use is an extension of the eugenics beliefs that were the foundation of Nazi Germany and of Planned Parenthood foundress Margaret Sanger.  Anyone who has read her writings knows that she was a eugenicist and  wished the extermination of ‘human weeds’ through birth control and sterilization.  This is just a matter of historical fact.
   
    I will wager that most who are pro-choice do not understand this.  I like to believe in the basic fairness and goodness of people and count that when the veil has been drawn that is hiding evil for what it is, they will recoil in horror and switch sides.  I do believe the more we recognize the humanity of the child in the womb and see that life as a precious gift, the better off we will be as a person and as a society. I believe this about those who have had a abortion as well.  Abortion is psychologically a trauma inducing event.  There are wonderful programs like “Rachel’s Vineyard’ that are specifically designed to help those who have suffered an abortion to receive the help necessary to properly grieve and heal.  It is highly unwise and against our faith to condemn those who have had an abortion without reaching out to help and heal.  As Catholics, our first option is always mercy and compassion.  It is not condemnation and shunning!  Why?  Because were God interested in condemnation and shunning, He would never have sent His Son.  He does, however, and that needs to sink into our hearts, minds, and souls.
    The bigger question is what do we do with the rabid evil doer.  What we do with the hate filled and unrepentant?  Certainly this circus in Austin, Texas has shown us the wrathful face of such people.  I have had suggested to me that Scripture tells us to write them off and shake the dust from our feet in witness against them.   Those who reject Christ do so at their own peril.  Those who reject God’s love choose a path of eternal desolation, isolation, and sadness that will eternally inflict them with the same agony of fire.  When I see the faces of those screaming obscenities, praising darkness and evil, encouraging selfishness and narcissism, it does not enrage me to seek and rejoice in their condemnation; it leads me to mourn what they are doing to themselves, mourn for the path they are choosing, and pray for their conversion.  It leads me to extend the same attitude that Christ first showed me in my own sinfulness and selfishness.  In all humility, my mortal sins accomplish the same end as those whom I am seeing in Texas State House.  Mortal sin is mortal sin.  If I wish God to have mercy on me, then, as Scripture repeatedly reminds us, my attitude towards others MUST be one of mercy as well.   The Gospel never tells us to gloat over the downfall of those who oppose Christ.  Each person who chooses that downfall of their own free will was not created for that downfall. 

    Our attitude is to be of mercy to all.  Sometimes we can act as if condemnation of peoples somehow will make things better.  It doesn’t.  Do we condemn actions?  Absolutely!  Do we condemn people?  Absolutely not!  That belongs to God alone. For our part, we are to pray for and extend mercy towards those who are filled with hate towards us.  It is the only way the Gospel has been spread.  St. Paul went into hostile territory many times over.  St. Peter did as well.  So did St. Patrick…and St Boniface…and SS. Cyril and Methodius…and St Isaac Jocques…St Thomas More…St Francis Xavier…and this list could go on and on.  Mercy and evangelization are not a one and done kind of thing!  As long as others are drawing breath, the possibility for embracing Christ is possible.  We cannot sit idly by or even self-righteously by and take comfort in another’s condemnation.

    It goes to a primary disposition of how we view others.  All are sinners in God’s eyes, St. Paul reminds us, but He still loves each and every one if us nonetheless.  While He will allow to abide by our decisions for or against Him, He will always call us back as long as we live and breathe.  If this is His attitude to those who would call themselves His enemies, can our attitude be any less?  No Catholic should rejoice in or even need people in hell!  There will be and that is so very sad.  We do not get to set the guest list for hell.  We must always give witness to and example  of the Gospel.  We must never write anyone off as beyond redemption or salvation…ever! For as long as they are here, the opportunity exist.  Thus we have a duty to reach out.  When a person is drowning, we do what we can to reach out to save them; we don’t take glee in their mistake, we don’t sit in condemnation, we don’t ignore them.  When I see the faces of those deformed by their own hate and selfishness, I do not see something to ignore or despise…quite the opposite!  I see someone to pray for and extend a loving mercy to- not in some smarmy self-righteous condescending way, but as one who actively wants their good…even if they don’t currently want it for themselves.