So you hate bullies, do you?

I was watching a story on an upcoming movie, "Bully" and it was saying how 18 million kids are bullied this year (that we know of).  It is a sad indictment on this country, but where does it come from?  Did 20th -21st Century kids invent bullying?  No, it has been around as long as humanity as been.  Bullying is part of the human condition as long as there exists one person who out of selfish motivations needs to feel as if they are superior to another.  The bully needs to be number one.  They need to be the center of attention.  They will get that attention any way they can.  Maybe it is by gossiping or verbally running down another person.  Maybe it is by exposing another person's faults while ignoring their own.  Maybe it is by making blanket statements about entire groups.  Maybe it is joining a group and using intimidation to get one's way.  Maybe it is physical attacks.  However it happens, it is ugly.  It has one focus, to quiet, bring into submission and , if necessary, destroy anyone that gets in the way of them.  Now, with the internet and 24/7 TV, Facebook and other social media, bullying has found all new avenues beyond grade school taunts.  It is easy to focus on the bullying that children do to one another.  It is sad to see a crying child or a scared child.  There is something in good people that wants to see such things stop.  However, the kids are mimicking behavior they already see.  You want to stop children from bullying?  Then you better start with their teachers...the adults who model and revel in the behavior.  That is a tall order as it is so pervasive in our society.

Let's start with politics.  Politics has become more and more an exercise in sheer bullying.  Ad hominum attacks are as common as milkweed pollen.  Politicians, political pundits, and entertainers make their stock in trade on it.  For example, I am not one who thinks that Sarah Palin is presidential material, but the way she was personally savaged was disgusting.  Worse yet, the attacks on her children, including her infant son with Down's Syndrome, were unbelievably gross.  If one wants to disagree with her views, that is fine.  Knowledgeable  adults should be able to rationally debate ideas.  Personal attacks are a sure sign of a lack of knowledge. People laughed at these horrible jokes and attacks and said she and her family were fair game as they entered the public arena.  Would you like to guess why a lot of good people want nothing to do with politics or refuse to run for office?  Smear campaigns are just another version of adult bullying.  Whether that comes in the form of a conservative radio show host publicly calling a college student a slut or a late night 'comedian' referring to female conservative politicians as words I just refuse to even use...it is bullying either way.  If the radio host commentator wanted to debate the testimony of the college student...fine..that is challenging an idea.  If the late night 'comedian' wants to debate the politics of these women...fine.  Name-calling is a form of bullying.  It is also in politicians who paint entire groups with disparaging names, make blanket (and mostly false) statements about the other political party, presume to know the motivation of someone else, and use tragedies to their advantage to push their agenda (and call their opponents heartless). It is political activists who see intimidation and other bullying tactics as fair game in pushing ahead their agenda.  Our kids see this. They hear it.  They see it glorified in the media and lionized by pundits.

How about the way we entertain ourselves?  Why do we laugh when a person is mocked in the entertainment industry?  Why do we allow stereotypes to carry the day?  Whether it is the starlet who is getting raked over the coals because of her outfit, or the person made fun of because they are too thin or too fat, or the actor who made a big mistake, or the singer who had a meltdown after years of harassment from the paparazzi?  How about the hate filled statements directed at certain groups and the return fire sometimes offered back?  Watch you favorite TV show and see the stereotypes and bullying fly!   Our kids watch these shows and know certain groups can be called anything and everything and it not only considered fair game but as hugely entertaining as well.  How many of our shows, music, video games, and such encourage aggression against weaker people?  If we really want to keep our kids from bullying, then perhaps we should quit feeding them a steady diet of it!

We cannot be selective about which bullies have to quit bullying.  We can't say the kids have to quit but the adults can continue.  We can't say that bullying needs to stop unless the bully agrees with my positions or makes me laugh.  We can't say it is okay to bully some people but not others.  We can disagree about issues and even agree to disagree. That is fine.  But we do not need to personally attack to win.  My Catholic faith (as it is 'on paper' and not as it is sometimes practiced) tells me that every single person must have their dignity respected, even if we disagree.  I can say this or that action is good or bad, but I cannot make the jump to saying therefore the person/s who do such are evil.  That is not my call.  On this Good Friday, when we see that God was much more interested in saving us than attacking us, maybe learning the lessons of Christ are that important.

My Thoughts on Good Friday

10 years ago or so, the movie “The Passion of the Christ” came out.  It was not well reviewed.  Some swore it would stir up animosity towards Jews, which it didn’t.  Some were troubled by the gore and violence although these same people were not so troubled by gore and violence in other films.  My guess is that they were troubled by the overall message of the film, which is quite simply that, as the Gospel of John tells us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.”   They were troubled by the reality of the Christ, which is far from the cleaned-up  really nice philosopher they prefer to think of, if they think about Christ at all.  But we can get used to that cleaned-up image of Christ on the cross.  We look at most crucifixes and we see this cleaned up image…most of the corpus is free of blood or wounds.  When I was in Peru some time back, their depictions of the crucifixion were rather graphic and hard to look at.  But they were realistic.  When one looks at those depictions, one gets a graphic understanding that the crucifixion was indeed violent, gory, and graphic.  This should give us a sense of why he endured the cross and depths of His love for us in enduring the Passion and death He did.  Quite frankly, it should trouble us, move us, and bring about a profound sense of God’s deep love for us.

Why is the cross necessary?   Because man refuses God’s love.  We sin.  We do awful things to one another.  We heap inhumanity upon inhumanity.  Each act is an act of rebellion against God, who created us for so much more and better.  In our selfishness, we rebel against God.  Justice would demand that the fitting penalty for rebellion be served, namely death.  If justice were not served, there would be no purpose to not sinning; if we were to receive an a reward independent of our actions, then our actions would mean nothing and our need to promote good would be non-existent.   No loving God would bring us into existence just for his amusement of watching us suffer and beat each other as if creation were no more than God’s Coliseum to watch us suffer in some sick gladiatorial engagement.   No.  Quite the opposite, our faith tells us it grieves God when we heap our selfishness upon each other, and deep in our hearts we feel that same distress and pain in watching man’s inhumanity to each other.  How could God allow into heaven such a rebellious species?  Would we not rebel in heaven as we rebel on earth? 

Since God refuses to give up on his creation, but also knows that justice demands punishment for our rebellion, He sends His only Son to give us a new way of life knowing full well that His words would sting our ears.  Where man had rebelled against God, now man would rebel against the world.  In Christ, Jesus redeems us and foments a rebellion against the world and its master, the devil.  He dies the execution method of a rebel in Roman times, crucifixion…a death so horrific that it would make people think twice about rebelling.   The fury of the world knows no mercy and brought that fury down in full force against Jesus.  In the movie, “The Passion of the Christ”, the one scene that is scorched into my mind more than any other is the scourging.  Jesus is first caned.  Welts and blood cover Him as He is beaten to the ground.  The Romans laugh as they make sport of Jesus, thinking Him defeated.  Then He does something…He stands up…an act of rebellious defiance against the world.  The Romans become enraged and bring out the cat-of-nine-tails (a whip with 9 ends, each with a razor on the end) and brutally beat Jesus within an inch of His life.  The whipping is halted lest Jesus dies before he makes it to the cross.  It occurs to me that each blow Jesus takes in our stead, so loathsome is our rebellion to a loving God.  He willingly does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  The offering of His Body and Blood at the Last Supper would earlier that day would know come to its bloody zenith.

In his DVD series “Catholicism”, Fr Robert Barron stands in a church in France and reflects on very old altarpiece of the crucifixion.  Its depiction is painful to see, but Fr Barron makes a point of saying that this is a portrait of the happiest man to ever live.  It is striking when he says it.  He is absolutely correct, though.  On the Cross, we see a man victorious.  Satan could not deter Him by temptations towards worldly honor, worldly wealth, worldly power, nor worldly pleasure from the Cross. On the Cross, Jesus soundly refutes these temptations and conquers them.  By His obedience, man no longer need be a slave to worldly pleasure, power, wealth, or honor…instead he can freed from such things and thus open to  so much greater with God.  When Jesus says, “It is finished’, they are not the words of a defeated would be king,  but the words or a victorious king…one who has come to do exactly what he was sent to do.  This is why Good Friday takes its name.  Jesus pays the price for our transgressions and thus breaks any hold Satan would have on us.  In the death of Jesus, we are set free.

Thus the last act of Good Friday: will we live as men and women set free from the hold of worldly power, wealth, honor, and pleasure?  Will we turn our backs on rebellion and choose to freely love?  Will we live the life of Christ?  We live in a world pockmarked by selfishness: every act of bullying, of greed, of envy, of disrespect for the integrity of another person, every act that rips away another’s dignity, of lust, of wrath...all proof that man still will reach out to be enslaved by the world.   Will we forge our own chains of slavery or allow the death of Christ free us from such chains.  Through the actions of Good Friday, we remind ourselves that we are created and meant for so much greater than this world can promise…let us embrace that Cross and by it be freed from rebellion, be freed from selfishness, and share in the victory of He who conquers it!  A Blessed Good Friday to all.

Thoughts on Holy Thursday

 Today we begin the Sacred Triduum, those three days when we focus upon the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  It begins with the celebration of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper this evening.  This Mass celebrates the two sacraments founded on that night of the Lord’s Supper: Holy Orders and Eucharist, thus tying them intimately together.  Both flow from the same base: agape, that is, self-giving and self-sacrificing love.  Both are bound in the person of Jesus Christ Himself.

Holy Orders are founded at the last supper in both the command to the Apostles ‘to do this memory of me’ and in washing their feet and its attendant command to ‘as I have done for you, you should do for others.’   Both of these lead to the same point about the ordained priesthood in that it is to be a life of selfless service by which that first Eucharist is both made present and forcefully lived to the purpose for which it is given.  I shall back to Holy Orders in a moment, for to understand the reason for Holy Orders is to understand the Eucharist first.

In the Gospels of Mathew, Mark, and Luke, the Last Supper is the Passover meal.  In the Gospel of John, the Bread of Life discourse (John 6) is placed deliberately in proximity to the Passover.  Why?  If we go back to the Passover, what happens?  Moses and the people of Israel are commanded to sacrifice a spotless lamb, mark their doorposts and lintels with its blood, eat the lamb with proscribed dishes, and to do this on the night when God would strike the House of Egypt for its enslavement and cruelty to the people of Israel.  The blood redeemed the first born in that household.  That very day (remember, Jews measure days from sunset to sunset, not midnight to midnight) Israel would be freed from its enslavement and start its long journey to the promised land.  In the instructions for the meal, God tells Moses that the people of Israel are to do this as a perpetual remembrance (zachar) so that every age of Jews throughout time might perpetually receive the same freedom and direct help from God as did those Jews around their tables in Egypt as long ago. To this day when Jews celebrate the Passover, they do not view what they do as a re-enactment of the first Passover, but as a direct participation in the only Passover.  If we do not understand this very basic understanding the Passover, then we will not understand the Eucharist.

Recall what John the Baptist refers to Jesus as: the Lamb of God. Fully human and fully divine, He is the spotless lamb to be sacrificed as a redemption for humanity.  No more than the lamb in the Passover sacrifice had done anything meriting death had Jesus done anything meriting death or punishment.  Yet, just as the Passover lamb takes upon itself the sins of the firstborn deserving death, so the sacrifice of Jesus takes upon Himself the sins of humanity and suffers the death we have merited.  In both cases, eternal justice is served.  But as in the Passover sacrifice the lamb wasn’t merely slaughtered then chucked to the side, but was consumed instead, so the Lamb of God is not merely chucked aside but is consumed as well.  Why?  The sacrifice was not finished until the sacrifice and the one for whom it was sacrificed were literally one and thus the one for who the sacrifice had been sacrificed could attain the benefits of the sacrifice.  Without the consumption of the sacrificial victim, the purpose of the sacrifice was in vain.  This is why in John 6, Jesus says, ‘Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life within you!  Why say something so bold and then give us no way of fulfilling this teaching?

 We turn to Mathew, Mark, and Luke for that answer.  In their passages, we see how Jesus intends for the bold proclamation in John to be fulfilled.  He takes two very common elements in both the Passover meal and in Jewish life: unleavened bread and wine.  He then proclaims the bread to be His Body and the wine to be His Blood.    These are rather dramatic statements.  He takes the bread of a people in flight (unleavened) and proclaims it His Body.  Why?  Unless those who follow Christ could partake of His Body they would have no benefit from the sacrifice of the Cross and hence no life.  He then takes wine and proclaims it as it Blood, for the same reason.  His Blood would seal this new covenant relationship which gives us access to eternal life.  Had Jesus meant that the bread and wine were symbols or representative of His Body and Blood, then would He have not said as much?  He doesn’t though.  This IS my Body, this IS my Blood. Later that day he would be sacrificed on the Cross.  Now we have the ability, through Christ, to participate directly in the one sacrifice of the Cross for as many times as we would need it.  If we are honest, we need that grace as many times as we can get it, certainly at least once a week!  How sad it is that anyone would see participation in the Eucharist as an uninteresting chore and infringement on their time!  Our participation in the Eucharist is our thankful response that Christ poured Himself out for us so that we might both have the grace necessary to trudge through this life and have access to eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven! The Eucharist is part of that firm foundation on which our hope and peace lay.   The Eucharist is the power source for the life of a Catholic!

We have the elements for this to happen, but the person is necessary as well.  There has to be a person who can act in the Person of Christ so that the bread and wine we have can also become the Body and Blood of Christ.  The Scriptures always had men set apart who were selected to be the mediator between God and His people.  Hebrews reminds us that Christ Himself becomes that mediator.  Yet He charges his Apostles at the Last Supper to ’do this in memory of me.’  This charge was given to a very specific group. The New Testament lest us know that this group of apostles and their successors, bishops, would be charged with the responsibility of making present to every age the Eucharist and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name.  This is the basis of Holy Orders, the fullness of which is in the Bishop, and then to a lesser extent to his priests.  They are set apart , even changed on the most base level of their being (soul) so that they can be the spiritual conduit by which the Body and Blood become really present.   Hence, the less priests there are, the less access to the Eucharist there is.  But the priest is more than a sacramental dispensing machine.  He is to be a witness…a profound witness.  That witness is to be not towards power…but towards service.  

In John, Jesus washes the feet of His apostles.  In the time of Jesus, this was a bit scandalous.  Feet, in his time, were seen as the dirtiest part of the body and more often than not were.  Not only was the task of the foot washing of guest considered the chore of a servant and not a master, it was the job of the lowliest of servants.  In washing the feet of His Apostles, Jesus shows them the depths of service; a service which will be given even more powerfully upon the cross.  Jesus did not want His apostles to be the greatest and most powerful of overlords, but the most profound of servants.  They were to follow His example (“As I have done for you, so you should do for others”)  and thus give example to all followers of the life of selfless service every baptized person is called to be!  At ordination, we are not ordained and changed so that we might be overlords, petty monarchs,  or despots.  We are to be of service as Christ was.  This is the foundation of Holy Orders, seeking to serve instead of being served.

But this life of service is not restricted to clergy.  It is to be embraced by all and anyone who calls themselves a Catholic.  In our society, living a selfless life in wholly contrary to this culture and is, in fact, counter-cultural.  Each of us is to model our life on Christ.  Could you imagine just how different life would be?!

This the big question is this: “How do I mimic the selflessness of Jesus Christ that we celebrate this Holy Thursday?  Does it get me out of my living room and to the Church this evening?  Does it help me prioritize?  How can I say I selflessly serve?  There are always new chances if one has failed to this point…which is why we celebrate what we celebrate over and over again.  As long as we draw breath, we can change more and more to what we are called to be.  May God bless us all on this Holy Thursday.

You Like Me, You Really Like Me!...or maybe not

It has not always been easy being Catholic in this country.  From the early settlements of the colonies, English settlers took a very hostile view of those papists joining them in the new world.  It would take over 170 years before a Catholic would be elected to the presidency.  Otherwise, Catholics were to keep to themselves, shoulder outright hate, bigotry, and intolerance.  Then with the age of media, we were treated to some positive images of priests and sisters...singing and kindly.  We saw a Catholic Bishop, Fulton Sheen, have a hit TV show.  Then we elected Kennedy and something changed.  In a speech before Evangelicals in Texas, Kennedy basically promised that would not use his faith in the way he led, he would be a good little protestant dhimmi and be just like them.  No wonder the speech made Sen. Santorum want to puke.  He got elected and Catholics had an epiphany...all we have to do is chuck our faith if we want to be popular.  We could still retain the cultural identification as Catholic, we just didn't have to live any of it or publicly profess any of it.

Then, just off the heels of this epiphany came the sexual revolution.  We might have had problems with this or that teaching of the Church, but now we were free to just let loose.  What better way than to fornicate like bunnies and feel no tinge to that nasty old conscience! We could contracept our way into a new and freeing existence of  all the benefits of marriage without having to marry.  Women were told that marriage and family life weighed them down anyway, but why chuck that ball and chain and have to miss sex?!  When that stodgy old Pope Paul VI put out Humanae Vitae..well we just had in black and white just how out of it the Church was.  It wasn't just lay people either.  Many of those priests and sisters who stayed, after so many left, adopted this new 'freeing' mentality and , well, woo-hoo,  just went to town.  In fact the less that you could act or even look like one of those nasty old relics, the better.  Sure, some people got bent out of shape, but they were humorless puritans.

So we bolted from our faith, dumbed down...I'm sorry...breathed new life into the practices, and acculturated so much worldly wisdom,  that assuredly now they would like us!  65% quit going to Church much at all or completely.  It became fashionable to be a cafeteria Catholic, picking and choosing what teachings we liked or didn't challenge our favored sins.  Surely, the world would love us now!  Of course, the clergy decided that this would be a wonderful time to hand our detractors boatloads of ammunition (not to mention boatloads of money as well) and break their vows of celibacy with children, women, and men.  Okay, it was a small percentage of the clergy...a really small percent...but we bought the narrative that most priests had all the sexual restraint of a teenage boy in a brothel with his dad's credit card.  We bought the premise that most priests were gay or just really weird.  Surely, the world will like us now!  Our convents emptied out!  Our seminaries emptied out!  Surely the world would like as now! Yeah, not so much.

 Catholics are learning that you never negotiate with someone who wants you dead.  While those who abandoned their faith were lauded and gave themselves such non-offensive names like 'recovering Catholic" (get it?  Like a recovering alcoholic? because Catholicism is a disease?  Funny !  Oh never mind) and some became official spokesmen for the Church in the mainstream media and were trotted out like prize turkeys whenever a pope dared cross the pond and drop in.  All the better if a former priest of sister..better yet if a current one who just show how worldly they were in trashing the pope.   But for those who decided to stick it out, the attacks have been relentless.  The more faithful we are, the more they hate us, and we  have to happy with this. Really...happy?! The entertainment industry will continue to portray all clergy and religious as either dolts, Huns, gay, or criminals.   The media will continue to portray faithful Catholics as insipid, ignorant, intolerant, hate filled, half breeds, hypocrites, and nitwits.  The oh-so-smart academic types will continue to doubt our intelligence, our teachings, our rituals, and our faithful with little more than derision and scorn.  Maybe even the government will continue to try to strip away our rights.  SO WHAT!?  My attitude is : BRING IT!

History shows that whenever we are persecuted is when we grow.  When we take the moral high ground and stand our ground without returning their attacks with equal aggression, we prevail.  When we are forced to defend our ground, we have risen time and again to the occasion.  If this sounds defiant..well, that is the point! Truth be told, I don't want the world to like me and approve of me.  I don't need their stamp of approval.  I don't want to be the shape-shifting insecure about who I am person that allows the cool kids to dictate their likes and actions.  In Luke, the Beatitudes bless those who are persecuted and curses those who are liked and approved of by the world.  The Catholic who doesn't see their faith as something worth dying for is the Catholic who doesn't see their faith worth living for.  So to Hollywood...bring it on!  Music industry...bring it!  Government officials...hit us with your best shot!  Media...we're not scared of you!  We came before you, we'll be here long after you.  We have outlasted every kingdom, empire, and trend that has tried to destroy us.  We have survived every foolish self-inflicted wound with which we have struck ourselves.  That is because we have Christ promise that you would never prevail and crush us. We have the power of the Holy Spirit.  We know already who wins the war...and it isn't you!  So bring it...by the grace of God, we're ready! 

The Danger of Free

Perhaps the title is a little off...a better title might be the danger of expecting things for free.  The debacle over whether the Church should pay for the contraception and sterilization of her employees has once again brought this discussion to a head. Even after the 'accommodation' which was nothing of the such, the administration decided that the insurance companies should give out free contraception and sterilization for employees of Catholic institutions.  At least the administration is being consistent.  They are also purporting free education, free college, free food (food stamps), free medical care, and the list goes on and on.  On the surface this seems compassionate, that we provide for those who cannot for themselves.  Seems to be consistent with Church and biblical teaching one could say.  However, it is not nor it is good for the recipient if this deluge of free stuff creates a permanent bond of neediness and helplessness.  Ideally, assistance should lead the receiver to an ability to stand on their own and not to a state of perpetual neediness.  I will say here, that there are some exceptions to this rule; those with severe handicaps for example.

So why is it dangerous?  The answer is on several levels.  First, when a country is divided into a country of providers and a country of takers, it will foment division.  When free things are given to the able bodied without expectation of it being temporary, it robs the person of the reason to get back on one's feet.  Why work when I can receive the necessities of life for free?    However, the help slowly becomes not enough.  The person will inevitably want more and more.  Why?  Because there is something within most people that wants to be in a better position tomorrow than they were today.  If I can get this sum through no effort now, why should I not receive more through no effort tomorrow?  One will look at how those who have worked hard receive and become envious than they can move ahead and thus provide for a better tomorrow.  This provokes envy on the part of the person who receives for free.  Instead of seeing how this happens, the entitlement mentality takes over and the demands increase.  This entitlement mentality will spread like a cancer to all parts of the human person, producing a like effect on on all parts.  The entitlement mentality spawns a learned helplessness and a voracious neediness that cannot be satiated.  No amount of other people's wealth will satisfy the bottomless pit of entitlement...free is no longer a gift...it is an expectation.

Along with this expectation and its attendant helplessness comes an absconding of responsibility and accountability for one's life and one's actions.  The favorite question of the entitled is "who are you to judge me?"  This only flows from a person who is first unwilling, then dives into unable, to accept responsibility for the results their lifestyle engendered.  It's not my fault I am poor...the rich man stole it from me.  It's not my fault I don't have a good education, the government didn't spend enough money on me.  It's not my fault I have a child out of wedlock, I didn't get free contraception and personal servant to make sure I used it.  It's not my fault.  Nothing is my fault.  Everything is someone else's fault.  The lasting damage of everything being free is the damage it does to human integrity and dignity.

This goes into the spiritual as well.  As nothing is my fault, I am owed even heaven.  The practice of faith, since it requires effort, is laid aside.  Here is where the phrases that start with "My God... doesn't judge, doesn't make demands, doesn't require, loves me no matter what and will allow me into heaven no matter what and if he doesn't...well then HE is unfair and lacks mercy."  The role of faith, if one is to engage in it is to coddle, stroke the ego, entertain, and make me feel special.  The role of God is much like the role of everyone else...to give me stuff without question, condition, or expectation of results.  Is it any wonder as entitlement has grown in this country, church attendance has plummeted?  There is a direct and logical correlation!

The reception of free stuff, though, is built upon a total deception.  Nothing is free.  All the benefits received, someone else pays for.  In this country, for example, the loads of free things comes out of the pockets of the producers...those who work hard and pay taxes.  The 'free' contraception and sterilization insurers of Catholic institutions comes from the premiums collected from those institutions and their employees.  Even our faith, a free gift from God, came at the cost of the Cross.  Someone pays.  That is life.  Because someone pays means there are people who do accept responsibility and accountability for their actions.  Those are the people who make things work.  When they give, it is not so as to fulfill some mandate or law, it is to give freely from themselves for the sake of another, which is a positive act of love.  This reality needs to be responded to by the receiver.

When I was a child and would receive gifts from my grandparents for either Christmas or my birthday, my parents had the full expectation that a thank you note would be written to the giver of the gift.  My parents wanted me to understand that what was given to me was not tribute brought by subservient grandparents to their royal grandchild who was owed at least whatever they brought, but a gift from a loving grandparent.  I think about, from time to time, how much smoother things would have gone in my youth had I realized all the free stuff I received (food, clothes, housing, etc) I actually had because my parents worked hard and made sure their children were taken care of.  They taught me to be quick with thanks yous.  Whether that thank you is directed at the servers for serving Mass, the multiple volunteers who make this parish work, the friends whose support and friendship I know I have...that thank you helps me to focus on my blessings and not on my lack of luxuries.  Finally my thank yous to God remind me that all I have is pure gift from God, not tribute God gives me because I am such a wonderful person.  In short, thankfulness is the antidote to entitlement.  If you don't think so, watch what happens when an entitled person is told how thankful they should be for what they have.

Entitlement, by its nature, breeds division born from greed , sloth , and envy.  It pits people against people in a bull rush for their piece of the pie.  It breeds class warfare and assuredly crushes any nation that embraces it as a way of life.  It destroys the bond between man and God.  Thankfulness has the opposite effect.  It binds into an intertwined union specifically because it causes the person to move beyond the self.  Finally thankfulness draws us ever closer to God because it opens our eyes not to just what God can do but what God has done.  As God gives all things for free, our hearts should be overwhelmed with thanks and drawn ever closer to God.  If we can start there, then perhaps we could be thankful in the public realm as well. 

This country is a mess.  Our politicians, for years, have garnered votes by promising this or that to voters, making what they promise sound like it is for free.  It isn't.  The government has no monies of its own without the taxes and fees they gather.  Every food stamp, every subsidy, every free to you item was paid for by the taxpayer and the consumer.  I would hope those who are on the take would understand this and quit demanding more free stuff on someone else's dime.  If they want more, then perhaps ( and I know this is a novel idea) get off your butt and work...no person should revel in a parasitical relationship with the world around them.  Nothing is free on this planet,  So buck up and get moving and quit demanding everyone else bring you tribute because you simply are owed it because you happen to breathe in and breathe out.  Now, I will step off my soapbox!

Why is the Church sticking to her guns? Behind the reason to fight the HHS mandate.

editor's note: This fight with HHS and the Administration is beyond mere politics or even mere religious freedom...it strikes at the heart of our beliefs.  Hence, the beliefs themselves must be addressed.

    Over the past year or so, I have studied more and more the teachings of Blessed John Paul II concerning love, marriage, and human sexuality.  They flow from the book “Love and Responsibility’ he wrote long before becoming the pope.  The teachings that flowed from this revolutionary book designed to explain Catholic moral teaching on human sexuality and marriage, was an answer to the common acceptance of most Catholics to artificial contraception, and the lesser acceptance of abortion, divorce, and such.  These teachings are the basis of a program called Theology of the Body.  Whereas most Catholics and non-Catholics would characterize incorrectly Catholic sexual moral teachings as a litany of ‘that shall nots’ and a belief that women should be baby factories, Blessed John Paul II comes from a different angle; an angle that wants to see the creative and inherent beauty of human sexuality as something to be treasured and respected as a part of the respect owed to the individual as whole.  For Blessed John Paul II, the mystery of God is written into our very bodies and into the totality of our entire being.  He points out how all Church teaching on sexuality flows from this positive vision of the inherent dignity and integrity of the human person.    Hence, the Church’s teaching on sexuality, now under incredibly heavy fire, flow entirely from the complete respect for the integrity and dignity of each human person; a person to be respected on all levels of their beings, including their sexuality.
    When God commands humanity upon its creation to ‘be fruitful and  multiply’, it is a command flowing from the fact that God wants us to participate in His power to create new life born from love.  The tools of that power are holy and special and to be treated as such.  However, over time two camps developed that got this wrong.  One was a type of puritanical misunderstanding which saw the human body and sexuality as evil, lesser, and ugly…something to be ashamed of and avoided.  The other was one that saw human body and sexuality as a mere means to an end where the individual was served to self-seeking ends.  Both reduced this great and wonderful gift of God to something tawdry and shameful, as if the divine gift to create new life born from mutual self-giving love was a divine mistake.  It is about the nature of love, particularly marital love, that the Bl. John Paul II wanted to recapture.  For him, the body was not an ugly and shameful thing, nor was human sexuality.  Both are gifts from God to be respected and loved.
    Catholic teachings on human sexuality flow from the use of that sexuality in the manner for which it was given; to be an act that is mutually self-giving (not self-taking) love and from which will naturally flow a stronger union and the possibility of new life.  The Church does not believe that sex is solely for ‘baby-making’ but neither is it only for pleasure.  The church sees the human person as an integrated whole: mind, soul, and body.  Anything that takes away from the dignity of that integrated whole is seen as problematic if not outright dangerous.  From this understanding flows our teachings on artificial birth control (which does not respect the integrity of the body, mind, or soul), pre-marital sexuality (which simulates an act for a reason for which it wasn’t given),  pornography ( a complete breakdown of any respect for any part of the human person)and the other teachings about the correct use of human sexuality.  These flow from high ideals to be sure, but does not all of our teachings?  Self-giving love is the very foundation of all actions, words, motivations, teachings, and actions found in our Scriptural teachings and in the teachings that flow with and from them.  The same foundation must be present for all.  This is why the Church cannot back away from her teachings on birth control and other sexual teachings; to do so is to strike at the very foundation of that self-giving love of God from which our common lives flow!  Self- giving love (aka agape) is the rock upon which our faith is built, it is the very nature of God, and hence to be the very foundation of our own human lives.
    This stands in stark contrast to how the world views the human person.  History over the millennia shows that humanity has viewed itself more as a herd animal (albeit a highly developed one) that operates on little more than instinct.  Our culture, especially from the 1960’s and on, has seen sexual expression as a basic right to be followed without any real sense of respect for others and as a function of animal instinct.  This was an over reaction to the equally wrong ‘shame and angst’ version of human sexuality.  We went from ‘if it feels good it must be bad’ to ‘if it feels good, do it’ without stopping anywhere in the sane middle to ask what are the deeper issues.  When the sexual revolution of the 1960’s broke wide open, it brought startling repercussions:  an increase in unwed pregnancies (in some communities the norm), abortion, abortafacients  (the pill, the morning after pill, RU-486,  IUD),  a myriad on new and fatal STD’s (HIV-AIDS being the scariest of these), and helped to contribute to the assault and destruction of the family unit in this country.  This was as Pope Paul VI wrote in his letter on human sexuality, “Humanae Vitae” which was widely panned by secular leaders and even some religious leaders but was all too correct on what would happen if the contraceptive mentality were to take hold.  Both Paul VI and Bl. John Paul II knew that God wanted so much more for His people.  The Church, in her teachings, knows that God does want what is the absolute best for us because of His self-giving love for us!  That does not mean it will be easy. 
    Catholic teaching always wants to flow from the self-giving love of God and challenge us to make that love our own way of doing things.  This is why the Church will not back down from this fight with the administration even if 100% of Catholics disregard the teachings on contraception.  We hold to those high ideals and challenge ourselves to reach them through God’s grace.  I know not all that have used contraception did so with expressed evil in mind, but as a practical solution to a problem they have.  Most people think the church teaches what she does about sexuality because it views sexuality as shameful.  Quite the opposite is true.  Because we view human sexuality as so precious and special, we want to protect its integrity as we would any other part of the human person.  When we fail to treat that sexuality with respect, as happened in the clerical sexual scandals of the last 50 years or so, it brings confusion and pain.  We are capable of better all around!
    For this reason, we have been using the Theology of the Body series in our Middle School, Confirmation Class, and marriage preparation classes.  Because this teaching wants to appeal to our higher, stronger, and better selves, we are using it extensively.  Items on this are also available in our parish library.  Remember, as Catholics we always strive through the grace of God to be the best version of ourselves.  That includes the use of our sexuality as well.

Rendering unto Caesar and Religious Liberty

Our Catholic Faith has never been one that looked to run away from the world into its own ghetto.  From our very start, we have sought to engage the world in a positive way that helps to lift up the culture towards positive ends.  Over the centuries, Catholics have been responsible for the creation of the university system, developed the idea of the hospital, of hospice, and attended to the health care of those around us as  matter of our Catholic principles rooted in the Corporal and Spiritual works of mercy.  From these same principles we took care of our own and reached out a helping hand towards any and all in need.  In this country, long before the federal government got involved, we had associations such as the Knights of Columbus, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Catholic Worker movement, numerous hospitals, orphanages, schools and universities to answer the needs of health, welfare, and education.  We always strive to do these in line with our Catholic principles.   This isn’t to say there hasn’t been neglect, abuse, or other human malignancies that have crept in from time to time, but the Catholic Church still remains the most charitable organization in this country and world.  We have been long looking out for the welfare, education, and health of people long before this country ever existed.
    We have succeeded in these things because we have never as a matter of policy ignored the Gospel and sought the destruction of human life as a way of helping attend to the welfare of others.  The Catholic Church has always valued the sanctity and dignity of life and never has seen its conception as a disease to be prevented and cured.  There has been great distress in the Catholic faithful because for the first time in American history, Catholics are being told that they must  violate their consciences and run over their long held beliefs about life as a matter of government policy.  A few weeks back, the Department of Health and Human Services (definitely a Johnnie come lately in the welfare and health business as by comparison to the Catholic ministries) demanded that Catholic Institutions  provide contraception (including abortion inducing pills) and sterilization coverage in their health plans for their employees, whether the employee or employer wanted it or not.
     A few weeks later an ‘accommodation’  was made for Catholic and other religious institutions to opt out, but their insurers still had to provide the ‘benefit’ free of charge.  This is a shell game.  Such insurance will still be paid for by the institutions as before.  Nothing changed.  Since the Catholic Church offers benefits to its employees like any other employer, the employee pays for part of the insurance premium and the employer pays as well.  These premiums paid by us in health care, education, and charitable services will go in part for ’benefits’ that the Church has always held objectionable.  The insurers will have no choice but to charge as they are not non-for-profit and the federal government is making it obligatory to do so.
    So what do we do?  As Catholics we neither return such behavior with like behavior, but neither do we shrink down.  Jesus, Himself, confronted evil by standing up to it non-violently and not allowing it to take His ground.  No one sane is asking for a violent uprising against this administration or any of its officials.  We are not looking for hatred nor revenge to be a motivating factor.   Nonetheless, the officials of the Church in this country have made it clear that they have absolutely no intent to give in nor abide by this decision. 
    No doubt, some will pull out the old ’Render unto Caesar what is Caesar and unto God what is God’s’ as a way of surrendering one’s   moral positions or duties in the public realm.  This passage never gives permission for us to shrink away from evil nor to be complicit with it! Caesar has no right to what is God’s!  When the founders of this country wrote its Constitution and subsequent Amendments, they enshrined the idea of religion being independent from the machinations of the state.  So many times we believe that the 1st Amendment is there to protect the state from the Church.  If one is to read the actual documents of our founders, the opposite is true.  The 1st Amendment doesn’t merely prohibit the institution of a state religion or Church to which everyone must belong in order to participate in the public life, it prohibits the government from the interference of the  free practice of religion.  The state cannot dictate to the churches either what they will believe or how they practice those beliefs.  In short, it not constitutional for the state to demand that any religion violate its own morality to appease the state.  Caesar does not dictate to God how He will guide His people. 
    The Catholic Church is not asking that the state outlaw the use of sterilization and contraception to appease Catholic belief; it is not asking that secular institutions be mandated to forbid such things.  Granted we hope that by our practice of faith and its fruits, those who are not of our faith might choose wisely and morally, we are only asking that we not be told how we are to live and express our faith officially as Catholics.  This is a reasonable request and a request that the writers of our Constitution and subsequent Amendments enshrined as central to the republic.  If we are true to both our faith and to our American heritage, we will stand non-violently but pointedly against such decrees.  Thankfully, in this country, we are given the ability through our elected representatives to vent our concerns and act on our behalf.  These should be utilized in the form of telling our congressman and senators what our concerns are.  We are also given the equalizer of the ballot to vote out of office those who will be complicit in the deprivation of our religious liberties.
    As Catholics, our first option is to convince and win over those who would deprive us of the free practice of our faith.  We see such defenses offered by St. Paul, St Justin Martyr, and the many apologists that the Church has had through her 2000 year history to win over rather than destroy those who disagree with us.  That is why we don’t blow things up when offended, nor destroy property, nor malign those who do not agree with us with personal animus.  Our lot is the lot of Christ who stood against His opposition non-violently.  The way of Christ in securing the Kingdom of God against those who would suppress it is the only way that has ever worked in both rising up against those who would suppress our freedom of religion and our right to follow our truly informed conscience.  We are never to be in the business of collection of enemies, but in the spreading of the healing message of Christ to all.  Let approach this present crisis in the person and dignity of our Lord Jesus Christ; not running away, not being aggressive, but by following Jesus’ non-violent courage by standing tall for that which is good and holy.