The Aftermath of Evil

At the writing of this column, pieces were still being put together in the aftermath of the bombings of the Boston Marathon.  At this juncture we did not know who did it and why they did it.  We do know that people died and many more were injured and that there is no excuse that be given why such a thing had to happen.  What we saw was the face of evil.

At the writing of this column, a trial was happening in Philadelphia for the abortionist Kermit Gosnell.  What happened within the confines of his abortion clinic made the savagery of what happened in Boston look calm.  Tales of babies born alive and executed by having their throats slit,   two women losing their lives, decrepit conditions straight out of a horror movie, and a disturbing depravity emerge as details of trial go on.  The media ignored this story until an outcry arose.  What we saw again is the face of evil.

Over my lifetime we have seen that face of evil arise time and again: Columbine, 9/11, Newton CT, Aurora CO, Oklahoma City, and far too many other instances to bear. 

Every week our papers and news programs are full of stories of death, mayhem, violence, and evil.  It should be enough for any sane person to scream out, ENOUGH!  We can feel helpless in the face of such atrocity.  However, we must do something.  Some take the stance if we ban guns, or violent video games, or violent movies, or some other thing that we can rein in such evil. Truth be told, we can ban all these things and so much else and it will not solve the problem.  The problem is the evil that resides in the human heart.  Unfortunately, we cannot legislate that.  However, this leaves far from hopeless.

Our Catholic faith tells us that there is a profound alternative.  I will admit that too many times our Catholic faith has been hijacked by those who called themselves Catholic and used it as a tool of manipulation or a weapon of destruction.  To do so, though, they had to break the very foundations on which our faith is built.  Our faith is built on a very simple premise, a single commandment that Christ gave: Love one another.  This love, of which Jesus speaks, a translation of the Greek word ‘agape’, is a love that is completely self giving.   St. Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives an exposition of this love.  He calls it patient and kind, a willingness to seek the good and rejoice in it.  This love spurs us to courage and strength.  It is the very antithesis of evil.

We have seen this love on display many times.  It spurs us to heroic actions.  One of the most powerful pictures of 9/11  involved pictures of first responders, firefighters, police officers, and clerics (like Fr Mychal Judge) running to the twin towers to offer help and assistance, knowing full well that to do so put their lives in jeopardy. 

It rallies the human heart to see such selflessness and bravery.  It is the perfect answer to the face and aftermath of evil.  Evil will happen…our response will determine how deep the aftermath will be.  If we respond with revenge and violence, we perpetuate the aftermath of evil.  If we respond with courage and selfless love, we stem the aftermath of evil and even, perhaps, stop further evil from happening.

Which side wins?  It goes back to a Native American parable about the two wolves that exist within the human heart, one good and one evil.  The one that wins is the one that is fed more.  We would call these two wolves, virtue and vice.  Whether virtue or vice wins is up to each individual.  Hence, each individual either stems or perpetuates evil and its aftermath.  In my own life, I am finding the following disquieting questions ones needing to be answered and changed for the better.  If we truly want to see the violence and evil stemmed, it will begin in our own hearts and in our living it bravely.

My first question in confronting the face of evil is in asking myself how it is that I entertain myself.  Do I see death, violence, and mayhem sources of entertainment?  Our culture certainly does!  Be it violent video games, violent movies, violent music, violent TV shows, and that list goes on…violence has become a mainstay in our entertainment culture.  Taking pleasure in viewing and participating in violence most assuredly does not feed virtue and speaks nothing of selfless love.  It feeds vice, it feeds revenge and it feeds hate and intolerance.  It feeds every depravity of the human heart.  But the entertainment aspect also flows into our culture of gossip.  Why do we feel the necessity to trash another person’s reputation as a way of entertaining ourselves?  Why do we feel the freedom to speculate and badger?  I am no fan of most music as of late, but I look at the likes of a Britney Spears or Justin Beiber and see how they are stalked, ridiculed, belittled, and quite frankly, bullied and wonder why we have the audacity to wonder why these kids implode.  I see it in the digging remarks I make for no other reason than to run my foolish mouth.  We cannot entertain ourselves with evil and expect good to come of it.

My second question is how I respect the dignity and integrity of others.  Evil has respect for neither.   Good is cautious with both.  The first step to fomenting evil is to strip away the humanity of another.  Nazi Germany did this with the Jews.  It was necessary for the propagation of chattel slavery.  It is absolutely necessary for the practice of pornography.  It is absolutely necessary for abortion.  It is needed for gossip and every other evil we inflict.  If I do not respect you as a human being, then it justifies whatever evil I inflict.  If we expect evil to be conquered both in our own hearts and in our society, respecting the dignity and integrity of others is paramount.  Our faith teaches us that our lives are to a reflection of the love of God.  We are taught to treat others as we would want to be treated.  This includes responding with forgiveness.  Forgiveness stops evil in its tracks.

We lack the ability to control the human heart.  No law can change the human heart.  The only thing that changes the human heart is selfless love.  It is our practice of this, or lack thereof, that altars the face and aftermath of evil.  Revenge begets revenge.  Hate begets hate.  If we expect the cycle of evil and its aftermath to ever change for the better, then it will have to change within the hearts of every human person.  While this seems impossible, it was because Christ wanted to afford each of this the means and grace to accomplish that He came and for which he selflessly offered His life on the cross.

Reflections On Good Shepherd Sunday

this is to appear in my parish bulletin for the weekend of  April 20/21 2013

This weekend, we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday.  Around the world, we remember that the Resurrected Christ is the Eternal Good Shepherd who forever provides for and protects His flock.  We give thanks that this Good Shepherd loves us, His flock, so much that He offered His life for us to forever protect us from the dual wolves of sin and death that would otherwise despoil the flock. We know that when Christ was taken up into heaven, it was neither the end of his shepherding nor the end of His physical presence among us as the Good Shepherd.  We believe that He remains among us through the Eucharist through which He continually nourishes the flock.  He also left behind a church whose apostles were charged to continue the teaching of the Gospel and were to encourage the flock to live the Gospel in the most concrete ways possible.  This Apostles appointed deacons to help in the service of the flock and appointed successors to them, known as Bishops, to continue the mission to which Christ had set them.  These in turn appointed priest to assist them in the service of the flock. 

This weekend we ordained 18 men to the permanent diaconate to help in the service of the flock of the Lord.  These men will assist the Bishop and the pastors to whom they are assigned in taking care of the flock of Christ.  It has been my experience over the years that these deacons have been immensely helpful in such a profound task.  However, they are limited in what they can do.  As was the case when I was transitional deacon (a deacon who will go onto to be ordained a priest), they cannot anoint the sick, nor can they give absolution in confession, nor can they confect the Eucharist.  Those areas of service are to be done by priests and bishops.  Were we ever to be in a situation where we were ordaining 18 priests in a year!  Were we to have even 18 total seminarians looking at the possibility of such service!  Alas, though, such is not the case and it is not to the betterment of the Church and the parishes.  We need more to answer this divine call to service.

If we are to expect to ever arrive to such heights it will take a major change of heart.  Many will say that we experience such shortages because we only ordain unmarried males.  As we saw with the media swarm around the election of Pope Francis, there were many who opined that the Church has to adjust to the modern world and chuck her outdated notions on who gets ordained, the nature of marriage, the goods of human sexuality, and so on.  People forget though that the Church is supposed to look different and be different than the world; a light cannot be a light if it looks and acts as the surrounding darkness.  Too many times the language of priesthood has been the language of power.  Suffered greatly we have with such notions.  The priesthood is not about power, as Pope Francis reminds us, but about service.  It is to service we must attend, for that is how the flock of Christ is tended and how it is grown.

The purpose of the Church is not to navel gaze.  Nor is the purpose of the Church to be a commercial spirituality store disconnected from day to day life.  The life blood of the Church is united to the Blood of Christ Himself, a blood spilled in the name of eternal service born out of eternal love.  Thus it is wholly necessary that we know the content of our faith for service cannot be an unorganized event.  We serve with an end in mind; the salvation of souls!  Thus the proclamation of the Gospel and its content is necessary in our service. Church teaching, as Pope Francis remarks, cannot be an end unto itself, but the medium by which we serve and proclaim.  We need men who will without exception and distraction, give themselves fully over to the service of Christ’s flock in His parishes and in those in need.  Priesthood is not a job but a vocation of service.

When I say ‘men’, I mean more than merely the male of the human species.  We need men who will rise to the heights of selfless service to the flock of Christ and act as father to those to whom they are assigned.  We live in a society that prefers to keep the male of the species as boys.  If we expect things to turn around in our Church and in our society as whole, then this trend must be reversed.  This starts in the family.

Dads, you have been given the divine mission through marriage to be the prime teachers of your son in what it means to be a Catholic man.  It is your responsibility to show them that we are not slaves to our instincts and that our true dignity does not come from exercising power but in exercising authority.  Power and authority are not synonymous!  Power is the will to make other do what you want; authority is a delegated responsibility to care for those placed under your care.  You show this in how you treat your spouse.  You show this in modeling prayer.  You show this in making clear that you understand that before your wife and children belong to you that they are God’s and you will be held responsible for how you shepherded them.  Moms, you share in this shepherding role as you and your husbands became one when you exchanged your vows and rings in marriage.  You are to encourage the heart of a servant, model the empathy so necessary to raising a boy into a man so that he will grow into being part of the next generation of husbands or priests that will be necessary to carry on our Church and our society.

To help with this end, we developed Camp Maccabee so that your sons may hear this same message loud and clear from their Church.  We try to teach them that their nobility as a Catholic man comes not from money, power, or pleasure, but from a willingness to stand out  in this hostile culture just as the Maccabees did when the Seleucid Empire and Antiochus Epiphanes wanted to destroy Judaism in the centuries leading up to the birth of Christ.  We do this because we realize that the trends must be reversed and new evangelization of our youth is central to this goal.  We need these young men to grow into the kind of men who will be great fathers, husbands, and priests.  We need them to be one with the Good Shepherd to accomplish this goal.

The service of the flock of Christ is desperately needed and we need young men to step up and courageously ask God what is it that He created them to do.  We need good men who will serve with courage, knowledge and strength.  Too often, so many both inside and outside of the clergy have sought purpose in the trappings of this world and it has caused great damage.  Our purpose as followers of Christ is not found in money, power, or pleasure; it is found in following the footsteps of the Good Shepherd.  If He say about Himself that He came to serve and not to be served, then that must become our maxim and motivation as well.  The time for action is well past, we are already so very behind. Our Good Shepherd is calling you to service!  He is calling your children to service!  How will we respond?   

A Tribute to Someone I never Knew

I didn't know Cathy.  I never met her until I gave her Last Rites last week.  As I stood by her bedside, I saw the same pained faces of those who loved her gathered around with me.  Cathy had profound Down's Syndrome.  Her life, by most people's standards, was severely limited by her disease.  Yet, she had a profound effect on those around her.  For 20 years, Cathy had been a resident at Ruth Jensen Village.  Ruth Jensen Village is a residential set of group homes in Bowling Green, Missouri where those who suffer from such diseases are cared for and given great and loving care.

This gave me a unique moment in my priesthood; preparing a funeral homily for someone with such a profound disability.  It got me thinking.  Over the years, I have met many who have had a variety of disability and diseases.  Many think these people as a curse.  In the US, 90% of babies diagnosed with Downs Syndrome are aborted.  Somehow these people are seen as burdens and impediments.  In my own family, I have several nieces and nephews that are somewhere on the autism scale.  Neither them, nor Cathy, nor anyone I have met with such disabilities are any less human than myself,  any less worthy of compassion, friendship, and empathy than any other person.  They have right to their dignity and integrity being upheld as much as anyone else.  These people do present a challenge to us; and I believe that is what scares so many.  How we treat such people says much more about us than it does them.

Cathy was incapable of sin.  She lacked the capacity.  What a blessing!  She was never able to choose against God and fall out of the relationship extended to her through baptism.  She certainly was among those that Jesus was speaking of when he said, "Let them come to me, to such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven!"  I cannot help but believe that she heard "Well done, My good and faithful servant, enter the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."  I would imagine some might be thinking, "Hold on there, father!  Really."  Absolutely!  Her whole life she offered those around her the chance at becoming better people.  She offered, through her sufferings, the chance for people to rise to the greatest nobility within themselves to step outside of themselves and love unconditionally. Many will no doubt ask, "How can a loving God inflict such a person?"  My answer is that it is not God, but man, that puts these qualitative standards upon the disabled, thinking them as something less than fully human because they suffer what they do.  God sees them as He sees everyone: as someone worthy of His love and compassion.

I firmly believe what troubles us about people such as Cathy is not who they are, but who they reveal about who we are!  I listen to my siblings and admire them a great deal.  They do get down when there are setbacks with their children...all of them!  They do rejoice in the victories of their children..all of them.  I have never heard any of them differentiate their children into normal and abnormal children...but simply as their being their children...every single one of them.  That everyone could have the same vision about all people, disabled or not.  I see the compassion that they and their children show.  I saw the compassion that the staff at Ruth Jensen had for Cathy and it makes me want to be a better person.

So many times, in funeral homilies, I make a point of pointing out that the limitations that life inflicts upon  us are forever gone when we pass from this life.  As I watched my dad deteriorate from Parkinson's, I took comfort in that it could no longer touch him.  I have made the same observations about those who suffered from cancer and whole host of debilitating diseases.  I look forward to seeing dad again with him at full strength.  I look forward to meeting Cathy someday.  I think it will be a wonderful conversation.

Reflections on Good Friday

As we continue Holy Week, we come upon the focus on the death of Christ remembered on Good Friday. It is easy to think Jesus a hapless victim who got caught by unfair authorities hellbent on His destruction because he challenged them.  It is easy to believe He was unable to save Himself as He did others, as some sneer at Him as He hangs on the Cross.  These are easy because it is nothing more than a historical footnote of a tragic death of a good man 2000 years ago.  What is not easy to believe, in fact many take offense at the idea, is that He willingly did it and that He had to because of what I and every other human being had done.  Many say that it is an insult that someone should have to die for them.

First, everything is Scripture points to Jesus knowing exactly what was happening and willingly going into the fire.  On many occasions He tells His disciples what will happen to Him in Jerusalem.  They fail over and over to listen.  He makes no effort to dissuade Judas. He deliberately goes to the Garden of Gethsemane knowing full well Judas will seek Him out there.  He does run nor resist arrest.  He does not argue or plead His case either in front of the Sanhedrin nor in front of Pilate.  He does not tap into His divine authority to destroy those who plot against Him or who are carrying out the over the top torture or the execution. Why?  Purely because He loves us.  No other reason.  The Father loves us, even in our deep ugliness and distorted look from our sin.  His son pays a debt we cannot; His act of supreme love, a total emptying of self repays the debt incurred by our every act of selfishness, hatred, intolerance, prejudice, pride, wrath, and every other action that despises the integrity and dignity of those around us.

But He does not force this act of forgiveness upon us.  We have to acknowledge the need we had for what He did and ask for help.  That is hard.  We have a tendency to carry the weight of our mistakes, our inhumanity, our grudges, our biases, and our hate as if they prize possessions. Many believe that if I ignore them that they simply disappear  into the ether.  All that is done is that they are pushed deep into the subconsciousness where they fester and pollute; leaving the individual a veritable potpourri of hate,  impatience, and anger.  It builds resentment ad hostility.  Reality cannot be run from, only masked, and then only for a moment.  The Cross reminds us that a Loving God does not want us crushed and enslaved by our own choosing, but wants to lift these crosses from our shoulders and replace them with a freedom.  How sad that so many see this as an insult and sternly allowed themselves to be weighed down through all of life.  It is a variation of "Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven."  In hell, I can keep my biases, prejudices, grudges, intolerance, and pride.  In hell, I can be selfish and materialistic.  Even if it keeps me in a place that makes me miserable, even if it poisons every relationship I have, people can prefer enslavement to such things to the new life Christ extends to us through the Cross and its forgiveness of all sin.  Why?

Because a new life means a new way of living.  If I allow God to wipe away my sinfulness, I cannot embrace it again.  I have to use new ways and embrace new things.  Patience must replace impatience, understanding must replace intolerance, trust must replace grudges, selflessness must replace selfishness, and so on.  I think we are all too unaware that the sin we choose to carry become heavy crosses in other people's life.  Personal selfishness helps weighs down others in fueling a crushing need for the basics (be they physical or emotional).  My grudges become crosses thrust upon the shoulders of those with whom I am angry.  I could go on, but hopefully the point is taken.  As Christ say: "Whatever you did or did not do for the least of my brothers (and sisters) you did or did not do for me.  Hence when we thrust a cross on someone else, we thrust it onto the shoulders of Christ.  When we choose anger, cruelty, revenge, lust, greed and other self centered crosses on others to carry, we thrust them onto the Christ who loves each and every one of them.  Life comes with enough natural crosses (sickness for example) with the necessity of our putting crosses on other people's back or even weighing ourselves down with these unnecessary crosses  Even in the natural crosses, Christ helps us carry them...why on earth would we think a it a good things to pile on more ?!

This Good Friday, as we are thankful for the eternal love God shows as he Son dies for us; let us resolve to let go of the unnecessary crosses of wrath, selfishness, and such that we pile on our own shoulders and upon the shoulders of others.  Let us let these crosses dissolve through the love shown us so that we might live as those who are free and wants others to be free of the crushing weight of greed, bias, and selfishness

Reflections on Holy Thursday

Tonight begins the Triduum (three days) in which we celebrate the central core of our faith.  Tonight we celebrate the Mass of the Lord's Supper.  This day we normally celebrate the founding of the priesthood and the Eucharist.  Both are founded as divine service ordered towards the salvation of humanity.  Both only exist in that they serve as ways that God and His people can be unified.  Let me take this in two parts:

First, in the giving of the Eucharist, Jesus shows us that God loves us so much so that He holds nothing back from us.  He gives us the life of His only Son to satisfy the eternal debt we had incurred through our rebellion to God.  God never writes us off.  God never says that we have gone past the point of no return in this life.  No matter how hateful, vindictive, selfish, and unforgiving we have been towards Him or towards others.  God wants to forgive, He wants to no longer hold our failings against us.  He wants us to rise to the glory and full capacity of our being human beings.  As we could not do this for ourselves, He does it for us.  He sacrifices Himself!

He solidifies this in giving us the Eucharist.  In Judaism, when a sin/peace offering was done (and this includes the Passover) the person (s) who brought the unblemished animal forward for sacrifice, not everything was burned on the altar.  The person had to eat part of the sacrifice or the sacrifice lost its meaning. In uniting the person with the sacrificial offering, the person admits that the animal received the sentence rightfully due the person and in eating it receives the benefit of the sacrifice.  In John 6, Jesus says, "Unless eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life within you."  Jesus came, as St John the Baptist calls Him, to be the Lamb of God, the lamb that God Himself would provide (as Abraham told Isaac), the unblemished human being who would be sacrificed for us.  At the Last Supper, Jesus takes the elements commonly used in the Passover meal (or any meal for that matter), bread and wine, and proclaims them to be, as in A=B, to be Hos flesh and His blood which would now be able to breath new life into those who choose to follow Him.  Jesus so loves us despite our imperfections that He gives all and only ask that we love Him in return.  How is that love lived though?

This leads to the second point.  In most places the Chrism Mass is celebrated today.  The Chrism Mass is where the oils to be used throughout the diocese are blessed by the Bishop.  The oils:  Sacred Chrism (used in all baptisms, confirmations, and ordinations to the priesthood and the episcopacy), the oil of catechumens (used in baptism) and the oil of the sick (used for the Anointing of the Sick).  During the same Mass , priests are asked to renew the promises they made at the ordination. All of this is done because there is service to be rendered.  As they are the ones who have the duty of attending the the sacramental needs of their parishioners, they are reminded that that relationship is that of a servant to those he serves, where HE is the servant.

This point is driven home by an action takes place during the Holy Thursday Mass: the Washing of the Feet.  In Semitic cultures, the foot was the dirtiest part of the body and only the lowest of the low servants was charged with the task of washing feet.  Peter, during the Last Supper, is taken aback when Jesus starts washing feet.  This simply was not done.  The washing of feet was a humiliation.  Yet, here is Jesus doing so.
 When He finishes doing so He instructs the apostles that as He has done so they should do. When Jesus founds the priesthood it was not create an aristocracy, but a group of servants! He, as servant, offers Himself up for the good of others.  He expects the same of those who will be ordained to carry out His mission. I have said in the past about myself that I realize that the parish is not my kingdom nor are parishioners my subjects.  Properly, I am to be a servant of those placed under my care.  For service to be rendered necessitates  selflessness.  Every scandal the Church has ever endured has the same repugnant seed of selfishness, from Judas' betrayal to the sex scandals if recent ages.  That we are called to serve is why the pastor is called to wash the feet of his parishioners, it is meant to be humbling and remind him that he is the servant of the congregation, not its master.

However, the pastor and priests are not the only ones called to serve. Note that same chrism used in Holy Orders is used in baptism and confirmation.  Sacred Chrism was used to set aside a person as a priest, prophet, or king.  When a person is baptized, during the anointing with Chrism, they or their parents are told that they are now consecrated to share in the service of Christ, that is, in His mission. hence, all who claim to be Catholic are called to serve others and serve God: we serve God by serving others! No more than selfishness can reside in the heart of a cleric can it reside the heart of any baptized person. The Body and Blood are given to us to become better servants. So, how is it I serve today?  How is it you'll serve today? 

Lessons from my father

I apologize in advance for what I am sure will be a long entry.  Bear with me.  I have had a month now to digest what happened a month ago today.  Being an introvert, I simmer on my thoughts, slow cooking them.  I filter them through my beliefs, my knowledge, and my feelings.  It occurs to me that I had not just learned lessons from my father over the last month, but over my lifetime.  My dad had not become in his last month of life something that he was not before.  Perhaps I just saw it in its purest form.  Like a pupil whose teacher stops suddenly, I feel a bit lost in fleshing things out, but, flesh them out I must.

My dad taught me many lessons, some were easy, most were difficult.  Many he spoke of frequently, most his actions spoke most powerfully.  Many were consciously listened to, most were subconsciously taken in and molded who I am.  I write this to distill a few of those lessons.

Lesson 1: Who you are is determined by the sum of your choices.  Dad never could have been called a racist, a homophobe, a sexist, or a elitist.  He did not pretend to understand all there was about the human person, but he did know that their choices and free will actions showed the kind of person individuals were.  We were never taught to be suspicious of a person because they were different than we were.  WE were taught to differentiate the person from their failings.  He would be disappointed when people made decisions solely based on one aspect of the person ( race, gender, etc)  Dad did not believe in collecting antagonistic relationships.  Life would present enough of them on its own, there was no need to seek them.

Lesson 2: Playing politics is never worth the rewards gained.  Dad hated politics.  He hated the duplicity.  He hated the back-stabbing, manipulation, self-serving relationships, and deceit necessary to play politics well.  I am not speaking of merely politics as in governance, but more to the point, office politics.  Getting more money was never worth selling out his beliefs.  He was there to do a job and do it to the best of his abilities.  He believed in advancement by merit alone.  If that meant he got passed over for a raise or a promotion, then so be it.  Integrity mattered more than status.  It would have been easy for him to sell out and use the excuse that he had a family to provide for.  He didn't.  If he got a promotion or raise he wanted to know it was because he had earned it.  I always respected that about him.

Lesson 3: Sometimes the bad guy wins and how one deals with that says a lot about the individual.  I never heard my dad say that life was unfair.  He detested the concept of fair and unfair because it was always a subjective thing.  Fair or unfair by whose standards? By what criteria?  Sometimes you could do everything right and still get screwed.  Because you play by the rules does not mean your opponent will.  Sometimes their deceit and machinations gave them the edge.  Sometimes they won the job, the promotion, the raise, and so on. As dad found it more important to be able to look at himself in the mirror than be admired for something he wasn't.  It meant that he got up, dusted himself off, and kept doing the right thing. Sometimes you lose.  The true test of the person was whether the person could walk away with their integrity and dignity intact.  It meant many harsh lessons.  It meant giving up temporary advances and advantages.  It meant not being afraid of failure.

Lesson 4:  It is only stuff.  Dad had great attachment to people and animals.  He loved nature and was fascinated with the outdoors.  People came before things.  Always.  Taking advantage of people to get more things made no sense to him,  Despoiling the world to get more things made no sense to him.  Things were not worth it.  He didn't need copious amounts of stuff.  He lived comfortably and simply.  He could have lived much higher and simply chose not to. He wasn't cheap.  But he didn't spend money for the sake of spending money.  His taste were simple.  He could go overboard, say, on vitamins and supplements.  But for most all else, simplicity of life was what he desired.

Lesson 5: You'll not find nor create heaven on earth.  Heaven was when we died, not now.  Our task here was to be the best we could be.  We were to use God's grace, be detached from material goods, be honest, friendly, and competent.  We cannot change anyone else but ourselves and only hope that our way of life might attract others. Here, people would be dishonest, greedy, envious and power hungry and other people will suffer for it.  Accidents happen, disasters happen, sickness happens, death happens.  That is the nature of the material world.  Fighting it was futile and maddening.  It was we approached these disasters and disappointments that mattered.  He stayed positive even when there seemed no reason to be so.  He did not expect perfection here so it didn't throw him when he didn't get it.   

Lesson 6: Faith matters.  For dad, faith wasn't a set of beliefs treated like a family heirloom to be trotted out for special occasions; it was a daily lived experience.  It was what drove him.  I could go on and on about this but I think it suffices to say that if you read the other lessons, you can see how faith permeated all those lessons.

My dad was not a perfect man.  He would correct me for saying otherwise.  However, it is fair to say that he tried to be the best man he could be.  That was all that could be asked.  I assume, like myself, that when he stood before God, he wasn't asked "why weren't you as good as so and so"; he knew the question would be "what did YOU do with what I gave you."  Allow me to be  a witness for the defense and say, he taught his children what was important, how to face life as it is and not as it should be, and to never allow the drive to get ahead to diminish our loyalty to God or to those he places in our lives.

Death and faith...or lack thereof

In recent days, my dad passed away.  I have said in a previous post, my Catholic Faith has given me great solace and comfort in its teaching that since Jesus Christ, borne out of His great love for, gave His life to redeem us, frees us from enslavement to sin and death so that when we approach that moment of death we can do so with eternal hope.  My dad had this hope and desperately wanted his children to share in that hope. Because I choose to live the hope that my dad modeled for me and wanted in instill in me by having me baptized, I can approach this moment in time with intense calm and hope.  I proudly live this hertiage my dad sought to pass down to his children.

Yesterday, one of my siblings friends, a person who self-describes herself as a liberal and atheist, posted on my sister's Facebook wall a few words of comfort from her perspective.  I know she meant well in helping her friend deal with the loss of her dad, but I was struck by the hopelessness of those words and how they wanted to drag my sister into that same hopelessness, a hopelessness that my dad would have categorically disagreed with intensely and would have taken great offense that someone was using this opportunity to directly dismiss his own deep held faith with one of his children.  Again, I do not want to say that this person had malicious intent.  This person has her beliefs and in a free society she is entitled to express them.  But as someone who struggled with agnosticism in my early 20's, I can hardly condemn her.

For me, finding my way back to faith was first more an act of logic than faith.  It goes like this:  it is physically impossible for something to come from nothing.  All matter is regulated by the properties of time and space.  Logically, only that which is not bound by these properties has the ability to bring them into being, and hence the created order into existence.  It is called the ex nihilo argument for the existence of God.  That the created order is so well ordered even in the seeming chaos points to an intelligent power bearing responsibility for that created order.  It was for this reason that I could never intellectually accept atheism as a viable or logical reality.  It is not logical.  This left me at a Theist or agnostic state.  That whatever created had any relationship with that creation was another question.  That I struggled with.  I had to reconcile the faith I had studied (that my dad had passed to me) with what I saw in this world.  Why did tragedies happen?  Why did good people suffer?  Having been in the seminary, I saw a lot of activity from clerics that did not jibe with the teachings of the Church...if their knowledge couldn't provoke them to authentically live that faith, why should I then give any credence to that faith?  It was their poor witness paired with me wanting to be unshackled by what seemed an empty morality that led me to be an agnostic for a few years.

A few years went by.  Something ate at me about the worldview I was holding: It was awful convenient to hold what I was holding because it changed to locus of authority from outside myself to being myself.  Morality, hence, was whatever I wanted it to be and I found I rarely challenged myself to be a better person. I knew I was supposed to be a good person.  I was honest and diligent at work, I stepped into a supportive role for my siblings after my parents divorced, but I was slightly promiscuous, incredibly materialistic and not a happy person.  I chain smoked.  I was argumentative.  I had a hair string temper.  I had ulcers.  I was comfortable in my agnosticism on one level, but felt a great abyss of emptiness inside that no money, power, or pleasure could sate.  I remember one night sitting on my deck in Missouri and realizing that there would never be enough money, promotions, toys, sex, or other pleasures to fill what was lacking.  Life became futile and meaningless in that absolutely everything that I was could be taken from me and at best all I could get was temporary relief.  I fought returning to faith because it too had disappointed me.  I refer to that next 6 months as the dark night.  I remembered something from my seminary days, a quote from St Augustine: "our hearts are restless until they rest in you."  My heart was most definitely restless and unfulfilled by the earthly trinkets that surrounded me.  Then I started taking the next logical steps.

What made more sense: that this creator created with or without a reason or purpose?  Logically, it made greater sense that there would be intent and hence reason and purpose.  What made more sense:  that the reasons would be malicious or beneficial?  I remember my dad taking me on hikes when I was 4th grader in Indiana.  He loved the outdoors and would point out while we were walking what kind of tree, plant, bird, animal, or rock I was looking at. He is responsible for my love of nature and the outdoors.  I thought much later in life as to why we call natural disasters 'Acts of God', but we don't refer to newly blooming flower, the beauty of new life, the awesomeness of a mountain range, the splendor of a sunrise, the warmth of friendship, the sounds of a gentle rain, the smell of a spring meadow, the sound of a child's laugh, "acts of God' as well?
The earth was full of beauty both profound and simple and co-existed with the ugliness, suffering, and agonies of life.  However because our bodies and the created order are limited to time and space, we grow old, we get sick, and our bodies cease to function.  However, there was something in me that knew that there was more.  That started me on the road of faith.  I saw the profound difference it made in others and I wanted that for myself.

My dad had every reason to be a bitter man by worldly standards.  He was snatched from his home by DFS as a pre-teen.  He bounced from one horrific foster home to another till my grandparents adopted him.  His 23 year marriage ended badly.  He never got rich.  He never got powerful.  He had an incurable disease in Parkinsons that would eventually make his mind a prisoner of his body.  I could go on and on about how many things he had to endure and the disappointments this life heaped on him, however, as I watched my dad in this last month, I saw a man of deep faith who was full of joy even as his body was turning against him.  In that last month, I witnessed a man at peace with the world, with God, and with himself.  As I sat by his bed with two very good friends and watched him take his last breath, I can not describe adequately the calm and peace of that moment.  Everything inside me told me that all that my dad had hoped and desired in this life, he was  now experiencing.  I'll not allow any atheist to rob me or my family of that moment.  I will not allow them to infuse their hopeless world view into this moment.  This person can believe what she wants, but I choose not to share in such a maudlin worldview or allow my siblings to hear that view unchallenged.  

Anyone who knows me well or has heard me preach knows that our Catholic preaches that we are to be a people who merciful, charitable, kind, forgiving, compassionate, faithful stewards of God's gifts, including the world in which we live, and faithful witnesses of Christ.  When we fail to live to these standards, we give scandal and give ample fuel to those who would dismiss God and faith altogether.  Dad knew this and grew more and more into this and wanted his children to know the fulfillment he felt.  It troubled him that not all did.  I know it troubled him when I didn't.  I know he now prays for his children and grandchildren because he wants us to be with him...he modeled a path...if we are wise we will try to walk on it despite all life throws at us.  I told my dad two things minutes before he passed from this life: I would take care of his dog for as long as Buddy lived and that I would watch out for my brothers and sisters.  I asked him to intercede to help me do these things.

To my sister's friend:  I know you meant well.  You wanted to comfort my sister and I deeply appreciate that.  However she is my dad's daughter first.  Both you and I have made our decisions.  Fair enough.  I introduce a little philosophical nugget known as Pascal's Wager in reference to God. If you are right and I am wrong, I can live with that.  I have spent the majority of my life inviting people to be selfless, to be merciful and forgiving, to be good stewards of our blessings, to help those in need, to respect the integrity and  dignity of every human person..even though at times I can fail to live up fully to that.  If you are rightI wont' be cognizant to realize it anyway and thus have no regrets.  I have a joyful and fulfilled life even though I will never be wealthy, powerful, or indulge in certain pleasures.  I have that same calm and peace my dad had and I see it as the most precious part of his inheritance and example for me and my siblings.  However, if I am right, then I have lived a life that has told God my desire for heaven and union with Him and you have rejected him.  All judgment amounts to is a verification of our own free choice.  God condemns no one to hell, it is a personal choice each person makes.  Truth be told, I would just as soon have you on my side.  Yes there are things in the created order that bring sickness, suffering and death...but we were not created to just be here...here is transitory at best.  If God has indeed given us a part that will transcend time and space (the soul), my ultimate hope and peace lies there.  That is why when my dad whom I loved a great deal passed from this life, I had no sense of loss or any sense of overwhelming grief, ( I did cry profusely as I spoke my good-bye, my promise to carry on the heritage he wanted to pass on to me and my siblings and his grandchildren and ask for his help), the legacy of faith my dad left filled that moment with intense calm and peace.

At his funeral this coming week, it will be celebration of my dad and his deep felt and well justified faith in God.  Dad suffered greatly and had his long Good Friday...now is the time to celebrate his share in Easter.
The closing song of my dad's funeral mass will proclaim his belief, my belief,  and the belief of every faith filled Christian:

Sing with all the saints in glory,

sing the resurrection son!

death and sorrow, earth's dark story

to former days belong!

All around the clouds are breaking

soon the storms of time shall cease.

In God's likeness we, awaking,

know the everlasting peace!