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.

Why have Catholic Schools? Thoughts on Catholic Schools Week

This week is Catholic Schools Week in this country, a time when we celebrate the Catholic parochial school system, interparochial schools and High Schools, and other Catholic Institutions of learning.  The teaching of our youth in both the ways of the faith and in the other areas of education have long been an important part of our Mission as  a church.  Parochial schools in this country have been in the forefront in many ways.  We established schools among the Native American peoples when most others were disinterested. We had the first desegregated  schools system in this country when the St Louis Catholic School system ended segregation in its school system, almost decade before segregation was struck down by the US Supreme Court.  We can look at great saints in this country such as St Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. John Nuemann who were champions of the early parochial schools in this country.  These schools grew despite the bias and prejudice leveled against Catholics.  These schools help to provide Catholic identity for generations of students through the American centuries.  We have a great legacy in our possession.

There has been much criticism leveled at Catholic Schools.  Some say they are a hiding place for the wealthy and elite who want their children away from the riff raff of public schools even though Catholic schools will bring in such students in an effort to help.  The popular media likes to portray the nuns who staffed schools for many decades as humorless witches who took delight in tormenting children even though many nuns happily served for most of their life in the education of our youth and most were good people.  Some say our schools have lost their Catholic identity and look and act no different than their public counterparts.  In some respects this has happened, but it is my experience that this is easily remedied and I have found both my teachers and administrators in the 4 Catholic schools over which I have been pastor most amendable to suggestions I have mad to bolster Catholic identity and change over catachetical programs.  In fact, I found our teachers and administrators to be overall good people, very active in other aspects of the parish other than the school, and dedicated to the Catholic mission even though teaching at a Catholic School means a substantial lessening of salary as compared to what they could get for the same position in a public school.

In my homily this evening, I reminded the congregants who were there for the Mass opening the Catholic School week, that we as a Church, are in, for lack of a better phrase, the business of the salvation of souls.  Our Mission is the Mission of Jesus Christ, through and through.  Any program or thing that is done in a parish is to be about the salvation of souls (as we see in this weekend's Gospel) and thus to share in prophetic role of Jesus Christ to announce and exemplify the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Our schools must be connected entirely in the proclamation of the Gospel and model themselves exclusively after Christ.

I also remarked that the message we hear in our education (which had better be the Gospel...otherwise great harm is inflicted) and in our Church's teachings are not the only message vying for the ears of our children.  Between basketball games this afternoon, I watched a selection of shows on channels who aim at our children.  I was appalled at the messages and models regularly presented as normative behavior.  Adult authority figures (parents & teachers) were portrayed as self-involved, distant, clueless, cruel, easily dismissible characters made to be circumvented or ignored.  Kids were precocious  know-it-alls.  Teen boys were either betrayed as hopelessly insecure and nerdy or as suave users with the moral compass of a tapeworm.  Teen girls were portrayed as hopelessly insecure or so absolutely mean and manipulative as to be outright demonic.  I will not even get into the hedonistic lyrics set to awful tunes that most music is.  The point is that parents need to be vigilant that the message consumed by their children at home and in how they entertain themselves does not undo what we teach them as matters of faith and morals.  There must be a consistent message or the purpose for having Catholic schools becomes undone.  Now, undoubtedly, some will read this and remark that we can't hide this stuff from children.  My answer is to ask whether you allow your children to eat from a garbage can or swim in a sewer lagoon?   Of course not, you protect your children from such things because of the adverse effect it has and explain how these things are dangerous and harmful.  That would be part of the parents' duty of being the primary teacher of their children.  If we wouldn't allow them to partake in things that would actively destroy their bodies which will eventually die many decades form now, why on earth would we allow them to engage in activities that will destroy their souls that are eternal?  The Catholic education given in our schools cannot end once the student leaves the school building...it must continue throughout the rest of the day!   This is why I politely remind our parents (okay..not always so politely) that when the absent themselves from Mass on the weekends, they are undoing one of the core reasons we have Catholic Schools.  There can be no mixed message.

I, as a pastor, have absolutely no interest in running a private school.  None.  I am very interested in running a Catholic School.  Catholicism as we rightly teach it is not a light switch we turn on and off as a matter of convenience.  It is meant to inform and effect everything about us.  This is the foremost mission of the Church and any institution that calls itself Catholic.  As Catholics, we must remember, it is not our job to make the the faith more like the world, but to make the world more like our faith.  To do that, we must be armed with truth and not allow ourselves or our children to be influenced by worldly wisdom with its tales of violence, hedonism, materialistic attitudes driven by greed and envy, selfishness, revenge, and its cheap and disposable attitude about the value of life.  We, as adults in the Church, both parents, educators, and clergy are to be the watchmen at the gates and those who train our children when it becomes their turns to be those sentinels.  We have seen what happens when the aforementioned groups fail in these responsibilities, or worse yet, act in union with the enemy and prey upon our youth...we must want what is good and that which faithfully passes on our Catholic faith to the next generation.  That is why we have Catholic schools.

Transference, Barney, and Rebellion: Things to avoid in following God's will

The readings for this week have been so wonderfully apropos for this week where we as a Church remember vocations and pray for them during Vocations Awareness Week. Hopefully this isn't news to you.  The first reading are from I Samuel, with yesterday's being the call of Samuel.  This reading happens to be the 1st reading for this weekend.  While the young Samuel is mistaking the call of God for the voice of the priest, Eli, finally Eli understands that God is calling the boy and tells Samuel to respond with "speak, Lord, you servant is listening."  What a bold statement!  This statement is supposed to be at the heart of every Christian every day.  The responsorial psalm for that day (and coincidentally this weekend as well) has the response of "Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will."  Again, another simple statement that should be at the center of how we live. Were every Catholic to really capture this, all of the problems we experience within the Church would simply dry up.  Vocation crisis? Gone!  Scandals within the Church?  Never would have happened?  Numbers of practicing Catholics dwindling?  Not any more? I could go on and on with this list, the upshot is that if we were to live out these two simple sentences, there would profound change and great good.  So why isn't it happening?

My first guess is a what I would call a simple case of transference.  We become suspect when we hear that we are called to do God's will.  We transfer onto God what He means by that with what we mean by that.  We know that our wills can be awful self-centered.  We know that we can want other people to do our will because it suits us to have them to do so.  In this light, God comes across as a eternal me-monkey  with a colossal ego that needs to be stroked lest He go all Rambo on you.  We assume that God is every bit as self-centered as humanity and bristle at the idea of having to serve such a megalomaniac!   However, God is not such.  Instead of being self-centered, He is other centered, that is, he loves us and wants what is best for us now and for all eternity.  He watches out for us and want to protect us.  When He asks us to do His will, He asks us to be other-centered (that is to be truly loving) as He is and thus to watch out for the true good around us. 

My second guess would be what I call the "Barney Syndrome".  In this scenario we accept that God loves us.  We even believe that God unconditionally loves us and wants what is best.  Where the breakdown starts is that in believing these things we fail to make the jump that we are called to model out behavior on His.  God becomes the Great Enabler.  Instead of "Here I am Lord, I come to do your will", the response becomes "Turn the other way God, I want to do my will!"  God's job is to rubber stamp whatever I want to do.  Furthermore He is suppose to bless it as if I were doing His will!  This God doesn't have a hell because everybody gets into heaven, unless, like, you know, you're like Adolf Hitler and stuff.  The morality bar is set as low as needed to accommodate whatever it is I want to do.  The problem here is that if we enter into a relationship with God, a relationship necessary for heaven, then the love goes both ways. As with a good marriage where the two spouses are actively concerned with the other person's needs , our relationship with God is bound on our looking out for God's will (which as above said, looks out for our good) as He looks out for what we need.  God blesses this.  God, however, is not one to taunted, ignored, or dismissed.  He is not the great enabler.  He allows us to make our choice about whose will we follow and then bear out the consequences of those choices.

My third guess is outright rebellion. In the story of Samuel, Samuel is given to the High Priest, Eli, because Samuel is called to serve the Lord.  Eli has to sons who are priests as well: Phineas and Hophni.  They were self-centered men who has the audacity to steal from God what was His during the sacrifices.  Not only were they indifferent to God, they were outright hostile.  Their response to God wasn't "Here I am Lord, I come to do your will" it was "Go away God, I am going to do my will." Phineas and Hophni push away the hand of God because they have no desire for a relationship with God, especially a relationship that will require them to change.  Without God's hand, they are destroyed.  This story is repeated over and over again.  God does not want such things to happen, but He allows the consequences of our choices to happen if we are insistent upon it.  On a slightly separate note: why we think as Americans, that we can push God out of the public sphere, routinely mock Him and those in relationship with Him, replace Him with materialism,  lust for power, hedonism, and materialism, how we can surgically excise from any avenue of our school children's life, mock His existence,  pile corpse upon corpse with our violence, abortion, and disregard for the basic needs of other and then have the audacity to demand that His only job, if He exists at all, is to make happy and bless whatever it is I want...just baffles me!

The point is that we are called to rise above transference,  Barney, and rebellion and follow God in our lives knowing that His will is always oriented towards our collective best interest.  There is no reason to be afraid.  If we want the vocations we collectively need, it will be in having the faith to say "Here I am Lord, I come to do your will."  If we want true peace in our parishes and to be free from scandals of all sort, then again, we will have to conform our will to God's.  If we want true unity and peace in our country, it will come from living, actually living, the Gospel which calls us for defer to each other in imitation of Christ.  If we want strong marriages and family life, then it will only be through this mutual submission of will for the good of others.  God is not a rubber stamp to approve of a life divorced from His will, nor is he a giant purple doofus who enables reckless and selfish behavior, nor is He one who is to mocked.  He wants what is truly good for us and leads us to peace.  We have to want that to!  How will you, the reader, live up to "Here I am Lord, I come to do your will" today?  How will your life reflect that?

Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places

Today is the New Hampshire Primary.  The good people of NH will have to chose between 5 imperfect candidates that the GOP has trotted out for this year's election.  Then will come South Carolina.  Before you know it it will be Super Tuesday, then the Convention and the GOP will put their flawed candidate against the flawed Democrat candidate, we will pick the one who we believe will do the lesser damage and rest for a few months before we start talking about the 2016 presidential elections.  In November, millions of flawed individuals will vote for their flawed candidates and we will be saddled with 4 years of flawed leadership.  Now, before anyone thinks I have finally jumped in the deep end of the pool of cynicism, I am still in the kiddy pool.  All these flawed people are just your average human beings.  My only compliant is that we will have all these flawed individuals voting  based out of their vested interest, whether or not that interest is in the best interest of the country as a whole.  We wonder why things are a mess.

This is nothing new under the sun.  It is probably exacerbated by voters who think the only job of government is to make their personal life better.  It does not matter whether it is the person who thinks if only the government would quit taking boatloads of their money, their lives would be so much better or it the person who believes that if the government would only send them boatloads on someone else's money their lives would be so much better, it is all the same.  It is the same template: Candidate A or B will get me what I want so I will vote for candidate A or B.  Want to guess why we are in so much debt with no real will to not keep piling up more debt?  So it goes, even if for me to get what I want means other people have to be plundered or forgotten, so be it.  Such is the lot for those who place their faith in the things of this world: wealth, power, and pleasure.

Me?  I don't place my hope and my future on the whims of politics or politicians.  It seems a foolish thing to do. Not to sound like a certain evangelical TV preacher who has a tendency to sound dotty once in a while, I think we are trying to find answers for the bigger questions in life from those incapable of answering them.  While I do want a happy life, I know that most of that happiness will come from my decisions and choices and from what I hold to be important.  No government official can do that for me.  It is unfair to believe any person can.  I decided on another rout about a year and half ago.  What worried me was my finances.  I was deeply in debt and worried about how I would ever be able to catch up.  I went through cycle of running up bills, getting loans to pay bills, running up bills again, and so on.  Finally, I knew the only way to combat this was to change the routine.  Over the next 18 months I paid off all of the debt without taking on loans.  That meant living simply.  No movies (okay, 1), no concerts, simple vacations, very little new anything. Now the debt is gone, I found out that living simply suited me, and I do not worry about finances now.  In this process, I found the endless pursuit of more and better had left me with lots of stuff I didn't need or use and a mountain of debt.  No government official can do that for me!  I don't need someone else's money to make me happy, I am more at peace now than I have ever been.  But financial freedom is not the only reason or the major reason.

The major reason is that, although I am a priest,  I had let love for the things of this world get in the way of my devotion to God.  I used material wealth to try and satiate what should have been God's.  Now, that relationship with God expands because I have found His grace and help to be more satisfying than anything this world had to offer.  How do you think I was able to have the self-control to pay off the debt?  I asked for His help.  I also found that without the worries of the world pressing down on me, I was much more effective as a priest because my head was where it needed to be.  Furthermore, it has affected how I am a pastor and how I guide this parish of which I am pastor.  I now know why Canon Law tells priest to live simple lives. Silly me for not taking it seriously.  My happiness does not hinge on a politician and their empty promises nor on the accumulation of this world's goods.  I found a place that was worthy of my devotion and love; my parish, My relationship with God, my family, and my friends.

My attitude about politics is simple: good governance enables the individual to what is good and right.  Such is not the case with our government.  Our government forces people in the medical  professions to act against their conscience when it comes to abortion and contraception.  It provokes greed and envy as a way of getting votes.  It provokes class warfare and any other divisive means it can to cater to the absolute worst in humanity.  It is reckless.  Placing my faith there?  Not so much!  I want better!   It rewards the old abandonment of faith for Catholics if they wish to win in public office.  The old "I will not allow my faith to influence how I vote" is a load of nonsense.  If faith means nothing in the public prevue, then why bother having it?   Faith is not a talisman meant to hedge our bets just in case there is some divine entity out there who doesn't mind being routinely ignored.  You vote where your faith and happiness lie; as Christ said," where your treasure is, there your heart will be."  I have seen the crap that the world unloads as treasure.  It is temporary and destructible and can be seized at any given moment.  So I am not looking for love there.  No one who calls themselves a Christian should.  Civil governments have failed for millennia  to provide universal happiness.  Why do we keep looking to them?  Elections come and go.  The same exact promises have been made every election cycle for as long I can remember with little to no positive change.  I want more and better, which is why I am looking for love, so to speak, in all the right places.