As Bishop Sartain said last night, quoting Paul, "For me, Christ is life." This echoes the theme of Sunday's readings, immortality (readings for RCIA). For immortality is im-mortal, that is, life forever.
How do mortals think about "life forever"? We tend to think of the soul as "automatically" immortal. In other words, immortality is part of the soul's "substance" (what it means to be a soul). Earlier in the 20th Century, a theologian named Paul Althaus disagreed with this, writing: "Whether believers or not, it is God who makes us endure. He it is who enables us to persist, through all the reality of death in which we are lost to ourselves. He makes us endure and, in resurrection, gives us back to ourselves once more so that we may stand before his judgment-seat and live." In other words, we really go out of existence upon our death, and only God, who gives life initially, can bring about our resurrection.
I read some interesting comments by then-Cardinal Ratzinger on this topic in his book Eschatology (pp.150-153), comments that go to the question of how "immortal life" is made available to mortals. According to Ratzinger, Gregory of Nyssa, in a homily, gives a magnificent witness to Christian continuity with the thought of antiquity, and to its transmutation:
"Gregory's homily comments on a saying of the Lord preserved in St. Matthew's gospel (Mt.5:8): "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Behind this beatitude, we can discern another saying of Jesus, from his high-priestly prayer: "This is eternal life, that they may know you." (Jn.17:3)
"The Greek longing for vision, the Greek awareness that vision is life -- that knowledge, being wedded to the truth, is life -- this mighty outreach of the Greek spirit towards the truth here finds its confirmation and final resting-place.
"Yet this word filled with hope and promise at first strikes man as we know him with a sense of despair, of the absurdity of his existence. Seeing God: that is life! But the ancient wisdom of the peoples, echoed by the Bible from the Pentateuch to Paul and John, tells us that no one can see God. He who would see God dies. Man wants to see God, for only then can he live. But his strength cannot bear such a sight.
"Gregory of Nyssa: "If God be Life, then anyone who does not see God does not see life. However, the prophets and the apostle testify: no one can see God . . ."
"And so the human situation may be compared with that of Peter trying to walk upon the waters of Gennesareth. He wants to get across to the Lord, but he cannot. The philosopher, we might say, is Peter on the lake, wishing to step beyond mortality and glimpse life but not succeeding, indeed sinking beneath the waves. For all his capacity to speculate about immortality, in the end he cannot stand. The waters of mortality bear down his will to see. Only the Lord's outstretched hand can save sinking Peter, that is, humankind.
"That hand reaches out for us in the saying, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Philosophical understanding remains a walking on the waters: it yields no solid ground. Only God incarnate can draw us out of the waters by his power and hold us firm. His promise is that we will attain the vision of God, which is life, not through speculative thinking, but by the purity of an undivided heart, in the faith and love which take the Lord's hand are are led by it.
"Here, then, owing to a christological transformation, the Platonist notion of the life which flows from truth is rendered more profound, and made the vehicle of a "dialogical" concept of humanity: man is defined by his intercourse with God. At the same time, this new concept makes absolutely concrete claims about the things which will set us right on the path of immortality, and so changes a seemingly speculative theme into something eminently practical. The "purification" of the heart which comes about in our daily lives, through the patience which faith and its offspring, love, engender, that purification finds its mainstay in the Lord who makes the paradoxical walking on the waters a possibility and so gives meaning to an otherwise absurd existence. Phil.1:21; John 3:16-21."
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
More from "Death on a Friday Afternoon"
From chapter two:
'Certainly Jesus was bearing the pain of Dysmas, and of the other thief, and of all humanity... "Today you will be with me in paradise." Jesus does not reject any who turn to him. At times we turn to him with little faith, at times with a mix of faith and doubt when we are more sure of the doubt than the faith. Jesus is not fastidious about the quality of faith. He takes what he can get, so to speak, and gives immeasurably more than he receives. He takes our faith more seriously than we do and makes of it more than we ever could. His response to our faith is greater than our faith.'
'Jesus had said, "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." He laid down his life for his friend Dysmas.
We are his friends, not because we have befriended him, but because he has befriended us. Jesus had said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you." Dysmas was chosen, from eternity to eternity. Before he so painfully turned his head to ask... the gift was already given. And so it is with us. Look at him who is ever looking at you. With whatever faith you have, however feeble and flickering and mixed with doubt, look at him. Look at him with whatever faith you have and know that your worry about your lack of faith is itself a sign of faith. Do not look at your faith. Look at him. Keep looking, and faith will take care of itself.'
'Certainly Jesus was bearing the pain of Dysmas, and of the other thief, and of all humanity... "Today you will be with me in paradise." Jesus does not reject any who turn to him. At times we turn to him with little faith, at times with a mix of faith and doubt when we are more sure of the doubt than the faith. Jesus is not fastidious about the quality of faith. He takes what he can get, so to speak, and gives immeasurably more than he receives. He takes our faith more seriously than we do and makes of it more than we ever could. His response to our faith is greater than our faith.'
'Jesus had said, "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." He laid down his life for his friend Dysmas.
We are his friends, not because we have befriended him, but because he has befriended us. Jesus had said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you." Dysmas was chosen, from eternity to eternity. Before he so painfully turned his head to ask... the gift was already given. And so it is with us. Look at him who is ever looking at you. With whatever faith you have, however feeble and flickering and mixed with doubt, look at him. Look at him with whatever faith you have and know that your worry about your lack of faith is itself a sign of faith. Do not look at your faith. Look at him. Keep looking, and faith will take care of itself.'
Friday, March 27, 2009
Maintaining a Sense of Humor
Death on a Friday Afternoon also contains some humor.
Quoting from page 16:
"The story is told of the Rabbi and Cantor who, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, lament their sins at great length, each concluding that he is a nobody. Then the sexton, inspired by their example, laments his sins and declares that he, too, is a nobody. "Nuh,” says the Rabbi to the Cantor. "Who is he to be a nobody?"
Quoting from page 16:
"The story is told of the Rabbi and Cantor who, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, lament their sins at great length, each concluding that he is a nobody. Then the sexton, inspired by their example, laments his sins and declares that he, too, is a nobody. "Nuh,” says the Rabbi to the Cantor. "Who is he to be a nobody?"
Reflections on Good Friday
I’ve been home sick for the past three days with a lot of time on my hands. So I picked up my copy of Fr. John Neuhaus’ Death on a Friday Afternoon. I have never read the entire book. I don't know how many times I've read the first 30 or 40 pages. I am determined to finish it this reading, no excuses. There are many parts of the book that strike home and there are many parts of the book that are difficult to accept. I will quote a portion from the first chapter.
‘Of the son [the prodigal son] it is said, “he came to his senses,” and coming to his senses he came to his father.
Good Friday brings us to our senses. Our senses come to us as we sense that in this life and in this death is our life and our death. The truth about the crucified Lord is the truth about ourselves.... The beginning of wisdom is to come to our senses and know the fearful truth about ourselves, that we have wandered and wasted our days in a distant country far from home. We know ourselves most truly in knowing Christ, for in him is our true self. Or so Christians say. His cross is the way home to the waiting Father. "If you would come to your senses," he says, "come, follow me."
In the ancient Christian fathers spoke of the Christ event as the “recapitulation” of the entire human drama. In this one life, all lives are summed up; in the eternal present of this one life, the past is encompassed, the future is anticipated and the life of Everyman and Everywoman is most truly lived. "I am the way, the truth, and the life," he said. Not a way among other ways, not a truth among other truths, not a life among other lives, but the way of all ways, the truth of all truths in the life of all lives. Recapitulation. It means, quite simply and solemnly, that this is your life, this is my life and we have not come to our senses until we sense ourselves in the life, and death, of Christ. This is the axis mundi.
"When I came to you," writes St. Paul to the Corinthians, "I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." Stay a while. Do not hurry by the cross on your way to Easter joy, for we know the risen Lord only through Christ and him crucified.'
‘Of the son [the prodigal son] it is said, “he came to his senses,” and coming to his senses he came to his father.
Good Friday brings us to our senses. Our senses come to us as we sense that in this life and in this death is our life and our death. The truth about the crucified Lord is the truth about ourselves.... The beginning of wisdom is to come to our senses and know the fearful truth about ourselves, that we have wandered and wasted our days in a distant country far from home. We know ourselves most truly in knowing Christ, for in him is our true self. Or so Christians say. His cross is the way home to the waiting Father. "If you would come to your senses," he says, "come, follow me."
In the ancient Christian fathers spoke of the Christ event as the “recapitulation” of the entire human drama. In this one life, all lives are summed up; in the eternal present of this one life, the past is encompassed, the future is anticipated and the life of Everyman and Everywoman is most truly lived. "I am the way, the truth, and the life," he said. Not a way among other ways, not a truth among other truths, not a life among other lives, but the way of all ways, the truth of all truths in the life of all lives. Recapitulation. It means, quite simply and solemnly, that this is your life, this is my life and we have not come to our senses until we sense ourselves in the life, and death, of Christ. This is the axis mundi.
"When I came to you," writes St. Paul to the Corinthians, "I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." Stay a while. Do not hurry by the cross on your way to Easter joy, for we know the risen Lord only through Christ and him crucified.'
Friday, March 20, 2009
This from the Tribune's voice of the people on March 18:
Sacrifice during Lent
"Catholics worldwide have made their decisions regarding what to give up for Lent. Is it candy, ice cream, movies, television or some other pleasure? The idea is to share in the suffering that the Bible says was experienced by Jesus at his crucifixion. However, when all of this self-denial is added up, it's very difficult to see that anything worthwhile is accomplished. Just imagine the actual good that would result if all Catholics shifted their focus from denying themselves pleasure to providing help to their fellow human beings by donating to a charity or volunteering to help the less fortunate. Now that would make Lent a most worthwhile season. —Jeff Robertson, Orland Hills"
The rather typical sentiment of a "modern" secular man, for whom ascetic conduct doesn't "accomplish anything worthwhile."
Now listen to Pope Benedict XVI in his Ash Wednesday homily:
"For this year’s Lenten Message, I wish to focus my reflections especially on the value and meaning of fasting. . . We might wonder what value and meaning there is for us Christians in depriving ourselves of something that in itself is good and useful for our bodily sustenance. The Sacred Scriptures and the entire Christian tradition teach that fasting is a great help to avoid sin and all that leads to it. For this reason, the history of salvation is replete with occasions that invite fasting. . .In the New Testament, Jesus brings to light the profound motive for fasting. . . [t]rue fasting, as the divine Master repeats elsewhere, is rather to do the will of the Heavenly Father, who “sees in secret, and will reward you” (Mt 6,18).
In our own day, fasting seems to have lost something of its spiritual meaning, and has taken on, in a culture characterized by the search for material well-being, a therapeutic value for the care of one’s body. Fasting . . . is, in the first place, a “therapy” to heal all that prevents them from conformity to the will of God.
"At the same time, fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live. In his First Letter, Saint John admonishes: “If anyone has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, yet shuts up his bowels of compassion from him – how does the love of God abide in him?” (3,17). Voluntary fasting enables us to grow in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who bends low and goes to the help of his suffering brother (cf. Encyclical Deus caritas est, 15).
"By freely embracing an act of self-denial for the sake of another, we make a statement that our brother or sister in need is not a stranger. It is precisely to keep alive this welcoming and attentive attitude towards our brothers and sisters that I encourage the parishes and every other community to intensify in Lent the custom of private and communal fasts, joined to the reading of the Word of God, prayer and almsgiving. From the beginning, this has been the hallmark of the Christian community, in which special collections were taken up (cf. 2 Cor 8-9; Rm 15, 25-27), the faithful being invited to give to the poor what had been set aside from their fast (Didascalia Ap., V, 20,18). This practice needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially during the liturgical season of Lent."
If, as the writer intimated, one either fasts or does good deeds, his point would be valid. But the dichotomy he draws is false, as the pope shows. The two great commandments can only be fulfilled together.
Sacrifice during Lent
"Catholics worldwide have made their decisions regarding what to give up for Lent. Is it candy, ice cream, movies, television or some other pleasure? The idea is to share in the suffering that the Bible says was experienced by Jesus at his crucifixion. However, when all of this self-denial is added up, it's very difficult to see that anything worthwhile is accomplished. Just imagine the actual good that would result if all Catholics shifted their focus from denying themselves pleasure to providing help to their fellow human beings by donating to a charity or volunteering to help the less fortunate. Now that would make Lent a most worthwhile season. —Jeff Robertson, Orland Hills"
The rather typical sentiment of a "modern" secular man, for whom ascetic conduct doesn't "accomplish anything worthwhile."
Now listen to Pope Benedict XVI in his Ash Wednesday homily:
"For this year’s Lenten Message, I wish to focus my reflections especially on the value and meaning of fasting. . . We might wonder what value and meaning there is for us Christians in depriving ourselves of something that in itself is good and useful for our bodily sustenance. The Sacred Scriptures and the entire Christian tradition teach that fasting is a great help to avoid sin and all that leads to it. For this reason, the history of salvation is replete with occasions that invite fasting. . .In the New Testament, Jesus brings to light the profound motive for fasting. . . [t]rue fasting, as the divine Master repeats elsewhere, is rather to do the will of the Heavenly Father, who “sees in secret, and will reward you” (Mt 6,18).
In our own day, fasting seems to have lost something of its spiritual meaning, and has taken on, in a culture characterized by the search for material well-being, a therapeutic value for the care of one’s body. Fasting . . . is, in the first place, a “therapy” to heal all that prevents them from conformity to the will of God.
"At the same time, fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live. In his First Letter, Saint John admonishes: “If anyone has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, yet shuts up his bowels of compassion from him – how does the love of God abide in him?” (3,17). Voluntary fasting enables us to grow in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who bends low and goes to the help of his suffering brother (cf. Encyclical Deus caritas est, 15).
"By freely embracing an act of self-denial for the sake of another, we make a statement that our brother or sister in need is not a stranger. It is precisely to keep alive this welcoming and attentive attitude towards our brothers and sisters that I encourage the parishes and every other community to intensify in Lent the custom of private and communal fasts, joined to the reading of the Word of God, prayer and almsgiving. From the beginning, this has been the hallmark of the Christian community, in which special collections were taken up (cf. 2 Cor 8-9; Rm 15, 25-27), the faithful being invited to give to the poor what had been set aside from their fast (Didascalia Ap., V, 20,18). This practice needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially during the liturgical season of Lent."
If, as the writer intimated, one either fasts or does good deeds, his point would be valid. But the dichotomy he draws is false, as the pope shows. The two great commandments can only be fulfilled together.
Religion and Crisis
From a blog post by Sharon Astyk regarding the role of religious organizations in the economic crisis:
And this is one of the things that sometimes drives me crazy about the hostility people have to religion. I’ve no objection to people thinking my faith is a fairy tale - that’s fine. But when people begin ranting about the evils of religion, but wonder why so many adhere, I ask them - ok, fair enough. But are you burying the dead? Where are the organizations to provide secular burial and rituals for the grieving? Where is your rationale for loving even the really annoying people in our society who still need people who will talk to them and care for them? Are you out there at the secular food pantry? The secular shelter? The justice work, the fundraising for the poor? Where do you provide free counseling for those dealing with personal trauma, help people wed and welcome babies into the world? I’ve no objection to strong secular institutions these things arising - I would welcome them. But I don’t see them, and I don’t think they will come rapidly into place before the hard times hit - since that would be now.
Like it or not, the existing structures many of us have for all these things, and also basic community building are religious. That doesn’t mean that people willing to work at it can’t locate or build secular communities - they can. But the easy access that is already in place is often in religious communities, particularly in rural and suburban areas.
And this is one of the things that sometimes drives me crazy about the hostility people have to religion. I’ve no objection to people thinking my faith is a fairy tale - that’s fine. But when people begin ranting about the evils of religion, but wonder why so many adhere, I ask them - ok, fair enough. But are you burying the dead? Where are the organizations to provide secular burial and rituals for the grieving? Where is your rationale for loving even the really annoying people in our society who still need people who will talk to them and care for them? Are you out there at the secular food pantry? The secular shelter? The justice work, the fundraising for the poor? Where do you provide free counseling for those dealing with personal trauma, help people wed and welcome babies into the world? I’ve no objection to strong secular institutions these things arising - I would welcome them. But I don’t see them, and I don’t think they will come rapidly into place before the hard times hit - since that would be now.
Like it or not, the existing structures many of us have for all these things, and also basic community building are religious. That doesn’t mean that people willing to work at it can’t locate or build secular communities - they can. But the easy access that is already in place is often in religious communities, particularly in rural and suburban areas.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Screwtape Update
Hello Spirit Lovers. At Saturdays meeting we’ll be picking up The Screwtape Letters at letter 18.
In Letter 18:
“The Enemy’s [God’s] demand on humans takes the form of a dilemma; I either complete abstinence or unmitigated monogamy. Ever since our Father’s (Satan’s) first great victory, we have rendered the former very difficult to them."
Later in the same letter, "He aims at contradiction. Things are to be many, yet somehow also one. The good of one self is to be the good of another. This impossibility he calls love."
In Letter 19
If he believes "Love is both irresistible and somehow intrinsically meritorious... it can be used to steer the patient into a useful marriage.... there must be several young women in your patient's neighborhood who would render the Christian life intensely difficult to him if only you could persuade him to marry one of them". Does Lewis expose a somewhat cynical view of marriage in this comment?
In letter 21
"Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckons on having had at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him.” Oh, my gosh! He has never even met me!
See you on Saturday
In Letter 18:
“The Enemy’s [God’s] demand on humans takes the form of a dilemma; I either complete abstinence or unmitigated monogamy. Ever since our Father’s (Satan’s) first great victory, we have rendered the former very difficult to them."
Later in the same letter, "He aims at contradiction. Things are to be many, yet somehow also one. The good of one self is to be the good of another. This impossibility he calls love."
In Letter 19
If he believes "Love is both irresistible and somehow intrinsically meritorious... it can be used to steer the patient into a useful marriage.... there must be several young women in your patient's neighborhood who would render the Christian life intensely difficult to him if only you could persuade him to marry one of them". Does Lewis expose a somewhat cynical view of marriage in this comment?
In letter 21
"Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckons on having had at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him.” Oh, my gosh! He has never even met me!
See you on Saturday
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Two Cents
I commend Matt for raising issues that deserve reflection. I fully understand the problems he raises, and can see how he feels the way he does.
Yet, I can't get too excited about the issues Matt raises for a few reasons. We need our Christian friends to raise a common front against the (increasingly numerous) enemies of Christianity. Let's not let internecine disagreements obscure who our real enemies are. It's true that sometimes people who profess to be Christians are our enemies (sad but true). But I don't think Melody Eastman is, even though she wears a Roman collar, and belongs to a Christian denomination that holds "squishier" positions on abortion than the Catholic Church does.
Trying to view her charitably I see her as very much wanting to focus on issues close to Catholic Social Doctrine and spiritual life. I have never heard her speak about views on abortion, and I don't think she takes a public position that would justify the bishops' sanction against allowing her into our midst. (I fully agree with the bishops' restrictions, by the way.) If there is cause against her, it should be shown, and we should not be involved with her, in my view. But one of my best friends, a guy I think embodies the Christian spirit more than I do, and understands it better than I do, and lives it more than I do, doesn't think Roe v Wade should be repealed. He is against abortion but believes our society needs to gradually change to be pro-life. I pretty much completely disagree with him on this, and don't speak to him about it much for it is painful, but I am not so obtuse as not to know how genuine his Christian life is. I consider it a joy to worship with him.
What am I trying to say? Just that we have plenty of divisions within the Catholic faith that we have to try to accommodate and heal through evangelization and prayer and communication and advocacy, etc. Maybe the rifts are greater across denominational boundaries, but not necessarily. Some strongest pro-life stalwarts are non-Catholic. So, I would suggest we do our best to "be there" for the Lutheran Church -- in the limited way that we are -- but never for a moment thinking we need to stop believing the precepts of our own faith.
Yet, I can't get too excited about the issues Matt raises for a few reasons. We need our Christian friends to raise a common front against the (increasingly numerous) enemies of Christianity. Let's not let internecine disagreements obscure who our real enemies are. It's true that sometimes people who profess to be Christians are our enemies (sad but true). But I don't think Melody Eastman is, even though she wears a Roman collar, and belongs to a Christian denomination that holds "squishier" positions on abortion than the Catholic Church does.
Trying to view her charitably I see her as very much wanting to focus on issues close to Catholic Social Doctrine and spiritual life. I have never heard her speak about views on abortion, and I don't think she takes a public position that would justify the bishops' sanction against allowing her into our midst. (I fully agree with the bishops' restrictions, by the way.) If there is cause against her, it should be shown, and we should not be involved with her, in my view. But one of my best friends, a guy I think embodies the Christian spirit more than I do, and understands it better than I do, and lives it more than I do, doesn't think Roe v Wade should be repealed. He is against abortion but believes our society needs to gradually change to be pro-life. I pretty much completely disagree with him on this, and don't speak to him about it much for it is painful, but I am not so obtuse as not to know how genuine his Christian life is. I consider it a joy to worship with him.
What am I trying to say? Just that we have plenty of divisions within the Catholic faith that we have to try to accommodate and heal through evangelization and prayer and communication and advocacy, etc. Maybe the rifts are greater across denominational boundaries, but not necessarily. Some strongest pro-life stalwarts are non-Catholic. So, I would suggest we do our best to "be there" for the Lutheran Church -- in the limited way that we are -- but never for a moment thinking we need to stop believing the precepts of our own faith.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Apologies and Clarifications
I want to apologize if anyone has taken my remarks on the relationship of St. Michael's and St. Paul's personally or as attacks. That was never my intention and I tried to avoid it coming across that way. I have meant no disrespect to either Fr. Don or Rev. Eastman and wasn't attempting to attack them, nor to imply any ill motivations to them. If some comments seemed impolitic, then I apologize.
My purpose in posting my thought process on this issue was to hopefully provoke us to look a little deeper at what our actions are saying as opposed to what words might actually be said. As incarnational beings, and Catholics, images (e.g. a woman in a Roman collar) are very important and the people we place in official capacities imply endorsement. This is why, for example, the bishops have said that persons who publicly support abortion aren't to be given any kind of speaking platform in Catholic churches, universities or organizations. (No matter how much the instructions are ignored, this is what the bishops have asked.)
If I did not care to make St. Michael's the best Catholic church it could be, I would have kept silent or grumbled to myself or, as someone suggested, just pack my bags and leave, but I do care and wanted to see what others thought about what I saw as a possible inconsistancy in our witness.
My purpose in posting my thought process on this issue was to hopefully provoke us to look a little deeper at what our actions are saying as opposed to what words might actually be said. As incarnational beings, and Catholics, images (e.g. a woman in a Roman collar) are very important and the people we place in official capacities imply endorsement. This is why, for example, the bishops have said that persons who publicly support abortion aren't to be given any kind of speaking platform in Catholic churches, universities or organizations. (No matter how much the instructions are ignored, this is what the bishops have asked.)
If I did not care to make St. Michael's the best Catholic church it could be, I would have kept silent or grumbled to myself or, as someone suggested, just pack my bags and leave, but I do care and wanted to see what others thought about what I saw as a possible inconsistancy in our witness.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Friendship, Ecuminism, and Scandal
No one is saying that we should not be grateful or thankful to St. Paul's for what they did after the fire at St. Michael's. What I'm asking is what the boundaries of that relationship should be. It seems clear to me that homilies and Lenten missions step way outside of what is appropriate. What I'm concerned about is provoking scandal in the faithful.
Here's what the Catechism says about scandal:
Respect for the souls of others: scandal
2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense.
2285 Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."86 Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep's clothing.87
2286 Scandal can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion.
Therefore, they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice, or to "social conditions that, intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the Commandments difficult and practically impossible."88 This is also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, teachers who provoke their children to anger,89 or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away from moral values.
2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. "Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!"90
Note especially no. 2285. When presenting a woman in a Roman collar are we just encouraging those who disregard church teaching and entrenching them in their error, rather than teaching them the truth? Are we following Paul's injunction to be mindful of the 'weaker brother' when we make the faithful uncomfortable like that? Is St. Michael's doing fulfilling its role as teacher of the faithful when it is just confusing that vast middle?
The abortion and homosexuality questions are even more troubling. This is from a website (http://www.spiritrestoration.org/Church/Denominational-stand-on-the-issue-of-abortion.htm) I found:
The Evangelical Lutheran of Church in America (ELCA) is a union of three smaller Lutheran denominations which merged in 1988. Each had different views on on abortion. In 1990, the ELCA adopted a statement that accepts abortion but only as a "last resort" in the most extreme circumstances. The statement goes on to say that it opposes abortion ist except in the cases of "clear threat to the life of the woman", "extreme fetal abnormality" incompatible with life, and in cases of rape and incest. Beyond these cases "this church neither supports nor opposes" other abortion-restricting legislation. At the ELCA's 1997 convention, a resolution to restrict ELCA funding of abortions to the three cases stated above was rejected 70%-30%. The ELCA funds elective abortions in the church’s health care coverage for pastors and professional church workers, and some Lutheran-affiliated hospital perform elective abortions.
Very squishy, and they actually pay for abortions on demand. Add to this the likelihood of approving of homosexual relationships.
The Catholic Church has stated that Catholic universities and hospitals and other Catholic organizations are not to give platforms to anyone who is a known supporter of abortion rights. Archbishop Burke in St. Louis, before he left to become the Vatican's chief jurist, even resigned from the board of a Catholic hospital when they insisted on having Sheryl Crow do a planned benefit for them. This is the kind of witness the Church and the culture needs.
I'm not pretending I know what St. Paul's position on the issues is, but if it toes the denominational line, it is troubling that we would give them a platform to teach and instruct our flock.
Here's what the Catechism says about scandal:
Respect for the souls of others: scandal
2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense.
2285 Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."86 Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep's clothing.87
2286 Scandal can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion.
Therefore, they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice, or to "social conditions that, intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the Commandments difficult and practically impossible."88 This is also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, teachers who provoke their children to anger,89 or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away from moral values.
2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. "Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!"90
Note especially no. 2285. When presenting a woman in a Roman collar are we just encouraging those who disregard church teaching and entrenching them in their error, rather than teaching them the truth? Are we following Paul's injunction to be mindful of the 'weaker brother' when we make the faithful uncomfortable like that? Is St. Michael's doing fulfilling its role as teacher of the faithful when it is just confusing that vast middle?
The abortion and homosexuality questions are even more troubling. This is from a website (http://www.spiritrestoration.org/Church/Denominational-stand-on-the-issue-of-abortion.htm) I found:
The Evangelical Lutheran of Church in America (ELCA) is a union of three smaller Lutheran denominations which merged in 1988. Each had different views on on abortion. In 1990, the ELCA adopted a statement that accepts abortion but only as a "last resort" in the most extreme circumstances. The statement goes on to say that it opposes abortion ist except in the cases of "clear threat to the life of the woman", "extreme fetal abnormality" incompatible with life, and in cases of rape and incest. Beyond these cases "this church neither supports nor opposes" other abortion-restricting legislation. At the ELCA's 1997 convention, a resolution to restrict ELCA funding of abortions to the three cases stated above was rejected 70%-30%. The ELCA funds elective abortions in the church’s health care coverage for pastors and professional church workers, and some Lutheran-affiliated hospital perform elective abortions.
Very squishy, and they actually pay for abortions on demand. Add to this the likelihood of approving of homosexual relationships.
The Catholic Church has stated that Catholic universities and hospitals and other Catholic organizations are not to give platforms to anyone who is a known supporter of abortion rights. Archbishop Burke in St. Louis, before he left to become the Vatican's chief jurist, even resigned from the board of a Catholic hospital when they insisted on having Sheryl Crow do a planned benefit for them. This is the kind of witness the Church and the culture needs.
I'm not pretending I know what St. Paul's position on the issues is, but if it toes the denominational line, it is troubling that we would give them a platform to teach and instruct our flock.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Friendship not Eccumenism
Relationships take many forms. Some relationships exist for the mutually profitability of the parties and some do not, some serve the need for mutual aid, and some are an expression of mutual love. St. Michael Parish’s relationship with St. Paul Lutheran Church, it seems to me, is a relationship of mutual love. As both are Christian churches their mutual love for one another must take on the form of love that is purely Christian. Such love is not rude and it does not insist on its own way.
When we are children we are warned about “hanging out with the wrong crowd” lest we be harmfully influenced. Eventually we leave our parents for a life of our own. We can no longer rely on our parents to inform us of potentially harmful influences. We must develop an ability to recognize them for ourselves; so too for the mature Christian. If one is confused one should seek out the truth. It is the duty of a Christian to form oneself in the mind of Christ and as Catholics we look to our Church as one of the formative influences in our faith life. To avoid relationships because they might taint our beliefs is to live in fear, not love. To avoid others because they do not believe as we do is arrogant, not loving.
Each of us is a seeker in this life. We look at the Cross and we see something universal, yet, at the same time each of us sees something that is unique to us. We see how that Cross has shaped our faith and wrapped itself around our own personal experience. How it has provided meaning to our lives. Thus for each of us the view of it is just a little different. To respect this fact is also part of a loving relationship.
The role of females in the Church, the Biblical foundations of our beliefs, the forms that the expression of our faith takes, the causes to which we donate our time and energy and resources are all issues for debate. We certainly can have good discussions and mutual explorations around these issues. I do not think, however, that this is the purpose of our relationship with St. Paul Lutheran Church. The relationship is one of gratitude, mutual respect and thankfulness to God.
When we are children we are warned about “hanging out with the wrong crowd” lest we be harmfully influenced. Eventually we leave our parents for a life of our own. We can no longer rely on our parents to inform us of potentially harmful influences. We must develop an ability to recognize them for ourselves; so too for the mature Christian. If one is confused one should seek out the truth. It is the duty of a Christian to form oneself in the mind of Christ and as Catholics we look to our Church as one of the formative influences in our faith life. To avoid relationships because they might taint our beliefs is to live in fear, not love. To avoid others because they do not believe as we do is arrogant, not loving.
Each of us is a seeker in this life. We look at the Cross and we see something universal, yet, at the same time each of us sees something that is unique to us. We see how that Cross has shaped our faith and wrapped itself around our own personal experience. How it has provided meaning to our lives. Thus for each of us the view of it is just a little different. To respect this fact is also part of a loving relationship.
The role of females in the Church, the Biblical foundations of our beliefs, the forms that the expression of our faith takes, the causes to which we donate our time and energy and resources are all issues for debate. We certainly can have good discussions and mutual explorations around these issues. I do not think, however, that this is the purpose of our relationship with St. Paul Lutheran Church. The relationship is one of gratitude, mutual respect and thankfulness to God.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Eccumenism Thoughts
Lk 6:36-38
Jesus said to his disciples:"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
"Stop judging and you will not be judged.Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.Forgive and you will be forgiven.Give and gifts will be given to you;a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,will be poured into your lap.For the measure with which you measurewill in return be measured out to you."
Jesus said to his disciples:"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
"Stop judging and you will not be judged.Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.Forgive and you will be forgiven.Give and gifts will be given to you;a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,will be poured into your lap.For the measure with which you measurewill in return be measured out to you."
Ecumenical Thoughts: St. Michael's and St. Paul's.
When does it become unprofitable to continue a relationship? What if it is spiritually confusing for your flock? I wanted to say "spiritually harmful," but I'm just not that sure yet; these are all tentative thoughts I'm feeling around at the moment brought on by playing bells at St. Paul's Sunday service this weekend, the first time we've actually done worship with them as opposed to a Christmas concert.
I will admit that I have always been rather leery of St. Michael's relationship with St. Paul's. I'm grateful to them for letting us use their church for daily mass when ours burned down, but how far should that extend? I know that Father Don developed a friendship with Rev. Melody Eastman, but is that something he should be bringing into St. Michael's in his role as pastor or is it something he should keep personal?
I'll lay out my thoughts in order of least to greatest importance, though that actually puts them reverse chronological order, i.e. the least important were the ones I noticed most recently in the last month that we had rehearsals at St. Paul's and the most important are issues I've had problems with for a long time, even before I became Catholic.
1. ST. PAUL'S CHURCH 'CULTURE'
Most of this I noticed in the last month, though some of it I have noticed before. I don't want to judge the individual members of St. Paul's nor the church itself, since I don't know enough about it but these are things that have concretized the 'creepy' feeling I get at St. Paul's. In a lot of this, I'm comparing St. Paul's to St. Michael's but also to another Lutheran church I play bells at once a month, St. John's Lutheran. St. John's is a different breed of Lutheran, which I will get into later.
First, the entire church outside the sanctuary is plastered with every theologically liberal buzzword you can think of: tolerance, diversity, sharing, Christ in the poor and suffering. All of these are innocuous enough, and are true, but they're also things that send little red flags shooting up in my brain to be on the lookout for some very squishy theology and morality.
This is made worse when combined with the subject matter of all the bulletin boards and posters advertise church functions. There are your typical service ads, like ESSE and PADS and People's Resource Center. The adult ed/Sunday School class is on Charles Darwin and evolution (with a talk on Teilhard de Chardin, as well). There's "Cinema at St. Paul," a movie night with discussion afterward. The men's bathroom has information on getting help for sexual abuse or domestic violence (I don't know what the women's has).
What's wrong with these? I suppose nothing in themselves (though maybe the Darwin/Teilhard one may be very iffy). So what's creepy about it? It offends more in what is absent than in what is present. There are no promotions for a Bible study. There are no promotions for any type of spirituality class. There may be a monthly booklet of scripture readings and meditation on the back table, but I haven't looked there recently, but I know they had the ELCA's recent reflection on human sexuality back there, a completely revisionist take on the topic. I've seen no real resources for any type of spiritual growth offered.
This all seems really weird to me. St. Michael's has a lot of the same social concerns, but we have an abundance of resources offered for spiritual growth. We have numerous faith programs advertised in the bulletin and on the boards and in the announcements. St. John's Lutheran has numerous Bible studies advertised: men's, women's, high school, older ladies, midweek Lenten services, even private confession during Holy Week! Both churches just seem a lot more faith-oriented than St. Paul's. The only real 'religion' I got there was going to the service.
The worship space isn't that much better. I know it's a Protestant church, so it's going to be banal by Catholic standards, but c'mon...banners! Banners are just...tacky. They processed in with two large ones with which they then flanked the altar. The bell tables arranged up behind the altar are tacky, too, but to be honest, they just don't have anywhere else to put them, so that might be forgivable. I don't know. The cross that the children carried to go off to 'children's church' (another concept I tend to have problems with) looked like it had been painted by someone on acid.
I don't tend to find the people at St. Paul's have all that much respect for their worship space, either. They use the altar as a table and stick things on it, like the tub of candy the bell director always has during rehearsal and that players suck on during rehearsal, right up there behind the altar. Or they stack books or whatever on it. This is something they've done with the altar at St. Michael's, too, when the choir has rehearsed there for our Christmas concerts, setting their music on it and such and I've had to quietly remind them that it's not a table.
Maybe it's just me being oversensitive, but I try to respect others' worship space as I would want mine respected. I take off my hat when I enter St. John's or St. Paul's despite how inconvenient it might be with my hands full. I try not to set things on their altar out of respect for what they believe happens there. I don't genuflect or bow because, frankly, what they do there isn't real, despite what they want to believe, but I still try to have some respect. It's hard when it seems that they don't.
The liturgical prayers were rather banal and uninspiring, especially when compared to the wonderful liturgy at St. John's Lutheran and even St. Michael's. I didn't think the musical setting of the Kyrie was really at all penitential. There were only two readings, and neither one was at all Lenten, nor do I think the sermon referenced Lent at all. (Though I'll admit to being asleep through most of it because I worked the night before and was running on caffeine fumes). The only thing that was really Lenten were the tacky banners and Eastman's stole and chasuble. Not even the hymns or the music the bells played was at all Lenten. In fact, there was a note in the worship guide that said the liturgy was prepared by the music minister. Do they just put their own together in a hodge-podge rather than use a sacramentary and lectionary? St. John's definitely uses one.
2. WOMEN IN PASTORAL LEADERSHIP
This is another culture thing at St. Paul's but it also has a lot more serious theological problems and implications. The first and most jarring thing I ever noticed about St. Paul's was Melody Eastman in that Roman collar. It really does send my head spinning in confusion and my stomach doing flip-flops. I'm familiar with all the arguments for 'women priests' and women pastors and I'm not going to go into it all here, but quite frankly, they're all rather weak and have no biblical or traditional support. They've also been proven to have a detrimental affect on men's participation in church. This is especially a concern in a supposedly sacramental church like the Lutherans as opposed to the non-sacramental Evangelical churches.
St. Paul is a classic example. In the service, the only males near the altar was one altar server (junior high) and a 'communion deacon' (adult). None of them had speaking roles. The lector was a woman, the pastor is a woman, and the liturgical assistant or whatever was a woman.
I remember a couple years ago when we did our first Christmas concert at St. Paul's that the program or bulletin listed the pastoral staff of the church. Out of twelve to fifteen names listed, only two were men. Two. My gut tells me there is something seriously wrong with that situation.
This is an important point with regard to St. Michael's. In the American Catholic church where there is significant minority dissent from the teaching of the church regarding the ordination of women, should Father Don be trotting around a woman in a Roman collar in front of the church during official church functions, with the 'official' approval that seems to imply? The first year after the fire, he even had her give the homily - in full clerical garb -- at all the Sunday masses during Christian Unity week even though it is explicitly against the liturgical directives of the church that lay people (and she is a laywoman in the eyes of the Church) cannot give the homily. This is something he never did again, so maybe Father John or someone else set him straight. I don't know.
But Father Don is doing it again. For the Lenten mission he is having her preach at a prayer service on St. Paul, Martin Luther, and justification. I get the connection: Year of St. Paul > St. Paul's Church, but is this really appropriate for a Catholic Lenten mission? Are there no Catholics that can talk on the topic? The topic doesn't even seem very Lenten. And she will be there most likely in her clerical garb again and it will likely sow confusion among the Catholics in attendance.
3. CHRISTIAN MORALITY
This is the issue that troubles me the most about St. Michael's relationship with St. Paul's. St. Paul's is Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). This is the largest body of Lutheran churches, the mainline denomination, and a member of the World Federation of Lutheran Churches, which did the Joint Declaration on Justification with the Vatican (for what it's worth). But the ELCA has severe problems with regard to Christian morality. Like most mainline churches, as a general trend, it's theologically and politically liberal and squishy on abortion and homosexuality.
I mentioned the ELCA's revisionist document on human sexuality above, but that was only the start. Current ELCA policy is not to recognize homosexual partnerships and that homosexual clergy must remain celibate. An official advisory commission has recommended to the ELCA that it recognize homosexual partnerships as legitimate as a prelude to discussing the full ministerial ordination of homosexuals with active partners. This was supposedly the 'compromise' position because the homosexual lobby in the church also wants official church recognition of their 'marriages' (i.e. a liturgical celebration of homosexual unions), which the committee is advising against.
The commission also advised for a 'local option' for individual churches to reject a homosexual pastor, about which the homosexual lobby is also furious. This 'local option' was first invented by the Episcopal church when it decided on the issue of women priests and even, in Canada, on liturgical gay 'marriage' ceremonies. We can see where that has led the Episcopalians. The local option plays havoc with a church's ecclesiology and governing structure. The ELCA is quickly on its way down the same toilet as the Anglican Communion.
The ELCA is scheduled to vote on the recommendations of the commission in August. Conservatives have vowed to fight it, of course, but I don't know how strong the conservative lobby is in the ELCA. The Catholic Church has many of the same problems over these issues as the mainline body, with members squishy on abortion and homosexuality and some priests and even theologians trying to justify and promote them or water down Church teaching. However, unlike the ELCA and other mainline denominations, none of these initiatives are coming from the leadership of the Church or are even being given any sort of serious consideration. Popes John Paul the Great and Benedict XVI and the bishops have all consistently upheld the biblical and traditional teaching of the Church. Mainline denominational leadership has not, and has, in fact, been promoting deviation from Christian morality.
ST. MICHAEL'S AND ECUMINISM
This brings me back to the topic I led off with: How close should St. Michael's, a faithful Catholic church, be tied to St. Paul's given the above considerations? I certainly don't think that St. Paul's church culture should be a stumbling block to our relationship. That's a purely internal matter with St. Paul, but I think it does point in some disturbing directions. There should be no problem in working with St. Paul's in the works of mercy like PADS and ESSE and PRC, etc. Prayer and some kind of worship together (not mass) would even be appropriate if these were the only issues.
The women in ministry issue is a lot bigger more troublesome. It was entirely appropriate, I think, to invite Eastman to the dedication of the new church and to give her a generous thank you gift. I'm a bit iffy on whether it was appropriate to let her lector, however. Joint church concerts could perhaps still be done, though outside of a worship context. But I think that should be the extent of her engagement with St. Michael's. I do not think that she should have any role in official church functions, however. (She could, perhaps, say a prayer or something if she doesn't wear the clerical garb.) I definitely do not think it appropriate that she be preaching homilies or parish missions. Her presence just irritates the faithful, encourages the dissenters, and just confuses the rest. I'm not sure that the harm might not be greater than the good.
The biggest issue, however, is the issue of Christian morality. I do not know what St. Paul's and Melody Eastman's views of these cultural issues are. There was certainly no pro-life or pro-traditional marriage signage up in the church that I saw. But they did have the newspaper article up on the wall about the commission that made the recommendations regarding homosexual partnerships. It was more in the context of 'the ELCA in the news' with a bunch of other St. Paul mentions from the paper on the board, but still, if it's an issue you disagree with (i.e. oppose the commissions recommendations), then why would you highlight it?
This is the kind of thing I would seek clarification on with St. Paul's and Melody Eastman. Are they squishy on pro-life issues? Do they support the commission's recommendations expanding gay ministerial participation, or even authorizing official church liturgies for homosexual unions? If any of these is the case, then we really should have no official dealings with St. Paul's. If they take the 'local option', then things could perhaps continue, but it would still leave me troubled. This could become a much bigger problem after August.
I suppose that these concerns about St. Paul's will not be addressed as long as Father Don is at St. Michael's.
FRESHER ECUMENICAL FIELDS
This brings me to what puzzles me about St. Michael's ecumenical efforts and the ecumenical efforts of the Catholic Church in general. Other than the Orthodox, why do we put so much effort and attention into dialogue with ecclesial bodies that are moving in a diametrically opposite direction from us and ignore those who are very close to us? I understand that the mainline denominations have official bodies that can talk with official Catholic bodies while evangelicals and charismatics do not, which tilts the playing field.
St. Michael's should cultivate a relationship with the much more faithfully Christian churches around it than the ELCA. (Understand, I'm not making a ruling on St. Paul's yet, just a gut feeling). Why not St. John's Lutheran? St. John's is Missouri Synod Lutheran, a much more theologically conservative and faithful denomination than the ELCA. In fact, the Missouri Synod doesn't even recognize the ELCA as Lutheran and considers them to be an heretical church because of its acceptance of women pastors and its squishiness on Christian morality. The St. John's liturgy is much closer to the Catholic liturgy than St. Paul's, and St. John's takes its liturgy and music very seriously. In addition, St. John's frequently quotes Pope Benedict and other Catholics in the margins of their worship bulletin. They love Pope Benedict at St. John's Lutheran!
Wheaton is filled with vibrant, faithful Christians in its many evangelical churches. Yes, they are theologically more distant from us in some ways but they are much, much closer to us in their adherence to a Christian worldview. They take the Bible and Christian morality seriously. Perhaps our efforts would be better spent cultivating closer ties with evangelicals and Wheaton College, correcting stereotypes they may have about Catholics, helping them to better understand us (and us them!) rather than circling the drain with a mainline church. (Again, trying not to make judgments about St. Paul's yet.)
CONCLUSION
I apologize if this comes across as a bit harsh. It's really just me trying to work out loud some issues that have been percolating in my mind since the fire destroyed St. Michael's. The personal crux of the matter comes down to this: if St. Michael bell choir (or choir) does another joint performance with St. Paul, can I in good conscience participate? If it's a Christmas concert or the Faure Requiem (but not the prayer service) like in the past, then it might not be an issue, but if it's at St. Paul's worship service, should I opt out? What are my responsibilities as a faithful Catholic?
This extends to other events, as well. I'm already contemplating skipping Melody Eastman's Lenten mission talk on principle, though I am curious to hear what she might say. I just wish it wasn't part of the mission. I doubt she'll be giving homilies again in the future, but what about other functions?
It's a fine line to walk between loving the sinner, hating the sin and expelling the immoral from among you.
I will admit that I have always been rather leery of St. Michael's relationship with St. Paul's. I'm grateful to them for letting us use their church for daily mass when ours burned down, but how far should that extend? I know that Father Don developed a friendship with Rev. Melody Eastman, but is that something he should be bringing into St. Michael's in his role as pastor or is it something he should keep personal?
I'll lay out my thoughts in order of least to greatest importance, though that actually puts them reverse chronological order, i.e. the least important were the ones I noticed most recently in the last month that we had rehearsals at St. Paul's and the most important are issues I've had problems with for a long time, even before I became Catholic.
1. ST. PAUL'S CHURCH 'CULTURE'
Most of this I noticed in the last month, though some of it I have noticed before. I don't want to judge the individual members of St. Paul's nor the church itself, since I don't know enough about it but these are things that have concretized the 'creepy' feeling I get at St. Paul's. In a lot of this, I'm comparing St. Paul's to St. Michael's but also to another Lutheran church I play bells at once a month, St. John's Lutheran. St. John's is a different breed of Lutheran, which I will get into later.
First, the entire church outside the sanctuary is plastered with every theologically liberal buzzword you can think of: tolerance, diversity, sharing, Christ in the poor and suffering. All of these are innocuous enough, and are true, but they're also things that send little red flags shooting up in my brain to be on the lookout for some very squishy theology and morality.
This is made worse when combined with the subject matter of all the bulletin boards and posters advertise church functions. There are your typical service ads, like ESSE and PADS and People's Resource Center. The adult ed/Sunday School class is on Charles Darwin and evolution (with a talk on Teilhard de Chardin, as well). There's "Cinema at St. Paul," a movie night with discussion afterward. The men's bathroom has information on getting help for sexual abuse or domestic violence (I don't know what the women's has).
What's wrong with these? I suppose nothing in themselves (though maybe the Darwin/Teilhard one may be very iffy). So what's creepy about it? It offends more in what is absent than in what is present. There are no promotions for a Bible study. There are no promotions for any type of spirituality class. There may be a monthly booklet of scripture readings and meditation on the back table, but I haven't looked there recently, but I know they had the ELCA's recent reflection on human sexuality back there, a completely revisionist take on the topic. I've seen no real resources for any type of spiritual growth offered.
This all seems really weird to me. St. Michael's has a lot of the same social concerns, but we have an abundance of resources offered for spiritual growth. We have numerous faith programs advertised in the bulletin and on the boards and in the announcements. St. John's Lutheran has numerous Bible studies advertised: men's, women's, high school, older ladies, midweek Lenten services, even private confession during Holy Week! Both churches just seem a lot more faith-oriented than St. Paul's. The only real 'religion' I got there was going to the service.
The worship space isn't that much better. I know it's a Protestant church, so it's going to be banal by Catholic standards, but c'mon...banners! Banners are just...tacky. They processed in with two large ones with which they then flanked the altar. The bell tables arranged up behind the altar are tacky, too, but to be honest, they just don't have anywhere else to put them, so that might be forgivable. I don't know. The cross that the children carried to go off to 'children's church' (another concept I tend to have problems with) looked like it had been painted by someone on acid.
I don't tend to find the people at St. Paul's have all that much respect for their worship space, either. They use the altar as a table and stick things on it, like the tub of candy the bell director always has during rehearsal and that players suck on during rehearsal, right up there behind the altar. Or they stack books or whatever on it. This is something they've done with the altar at St. Michael's, too, when the choir has rehearsed there for our Christmas concerts, setting their music on it and such and I've had to quietly remind them that it's not a table.
Maybe it's just me being oversensitive, but I try to respect others' worship space as I would want mine respected. I take off my hat when I enter St. John's or St. Paul's despite how inconvenient it might be with my hands full. I try not to set things on their altar out of respect for what they believe happens there. I don't genuflect or bow because, frankly, what they do there isn't real, despite what they want to believe, but I still try to have some respect. It's hard when it seems that they don't.
The liturgical prayers were rather banal and uninspiring, especially when compared to the wonderful liturgy at St. John's Lutheran and even St. Michael's. I didn't think the musical setting of the Kyrie was really at all penitential. There were only two readings, and neither one was at all Lenten, nor do I think the sermon referenced Lent at all. (Though I'll admit to being asleep through most of it because I worked the night before and was running on caffeine fumes). The only thing that was really Lenten were the tacky banners and Eastman's stole and chasuble. Not even the hymns or the music the bells played was at all Lenten. In fact, there was a note in the worship guide that said the liturgy was prepared by the music minister. Do they just put their own together in a hodge-podge rather than use a sacramentary and lectionary? St. John's definitely uses one.
2. WOMEN IN PASTORAL LEADERSHIP
This is another culture thing at St. Paul's but it also has a lot more serious theological problems and implications. The first and most jarring thing I ever noticed about St. Paul's was Melody Eastman in that Roman collar. It really does send my head spinning in confusion and my stomach doing flip-flops. I'm familiar with all the arguments for 'women priests' and women pastors and I'm not going to go into it all here, but quite frankly, they're all rather weak and have no biblical or traditional support. They've also been proven to have a detrimental affect on men's participation in church. This is especially a concern in a supposedly sacramental church like the Lutherans as opposed to the non-sacramental Evangelical churches.
St. Paul is a classic example. In the service, the only males near the altar was one altar server (junior high) and a 'communion deacon' (adult). None of them had speaking roles. The lector was a woman, the pastor is a woman, and the liturgical assistant or whatever was a woman.
I remember a couple years ago when we did our first Christmas concert at St. Paul's that the program or bulletin listed the pastoral staff of the church. Out of twelve to fifteen names listed, only two were men. Two. My gut tells me there is something seriously wrong with that situation.
This is an important point with regard to St. Michael's. In the American Catholic church where there is significant minority dissent from the teaching of the church regarding the ordination of women, should Father Don be trotting around a woman in a Roman collar in front of the church during official church functions, with the 'official' approval that seems to imply? The first year after the fire, he even had her give the homily - in full clerical garb -- at all the Sunday masses during Christian Unity week even though it is explicitly against the liturgical directives of the church that lay people (and she is a laywoman in the eyes of the Church) cannot give the homily. This is something he never did again, so maybe Father John or someone else set him straight. I don't know.
But Father Don is doing it again. For the Lenten mission he is having her preach at a prayer service on St. Paul, Martin Luther, and justification. I get the connection: Year of St. Paul > St. Paul's Church, but is this really appropriate for a Catholic Lenten mission? Are there no Catholics that can talk on the topic? The topic doesn't even seem very Lenten. And she will be there most likely in her clerical garb again and it will likely sow confusion among the Catholics in attendance.
3. CHRISTIAN MORALITY
This is the issue that troubles me the most about St. Michael's relationship with St. Paul's. St. Paul's is Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). This is the largest body of Lutheran churches, the mainline denomination, and a member of the World Federation of Lutheran Churches, which did the Joint Declaration on Justification with the Vatican (for what it's worth). But the ELCA has severe problems with regard to Christian morality. Like most mainline churches, as a general trend, it's theologically and politically liberal and squishy on abortion and homosexuality.
I mentioned the ELCA's revisionist document on human sexuality above, but that was only the start. Current ELCA policy is not to recognize homosexual partnerships and that homosexual clergy must remain celibate. An official advisory commission has recommended to the ELCA that it recognize homosexual partnerships as legitimate as a prelude to discussing the full ministerial ordination of homosexuals with active partners. This was supposedly the 'compromise' position because the homosexual lobby in the church also wants official church recognition of their 'marriages' (i.e. a liturgical celebration of homosexual unions), which the committee is advising against.
The commission also advised for a 'local option' for individual churches to reject a homosexual pastor, about which the homosexual lobby is also furious. This 'local option' was first invented by the Episcopal church when it decided on the issue of women priests and even, in Canada, on liturgical gay 'marriage' ceremonies. We can see where that has led the Episcopalians. The local option plays havoc with a church's ecclesiology and governing structure. The ELCA is quickly on its way down the same toilet as the Anglican Communion.
The ELCA is scheduled to vote on the recommendations of the commission in August. Conservatives have vowed to fight it, of course, but I don't know how strong the conservative lobby is in the ELCA. The Catholic Church has many of the same problems over these issues as the mainline body, with members squishy on abortion and homosexuality and some priests and even theologians trying to justify and promote them or water down Church teaching. However, unlike the ELCA and other mainline denominations, none of these initiatives are coming from the leadership of the Church or are even being given any sort of serious consideration. Popes John Paul the Great and Benedict XVI and the bishops have all consistently upheld the biblical and traditional teaching of the Church. Mainline denominational leadership has not, and has, in fact, been promoting deviation from Christian morality.
ST. MICHAEL'S AND ECUMINISM
This brings me back to the topic I led off with: How close should St. Michael's, a faithful Catholic church, be tied to St. Paul's given the above considerations? I certainly don't think that St. Paul's church culture should be a stumbling block to our relationship. That's a purely internal matter with St. Paul, but I think it does point in some disturbing directions. There should be no problem in working with St. Paul's in the works of mercy like PADS and ESSE and PRC, etc. Prayer and some kind of worship together (not mass) would even be appropriate if these were the only issues.
The women in ministry issue is a lot bigger more troublesome. It was entirely appropriate, I think, to invite Eastman to the dedication of the new church and to give her a generous thank you gift. I'm a bit iffy on whether it was appropriate to let her lector, however. Joint church concerts could perhaps still be done, though outside of a worship context. But I think that should be the extent of her engagement with St. Michael's. I do not think that she should have any role in official church functions, however. (She could, perhaps, say a prayer or something if she doesn't wear the clerical garb.) I definitely do not think it appropriate that she be preaching homilies or parish missions. Her presence just irritates the faithful, encourages the dissenters, and just confuses the rest. I'm not sure that the harm might not be greater than the good.
The biggest issue, however, is the issue of Christian morality. I do not know what St. Paul's and Melody Eastman's views of these cultural issues are. There was certainly no pro-life or pro-traditional marriage signage up in the church that I saw. But they did have the newspaper article up on the wall about the commission that made the recommendations regarding homosexual partnerships. It was more in the context of 'the ELCA in the news' with a bunch of other St. Paul mentions from the paper on the board, but still, if it's an issue you disagree with (i.e. oppose the commissions recommendations), then why would you highlight it?
This is the kind of thing I would seek clarification on with St. Paul's and Melody Eastman. Are they squishy on pro-life issues? Do they support the commission's recommendations expanding gay ministerial participation, or even authorizing official church liturgies for homosexual unions? If any of these is the case, then we really should have no official dealings with St. Paul's. If they take the 'local option', then things could perhaps continue, but it would still leave me troubled. This could become a much bigger problem after August.
I suppose that these concerns about St. Paul's will not be addressed as long as Father Don is at St. Michael's.
FRESHER ECUMENICAL FIELDS
This brings me to what puzzles me about St. Michael's ecumenical efforts and the ecumenical efforts of the Catholic Church in general. Other than the Orthodox, why do we put so much effort and attention into dialogue with ecclesial bodies that are moving in a diametrically opposite direction from us and ignore those who are very close to us? I understand that the mainline denominations have official bodies that can talk with official Catholic bodies while evangelicals and charismatics do not, which tilts the playing field.
St. Michael's should cultivate a relationship with the much more faithfully Christian churches around it than the ELCA. (Understand, I'm not making a ruling on St. Paul's yet, just a gut feeling). Why not St. John's Lutheran? St. John's is Missouri Synod Lutheran, a much more theologically conservative and faithful denomination than the ELCA. In fact, the Missouri Synod doesn't even recognize the ELCA as Lutheran and considers them to be an heretical church because of its acceptance of women pastors and its squishiness on Christian morality. The St. John's liturgy is much closer to the Catholic liturgy than St. Paul's, and St. John's takes its liturgy and music very seriously. In addition, St. John's frequently quotes Pope Benedict and other Catholics in the margins of their worship bulletin. They love Pope Benedict at St. John's Lutheran!
Wheaton is filled with vibrant, faithful Christians in its many evangelical churches. Yes, they are theologically more distant from us in some ways but they are much, much closer to us in their adherence to a Christian worldview. They take the Bible and Christian morality seriously. Perhaps our efforts would be better spent cultivating closer ties with evangelicals and Wheaton College, correcting stereotypes they may have about Catholics, helping them to better understand us (and us them!) rather than circling the drain with a mainline church. (Again, trying not to make judgments about St. Paul's yet.)
CONCLUSION
I apologize if this comes across as a bit harsh. It's really just me trying to work out loud some issues that have been percolating in my mind since the fire destroyed St. Michael's. The personal crux of the matter comes down to this: if St. Michael bell choir (or choir) does another joint performance with St. Paul, can I in good conscience participate? If it's a Christmas concert or the Faure Requiem (but not the prayer service) like in the past, then it might not be an issue, but if it's at St. Paul's worship service, should I opt out? What are my responsibilities as a faithful Catholic?
This extends to other events, as well. I'm already contemplating skipping Melody Eastman's Lenten mission talk on principle, though I am curious to hear what she might say. I just wish it wasn't part of the mission. I doubt she'll be giving homilies again in the future, but what about other functions?
It's a fine line to walk between loving the sinner, hating the sin and expelling the immoral from among you.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Art Builds Culture Not Kitsch
Last Friday, I attended the play Our Town, by Thornton Wilder, at the Looking Glass Theatre at the Water Tower. It's been a long time since I saw this play, but what a wonderful performance! This is a spare and touching story of the life of a community in New Hampshire, Grovers Corners, in the early 1900's. It shows the beauty of ordinary life, focusing on timeless themes of family life, of raising children, falling in love, marrying, and dying. I highly recommend it. (David Schwimmer plays one of the leads.) Our Town won the Pullitzer Prize in 1938.
Two particular moments were touching to me. In Act III, the narrator, in the town graveyard, overlooking the mountains, windswept, and beautiful, observes: "Now there are some things we all know, but we don't take'm out and look at'm very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars. . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human being."
Emily Gibbs, who has just died in childbirth, and hasn't adjusted to the grave, wants to go back to see life on earth. She chooses her birthday 14 years before (when she is 12). She witnesses the family's life on that day, and from her perspective beyond the grave, is astonished that they can't see how life really is. She entreats her mother (who can't hear her): "Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally's [her brother] dead too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's look at one another."
A few moments later, she asks the narrator, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? -every, every minute?" The narrator answers, "No." Then after a pause, he says, "The saints and poets, maybe - they do some."
The saints and poets sometimes see the eternal in the timebound. The rest of us need their "eyes" to see.
It is the function of art to help us see sacramentally, to see the practical and ordinary embedded in the eternal, the eternal shining through the ordinary. Man needs art, for the overriding concern of man is not with securing instrumental ends (technology, economy, polity), but with the dramatic meaning of their lives, with the delight and suffering, laughter and tears, joy and sorrow, aspiration and frustration, achievement and failure, wit and humor that stand, not within practicality, but above it. Hughes, Transcendence and History, 109.
Art's "intended effect is to transport us beyond the 'ready made world' of practicality and domesticated culture in order to renew our sense of life's possibilities, to give us new ways to imagine and interpret ourselves, to quicken and explore our deepest longings and apprehensions, and, in doing all these, to reveal the mystery present at the heart of all things." Ibid, p 116. "Art places an interrogative pressure on the status quo: implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, it questions the way things are and way things are done." Ibid.
Art's focus on the mystery of living, the eternal over the practical, in fact uncovers a meaning common to all humans. Individual cultural and personal narratives find meaning in the common narrative, a narrative embedded in mystery, of all mankind. And this focus especially includes artistic images depicting religious insights into the poverty of living "only for the world," into universal personal dignity, into the common divine ground of our joy and suffering. Jesus healing the sick, suffering on the cross: These images, and the artistic re-creation of them, invite us to recognize our common humanity and destiny, in and through Him. Ibid, p.120.
Hughes cautions that art can be compromised by intellectual fashions that deny transcendence, and by our mass marketing culture that turns images to task for titillation and profit. "And the principal defining characteristics of all these images is their triviality and dispensability: few of them mean anything beyond the stimulation of a few moments. They constitute, as filmmaker Wim Wenders has said, 'an invasion of and inflation of meaningless images' that numb the capacity for reflection on artistic images of any high order, artistic images that in their stilled concentration of references and purposes require us to slow down and focus and reflect, images that demand and reward sustained attention and contemplation." Ibid, pp.122-23.
I had an opportunity to make a comparison recently between art and kitsch in watching Bagger Vance, directed by Robert Redford. There the female lead is written to be the strong, independent female, able to stand up to the patriarchical ruling class of her town, Savannah. Far from Emily Gibbs who dies in childbirth! In Bagger Vance the female lead is ready in a heart beat to go to bed to advance her interests (and titilate the audience in the process in this PG13 film). Marriage plays no part of the story. In Our Town the mystery of living "two as one" is dwelt on, contemplated. Well, no need to continue. Suffice it to say the film is a hodgepodge of gimmicks, stereotypes, and superficial characters. As we waste our time watching kitsch like this, is it any wonder that we lose our sensitivity for real art?
Robert Sokolowski cautions us to be careful of the images we allow into our consciousness. Images are potent, the currency of our understanding of things. We have a moral duty to dwell on images of value, that help us to live freely, beyond the confines of the mundane practical, and its techniques of manipulation. (Think of pornography. I read a statistic that said 25% of men have viewed pornography in the past month. Aren't manipulation and addiction joined as two sides of the same coin?)
Seeing Our Town reminded me that art does exist, and that art makes all the difference in seeing the truth about things. The play reminds us that we live "in-between" the finite world and transcendent mystery. This is a common truth, shareable by all, a "meta-narrative" gathering all narratives into a common meaning, a "culture."
Two particular moments were touching to me. In Act III, the narrator, in the town graveyard, overlooking the mountains, windswept, and beautiful, observes: "Now there are some things we all know, but we don't take'm out and look at'm very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars. . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human being."
Emily Gibbs, who has just died in childbirth, and hasn't adjusted to the grave, wants to go back to see life on earth. She chooses her birthday 14 years before (when she is 12). She witnesses the family's life on that day, and from her perspective beyond the grave, is astonished that they can't see how life really is. She entreats her mother (who can't hear her): "Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally's [her brother] dead too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's look at one another."
A few moments later, she asks the narrator, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? -every, every minute?" The narrator answers, "No." Then after a pause, he says, "The saints and poets, maybe - they do some."
The saints and poets sometimes see the eternal in the timebound. The rest of us need their "eyes" to see.
It is the function of art to help us see sacramentally, to see the practical and ordinary embedded in the eternal, the eternal shining through the ordinary. Man needs art, for the overriding concern of man is not with securing instrumental ends (technology, economy, polity), but with the dramatic meaning of their lives, with the delight and suffering, laughter and tears, joy and sorrow, aspiration and frustration, achievement and failure, wit and humor that stand, not within practicality, but above it. Hughes, Transcendence and History, 109.
Art's "intended effect is to transport us beyond the 'ready made world' of practicality and domesticated culture in order to renew our sense of life's possibilities, to give us new ways to imagine and interpret ourselves, to quicken and explore our deepest longings and apprehensions, and, in doing all these, to reveal the mystery present at the heart of all things." Ibid, p 116. "Art places an interrogative pressure on the status quo: implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, it questions the way things are and way things are done." Ibid.
Art's focus on the mystery of living, the eternal over the practical, in fact uncovers a meaning common to all humans. Individual cultural and personal narratives find meaning in the common narrative, a narrative embedded in mystery, of all mankind. And this focus especially includes artistic images depicting religious insights into the poverty of living "only for the world," into universal personal dignity, into the common divine ground of our joy and suffering. Jesus healing the sick, suffering on the cross: These images, and the artistic re-creation of them, invite us to recognize our common humanity and destiny, in and through Him. Ibid, p.120.
Hughes cautions that art can be compromised by intellectual fashions that deny transcendence, and by our mass marketing culture that turns images to task for titillation and profit. "And the principal defining characteristics of all these images is their triviality and dispensability: few of them mean anything beyond the stimulation of a few moments. They constitute, as filmmaker Wim Wenders has said, 'an invasion of and inflation of meaningless images' that numb the capacity for reflection on artistic images of any high order, artistic images that in their stilled concentration of references and purposes require us to slow down and focus and reflect, images that demand and reward sustained attention and contemplation." Ibid, pp.122-23.
I had an opportunity to make a comparison recently between art and kitsch in watching Bagger Vance, directed by Robert Redford. There the female lead is written to be the strong, independent female, able to stand up to the patriarchical ruling class of her town, Savannah. Far from Emily Gibbs who dies in childbirth! In Bagger Vance the female lead is ready in a heart beat to go to bed to advance her interests (and titilate the audience in the process in this PG13 film). Marriage plays no part of the story. In Our Town the mystery of living "two as one" is dwelt on, contemplated. Well, no need to continue. Suffice it to say the film is a hodgepodge of gimmicks, stereotypes, and superficial characters. As we waste our time watching kitsch like this, is it any wonder that we lose our sensitivity for real art?
Robert Sokolowski cautions us to be careful of the images we allow into our consciousness. Images are potent, the currency of our understanding of things. We have a moral duty to dwell on images of value, that help us to live freely, beyond the confines of the mundane practical, and its techniques of manipulation. (Think of pornography. I read a statistic that said 25% of men have viewed pornography in the past month. Aren't manipulation and addiction joined as two sides of the same coin?)
Seeing Our Town reminded me that art does exist, and that art makes all the difference in seeing the truth about things. The play reminds us that we live "in-between" the finite world and transcendent mystery. This is a common truth, shareable by all, a "meta-narrative" gathering all narratives into a common meaning, a "culture."
An Instinctual vs An Active Faith
The instincts of the silent majority are relatively conservative and traditional. A majority, for example, wish to see restrictions on abortion. A majority believe in marriage only between a man and a woman. A great majority believe in God, and practice their faith in some way.
However, my sense is that many of us are passive politically, meaning we have signed onto the secular program holding that religious life is "private" and so religious beliefs shouldn't be mixed with public policy. Our faith is, we believe, only an opinion. There is no way to tell if it is true, so we don't really believe it to be "true." And since public policy has to apply to everybody, not just those who happen to hold Catholic opinions, we can't "impose our beliefs" on anyone. Laws need to be made without reference to religious understanding. So our Catholic faith life boils down to going to church on Sunday and trying to be "nice" during the rest of the week.
Poor faith formation hasn't helped. We can't articulate a cogent Catholic position against the de-constructors, and can't muster enough intellectual energy to try, our "college degrees" in technical disciplines being useless because they never helped us actually to learn how to think. The other side may not be much better, but they have political correctness on their side, and so they feel more and more justified stridently to reject the "narrow-minded," "inflexible," "homophobic," "irrational," and down-right "evil" views of a "dumb" majority.
Is this how it's always been? Gil Bailie doesn't think so. In a recent interview, he quotes T.S. Eliot who "announced that culture was no longer passing from one generation to the next in the ideal and natural way it had in the past, when one absorbed it with the mother's milk so to speak. From now on, Eliot admonished, if you want a culture, you have to work at it."
That means we have to make choices among differing but attractive lifestyles, which requires some degree of thoughtfulness. And we need to be more pro-active in helping our children learn how to make such choices.
There is no doubt that we have a duty to answer for our faith. Gil Bailie got it right: "At an earlier stage of our present crisis, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, pointing to "the confusion of clerics and theologians," insisted that lay Catholics "have the absolute duty to care for the condition of Catholicity," adding with emphasis, "by protest if need be." Despite signs of episcopal and clerical revitalization, Gil stresses that "the lay Catholic's obligation - in proportion to his or her respective gifts and competence - to 'care for the condition of Catholicity' remains."
While instinctual faith is important, active faith is what makes the difference.
However, my sense is that many of us are passive politically, meaning we have signed onto the secular program holding that religious life is "private" and so religious beliefs shouldn't be mixed with public policy. Our faith is, we believe, only an opinion. There is no way to tell if it is true, so we don't really believe it to be "true." And since public policy has to apply to everybody, not just those who happen to hold Catholic opinions, we can't "impose our beliefs" on anyone. Laws need to be made without reference to religious understanding. So our Catholic faith life boils down to going to church on Sunday and trying to be "nice" during the rest of the week.
Poor faith formation hasn't helped. We can't articulate a cogent Catholic position against the de-constructors, and can't muster enough intellectual energy to try, our "college degrees" in technical disciplines being useless because they never helped us actually to learn how to think. The other side may not be much better, but they have political correctness on their side, and so they feel more and more justified stridently to reject the "narrow-minded," "inflexible," "homophobic," "irrational," and down-right "evil" views of a "dumb" majority.
Is this how it's always been? Gil Bailie doesn't think so. In a recent interview, he quotes T.S. Eliot who "announced that culture was no longer passing from one generation to the next in the ideal and natural way it had in the past, when one absorbed it with the mother's milk so to speak. From now on, Eliot admonished, if you want a culture, you have to work at it."
That means we have to make choices among differing but attractive lifestyles, which requires some degree of thoughtfulness. And we need to be more pro-active in helping our children learn how to make such choices.
There is no doubt that we have a duty to answer for our faith. Gil Bailie got it right: "At an earlier stage of our present crisis, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, pointing to "the confusion of clerics and theologians," insisted that lay Catholics "have the absolute duty to care for the condition of Catholicity," adding with emphasis, "by protest if need be." Despite signs of episcopal and clerical revitalization, Gil stresses that "the lay Catholic's obligation - in proportion to his or her respective gifts and competence - to 'care for the condition of Catholicity' remains."
While instinctual faith is important, active faith is what makes the difference.
The Great American Majority
Never discuss religion or politics. A familiar admonition, but I will dare to discuss both in the same post.
In the March issue of “First Things”, George Weigel, makes some observations regarding our recent presidential election. He reflects on the word narrative" as a recent addition to the vocabulary of news reportage. "He's created a compelling narrative." More, “Who's creating the narrative?" Following are some quotes from his article.
"Such postmodern rhetoric reflects a cast of mind in which human beings have no secure grasp of the truth of things, be that historical truth or moral truth. There is only "your truth" and "my truth", which is to say, you've got your story, and I've got my story. Narrative is all, and narrative has no tether to an objective truth of things that we can know by the exercise of our reason.”
"... a senior producer at a major mainstream-media network told me in the early 2008 presidential primary season he was appalled by the callousness, indeed cynical craftiness, with which "the narrative" was manipulated by focus group-besotted campaign managers for the most minute electoral advantage.... in a country in which American Idol has become a major cultural reference point, is it any wonder that we have elections that resemble American Idol and their dominance by narrative -- which is to say elections that are substantively vacuous?”
Weigel goes on to enumerate many issues that could have been debated in the course of the presidential campaign but were not.
Quoting the article, "The American people elected a young president with less governmental experience than any other major-party nominee since Wendell Wilkie, because... he was the winner on American Idol: The 2008 Election Edition ... we should not delude ourselves on this point however: narrative, not substance, is what put the 44th president into the White House."
"American liberalism has never engaged in the kind of cleansing of the stables that William F. Buckley Jr. conducted among American conservatives in the 1950s."
"... [the] left that cannot confront its failures of analysis, nerve, and seriousness during the last half of the Cold War is a left that is unlikely to understand, much less cope with and still less defeat the multiple threats to freedom that defined the post-Cold War post-September-11 world. A left that refuses to see that its embrace of abortion on demand is a self-indulgent exercise and a betrayal of the legacy of the classic civil rights movement is a left that is unlikely to chart a path away from a brave new world of manufactured humanity, in which misguided ideas of compassion are married to technological marvels to produce de-humanizing consequences. A left that cannot look at Europe and see the human, social, economic, financial, and cultural failures of debonair nihilism is not a left that can grasp, much less appeal to, the sturdy religious instincts that continue to animate the great majority of the American people."
I suppose, if your leanings are toward the left side of center you might consider George Weigel's comments to be exaggerated and contain just a tinge of the sore-loser attitude. And if you are of the more conservative bent I can visualize your heads nodding in agreement with what he has to say. But I have to ask myself after reading this article , What are the "sturdy religious instincts that continue to animate the great majority of the American people"? Do they really exist? Who is elucidating their “narrative”? Where is the voice of this great American majority? If we are a majority, why are we unable in a democratic society to effect the changes we desire?
In the March issue of “First Things”, George Weigel, makes some observations regarding our recent presidential election. He reflects on the word narrative" as a recent addition to the vocabulary of news reportage. "He's created a compelling narrative." More, “Who's creating the narrative?" Following are some quotes from his article.
"Such postmodern rhetoric reflects a cast of mind in which human beings have no secure grasp of the truth of things, be that historical truth or moral truth. There is only "your truth" and "my truth", which is to say, you've got your story, and I've got my story. Narrative is all, and narrative has no tether to an objective truth of things that we can know by the exercise of our reason.”
"... a senior producer at a major mainstream-media network told me in the early 2008 presidential primary season he was appalled by the callousness, indeed cynical craftiness, with which "the narrative" was manipulated by focus group-besotted campaign managers for the most minute electoral advantage.... in a country in which American Idol has become a major cultural reference point, is it any wonder that we have elections that resemble American Idol and their dominance by narrative -- which is to say elections that are substantively vacuous?”
Weigel goes on to enumerate many issues that could have been debated in the course of the presidential campaign but were not.
Quoting the article, "The American people elected a young president with less governmental experience than any other major-party nominee since Wendell Wilkie, because... he was the winner on American Idol: The 2008 Election Edition ... we should not delude ourselves on this point however: narrative, not substance, is what put the 44th president into the White House."
"American liberalism has never engaged in the kind of cleansing of the stables that William F. Buckley Jr. conducted among American conservatives in the 1950s."
"... [the] left that cannot confront its failures of analysis, nerve, and seriousness during the last half of the Cold War is a left that is unlikely to understand, much less cope with and still less defeat the multiple threats to freedom that defined the post-Cold War post-September-11 world. A left that refuses to see that its embrace of abortion on demand is a self-indulgent exercise and a betrayal of the legacy of the classic civil rights movement is a left that is unlikely to chart a path away from a brave new world of manufactured humanity, in which misguided ideas of compassion are married to technological marvels to produce de-humanizing consequences. A left that cannot look at Europe and see the human, social, economic, financial, and cultural failures of debonair nihilism is not a left that can grasp, much less appeal to, the sturdy religious instincts that continue to animate the great majority of the American people."
I suppose, if your leanings are toward the left side of center you might consider George Weigel's comments to be exaggerated and contain just a tinge of the sore-loser attitude. And if you are of the more conservative bent I can visualize your heads nodding in agreement with what he has to say. But I have to ask myself after reading this article , What are the "sturdy religious instincts that continue to animate the great majority of the American people"? Do they really exist? Who is elucidating their “narrative”? Where is the voice of this great American majority? If we are a majority, why are we unable in a democratic society to effect the changes we desire?
Sunday, March 1, 2009
To Love You Is To Know You
God is love and all knowing. How does love know?
I read an interesting passage shedding light on this recently. Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, noted that Americans are singularly un-philosophical. But how "does the philosophical ideal think? As the deity does. And how does the deity think?. . . When the deity thinks, says Tocqueville, he does not, for instance, view the human race collectively. Rather, he sees individuals, each separately, each in the resemblances that make him like his fellows and in the differences that make him unlike his fellows. The thinking of the deity, in other words, is the utterly articulated perception of the one and the many. The deity is not ever obliged to make unlike like, or to subsume the particular to the general in order to know it, but thinks emphatically only, so that in place of concepts there would effectively be proper names. . ." Robert Hullot-Kentor, "Right Listening and a New Type of Human Being," The Cambridge Companion to Adorno, at p. 185.
To really know someone is to let the person in her individuality, her "this-ness" - what makes her who she uniquely is - be seen. This requires self-less love - wanting to let the "good" of the other be seen, "be." God loves completely, and so knows all things. In the light of his love, our individuality is illuminated. And as the daybreak of His love awakens us, so can our participation in His love awaken others to their unique selves. Doesn't this describe Jesus' healing ministry? Jesus, in love, saw the wounded man as whole, as healed (Do you want to help me? Of course I do!), and with word or touch the crippled man picked up his pallet and walked; his leprosy was cleaned; our sins are forgiven. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.
Screwtape sees God's providence and advises Wormwood to work against it. In Ch. XIII, he observes, "[The Enemy] really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them. When He talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever. Hence, while He is delighted to see them sacrificing even their innocent wills to His, He hates to see them drifting away from their own nature for any other reason. And we should always encourage them to do so."
I often feel like Pinnochio, wanting so much to be a real boy! And I see others around me wanting the same. And so I remember the great commandment: to dwell completely in God's love so His love may dwell in me and my love in them. May we that way all become real boys and girls!
I read an interesting passage shedding light on this recently. Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, noted that Americans are singularly un-philosophical. But how "does the philosophical ideal think? As the deity does. And how does the deity think?. . . When the deity thinks, says Tocqueville, he does not, for instance, view the human race collectively. Rather, he sees individuals, each separately, each in the resemblances that make him like his fellows and in the differences that make him unlike his fellows. The thinking of the deity, in other words, is the utterly articulated perception of the one and the many. The deity is not ever obliged to make unlike like, or to subsume the particular to the general in order to know it, but thinks emphatically only, so that in place of concepts there would effectively be proper names. . ." Robert Hullot-Kentor, "Right Listening and a New Type of Human Being," The Cambridge Companion to Adorno, at p. 185.
To really know someone is to let the person in her individuality, her "this-ness" - what makes her who she uniquely is - be seen. This requires self-less love - wanting to let the "good" of the other be seen, "be." God loves completely, and so knows all things. In the light of his love, our individuality is illuminated. And as the daybreak of His love awakens us, so can our participation in His love awaken others to their unique selves. Doesn't this describe Jesus' healing ministry? Jesus, in love, saw the wounded man as whole, as healed (Do you want to help me? Of course I do!), and with word or touch the crippled man picked up his pallet and walked; his leprosy was cleaned; our sins are forgiven. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.
Screwtape sees God's providence and advises Wormwood to work against it. In Ch. XIII, he observes, "[The Enemy] really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them. When He talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever. Hence, while He is delighted to see them sacrificing even their innocent wills to His, He hates to see them drifting away from their own nature for any other reason. And we should always encourage them to do so."
I often feel like Pinnochio, wanting so much to be a real boy! And I see others around me wanting the same. And so I remember the great commandment: to dwell completely in God's love so His love may dwell in me and my love in them. May we that way all become real boys and girls!
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