St. John Bosco Parish Bulletin Letter for July 3, 2016

This is the parish bulletin letter to run this Sunday, the day before Independence Day.

Tomorrow is Independence Day here in the United States. In celebrating the 4th of July we remember the day in 1776 when the members of the Continental Congress voted to declare the 13 Colonies of Great Britain to be free and independent states, forming a new, sovereign nation. The Declaration of Independence, which they signed, proposed that the government's role was to ensure the citizens the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These have been our nation’s guiding principles for the last 240 years. 

Patriotism is a virtue which celebrates the positive aspects of a nation's spirit. A country is bigger than its government, like as human beings we are not just a physical body, but we have a soul as well. These three principles, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness are like the soul that animates national body, giving it purpose and direction. We might be able to mention other ideals that are a part of our national spirit, but these are the three most fundamental aspects.

While there isn’t necessarily a conflict between being a Disciple of Christ and holding to the these patriotic ideals, there can be if we don’t understand what life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should mean in light of the Gospel.

The right to life means respecting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death. It means caring for the sick and suffering, the immigrant and the disadvantaged. It’s treating everyone with dignity. Do we live that ideal right now as a nation?

Liberty allows us to perfect our God given gifts and abilities. Liberty is not just doing what we want to do, but being free to do what we should do in light of God’s call. Liberty makes us free for doing good - it’s not simply freedom from responsibility. As a culture, do we see liberty as first and foremost a call to responsibility and a charge to use our talents for fostering the common good?

The pursuit of happiness, which is related to liberty, is usually seen as the individual’s right to pursue material prosperity. But God calls us to blessedness. We are blessed when we know God as a friend, live His commandments, and faithfully fulfill the responsibilities of everyday life. Happiness is a passing thing. Happiness can be taken away, or we can feel unhappy if we don’t get what we want. But being blessed is a spiritual reality not tied to our material condition. St. Francis of Assisi had no material possessions beyond the cloths on his back, yet he was exceedingly blessed by God. While we should have the right to pursue material wealth for ourselves and our family, we should know that this kind of happiness is very limited and passing. God calls us to something greater – He is calling us to seek His blessing.

As we celebrate Independence Day, let us also meditate on what our national values are, and how we as Disciples can better perfect them in the light of the Gospel. 

Prayer, Faith, and Witness from the Apostleship of Prayer

Fr. Barron on Saints Peter and Paul

Bishop Barron on C.S. Lewis' “The Great Divorce”

The Birth of John the Baptist from the Apostleship of Prayer

A Personal Relationship with God - Yes, it's Possible, and Essential for Catholics

In preparation for my upcoming World Youth Day pilgrimage, I took my iPad on vacation and tried pounding out a post of two. My hope is to stay blogging while on the road, chronicling our journey, if the places we're going to have wifi connection. This dry run had mixed results. The actual typing on the screen went well, but editing and re-writes proved to be more difficult tasks. I'm the king of typos, and this is riddled with them. Now that I'm home I went back over it on my laptop, so hopefully it's a bit more polished.

PLYMOUTH, MA - I brought some homework with me, as I lounge around my brother's house, taking in the unobstructed view of Plymouth Harbor. There don't seem to be as many pleasure or sporting boats out there this year. I'm guessing it has to do with some work that's being done on the docks. There are big cranes on the pier and just off in the shallows. There's also a big construction project, on dry land, just down the street. The 1820 Court House is being renovated and a large extension is being built that will facilitate its transition into the new Town Hall. 

2020 marks the 400th anniversary of the pilgrims' landing, and preparations are heating up, with the recent work serving as a sign. My brother, one of the selectmen in town, is on the anniversary planning committee, and there are a lot of moving parts. Elizabeth R, aka Her Majesty the Queen, has been invited for the official celebration in four years. She'll be 94 (there's longevity in her line so I wouldn't bet against her still being among the living in four years), so we'll have to see if she's even accepts, let alone is up for the travel. Bet your boots I'll be angling for the opening benediction if she shows up. I hear that, while Supreme head of the Church of England, she has a soft spot for us papists.

As for my homework, I've been reading through Sherry Weddell's Forming Intentional Disciples. I watched a couple of talks she gave at Mundelien on You Tube in preparation for reading the book, and am now going through a quick reading in these days. There's a lot of hype in Church circles right now about Weddell's evangelization approach. Many dioceses are adapting her principles as a template for their pastoral planning and evangelization programs, and she is an in demand speaker.

I have a grave, philistine doubt when it comes to people who seem to burst on the scene and become the theological or pastoral flavor of the month (Weddell has actually been around for a while, but has become better known in the last four or five years). For the last several decades Catholics have been trying to find the magic formula for keeping cradle Catholics from leaving and new converts coming in. It would be easy to assume that Weddell's methods are just the latest thing that will be hot today, and forgotten tomorrow.

The difference for me personally is that listening to her speak, and now reading her book, is like a kick to the gut. 

Weddell challenges many assumptions that we have about why so many Catholics stay lukewarm, leave the Church or, if they aren't Catholic, don't feel moved to enter. We tend to assume that defectors weren't well catechized, or had some deep disagreement with Church teaching, or were divorced and remarried, and so went to an ecclesial community they felt was more accepting of their situation. Anecdotally, I certainly know people who fit into one of these dynamics. What Weddell found in her research was that, while some may leave for these reasons, for the most part people leave the Church and go to a Protestant community because they don't feel that the Catholic Church offered them a personal relationship with God. Those who leave for no religion don't believe in a personal God or, if they do, that a relationship with God isn't possible. She's found that there are many people still in the Church, including clergy and lay leaders who don't know that such a relationship is possible. In her travels, visiting dioceses across the fruited plain, Weddell has encountered more than a few Catholics, by her reckoning, who don't even believe in a personal God (YIKES!).

In one of her talks Weddell describes an interview with a lay director of a major Catholic non-profit, who had no idea what she was talking about when asking the person about their personal relationship with God. After trying to approach the question from several different angles she concluded that this person, a leader in the Catholic Church, really didn't believe in a personal God, or else really didn't see the question of a relationship with Him as being terribly important. The sad truth was that the person in question could have been heading up any secular non-profit organization. He or she may have been bright, professional and otherwise qualified - but wasn't a Disciple. Unfortunately, while I've met a great many very dedicated lay leaders, people of true faith, I've also met a few Church workers, hard working and competent as they may have been, who fit that description. 

I can attest as well, that I have met or heard of people who left either the Catholic Church, one of the Orthodox churches, or mainline Protestantism, who spoke of never having had a personal relationship with God before now, and now feel at home in their new faith community. They'll say that they weren't Christian before, though having been brought up in what I know are Christian faiths. Again, a philistine doubt and cradle Catholic skepticism led me to think that there had to be some other, above mentioned, reason for their separating from the Church, especially focusing on the idea that they weren't well catechized (let's face it, if you grew up from the '70's on you probably didn't receive a very sold catechetical formation, K through12th grade).

But what Weddell writing is a wake up call. The reasons why people leave are deeper than simply not having received good catechesis. It's about not having received an integrated formation that accompanied them through the stages of growth from seeking God to living as a disciple. These stages are not separate, in many ways, but are interconnected and ongoing through life. It is a constant process of conversion that deepens our commitment to a dynamic discipleship in Christ.

Because I'm still reading the book I'm not going into details, but want to really focus in on one big point that she makes - that a personal relationship with the living God is not only possible, but essential to true discipleship. Weddell writes that Catholics are just not accustomed to speaking of their religious experience. But this has to change if we are going to really begin to retain, gain and form intentional Catholic disciples.

Catholics tend to focus on the objective truth of the Faith. Non Catholics, Protestants in particular, who enter the Church often come to "Rome" after they discover the Church Fathers, and investigate Church history. As famed Anglican convert, Blessed John Henry Newman, once said, "to be deep in history is to cease being Protestant." There are emotional conversions to Rome, but the pull of conversion often comes after someone falls in love with Christ, comes to sense that there is something more than what evangelicalism or the broader Protestant faith offers, they discover the historical roots of Christianity, a path that leads to the Catholic Church. 

Evangelicals tend to focus on the subjective experience of accepting Christ as personal Lord and Savior. We can give all the historical and theological reasons why Catholicism is the true Church Christ founded, but many of us don't have the ability to touch hearts by articulating why we believe on a personal, gut level. We are living in an age where heart supersedes the brain, feeling trumps reason. Somehow we need to better express the subjective experience we have living out the Catholic Faith, not just the objective reality underneath it.

For instance, we have the Sacraments, specifically the Eucharist, which I celebrate everyday. For me it is a very personal encounter with the risen Lord, a union with Him and sharing in His once for all sacrifice made mysteriously present through the power of the Holy Spirit. Evangelicals and other Protestants don't see it that way. They see it, at best as a simple memorial of the Last Supper, at worst as an empty ritual bordering on magic. 

I pray the rosary everyday, meditating on the various mysteries, the vast majority of which are drawn directly from Scripture. Through this ancient prayer I ponder the key events of Jesus' life as if I were there, looking through the eyes of the Blessed Mother, asking the Lord to help me grow in the virtues the mysteries represent, as well as praying for the my needs and those of my loved ones. They see vain repetition. 

In my devotional life I maintain an active friendship with the Saints. In them I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who went before me, encouraging me to perceiver in faith to the end as they did (Hebrews 12:1). They are the sign that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, God of the living, not the dead (Matt. 22:23-33). They are the ones described in the Book of Revelation offering the prayers of the "holy ones" that rise up to the Heavenly Thrown like incense (5:8). Evangelicals and nondenominational Christians see all sorts of things, from idolatry to necromancy.

For me, the key is to not to get so caught up on objections that are thrown at us, but to instead focus on why we believe.

I have always been baffled by people who tell me that being a Catholic somehow means that I haven't accepted Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I generally don't know how to answer the objection because the assertion seems so stupid it's beyond taking seriously. Sorry to be so blunt about it. But the people making the accusation aren't stupid, and many are former Catholics who made it through religious education or even Catholic school never having had that personal encounter with the living Lord. The problem isn't them, and it isn't the Catholic faith. The problem is us (by us I mean pastors, bishops, religious educators, et al). We have not done a good enough job sharing the treasure we hold in our hearts. We've taken for granted that the objective truth and power of the Sacraments will do all the work for us. We haven't appreciated that subjective dispositions are needed for the grace we receive in them to fully flower and bear fruit. We need to be more open about sharing who Jesus Christ is to us, and how he has changed our lives.

I leave you with disturbing questions that we all need to ask ourselves (or they should be disturbing if we call ourselves disciples) Who is Jesus? Do I have a personal relationship with him? And related to that, has He changed my life?

Fr. Robert Barron on St. Thomas More & the Bishop of Rome

It's hard to believe it's been six years since Pope Benedict XVI visited England and spoke in Westminster Hall, the place of St. Thomas More's condemnation. The reflection of then Fr. Barron on this historic event is just as valid today as it was then.

St. Thomas More from Catholic News Agency

Out of Town

PLYMOUTH, MA - I'm taking a few days away to visit the folks. I might clean up and finish off a post I was working on before I left, but otherwise I'm closed for business until Friday night. I have scheduled some postings from the Apostleship of Prayer and Bishop Robert Barron, like the one about the Saint of the day, Aloysius Gonzaga. Until then, you are in my prayers.

St. Aloysius Gonzaga From the Apostleship of Prayer

Walls and Bridges - Very Scattered Thoughts on Illegal Immigration

I stood convicted yesterday morning during meditation. It wasn't a harsh rebuke, but I became very aware of a great sin of omission that I am clearly guilty of. I've published close to 800 posts in the last six years - most are original along with a healthy number of posts from other sources, and haven't written a word explicitly about immigration reform. For most of my priestly life I have worked with immigrants, ministering to them, advocating for them on a grass roots level. But I have remained silent here, and that needs to change.

Part of my reticence has been rooted in an innate fear of being controversial. The other is my aversion to speaking about politics in public. The first is pure cowardice on my part, a resistance to suffer for the Gospel. The other has more justification, especially as I understand the life of Don Bosco, who had to navigate the founding of the Salesian Congregation through rough political waters, while also maintaining the unity of his men. Don Bosco was a fierce advocate for young people, and did speak boldly, but he never adopted a party platform along the way. He said things that had clear political implications, without getting political. Of course my error, my spiritual blindness, my sin, is not seeing the issue of immigration as one of faith first, politics second. It is possible to speak the truth as I've experienced it, which does have political implications, but like Don Bosco doing so without endorsing one party or the other. 

To make it plain, I don't believe that 11 million people enter another country by accident (how we know it's 11 million people, since they're undocumented, I'll never know - how do we know it isn't 5.5 million, or 22 million? Sorry for the digression). A nation doesn't surrender it's sovereign right to a border for no reason. Also, the issue has been at the forefront of the national consciousness for at least 20 years, yet no concrete reforms are ever enacted, no matter who's in the congressional majority or in the White House. Why is this? Again, I don't believe that any of this is an accident. Which leads me to a fundamental question. If the situation was allowed to happen, even if there isn't any grand conspiracy (which I'm not suggesting there is), who benefits? 

I see interests, both political and economic that benefit. The politicians have an issue ready at hand to keep their base engaged and, presumably, their membership boosted by the immigrant population who do manage get citizenship, and their children born here, so are citizens already, who are counted on to join, or at least vote for them. The immigrant population feels they have an advocate who fights for them, even though very little changes over time. Since in today's political climate, no matter what community your talking about, perception is more important than reality, it's not an unwise strategy. 

The other are the business interests, who find ways to get around the law to hire undocumented aliens. They don't have to pay minimum wage, deal with unions, follow an 8 hour day, and can hire and fire at will, with no ramifications. I'm sure those who live in farming areas could go into details on how large industrial farm corporations benefit from the current situation. Neither party is really interested in solving the problem, but both are eager to exploit it for votes, and business interests for profits.

You may take issue with my analysis, and that's fine. Whatever the causes of the problem, I deal with the victims of it everyday. The vast majority of our parishioners here were born outside the US, mostly in Mexico. Many have legal status, many do not. I won't hazard to guess percentages. Part of this has to do with the variety of situations I've run into over the years (as I'll detail below). Some of those who are undocumented have managed to make a decent life here in spite of "being in the shadows," and I'm surprised sometimes when I'm approached for help with their immigration work. It's not uncommon for someone who is knocking on the door of being middle class, or has already crossed the threshold, to end up not having legal status and needing assistance. 

Many struggle though. They work construction, which is hit or miss - especially here in Chicago where the winters can be harsh. Others are dish washers and bus boys, which, again can be erratic. Many have factory work which can be six or seven days a week at upwards of 12 hour shifts. The pay is little and the job security is the same.

As for family life, both mother and father work, for the most part. Many families are strong, but cracks are forming. I see more and more single mothers, or "blended families" which seems so morally indifferent when it happens in the middle class or above, but is not so quaint where I live. Again, it works when the parents are married, supplying a stable home life with love and affection for all the children, regardless of the paternity or maternity.

But in other situations the families have been "blended" two or three times over. Partners change often, and it's usually the father figure who's changing in and out of the children's lives, and the situation can be disastrous. The children know that the man living here now isn't their father, and doesn't love them like a father. One day he will most likely leave, and they'll have to deal with another padrastro - or stepfather. The best case scenario, the man leaves and the children only suffer deeper abandonment issues, never develop respect for male authority. In the worse cases there is abuse, both physical and sexual before the man decides to leave or gets reported. 

These issues are not confined to the undocumented population, but they are exacerbated because there is a fear of going to authorities for help. There is no extended family, quite often, to reach out to. They feel alone and desperate. Theses homes can also be breeding grounds for gang members. The gang, perversely, becomes the family they never had as children. 

Again, I have to stress that for the most part our people work hard to live the right way. But this shouldn't blind us to the real problems that are, at the very least, made worse for adults and children by the parent's legal status in the country. 

From the stand point of the faith, a great obstacle for many in trying to live holy, Christian lives, is the long hours and 6 to 7 day weeks that too many parents have to maintain just to survive. They can't fulfill their Sunday obligation, or it is very difficult to. They have the responsibility to get to Mass on Sunday, but the employer has a responsibility to allow their workers this very fundamental right. So many of the children of these workers don't receive the Sacraments, don't receive even a basic catechesis. They are denied grace and knowledge which are so important in our human, as well as spiritual development. God freed His people from slavery in Egypt first and foremost so they could go into the desert and adore Him in the manner He saw fit. There were also economic and political reasons, but these came after. God wants to be united with his people. It is their right,as well as duty, and His due. That so many are undocumented, and so unable to really exercise their rights - religious, civil and economic is a great sin against God, and the First and Third Commandments.

What I haven't gotten into, and will in a deeper way at another time, is that for every family, there is a different story. Mom is documented, but dad isn't - or the other way around. The Parents are undocumented, but the children are citizens by birth. Some of the children are citizens some aren't. A child brought here by his or her parents at two or three years old, has no memories of Mexico, grew up here, was educated here, speaks English fluently, but Spanish not as well, could be deported. These people are more American than Mexican in many ways, yet they have no rights, and struggle to become documented. So those who want mass deportations need to think long and hard about what that really means in terms of breaking up families.  

I know that this examination is scatter shot, and not very well planned out. But it is a beginning. I do plan on writing more on this, because I'm in the position to. If I can sum up what I'm trying to say, it's that those who are here in this country illegally are victims of larger forces, both here in the US, and in their home countries (which I haven't written about) who benefit from the situation. The immigrant is here because there aren't any opportunities in their native lands, or at least don't see any. They crossed the border, sometimes after a harrowing journey through the desert, at the mercy of bandits, smugglers and the cartels. They were permitted to come in and stay, even if only passively. They are not saints - they're human beings. Which means that there are good and bad among them. I've seen mainly good, though I've also caught more than a glimpse of the bad. Their situations are diverse, and defy simple solutions like building walls or throwing them on buses. 

As a priest of Jesus Christ my first responsibility is to care for the spiritual and material needs of my flock. Before all else, be they documented or undocumented, they are baptized members of the Body of Christ, which transcends political or national identities. Even if they aren't Catholic, those who come to my door are human beings, and I'm not going to ask for a birth certificate before offering help. For me, this isn't primarily a political issue, but a moral one, and a very personal one. 

Thank You, Anonymous

I received a short, sweet, and much appreciated card in this morning's mail sent in an envelope sporting an Edison, New Jersey return address and a Seattle, Washington post mark. He or she wished me well over the summer and thanked me for the blog posts. The card was unsigned. To whoever you are out there - thank you for the encouragement. I needed it.

I almost gave up on the blog earlier in the year, but in May, after some prayer, decided to rededicate myself to it. The readership is small, and I wasn't sure if it was worth continuing. I'll take this random act of kindness as a sign that I made the right decision.

So, Anonymous, whoever you are, thank you again. I'll be pray for you and yours. I'll be praying for all of you out there, especially when I'm in Spain, France and then Poland for World Youth Day in July.

Christ: The True Organizing Principle

It's a scene becoming far too common. One time it's Paris, the next it's Jakarta, then San Bernadino or London or Madrid or, now, Orlando. Attacks by individuals or small bands of Islamist terrorists are too quickly becoming the "new normal" of the early 21st Century West. The secular media is full of talking heads bellowing at each other, saying the usual things about homophobia (in light of that the latest atrocity happened at a gay nightclub), gun control and Islamist terrorism, not always in that particular order.

I went around to different sites looking for the "Catholic" response - to get a feel for how people of faith have been approaching the issue. It wasn't a very exhaustive search, and I really didn't read any one post too closely. This cursory run through of what's out there gave me the sense that the focus tended to be placed either on, you guessed it, homophobia, gun control or Islamist terrorism, in that order, with a slightly larger emphasis on the first category over the second. People were either showing solidarity with the gay community, or else praying for the victims while pointing out that it was a gay club attacked (think, den of iniquity) so that those people really need our prayers. Then there was one criticizing those who pray for the victims while at the same time implying that a gay club is intrinsically more hazardous to one's moral health than other places would be.

What I found disappointing is that, for the most part, the Catholic blogosphere mirrored the secular press in many ways. The discussion still came down to political solutions and politically correct platitudes. By focusing on sexual politics, secular politics or terrorism (even though I believe that this angle gets closest to the heart of the immediate issue), we are missing the bigger reality. Things are falling apart — the center isn't holding. We are politically, socially and economically divided at home, and Europe, depending on how the Brexit vote goes next week, is on the verge of disintegration. Even if Britain votes to stay in the EU this time, the demise of the European Union will have only been delayed, not entirely prevented. Some thing new is happening, can't you perceive it? The old structures, both institutional and intellectual are no longer trusted. This comes decades after the religious underpinnings of society were undone. But the secular city was supposed to supply meaning and societal cohesion independent of faith? The purely secular society has failed, but even we in the Church seem slow to want to accept this reality. 

Sometimes I get the feeling that even believers have reduced God to something like the celestial clock maker, only a bit more involved after the mechanism has been set in motion. He made us with great care, and does continue to look after us, winding us, polishing us when necessary, but God is otherwise indifferent to our life choices, especially those concerning sexual morality. We can get trapped between two extremes, one is thinking that God is wrathful; constantly looking for an excuse to punish us. The other is to deny that God ever chastises His wayward children at all (the more common temptation right now). God does chastise, but woe to the one who assumes to know what should be punished or assigns themselves as the chosen instrument of divine retribution (therefore, count me out of the "Orlando Shooting was God's Punishment" camp, if one exists). 

No, God isn't a clock maker - He's a Father who tries to keep us in balance. He cares for us, tries to teach up, and gives us a swift kick when necessary. At the same time, if things are falling apart, it's not God's punishment necessarily. I remember good Sr. Rose Assumpta, my 8th grade CCD teacher. She had a background in biology. She explained that nature is set up in a particular way that if it's misused it will rebel. If we eat too much and of the wrong kinds of foods, we shouldn't be surprised that diabetes and heart disease may occur. If we dump waste where it doesn't belong, we shouldn't be shocked that poisoned water will lead to widespread illness. And yes, in as much as we don't want to hear it, if we misuse the gift of sexuality, physical ailments, as well as spiritual and emotional unhappiness, will follow. Is this God's wrath? No - it's natures way. As a good Father, God wants us to avoid these things - live in a balanced way, with Christ at the center, as our organizing principle. With Jesus and His Gospel at the center all the other aspects of our life will begin to fall in place, in proper proportion to the whole.

But what happens when, as a culture, we have made something else our organizing principle? What happens when we make the economic, the political or, increasingly, the sexual, the defining and organizing principle of our lives? 

We become centered on ourselves, either on our particular cadre, or worse yet on our personal selves. We care less and less about the common good and become obsessed with our rights, be they real or perceived. We are so obsessed with our personal identity that we fail to see the suffering of others, or the threats that surround us. We are no longer a part of a larger reality that transcends socio-polital categories, be they legitimate or contrived. To address the threats from without would mean having to move beyond ourselves and our perceptions, joining with others in common cause, and common sacrifice. Rather than joining together, we point fingers at the other identity groups we see as competing with us for preference. But when we face an enemy united such fractiousness can not stand. The society will collapse, not because of God's wrath, but because this is the nature of how societies fall. 

Obviously I believe that the only lasting solution to the present crisis is making Christ the organizing principle of our lives. Christ moves us beyond all the limited identities we are either born into or create for ourselves. Christ enriches those qualifiers that are worthy, dissolves those that are superfluous. Christ calls us to seek eternity while striving for peace and justice now. Only a society organized around the Gospel, who's political, social and cultural values are informed by discipleship in Jesus will be able to stand united in the face of a force bent on destroying us. 

I do not want to leave the topic of God's chastisement totally undeveloped. But before I get into that, I suggest you read Luke 13:1-5. (Yes, you have homework!)

St. Anthony of Padua (6/13/16) Apostleship of Prayer

Bishop Barron on Porn and the Curse of Total Sexual Freedom

How I Prepare a Homily and More on the Readings for the 11th Week, Year C

Yesterday I offered some thoughts on the Gospel reading for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary time, year C (that is, today). It wasn't a complete homily, but more like a rough sketch - scattered thoughts on the reading. 

A suggestion Bishop Barron made once to priests getting into blogging was to post their Sunday homilies. We don't always have time to write original content, so it's an easy way to kill two birds: since we have to prepare a homily anyway, why not put it up it and let that be the post for the week? That's really great advise, but my problem is that I don't write out my homilies. I don't even write an outline. I prepare, alright. I use a sort of quasi lectio divina method of meditating on the scriptures throughout the week, picking out a line or lines that hit me and building something from there. Once I get a basic idea of where I want to go with the homily, I'll check a few trusted commentaries to both double check that I'm not going in the wrong direction, or if I'm stuck, to get ideas moving. I might tap out a few thoughts on my iPad's word processing app during morning meditation, but for the most part it's all worked out in my head. 

There are pros and cons to not reading a written homily. The main positive is that people feel I'm speaking more naturally. I almost always hear complaints from people when a priest reads his homily. And the ironic thing is, I've found that the better the homily is in terms of content and structure the more they will complain when its read (unless the preacher is very skilled in public speaking). In spite of speaking extemporaneously, I follow a pretty well planned mental script, yet if I wrote it out and read it I guarantee there are those who would complain. 

Speaking in a well planned - off the cuff style also gives me the freedom to digress if something hits me. Since I know what I'm going to say I have a place to comeback to, while at the same time not feeling bound to stick to a text. Everyone is different: some preachers can digress gracefully from a prepared text, it's just a skill I ever developed.

But if there is one thing that is absolutely essential to good homily prep, whether you prepare a written text or not - it's prayer. And my prayer is simple. When I begin the process I ask Jesus what he wants to tell the people. What is it that they need to hear? I'm not saying that I always get it right - I'm still just a fallible man - but I do believe that the Lord helps me in the process with the gift of His Spirit. And this prayer helps me to stay focussed on what preaching is all about: I'm not here to proclaim the gospel according to Fr. Tom, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I find that many times when I'm stuck with a case of preacher's block, the problem is that I'm caught up with what I want to say, or how eloquent I'm sounding - or not. When I stop and spiritually recalculate, asking Jesus what it is that He wants to say, things start flowing much more smoothly. Sometimes when the homily is over I'll wonder where the words came from, they come to me in such a mysterious way. All this is possible only when prayer is at the center of the process.

As for the readings this week, I spoke already about the passage from Luke, so I'll turn my attention to the Old Testament reading from 2 Samuel. 

We are given a very narrow periscope of a larger passage about King David and his grave sins of adultery and murder. Briefly, David had an affair with the wife of one of his military officers who was off at war. Bathsheba - the wife - got pregnant as a result, and the King tried to cover it up by sending Uriah - the husband - home on leave. Uriah was what I like to call a U.S. Marine type: totally dedicated. While his men were out on the front, away from their families, in harms way, he wasn't going to go home and enjoy the pleasures of the conjugal bed. After twice failing to get the iron age leatherneck drunk and home to the wife, so as to give plausible deniability to any misbehaving, David arranges it that Uriah is put way up at the front of the front, undefended. He dies in battle, Bathsheba becomes one of David's wives, and no one's the wiser.

Accept, you can't hide from God. 

The prophet Nathan gets a message from the Lord, and relays it to David by way of a parable about a poor man who has his only beloved lamb stollen by a greedy, heartless, wealthy neighbor. David, enraged by the story, calls for the offender's death. When Nathan reveals the this little tale was an allegory of David's own crime, the king repents. 

But Nathan also reveals something ominous. While the sin is forgiven, and David will not suffer the full punishment due for such villainy (eternal damnation), he will still have to make some reparation for his sin. God declares that the "sword shall never depart from your house." This meant that David, no stranger to war, would never cease to have to defend his kingdom from enemies from without, as well as usurpers from within, including attempted coups by two of his sons - one violent, the other bloodless.

(There is another detail that the editors of the Lectionary decided to leave out. In the next verse Nathan declares that the child born to them would die. I don't deal with that in my homily, and will leave the point undeveloped for right now. It is a hard passage, and if I have one criticism of how the Lectionary is organized, it's that the difficult bits are too often omitted. All I'll write for now is that God in His being is simple, but his ways are mysterious and hard to understand, and I'm not sure we're helping people by glossing the difficult parts over.)

David had been given many gifts in his life. He was a lowly shepherd, the youngest son in his family, who was not the obvious choice to be king. He was taken from the flocks and made a hero of Israel, later king. He had lands, wives, concubines, glory and honors. Yet his return to the Lord was these acts of ingratitude. Much was given, and so much was expected. When he fell in such a deliberate and wanton manner forgiveness had to accompanied by penance. 

Notice, as well, that unlike the woman from the Gospel, David didn't willingly approach the Lord looking for pardon, but had to be slapped across the face. David was content to go on, convinced that his crime was successfully covered up. As a wise man once said, God loves us as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us that way. Even if David's love wasn't sufficient to keep from sinning, or even enough to motivate him to seek out God's mercy, God's loving mercy reached out to him. But God's is a strong love, a challenging love. Some times Jesus comes as the Good Shepherd to gently call us home, but sometimes, especially if we are obstinate and spiritually blind, he comes as the Hound of Heaven pursuing us "down the nights and down the days," as Francis Thompson put it.

If, like David, our sin is the product of pure ingratitude and lack of love, He shake us up, then builds that love back up. That's the real purpose of reparation: to break down our pride and self reliance so we may not simply avoid sin out of fear, but do the right out of love. God's punishment is never about chastisement for its own sake. It always has a point: it is always to perfect love.

If we are like the woman who anointed Jesus' feet, maybe our sin, while still sin, came after a series of hardships. Maybe we didn't have all the advantages that David did. Maybe because of the circumstances of life we weren't strong enough to resist temptations when they came our way. Maybe we were wounded somehow, victimized, and it effected how we see the world and ourselves for the worse. Maybe our sin is the product of self loathing, and while we knew it was wrong, somehow we were convinced that we "deserved whatever we got"(a demonic deception). In this case, Jesus reaches out His hand to convince us otherwise. If we persist in sin, we will indeed be lost, but we shouldn't despair that the Lord comes in the moment of repentance as a harsh judge, but as a merciful Savior.

Which brings me back to what I wrote last time about the women who followed Jesus on the way. I speculated that maybe each had some vice that Jesus released them from. In their following Jesus, forgiveness, reparation and love join together. They abandoned their old ways of sin, but they surely also left good things. One was the wife of a court official, so I have to imagine that she led a rather comfortable life. In abandoning the old way, both the good and bad, they were risking much. But they were cooperating in the saving mission of Jesus. Their efforts made it possible for Jesus and the 12 to support themselves and continue spreading the proclamation of the Kingdom. They were motivated by love and gratitude, and each hardship encountered, discomfort suffered, doubt confronted and overcome served as reparation for past sins, but also deepened their love for God. If we are open, Jesus makes that same invitation to us: to repent, yes; to do reparation; yes. More importantly, it's a invitation to grow in love.

Why Were the Women Tagging Along?: Scattered thoughts on the Gospel Reading - 11th Sunday, Year C

As I was preparing for this week's homily, I was struck by a small detail in the Gospel reading that could easily, and understandably be overlooked. In the passage from Luke 7:38-8:3, we hear that Jesus at once forgives the penitent woman, while shaming the Pharisees for being judgmental and lacking mercy. It's a beautiful story in which the unnamed woman interrupts the meal to bathe Jesus' feet with her tears, then anointing them with oil. The implication is that this woman had been forgiven much, so was now making a return to the Lord. It is a tender gesture of thanksgiving, adoration and deep love. 

While the scene is playing out the head Pharisee, Simon, thinks to himself what a no-acount false prophet Jesus is for letting this public sinner touch him like this (and a woman! Why, if he were really a prophet...). Our Lord, as always turns the tables on his accusers, showing that he is a prophet, and much more. Reading his mind, he points out, by way of a parable, that those who are forgiven much tend to love and appreciate the one who forgives more than others, who's sins may be less serious. But more than that, he points out that Simon had neglected the basic rules of hospitality by not offering his special guest water to wash his feet, or perfume for "freshening up" after walking the dusty roads. He concludes by declaring the woman forgiven of her sins for the great love she has shown. In the Lord it is truly the lowly who are raised while the rulers are thrown down, as our Lady put it (Lk. 1:52).

The detail that struck me is that the first three verses of the next chapter are tacked on to the end of the reading. If your priest or deacon decides to, these "extra" verses can be omitted. They mention that several women, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna, traveled with the twelve and took care of their needs out of their own resources. Yes, it shows that Jesus was unusually inclusive, and that these women were dedicated to Jesus. At least one was well connected, seeing that her husband was an official of Herod's court - thus showing that the Gospel was already spreading deeply into all corners of the society. As telling as this passage is, it still seems a bit out of place considering where we just were. What do these verses have to do with forgiveness and mercy?

Maybe nothing. 

I've consulted a few commentaries and saw nothing to connect the two parts. But there had to be a reason the editors of the Lectionary decided to pin these three verses on to the end of the reading, no?

What I think is that maybe, in some way, each of these women (three are named, but the exact number isn't given), were either forgiven by Jesus of some great sin, or shown some other great mercy in their lives. Pope St. Leo the Great always identified the unnamed woman here with Mary Magdalene, though modern scholars disagree. Whether its her or not, the person who anointed Jesus' feet and dried them with her hair was probably guilty of some sexual sin: possibly prostitution, most probably adultery, whatever the transgression, it certainly caused a public scandal. Even if she and Mary Magdalene are two separate people, the latter was liberated from seven demons. I tend to take that pretty literally, but even if you want to say Luke was writing metaphorically, there was something grave, be it illness, addiction, or vice, or a combination of the three that she was freed from. The rest were freed from evil spirits and infirmities. Maybe one was an inveterate gossip who ruined people's reputations. Maybe another had cancer. Maybe another had a problem with drink. There are countless possibilities, but in each case Jesus touched their lives in a profound way - profound enough that they left home, took to the road, and cared for Jesus and the 12 out of their own pocketbooks. 

Could there be another reason that Luke highlights the presence of women in Jesus' entourage? I believe so.

I have seen men, after living unholy lives, turn it around and become very dedicated to Jesus and the Church. But I've seen it more intensely in women. I don't want to be misunderstood with what I'm about to write. Men and women are both capable of selfishness and cunning, and of ingratitude. But if you were going to ask me which, men or women, are more likely to be victims of sin, it would be women (forgive me if I leave that point undeveloped, for now). 

When it comes to sexual sin, I just believe that women feel the weight of guilt over it more than men do. I'm definitely not saying its right, just that that's what I've found in my experience. Men rarely come to me lamenting their lost virginity, where as often - not always, maybe not even mostly, but often - women are in tears about it. Men will feel deeply guilty over marital infidelity, and I've seen more than my share of tears there. But if I were to say who feels the effects overall of sexual sin it's women. So when the shackles of sin, of whatever sort, are removed women seem more likely to respond by becoming dedicated to Jesus in an extraordinary way. Again, not all women, and maybe not even most, but enough that I've noticed it over the years. 

So, yeah, I can see Luke giving a special mention to this group of dedicated ladies. It's also in line with the Third Evangelist's tendency to highlight Jesus' special care for those on the margins. Women were most certainly second class citizens in the society of time, and it wasn't really questioned. Here Luke brings out two important points, that women have an equal standing in the Church, and that they do tend to respond with greater gratitude to Jesus when they experience his mercy. The first point is always important to point out, and the second is in line with the overall message of the reading.

This is just the rawest of sketches for Sunday's homily. I'll also be bringing in the first reading from the Second Book of Samuel, another haunting passage on forgiveness, but also reparation for sin (a neglected aspect of mercy). 

More on the Passing of Lenny Bruce

I know what you're probably thinking: Lenny Bruce has been dead for fifty years (this August 3 will mark that anniversary). Why such a headline, as if his passing is still news? Why two posts about a comedian fewer and fewer people remember, and who, when he was still relevant, was thorn in the Church's side?

The answer to the first question is contained in the preceding post: I'm not writing of the Leonard Albert Schneider of history, who indeed died in 1966. I'm writing of the Lenny Bruce of faith, who's memory and cause lived for decades, but has now been killed by the heirs of the very counter-culture who once used his name as a synonym for freedom of speech. The radical activists of today line up on the same side of the issues as Bruce did, but instead of having blunt conversations over uncomfortable topics, they want to shut off conversation that violates their emotional safe space. They are guilty of the very heresy Bruce preached against: making certain words taboo, thus giving them the unnecessary power to wound.

As for his ongoing popularity, or lack there of, Lenny Bruce is one of those artists who's influence is greater than his personal success. Few people know who Gram Parsons was, but without him you probably wouldn't have had country rock. The same can be said of The MC 5 and The New York Dolls, who were forerunners of punk. As he predicted, Orson Welles has been revered in death, but wasn't respected in Hollywood during his life. It took at least a decade for critics to come around to recognizing Citizen Kane (1941) as a game changing masterpiece, and he spent most of the rest of his career fighting for artistic control of his films, struggling to find work and financing both inside and outside the system. But without him there's no film noir, and probably not as much non-linear story telling in movies. 

But the Lenny Bruce of faith is about more than just making the world safe for Sarah Silverman. He's one of those cultural figures who came to prominence in the '60's, didn't survive the decade, but who's shadow was cast long and tall over the culture in general for decades. He has influenced our attitudes toward free speech and artistic expression whether we know it or not. He was commenting on race and war when it was unpopular to do so, and on gay rights, albeit somewhat cryptically, before it was on the general public's radar. So he is still important, maybe more important today than before because the cause of free speech he suffered for is in danger again. 

I ended the last post wondering what Lenny Bruce would think if he visited a college campus today - as he once mused about a fictional visit to St. Patrick's Cathedral by Christ and Moses. Unlike the Biblical visitors, he might be happy with what he sees. In many ways his side did win: it's hard to deny that the majority of college professors are the spiritual descendants of the Lenny Bruce of faith. The academy, as well as the entertainment industry, is safe to champion the cause of minorities, be they ethnic, cultural or sexual. I'm sure Bruce would approve of the inclusion and tolerance for those on the cultural margins presently found in most universities. 

But now the tables are turned. Those who were once the "mad ones" of Kerouac's On the Road are now controlling the leavers of the institutional machine that free speech activist Mario Savio said needed to be laid upon and jammed. Those who were sitting in in 1968 educated the next generation of the establishment. Through them old orthodoxies have given way to new, and are defended with more rigger than what came before. If Lenny Bruce came back what would he think of the fact that words he used to spin into a stream of consciousness poem of irony and satire are now forbidden? What would he think that any reference to race or gender or sexual orientation that doesn't comply with strict speech codes can get the speaker put in front of human rights commissions? What would he think that stand up comics, most of whom draw their material from what they observe, are more and more abandoning the college circuit because their observations, no matter how innocuous, are sometimes condemned as offensive? 

The answer to this question depends on if the Lenny Bruce of faith is the same as the Leonard Schneider of history. I do believe speech codes and safe spaces violates the spirit of the Lenny Bruce of faith. I don't know enough about the man to say what the flesh and blood Leonard Schneider would say. Many who did know him and defended him, people as diverse as George Carlin, Steve Allen and Dorothy Kilgallen, are gone. Maybe Mort Sahl could answer the question. Would Lenny Bruce be content that his side won, so let the losers roast? Is this really all about power, and since the power is in the hands of progressives they can limit speech as they see fit? Even though I disagree with many things he said, particularly about the Catholic Church, I'd hate to think the flesh and blood man who suffered so much for the cause of free speech only wanted it for himself, and his comrades. 

As for his swipes at the Church, I'm a bit philosophical. When asked once if he was familiar with Bruce's Christ and Moses at St. Pat's routine, Archbishop Sheen, one of the targets in the one man sketch, claimed not to know who Lenny Bruce was, let alone heard the bit. His shots against the Church, and even his own religious tradition, weren't necessarily new, it's just the first time anyone even remotely main stream expressed them publicly. Fulton Sheen and Cardinal Spellman, another object of Bruce's scorn, weren't harmed, and probably were unaware that they were being ridiculed. St. Patrick's is still standing on 5th Avenue, between 50th and 51st streets. The Catholic Church goes on. As I wrote before, there is truth to the routine that should serve as an examination of conscience for Catholics, and even if he was being unjust, we should be unafraid of words: the Church has suffered worse in her history. 

I believe the most difficult commandment that Jesus gave us to follow is the call to love our enemies. I don't think this command requires us to be passive doormats, though. We should answer thoughtfully, and if we can, wittily, and always with charity. But we need the opportunity to answer back. My worry is that the ability to speak freely is being suppressed, ironically, in the name of inclusiveness and tolerance. This is the death knell of a free society, and I know this contravenes the tenets that the Lenny Bruce of faith promoted. I don't condemn, I don't come to bury his memory. I come to lament the death of a rhetorical enemy, knowing that his passing hurts all of us. It's more than about the passing of a man in time, or his memory from the collective consciousness: in this case it's about the death of a powerful idea, and all of us being able to freely express ours.  

Lenny Bruce is Dead

A while back I wrote a couple of posts on secular saints: dead celebrities who enjoy post mortem fame that is sometimes even greater than what they had in life - a phenomenon that seems to invert the veneration we give to the saints of the Church. One of these dead celebrities that has reached cult status since he shuffled off this mortal coil, but who I failed to mention, was the comedian Lenny Bruce (1925-1966) (born Leonard Alfred Schneider). I think he didn't leap to my mind at the time because, of all these departed celebrities, while he is quite possibly the most revered, he is ironically the least well known. People will walk around with an image of Marilyn Monroe or Bob Marley on their cloths, but I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone wear a Lenny Bruce T-shirt in my life. Part of this is because he wasn't apart of the visual media like a Monroe or Elvis Presley were. He didn't have a movie career, and was on Television only sparingly, so there aren't a lot of photo images or video clips that became indelibly marked into the popular culture that could them be turned into a shirt or a poster. 

The other reason, not unrelated, is that even during his life relatively few people actually saw him perform. The lack of movie and TV exposure was one reason, but the other was that his act was so edgy for it's time he eventually couldn't get gigs in night clubs, let alone land a part in mainstream entertainments, and recordings of his shows only got widely circulated in the years following his death. He was arrested for obscenity on numerous occasions, and eventually local police departments applied pressure to club owners not to book him. At least one who did lost his liquor license in retribution. Even his fellow entertainers seemed to keep him at arms length. As Richard Corliss implied in a tribute on the 40th anniversary of Bruce's death, he was only really embraced as a cause célèbre after he died. 

In spite of maintaining only a cult following on both sides of death, he undoubtedly changed the art of stand up comedy for good: no Lenny Bruce - then no George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Sam Kinison Chris Rock, Louis CK or any number of other stand up comics that followed, or at least they wouldn't have plied their trade in quite the same way. All owe something to Bruce, especially George Carlin, and consciously or not they have kept his memory and cause alive.

Bruce's cause does indeed live on, but it isn't disseminated so much by way of officially licensed products hocked to keep his heirs solvent, but as an idea, a symbol employed by artists of various stripes. Since he died the mention Lenny Bruce's name in songs, poems and screenplays has been a metaphor for freedom of artistic expression, and the unjust persecution often suffered by it's most zealous practitioners. He represents rebellion against authority, especially organized religion, especially the Catholic Church: he was a punk rock comedian a decade before there was such a thing as punk rock. 

Lenny Bruce means provocation, not simply shock, as some of his contemporary critics contended. Redd Foxx or Buddy Hackett used profanity and told off color jokes, but Bruce was telling a morality tale in blue. The thing is, it wasn't about profanity for profanity's sake. He wanted to push buttons about race, politics, freedom of speech and religious hypocrisy, and the four letter words were punctuations or crescendos to make sure the audience wasn't missing the point. He always had his finger firmly poised on the rhetorical trigger and he never hesitated to pull it without warning. 

Lenny Bruce means not allowing the listener any safe spaces. Lenny Bruce means that being a liberal isn't enough, because even liberals can use high minded, yet detached sanctimony to hide their bourgeois racism. The name Lenny Bruce means all this and more when it is proclaimed. His true disciples have always been a relative few, all the same they've been completely devoted to spreading his gospel.

The premise of this gospel is simple: words have no meaning apart from that which we give them. It's the suppression of the word, making it taboo, that gives it its power. If these words, those harsh racial slurs and gay invectives that we now only refer to by their initials, are used regularly, as we would some innocuous phrases, and we use them constantly and without remorse, they will eventually lose their meaning, becoming completely harmless. In which case, no one would be offended, children particularly, when someone calls them a name. 

In many ways Lenny Bruce's gospel did convert the culture, even though Bruce himself didn't live to see the triumph. Yet I would argue that the victory was only partial. It is true that in the decade after his death comedy, as with all forms of popular entertainment, got more raw, more edgy, more politically charged. The use of profanity and nudity in mainstream films, for instance, became normal, practically required. Martin Scorsese recounted once that in the late 1960's he was told by a producer that he needed to add a nude scene to his film or it wouldn't get released, where as only a year or two before he would have been told to cut such a scene out. Comics like Carlin and Pryor, whose acts before Bruce's death were conventional enough to them get booked on the Ed Sullivan Show, saw their routines get decidedly more politicized, sexualized, and verbally uninhibited. 

While those comics were clearly walking in the path Lenny Bruce had blazed, the generations that followed used the liberties that were won, but put them to no great purpose. Now it really is just a matter of using "naughty words" and sexual humor to shock or to excite, not to enlighten or sting the conscience. I've read and heard people try to explain the deeper meaning of Seth Rogen or Judd Apatow, but all I see are adults stuck in 8th grade, showing off the new words that they learned, basking in the novelty of breaking some low level taboos. Bruce used all those words then that they do now, all the prepositions and all the verbs, as well as nouns and adjectives, but to challenge the notions and sacred beliefs of a nation, not just get a cheap laugh. 

And what about the idea that insults and epithets will lose their meaning when used often enough? These words are more verboten now than ever. Not that I think the they should be common place, but its the reason that they are effectively banned from public discourse that's so curious. It's one thing to say that they shouldn't be said in anger, but they can't even be said in irony. Many comics today, like Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock have abandoned the college campus, the very place where freedom of expression should thrive, because of the politically correct atmosphere that prevails. Making references to race, politics, gender or sexual orientation that doesn't fit into a very strict orthodoxy can cause an event to be canceled or shut down by protesters. Is this what Lenny Bruce died for, if like many of his followers, you believe he died as a martyr to freedom of expression?

As Corliss goes to great lengths to describe in his piece, many of Bruce's most relentless persecutors were Catholic cops and judges who took offense at his swipes at the Church. If Catholics failed to heed the Master's call to turn the other cheek, if they used their public authority to seek retribution against a perceived enemy they were called to love, then all they did was prove the hypocrisy Bruce accused them of. Did he take some cheap shots at the Church? I believe so. Was his routine about Christ and Moses paying a surprise visit to St. Patrick's Cathedral a brilliant piece of satire that can serve as an examination of conscience for believers (as well as being just flat out funny)? You bet. But in so constricting what can be said, what opinions can be spoken, what expression is acceptable the modern politically correct police have managed to do something their Catholic counterpart was never able to do: they've killed Lenny Bruce the idea.

If Lenny Bruce payed a surprise visit to a college campus today what would he think? Would he think his gospel was alive? Would he think we are more free to speak our minds than in his day? Would he think all that he suffered for his art, and for his beliefs, were worth while or done in vain? Would he even be allowed to do his act?

I believe that his was a highly flawed gospel, especially his tenet concerning how words function. But he did stand for something important and it's sad to see it was all washed away by the very people who should have preserved his legacy. It's sad to see that the hypocrisy is now coming from those who claim the high ground.

Muhammad Ali (1942-2016)

I'd been laboring over a post about the late comedian Lenny Bruce, when the news broke that Muhammad Ali's health was failing. When I went to bed last night Ali was still in the hospital battling a repertory ailment (one of a slew of illnesses he'd had to fight over the past three decades). This morning, he was gone.

The image that I saw accompany the story most often, from the Chicago Tribune this morning, where I first saw confirmation of his passing, to any number of sites on the web was of the iconic shot of him standing over a fallen Sonny Liston. It was their second fight, held on May 25, 1965 in the unlikely locale of Lewiston, Maine.

That photo of Ali (then still known as Cassius Clay), flexing his arm across his chest, built like a Greek god - his handsome, almost boyish face contorted into a mask of rage - roaring like a lion over it's conquered prey, became an icon. It indeed captured the essence of that young lion in his prime: defiant, strong, and proud.

He had already converted to Islam and would shortly make his name change legal and permanent. Like Bruce, a contemporary who's controversial stage act made him subject to arrest for violation of obscenity laws, Ali ran afoul of the law. In his case he refused induction into the military during the Vietnam War. While he didn't lose his freedom like Bruce did on several occasions, his stand cost him three years in the prime of his career. As Lenny Bruce found it almost impossible to get a gig, Ali couldn't book a fight since no state would grant him a boxing license. With his passport revoked, going overseas to box wasn't an option. He was a polarizing figure, and there were those who initially refused to call him by his Muslim name. His arch rival Joe Frazier always called him Clay just to get under his skin.

If he never had converted to Islam - allying himself with the Nation of Islam - or changed his name you could argue he probably wouldn't have gotten drafted to begin with. But he still would have been controversial. He was brash, quick witted, and boastful. He belittled his opponents verbally before humbling them physically in the ring. He said what was on his mind. Sure, some of it was show business: he had a lot of promoter in him, as well as fighter. But most of it wasn't an act. It was all Ali.

He would come back, becoming the first, and so far only, man to win the heavy weight crown three times - when being the Champ still meant something. I saw Ali relatively late in his career, vividly remembering him win that last title, reclaiming it from Leon Spinks. And I saw him when he could still jab and duck, weave and sting verbally. It was something to hear, and the saddest thing is that it's been three decades since the world saw and heard the legend in full.

This is but a thin outline. I'll be back with a deeper appreciation for Muhammad Ali. For now, I'll leave you with the image that tells the story.

The Lesser of Two Evils is Still Evil

I watched a conference last night by Dr. Peter Kreeft, via You Tube, reflecting on the legendary 1978 Harvard commencement address of Aleksandre Solzhenitsyn, which he attended. Listening to his analysis, liberally sprinkled with quotes from the infamous speech, got a rant going in my mind. Solzhenitsyn's speech was no rant, but a very carefully crafted, spiritually informed, critique of Western Society in the last quarter of twentieth century. My words here, alas, are not so lofty. I can only hope someday to roughly approximate the Russian's wisdom and courage, and his rhetorical skills in expressing the truth. But for now, a few not so scattered thoughts, continuing my critique of this political season I've been engaging in of late.

I grew up in a partisan household where elections were approached as a matter of the Good Guys versus the Bad Guys. Even if the opposing candidate wasn't evil, his party was, and both had to be stopped if Western Civilization, or at least the Republic, was to survive. If your Good Guy wasn't the candidate you wanted from the beginning, and even if you had serious reservations, you voted for him because he was the "lesser of two evils." But what do you do when one evil seems just as evil as the other, but just in a different way?

This year I do not see any of the remaining declared candidates for President of the United States as having the moral fiber and / or competence to hold that office. Even taking into account that no president is ready from day 1 (each has had to grow in the job to one degree or the other), and we are electing a chief executive, not a pope, the choices this year are troubling. I do not see any potential third party alternative, or last second substitution for the presumptive nominees, that I would enthusiastically vote for either. This is because, no matter their personal qualifications, they are apart of a system has been rendered morally bankrupt, and whoever is elected will just perpetuate the bankruptcy. Though some candidates are claiming to be outsiders who'll shake up the status quo, in the final analysis the problem isn't the institution, its the hearts and minds of the people that is in need of shaking up.

To put it as plainly as I know how, culturally we are presently trapped in a materialistic, consumeristic, shell. Atheistic communism was defeated, but all that happened was that the world was made safe for agnostic capitalism. At least the Soviets had the conviction to say they didn't believe in God. We straddle the fence living in a perpetual doubt that we really don't want answered. Because if we answer that question it means we would actually have to commit to a way of life instead of living the illusion of plastic self determination and fluid identities. The consumerist culture doesn't challenge us, because all it is interested in is ever expanding markets. It doesn't judge, only affirms, in the hope that a new marketing beach head can be opened, and profits increased from the dollars syphoned off from the latest subculture gone mainstream. None of this encourages self examination, self doubt, or conversion of life. As long as the creature comforts are supplied, our basic assumptions left undisturbed, we are content to live in our shell.

Under these circumstances meaningful political change is practically impossible, never mind personal conversion, and what change can be had will be the product of unenlightened self interest or idealism divorced from reality. If the old cliche is true, that we get the presidents that the deserve, in this case we're getting the candidates that we deserve.

I am not saying that I'm not going to vote, or that you shouldn't. Voting is a grave responsibility that shouldn't be shrugged off or carelessly considered. All I'm saying is that as of June 3, 2016 there is no candidate that I have confidence in. The idea that I need to vote for one person because he or she, cankers and all, is still better than the alternative isn't good enough for me: not this election cycle anyway. I'm open to being persuaded, even by the present line up, as pitiful as it is. But if the choice is between two snakes, the fact that one's venom will take slightly longer to kill me is of little solace.

To Put on the Heart of Jesus from the Apostleship of Prayer

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus from Salt+Light

The Divine Mercy of the Sacred Heart

An image of the Sacred Heart similar to what hung in my father's store 

In preparation for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart I decided to put a few scattered thoughts together regarding this special devotion. 

I've written before about my devotion deprived childhood. I went back to see where I wrote about it so I could link to the post, but I gave up the search. After six years and 774 posts (counting this one) I've lost track a bit of what I wrote where and when. Since I don't want to risk repeating myself unnecessarily, you'll just have to take my word on it: My, immediate post-Vatican II, generation wasn't schooled in the popular devotions of the Church the way previous generations were.  

Which brings me to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Growing up I saw the image in statue and portrait form, sure enough. We had an image of the Sacred Heart hanging high on the wall in my father's produce store, along with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, centrally located right across from the front doors, greeting everyone as they entered. I knew that the image was of Jesus, but I was always kind of befuddled by the exposed heart, looking not quite like a caricature, but not quite realistic either - kind of half way between the carnal and the cartoon like. It was never explained at the time, because I think my parents took for granted that it would have been explained in CCD (old school parish religious education classes, for you younger folk), and we weren't getting it in CCD because it wasn't a part of the curriculum. As I've said before, popular devotions were out of favor back in the '70's, so the image of Jesus' exposed heart, bound by the crown of thorns, bursting with light and flames was a bit off putting to me. 

At the same time I was fascinated by this bit of iconography, and did do some reading up on it when I was older, learning about the 12 promises made to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. Later, after I entered the minor seminary I read Cardinal Ratzinger's book Behold the Pierced One, which showed the continued relevance of the devotion in the face of contemporary objections. It had been a fabulously popular devotion for centuries, but fell almost completely out of favor after the Council due to the belief of some that it was unscriptural. You see, the heart itself is not a prominent biblical image. We who were brought up in the West identify the heart as the seat of emotions, but in the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, the kidneys, located deep in the interior of the person was so identified. It kind of makes sense if you sit and think about it, but nonetheless, culturally speaking, we can understand that flaming kidneys wouldn't quite have the same impact on us as a heart does, to put it mildly (it certainly wouldn't have made any sense to St. Margaret Mary).  Short book that it is, it has been better than a quarter century since I read it, so I'm foggy on the details. All I know is that after reading the future Benedict XVI's modest treatise that image of Jesus' pierced heart, aflame and overflowing with divine love captured me once and for all. 

This was because in the Sacred Heart I saw the interconnection of Jesus' humanity and divinity most clearly.  We see Jesus the Son of God demonstrated by the miracle accounts, but otherwise the scriptures are spare, concise; defying any substantive psychological analysis of Jesus the man. Mark, in particular, describes Jesus' emotional state at times, but otherwise it's easy to walk away from the New Testament accounts with the image of a rather stoic savior.  The Sacred Heart offers us a glimpse at a passionate man, deeply in love with His people. It is a love that is at once collective - for all humanity, but at the same time very particular. He knows each of us by name. He has counted every hair of our head. He known what is the best in us, but He also knows the evil that we are capable of - yet He loves us all the same. He desperately wants us to respond to His call, to accept his love, but Jesus won't force Himself on us. He pines like an unrequited lover when He is rejected, but never with bitterness. He loves, even to the point of giving His Body and Blood in sacrifice. He loves with a human passion, yet with the infinite power of God. 

That Jesus would appear to St. Margaret Mary and speak of the love in His heart for us makes tremendous sense. He was speaking to her, a simple yet devoted daughter, in a language she could understand (and I'm not talking about French). By extension, He was speaking to the entire culture, and while the heart may not be a scriptural image of consequence, that God is Love, and that His love is passionate, is. Jesus was going to use whatever means necessary to get that vital message across. Unfortunately we missed the forest for the trees, getting hung up on, quite frankly, an esoteric detail and missing the larger, obvious message. 

Over the past twenty years we have seen the rise of another popular devotion in the Church - the Divine Mercy. It looks similar to the Sacred Heart in many ways, and some see it as a rival to that older devotion. There has been objections to the Divine Mercy among some pastors and professional theologians as well. I heard one priest complain that it's a spiritual regression: a pre-Vatican II atavistic throwback promoted by "that Polish pope." I'll leave the meaning of the anti-Polish crack to your own surmising, but the objection overall is motivated by the assumption that the Council either discouraged or outright eliminated popular devotions, which is simply not true. Though the roots of the Divine Mercy go back to a time when the Sacred Heart was still very popular, I've often wondered if God wasn't anticipating the objections to the older devotion and sort of saying, "Okay, let's see'm say that My mercy isn't biblical." So, When the Sacred Heart fell out of favor, here's the Divine Mercy to pickup where it left off. 

And here we need to make an important point: the Divine Mercy doesn't replace the Sacred Heart. The two devotions compliment each other. The Sacred Heart brings us deep into the psychological interior of Jesus. It shows us His motivation for going to the cross for us. As Pope Benedict would highlight in his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, in Jesus we see eros and agape, the passionate and the unconditional forms of love as defined by the ancient Greeks, perfectly balanced. The passion He has or us (eros) is kept from being a selfish desire by his universal, unconditional love (agape), which in turn is kept from being impersonal and cold by the presence of eros. What then breaks forth from deep inside His very core is the Divine Mercy that is showered upon humanity. St. Faustina described Jesus' love (the Sacred Heart) as the flower and His Divine Mercy as its fruit. 

The irony of all this personally is that even though I was taken up with the Sacred Heart a long time ago, I never really practiced the devotion with any regularity. On the other hand, I was one of those unsure about the Divine Mercy, coming to it in only the last few years, but now the chaplet is a regular part of my prayer life. 

While the Divine Mercy has become important to me, I am very conscious of what lays behind it. Jesus' mercy bursts forth from a heart on fire with love. He wants us all to be saved, and His heart aches, longing for our return after we have sinned. Jesus is not some well intentioned, but distant philanthropist who loves humanity as an idea, but can't stand people in the flesh. He took on a human heart, not because He needed to, but because we needed to know unambiguously that God is love. He came and made His dwelling among us, sharing our joys and pains. He wasn't play acting, those emotions were real. The Sacred Heart of Jesus makes visible in invisible tenderness and passion of God. Jesus went to the cross not simply out of duty. Jesus was obedient, yes, but His was not a servile, grudging compliance to the Father's will. It was a loving embrace of humanity, but more powerfully a loving embrace of you and me on a personal level. Because of that self sacrificing love I know what Mercy is. Because the Second Person of the Trinity took on a human heart, I can see, touch and taste the invisible Divine Mercy everyday.