The Shape of Things

What if your Christmas tree had no point at the top?  Where would you put the star/angel?  One solution might be to choose several of the tallest branches and put on several stars/angels.  That would obviously be a bit confusing, but not so strange in a world filled to bursting with different paths to follow.  An equivalent solution might be to have no star/angel to top the tree.  Following several guides at once would not look that different from following no guide at all.

And yet there might be some advantage to the starless tree.  Christ did not come to be just another one of the voices that influence our lives.  Jesus is the only Son of the Father, the Word of God that speaks to every human heart.  It is much easier to hear that gentle Word when we tune out the cacaphony.

Just remember that the true star is still up there (the season just started yesterday, after all!).  There is still a voice calling you and me to the place where we can meet the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Let us offer our gifts in humility to the child who came to redeem us.

Advent and a New Beginning

Wow!  Where does the time go?
It seems like an entire lifetime has passed since the last time I actually competed a post in this blog.  I started writing it as a Lenten observance almost two years ago and have worked on it from time to time since then.  When I started writing I was working at a job where I felt under-appreciated and often angry.  At a certain point I realized that my anger was keeping from being happy with even the best things in my life, particularly my Faith.  The best response I could come up with was to delve into the reasons I could consider myself the disciple of someone who could be betrayed and slaughtered and yet expect to be treated as I "deserved."  The answer I found was that I needed to court humility in a serious way.

Fast forward to today:  the third week of Advent.  I have a beautiful and loving wife who helps me feel special, a new house where I can set everything up just how I want it, a job where I do feel important and appreciated, and am expecting a daughter very soon.  I have found that it is a lot harder to stay focused on a virtue like humility when so many things are going well.

It isn't very hard to figure out why.  Humility is, among other things, the virtue that allows us to put ourselves below others, but our lives today--and particularly mine--are practically built to lead us away from this action.  I am surrounded by servants.  My car will eventually heat up to my exact temperature specifications and play whatever sounds I want to distract me from annoying silence.  My computer unlocks the vast world of information while my TV sucks all knowledge and morals from my head.  And then there is my ever-present companion and valet...my cell phone.

All of these objects exist to serve me, and in a sense I can be king of my own little universe.
What need have I for humility?

But, of course, I do have need of it, and all the more because these objects distract me from the truth.  In this time of Advent, I will take my cue from St. John the Baptist:  I will diminish, that He might increase.

Natural Law and Humility, Part 1: Moral Debate in a Pluralistic Society

Public discourse on the issue of morality is essentially at a standstill.  Think about the last time that you had a conversation with someone about the issue of right and wrong in a particular instance where that person did not already agree with your perspective.  If your experience is anything like mine, the conversation was not very productive.  One derailing question often asked is "who gets to make the rules?"  This question is built on a number of assumptions about power.  The old canard argues "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely," yet this is not a logically necessary adage.  In other words, power is not the actual problem.  The problem is the corruptibility of human nature.  If we could imagine, like Plato, an incorruptible leader whose interest is the public good (and who had perfect knowledge of what is really in the interest of the public good), we could trust him or her with the power to make the rules for everyone else without skewing them to benefit him or herself.

Because no human person (with notable exceptions) is incorruptible, the question seems academic and we end up arguing again "who should make the rules?"  This is an intelligent question to ask.  The rule maker gets to build society in his or her own image, so we had better know what that image might be.  Again, this is an intelligent question to ask, but it is also the wrong question to ask if we want to talk about right action or actually make good rules.  The politics of morality is not morality, so any time we spend arguing about who makes the rules is time away from seeking the best rules.  What we should really seek the answer to is "what are the right rules?"

Again, we run into trouble with this question.  It assumes that we have a standard by which to argue for and against moral positions.  Many today believe that such standards are impossible due to the wide variety of systems of belief in the world today.  This perspective suggests that there is no standard that can be adopted by a pluralistic society.  I submit that this perspective is completely mistaken.  "Natural Law" is an outgrowth of Western philosophical reasoning, nurtured by the values of Christian society.  Even so, it has a universal appeal.  To take one example, Natural Law is what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to as grounds for overturning the unfair laws of his time.  He did not argue that he should be put in power himself, nor that only black leaders could create laws that would be fair to black people.  Such arguments have little appeal outside of the group surrounding the individual who makes them.  Instead, Dr. King appealed to the idea found in the nature of human beings that all individuals have equal worth without regard for their race, etc.  Others could agree with this argument because it matches their own observations of life and values, suggesting that there is such a "rule," so to speak, in human nature.  Natural Law seeks to find in the nature of reality the grounds for its moral arguments.

Natural Law thinking played a large part in the formation of our society, allowing this nation of immigrants to coexist in a more peaceful way than can be found elsewhere in the world or throughout history.  Unfortunately, Natural Law has been forgotten or actively rejected at this time in history, leading to the segmentation of the population into groups based on emotional causes.  This state of affairs is possible in part because those who could best use their reason to argue morality have chosen to remain silent, perhaps due to a false understanding of humility.  Endorsing the idea of Natural Law is not a prideful attempt to legislate beliefs or to disenfranchise others.  The ability to reason and observe is the only prerequisite to participating in public discourse about Natural Law.  Instead, Natural Law is a method for making the best decisions possible by building rational consensus in a world of scattered perspectives.  Rules will be made no matter what, but without recourse to the standard of Natural Law, we will have more of the moral chaos that every observant individual sees in our culture today.

Part 2 will further discuss the relationship between reason and emotion, and how those seeking humility can find an ally in the Natural Law.

The 12th, 13th, and 14th Stations

Good Friday

The Twelfth Station:  Jesus Dies on the Cross

Darkness covered the whole land as Jesus hung upon the cross, His detractors demanding that He come down and prove His power.  Long before this moment Jesus had warned His followers:  “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.  Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.  And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me" (John 15:18-21).  If you are a follower of Christ, the World hates you even now.  It cannot help but hate you because it does not understand the source of your Faith, Hope and Love.  Christians often latch on tightly to the idea of carrying the cross; let us not forget that the point of carrying the cross is that we should also die upon it, and that the World will not understand.

As we spiritually gather around the base of the cross to witness Our Lord who has died for our sins, let us remember that this is what Christ's victory looked like.  Let us not be afraid of what victory may look like in our own lives.  How much time, thought and effort do we put into being successful in earthly things instead of heavenly things?  Do we realize how often we must betray God in order to receive the affirmation of the World?

Lord, help us to remember and gain strength from Your crucifixion when the World has turned against us.


The Thirteenth Station:  Jesus Is Taken Down from the Cross

The body of Jesus was taken down from the cross and laid in the lap of His mother.  Michelangelo's famous Pieta depicts Mary in this scene as disproportionately large in relation to her son Jesus.  She is powerful in that moment of profound distress.  Jesus is our example of perfect humility in love and submission to the Will of God; Mary too is our example of humility expressed in her constant presence and indefatigable grace.

One of Jesus' last actions upon the cross was to entrust Mary to the keeping of John, and John to the keeping of Mary (John 19:26-27).  We too have been entrusted to the care of our Mother Mary as a powerful intercessor before her son Jesus.  Mary became the Mother of God through her exemplary acceptance of God's plan for her life; let us not forget that in the midst of our struggles we have been given so powerful an ally to call upon and from whom we may receive comfort and encouragement in the darkest hours.  Who do we allow to teach us how to live a good and fulfilling life--the holy ones of God, or someone else?  Do we have so much pride in our own ability to pray that we forget to ask others to pray for us? 

Lord, help us to remember all the saints--and especially our Mother Mary--who stand ready to lift us up to God the Father.

The Fourteenth Station:  Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb
The body of Jesus was placed in a tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea.  A great stone was rolled before the entrance, and a guard was placed before the stone.  Few expected that the story of Jesus had not yet ended.  Jesus had given them all they would have needed to keep hope alive through the whole ordeal.  He knew, however, that words were not enough.  He would rise from the dead and show His followers that the grave is not the place that the Father had prepared for them.  

"Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed" (1 John 3:2).  As Christians, our hope lies beyond this world.  Jesus did not just leave us with words, but with an empty tomb and a resurrection.  In humbling Himself to become a man, Jesus committed Himself to to all the stages of human life and death that He might point to something greater yet to come.  How often do we find ourselves putting our Faith away to take back out at a more convenient time, forgetting that the resurrection cannot come without the cross?  How seldom do we quench our pride in who and what we have become in this world which is even now passing away (1 Corinthians 7:31)?

Lord, help us to always place our hope in You, unafraid of the mystery which the Father has in store for us.

The 9th, 10th, and 11th Stations

Holy Thursday

The Ninth Station:  Jesus Falls the Third Time
Jesus fell a final time along the road to Calvary.  Many in the crowd must have expected He would not get back up again.  Perhaps some even remembered Christ's own words after enjoining His disciples to take up their own crosses:  "Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?  Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish’" (Luke 14:28-30).  But Jesus rose from this fall as well, in order to show us once again that God will not set a project before us without the resources to complete it.

It is humility that gives us the ability to follow God's plan for our lives.  Humility reminds us that we must put forth the time and effort to prepare for the great trials that await us as Christians.  Humility also teaches us to look to the God Who will supply the strength we lack.  How often do we fool ourselves into believing that we have reached our limit when we still have more to give?  How much could we do if we truly trusted God to help us make it over the last hurdle?

Lord, help us look to you for the strength to finish the race and keep the Faith (2 Timothy 4:7).

The Tenth Station:  Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments
"They divide my garments among them; for my clothing they cast lots" (Psalms 22:19).  The stripping of the victim's garments was intended to further humiliate him in the eyes of the crowd.  All of Our Savior's cuts and bruises were revealed before their eyes as they continued to jeer and mock.  For the friends of Jesus, these same wounds were precious--each one a reminder that He had held nothing back in His love for them.

Many of the earliest and most persistent heresies have had to do with the nature of Christ as both God and man.  It is easy to emphasize one to the detriment of the other, so that God is so far beyond us as to be meaningless or so close to us as to ratify our every whim.  In reality, we know by Faith that Jesus Christ was "true God and true man," and we cannot escape the consequences of believing each completely.  If Jesus is God, then we must worship Him as a being far above us with the right to rule our lives completely.  If Jesus is man, we must know that He loves us enough (far more than we can love ourselves) to debase Himself and become a creature so that we might be become His friends and siblings.  What level of humiliation are we prepared to undergo as friends and siblings of our Lord and Savior?  Do we take enough time in our prayer life to strip ourselves bare and see who we truly are?

Lord, help us to have the strength to face humiliations as a means of growing closer to You.

The Eleventh Station:  Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross
The crucifixion itself was the culmination of a vast number of pains inflicted upon the victim.  A living body would be nailed to the cross, and a corpse would be removed.  As Jesus had earlier embraced the cross, now He spreads wide His hands over the crowds of humanity, the wood holding up His arms like Aaron and Hur did for Moses so that the people of God might have victory over their enemies (Exodus 17:12).

Just as when He first took up the cross, the pierced Jesus took on this agony for our sake.  Now He had been bound to the very instrument of His suffering and our salvation.  Part of choosing the Christian way of life is binding ourselves to instruments of suffering.  How often do we spend our time and imagination thinking about escaping our responsibilities?  Do we allow God to remind us that our obligations to our families, friends, coworkers and others are not inconveniences but opportunities to "work out our salvation" (Phil 2:12)?

Lord, help us not to flee from our holy attachments in life, especially when they cause us to suffer.

The 6th, 7th and 8th Stations

Wednesday of Holy Week

The Sixth Station:  Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
While Simon had the honor of carrying the cross for Jesus, Veronica also aided Our Lord on His way.  Amid all the bitter afflictions of the way of the cross, at this one moment Jesus received an unlikely physical comfort.  Set in a scale against the sting of the lashes, the weight of the wood, the blows of the contemptuous guards and the coming anguish of the nails, the simple gesture of Veronica wiping the sacred face of Jesus would seem to weigh nothing at all.

It is often only in small ways that we are able to live out the Faith on a daily basis.  These small ways are also the easiest to ignore because we want to see great results from our good works.  Veronica, motivated by her great love for Jesus, reminds us that to God a small good can outweigh a great many evils, for "love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8). How often do we reject an opportunity to do good for one another because it seems "unimportant?"  Do we give ourselves enough credit as powerful actors in bringing about the Kingdom of God?

Lord, help us to see all the gifts You have given us as worthy to share with your suffering people.

The Seventh Station:  Jesus Falls the Second Time
Jesus fell more than once along the way to Calvary.  It grew harder and harder with each fall for Him to rise again and continue on the road to Calvary.  But rise He did to endure more buffets and spitting (Isaiah 50:6) from the guards and the crowd.  He pressed on to His own crucifixion for the sake of the very people who hated Him, and for the sake of His absent friends, and for the sake of the Will of His Father.

For Christians, the hatred of others is a strong motivation to inaction.  It is right and good to love others, and to encourage positive feelings in our hearts toward those with whom we do not agree.  It is natural to want others to think positive thoughts about us in return.  At the same time, faithfulness to the Will of God will make us enemies.  We must stay faithful nonetheless.  In what ways are we afraid to live, act and speak as Christians in the public eye?  How often do we mistake actions that will protect our reputation for holy meekness and humbleness of heart (Matthew 11:29)?

Lord, help us to stay on the path of righteousness no matter what others may think of us, good or ill.

The Eighth Station:  Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem
In the Gospel of Luke Jesus has a brief conversation with a group of the women of Jerusalem.  It is unclear from Scripture if they were lamenting the injustice of what had been done to Him or if their tears were for the evils of which He had been wrongfully accused.  What is clear is that Jesus replies by redirecting their tears to their own future progeny with prophetic words:  "Indeed, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed’" (Luke 23:29).

In every generation since the time of Our Lord human beings have had the responsibility to hand down a way of life to the next generation.  This is a sacred responsibility.  And yet Christians seldom spend enough time learning from the wellspring of the Faith how to be good teachers or what, indeed, to teach.  If we let the World do the teaching, we shirk that responsibility and allow our society to sink further into the despair of our Lord's prophecy.  What is the source of the wisdom we personally pass down to future generations?  Do our children and others see in us a joyful concern for Godly things that is worth emulating and passing on?

Lord, help us to be more faithful to You that we may not leave the world barren.

The 3rd, 4th, and 5th Stations

Tuesday of Holy Week

The Third Station:  Jesus Falls the First Time
Jesus was forced to carry His own cross to the place of the crucifixion.  He stumbled and fell three times in the course of the traditional Way of the Cross.  The crowds that had just called for His crucifixion mocked Him.  Many of the same people were cheering as He made His triumphant entry into Jerusalem not long before (Luke 19:28-40).  Jesus did not shout back or struggle with the guards who pressed Him on ruthlessly.  This only made them shout the louder.

The people in the crowd were, many of them, "faithful" members of God's people. They prayed, followed the law and listened to the readings of Holy Scripture.  They did these things for themselves, not for God, and certainly not for the spiritual benefit of others.  They were essentially proud of themselves.  Being faithful to God meant that they could consider themselves to be above others.  As long as Jesus could be seen as a triumphant leader, they were happy to applaud Him.  When He stumbled, they turned on Him as quickly as they could.  What do we think we gain by calling ourselves Christians--a relationship with our God, or the ability to consider ourselves "better" than others?  How do we treat the people around us who might stumble and struggle to live up to our expectations?

Lord, help us never to use our Faith as a weapon against others for the sake of ourselves.


The Fourth Station:  Jesus Meets His Mother Mary
Jesus' friends had abandoned Him with very few exceptions.  His Mother Mary, of course, did not.  She met her son Jesus along the road to Calvary and comforted Him--not in the words of Peter at the first prediction of the Passion in the Gospel of Matthew (16:22): “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to You,” but with words of encouragement.  If anyone could understand the essence of what Jesus was doing, it must have been she whose heart was to be "pierced by a sword" (Luke 2:35).

So many of us have our hearts closed to the idea of suffering for the sake of the Kingdom of God.  Sometimes this is even more true of our attitudes toward the sacrifices of our loved ones.  We don't like the idea of suffering, and it is often a great act of charity to alleviate it in the lives of others, but avoiding it is not the primary goal of our existence.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, loving mother of Jesus, had her priorities straight.  How do we react to the sacrifices others make or consider making to bring God into their lives and into the world?  Do we discourage people from considering the more difficult path without stopping to think of what God's plan might be?

Lord, help us to support the holy sacrifices that people we love might make, according to the example of our Mother Mary.


The Fifth Station:  Simon Helps Jesus Carry the Cross
It is clear from the details presented in the Gospels that Jesus endured more torment than even the typical victim of crucifixion.  Simon was pressed into service against his will, not as a comfort to our Savior, but in order not to rob the angry crowd of the climactic spectacle at the end of the journey.  Simon came in "from the country" (Luke 23: 26), and was apparently not otherwise involved in the incidents surrounding Jesus' condemnation.  Now he is forever remembered as the one who shared the very cross with Christ.

Jesus is not jealous of the cross.  Rather, His example is always to invite others to share in what He is doing (e.g. Luke 9: 23-24).  The whole point of the Christian life is for us to join with Jesus beneath the wood of the cross and find union with Him in carrying our share.  We are not alone if we do not leave Him alone.  How often do we wish to keep our struggles from others and from God so that we can imagine that we suffer more than anyone else?  How seldom do we remind ourselves that the lives and struggles of Christians belong to Christ alone and must redound to His credit instead of our own?

Lord, help us to humbly bear our burdens and give all the glory to You.

The Garden and the 1st and 2nd Stations

Monday of Holy Week.

Holy Week is upon us.  In his Life of Christ, Venerable Servant of God Fulton J. Sheen points out an aspect of the significance of the suffering and death of Jesus which we celebrate:

"Christ entered human existence under a form which was not natural to Him as Son of God.  This assuming of a human nature was a humiliation, an emptying, a stripping and a kenosis ["self-emptying"] of His glory.  The fundamental renouncement of His Divine glory created a physical condition of life which made Him appear like a man; His suffering and death were the logical consequences of this humiliation.  As God He could not suffer; as man He could" (Image Books, 1990).

Although we have seen and heard the story of Christ's death and resurrection countless times in our lives, I believe it is essential to continually return to these events and try to see them with new eyes.  Over the next few days I will be sharing some brief reflections on humility as it is exhibited in the various points along the Way of the Cross (along with the Agony in the Garden, for thematic and mathematical reasons).

The Agony in the Garden
The Gospel of Luke describes Jesus' fervent prayer on the Mount of Olives.  He enjoins His disciples to pray that they "may not undergo the test."  Earlier, Peter told Him that he was prepared to "go to prison and to die" with Jesus.  Instead, Peter would deny Him three times.  We are the disciples who wish to be there with Jesus, but who do not fully grasp the significance of the moment and instead grow tired and fall asleep.  We are like Peter, rashly stating our intention to do good (and be praised for the intention), but when the moment of action arrives we are unprepared.

In this moment in the garden, as in all things, Jesus is our example.  He prayed and sweated blood before the time of testing arrived.  Unlike Peter, Jesus prayed that the cup might pass from Him, although He was willing to do the will of the Father no matter the cost.  How often does our faithful prayer lead us to experience distress?  If it seldom does so, is it because we are not humble enough to realize how hard the test will be?

Lord, help us to pray more fervently with the humility of Your example in the garden.


The First Station:  Jesus is Condemned to Death
Pilate had judicial power over Jesus because God gave it to him.  The judicial system of the Roman Empire was relatively advanced and admirable in many ways (e.g., the restriction against stoning a woman caught in adultery:  the Romans were on the side of Jesus on that one).  However, Roman justice failed when Pilate gave Jesus over to be crucified, despite his assertion of Jesus' innocence on multiple occasions (Luke 23:4, 14, 22).

Human justice and man-made law is only a shadow of the true source of Justice, which is God.  Pilate made a show of doing the right thing, but in the end decided to do what would be easiest for himself.  The humble Jesus, standing silently before His accusers, spoke more loudly of the vanity of human law than any verbal argument could have done.  How often do we rest on the unfounded belief that human society can arbitrate justice infallibly?  Have we trusted too much in the benevolence and wisdom of governments and other institutions instead of getting involved ourselves?

Lord, help us to see the things that human beings have created with the eyes of humility.

The Second Station:  Jesus Takes Up His Cross
The cross was a horrible instrument of torture and execution.  It was as much a means of inflicting psychological pain as physical pain.  Isaiah 53:8-9 prophesied that Jesus would be taken away and counted among the wicked.  On the other hand, Christian mystics throughout the centuries have told us of the joy with which Christ took up His cross.  As the instrument of his suffering and death, it also became the instrument of our salvation.

Christ teaches us that to love is to joyfully embrace suffering for the sake of the beloved.  Joyful suffering is a theme we find running throughout the lives of the saints and all who seriously follow Jesus in their lives.  Suffering is a contradiction to the World, but to Christians it is the source of ultimate joy and peace.  How often have we been slow to embrace an inconvenient means of helping others?  How can we say that we love someone and yet begrudge them the pain of suffering?

Lord, help us always to humbly accept the crosses that You offer for the sake of our brothers and sisters.

Morality, Prudence and Law

The Boy Scouts of America have recently made it into the news for their decision (/non-decision) regarding openly gay scoutmasters.  The organization has, up to now, staunchly defended their traditional stance that one may not be both openly gay and a scoutmaster.  Whether the organization will stick with this policy will apparently be decided in May.  As usual, this post is not so much about the news itself, but will take a moment to explore some related concepts that underlie the situation.

Morality is a very misunderstood notion today if my experience as a professor of ethics is any indication.  Morality refers to ideas (or specific rules, if you care to make the distinction) of right and wring conduct.  A claim that something is moral is a claim that it is the right thing to do in a given situation; a claim that something is immoral is a claim that it is the wrong thing to do in a given situation.  Whether we act in accordance with morality as it is (rather than as we wish/believe it to be) will determine what kind of a person we will be--good or bad.  Our disposition toward morality will be a basis for God's judgment (Matthew 25:31-46) of our lives.

Prudence is another matter.  As one of the virtues, prudence means to be wise about how we conduct ourselves.  Prudence is not "pragmatism."  To be "pragmatic" suggests that we might do what is necessary to accomplish a goal without considering the moral consequences of the actions.  It is possible to be "pragmatic" and act in opposition to what is moral.  If fortitude is virtuous courage ordered to morally upright ends, prudence is virtuous ingenuity ordered to the same.  It is not possible to be prudent and support anything that is not moral.  Prudence instead finds the best way to accomplish morality.

The Law is, or should be, related to these two concepts.  The law, when it is good law, comes into being as a prudential reconstruction of morality together with a system of consequences (which should themselves be moral).  Good laws reflect the truth about what is moral, even though the law is not the same as morality.  Part of human development, even in the secular world of psychological study, is to grow into an appreciation of what the law is and then on to an appreciation of what the law is not.  If law were the final arbiter of what is moral, laws would not change. The law cannot develop itself; it must be developed by those who  see what is moral and can adapt the law to more closely resemble it.  Because the law comes into being by the agreement of individuals who may be right or wrong about morality, it is often prudent to allow individuals and organizations the freedom to make moral determinations for themselves.

Thus the paradox of "lived humility" comes into the picture again.  Humility requires an understanding that we are neither the arbiters nor even accurate judges of what is moral.  On the other hand, it also requires that we subordinate our own fear of sharing the Gospel to the evangelical directives of Christ.  What is truly moral did not come from us that we should be embarrassed to proclaim it to a world that disagrees. 

Let us pray that whatever the decision the Boy Scouts of America finally make, it will be in prudent support of what is moral. . . and that such decisions will remain legal.

Habemus Papam

We have a new pope!

In the midst of all the excitement that rightfully surrounded the conclave and the brief time spent watching for white smoke to waft over the Vatican, there were many minor annoyances that came to my attention.  I grew a little tired of the questions about who I thought should be pope (answer:  the choice of the Holy Spirit).  I wearied of the related question of who I expected to be pope (answer:  one of the cardinals, either a front runner in the newspapers, or someone unexpected, or someone in the middle of the pack). 

Slightly more interesting at first was the question of where I thought the new pope would take the Church (answer:  along the Way of the Cross).  It grew less interesting when I realized that most who ask the question are hoping for some kind of "relaxation" or even a spontaneous reversal of the Church's teaching on some difficult issue such as contraception, gay marriage, women's ordination, decentralization of authority, etc. (answer:  have you tried protestantism?). 

The point of this post is not to be overly critical of those who have not yet received the gift to see the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church for what it is.  In fact, these minor annoyances are really a sign that the world is full of people looking for answers to the deep questions in their lives.  The Way of the Cross is not an easy path, and there are so many voices that wish to lead us all in different directions. 

My purpose is, instead, simply to celebrate the election of our new pontiff and to enjoin you to pray with me for him, that the Holy Spirit may not only allow him to infallibly preserve the Faith and moral teaching of the Church, but to be a steadfast witness to the world of the love, joy, happiness and peace that only comes from God the Father through our Lord Christ Jesus.  And if our Holy Father Pope Francis is to be such a witness, let us not forget that we are called to be witnesses too (no matter how annoyed we might get at the questions).

May Pope Francis persevere in the Gift of Humility, and inspire us all to do the same!

The "Purpose" of God

Outside of post-modern philosophy, there is a difference between reality and purpose.  The way an object is used is quite different from the question of whether it exists or not.  A hammer exists, whether it is used to bang nails or break glass.  Concepts, however, are not quite so easy to sort out.  Does "love" exist no matter how it is used or expressed?

What about God?  Does God function as an object or a concept?

I recently read a "philosophical" review of the film The Life of Pi., a movie which recently won several Oscars.  I don't really know much about the story itself beyond what I gathered from the review (I have not read the book or seen the film and was reading the review to see if I would be interested.  Feel free to defend either work in a reply!), but what strikes me particularly from the review itself is the assertion that seems to be at the heart of much modern contempt for organized religion and certain knowledge of the existence of God.  Without going into detail about the story, here are the pertinent points from the review as I read them:  1) The Life of Pi suggests that belief in God is something that people do because they are desperate to make sense of the world around them, 2) The reviewer argues that those who simply choose not to concern themselves with God appreciate reality more than theists, and 3) The reviewer, along with many atheist-agnostics the world over, seems to think that this "reality factor" is a devastatingly clever argument against belief in God.

The initial assertion--that belief in God is a kind of coping mechanism--reveals an essential problem with how religion is perceived by many believers and non-believers alike.  There is certainly something comforting in the idea that there is a loving and benevolent God watching out for us from heaven somewhere.  Divorced from an awareness of our own sin and need for redemption, this idea of God can be very self-affirming.  However, those who think that this is all there is to God have not done a good job of reading their Bible.  Scripture is filled with instances of faithful people who are tested and tried.  In this way, the God who loves us is much like the parent who loves us enough to push us to grow and mature into responsible adults.  Sinners who know they are sinners should feel a strain in their relationship with God from time to time.  If you never feel that God is pushing you out of your comfort zone, it probably isn't God you are listening to.

The second assertion--that the non-believer is more engaged with reality--logically follows the assumption that believers are just out for some form of stress-relief.  In this view, religious practice is like watching an engrossing film or reading a fantasy novel.  True religious belief does something completely different.  A priest recently gave me some very good advice about my attitude toward reality.  He said, "reality is the only place where we can meet God."  In other words, it is not possible to receive the love of Christ and pass it along to others when we are not in the same world with them.  If it encourages anything, true Christian faith encourages us to engage more deeply with our neighbor because we should care about what is really happening to them.

Both of these assertions betray a woeful ignorance of orthodox Christian teaching and culture.  Only such ignorance can really explain the scornful attitudes with which Christianity  is treated (along with, to a lesser extent, other religious traditions).  This attitude is generally little more than a means of shutting down any intellectual discussion about the existence of God.  Unfortunately for the atheist, it is only too easy to turn the tables on their argument.  All that is needed is to point out that they would be more in touch with reality if they were right that there is no God.  Since there is a God, those who deny His existence are the ones who are out of touch.  It remains to prove which position is correct.

At the end of the day, the existence of God is not contingent on the purpose we put Him to in our thoughts and lives.  Before we grouse too much about the condescension of atheists, we might consider how much like them we are if we worship the "God of Our Purposes" instead of the God Who Is.

The Art of Misunderstanding

Farewell, Holy Father.

As you should already be aware, today marks the resignation and retirement of Pope Benedict XVI.  I would ask for the prayers of everyone that he may grow closer to Christ in his remaining years and that the college of cardinals be supple to the movements of the Holy Spirit in choosing his successor.

Many news outlets are justifiably interested in the process of the resignation of Pope Benedict, as they were in the last days of Pope John Paul the Great.  This news coverage is both flattering to those of us who deeply love our Catholic faith and the source of endless amusement.  Time Magazine has provided one such example of amusing speculation about how this whole situation will work out.  Apparently, Time believes that, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, retirement from the office of the papacy will make Pope Benedict more powerful than you can possibly imagine.  The term "uber-Pope" was invoked.

The obvious silliness of this scenario aside, the Time story represents a deep and near-complete misunderstanding of not only the papacy itself, but also of Joseph Ratzinger as a person.  The impetus for presuming this retirement to be some masterful power-play stems from the reputation that Pope Benedict has acquired in the media of being overly "conservative," and therefore desirous of absolute power and authority.  This reminds me of a story I read long ago, reprinted from somewhere in the Indianapolis Star, expressing how exasperated American Catholics were with Pope John Paul II.  According to the story, liberals loved the pope for his unfailing commitment to the poor; conservatives loved him for his hard line on pro-life issues.  On the other hand, liberals were supposed to hate him for his antiquated view of homosexual "marriage" and misogyny as to the question of women priests; conservatives were presumed to be disgusted with his message of generosity to the less fortunate and his preoccupation with the third world.

Both of the stories just mentioned are gross distortions of reality.  The problem is not merely that the authors are looking at the whole world through the lens of specifically American politics (although this is certainly at play).  It is a matter of artful--almost deliberate, if it were not in some ways sub-conscious--misunderstanding of what orthodox Catholicism means.  It is the same Holy Spirit that inspired John Paul II to reach out to those in heart-rending poverty and to defend the rights of the unborn child.  The same Holy Spirit inspired Benedict XVI to express Christianity as applying to all peoples regardless of their ethnicity and to call the Catholic Church the one certain foundation laid by Christ.

The Catholic Church represents a moderation that the World views as an extreme.  We are called to search for the unity behind the apparent contradictions.  If we want to understand the Church, and those heroes and living saints who best exemplify it, we must humble ourselves enough to remember that we are still children at the feet of our master Jesus Christ, who was even more a sign of contradiction in his time than Pope Benedict is in ours.