The Heart of the Matter

Homily for Sunday, March 29, 2009

Every now and then I hear a comment that there’s too much talk of sin at Mass. “We want to come to Mass to be uplifted, not leave Mass hearing about our sins.”  I want to address this not only because we hear so much about sin in today’s Scriptures, but also because the truth about our sinful condition is both honest and liberating.  Let me explain.

            Let’s look first at the honest element.

            The pretension of innocence before the living God, and wanting just to be confirmed in one’s goodness, is simply dishonest.

            Have you ever noticed how frequent through every Mass is there reference to our sinfulness?  At the very beginning of Mass we confess to Almighty God “that I have sinned through my own fault – in what I have done, and what I have failed to do,” or we implore the Lord to grant us mercy, to which the priest replies, “May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgives our sins . . .”

            Before the Gospel the priest prays, “Lord, cleanse my heart and my lips that I may worthily proclaim your holy Gospel. . .” At the washing of the priest’s hands, “Lord, wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from all of my sins.”  And at the consecration of the wine, lifted directly from today’s word from Jeremiah, “This is the cup of My blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all” – why? “for the forgiveness of sins!” 

            My friends, the consecration is incomprehensible if we do not think we are sinners.

            There’s more!  The Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  After which the priest prays, “Lord, look not upon our sins but upon the faith of Your church,” right before the sign of peace.  Then we all sing: “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, have mercy on us, grant us peace.”

            Before the church’s priest receives Communion he prays, “By your holy body and blood, free me from all of my sins.”  And the lifted up Body and Blood of Christ, “drawing all people to Himself”, “takes away the sins of the world.  How happy are those who are called to His supper.”

            And what do we all say before we approach the altar, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”

            How is all this reference to sin and unworthiness good news?  Because it is honest!  And honesty is truly liberating!  Being honest about our falling short of what God is gracing us to be is what puts the drama into the Mass.

  Despite my failures I am so deeply loved that words cannot express what can only be communicated by the cup of blood shed for me and for all. 

When people say they are bored by the Mass, that’s like being tone deaf while listening to Mozart!  When folks say they don’t get anything out of Mass, that’s like being color blind while looking at a Monet!  Have you ever had guests come visit from the flatlands and you take them on a ride up to the mountains and after an hour they say, “OK, I’ve seen enough.  You’ve seen one mountain, you’ve seen ‘em all.”

            How dense we can be if we do not fall down in adoration before the living God who accepts us, sinners though we be!  This insight is “the law written in our hearts,” and when this insight overtakes us, no one has to teach us how to know the Lord. Knowing we are sinners in need of God’s ever gracious gift of forgiveness is the essence of the new covenant.  Honestly seeing reality for what it is, not pretending, nor standing on my own greatness, not so full of self that I deceive myself about my self-importance, not always craving to hear how wonderful I am, but honestly knowing how far short I fall when it comes to being a true disciple of the Lord, this, as I receive the Lord in Holy Communion, this is when I know the Lord is saying to me, “I am yours and you are mine.  I will remember your sin no more.”

Homily for Sunday, March 22, 2009

Threaded throughout the Bible are passages that give an explanation of why major, bad things have happened.  Our first reading today from Second Chronicles gives an interpretation as to why the holy city and the temple were destroyed.

"Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to [the People of God], for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the LORD against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy. Their enemies burnt the house of God, tore down the wall of Jerusalem, set all its palaces afire, and destroyed all its precious objects. And they were carried off into exile to Babylon."

In short, this disaster had come upon the Chosen People because they were unfaithful to God. To appreciate the impact of our first reading from 2^nd Chronicles let’s think of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.  

At the time of our own American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, does the same.  In his address as he was sworn in as president for his second term of office, he gives an interpretation as to why this Civil War had come upon the American people: Lincoln said that  because of American slavery God “gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came.”  He goes on:

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether'."

            We presently live in a time that does not want to hear interpretations of events from a faith perspective.  However, the faith-filled person is inclined to interpret human events through the lens of meaning.  What is the meaning of whatever we must go through?  The person without faith is inclined to skip over the meaning of events and move on.  When a person of no-faith starts coming to faith, the meaningfulness of life and events begins to enter the mind’s workings and gnaws away at one’s personal history of rejecting what can only be stated in terms of faith.  

            If, however, the person remains in that in-between state, between faith and not-yet-enough-faith, then such a person looks like Nicodemus.

            I suggest that Nicodemus is a symbol for many of us: he was a man of means; he was in a position of power and influence.  After all, he was a member of the ruling council, the Sanhedrin.  He was intrigued by Jesus and knew him to be “a teacher who had come from God”, but becoming a disciple of Jesus openly would damage his standing in the community of the elders and chief priests.  So, Nicodemus came to Jesus during the night, so his interest could be kept secret.

            How many of us are like Nicodemus?  How many of us want to keep our Catholic faith a secret?  How many of us are silent when co-workers, friends or relatives make statements that are critical of faith in God, mock Jesus Christ, disparage the Church, or snidely demean what we hold to be dear and true?

            We have been shown “the immeasurable riches of God’s grace” and “his kindness to us in Christ Jesus”!  How can we be silent when all around us people who claim to be tolerant are intolerant of those who believe in the Savior of the human race?

            The Jews in exile mournfully sang, “If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand  be forgotten!”  We too live in exile until we enter that place that is the end of our exile here on earth. We must not forget where we are headed.

            So, my dear parishioners, be proud of your Catholic faith, be unabashedly Catholic, be a witness, not a Nicodemus.  Jesus Christ is no one to be ashamed of!  Nor is His Church.

What's with burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down?

Today, March 19th, is a favorite feast for many good Catholics: the Solemnity of St. Joseph, the Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  To him was given the care of the Holy Family. To him was given the extraordinary privilege of guiding the young Christ Child during His early years. One can only imagine what kind of man he was for Jesus to introduce us to the First Person of the Holy Trinity as "Abba," that is, as Poppa or Daddy.

Fathers all over the world have sought the intercession of St. Joseph to be their model for providing for their own families and for providing a pattern for how the dad of a family can make for a secure, healthy, happy home environment for their families.

But what's with the spreading phenomenon of burying a statue of St. Joseph, upside down, in the lawn of a house that is for sale? Here's where a correct form of piety can mix with superstition. Superstition means believing that my doing this or that, in some prescribed way, will win me the result I am desiring. A correct form of piety means believing that the person who is in heaven, the person the statue depicts, can be asked for intercession to secure an answer to our request.  (A correct sense of piety would include submission to the will of God if God's anwer to our request is "no".) 

So, St. Joseph, the Provider for the Holy Family, can certainly be asked for his prayerful intercession with his adopted Son.  However, burying a statue borders on superstition, and burying it upside down surely is superstition. But before we toss out the use of a St. Joseph statue, beware that a physical image of a saint is very much a good thing and can focus attention on the one whose intercession we are seeking.

Speaking of images, the correct use of images (icons, statues, religious art, etc.) was a battle fought over for 300 years, near the end of the first millennium AD. At least 3 Ecumenical Councils were called together to address this issue.

So, yes, use your statue of St. Joseph.  But rather than burying it, a better use of it would be to set it somewhere it can be seen - unless of course you're embarrassed about being known as one who has a devotion to St. Joseph!

The Examen - if you can only pray a few minutes a day, this is the way to do it!

A friend of mine sent me this description (below) of "the Examen," by a Jesuit Scholastic, Ryan Rallanka, SJ, now located in the Bronx, NY.  "The Examen" is a way of looking at our day with the Lord. It is worth studying as a means to grow in our prayer life, no matter how much or how little time we have to give to the Lord.

 

Here's our young Jesuit's interpretation on how to do this form of prayer, originally given by St. Ignatius nearly 500 years ago:

 

I noticed before I started writing this post that, over at the Loyola Press blog that I have linked on the right side of my site, Fr. Paul Campbell SJ already had written a short post on the examen. But, that just means that two people will be promoting the examen today. 

 

As Fr. Campbell points out, Ignatius felt the practice of the examen to be of great importance in the lives of the Jesuits. The examen provides us the way to take a step back from the business of our everyday lives, to recollect all that has happened, to see our day with the help of God.  Indeed, if we were to lose all forms of prayer except one, the Examen was to be the prayer that we kept. In a way, the examen is a small retreat in the literal sense of the word. The examen is a time to withdraw so that we may re-enter the world more grounded and more mindful of God's presence in our lives than we were before the prayer time.  

 

Last Thursday, I gave a short presentation and guided meditation over at Fordham, so I thought I would share some preliminary points about prayer before I walk you through the steps of the examen itself.  

 

1) Coming as you are.  God knows all that is going on in our lives--we do not need to pretend with God.  We seek to be our true selves, coming as we are to God in prayer. I do not believe God would want otherwise.  

2) Place. It is important to cultivate an environment that best fosters our prayer life. Personally, I know I have a hard time praying in my room, so I try to utilize the chapel spaces here in the house. However, that's one of the perks of religious life that most people do not have. Maybe there is a special place in your home that you find helpful to pray. Maybe it means going for a walk or using a candle. You know yourself best--find what works best for you.  

3) Taking your time. Especially in our culture that values efficiency of time, I think the temptation in prayer is to rush through it.  The examen should not be rushed. Going over your day takes some time and effort, but that time is well worth the investment.  

4) Flexibility. The rubrics of the Examen are there to help you, but don't feel constrained by them. Make the examen your own. Perhaps you would like to pray through writing, music, or images.   

 

 

Here, then, are the general steps of praying the examen as I know and pray them (I try to, anyway). These are not universal steps in the sense that every Jesuit does it this exact same way, but the core essence of the prayer is here. In the novitiate, we were given around 15 minutes to do our examens.  But, you just roll with the Spirit in terms of time, and sometimes the length of time you spend on any one step will vary from day to day. 

 

1) Placing myself in God's Presence

2) Gratitude

3) Petition

4) Review

5) Forgiveness

6) Looking Forward

 

For me, the examen is all about God's work. I find my examen prayers to be fully alive when I give up control of the prayer time and allow God to guide me through my day. The prayer is about God's initiative, of God leading us to those places and moments in the day in which we need to review. It is about what God has given, God's love, and God's grace.  Step one, then, is to remind ourselves of our faith in God's presence in the here and now. God is with us and desires to move into greater relationship with us. It is not just us talking at God as an abstract concept.  It is God leading us in prayer. 

 

Gratitude. As you may know, the Greek meaning of the word Eucharist means thanksgiving. For Catholics, thanksgiving to God is the root of our prayer--it is our centering attitude towards the celebration of Mass. Many scholastics in my province go out to Hayden Lake for our annual retreat. I remember looking out at the beauty of creation during one of those days, the richness of all of God's work, and thinking how one could not stop and be thankful for that bounty. God, indeed, has given us so much.  The root of all relationship, I think, is gratitude. Without gratitude and thanksgiving, our relationships lose their depth, they become shallow. Disposing ourselves with gratitude, then, allows us to enter more fully into the examen, as it encourages us to look through our day with that lens.  Oftentimes, we experience our day without gratitude, which makes the examen so important.  

 

Petition. As I have mentioned earlier, I believe the examen should be all about God's work. For me, then, this petition phase is to ask God to help me pray the examen, to ask God to lead me in prayer, to bring me to those moments of the day that I need to examine further.  And, I ask for an open heart and open mind, that I be receptive to the work that God will do. You may have your own types of petitions as you enter the review phase.  

 

Review. This step will probably take a majority of the time. Where is God leading us? What parts of the day is God calling us to see? Perhaps He will show us a moment of great joy. Or perhaps God will bring us to a moment of hurt. We consider those experiences, remembering how we responded, how we felt. It is seeing these experiences anew, seeing it as God sees it.  In this step, we have a conversation with God about these experiences--what we did well, where we can grow, where we need to be challenged. We converse and comment with God as a commentator would during scenes of a movie.  

 

Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Sometimes it is important for us to express regret and sorrow for our failings throughout the day.  None of us are perfect, and we often do and say things that we regret later on. How could we have responded better? Where do we need reconciliation in our lives? We are sinners, but sinners loved by Christ. God, in His great mercy, continues to beckon to us over and over and over again--God never gives up on us.  

 

Looking towards the future. Having reviewed the day, we are more disposed to re-enter the world with thankful hearts. We consider all that has happened in the examen period, seeking God's help to be made anew. Hopefully, our examens change us for the better, seeking to continue doing those good things that we have been doing already and to improve in those areas in need of improvement. 

 

 

I really do promote praying the examen, and I hope that it may be an avenue to promote your own relationship with God especially during this season of Lent.  

 

If you are interested in reading more about the Examen, I would recommend the book The Examen Prayer: Ignatian Wisdom for Our Lives Today, by Fr. Timothy M. Gallagher, OMV.  He uses not only personal stories to illustrate the steps of the Examen but also takes from the St. Ignatius' own writings, giving you a glimpse of how Ignatius examined his own day.  

Awesome! I made a mistake or two.

Earlier this week Pope Benedict wrote a most extraordinary letter to the bishops.  It's a letter so humble, so honest, even so progressive in that the Pope is explaining himself for what turned into a PR nightmare: the lifting of the excommunication of a Hauolocaust-denying renegade bishop.  This is a long letter, but well worth taking the time to read.

The lines that most touched me were lines that accurately describe the fundamental crisis our age is facing:

"In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in a love which presses "to the end" (cf. Jn 13:1) – in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects."

What is also so remarkable is that the infallible Pope is showing himself very accountable to his brother bishops.  Here's the full text of his letter:

LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI

TO THE BISHOPS

OF THE

CATHOLIC

CHURCH

concerning the remission of the excommunication
of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre

 Dear Brothers in the Episcopal Ministry!

The remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated in 1988 by Archbishop Lefebvre without a mandate of the Holy See has for many reasons caused, both within and beyond the Catholic Church, a discussion more heated than any we have seen for a long time. Many Bishops felt perplexed by an event which came about unexpectedly and was difficult to view positively in the light of the issues and tasks facing the Church today. Even though many Bishops and members of the faithful were disposed in principle to take a positive view of the Pope’s concern for reconciliation, the question remained whether such a gesture was fitting in view of the genuinely urgent demands of the life of faith in our time. Some groups, on the other hand, openly accused the Pope of wanting to turn back the clock to before the Council: as a result, an avalanche of protests was unleashed, whose bitterness laid bare wounds deeper than those of the present moment. I therefore feel obliged to offer you, dear Brothers, a word of clarification, which ought to help you understand the concerns which led me and the competent offices of the Holy See to take this step. In this way I hope to contribute to peace in the Church.

An unforeseen mishap for me was the fact that the Williamson case came on top of the remission of the excommunication. The discreet gesture of mercy towards four Bishops ordained validly but not legitimately suddenly appeared as something completely different: as the repudiation of reconciliation between Christians and Jews, and thus as the reversal of what the Council had laid down in this regard to guide the Church’s path. A gesture of reconciliation with an ecclesial group engaged in a process of separation thus turned into its very antithesis: an apparent step backwards with regard to all the steps of reconciliation between Christians and Jews taken since the Council – steps which my own work as a theologian had sought from the beginning to take part in and support. That this overlapping of two opposed processes took place and momentarily upset peace between Christians and Jews, as well as peace within the Church, is something which I can only deeply deplore. I have been told that consulting the information available on the internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on. I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news. I was saddened by the fact that even Catholics who, after all, might have had a better knowledge of the situation, thought they had to attack me with open hostility. Precisely for this reason I thank all the more our Jewish friends, who quickly helped to clear up the misunderstanding and to restore the atmosphere of friendship and trust which – as in the days of Pope John Paul II – has also existed throughout my pontificate and, thank God, continues to exist.

Another mistake, which I deeply regret, is the fact that the extent and limits of the provision of 21 January 2009 were not clearly and adequately explained at the moment of its publication. The excommunication affects individuals, not institutions. An episcopal ordination lacking a pontifical mandate raises the danger of a schism, since it jeopardizes the unity of the

College

of

Bishops

with the Pope. Consequently the Church must react by employing her most severe punishment – excommunication – with the aim of calling those thus punished to repent and to return to unity. Twenty years after the ordinations, this goal has sadly not yet been attained. The remission of the excommunication has the same aim as that of the punishment: namely, to invite the four Bishops once more to return. This gesture was possible once the interested parties had expressed their recognition in principle of the Pope and his authority as Pastor, albeit with some reservations in the area of obedience to his doctrinal authority and to the authority of the Council. Here I return to the distinction between individuals and institutions. The remission of the excommunication was a measure taken in the field of ecclesiastical discipline: the individuals were freed from the burden of conscience constituted by the most serious of ecclesiastical penalties. This disciplinary level needs to be distinguished from the doctrinal level. The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.

In light of this situation, it is my intention henceforth to join the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" – the body which has been competent since 1988 for those communities and persons who, coming from the Society of Saint Pius X or from similar groups, wish to return to full communion with the Pope – to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This will make it clear that the problems now to be addressed are essentially doctrinal in nature and concern primarily the acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar magisterium of the Popes. The collegial bodies with which the Congregation studies questions which arise (especially the ordinary Wednesday meeting of Cardinals and the annual or biennial Plenary Session) ensure the involvement of the Prefects of the different Roman Congregations and representatives from the world’s Bishops in the process of decision-making. The Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 – this must be quite clear to the Society. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life.

I hope, dear Brothers, that this serves to clarify the positive significance and also the limits of the provision of 21 January 2009. But the question still remains: Was this measure needed? Was it really a priority? Aren’t other things perhaps more important? Of course there are more important and urgent matters. I believe that I set forth clearly the priorities of my pontificate in the addresses which I gave at its beginning. Everything that I said then continues unchanged as my plan of action. The first priority for the Successor of Peter was laid down by the Lord in the Upper Room in the clearest of terms: "You… strengthen your brothers" (Lk 22:32). Peter himself formulated this priority anew in his first Letter: "Always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you" (1 Pet 3:15). In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in a love which presses "to the end" (cf. Jn 13:1) – in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects.

Leading men and women to God, to the God who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith – ecumenism – is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of Light – this is interreligious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is Love "to the end" has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity – this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est.

So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church’s real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who "has something against you" (cf. Mt 5:23ff.) and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents – to the extent possible – in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from

Rome

changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim him and, with him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things – arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them – in this case the Pope – he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint.

Dear Brothers, during the days when I first had the idea of writing this letter, by chance, during a visit to the Roman Seminary, I had to interpret and comment on Galatians 5:13-15. I was surprised at the directness with which that passage speaks to us about the present moment: "Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another." I am always tempted to see these words as another of the rhetorical excesses which we occasionally find in

Saint Paul

. To some extent that may also be the case. But sad to say, this "biting and devouring" also exists in the Church today, as expression of a poorly understood freedom. Should we be surprised that we too are no better than the Galatians? That at the very least we are threatened by the same temptations? That we must always learn anew the proper use of freedom? And that we must always learn anew the supreme priority, which is love? The day I spoke about this at the Major Seminary, the feast of Our Lady of Trust was being celebrated in

Rome

. And so it is: Mary teaches us trust. She leads us to her Son, in whom all of us can put our trust. He will be our guide – even in turbulent times. And so I would like to offer heartfelt thanks to all the many Bishops who have lately offered me touching tokens of trust and affection, and above all assured me of their prayers. My thanks also go to all the faithful who in these days have given me testimony of their constant fidelity to the Successor of Saint Peter. May the Lord protect all of us and guide our steps along the way of peace. This is the prayer that rises up instinctively from my heart at the beginning of this Lent, a liturgical season particularly suited to interior purification, one which invites all of us to look with renewed hope to the light which awaits us at Easter.

 

With a special Apostolic Blessing,

I remainYours in the Lord,

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

From the

Vatican

10 March 2009

Homily for Sunday, March 15, 2009

In light of today’s Scriptures I decided to tackle this thorny subject:  Does God have a right to command us to do or not do anything?  You might say, “Of course He does!”  Ah, but I think deep down in the hearts of many, many people the secret lurking answer in all honesty would be: “No one has a right to command anything of me!” I think when faced with any commandment we don’t like, we can easily shift into thinking, “Well, it all depends on how you interpret that command.”  

            “You shall not have false gods before Me.”  Well, that one doesn’t apply to me!  Really?  What do you think we’re living through with our enormous economic crisis if it were not for so many people all across the map who have made a false god out of greed?  

            “You shall keep the Lord’s Day holy.”  It doesn’t apply if we go skiing, or if we’re just plumb tired out, or if we’re not up to it.  Really?  So much for it being a command.

            And so on with all the commandments.  We can easily talk ourselves right out of any sense of allegiance to the Ten Commandments and justify ourselves in the process.  Pro-choice people justify deliberate killing just as slavery was justified in an earlier time.  All of us justify our spending habits in the face of a huge bulk of humanity’s not having even the basic needs so as to create a decent life for themselves and their children.

            “Go out to all the world and spread the Gospel,” is another command, and yet we send our high school graduates into college and university settings which destroy faith and mock virtue.

            “This is My command: that you love one another as I have loved you.”  Yet we somehow feel justified in hating people of a different political point of view, or in refusing to see the immigrant, legal or illegal, as deserving our respect as fellow human beings, and in many cases as fellow Catholics.

            So I ask the question again: Does God have a right to command us to do, or not do, anything?  

            The people who were running the show in Jesus’ time had justified turning God’s house into a den of thieves.  They had justified their total disdain for tax collectors and prostitutes.  They had justified the shunning of diseased people.  They were even proud of their legalistic interpretation of the Torah so that untold numbers of people were regarded as unclean, outside the bounds of being respectable, like shepherds, like the poor, like the Gentile.

            No wonder Jesus stormed in to their world and turned everything upside down!  No wonder He was enraged by the pious self-justification of actions and attitudes that were clearly outside of God’s will.

            At this point in Lent do we yet recognize what we do that we justify but which is objectively outside of God’s will?  Some of us may be finding that our negative reaction to anything new is outside of God’s will. Some of us may discover during this Lent that a lax attitude about fidelity to the Mass and sacraments and prayer is outside of God’s will.  Some of us may come to realize that our attitudes about certain persons or certain categories of persons is outside of God’s will. And some of us may discover that the quality of our love is diminished and that a life of diminished love is outside of God’s will.

            Some of us may come to see that our being embarrassed about the strong stands our Church takes on this or that is outside of God’s will.  And that our own personal disagreement with this or that stand just might be outside of God’s will.

            “Well, I can go along with much of all this,” you might be thinking, “but I don’t have to swallow all of the Church’s stands, especially on this or that.”  Ah, such was the thinking of the chief priests, the elders, the Scribes and the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. 

            Learning to think with the mind of Christ, learning to think in union with the Church, just might be a start in the direction of moving away from self-justification.  This doesn’t mean that we are puppets on a string, but it does mean that we have the moxy to be committed to Christ above all things and to stay bound to Him no matter what passing fads say about the Lord’s commands.

Cardinal Stafford: Bankers, apologize!

Now here’s an interesting news item.  It’s about the former Archbishop of Denver, Cardinal Francis Stafford, who is now the head of the Vatican department that handles matters of conscience on issues reserved to the Pope.  

His department is called the Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary. It was created in the 12th century with the essential task of receiving the confession of sins that can only be forgiven directly by the Pope given their gravity, and of granting dispensations and graces reserved to the Supreme Pontiff.

 

He has called upon bankers to assume their responsibility for having driven the world into economic chaos and apologize!  Don’t you love it!  

       Cardinal Stafford’s words: "Our world is complex. Let us think of the economic world, which is now called global: The sins in this economic and global world are different in their complexity and depth from those in the past. For example, this economic crisis is rooted in the lack of respect, on the part of the world's leaders, for other people. Bankers must assume moral responsibilities and ask God for forgiveness for these complex sins.”

Lent: We are to master our sinfulness and conquer our pride

That’s how the purpose of Lent is described in one of the Lenten prefaces to the Eucharistic Prayer: We are to master our sinfulness and conquer our pride.  St. Thomas Aquinas shows how important it is to conquer our pride when he says,

"inordinate self-love is the cause of every sin."

Think of Lent as an opportunity for the whole Church, stretched all over the globe, to go on retreat together, even as we go about our busy daily lives.  Each of us is called in our own unique way to discover the Lord in our lives in a deeper way than before.  We are urged to use the classical spiritual weapons of prayer, fasting and almsgiving to conquer our pride and grow in the virtues.  

Our pride is the main block to our spiritual growth.  Pride is really the mother of all sins, just as it was pride that led Adam and Eve to choose to go against the will of God.

We all know what it’s like to run into someone whose pride is worn like a necklace and who can best be described as arrogant. But pride is, for those who seek to grow in holiness, a subtle master whose aim is to have us focus on self in a self impairing kind of way. Self-put-downs are this kind of subtle pride; and this form of pride is insidious because we don’t know we are giving in to seeing ourselves in a way that God does not see us.

Self-consciousness, self-seeking, self-hatred, abiding in a state of guilt over some sin already confessed and absolved, loathing one’s figure or physique, and such dynamics are ways of giving in to pride, perhaps without knowing it. A less subtle form of pride is insisting on getting one’s own way. Oh, and then there is the form of pride that is called false humility. This is the charade some people play of looking humble but in actuality spending a lot of energy on self and one’s own interests and desires, and in seeking one’s own will over and against the will of others.

Since pride is so common, though different in its forms, one project we could undertake in Lent is that by prayer, fasting and almsgiving we invite the Lord in to conquer our pride in a lasting way, so that by Easter we will have grown in humility, even if by just a little bit.