The malady of contemporary life

Ah! First Sunday of Advent and this morning was not much different from yesterday morning. Same people, same headlines, same wars, same crimes, same habits, same lies, same movies, same prices, same, same, same. It does not feel very different and that is probably consolation. If it felt different, it wouldn't be human life on this scarred and blessed earth.

My favorite annual reading is a 28-page booklet I've had for many years by Johannes Metz titled "The Advent of God" in which Metz argues that "the malady of contemporary man is his  deliberate effort to forget the coming of God into human history." Each year when I re-read this tome the truth of it seems to me more and more palpable. Our attention in Advent is one of preparation for the coming of Christ but we are more attentive to the bargains we can obtain that we will throw away in the new year. It would also appear that shopping these first days is not the kind of family ritual that brings us together but the implementation of some kind of economic war game that requires law enforcement to intervene when someone else grabs first the item I want. We human beings are flawed characters in the book of life.

My Christmas shopping memories are a very young age with my mother and two siblings going to see Santa Claus at a downtown department store, the bell of the Salvation Army Santa outside the store, the endless stream of dimes on the sidewalk placed there for the March of Dimes appeal for polio research, a bus ride home, some snowfall as we walked two blocks to our door and knowing we would be warm and happy once inside. That is nostalgia. Tyranny has replaced the memory.

The current season takes on many colors - Thursday was once Thanksgiving Day, now it is Brown Thursday; Friday is Black Friday; Saturday is Small Business Saturday (is that a neutral color?) and Monday is Cyber Monday (that probably is multi-colored like fireworks). None of it revolves around people anymore. It is all about economics. 

For many Americans today, God is a thing of the past. The Christian believes that God entered human history and it is up to us to make "a continuing effort to keep ourselves open to the coming of God." We do not know when the Lord will return, Metz writes. This gives us a "lowliness and poverty" that are intrinsic to "any genuine faith in God's first Advent." But Americans can't stand to be poor and wouldn't admit their impoverishment because of the absence of God in their lives anymore than an alcoholic can admit to being unable to not drink.

Advent is a season of preparation. The preparation is not for recognizing our wealth. It is for admitting our poverty. Our lives are quite definitely and absolutely meaningless without God.

 

 

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What's in a gesture?

A priest recently remarked to me that he is waiting for Pope Francis to make his mark. For this priest, Pope Francis has not yet defined his papacy. He has not yet grabbed onto the Pope Francis band wagon and he is not a critic of Francis but he believes Francis has yet to make any significant sign that makes his papacy stand out. Perhaps today's release of the pope's apostolic exhortation will begin to make him more of a believer.

Maybe. I read a claim that the crowds in St. Peter's Square during the almost eight-month pontificate of Francis have already exceeded the entire pontificate of Pope Benedict. At the same time the Pew Research people have surveyed U.S. Catholics and found that Francis' pontificate has not made a difference in terms of Mass attendance in the U.S. I'm not sure what that means other than that Francis can draw a crowd and that perhaps U.S. leadership in the Church is on life support.

Has Francis from the beginning identified his papacy with the gestures he makes? Like Therese of Lisieux and her Little Way, do Francis' embrace of babies, a tumored man, and others not identify a markedly different papacy as if to say we didn't get it quite right. We are concerned like Martha with many things and yet Mary has chosen the better part. Jesus spent his time healing people of their illnesses. The political world around him did not change much. In fact, it got worse. Is Francis here to prevent WW3? Or is he the great preacher of love your neighbor to each one of us individually? Maybe he really is the reincarnation of his namesake.

Some have noted that Pope Francis certainly seems to have been effective in keeping the situation in Syria from boiling over. He asks for prayer and a week later there are negotiations going on. Tensions have decreased. Is the situation in Syria solved? Not at all. But faith is not measured in nuclear explosions or comets streaking through the sky. Faith is a step by step process of giving oneself over to one greater than oneself.

What Francis has done so far is to ask us to rethink our way of business. What we've been about has had diminishing returns. Can Francis take us off life support and offer us real food once again?

Out with the old

Among the things I have learned in my lifetime - as we grow older, change and make decisions for ourselves, it does no good to linger. Move on! I have experienced life in enough institutions - schools, sabbatical programs, parishes, etc. - to know that there is a time for each of them and a time to leave them. Leave behind the old life. Put on the new. Don't try to take the old life with you.

Some seminarians make a disagreeable choice when choosing to leave seminary formation by not really leaving at all. Some discern well, pray and talk things over with their formators, pack up, leave, and then return to the seminary to visit old friends regularly or meet them in neutral locations to share good food and drink. Retaining and developing healthy friendships is always a great experience. What is not so great is clinging to such friendships when there is so much life to experience beyond the seminary. I have seen too many individuals from high school and college and other programs hang on to old haunts and older relationships as if nothing has changed.

I cannot believe this is healthy. We all grow at our own pace, we are not one size fits all, but when the former friends in one lifestyle keep reappearing as if that lifestyle were continuing for him or her there is a problem. A former seminarian, for example, whose relationships continue to be other seminarians without any new ones developing risks an arrested development. Oh, yes, it is important to maintain good relationships with good friends, but the nature of the relationships have changed and too many people act as if they are still in the former place rather than the new one. Cut the cord, as a wise man said.

Discernment is not a simple process and some try to circumvent it with quick decisions. There are those who know they need to make a change and do and slowly but surely their whole base of friends gradually change so that there are now acquaintances in the past and new friends are now the closer relationship. But some make the change and continue to cling to old relationships as if life has just made a slight turn rather than a full detour. Such relationships gradually feel strained among those left behind while the one moving on often clings to former ways of life.

There is nothing so sad, for example, as a former seminarian defensive about the seminary, the diocese, the religious order, the Church, etc., yet who has not fought the current battles and lacks the knowledge of what is current and who continues to think in an environmental awareness that ended years ago. Such people can often do damage to the continuity of such religious life or even Church life. For those who continue within the structure there is often a misunderstanding and ignorance of the truth that one is separate from other worlds. The call of Christ in Church life as a cleric or religious is all-encompassing and requires total commitment.

Forty-five years ago when I was ordained priests tried to prove to the Church that we were just like everybody else. But the truth is that we are not. We really are called to give up father and mother and brother and sister. God wants no mediators between Himself and His disciples. For the person called to be a priest among disciples, there can be no accompanists other than the Lord Himself.

Do things just stay the same after reform?

As a young child educated in Catholic schools, I remember being impressed in my study of Catholicism with the importance of the Council of Trent in solidifying and unifying our Catholic faith in the face of challenges made by the Protestant Reformation. As a young Catholic growing up in the 1950s the Reformation was the great enemy of our faith. There was nothing good about it. It upended and destroyed the Catholic faith that I understood made me the Catholic that I was. We always regarded the neighborhood kids who attended P.S. 82, the public school two blocks from my Catholic school, as less than human. They were, after all, Protestants.

That view has been altered since I finished reading Fr. John O'Malley S.J.'s book on the Council titled Trent: What Happened at the Council. Primarily I was left underwhelmed by the results of the Council's work. Given the corruption that existed in the Church of the 16th century, that the Council had any effect at all is most remarkable. Reform was not encouraged so much by churchmen themselves so much as by the political powers of laymen in the form of kings and emperors and their representatives who realized Europe was being torn apart by religious controversy. What was needed was not so much churchmen making changes but churchmen living the ideals they claimed for themselves.

By the time it closed after 18 years the Council had not really accomplished all that much. What really made its decrees work were the efforts of individuals - Charles Borromeo is specifically an example - who understood the necessity of reform and who began implementing reform in their own home dioceses. Just residing in your own diocese was a huge change for bishops who, to that time, often either lived elsewhere or who headed several dioceses at once.

Among the myths about the Church that I grew up with was the distinction between the authority of Scripture (important to the Protestant Reformers) and the authority of Tradition (important to Catholics). Yet, as O'Malley explains, Trent never spoke of Tradition but only of traditions. The Council did not decree a global category of transmission but only of specific traditions, e.g. doctrinal traditions, pastoral traditions, liturgical traditions, etc. The Council decreed there were two ways in which God's message is communicated - Scripture and traditions - but it did not determine the relationship of those two media.

The Council had begun with an eye toward reconciliation with the Lutheran Reformers and it might have happened but because of internal squabbling within the Roman Church and because the backs of Protestant Reformers were by then in fixed positions, any attempts failed. So we have today what we have. What most impressed me is that men like Charles Borromeo among others carried out real reform in their dioceses and so began real reform that continues well into the present day. Trent did not solve all the problems that existed in the Church of its time. But it did set in motion the possibility of reform and also real discipline by recognizing the dangerous path the Church was traveling by not striving toward internal holiness.

Acting or watching

Jansenism is a heresy in the Church that - forgive my oversimplification - would make Calvinists of us. Jansenism professed that one could not receive the Eucharist without receiving the sacrament of penance first. Today's youth are a bit more sophisticated about it for they know not to receive the Eucharist if in mortal sin but the heresy seems to have redefined itself by convincing many young people that nearly every sin they commit is a mortal sin.

Jansenism's effect was to make reception of the Eucharist a once or twice a year event. It has only been since the early 20th century, when Pope St. Pius X, decreed frequent, daily communion the norm that we have known such a practice. I suppose Jansenism isn't all to blame. The practice of receiving communion infrequently dates from the early Middle Ages. Jansenism just codified it.

Eucharistic adoration has regained its popularity and rightly so. But occasionally there are signs that adoration may even be preferred to reception. Some young people will deem themselves unworthy of the Eucharist - not always because of sinfulness - and will spend long periods of time in adoration but will not receive during Mass. This is a particular problem for the scrupulous but scrupulosity isn't always the culprit.

Moreover, one has to wonder about the theological training and understanding of the young. Chapel visits seem not to be popular unless the Blessed Sacrament is exposed. And yet Jesus is just as present in the tabernacle as He is in the monstrance. Is our respect for the tabernacle to be lessened?

Every age seems to develop its own sacramental aberrations. The return of Eucharistic adoration has had a tremendous impact on the incipient faith of the young. But the Eucharist was not just made to be seen. One former theology professor is known to have exclaimed, "Jesus didn't say 'Take and look!' He said 'Take and eat!' " The lesson here is that reception of the Eucharist is an action that moves us to live our faith and not only savor the flavor.

Whose prayer is heard?

There are two prayers stated in the Gospel today. We just heard both of them. One is prayed by the Pharisee:

            ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity – greedy, dishonest, adulterous – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’

The other prayer is prayed by the tax collector:

            ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’

Jesus tells us that the tax collector went home justified but the Pharisee did not. But Jesus does not stop there. He reminds us that if we exalt ourselves, we will be humbled, and that if we humble ourselves, we will be exalted.

What is wrong with the prayer of the Pharisee? What is right with the prayer of the tax collector?

The Pharisee recognizes that he keeps the commandments. He is not greedy. He is not dishonest. He is not adulterous. Moreover, he fasts twice weekly. He tithes generously to the Temple. Why is this prayer not acceptable? Are you and I not to rejoice that we keep the commandments? Ought we not give thanks to God when we are tempted to lie, but do not; tempted to steal, but do not; tempted to commit adultery, but do not?

The difference, of course, is the humility of the tax collector and the pride of the Pharisee. It is one thing to be grateful to God for being sinless. It is another to claim that I have it under control. Notice, by the way, that the Gospel tells us the Pharisee is speaking to himself.

Which of these two do we recognize in ourselves? The proud Pharisee or the humble tax collector?

Today’s first reading is from the Book of Sirach, one of the Wisdom books of the Old Testament. It is a book of wise sayings. This particular passage begins with the writer acknowledging that the Lord plays no favorites, that He is a God of justice. The prayer of the tax collector suggests that God is likewise a God of mercy.

Our God is not unduly partial to the weak, yet he hears the cry of the oppressed. Among the oppressed in the time of the Old Testament was ‘the wail of the orphan’ and ‘the widow who pours out her complaint.’ Neither the orphan nor the widow had anyone to speak up for them in the time of Jesus. They had no resources of their own because their society did not acknowledge them any rights of any kind. Someone had to protect them. God is saying that he will.

In our own time, who lacks rights of any kind? Who has no one to speak up for them?

A powerful image in this first reading suggests ‘the prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds.’ This prayer does not rest until it reaches its goal. It does not withdraw until God responds, judges justly and affirms the right.

The Pharisee fails to recognize his own need for God. But then, he seems not to need God at all.

How unlike the second reading is to the prayer of the Pharisee. The Apostle Paul acknowledges his years of work preaching God’s message, the Gospel. He recognizes that his time is coming to an end. He is grateful to God for all the work of God he has been able to accomplish through Him. He does not write as if he accomplished it by himself.

The Pharisee never acknowledges his dependence on God. Paul knows he could not have been a successful preacher had not God been with him. The Pharisee compares himself only to other human beings and he does so claiming his own superiority. Paul says that some of his own friends deserted him, but God never did. Paul speaks of the crown of righteousness being awarded him. The Pharisee speaks of his own righteousness as if he is responsible for it. Paul’s words tell us that his reward comes because he has kept pace with God. The Pharisee has kept pace with his own wants. He thanks God because he sees himself as different and unlike other human beings. The tax collector is different yet he is more human than the Pharisee.

The prayer of the tax collector was taken by spiritual masters and reformulated as “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.” This has become known as the Jesus Prayer and it fits all occasions. When we know not what else to pray, this prayer ought to become our own. We can pray it at any time of the day. It is easy to learn. The ritual has been to breathe in when we say the words ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God’ and to breathe out when we say ‘have mercy on me a sinner.’ We breathe in the life of Christ and we exhale our sinfulness.

Who is our own mentor – the Pharisee or the tax collector?

Cafeteria Catholicism

Cafeteria Catholicism was a pejorative term used to describe Catholics who pick and choose what they want to believe in. Some years ago it was applied specifically by conservative-leaning Catholics who wanted to describe left-leaning Catholics. I haven't really heard the term used much these days but the concept still exists. But the shoe is on the other foot. Now it is being applied more frequently by left-leaning Catholics to descrzibe conservative-leaning ones.

It is curious the difference a pope can make.

There are many conservative writers and bloggers who seem to feel the need to try to explain just exactly what Pope Francis means when he speaks. They seem taken aback by his spontaneity, or seeming spontaneity. In the past liberal writers felt the need to apologize for what they felt were Pope John Paul's and Pope Benedict's statements and encyclicals and letters.

The truth is we are all cafeteria Catholics on some points or issues. We like some things the church teaches but not others.

Pope Francis seems to me to be putting into practice some of the spirit of what Paul John Paul and Pope Benedict said and wrote. Francis is turning their theology into ministry. What were philosophical constructs to them are ideals to be lived to Francis. It is not enough to put words on paper or float ideas in discussion. Sooner or later those ideas, thoughts, constructs, etc., must become actions. If you look seriously enough, you will find the actions of Francis mirrored in the ideas of the two previous pontiffs. Nevertheless, it disturbs us when an idea takes shape as human interaction.