Reasons for Hope

     While many today are basking in the glow of President Obama's reelection, those who value the importance of life and religious liberty may feel a bit demoralized. I know I do. I didn't really expect to, quite frankly. I had suspected an Obama victory and had come to terms with it. What I did not anticipate or realize was the degree to which our country's Godless, "progressive" left-turn would be made manifest to me. I saw it in state referendums that legalized same-sex marriage. I saw it in states that legalized the recreational (not just medicinal) use and cultivation of marijuana. I saw it in a number of Facebook posts from people of the self-proclaimed "Christian left", who had the audacity to thank God for this pro-abortion President's reelection for another four years. Another four years that, by the President's own admission to none other than (cue irony!) Tsar Putin, will give him "more flexibility" to pursue his goal of moving America "forward".

      It is this talk from Christians than saddens, perplexes and even angers me the most. How does one maintain the cognitive dissonance necessary to say they follow the teachings of Christ and simultaneously support a President who wants to make it easier for women to get abortions, and will appoint Federal judges who will follow suit in their legal rulings? These Christians are simply following the model put forth by such warped Catholics as Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, who treat their proclaimed faith just as Obama would like faith to become: a hobby on par with knitting or playing bridge every Tuesday afternoon.

     The Church has failed to get Catholics to grasp that their Catholicism cannot just be something they do; it must be who they are. That should also apply to any authentically Christian denomination. Perhaps the best summarization on this subject that I have read comes from Aidan Nichols, O.P. He writes, "In the powerful yet soft secularising totalitarianism of distinctively modern culture, our greatest enemy is the Church's own internal secularisation which, when it occurs, does so through the largely unconscious adoption of the ideas and practices of seemingly benign adversaries." I am much more sympathetic towards atheists who are pro-choice, for same-sex marriage and the like. They support such methods, I believe, out of what they think are good motives--women's rights, equality, etc. Without the Lord as their guide, how are they expected to understand why each life is so important (it is created in God's own image) or why marriage can only be between a man and a women (it is a sacrament created by the Creator)?

     What is disturbing is the degree to which the modern Christian is willing to choose which teachings they find valuable and which they find too hard or unpopular to support. They are willing to actively support the oppression and destruction of their own faith, and then thank the Lord for doing it! To be such a Christian is not to follow Christ. In fact, I would venture to say that the perverted theology they subscribe to is more idol worship than God worship.

     With that said, I remain hopeful for two reasons. The first is that now it has been made painstakingly clear to any devout Christian what they are up against going forward. For decades this nation has not taken God seriously. Perhaps now we can come to terms with being the minority, the persecuted and the scorned. We ought to move towards reinforcing the faith of lapsed Christians. This culture war will only be fought one soul at a time, not through any one politician. We need to spend more time standing up for our religious liberty. The President has already laid the groundwork to erode that right. He has given us a choice: minister to the sick in Catholic hospitals and educate the people of God in Catholic universities OR respect your conscience in refusing to pay for abortifacient drugs...you can no longer do both. If we lose this right, we will not get it back. The road only gets more perilous if we do not put a stop to it now.

      The second reason for my hope is that we Christians know the ending of the story. This period of turmoil for people of faith is only a page in the great book of existence God has written. For as dark as times may seem--and they may very well get darker in the near future--the truth of Christ's victory over these forces of evil and suffering and death is absolute and final. If we "finish the race" as Saint Paul instructs, we will win the prize of eternal life with God. The Church has been through persecutions of greater magnitude in Roman times. Yet while Rome is a pile of ruins, the Church continues to protect the revealed mystery of God's love for humanity. And long after the United States is laid to waste, the Church will still be standing, because it is not beholden to the foolishness of men and women but rather the wisdom of God.

      This is no time for indecision or indifference--two other characteristics en vogue in the United States today. Like in any war, this one for our soul will require us to choose a side. We know the ultimate winner. The question is, will we be on His side?

On Love

     In today's Gospel reading, Jesus gives the "The Law of Love". In fact, the first half of the rule was not new; Jesus simply quoted the words of Moses from the Book of Deuteronomy: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deu 6:4-5) 

     How can we love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength if by God's very nature we cannot fully understand the identity of our Creator? In our human relations, we keep love as one of our most closely guarded emotions. We are hesitant to love anyone unless we know them really well already. With God, we must be prepared to do just the opposite: if we are to have any chance of knowing God, we must first love God.

      I actually think this type of love is easier to understand in the Spanish language than it is in English. In Spanish, the verb used to express love for someone (not something) is querer. In most circumstances this verb means to want or desire something. So, in a sense, the primary way to express love for someone in Spanish is to do nothing less than to say te quiero ("I want/desire you"). So it is with God! We must first have a desire for God. Only then can we love God. We must search for God before we can love God because God is pure love itself. All earthly love is merely partial in comparison that pours forth from the very One which created us, who willed our very existence into Being. No human love can compare to the love of the Father, who bears with our shortcomings and our distancing from Him, never ceasing to offer us mercy and forgiveness the moment we turn back.

     That is not to say we ought to turn our backs on human love. Jesus expanded and completed the Judaic law with the instruction to love our neighbor as ourself. The love people encounter in this life is a gift from God and should be treated with respect and full devotion. In so doing, we come to glorify God by our love for another, always and everywhere desiring that more perfect love that is only to be found in the next world with God.

Twenty One and Counting

     Yesterday I turned twenty-one years old. One of the vivid memories I have from my childhood is sitting in front of the TV in my living room on my seventh birthday, watching some show on Nickelodeon. A new show started and, in the top right-hand corner of the screen was the rating "Y-7". I remember feeling so proud and so old that I could now "legally" watch such "mature" cartoons! In light of this, it is a bit of a shock to think that moment was 14 years (and a day) ago. Now, I've eclipsed every legal age restriction...next stop my AARP membership!!!

     I also could not help but think of my own mortality yesterday. My birthday always coincides with All Souls' Day in the Catholic Church. My faith is always quick to point out that we must constantly be vigilant and prepared to make an account of our lives to the Lord, who can summon us at any time.

     My own life has confirmed this truth. In my childhood, I had the misfortunate of my uncle and father both passing away suddenly. Both were shy of 50 years old. Sometimes I try to imagine what they were doing some day when they were in their 20s and, unbeknownst to them, their life had just reached its midpoint. I suspect they probably felt, as I often do, invincible and unconcerned with the brevity of life. They probably felt assured, if not entitled, to another 50 or 60 years; time to travel, time to play with their children, their future grandchildren, to enjoy retirement and the like. If they would have known that they would be granted less than half of that time, what would they have done differently? What would they have deemed more important to get done, not as important to waste their precious time? What arrangements would they have made for preparing their souls to meet their Maker?

     Lest you think I spent my entire birthday reflecting on such a morbid subject, I had a wonderful day spent with some tremendous friends whom I have only had the pleasuring of knowing for two months. I turned 21 in a beautiful foreign country, one in which I never thought I'd have the ability to visit, let alone spend 4 months in to study what interests me. I awoke early in the morning to register for spring classes at my home university in Washington, DC. I signed up for a class about the role of food in society, being taught by an Iron Chef and with celebrity guest lecturers. God has blessed me with the ability to do great things, to meet great people, to spread His great message of salvation. And I guess that's the point of this reflection: to simply say that I feel I've been given a lifetime's worth of blessings in a little more than two decades.

     I have no idea why God chose to give me these opportunities. When I reflect on how many people are more worthy of my educational opportunities, who could take more advantage of my travel experiences, I feel almost embarrassed that I frequently takes these gifts for granted. One of my favorite passages to meditate on comes from the Book of Psalms: What shall I render to the Lord for all His bounty to me? (Ps 116:12) I've been reflecting on that question for at least a year, and the bet answer I've come up with is simply: whatever He asks. On that note, I'll leave you for today with this prayer from Saint Ignatius of Loyola:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me; to you, O Lord, now I return it; all is yours dispose of me wholly according to your Will. Give me only your love and your grace, for this is enough for me.

Unshakeable Hope

     In the Catholic Church, today is a Holy Day of Obligation, which means that the faithful must attend Mass. The purpose of today in the Church is to commemorate all the Saints who have served God so heroically throughout history. Their lives, many of which ended in the sacrifice of their blood for their faith, serve as inspiration for all us sinners who live with the desire to do good but a weakness of will that often leads us to sin and despair.

     Before and after the Mass, I spent some quiet time reflecting in front of the Blessed Sacrament, which is Jesus truly present in the Eucharist. I was particularly struck by my own insignificance in the midst of the God and Creator of all. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, himself on the road to being declared a Saint, said that, measuring ourselves by the infinite, we ought to be absolutely convinced of our nothingness.

     Often, I feel there's a impassable chasm between what I ought to do and what I do each day. The words of Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans rings true: I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil which I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. (Rom 7:15,17-21) This is not some average guy saying this, but a Saint! If a Saint struggles with this same battle against sin as we do, then it can be very easy to lose hope for ourselves.

      But it's important to recall that Saint Paul was not always...well...Saint Paul. He started his life as Saul, a persecutor of the early Church. He took part in killing some of the early martyrs such as Saint Stephen. How then did he convert his life? Only through the grace of God! For I believe he stood at the edge of that same chasm that we all face. Neither Saint Paul nor you nor I can cross into a life of holiness by ourselves. The only bridge sturdy enough to support the hefty weight of our sinful baggage is the Cross of Jesus. Through Christ, all things our possible. As Saint Paul puts it: There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For good has done what the law, weakened by flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. (Rom 8:1-3)

     In God's Kingdom of Saints, there is room both for a martyr and the man who stoned him. That is not a message of despair, but one of unshakeable hope, if only we are willing to acknowledge our weakness and dependence on God's mercy. As another future Saint, Blessed Pope John Paul II, said, "We are not the sum of weakness and failures. We are the sum of our Father's love for us." Perhaps the secret of the Saints is this: they understand that alone there are nothing, but with God there is nothing they cannot conquer, even sin and death!

Get Out and Vote

     It's a bit weird being in Costa Rica during the first Presidential election for which I am able to vote. Absentee ballots have already been sent in and, even though the election is one week from today, I have a sense of it already have come and gone. For the majority of Americans, however, this is far from true. Now is the time to become informed citizens (if one is not already), understand the positions of candidates and begin to decide who is going to earn your trust and, by extension, your vote. It's a civic duty, and we should all be proud to carry it out!

For many, choosing whom to vote for is a matter of feel. We decide if we feel comfortable with one candidate over another, perhaps taking into account his or her positions on certain issues that personally effect us. If we are Catholic (or any Christian who seriously strives to imitate Christ), our criteria must rise above this very cursory and self-centered assessment. We are called to use a well-formed conscience and test the candidate's positions on that conscience. As my hometown Bishop, Most Rev. Richard Malone wrote recently:

We recognize that there can be proposals for addressing some pressing social concerns, such as the economy, immigration reform, or retirement security, on which people of good will can reach different conclusions. This is the exercise of prudential judgment, which demands that we never justify an immoral means to achieve a good end. 

Prudential judgment does not come into play with every issue that confronts us. Not every course of action is morally acceptable. There are situations in which what is being proposed is an intrinsic evil. Intrinsic evils are actions that must always be opposed because they are always, by their nature, gravely opposed to the will of God. Examples of intrinsic evils are abortion, euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, genocide, torture and racism. Intrinsic evils undercut the dignity of the human person. If we think about it for a moment, we can see how all of the life issues are connected. Erosion of respect for the life of any person or group in society necessarily diminishes respect for all life. 

Without a doubt, the conscientious Catholic faces many complex and difficult decisions in preparing to vote. That is why an informed conscience, and confidence in the moral wisdom of our Church, is so important. A Catholic may never vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil if, in voting for her or him, one is doing so in support of that immoral position. Conversely, a Catholic cannot justify voting for a candidate who opposes an intrinsic evil if that candidate is known to be indifferent to other serious moral issues involving human life. 

There may be times when we find it necessary to vote for a candidate who holds an unacceptable position on a grave moral issue for other grave moral reasons.  

     It is clear to see why many Catholics become confused, even when they know the intrinsic evils they must not implicitly condone by way of their vote. In the final analysis, a well-formed conscience will help any voter to make the best moral use of their vote for all humans, keeping in mind the priority that must be given to avoiding candidates who support intrinsically evil acts. This takes a great deal of courage and love for God, sacrificing what may be economically or socially convenient for us. Yet, if we need any inspiration, we need look no further than Jesus upon the Cross. If He laid down His life for all humans, surely I can sacrifice my comfort, if that's what it means to protect the dignity of life.

      May you all exercise your right to vote come November 6th and, as with everything, may you glorify God in so doing!

Why're We Eating Pineapples and Other Mysteries

     This morning, I walked by my host mom cutting up a pineapple for breakfast and I began to think again about a topic this has been on my mind a few times at different points during my two months in Costa Rica: how did humans find out that some particularly unappealing fruits and vegetables were palatable and, in fact, quite appealing? How surprised must that person have been who first laid eyes upon a spiky pineapple and decided to cut it open, revealing sweet yellow fruit? What was the person thinking who first plucked a dirt-covered carrot out of the ground and into their mouth? How long did it take for people to realize that bananas taste exponentially better if you wait for them to turn a little brown? Potatoes, kiwis, cantaloupes and coconuts: the list of weird fruits and vegetables is very long. Yet, for all their strangeness, these foods provide just what the body needs.

     If you will allow, I would like to propose that Christianity is very much like the discovery of the aforementioned"weird" edible plants . To understand how humanity arrived at either, we must begin with hunger. Just as people have a physical hunger that can only be satisfied with external food, we also have a psychological hunger to know the being or force that created us. Yet neither the "weird" foods nor Christianity were necessarily found on the "first try"for many civilizations. Many fruits and vegetables were undoubtedly tested by humans. Yet some of these did not satisfy the need for nourishment. Likewise, the world's great religions are monuments of man's search for God. They contains some truths, but ultimately we cannot sustain ourselves on them because they do not reveal the living God that is inexhaustibly expressed in the Christian Mystery.

     What do I mean when I say "the Christian Mystery"? At its core, I think the Mystery is that the Divine Creator, God, intends nothing less than to share eternal life with us. This earthly life we are all engaged in right now certainly contains mysteries and is itself worthy of tremendous wonder and contemplation. Yet this life is at least tangible to us. We may not understand it all, but we could at least conceive of its existence without God. In contrast, the Christian Mystery-- that the destiny of humanity is not simply a life that is given, whether by God or random chance, but rather a life that is shared in full and everlasting communion with the Trinitarian God-- is a concept that is otherworldly and thus could come through no source other than God. This movement of God, the search for us after our rejection of Him through pride, was so strong that that He willed to make Himself man, in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ. God's quest to bring us back into His grace, to reconcile us, and a account of pure love; a love which had no beginning and will have no end.

     At this point, my head hurts and, if you have made it this far, I suspect yours might hurt as well. Yet whereas with many mysteries we can throw up our hands and say we've exhausted all there is to know about the topic, with the Christian Mystery the utter opposite is the case. It is a mystery, not because we can only say so much, but because we can never say enough! It not a mystery shrouded in darkness, but rather one obscured by too much Divine light! Isn't it fitting that the very story of God, who is pure light and goodness, is too bright to fully see from our terrestrial vantage point. Many modern atheists like to point to what the Christian cannot fully explain about God--why He permits suffering, why He allows Satan to exist, etc.-- as evidence of God's non-existence.  But the Creator, by definition, cannot be fully understood by created beings. Our lives are but a meager paragraph in the Book of Life. Our inability to explain the ways of God is more a weakness in the general human capacity to comprehend, rather than it is a peculiar fault in believers or in Divine Revelation itself.

     In the final analysis, the atheist (not the questioner or doubter, but the person who has definitively determined for themselves that there is no God) is a tremendously pathetic figure. He or she would never think of eating a spiky pineapple or a dirty carrot, just like he or she would never think of believing in a God they cannot fully see and understand. What the atheist fails to grasp is that God is necessarily ungraspable by us, by merit of His place as Creator of us! To grasp is to control. The great irony is that the only god the atheist could possibly believe in is precisely the one that would be imaginary, a figment of the atheist's mind borne out of a deep need to control. In lieu of this, the atheist is left with a world that, devoid of God's warmth and life-giving love, is cold and sterile. Or worse, the atheist, incapable of coming to terms with the result of their "beliefs", tries to construct their own religion, preaching the gospel of cultural relativism that permits what Blessed John Paul II wisely called the "Culture of Death".

     In the midst of all this sham and drudgery, one of the greatest expressions of the Christian Mystery we can have is hope. With our culture turning itself over to a bizarre and hitherto unseen militantly secular disposition, one which is not only dismissive but antagonistic towards God, it is essential to remember that the Truth of Christ is the same as it's always been, and the Grace of God remains with those who seek his love. Not to take any credit away from the President's efforts to make Catholics go against their consciences, but the Church has been through far worse persecutions under Roman Emperors. Yet the Church is still standing while Rome fell long ago, and will continue to stand long after the United States is mere history. You see, in the great Christian Mystery, Jesus has already won the victory for us. We need only stand on the right side.

Moments of Grace

     The other day, I had a friend come up to me, asking if we could talk for a moment. In the brief conversation we had, I could tell the person had been deeply touched by a moment of grace by God. A fallen away Christian, something in my friend's soul had suddenly been stirred, to the point that they wanted to sit down and talk about faith over lunch sometime in the near future. Thanks be to God!

     This episode was an affirmation of a truth I have come to believe: to become a Christian, one must have an encounter with the living Christ. I realize this may seem obvious on the surface, but I think many people have an upside-down view of what it means to be a follower of Christ. For unbelievers, the central theme of Christianity may appear to be a set of restrictive moral codes. From this perspective, it is easy to see why many are hesitant to first give up a portion of their conventional freedoms in the name of Jesus. But I believe this is a backwards view of what transpires in the heart of a Christian. The Christian does not follow Christ because he or she has been faithful to the teachings, he or she is faithful to the teachings because there has been an encounter with Christ! In other words, the strength to believe in the supernatural must be begotten by nothing less than an encounter with the supernatural. One does not come to know the Divine by the same manner in which one comes to know the multiplication table. There needs to be a revelation of inward grace in the heart of the person, from which adherence to the teaching's of the source of that grace, God, flows naturally and without hesitation.

     I recall a story I heard once about a very forgetful minister who had been assigned to a small, close-nit, rural congregation. Shortly after arriving, the most respected member of the parish died. The minister made the arrangements for the funeral service, which was expected to draw the entire community, and put the date in his agenda. Unfortunately, he put the wrong date in his agenda, and then subsequently took the actual date of the funeral off to go on an all-day hike. Upon returning from his wonderful day of relaxation, he went into his office to find a note from his secretary on his desk. She said that they had to call in another minister from the next town over, and the funeral service began two hours late as a result. She closed the note by "suggesting" that he ought to pay a visit that evening to the widow's house and apologize. Quickly, the minister changed out of his hiking gear and into his clerical dress. He drove over to the widow's home, where the friends and family of the deceased had gathered for dinner. He walked up steps of the front porch, his body shaking with embarrassment. He knocked pathetically on the large wooden door and swallowed hard, praying that he might maintain his composure. The door opened, and the widow stepped out onto the porch to face her absent pastor. Before the man could say a word, he found himself embraced by the woman. After a few moments, the woman pulled back, and, with a look of supreme pity, said, "You poor soul! You must feel terrible! Come on in and have some supper."

     After that evening, the minister found a renewed passion and zeal for his ministry.  Reflecting back on the experience, he would comment, "I stood naked on that porch, and that woman clothed me in love." The minister's preaching and shepherding of his congregation was revived because he had truly encountered the love of Christ of which he preached. God's grace and mercy acted through that woman.

     Once a soul encounters Christ, the Christ that lives and works through others, what choice does it have but to follow? Throughout the Bible, there are many examples of ordinary people, both rich and poor, who have a life-changing encounter with Jesus. He is no less present today than He was when He walked the Earth, as His promise to be with us always, unto the end states very clearly. He is present most gloriously in the Catholic Eucharist, but also in those moments of grace that come when we least expect them yet are most in need of them. To receive grace however, we must be open to grace. We need to humble ourselves with the realization that we are self-sufficent. Echoing the words of the Psalmist, if today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts!