The Space Between

Finding a house in the area we currently live was a challenge. When we set out to move a few years ago, it was one of the first major steps out in faith that we took as a married couple, to trust that God could do big things that seemed improbable, even in something as everyday and seemingly worldly as finding a house for us. We trusted Him, and enlisted many of our Christian friends to pray for us, and I can't explain it--God just made a way for us, as our offer was much lower than what the seller's could have gotten, and the timing just was on point, and the house was literally everything we needed. It was a pivotal point for us in our faith journey, and I am continually going back in gratefulness to the way God provided for us in our time of need then, figuring, "if He can do it then, He can do it again" with the next big challenge we encounter.

We moved from a rowhouse in the city to a house situated on half an acre, and while it can be a pain to mow the lawn sometimes, we are not right on top of our neighbors, and we maintain a good deal of privacy and eat breakfast watching deer meander through the vegetable garden in the backyard. I realize this can be a luxury in the suburbs, though for many in the country and rural areas its a way of life. Where we live, land is expensive, and is usually slated for development if it is not preserved. The area has been 'booming' since the late 1990's, and what was once farmland is now prime real estate and bustling shopping centers. Every scrap of available land is being bought up and built on. This has benefits as well as downsides, and townships have to make zoning decisions that balance economic growth with the potential danger of over-commercialization.

In our family, we also have to periodically go through a kind of balancing assessment of how we are spending our time and treasure, what to develop on and what to lay fallow. Both my wife and I are introverts (though I think my wife would say I am more of an 'ambivert') and when things get too crazy and schedules get too jam-packed, our inner batteries get drained quickly. The way we 'recharge' is to have downtime and unstructured swatches of space and time; ie, "white space."

Musicians know that the space and tempo between notes is just as important as the notes themselves. Artists need to make use of negative space to contrast and accentuate the form and color that is on the canvas. Writers need to make the words on the page count, and not use too much filler. The comedian and rhetorician knows that timed pauses and strategic silences are just as important as the punchlines themselves. And every saint has found that 'time away' in private prayer, akin to Jesus' retreat to 'lonely places' to commune with his Father, is indispensable to counter-balance active ministry. White space--the space between--has value in and of itself. It's lack of defined substance is, by its very nature, where its value lies.

Open land, in the eyes of developers, is seen through opportunistic eyes--it's just wasted space that could be built on and made 'useful.' We can approach our every day lives in the same way. Unscheduled, unaccounted for time in the week could be 'better spent' catching up on yardwork or going to the movies or an amusement park, or doing something to fill the time. For extroverted people, this just comes naturally. For introverts like us, though, we struggle with the lack of white space when our lives get tilted too much towards the over-active. And, to be honest, we've been going full-tilt, both of us working full time, at a pace that for us, just does not seem sustainable over the long haul.

Thank God for the Sabbath. This day--this gift from God, made for man (Mk 2:27)--that we have set aside for worship, rest, and 'white space' is an oasis in our week. We started getting more intentional about it a few years ago,--that is, not working (at our jobs, not checking email, not doing yard work, etc) and treating Sunday like an overflow day to get things done that weren't accomplished during the week--and it's been a monumental change that puts everything else in its proper place. It sometimes makes Saturdays a little crazier, as we're trying to get everything done by evening in preparation for the next day's Sabbath. 

Silence in prayer--that is, simply, "listening"--can feel like this kind of non-productive, non-active, fallow kind of land ripe for development. But it is here where God speaks to our hearts. Resist the temptation to build your spiritual life on every available scrap of time that allows no open space for simple communing with the Lord in precious "wasted moments." White space in prayer--silence, receptive listening, contemplation, simple gratitude and restful adoration--is just as important as our acts of service, our works of mercy, our recitations, and our work. 

Please pray for our family as we trust the Lord once again in some pretty big changes and decisions with work and schooling, so that we can get things prioritized in an order that works for our family and honors God in the process. Every family has to find that balance for themselves. Just don't overlook the inherent value of the space between.

Hold The Line

I'm not a Hasidic Jew. I don't know any Hasidic Jews, nor to I pretend to know much about their religion, community, or specific customs. But, kind of like my curious admiration for the counter-cultural example of the Amish, I have always had a respect from afar for their traditional belief and practice as our spiritual ancestors; their unique, stand-alone witness in a culture that has forgotten Who has created them, which has gone mad as a result.

My only thing that really put it on my radar was discovering a Hasidic reggae singer/song-writer convert named Matisyahu, who was blowing up the charts around 2005 wearing the yarmulke with swinging payes on stage, the works. He had a unique sound, a spiritual message, and a one-of-a-kind M.O. He had a great song called "King Without a Crown" around that time that gave glory to God, which I thought was pretty cool:

You're all that I have and you're all that I need 

Each and every day I pray to get to know you please 

I want to be close to you, yes I'm so hungry 

You're like water for my soul when it gets thirsty 

Without you there's no me 

You're the air that I breathe 

Sometimes the world is dark and I just can't see 

With these, demons surround all around to bring me down to negativity 

But I believe, yes I believe, I said I believe

But in 2011, he abandoned the life of orthodox Judaism, shaved his decade-old beard, got divorced from his wife, and left the hasidic community. He let his fans know of his "spiritual evolution" on his website:

"This morning I posted a photo of myself on Twitter. No more Chassidic reggae superstar. Sorry folks, all you get is me… no alias. When I started becoming religious 10 years ago it was a very natural and organic process. It was my choice. My journey to discover my roots and explore Jewish spirituality — not through books but through real life. At a certain point I felt the need to submit to a higher level of religiosity… to move away from my intuition and to accept an ultimate truth. I felt that in order to become a good person I needed rules — lots of them — or else I would somehow fall apart. I am reclaiming myself. Trusting my goodness and my divine mission. Get ready for an amazing year filled with music of rebirth. And for those concerned with my naked face, don’t worry… you haven’t seen the last of my facial hair."

He continued to make music, a kind of generic pseudo-spiritual mash of Judaism and self-actualization. I guess he still performs; I lost interest, though, so I'm not really sure. I was never a fan-boy...I just thought it was cool he amassed a huge following rapping about God, and his music was catchy.

But something about his "journey" haunted me. He was kind of like a brother from another mother: we were the same age, were born in the same part of Pennsylvania, we were both enthusiastic converts to our respective religions, big on individualistic self-expression laced with narcissism, and we seemed to share a common seeker's heart. The one difference is he immersed himself in a strict, tight-knit religious community in Brooklyn, whereas I spent years going to Mass, but essentially practicing my religion outside any such kind of tight support-system.

I have no interest in judging Matisyahu's motives or what led him to abandon his orthodox religious practice, as there is probably more to it than what an outsider can see. But I hold him up as a sober, real-world reminder to myself of what has the potential to take me off track.

Submission is a hard thing. It can be hard for wives today, who have been brought up on the self-empowerment rhetoric of radical feminism, when they read:

"Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything" (Eph 5:22-24).

It can be hard for radicals to submit themselves to the civil law, who read:

"Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God." (Rom 13:1)

It can be hard for believers to submit to the religious authorities when they live hypocritically, though Jesus made clear to his followers that,

“The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them." (Mt 23:2)

It can be hard to simply follow the Lord, when the going gets tough, and the tough gets crazy, as when Jesus exhorts his followers on the necessity of eating his flesh to gain eternal life,  who "As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore." (Jn 6:66).

Why people leave the One True Faith--ie, apostasy--is something that keeps me up some nights. Will I be one of them who choose, somewhere down the road, "not to walk with Him anymore?" What keeps one on the path? If I find out--as someone I was close with posited in anger--that one of my children was gay...would I continue to believe it was a sin? If my beliefs "evolve" and it becomes clear that the shackles of religion are oppressive chains of conformity, will I find some new practice to offer incense to the Divine, on my own terms? If the Lord takes my wife, my children, my livelihood...will I rebel, blaspheme, blame, and rage agains Him by turning by back? When I am public in my profession of belief, and my typed words get held up before me as in an affidavit, will I deny I ever wrote them? Will my fickle nature succumb to the whims of fancy? Will I take up the idol-carving business and look with embarrassment on my former beliefs in the One True God?

Lukewarm faith is no faith at all, as far as I am concerned. We need to either walk away, or double down and dig a deep well. And yet, to walk away is to slouch through the wilderness in the shadow of Peter's admission: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!" (Jn 6:68). Really, in the end, what option do we have but to believe?

Thanks be to God, we are not "making our own way" by our own efforts, but are saved by grace through faith. "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph 2:8-9). No Catholic should doubt this, and yet not faith alone, for we know don't we

"that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." (James 2:20-24)

Christianity is seen as a "creed over deed" religion, versus Judaism which regards "deed over creed" as the proper expression of faith. But really, can we not have creed and deed work together for the fullest expression of religion, the embodiment of all that make us human--body, mind, and soul?

The life of the Catholic Christian is the recognition that it is a ridiculous modern fallacy to "love Jesus and hate religion"; that Christ entrusted the keys to to the Kingdom to Peter, "The Rock;" and that the Lord desires all to be saved, that none may be lost but might come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). True religion is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, one that requires faith, submission, and confidence in the Lord's promises. Does a person go through life with no skeleton to hold their organs intact, to provide structure to the body, to keep the skin stretched and taunt, and to give us form and definition?

A man without religion, following his own spiritual whims, is like a body without a skeleton, a subjective slump of flesh and organs with no form and no way to move or hold itself up when the swords and clubs of persecution come. For those agents of destruction that seek to beat the spirit out of us will find that in breaking our bones and fracturing our skulls at the pillars, we grip our holy religion and the Lord's precepts all the tighter, giving glory to the One whose body was broken before us. Should we walk away seeking our own individualized spiritual actualization, apostatizing from the faith prior to the persecution, we should never have the honor of losing our heads for the Lord.

Hold tight, brothers and sisters. When faith gets hard and belief feels like a farce, when the world laughs at you and you can almost taste the illusory sweetness of acquiescence to its way, when the ark feels claustrophobic and full of corruption....double down and pray. Pray for grace. Pray for wisdom. Pray, and hold the line.

Dying In The Prime Of Life

It has always struck me that the Lord got started with his life's work at age thirty and died three years later. There is not much recorded about Jesus' early and teenage years through his twenties, but notes the age at which he began his public ministry shortly after being baptized (Lk 3:23). He immediately is led by the Spirit into the desert to begin a period of testing for forty days (Lk 4:1-2), after which he spends three years healing the sick, raising the dead, and proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

It is generally agreed that Jesus was crucified and died when he was thirty three years old. Msgr Pope offers a good (Thomistic) perspective on why these ages matter, namely, that Christ was sacrificed in the prime of his life so as to make the sacrifice that much greater, and that one's thirties was considered an age of perfection.

I would tend to bet that much of our lives as human beings follow through predictable stages: the self-exploration and rebellion of the late teens and twenties; the matching up, settling down, and charging forward phase of one's thirties; the crisis-prone 'half-way' point of the forties that often opens up to reassessment of previous choices; and the settling and 'golden years' of the fifties and beyond.

I've been through one of those decades, and am wrapping up another, but that's as far as I've come. I've lived a little, have had some experiences and some kicks, learned one or two things about regret and mistakes, but really, like many people, I'll be forgotten pretty quickly if the book ended here. I'm just cracking open a new chapter of living for people and things beyond my self--mainly, my immediate family (wife and young kids). I've never been happier, more fulfilled, and full of purpose, than I am now. I'm in good health, we are in good shape financially, and work is going well.

The danger, of course, is to hold on to and guard this prime state of life against anything that might threaten it. Of course we know the Lord's teaching when it comes to holding on to life in a "Oh that this moment would last forever!" kind of attitude-- "He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal" (Jn 12:25). When the Lord sent the Israelites manna in the wilderness for food,  Moses said to them, “Let no man leave any of it until morning.” But they did not listen to Moses, and some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul" (Ex 16:19-20).

St. Alphonsus de Liguori recounts in his slim treatise Uniformity With God's Will the great saints who held a good death as a supreme grace, even should it come when young:

"St. John of Avila was convinced that every right-minded person should desire death on account of living in peril of losing divine grace. What can be more pleasant or desirable than by dying a good death, to have the assurance of no longer being able to lose the grace of God?  

Perhaps you will answer that you have as yet done nothing to deserve this reward. If it were God's will that your life should end now, what would you be doing, living on here against his will? Who knows, you might fall into sin and be lost! Even if you escaped mortal sin, you could not live free from all sin. "Why are we so tenacious of life," exclaims St. Bernard, "when the longer we live, the more we sin?'' A single venial sin is more displeasing to God than all the good works we can perform."

I know I have it good in this life right now. My challenge, which I pray a lot about, is loosening my grip and turning it all over in a spirit of detached gratefulness. My job, my wife, my kids, my house, my car, my friends, my health, my life itself--everything that makes life in this world worth living and fulfilling, and yet, to be willing to offer it to the Lord to do with it what He wills. If it didn't mean so much to me, it wouldn't be worth so much. And yet I have been praying, as St. Paul writes,

"More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Phil 3:8-11)

It takes a lot to conform to Christ's death, to learn to love crosses; it is counter to our nature. The cross is an ugly, malicious, stained and sordid thing in eyes of the world, an altar of torture to run from and avoid and employ all necessary tools and benefits to that end. We know that the Lord called Abraham to sacrifice his only begotten son (Gen 22:2), and that the Lord Himself did not spare his only-begotten as a spotless offering. Would he not expect the same of us?

My wife was reading the story of St. Felicity to me in the car as we were searching for girl names for our new baby:

"She appeared with her pious sons before the prefect of Rome, who exhorted her to sacrifice to idols, but in reply heard a generous confession of faith. Wretched woman, he said to her, how can you be so barbarous as to expose your children to torments and death? Have pity on these tender creatures, who are in the flower of their age and can aspire to the highest positions in the Empire!  

Felicity replied, My children will live eternally with Jesus Christ, if they are faithful; they will have only eternal torments to await, if they sacrifice to idols. Your apparent pity is but a cruel impiety. Then, turning to her children, she said: Look towards heaven, where Jesus Christ is waiting for you with His Saints! Be faithful in His love, and fight courageously for your souls. 

The Judge, taking the children one by one, tried to overcome their constancy. When the interrogation was finished, the Saints underwent the penalty of the lash and then were taken to prison. Soon they completed their sacrifice in various ways: Januarius was beaten until he died by leather straps capped with lead; Felix and Philip were killed with bludgeons; Sylvanus was thrown headfirst from a cliff; Alexander, Vitalis and Martial were beheaded. Felicity, the mother of these new Maccabees, was the last to suffer martyrdom."

The Christian believer knows that the Cross holds the key to life, and to run or insulate ourselves from it is to deny our very ontological existence. We need to see it through eyes of faith to transform such a horrifying landscape; in the Christian economy, we die to live, and live to die "for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s" (Rom 14:8). How much moreso, then, if we offer the Lord our best, the prime cut of our lives, when to do so would cost us dearly, and not only us, but those we love?

Make no mistake--if we follow Christ, whether at twenty, thirty, forty, sixty, or ninety, whether single or parents of many, whether well off and esteemed or poor and despised--we will suffer. The road to Golgotha is clear to see, and we should pray for courage to follow when He threatens to take everything away from us, even our families, our livelihoods, and our very lives. Believers know how the story ends, and that there are no shortcuts. Even in the prime of our lives.

St. Felicity, pray for us!

Svalbard and the Depositum Fidei

Somewhere between Norway and the North Pole, in a remote, permafrost-covered area of the Arctic called Svalbard, lies a vault. Named the "Global Seed Vault," it is a kind of Noah's Ark for millions of seed from around the world. The mission to is to preserve the genetic diversity of agricultural seed in the case of a global disaster by storing and protecting it from degradation.

When I first heard about this "doomsday vault," I thought to myself, "Hm. Sounds a lot like the Catholic Church and the Deposit of Faith." In fact one of the proprietors of the vault had this to say:

"It is like a holy place. Every time I come here I feel like I'm in a cathedral. This is a place to pause and to think. It's a unique place, a very important place for humanity."

In contrast to our Protestant brothers and sisters who hold belief in the doctrine of Sola Scriptura ("Scripture Alone"), the Catholic Church has always maintained that the Faith consists of "two lungs," or modes of transmission: Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. As the Catechism states, they are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other, originating from the same source (CCC 80).

"Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit." "And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching." (CCC 81)

When I came to believe in Christ it was essential to not be my own arbiter of divine law; I simply did not trust myself, not did I have a sound enough track record, to do so without danger. A relationship with Christ was essential, and squared with my experience of personal conversion, but a "pearl of great price", the seed of this divine teaching, must be guarded carefully to ensure against mutations. While I admired the way the Christians I knew lived their lives, I felt that doctrine and tradition were important in some way to preserve authentic teaching, though I didn't know to what extent at the time of my reception into the Church.

As an amateur gardener, I am familiar with the importance of good seed. If you plant an heirloom  (those original open-pollinated seeds that can be traced back hundred of years, and which are usually passed down through generations) variety of, say, tomatoes, you can save the seed for next season's use. Hybrid seed is genetically manipulated to produce various results (disease resistance, higher yield, etc) but cannot be saved and used for future seasons. Heirloom seed is often seen as "old fashion," your grandmother's variety, while industrial farmers rely on hybrid seed to maximize production and minimize risk.

An example of the mutation of faith when it is severed from the protection of the Magesterium can be seen in the example of the Kakure Kirirshitan ("hidden Christians") of Japan. Forced into hiding due to persecution in the 17th century, this Christian sect endured for hundreds of years maintaining a kind of quasi-Christian tradition that veered from the original missionary faith that St. Francis Xavier and his Jesuit companions brought to the island in the 16th century. In a kind of "whisper down the lane" style, the tradition was passed down but in a mutated fashion, so much so that after 400 years, it hardly resembled Catholic Christianity at all and looked more like a Japanese folk religion.

We can point to our own expression of cultural Catholicism in America today as a kind of mutation. When Catholics do not believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, deny core tenants of the faith or try to make other (incompatible) practices compatible with authentic belief, and basically merge this kind of quasi-Catholic practice with neo-pagan and secular humanistic beliefs, we get a mutation which can easily be seen today in the belief and practice of many western Catholics today. The only difference in this example is that there does not seem to be the same urgent imperative to preserve and pass down this twisted tradition to future generations; most tepid and improperly catechized Catholics today seem content to simply let the Faith die on the generational vine.

If we are going to preserve the true Faith for future generations and work for its endurance, we need to keep it true to form and protect against such mutations, and do so stringently and with ardor. We need to hold fast to sacred scripture and sacred tradition uncompromisingly and work to defend doctrine against error, in addition to living out authentic expressions of Christian praxis and experience in our daily lives, for our future as a Church depends on the careful guarding of this depositum fidei, or deposit of faith as well as the living witness of the faithful for its transmission. The early martyrs died for Christ, but also in defense of doctrine that upheld His true teaching against those real-life scenarios which threatened it. I think of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher and St. John the Baptist, but also of St. Charles Lwanga and his Ugandan companions; the Carmelite martyrs of Compiègne; and countless others who saw no division between doctrine and practice, between love of Christ and love of His Church; between the deposit of faith and the seed of conversion.

The vault of preservation is the Church. She has been given the divine authority to interpret scripture by Christ Himself, and it is our job to submit to Her teaching on matters of faith and morals, in docility and obedience, not in assuming the role of arbiter for ourselves. It is indeed a unique place, a holy place, and indispensably important to the future of humankind.

A Letter To A Friend, On the Topic of Depression

Hi ______,

Thanks for reaching out, and glad we were able to connect. I’m happy to share my perspective and experience; keep in mine it is my own, and I don’t claim to speak for anyone else who suffers from depression, but I have a few things I can share, which I would like to do in three parts--the medical, the spiritual, and the practical. First, the medical.

I was (mis) diagnosed with clinical depression in 1999. I say misdiagnosed because while I suffered greatly from depression during high school, college, and after college, it wasn’t until 2004, when I was 24, that I suffered my first episode of mania, for which I was hospitalized in a psychiatric outpatient facility. As a result, my Dx was changed to Bipolar (I). I also struggled a lot with generalized anxiety. My father was diagnosed with this disease himself around the same time and, as they say, there is a strong genetic component. From the age of 24 to my early thirties, I swung between mania and depression, both being severe, though later the mania seemed to be more of a threat while the depression was not as bad as it had been in the past. In the psych facility I was prescribed a cocktail of medications which seemed to control things, but the side effects were hard. At one point I was on Lithium, Depakote, Wellbutrin, Lamictal, Zoloft, and Zyprexa all at the same time, and I struggled with ‘feeling’ anything. I’ve had a few different psychiatrists over the years, and was grateful to have one who was at least willing to try me titrating down and off of a few of those meds, just to see if they were needed or not. His rationale was we’ll watch it carefully, do it slowly, and if you get manic or depressed, I could just titrate back up. I also should mention around 2008 I added Abilify (an anti-psychotic often used in conjuction with SSRIs to treat bipolar disorder) to the mix. This was a very effective drug for me, and it was not long after that I started going off the others--Wellbutrin first (no change, so for 15 years it was basically not doing much of anything); then Lithium, Depakote (the Abilify replaced those), then Zyprexa and Lamictal (no change), and Zoloft (no change, but the withdrawal was tough as I remember). At this current point, I have only been on Abilify (5mg, once a day AM) and it has been a very effective drug for me at keeping both mania and depression at bay. I take Klonopin as needed, which is not often, for acute anxiety. Abilify is usually used in tandem with an anti-depressant, but I just haven’t needed it, I don’t know why. And believe me, my depression was severe, with bouts of suicidal ideation (never attempted) and lethargy/hopelessness that was so dark I could not see out of it.

I have often thought back to that time for insight into its roots and causes, both psychologically and spiritually, and wondered why I don’t suffer anymore. I don’t see a therapist or psychologist, though I have in the past and never found it all that helpful. So now I will share the other side of the coin which I think does not get explored as much when mental illness is treated from a strictly psychiatric perspective, and that is taking a look at the spiritual taproot. I am reticent to do this for anyone besides myself, but I will share some experiences that may be helpful to you in your situation to consider.

I have been reading Fr. Gabriele Amorth’s sequel book on exorcism (An Exorcist: More Stories), and the more I do the more I am convinced that the dark forces of evil in the world manifesting themselves in various forms of malaise play, at least in part, some role in perpetuating the mental suffering of individuals prone towards psychological dis-order. It really hasn’t been until the past couple years, and after having done a closer spiritual audit, that I discovered things about my past that may have perpetuated or exacerbated this condition of mental unrest, things that may have opened to door to a spiritual influence that was not of God.

Rather than dress and fluff it up, if I can be so blunt--sin has done damage to my life, a damage that only God can heal, and it has made things worse for me. Sin never leads to anything good, though we tolerate it for various reasons, when (at least for myself) we should take a harder line with it (while still being gentle and patient with ourselves, and not falling prey to scrupulosity, which can be difficult for religious people with mental disorders). I was baptized as a baby in Christian baptism in 1980, and became Catholic and was confirmed in 1998. But for years I lived--even as a grateful and zealous new Catholic--in a way that was not always consistent with my redemption in Christ. Fornication, drunkenness, intemperance, immodesty, recreational drug use, use of pornography and sexual immorality, filthy language...basically everything that Paul says incurs God’s wrath in Col 3:5-8, that which is the way of the world...and this as a believer in Christ, to whom the truth of salvation has been revealed! In addition to trying to stay in “the world” while living a Christian life of faith, I was towing the line with religious syncretism, believing that practices such as Eastern meditation and New Age mysticism was compatible with the Christian life, and, in fact, enhanced it. I practiced ‘mindfulness,’ in addition to Christian prayer, going so far as to make an 11 day silent retreat at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand, doing yoga, and spending time with new age spiritualists. Perhaps some of this spiritual exoticism was fueled by my illness at the time, but I also take responsibility for it, misguided as it might be. Traditional piety and religious practice I saw as “goody-two-shoes” and square, when in fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Though I cannot say with one hundred percent certainty, I suspect that much of my engagement with these sins and practices opened the door and made me vulnerable to the devil’s influence. Various demons plagued me. One time a spirit of sloth took such strong in root in me that I was completely listless and immobile for days on end. Another time I was oppressed by spirits that tempted me with thoughts of suicide. It was only my religious faith and God’s grace that saved me, as I felt engaged in a battle for my very life.

Let me say something else concerning the spiritual aspect of this disease. While I was accepting of it as a part of my life, I had some Christian friends, strong in their faith and confident in the power of God, who prayed for healing and deliverance over me about six or seven years ago rather extemporaneously, to banish this “spirit of mental illness” for me and the future generations of my household. I kind of wrote it off at the time as something nice to do, but as I reflect on it now, I do feel that played a big part in my recovery and keeping the manifestations of mental illness and malaise at bay. I never experienced any major trauma (physical, sexual, emotional, etc) as a child, and so much of the ‘delving into my past’ involved taking stock of choices I made in letting sin into my life was taking a spiritual inventory, rather than a healing from past trauma, though I do think for many people this holds a key to healing.

Let me say one more thing on the topic of the spiritual roots of dis-ease: it has become glaringly apparent to me that it is absolutely imperative to be living in a state of grace as a Catholic Christian and disciple of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, you are vulnerable to the Enemy, and susceptible to influence. I can say with all honesty and humility that for the first half of our marriage, we were not in a state of grace due to the use of artificial contraception. To make matters worse, we were not convicted enough to see the spiritual weight of this choice and would receive Communion each Sunday, ‘without discerning the body of Christ….eating and drinking judgment to ourselves’ (1 Cor 11:29). My spiritual formation was poor, as it was never forcefully preached against and I knew few people who weren’t contracepting, but nevertheless, I believe it did damage to us, spiritually speaking. Thanks be to God, through a various series of individuals and events, our consciences were pricked, we confessed our sins and received absolution, and by God’s grace abandoned the practice and amended our lives, trusting in His law. It has opened the door to many graces, and combined with the use of sacramentals (scapular, Miraculous Medal, holy water), regular Mass and Confession, daily prayer, reading of scripture, and recitation of the rosary, and charity, we are hoping to fortify our spirits against the influence of that which might lead us away from our Lord by deception and temptation. I simply cannot afford to take such a chance again.

Finally, the practical aspects. Nothing has done more good for my mental health, practically speaking, than marriage. My wife is an incredibly supportive, caring, and genuine person who wants my good. Again, this is just my experience, but I thank God everyday for her, because I know how heavy the weight of loneliness can be--for me in the past, and for many people today. It’s written in scripture that two are better than one, for they have a good return for their labor (Ecc 4:9-12), and this has been the case for me. When I fall down, I have someone to help me out. I am deeply grateful for that, as I realize not everyone has this.

I also have a supportive family. My mom and dad are nearby, and they have done much to support me in my past struggles. I know they love me and would do anything they could for me; they don’t judge or scorn--they’re just there when I need them.

I see my doctor regularly. At this point I am on a 3 month maintenance schedule, though I can always see her more if I need to. My medication regimen hasn’t changed significantly in the past five or six years--I figured if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.

Regular exercise a few times a week has been good for endorphins and an overall feeling of physical and mental health, and for self-discipline. I try to eat a balanced diet, just common sense sensible, nothing extreme. One big thing that has helped my anxiety tremendously is giving up nicotine, which I used for twenty years as a way of controlling my emotions and anxiety, when in reality it was counter productive due to the stressful cycles of use and subsequent withdrawal. My brain is sensitive enough as it is, and the added chemical dependency just did not help. So, that has been tough, but good.

Finally, depression has a way of trapping you in yourself, so I find that pushing back against that by getting out and doing acts of service for others--whether that’s praying for other people, performing corporal works of mercy (feeding the hungry, visiting the homebound)--is beneficial when I get too self-focused. It takes effort, though, and that can be hard in depression. But if you can do it, I think it is good. Praying for others, especially, is good practice. During Lent, I got into the habit of ‘adopting’ someone different each day for forty days--a friend, a family member, a stranger, or an enemy--and just praying for them that day, for their intentions and well-being. That is a good practice for any time of year, maybe something to consider.

I hope this maybe sheds a little light on this difficult topic of depression you are struggling with. Take from it what is helpful and leave what is not, and trust in God in all things, even when He slays you. (Jb 13:15). If you are struggling under its weight, offer your suffering as reparation for the sins of man. If you find rays of sunlight piercing in the darkness, give thanks to God for the respite. Remember the words of St. Paul, who whatever state he found himself in learned to be content in it (Phil 4:11), and accepting of God’s will in all things, which is where we find our peace.


God bless you, and please don’t hesitate to reach out if I can be of any support. Be assured of my prayers.

Rob

They Took No Oil With Them

When I used to visit men in prison (a work I am trying to get back into if the County every gets around to approving my clearances) we used to celebrate the feast of St. Dismas ("Dismas Day") with the inmates. Unnamed in Luke's gospel, this "penitent thief" crucified next to Jesus is joined in his death sentence by another criminal who reviled Jesus, taunting 'Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself, and us'" (Lk 23:39). So, this scene is a bi-lateral view of what leads one to paradise in the final hour, and what damns one to destruction.

Now, when I would visit and speak with these guys on the ward, offer an ear, pray and read Scripture with them, it was clear that many had gotten "jailhouse religion" but had not undergone a true transformation of the heart. They were wearing the "spiritual jacket" and, if I could be quite honest, it was not a little bit off-putting. It's not my place to judge hearts, but the longer you spend with the guys, the more you can really get worked on, manipulated, and "played" if you are not careful. I always kept a healthy skepticism about veneer jailhouse conversions while also trying to be sensitive to those who had really faced what they had done and wanted to be forgiven and washed clean by the blood of Christ. It's an important and difficult balance to maintain in this kind of ministry.

It's not just my fellow brothers who are incarcerated who have the struggle here; perhaps even more trenched in is the wall-less spiritual prison of the suburban playground of presumption. In this comfortable land of leisure, sincere repentance and reform is like a stranger in bedraggled clothes that comes lurking around people making them uncomfortable, who cross to the other side of the street to avoid him. The awareness of sin that results in death (mortal sin) and the potential to be eternally damned in this pleasant milieu amounts to a terminal ignorance. For those involved in the work of evangelization, ignoring the call to repentance and the encouragement to take up, at minimum, the responsibility in justice to attend Mass weekly, regular Confession, and regular prayer for those who have fallen away from the faith, amounts to a spiritual negligence to which we will be held to account.  Deacon John Beagan wrote at Crisis about this struggle to evangelize the middle-class and Boomers living the 'good life':

"Initially, however, it will not be easy to get the attention of the lukewarm and absent middle-class while presenting this case. Most will not be interested because life is pretty good and they intuitively believe everyone goes to heaven. I constantly see this presumption of eternal life, especially during eulogies. While I hope to God he will have mercy on us all, this presumption is not consistent with the Gospels and New Testament.  

In fact, we are doing the faithful a great disservice, and shrinking our Church, when we do not present and uphold the complete drama of eternal salvation, for example, that we must work out our salvation in fear and trembling (Phil 2:12)."

Fr. David Nix's reflections on the death of Hugh Hefner confirmed for me a grave danger that I have been thinking a lot about lately, one that I believe is underappreciated today--the hardening of heart and lack of sincere repentance at the hour of death, as well as the difficulty (and rarity) of making a Perfect Act of Contrition after living for years or decades ignorant of God's grace . We always hold out hope for the deathbed conversion of sinners, and God can save anyone, but the fact of the matter is that they are, I suspect, rarer than we might want to believe. We do not, generally speaking, turn our lives on a dime. The weightiness of a lifetime of individual choices that turn away from God, consistently and cumulatively, make our lives more like a U-boat than a sailboat. A daily examen and regular Confession is indispensable for not finding ourselves one of the "foolish virgins," in the dark with no oil for our lamps. We plan for our estates, but do little to prepare our souls to be disposed towards acts of repentance.

Think for a moment of the scenarios we may find ourselves in at our last hour; if we are young and approach the Throne of Judgment, it may have been due to a sudden car crash, a shooting, a freak accident, or a terminal diagnosis. Will we be mentally cognizant? Will we be aware enough to remember those times we have stuffed into corners of darkness, hoping no one will ever see, those hidden sins we keep buried, to flush them out into the light of day? Will we have the strength to forgive our enemies and those who have wronged us when we are bleeding out on a pile of glass, or fighting to take a breaths in the hospital bed as our lungs fill with fluid? How much more so for the middle-aged and old, who have neglected to offer due worship to God, charity to the poor, and reparations for their sins in this life? How much we presume!

I shared a reflection some time back of a friend of my wife's who was diagnosed with lung cancer. It progressed quickly, she was moved to home hospice, and died not long thereafter. I felt a strong sense of urgency during the whole ordeal, but only God knows her judgment. We did our best to minister to her, arranging for a priest to come and administer Last Rites while she was still conscious, and were praying the rosary and the Psalms by her bedside while holding her hand, letting her know she was loved. She was a lovely woman, and a fallen-away Catholic; I encouraged her to confess her sins to a priest and receive God's mercy--absolution, the forgiveness of sins--but to my knowledge she never did.

Have you known someone who repented, in tears of sorrow for their sins, on their bed before death? I pray you have, and let me know if so. But I suspect, most times, we double-down in unbelief and go stiff-necked to our Judgment, or, just as bad, shrug at the opportunity to confess our sins and receive absolution as if we were turning down another cup of jello from the hospital staff. I pray this is not the case with those I care about, and even my enemies, but my heart gets heavy with the reality of it all. If the stakes were not so high and everlasting I would not be so deranged with desire, I'd back to watching TV and shopping at the outlets and fretting about getting the kids to their activities. But if souls are truly "falling into hell like snowflakes," as St. Teresa of Avila mourned, I don't see how I could enjoy those things in any case, or un-see what I have seen.

Please, please...don't wait to repent. There's no guarantee you will have time the moment before your death or when that will come. Don't catch yourself outside the door yelling Lord, Lord, open to us!, only to be sent away (Mt 25:11). Close the door of your cell, and search your heart. "Fear him do not sin. Ponder on your bed and be still. Make justice your sacrifice and trust in the Lord." (Ps 4:4). Do it now, and do it with heartfelt compunction, and make it a regular part of your life along with Mass and reception of the Sacraments, lest you find yourselves outside the gates, wishing you had just a little more time.

Out Of Bondage

One of the most innocuous and pernicious sins I have had to deal with in my life has been one that will not be unfamiliar to many people who have had their lives affected by it, and that is addiction. It has also been one of the gravest, in a sense, because at the root of all addiction is a kind of idolatry, a violation of the first and foundational Commandment:

"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. It is written: "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve." (Ex 20:2-5; cf. Deut 5:6-9)

If you've ever seen someone try to kick a stranglehold like, say, heroin, you know it's vicious. There is something almost demonic about the hold it has on a person. I took a man once to a detox center who had been using heroin since he was fifteen--that is, about seventeen years-- but wanted to be free and get clean. He was an internationally trained chef who used to teach cooking classes, but not a day had gone by that he had not had a fix, having grown up in a family of drug dealers in Puerto Rico and having always had access. When we arrived and they were preparing the room, everything was stripped bare ("so they can't kill themselves," the orderly told us) and the bed was bolted to the floor. The withdrawal was severe.

When talking about addiction we tend to focus on the the physiological, social, and psychological aspects. But I think there is a strong spiritual component that often gets neglected (outside of 12 step programs), and that is the bondage of idolatry.

The fashioning of the golden calf in Exodus 32 shows the lengths a people--us--will do to to fashion gods for ourselves as a way to stay in control by creating for ourselves “a refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Ps 46:1). Of course, God alone should be our refuge and strength, the sole recipient of our love and worship, for "if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 Jn 2:15).

I have what you might call a propensity towards an 'addictive personality.' I don't know if that's a real thing thing or not, but I seem to be prone to the temptation to abuse. I have recreationally (mis)used drugs--opiates, hallucinogens, barbiturates, benzos, stimulants, alcohol--and have somehow managed to skirt total dependance. But there is one drug that took a hold on me and wouldn't let go for more than twenty years, and that was nicotine. From the time I first inhaled it at sixteen to the time I turned thirty-six, no more than a month had gone by during that time period that I did not use and depend on it in some form or another. I've heard that kicking nicotine is harder than kicking heroin. From my experience, I would not be surprised if this was true.

But by God's grace, I did kick it, taking the first step last June, on the 26th of the month, 2016. The impetus came when I realized I was trying to live two lives, was a mastered man, and that I had made an idol for myself that had assumed way more that I had originally intended to allow it to have. When you find yourself driving to Wawa at 1 in the morning in a rainstorm because you are out of nicotine, or digging through ashtrays, I think you could say you've handed over some of your dignity to a vice that has control over your will and personhood.

But though the will may be compromised by chemical dependence and habit, there is always a light and opportunity for redemption as long as you are still alive. There is no one so deep that Christ can not reach down into the pit and save. This is an excerpt from a post I wrote last October:

"For most of my life of faith I have tried to live in two worlds. I think a lot of converts struggle with this--reconciling their prior lives to their new lives in Christ. Christian friends are not a given, though hopefully they are acquired. You don't really want to leave your former friends, because you have an authentic history with them.

I was at a bachelor party over the summer which wasn't completely off the chain, no arrests or anything, but was just dark in its hedonism. I have done my share of partying, and like to have a good time with good people, so it was not a foreign scene for me. But something was different this time. It wasn't a matter of being better than anyone else, or holier than thou. I just realized I didn't belong here anymore. 

But I was kind of trapped, as it was. As the party was raging into the morning, I went into my room and with a feeling of despair, opened the small Gideon bible I brought with me. I opened randomly to Colossians, chapter 3, and read: 

"Put to death, therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.  

You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourself of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips." (Col 3:5-8)

I wanted the best of both worlds--I wanted to live in the world and experience all it had to offer without having to say no to anything or let anything go; to continue my pre-conversion life but in my Christian suit. I realized that night, though, that I was fooling myself. Not choosing, not standing apart, was itself a choice, for as the Lord says, "If the love of the world is in you, the love of the Father is not." (1 Jn 2-15). There is no middle ground, and if there is, it is like tepid tea--offensive and insulting to one's character as a new creation in Christ, good for nothing. There is pain in detachment, but only because we have allowed ourselves to become inordinately attached to that which, ultimately, enslaves us."

It was a very pivotal, Augustinian moment for me (if you've ever read the Confessions, see Book 8) of disgust and struggle at that bachelor party, and set into motion a plea for escape--not just from nicotine, but my slavery to those things that kept me in bondage. The golden calf I had fashioned in my life was nicotine, but you may have your own that may be an entirely different animal.

While I think this was a spiritual issue at heart for me, there were some definite practical steps and advice that helped me to break free from what was compromising my integrity and weakening my free will:


1) Fear was a primary motivator that the Devil exploits and leverages to keep us in bondage.

Alan Carr in his "EZ Way to Quit Smoking" book (super cheesy title, but a super helpful book for me) was the only one I came across on the subject who wrote about this. People who are addicted don't smoke/drink/use/etc because it is pleasurable, per se, after the addiction has taken hold--they use because they are afraid of the withdrawal that comes from NOT using. The "pleasure" is actually, simply, the avoidance of pain. I used lozenges, patches, and e-cigarettes for a good long time as a crutch nicotine replacement, but these are popular because the manufacturers convince you that you can't live without the drug. You leave it behind, and they are no longer profiting from you.

The Devil markets sin in the same way--promises relief/escape from pain ("pleasure"), and never in fact delivers. The cycle perpetuates, and you become convinced you can't live without [abusive partner; masturbating; drugs; wealth; affirmation and attention; etc].

I suppose people can quit these things in different ways, but for me "cold turkey" was the only thing that worked. Nicotine leaves your system in three days, and it can be a rough three days. I personally just went to work and then came home and went in my bedroom. But after that it just becomes a head game. No one is putting a gun to your head and forcing cigarettes into your mouth. Free will is an awesome and terrible thing, a great gift that takes on renewed significance when you are literally grinding your teeth trying to exercise it for God's glory and your own survival, when it costs, and when it hurts.


2) Unless you want to go back to the pit, you cannot compromise. Not. One. Puff (drink/hit/etc).

This was important. For years when trying to leave the drug behind I would think I was doing well and would reward (and fool) myself with an occasional drag. It became predictable after a while that one would turn to two, and occasional would turn to frequent, and before I knew it I was back to a half a pack a day habit. It was just a matter of time.

With sin, you cannot CANNOT compromise and be assured the victory. God was so stringently against inter-marrying of His people with pagans because, I suspect, he knows how susceptible we are to compromise when given the opportunity. I am not a hard-liner guy by nature, but I have had to be in this regard, and it has actually made things easier in the long run. Make it easy on yourself: No means no.  No exceptions.


3) It's not just chemical, physical dependence; habit is powerful, and it can go both ways.

Habits can be acquired, and can also be undone or changed. Do anything enough (put a cigarette to your mouth 10,000 times a year, check your smartphone 1,000 times a day, bite your nails, etc) and it will become a habit. The second book that was super helpful to me was another secular one by New York Times bestselling author Charles Duhigg titled "The Power of Habit" (I actually wrote the author a few months after my quit and told him how much I appreciated his book and he graciously responded with encouragement and thanks). Virtue is acquired when we make room for it by pushing sin out, trusting God and disposing ourselves to His grace, and doing the hard work of self-denial and mortification to accomplish His work in us.


4) I gained some self-respect and my struggle with anxiety was helped dramatically after breaking free of the cycle of dependance and withdrawal.

I grew up kind of anti-social by nature. I would go outside and smoke to get away from things and be alone. I also used nicotine as a way of dealing with anxiety, which, of course, it doesn't do well; the constant cycle of withdrawal actually makes anxiety worse. The promise of relief is a lie, and sin itself makes us anxious and not at peace. It is how the Devil gets a stronghold in us, by stealing our peace.


5) Accountability brothers supported me, and helped me stay on course.

You need support, and you need to be accountable. People in NA and AA have sponsors. Christians, especially Christian men, need something similar to take those late night phone calls, to be an ear or shoulder when things get tough, and even just to push and hold you to your original vision for victory. I had two brothers in Christ who really helped me, who would check in regularly via txt. One was set free from addiction himself, one had never touched a substance. They were both invaluable to my being set free from bondage, and I am truly grateful for their willingness to walk with me.


6) Finally, the energy I put into tending my idol is now reserved for God alone in worship.

Worship is due to God alone. I have suffered from many demons--sloth/acedia, despair, worry, lust, avarice, and more--when I was playing nice with the world and feeding my sins and addictions in idolatry, and I can tell you, many have been driven out by God's grace and no longer have a room in the chambers of my soul as a result. Virtue cannot be built on the foundation of a golden calf. Moses ground it down and burned it, and then God destroyed all the idolators (Ex 32). That is how serious this sin is. God doesn't mess around with it, and He doesn't want us to either.


Nicotine addiction seems like such a lame and innocuous, harmless sin, but I can tell you it had a big stronghold on my life and my will. It laid the groundwork for other, bigger sins that took hold stubbornly in my spirit. I thank God for delivering me, for my brothers in Christ who supported me, for the resources and books that served as tools, and for God's merciful patience. He only wants us to thrive and prosper, not languish or despair. Trust Him, and don't believe the lie from the Enemy that you will die in leaving them. If you have idols in your life, pray, trust...and smash them to dust.

"All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything" (1 Cor 6:12).

Fr. John Hardon on the Martyrdom of Witness

When I was a kid, I was convinced I had come up with the word "Rad." That is, I was the first one to use it, and everyone was just copying me. Of course, this wasn't the case. But it's funny how we can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that something we are going through is totally unique; that no one in the history of civilization have felt what we have felt, have experienced love as deep as the love we have experienced, or have shouldered as much injustice as we have shouldered.

That's why it's great to hang around older people of another generation, because they know for a fact that there is really nothing new under the sun. They can smile knowingly (or maybe put us in our place) when we act as if we are the first ones to fall in love, experience heartache, or discover an eternal truth.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews notes that they "have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood" in the fight against sin" (Heb 12:4). One thing that I am a baby in is suffering for my faith. It is new for me. When I experience a little discomfort, a little malignment, I think I am the first and only one to have experienced it. And I am taken aback. Why is this happening? Does this mean I'm off track and need to change course?

The letter goes on, though, to assure the believer that such suffering of paternal discipline is for the greater good:

"It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Heb 12: 7-11).

After some discouraging correspondances in the past couple days, and feeling rather foolish, I started poking around trying to make sense of my dejection. I was reading the words of Servant of God Fr. James Hardon, S.J., who spoke about a "Martyrdom of Witness," a term I had never heard before. The bolded sections really spoke to me:

"We still have one more type of martyrdom to reflect on, and it is, in a way, the most pervasive of all because no follower of Christ can escape it. This is the martyrdom of witness.  

What do we mean by martyrdom of witness and how does it differ from the other two? It differs from them in that, even in the absence of active opposition--the imitation of Christ must always face passive opposition. From whom? From those who lack a clear vision of the Savior or who, having had it, lost their former commitment to Christ. All that we have seen about the martyrdom by violence applies here too, but the method of opposition is different. Here the firm believer in the Church's teaching authority; the devoted servant of the papacy; the convinced pastor who insists on sound doctrine to his flock; the dedicated religious who want to remain faithful to their vows of authentic poverty, honest chastity, and sincere obedience; the firm parents who are concerned about the religious and moral training of their children and are willing to sacrifice generously to build and care for a Christian family--natural or adopted--such persons will not be spared also active criticism and open opposition. But they must especially be ready to live in an atmosphere of coldness to their deepest beliefs.  

Sometimes they would almost wish the opposition were more overt and even persecution would be a welcome change. It is the studied indifference of people whom they know and love, of persons in their own natural or religious family, of men and women whose intelligence they respect and whose respect they cherish.  

This kind of apathy can be demoralizing and, unless it finds relief, can be devastating. To continue living a Christ-like life in this kind of environment is to practice the martyrdom of witness. Why witness? Because it means giving testimony to our deep religious convictions although all around us others are giving their own example to the contrary. It means giving witness twice over: once on our own behalf as the outward expression of what we internally believe and once again on behalf of others whose conduct is not only different from ours but contradicts it.  

Wherein lies the martyrdom? It lies in the deprivation of good example to us on the part of our contemporaries, and in the practice of Christian virtue in loneliness, because those who witness what we do are in the majority--numerically or psychologically--and we know they are being challenged and embarrassed by the testimony. We witness to them, indeed, but they are not pleased to witness who we are, what we stand for, what we say, or what we do.  

Notwithstanding all of this, however, it behooves us to look at the positive side of the picture. We must remind ourselves that this witness of ours is not so sterile as we may suppose; quite the contrary. Although we may be, or at least feel, often quite alone, we are not alone at all. Not infrequently our severest critics can become our strongest admirers. In any case, witness that we give by living up to the conviction of our Faith is surely demanding on human nature. That is why we call it martyrdom. But it is a witness to the truth and God's grace is always active in the hearts of everyone whose path we cross."

I think of those who bear in suffering staying true to their vows, even when their spouse has betrayed them through adultery or divorce. I think of those who have publicly stood up to enemies of the Faith and put their reputations and jobs on the line in doing so. I think of those who "proclaim Christ with their lips" and look like fools in the culture as a result, holy fools. I think of those who have converted--from Protestantism, from Islam, from Judaism--to the Faith who no longer have a home, who have lost friends and support systems, and suffer in isolation. I think of the Mother of God, whose heart breaks at the ingratitude of men, whose son bled for those who shrug with indifference.

Rather than being discouraged, though, we should take heart when the barometer of trial records such readings, for maybe we are closer in the footsteps of Christ than we previously thought. It is a good sign, and should serve as encouragement.

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.  Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler;  but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name.  For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?  And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner?  Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right." (1 Peter 4:12-19) 

This is the age of martyrs. They are being formed all around you, and by their witness they are building up the Church. You may even be one of them.

There is no room for lukewarmness today, a vile prospect when cast in the shadow of the Cross. I would encourage you that even if you are not shedding blood or dying physically as a result of your witness, recognize that the suffering that comes with following Christ is a cause for great joy, and is a great privilege, for "Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me" (Mt 5:11).

To share even a little in what those great men and women have gone through to witness to Christ without reserve...well, such a beating would do a tender snowflake like me some good.


"You will be hated by all because of My name, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved." (Mk 13:13)

The Day That Cost Me My Friend

This is a painful post for me to write. It was painful when it happened on June 26th of this year, and it's painful now. It was a day that cost me one of my best friends.

Do you ever experience a cross and you just weep and thank God for it while at the same time struggling under its crushing weight? Like the experience of redeeming suffering and joy that is simultaneously co-mingling, like blood and water, with the pain of loss? I imagine this is what we feel when someone close to us dies while we hope for their eternal reward--the intense and hole-like feeling of grief existing in tandem with the joy of anticipation for their happy death.

But my friend didn't die...I just lost him forever. Let me rewind a bit.

In June the Holy Spirit came to collect on a prayer of abandonment I had made in the car--somewhere between Route 322 and Baltimore Pike on the way to work one day last year--when I had earnestly prayed, "Lord, I know the harvest is great but the laborers are few. I want to be a worker in your vineyard. Here I am. Send me."

Be careful when you pray, because the Lord hears all prayers, and ones like this, I think, catch his attention, and He takes you at your word.

On June 15th Joseph Sciambra, who many of my Catholic friends know, posted on his Facebook page that he was looking for volunteers to help him in his outreach to the LGBT community for San Francisco's Pride parade, which draws over one million people to the Bay area. I had only gotten acquainted with Joseph and his ministry not long before that, when I discovered his post on his webpage "Hell Is For Real" about his near-death experience and was moved and shaken. I friended him on Facebook, and so see the things he posts. Two of his friends who he had usually counted on for help in passing out rosary bracelets and cards with his website in the massive crowd had backed out, leaving him alone. I saw the post right before I left work.

It was around this same geographic area--in the car driving home from work, on Baltimore Pike near Route 322--that I can only describe as the Holy Spirit 'convicting' me with what felt like an electric shock (kind of like a mild heart attack, but not painful) as I was driving. You know how when the call of God comes it isn't always audible words, yet you know what is being said? Well, the message I got from this electric current to my soul was: "You go."

Now, I'm kind of a literalist and it gets me in trouble sometimes. I'm not a big over-thinker. I read that evening in scripture of a companion of Paul's, Silas, who joined Paul after Barnabas and Mark broke with him, and I was convinced God was saying, "I need you to be Joseph's Silas." There were many people offering prayers on his page, and saying they wish they could help but couldn't for one reason or another. And I kept thinking to myself, "please, somebody else step up." But after a while checking on the computer that evening, it was clear he was still in need. So, without thinking, I sent Joseph an email saying I would go. He dissuaded me, thanking me but saying I would never make it in time and accommodations would be impossible. I thought that was that, but I felt pushed to write again, saying that as long as he was ok with it, I would make it happen. I didn't know how--we were scheduled to be on vacation the week right before Pride, and I would be driving back home eight hours that Friday. I would have to find a flight that left either the next day or, even crazier, Sunday morning, in which case I would go straight from the airport to the parade downtown. It just did not seem possible.

I reached out to a few faithful friends for guidance and prayer, all who confirmed that this indeed seemed like the Holy Spirit working and that I had to go if at all possible. On June 18th, we were on vacation in Massachusetts that week, and I couldn't stop feeling this pressure, this inner urge, to obey, as crazy as it seemed. I was checking flights and couldn't find anything less than $750, and everything was booking up with breakneck speed. Also, the times were lousy. I prayed and spoke frankly to the Lord, "You are going to have to make a way if you want me to do this, because I just don't see how it is possible." I was waffling about the cost but my friend urged me to step out in faith and bite the bullet, as long as it wouldn't put us in dire straights financially (which it wouldn't have). Sure enough, against all odds, a flight appeared that I hadn't seen previously, with the exact times I needed to make it work: leave home 3am Sunday morning, get into San Francisco an hour before the start of the parade, and fly out on a red eye that evening. I booked the ticket, and once I did, the Lord took it from there.

I wrote about the day which you can read here, so I won't repeat myself. My friend published my reflections from the day on June 25th, written at SFO waiting for my flight home, and tagged me in the post which she shared. I figured I was in so deep with the Holy Spirit by this point that I wasn't really thinking about any possible repercussions. Stepping out in obedience to this crazy proposal had reinforced itself, it was exciting to see God working, and many graces that would flow were as yet unseen at that point.

The next evening, on June 26th, I received a txt from one of my closest friends, J. We had been friends since college. I still remember the day in 1999, sitting on the curb on Beaver Avenue, eating a slice of pizza together, when he shared that he was gay. I didn't know, didn't have much of a sense of these things (faulty gay-dar, I guess). It didn't seem a big thing back then. We went to parties together, visited each other after college, went to the clubs, hiking, and just, well, being friends. Even attended Mass together a few times in DC at a gay-friendly parish. I was always cognizant of it, but it was just a non-thing.

It wasn't until the Obergefell ruling that things got a little bit more...uncomfortable. I was slowly moving in a different direction in my faith, from liberal Catholicism to orthodoxy, and at my kitchen table, after our bike ride, asked me point blank, "What are your thoughts on gay marriage?" He had been dating a man, and maybe he wanted to know where I stood, seeing the direction my faith was moving should they get 'married' and it came time for invitations. I tried to sidestep, but knowing he deserved a truthful answer, said with only light conviction that I can't get behind it, that marriage should be between a man and a woman and my faith precludes any kind of support for such a union. He respected that as much as he could, but I could tell our friendship was beginning to go the way of cognitive dissonance.

He was the one I was thinking of most during this whole experience with Joseph. He had seen my story, as I knew he would. I could sense the hurt and feeling of betrayal in his words of his text. All those years. Did I always feel this way? My heart kind of stopped; though I knew this was a possibility, I didn't want to go through it. I cried, with my wife by my side. God was doing something, was pruning and it was painful. I loved J, my friend. He told me he had to unfriend me, for his own self-respect, that we were still friends, but I knew things had changed and there was no going back. He would never speak to me again, and we would never see each other. It was a kind of death, one that holds to this day, and it hurt like hell.

While I have no regrets about this endeavor, it drove home to me--really, for the first time, since until then I had been trying to "have my cake and eat it too," that every choice comes with a cost. Christ lays it out, encourages us to count before building (Lk 14:28), that he came to divide, not bring peace (Mt 10:34), that even our own father we cannot turn back to bury (Lk 9:59).

I miss my friend dearly, and I pray for him, but I know there is no going back to the way things were before. We have to be true to ourselves, and accept what comes with that. That's the cross. Just like when you prune a bush, new growth comes back anew, I have made new dear friends, graces have abounded, and my faith has been renewed...but at a cost. And I would do it all again.

Render Unto Caesar

Have you ever seen an architectural rendering? You know, one of those two dimensional stylized representations of a future reality that doesn't exist but SHOULD because it would be so awesome and would solve all of planet Earth's problems? Like a 200 story high rise that is covered with vegetable gardens, or a mixed-use space where young urbanites can live and work and play and shop in a walkable paradise? It doesn't exist yet, but 'build it and they will come.' 

I have an admission: I hate renderings. Why? I don't know. I just like life in the real world. I have a low bs threshold, and real life has a way of not always fitting into neat prescribed models. I remember watching Jurassic Park as a kid when it first came out and thinking, "this is a HORRIBLE idea!" And it was, in the end, as all the dinosaurs escaped or something and turned on people. Maybe it's my acute awareness of the Fall, not only the rebellion in my own life, but in the world in which we live, that is wary of such social utopias.

This past year we saw a kind of political rendering that was drafted prior to November, where the model was pre-scribed and pre-meditated and all we as citizens had to do was fit ourselves into it. But the majority of predictions were simply wrong in the end because they adopted a narrative that precluded what didn't fit--people 'outside the rendering' who were, in the end, tired of the agenda-driven BS and didn't want it anymore. 

When we see the emergence of the early Christian community in the book of Acts, it doesn't come as a prescribed model, but an unfolding of life lived in the Spirit. Even the disciples' expectation of the coming Messianic Kingdom needed to be adjusted, as they ask, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). But what do they go about doing after Pentecost? "They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers...to every day meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes." (Acts 2:42; 46-47). Not only that, but "awe came upon everyone, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles" and "they ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart, praising God and enjoying favor with all the people" (2:43, 46).

This life, along with the preaching of the Gospel and the visible witness of the martyrs willing to die for their love of Christ at the hands of their persecutors, was what fueled the growth of the early Church. "See how these Christians love one another," Tertullian marveled. 

I used to read and write a lot of poetry growing up. The best poets, as I learned, don't write about "love" or "truth" in the ephemeral macro, but bring such grandiose themes to life in a kind of sacramental grounding in the everyday. One of my favorites is "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams:

so much depends

upon 

a red wheel 

barrow 

glazed with rain 

water 

beside the white

chickens.

I don't trust renderings, because they don't speak to me. They live in an urban architectural vacuum, the world of proposals and blueprints and speculation. I need a model, not on paper or a computer screen, but one that is lived and real, of how to "do life" as a follower of Jesus.

For me, in my Christian walk, the Saints are the answer; they are the anti-rendering. They don't live in a spiritual place of make-believe, but in the real world, the same world we inhabit. They're men and women just like you and me who follow in the footsteps of Christ, who live and love in flesh and blood while pointing the way to something beyond this world. They live within the same limitations as we do, were born into the world in the same way we were, and yet they open us up the possibility of a great expansiveness, of something more. Not in a sterile, self-serving mall-of-the-future 2D proposal, but a sacramental, spirit-filled life founded on breaking everyday bread (the food for our bodies) as well as the Eucharist (the food for our souls).

I became Catholic because I saw someone who was Catholic, who had great joy, abundance of life in the blessing of many children, and a deep and unshakable confidence in an afterlife that precluded fear of death.  We became open to life, not because I read the Theology of the Body (I still haven't), but because we met families who trusted God with their fertility and by virtue of that trust embodied the wisdom of Solomon: "Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox" (Prov 14:4). We learned to love by spending time with those who loved us with the love of Christ. We were converted because of LIVES LIVED, not just words spoken.

Don't underestimate the power of your everyday witness when it comes to the Gospel. Live with zeal, and love with integrity. You never know who may be watching you, searching for more than this artificially rendered life has to offer.

Good Yeast, Good Bread

This is a small sampling of the SPAM folder in my email.

Every week I have to clean it out, and every week it's the same solicitations. I tend to just delete en masse, though I'm always afraid I will have a legit one that was routed into the pile inadvertently and so sometimes I have to nervously pick through, like going through a heap of trash at the county dump, and I'm always afraid it will catch me on a bad day with their click bait. They--whoever sends these emails--are simply relentless. It never lets up, never quits. Sooner or later, they figure, you'll click.

I was out with some guy friends a few weeks ago. We were at a bar and a few of my buddies were taking smoke breaks, so we were all outside talking. My wife always asks me what guys talk about when they get together and I honestly don't know what to tell her, because we don't really talk about much, at least nothing of much substance. Sports sometimes, work, occasionally something about our kids or spouses, or arguing. But mostly it's not much of substance.

Anyway, we're out front and just shooting the breeze and somehow, I don't know, the topic of 'taking care of yourself' came up, though I don't remember in what context. And I made mention, kind of non-chalently, that I hadn't masturbated in about seven years. That included not looking at porn  on-line and not looking at women in any kind of sexual capacity if they weren't my wife.

It was one of those moments when the record stops and its just...silence. "You're joking," one buddy said. No, and I couldn't quite understand the incredulity either, since my wife and I are intimate pretty regularly, so it wasn't like I wasn't, um, being 'taken care of.' Just didn't seem necessary to take care of anything myself.

Now, I love these guys. None of them are Christians, none of them are conservatives, but they are good guys. and are exceptionally respectful of me and my choices and generally don't badmouth the Church or faith or anything like that around me, and I value that about them. But the thought of a guy not looking at porn, not masturbating, and not even looking at a woman in that way was just..well, I think it was just one of those smh wth moments.

It didn't happen overnight. Nothing in my life happens overnight. I'm always two steps forward, one step back (and sometimes vice versa), and there was a good bit of stumbling along the way. But I was assured, from other men who had gone before me, that sexual integrity was a possibility, that God gives us the grace to resist sin, and that there are tools we can equip ourselves with to ensure victory. And believe me, if it is possible for me, it is possible for you too.

This morning at my men's prayer group, we were reading Jesus' Parable of the Yeast as it relates to the Kingdom:

"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened." (Mt 13:33)

St. Paul also refers to yeast and leaven in his letter to the Corinthians, when he admonishes them,

"Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough? Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough, inasmuch as you are unleavened (1 Cor 5:7)." 

He also writes more explicitly in his letter to the Ephesians that there should not be "a hint of sexual immorality among you" (Eph 5:3).

And, of course, the Book of James recounts the lifecycle of the larvae of destruction:

"Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death." (James 1:14-15)

Yeast is a collection of small little grains that look like sand. In other parables close to the parable of the yeast, Jesus speaks of other small flecks, seeds--that of weeds (tares), as well as mustard seed. If you've ever baked bread, you know that yeast--those tiny granular flecks--work their way almost magically through the dough and expand it outwards. But it is not just 1 fleck, which would be insufficient to leaven a loaf. A teaspoon of yeast containing maybe a hundred granulars would do the trick though.

I asked an old monk once, "when do the temptations stop?" He answered me, "the day you die." Rather than deal with the macro 30,000 ft view, think about virtue as habit that plays out in the micro, day to day. It's the accumulation of many small choices that reinforce and slowly turn the U-boat of a particular action. In my case, the bouncing of the eyes became a daily practice, imperfect at first, of controlling the intellect, which in turn twarts fantasy, which in turn makes masturbation less likely. It seems like an impossible task, but flushing out and putting to death even the 'hints' of sexual immorality actually makes the task of chastity easier in the long run. You flirt with temptation you are going to get burned. For me, it has a way of getting a hook in and spreading like bad yeast, like weed seed in a field, very difficult to control.

Sexual integrity is not a goal in and of itself, that is, for bragging rights or some kind of moral Essene superiority. As we have seen lately, the way sexual immorality plays out in society hurts people--it hurts girls and boys, women and men, friends and family, wives and daughters, sons and brothers, and it is needless, death-dealing hurt.

Men--individual men, facing temptation, making choices, denying themselves, and choosing to suffer if need be for a greater good--are the individual grains that can leaven a loaf. And that means you. Start with yourself, and you'll have some ground to stand on. Be willing to stand up for your sisters and daughters, but do it with integrity first.  Pray in earnest for healing. Confess your sins. Develop good habits. Practice bouncing the eyes. Find a brother to be accountable to. Suffer when your body calls for it to maintain chastity, for the sake of your sisters and daughters. Refuse to be complicit in darkness and perversions. Be open to life. Love sincerely and without possessing.

Do these things and maybe each of us, together, can make a dent in a culture of sexual darkness and violence, once grain at a time.