Having Sex With A Stranger

 

I have been married for eleven years now. I was not a virgin when I got married. I have had my share of participation in the hookup culture, not only during college but for an extended season beyond it as well. It is something I do not miss at all.

To be honest, the thought of having sexual relations with someone whose last name you might not even know, whose family you have never met, and you may not even like is an almost foreign one. Not to mention the potential to have a baby with them. It's crazy. 

I don't think the hookup culture is something anyone would say is "deeply satisfying" to one's needs or that "it makes me happier." Quite the contrary. Sex was not meant to be exercised in this tenuous context. It is typically something one settles for when you stir in the ingredients of a) appetite; b) loneliness; c) misplaced desires for love; and d) a lack of moral 'fences.' 

Then there is the issue of the married man or woman who embarks on a sexual liaison outside the bonds of their marriage, inviting foreigner bodies into their beds foreign genitalia into their person. There is something deeply betraying about such encounters to the spouse(s) of such adulterers that undermines both trust and intimacy. 

What is it that compels them? I imagine the gender stereotypes may prove themselves in these situations--for men, their physical needs may not be met by their spouse; for women, perhaps their emotional needs are not being met. Whatever the reason, it's a shortsighted fishhook that has cost the people who fall for it much.

As anyone who has been married for a while knows, there is so much more to sex in a marriage than the physical. If it was just about mechanized routines, without communication or intimacy, humor or lighthearted tenderness, it would grow stale rather quickly. And that's always something to be on guard against anyway; it's OK and even good to try to keep things fresh! As long as you don't go looking outside your spouse for it!

I would think for most people, the 'push' (from the Devil!) into an affair would be the simple "I'm not happy (with my spouse)." And so, they figure, since they have placed their happiness at the top of the list, they will go looking to satisfy it outside of their marriage. In almost all cases, though, it ends badly and without the satisfaction of finding that elusive "happiness" in the end. 

The marital bed is a protected space, and protected for a reason. Spouses who have been married long enough know the most intimate parts of their partner's bodies, their cues, their turn-ons; rather than this being boring, it offers the original "safe space" for vulnerability, which builds trust, which aids communication...you get the idea. But that house of cards can easily fall on account of even one incident of sexual betrayal with someone else. 

I had a man write me who was struggling to keep things interesting in his relationship with his wife. I won't go into details, but he was concerned about that 'open invitation' to virtual "foreigners" may lead to worse things. The one thing I did tell him is to think in terms of rights--you have no RIGHT to entertain thoughts, let alone any kind of emotional or sexual relationship with anyone other than your wife. It should be off the table from the beginning--not even an option. This makes it easier in the long run to not open the door at all to any such possibility. 

One needs to be mindful of their conscience. The thought of a foreign body or even an emotional entanglement is, in my mind at this point in my life, kind of gross. But there is a line you can cross over when you know you have tripped the tripwire of the conscience when such things become titilating or exciting. You find yourself looking over your shoulder, fueled by fantasy. As one woman who had an affair recounted:

"Affairs are by definition precarious, elusive, and ambiguous. The indeterminacy, the uncertainty, the not knowing when we’ll see each other again—feelings we would never tolerate in our primary relationship—become kindling for anticipation in a hidden romance. Because we cannot have our lover, we keep wanting. It is this just-out-of-reach quality that lends affairs their erotic mystique and keeps the flame of desire burning. Reinforcing this segregation of the affair from reality is the fact that many, like Priya, choose lovers who either could not or would not become a life partner. By falling for someone from a very different class, culture, or generation, we play with possibilities that we would not entertain as actualities."

One of the foremost benefits of a marriage is its exclusivity. Does it have the potential to get stale, boring? Of course. That's why you need to feed your marriage, pay attention to your sexual barometers, and find new ways to recharge your lines as the years go on. Do we grow old, heavier, softer, less attractive? Yes, and no one can escape it. Unless you try to, and find yourself stuck and tricked by the fantasy of eternal youth (with some other body). So you learn to love the stretch marks or the pot bellies, or whatever, because they are for your eyes only. There's an exclusive intimacy and privilege there that should not be taken lightly. 

If you open the door of your mind to going so far as having sex with a stranger (essentially, anyone other than your spouse), and are not repulsed by the idea, that may be a sign that there are some things to be mindful of in your marriage. I don't think repulsion is too strong a word, either. We should "hate sin with a perfect hate" (Ps 139:22) and be repulsed by it whatever form it takes. Anything that threatens the sanctuary of the marital embrace should be regarded with the same revulsion as well. 

"It's Not A Fight, It's A Grind"

 I was reading r/personalfinance Reddit today on a thread titled "Can't afford to live at this point" about a single guy trying to get out of, basically, poverty. Lots of people suggested National Guard, Merchant Marine, working 14 hours a day minimum with multiple jobs, etc. One person commented, "We have to fight for the future we want," which was followed up with this, which I gave me a lot to think about:

"It's not really a fight. It's a grind. That's what people fail to realize and why they get discouraged. They make a plan, feel great about it, start executing that plan. but they didn't anticipate the grind of putting in the work every single day, day after day, year after year. And so they bail on the plan, or look for shortcuts, and that nearly always goes badly. 

Mentally prepare yourself for that grind. Girder yourself against it. Getting rich is a SLOOOOOOOW process for most people."

This (IMO, great) advice goes beyond personal finance. It could apply to your spiritual life; a healthy living routine; overcoming depression. I recall even Fr. Ripperger saying he has no real charisms apart from just "grinding it out" during exorcisms. 

I imagine it would also speak to my pro-life friends who have been in the trenches for years fighting the good fight. I am heading to the courthouse in the city on Saturday to take part in a pro-life counter-rally to the abortion advocates gathering there. My "fight" and witness is sporadic at best. I get knocked down fairly easily; I never anticipate the grind. 

But this is the long-game, and it is also a spiritual war, with many battles to be waged daily--not only on the street, and in the courts, but in the chapels and bedsides as well. You need thick skin and a broad back, but also callouses on your hands that develop over years. The blindness is probably the hardest part. No one is persuaded by the logic of life and the illogic of abortion; and people are in fact, looking for the 'shortcuts' that abortion offers. They make it 'easy' but it costs so much in the end. 

We are fighting a spiritual war and grinding it out in the daily battles for those who fight them--not only in the fight for life, but in the daily spiritual grind to "work out our salvation in fear and trembling" (Phil 2:12). We need to mentally prepare for that grind. Girder yourself against it. Few people earn their crown overnight. For most of us, it's the one foot in front of the other on the way to Calvary.

Are We Responsible For Our Health?

A film on my top ten list is Constantine starring Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz, based on the DC Comics Hellblazer comic book. It was both entertaining and gave some food for thought, as long as you don't judge it by it's theological accuracy. 

Occult detective John Constantine is called in by Father Hennessy to exorcise a girl possessed by a demon trying to break through to Earth, which should not be possible under the rules of a standing wager between God and Lucifer for mankind's souls. Constantine later meets with the half-angel being Gabriel. He asks Gabriel for a reprieve from his impending death from lung cancer caused by prolonged smoking. Gabriel declines, telling Constantine that he exorcises demons for selfish reasons and cannot buy his way into Heaven, because of the life he took. Constantine explains to Angela (Weisz) that he can see the true nature of the half-breeds. He committed suicide to escape his visions as a teenager and his soul was sent to Hell, but he was revived by paramedics two minutes later; for the sin of taking his own life, his soul is still condemned to go to Hell once he dies.

"Why me, Gabriel?" Constantine laments. "It's personal, isn't? I didn't go to church enough, I didn't pray enough..."

"You're going to die young," Gabriel answers, "because you smoked 30 cigarettes a day since you were fifteen. And you're going to go to Hell, because of the life you took."

I think I missed this line when I first saw the film when it came out in 2005. For some reason, I thought Constantine was going to die and was consigned to Hell because he of his persistent smoking, which caused lung cancer--a kind of slow suicide when he knew the habit was killing him. I must have missed his suicide attempt early in life, which would make more sense. And yet, the idea that one could suffer the fate because of one's choices in life--in this case, smoking to the point of it killing you--stayed with me for years. Scared me, if you will. 

Although it was his suicide attempt, and not his lifelong heavy smoking habit, that damned Constantine, it still made me reflect on this area of caring for one's health; especially since, for half my life, I was a smoker as well. After all, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor 6:19).

The Catechism does have something to say on the matter: 

2288 Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good.

Concern for the health of its citizens requires that society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment, and social assistance.

2289 If morality requires respect for the life of the body, it does not make it an absolute value. It rejects a neo-pagan notion that tends to promote the cult of the body, to sacrifice everything for its sake, to idolize physical perfection and success at sports. By its selective preference of the strong over the weak, such a conception can lead to the perversion of human relationships.

2290 The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others' safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.

2291 The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense. Clandestine production of and trafficking in drugs are scandalous practices. They constitute direct co-operation in evil, since they encourage people to practices gravely contrary to the moral law.

I finished an audiobook recently titled How Not To Die by Dr. Michael Greger about how diet can treat and even prevent and reverse some diseases of the body. He advocates a whole-food, plant based diet and injects study after study to show that this kind of diet is the best way to ensure a long and healthy life and prevent many common diseases like cancer and heart disease. 

When the author would make certain claims like "such-and-such food has the potential to add two years to one's life," while making the claim that eating something like bacon or grilled meats has the inverse potential to rob you of those two years, I started to feel that same kind of nagging guilt when it came to my life-long habit of smoking. I LIKE bacon. I like cheese, and dairy. I don't especially love vegetables or soymilk or beans and legumes. 

I always kind of attached to those stories of woman in France somewhere who smoked, drank wine, and ate bacon her whole life and lived to be ninety-nine years old and lived life to it's fullest. Conversely, I thought of the tragedy of one who would subject themselves to a lifetime of choking down kale smoothies every morning thinking they were extending their life and yet die of some kind of obscure cancer anyway at the age of 53. "Life's too short," I would think, "to suffer at the hands of such a vile weed every day." Better to follow the example of the madame and eat, drink, and be merry.

And so, most of my life, I did just that. I never gave much thought to my health or diet. As a Catholic, I aligned with the Catechism in rejecting a neo-pagan "cult of the body" that sought to prologue health and well being (the flesh over the spirit) as a primary goal. After all, "food for the stomach and the stomach for food"--but God will destroy them both" (1 Cor 6:13). 

Now that I'm in my forties, though, I'm finding I'm being forced to consider it more. I try to eat oatmeal with fruit every morning, exercise when I can, and quit unhealthy habits like smoking, as a matter of duty, not because I like it. And if the science supports such healthy diets and avoidance of things detrimental to health, to what degree are we culpable when know but do not heed such advice from the medical community charged with the promotion of good health? If we learn that diet soda causes cancer, to what degree are we responsible for a diagnosis of cancer if received if we spent out life knowing this and drinking two cans a day anyway?

I always dreaded a diagnosis of lung cancer, because of my repeated refusal to quit a habit that would cause it. I would be culpable, I felt, and my premature illness and death would be my own fault--no one to blame but myself "We told you so," the medical community would say over me, "and you didn't listen." Would this require penance to avoid a longer sentence in purgatory? Would it have moral bearing at all? Why just smoking though--what about the person who drank diet coke their whole life? Ate artery-causing fried foods every day?

"More souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh," our Lady told St. Lucia at Fatima. Like John Constantine in the movie, St. Lucia was able to see the reality of Hell by our Lady's good grace, and it terrifying nature was enough to compel her to spread Our Lady's message as as warning for the sake of the world. We cannot say we were not warned. We must care for our souls to avoid Hell, but it is only by our Lords' grace that we merit Heaven. 

Will we redeem ourselves by eating tofu sandwiches and working out everyday? No, because the spirit gives life, the flesh profits nothing" (Jn 6:63). We do not worship the cult of the body, and yet we must care for it responsibly because of the promise of our bodily resurrection in Christ. It doe not logically follow that one bite of a BLT would cause a heart attack, or merit some kind of share in coronary-suicide and subsequent damnation. And yet, as our Lord says, it would be better to cut off one's hand or gauge out one's eye and enter into Heaven maimed then spent an eternity in Hell (because of sin) (Mt 5:30). Because all it takes is one sin of the flesh to lose the grace of God and suffer for all eternity. "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"--but God will destroy them both."

When it comes to our physical health, it is important but not primary; it takes a back seat to our spiritual health. Because, as St. Lucia saw the 'world behind the veil' we are in a battle for our souls, which do not live 60 or 70 years, but for all eternity without end either to burn in Hell or to enjoy the everlasting bliss of being with the Father in Heaven. We should live temperately and prudently, while not being tricked into thinking that kale and yoga will not save your soul or are some kind of virtue in their own right (unless, maybe, one regards eating kale every day as a kind of penance, perhaps). "My food is to do the will of the One who sent me." our Lord says (Jn 4:34).  

As St. Augustine said, 'Do not believe yourself healthy. Immortality is health; this life is a long sickness.”

Ben-Ops and Flops

 As some of the readers here may know or have read, I briefly lived in a "van down by the river." This was pre-#tinyhouse and pre-#vanlife, and before Instagram was a thing. I dreamed of living more intentionally, cutting my expenses, and trying something new and unconventional to try to skirt the 9-5/mortgage/suburban/consumer lifestyle "trap." I quit my job, didn't renew my lease on my apartment, and bought a used schoolbus (a former Eagles tailgating short bus), which I renovated as a little mobile dwelling unit. I was #followingmydreams

It's always a tragically humorous thing when the fantasy and dream collide with the reality and pavement. You quickly realize that many of the things you took for granted about the "conventional" life you hubrisly spurred have all of a sudden become enviable privileges. Like flush toilets. Or, space. Or a permanent mailing address. 

In a painful twist of irony as well, all the cost-cutting potential gets undercut by the very nature of this kind of nomadic life being unconventional and economically unscaled. Things like mechanical breakdowns, more frequent eating out (due to it being harder to cook), being unable to buy in bulk because of lack of storage, RV/parking space fees, and 12mgp gas consumption when being on the move, may end up costing you more than if you had rented a small studio in the bad part of town. 

I lasted a couple weeks before I woke up to the challenges ahead of me, and donated the bus and moved in with a friend from grad school who had an extra room. It was an adventure for sure. I'm glad I got it out of my system. Because reality can sometimes be a good-for-you medicine. 

In a similar vein, for all the talk of a kind of agrarian throwback "Catholic Land Movement" that runs through some of the Distributist-Chestertonian and traditional circles, I don't really see this being a thing apart from small pin-points on a map here and there. Peter Maurin attempted to do this with Catholic Worker farms in the early part of the 20th century, and it just never took off. Devin Rose has an honest account of his family's putting their ideals into practice in attempting to do just this (you can read it here), and it being a complete admitted failure. The reality is, the deck is stacked against farmers who already have the knowledge and have been doing it for years. For the city-slicker who wants to undertake "living off the land"--in community no less--with no agriculture experience....well, its a sadly predictable failure to launch in most cases.

Devin admits his "farm flop" was a complete disaster, but similar to my experience, had a lot to teach him and was invaluable in that regard. Sometimes we learn from our failures. It may be a renewed appreciation of one's spouse after falling for the lie of infidelity after realizing the evaporative nature of extra-marital affairs. Or realizing that indoor plumbing is actually a laudable advancement of human achievement worth supporting. 

Maybe "conventional" living, however modest, is not something to scorn. Living modestly, working a job, raising a family; these are not bad things. I remember being so influenced by the Beats since they were my favorite literature to read in high school, and their post-war disdain for anything conventional. Gregory Corso's poem "Marriage" ("Should I get married? Should I be good?") spoke to my nomadic sensibilities, but did not result in my being happier or more fulfilled, since I was thwarting the vocation God had called me to. 

When I met my future wife, everything fell into place. Was I "selling out?" my ideal life of living in a van and reading books all day, in perceived freedom and solitude? Who knows. At that point, it was all in the rearview, and I wasn't looking back with fondness at the life I had left behind. Instead, I found myself immensely grateful for this unmerited gift in my wife of "a triple-braided rope" which is not quickly broken (Ecc 4:12).

Can the "Benedict-Option" work today to stem the washing tide of modernism and animosity to religion? Maybe. But there is also the more 'conventional' option to "bloom where you are planted." Maybe that's in a blue state, or the suburbs, or the basement of your parent's house as you begin your family. Maybe it's in a boring but secure job that allows you to provide for your family and have lots of kids and even some hobbies. Maybe you're not growing your own food and being "self-sufficient" (a misnomer if there ever was one), but buying produce from a local farm that is. 

Whatever it is, we are sometimes called to trek out in faith to an unknown Promised Land, leaving everything we know behind. But sometimes, for those of us who have explored the alternatives, you find yourself prodigal in a sense with your tail between your legs; you may have had to leave home to find it again. The hope is you have the arms of a loving Father there to welcome you back to it.

Why Is It So Hard To Be Good?

 In titling this post I was primarily regarding my own experience, specifically with regards to this awful-lousy-no-good-bery-bad whole food / plant based diet I've been trying out. My intentions were good--to cut out animal products, eggs, dairy, oil etc, for my health and heart--and the science seems to back it up.

But my inner foodie-concupiscence has been rearing up. I started out well for the first few weeks--lots of leafy greens, beans and legumes, quinoa, sweet potatoes, vegetables, etc. Then I got kind of...bored. I would catch my self grouchily thinking "I just want a freaking burger, is that so wrong?"

Admittedly, I hadn't acquired a good habit of "eating clean," so it felt onerous. I would get cases of the "F-its" more frequently, where I would just throw out my good intentions, knowing whatever it was I was going to eat was not especially healthy. A book I listened to on audiobook about this diet extolled how it can extend your life for years. I was thinking to myself, "why would I want to do that, when this doesn't feel like living at all?" Ha. 

I always go back to the pivotal epistle of St. Paul (Romans 8) when it comes to this mystery of knowing the good and being unable (or unwilling) to carry it out with regard to sin. "I do that which I do not want to do." When I would teach and give lessons in the prison, I would read from Romans often. So many of the guys in there seem to know what is good and simply feel unable to carry it out based on their past or their lack of acquired virtue and good habits.  

St. Thomas defines virtue as a good habit bearing on activity. But it was interesting to me to realize that Aristotle was wrestling with this as well way before that, before Christ, as he said, "it is no easy task to be good." I only read that after titling this post, but it affirmed this consistent struggle with concupiscence that affects all men and Christians, from the sinner straight up the saint. 

According to Aristotle, the aim of all virtue is the mean, to avoid what he calls the "excess and defect;" ie, too much or too little. Excess would be considered "a form of failure, and so is defect, while the intermediate is praised and is a form of success." 

For St. Thomas, "the act of virtue is nothing else than the good use of free will." Knowing the good comes from grace, from the Holy Spirit, and from the teachings of Christ, the Church, and the Commandments. Carrying out the good is within our power when we cooperate with grace, but this is where habit comes in. 

I have always regarded our inherent concupiscence as the attraction which takes resistence to overcome; that our natural inclination deep within is towards what is good, true, and holy; but that because of the Fall, we are like leaves that float where the current takes them because...well, let's face it, it's easier to 'go with the flow.' Acquiring virtue is arduous, because it depends on the work of developing habit, and it is called work for a reason. To know something is possible--our sanctification--does not make it immediately attainable. If it was, why would our Lord say the "straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and few find it?" (Mt 7:14).

I love St. Philip Neri's exhortation to his followers: "Well, brothers, when will we begin to do good?" This is the essence of our work, our habit, and our calling as Christians: to acquire virtue not as an end in itself, but to carry out the work of the Lord in our own lives, and to show others the way as well. He gives us the grace to "be good" (ie, virtuous) because "those who ask, receive" (Mt 7:7). To do so leads to our own happiness in this life, even when we suffer, and sets us up for it in the next life as well. 

The 'work' of Christian living is knowing that what is not always pleasant or pleasing to the senses is often in effect good for the soul, and so our task in overcoming concupiscence by the exercise of the will (the work) helps to develop this good habit St. Thomas talks about so that we begin to love the pursuit of virtue, rather than seeing it as something onerous to overcome. In the spiritual life, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila speak of perfect union with God in the seventh mansion as the point in which the gravitational pull of sin loosens and rather than being subject to the strengths and wily nature of the tempting demons, the demons rather fear the saint and leave them alone. We may perhaps draw the same analogy when virtue has become perfected in a soul, that it is practiced out of love, rather than by grit, because of both habit and grace. 

Whether it's a diet or trying to remain in a state of grace, we need to be mindful of the "F-It"s that bubble when we "grow weary of doing good." It can drive us outside of the means Aristotle references, to the antithetent vices opposed to temperance, prudence, liberality, etc. This is the struggle for me in dieting, of course (JUST GIVE ME THE BURGER!), but also in my prayer life where I may be tempted towards apathy, or doubt, and falling out of the good habit of regular prayer, spiritual reading, and intimacy with the Lord; or in falling into one minor sin, we figure "well, might as well go big or go home at this point!" The Devil will leverage this thinking and our propensity towards concupiscence, against us. How hard it is to be good! But then again, all things worth something, cost something. 

The Burden of Oppression, The Deceptiveness of Despair

 When I experienced my first major depression in my early twenties, nothing--and I mean nothing--really helped me. Not prayer, not scripture, not words of encouragement. There were only two dim lights that kept me floating on the surface of the water of the living: planting seeds and watching them grow in a little window greenhouse from Home Depot that a friend bought for me; and reading from Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. Nothing made sense those days--but that book, and growing those little seeds, made sense and was within my diminished capacity to function, respectively.  

Solomon's book was an admirable weaving of painstaking research, clinical denseness, and raw personal experience. Nothing makes sense because depression is a scrambling of the airwaves, the way you would catch a word here and there but unable to string together a cohesive sense of meaning from the narrative. 

In one section of the book, the author recounts his desire for passive death (admitting that he lacked the resolve for a deliberate suicide attempt) was so strong at one point that he sought out anonymous homosexual encounters in an attempt to infect himself with HIV. Not that that was my cup of tea, but at the time the thwarted logic made complete sense to me, and a part of me nodded in admiration at this creative 'solution' to the problem of a mental suffering that can be so intense that if one hasn't been through it, such an objectionable action would make no sense. If you have experienced that despair, though, the question is not so much "Why?" but "Well, why not?"

The seedlings were another flicker of hope for me. My friend J (recounted in The Day That Cost Me My Friend) drove me to Hope Depot and helped me pick out the little greenhouse with the little prepackaged potting soil pods. I couldn't control anything in my life, or care for anything or anyone, but I could take care of those little seeds in the upstairs bedroom. It gave me a shred of hope that I, too, might not shrivel and die, but come alive again someday. Some day. 

These early years when my illness was in its virgin bloom were the days when it took grit, spit, and grinding the enamel from your teeth just to stay alive. Because there's no good reason that you can see, so you have to trust others who tell you that truth, like your family and close friends, and the Church. The fight against your own mind--who has become a shadowy sparring opponent--is a difficult one, because you have to outwit it, correct the faulty logic, rather than strap some TnT to it. For those who don't, can't, or won't, the specter of madness writs large. 

Today, through medication, healthier habits, and remaining in a state of grace, the good Lord has largely nullified these wild fluctuations in mood, temptations to destruction, and self-abusing tendencies. He has quieted my mind and lifted my spirit so that I can serve Him in spirit and truth. The blips are still there, but largely leveled out which allow me to function as a more or less normal human being.

When a tempest does stir up the dust, however--and sometimes severely so--I am largely caught of guard. Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason, and sometimes it may be that I have laid my guard down, left a hole unguarded in my spiritual fence. Sometimes, as of lately though, when I have spending more time with the Lord in prayer and adoration, the tempest blows in from the outside. It's my first thought to suspect mental illness, though, and sometimes rightfully so. Any good exorcist would do the same, to rule out the psychological. 

Over the years I have gotten slightly more adept at differentiating the things of the mind and the things of the spirit, when they are, in fact, distinct. I have noticed that historically, at least for myself, depression comes on slow and steady, like a front, that stays for weeks or months at a time, like a wool blanket that won't dry out after being submerged. Mania can creep up on you, but thankfully there are pretty clear diagnostic criteria to identify it. Sometimes, the malaise doesn't fit a psychological mold, which can be confusing, because the symptoms are similar. 

When I consider the spiritual (rather than the strictly psychological) elements at play, however, things start to come into focus a little more clearly, make more sense. I often have to rely on some of my more spiritual trusted friends to help diagnose such problems in lieu of a spiritual director (which I don't currently have), and the writings of the saints. St. John of the Cross said that the Devil is mightiest and most astute enemy, his wiles more baffling than those of the world and the flesh; he is "the hardest to understand" and no human power can be compared to him. (Spiritual Canticle, 431)

I will share that this is not the first time this has happened. As I wrote in Bring Me My Weapon, the temptations to suicide have come from the outside-in, rather than the inside-out, in brief but strong temptest of spiritual oppression that rendered me materially impotent. Days before undertaking spiritual combat manifest in "Night At The Masoleum", I was afflicted with a stomach pain so acute and unexplainable I thought I was having a burst appendix and went to a GI doctor who could find nothing wrong (I later read that such physical afflictions in this part of the body have been attributed to the devil oppressing various saints throughout history). Right before the night I set out, the pain disappeared as quickly as it had come.

I write this because this malaise can be hard to make sense of, and you can't talk about it with just anyone either, esp when the temptations (again, which seem to come from outside of the self) to things like suicide would cause a lot of--well, complications, esp among friends who feel it would be their responsibility once told to call the police, EMT, etc. So, you keep it in and try to grit through, but that often makes it worse. 

But like I mentioned above with the book and the seeds--worldly things that helped when nothing else would for a psychological ailment--spiritual issues (if they are truly spiritual, and not psychological) are aided by spiritual remedies. So, things like oppression is countered by personal and collective prayer, confession, fasting, reception of the sacraments, Mass, etc. For that I am grateful that my wife reached out to our friends and community of faith to solicit prayer. I do think they helped lift what felt like a strange and curiously onerous oppression, in which the past few days the temptation to despair was so great, that I would catch myself thinking and saying "I am Judas," and that I deserve his fate. 

It was only after these collective prayers, I think, that the fog kind of cleared a little enough to see that maybe these were not truths but lies, and to try to get to the source of where they were coming from. That is when I found the story, that I had not heard of until now, of the exorcism of Anna Ecklund in 1912 by Capuchin Father Theophilus Riesinger (think a kind of Fr. Ripperger of the early 20th century). The exorcism of Ecklund was a wicked grind and a brutal trauma of the power of evil for those who witnessed it. But this line in the story really stopped me in my tracks:

"When asked what business the spirits had with her, a voice claiming to be Judas Iscariot finally replied, "To bring her to despair, so that she will commit suicide and hang herself!"

Wow. Now, this was a case of full blown possession, but as many saints through history have recounted, oppression can occur by various demons as well. It made sense--if I had been going regularly to Adoration multiple times a week, Mass, confession, First Fridays, First Saturdays, daily rosary, etc--that maybe this was the Devil's way of mobilizing his entourage to knock one off the path. "He is the hardest to understand," St. John of the Cross wrote. Maybe part of his strategy is to attribute his actions to the self of the person afflicted (the mind, depression, etc) to hide himself there. Then with a Judas-spirit, one attacks the good (the self) like a spiritual auto-immune disease, the accomplish the work of evil (self-destruction, despair). Once he's found out, though, and exposed to the light of reason and a sound mind, well--like it says in scripture "Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7).

Despair is deceptive, but oh so affective when combined with a darkening of the mind and spirit, and firm resolve. This is when suicide is a dangerous and imminent reality. I don't think this was the case for me, but like I said, the storm came in quick and intense, and I think now I'm just drenched but breathing. The thoughts however, were of the same essence and breed, emanating from the same wretched family. As Padre Pio may have said at one point, "wake up and smell the sulfur." Despair is deceptive, because it can never get us into bed with it without making us drunk and lying to us first. 

When I received my diagnosis in my early twenties, it was one of the biggest reliefs, because the scariest Viet-Cong type enemy is the one you can't identify. Once you do, you can treat it. I imagine it's the same in the spiritual life, once you know what' causing the malaise. I just got back from Adoration and Holy Mass on my lunch break, and prayed binding prayers for myself; thank you to all who stripped the façade by their prayers as well. Despair is deceptive, but once recognized and unmasked, a hearty guffaw and a get-back-to-business attitude will send it scrambling away naked as the day it was conceived. I feel bad for Judas--but not enough to keep him company for all eternity.

What Does It Mean To Be Faithful

Something occurred to me when it comes to Calvinists: no one who attends your run-of-the-mill Presbyterian church on a typical Sunday would consider themselves reprobate. According to Calvin's theology of double predestination, God chooses some to be saved (the Elect) and some to be damned. If one is not part of the Elect (and, thus, reprobate or damned), there is nothing you can do about it. No point in attending church on Sundays or living a moral life, because this is not a matter of free agency, but God's salvific grace that has passed you by. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't, so to speak. It would logically follow then that those in the pews listing to Rev. Lovejoy's sermon at First Presbyterian must presume themselves as part of the Elect because, otherwise...well, why bother? 

Of course, as Catholics, we know this is "double predestination" is heresy and not the true nature of God, for "The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance" (2 Peter 3:9). It is the mystery of the cooperation with grace and that man may be redeemed by choosing the good--not the total depravity purported by Calvin--that gives Catholics hope. No one is beyond His terrible mercy.  We are not pre-determined to damnation.

On the other hand, you have the "once saved, always saved" contingent among Evangelicals who, unlike Catholics, do not believe that one can lose their salvation once they have been "born again." "Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall" St. Paul tells the church at Corinth (1 Cor 10:12). To these Christians, perdition is not possible for a child of God to sin in such a way that he will be lost. And yet, they may find themselves on the outside of the door on account of failing to carry out God's will, being told "I never knew you" (Mt 7:23). "And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously" (Deuteronomy 17:9-13).

Somewhere in the middle, the Catholic finds himself. He knows he is a child of God and member of His family by nature of his baptism. He "has been saved, is being saved, and hopes to be saved." He knows "none is righteous, no not one" (Ps 14:1) and yet he knows if he has sinned mortally he is one confession away from Paradise. He knows even should he ascend the heights of sanctity, like the Ladder of Divine Ascent icon of Mt. Sinai, though he may be two rungs from the gates of Heaven, demons stand ready to pick him off by way of pride, presumption, and other temptations to drag him to the worm that never dies waiting for him below. The Catholic recognizes this tension, and the mystery of salvation, that we can't wrap up in a box-and-bow and put in our back pocket. 

As a married man, I am always cognizant of the fact that my faithfulness, or that of my wife's, is not a guarantee in which one can sit back on their laurels in self-assurance. When the Lord tells Joshua after the death of Moses to lead the people he instructs him "to be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left." (Joshua 1:7). 

In marriage, it's the "looks to the left and to the right" that can get you in trouble. We make these vows when we stand on the altar "to be true...in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health...to love you and honor you all the days of my life." There is an exclusivity there that can be undermined in a moment, even after years or decades of faithfulness. One lie makes a liar. One affair makes an adulterer. 

Aside from the Lord, and my parents and immediate family, I have put all my eggs in the basket of my wife that she will be with me, and I with her, til death. That radical kind of exclusive trust--faith even--in another human being who has the capacity to hurt you more than anyone on earth and is privy to your darkest secrets, allows for a love that surpasses that of common relationships. 

I have always been faithful to my wife for the eleven years we have been married, and she has always been faithful to me. What would it take to drive her away? Infidelity? Violence? Financial Ruin? We have not been through these trials to date. I trust her with our children, our finances, and my very life. She has a greater capacity to hurt me than anyone I know. And yet she refrains from doing so for the most part, out of faithfulness. I, for my part, try to do the same.  

My issue, however, is not with my wife, but questioning what it means to be faithful to the Lord in the context of my relationship with Him. I can only think of this relationship as it relates to marriage, because my faith and my marriage are my two bedrocks when everything else seems to be shifting beneath my feet, particularly when it comes to friends. 

I had a text exchange with a close friend the other day that got heated. It affected me more than I thought it would, and I was out of sorts for days. I have friends who I rarely talk to anymore who I thought I was close with on account of all this stupid vax 'n mask stuff. I'm realizing that these are not unconditional relationships, but dependent on a minimum of congealing factors that can fluctuate depending on circumstances. 

"We should esteem highly health and friendship," St. Augustine writes, "and we may never despise these. Health and friendship are natural goods. God created the human being so that he or she could exist and live a life that is healthy. But in order that the human being should not be alone, he or she desires friendship. Now, friendship begins with wife end children, and then reaches out to strangers." [Sermon 299D.16.1] 

It has always been hard for me to accept that friends or people I am close with now may not be here in five or ten years. I may slight them in some way, step out of line, and without the assurances of the kind of bond I have in my marriage, that they will always be there. I once got very angry at a friend in high school who said they loved me unconditionally, because I took it as a lie. Friendship almost always comes with conditions, and can be hard to be faithful to through thick and thin. "The saddest thing about betrayal is it never comes from your enemies" as the saying goes. 

I even question how faithful I am to the Lord these days, and how I show Him that faithfulness and how I love Him. This comes by way of comparison, I think, when I see principled people taking morally admirable stands at great costs to prove their fidelity to what they believe, and publicly so. They have a tribe, small as it may be, but fiercely loyal. I have been mediating, instead, on the words of the Lord, "who has no place to lay his head" (Lk 9:58).

As much as I started this post with thinking about Calvinists and their presumption of being part of the Elect, I had also been giving a lot of thought to the traditors and the Donatists of the 4th century. Donatists adopted “Deo laudes” (“God be praised”) as a their slogan to counter the ancient Catholic “Deo gratias” (“Thanks be to God”). This was the rallying cry with which they harangued Catholics. One distinctive characteristic of the Donatists was their desire for martyrdom. Donatus taught that death for the “cause,” even death by suicide, was holy and merited a martyr’s crown and eternal life. They did their best to incite Catholics and pagans to kill them. When their provocations failed, they sometimes took their own lives, a favored method being to leap from high cliffs with the cry “Deo laudes!”

It is not sin that turns us into traditors, Judas', but kisses. We exchange our loyalty in the inner circle for silver pieces offered by outsiders, enemies. And when we realize the depths of the betrayal, a Judas does not weep as Peter does, but despairs unto death. He is cast out, but also casts himself out into darkness. 

What does it mean to be a faithful friend, a faithful Christian, and a faithful spouse? To not betray with a kiss? It may be too much (I have always been "too much") to think one could be loved and befriended "unconditionally." I have been hurt, and I have hurt. I have always wanted my friends to (unrealistically) stay awake with me perpetually in the garden of my dark night.

And yet all my friends become strangers at some point, and I mourn it every time like the seasons. Like the dunes that remain after the tide rolls out, my faith, wife, and family remain. 

To Thyself Be True

A couple years ago I wrote an article for One Peter Five titled, "Two Fingers to Death: On Siberia, Sedes, and Schism." In it I wrote about the fascinating story and history of "Old Believers" who fled Russia after the heavy-handed liturgical reforms of Patriarch Nikon in the 17th Century, which were backed by the State.

A 70 year old woman hermit named Agafia, whose family settled in the Siberian wilderness to escape persecution, was one of the last of these Bezpopovtsys who rejected the reforms and clung tightly to what they saw as the original expression of the true Faith. She survived on potatoes, turnips, fish, bread, and bark, had a large tumor in her breast that she lived with, and would not accept bags of flour that had a barcode because barcodes were a sign of the Beast. "Worldy life is frightening," she says. "If Christians sing wordly songs, they're doomed to eternal suffering. Same for music. Everyone who enjoys dancing creates infamy." 

One of these Orthodox liturgical reforms involved the change from two fingers to three in the sign of the cross. The iconic martyr-saint of Old Believers is Boyaryna Morozova, who was personified in the Suilov painting  of her being carried away to her death on a sled while holding up the "two fingers" in defiance. 

As I mentioned in the article, I see Agafia and Morozova's resistance as a mix of Russian fortitude, admirable stubborness, dogmatic integrity, and religious fervor. I also asked the question, "What is the true Faith? Are we willing to die, be exiled, live cut off from society, to preserve it? Does it really matter whether we use two fingers of three in rituals like the sign of the cross? Who has the authority to interpret Scipture, proclaim dogma, and excommunicate? What makes one Catholic?"

My heart was heavy this morning after hearing news of the heavy-handed vaccine mandates being put in place by the current Administration. I know many of my friends are going to suffer for this, and it was a heavy feeling. In speaking with a friend in Australia, she shared that a strongly anti-vax family they are friends with were in Australia for the past five years, had built a network, community, good jobs, etc, and then up and fled to Mexico in the course of a week over this. The husband doesn't speak the language, and he now needs to find work in a foreign country. This is real. As my friend wrote, "People of such deep conviction even made me waver on whether I love the Lord as deeply as they did!"

I have shared her sentiments. I have had the feeling from time to time of feeling like a Judas, a defector, for not having such a stance like a large majority of my friends. But then again, as I shared in one of my previous posts, is resisting the vaccine a sign of moral integrity on it's own standing? Are those who do more virtuous, to be emulated? Those on the left would share the President's almost sinister sentiment that they are irresponsible, deplorable, obstinate and difficult people that need to be brought into line. Their virtue signaling is that to love, to care, is to vaccinate. I don't take this stance. 

I also don't think anyone is going to be canonized for resisting a vaccine either. As a friend said the other day, "it is what comes out of the heart that defiles, not what goes into the body." There are arguments to be made from different angles, I suppose, on that. But my point is that these are real and onerous consequences for those who, for their own reasons, have chosen to resist this mandate to the point of persecution. Is it religious persecution? Nationalistic? Personal? A matter of liberty? Medical choice? I'm not sure. It's all so confusing. But people are going to pay, and suffer for it.

I think people need to be true to themselves and their consciences. This may mean not using preferred pronouns on the basis of not lying. It may mean being arrested for not being able to turn a blind eye to the slaughter of innocents. But when the price tag for such decisions can be high, one cannot afford to be wavering, "a man of two minds" as St. James says, when it comes to they "why's" of those convictions. Because they will be tested, and you need to know the ground you stand on.

I had written another article for One Peter Five exploring this issue of what makes a martyr, using the life of political dissident and Christian Lin Zhao who was jailed in Communist China, as the backdrop for this exploration. It is an existential one at it's core--none of your social media friends, none of your extended relatives or family or work collogues, will be sharing your jail cell with you, or joining you in Siberia or Mexico or wherever. The weight of your choices will be on your shoulders. And that can be heavy. It's no wonder why people waver, apostatize, step on the fumie, pinch the incense, and what have you. Lin Zhao was admirably and wildly obstinate in the eyes of the CCP Regime, a gnat swimming in their liquour. She died gaunt and alone, but she died for an ideal. 

The question is, what are you living for and what are you dying for? Only you can make that determination. Your conscience is your refuge where one dwells with God, alone, and is sacred. You cannot betray it, and you cannot discern it without prayer, especially in matters of religion. 

But sometimes the lines are not so clearly drawn, as discernment can get blurry. I just want all my friends facing these choices to know that I have been praying for them, for their choices, their perseverance, their suffering, and will continue to do so in late-night Adorations. Whatever side of the fence we fall on in light of this distressing iron fist of government, let us always put the Lord and our religion first, and take heart that the Lord will never leave for forsake us, even when it seems everyone else has. Your Siberia may be closer than you think.

"It's Been God All Along"

 I have always told the Lord, "If I have brought but one person to you, I will die happy." All glory to God, I think I can say that has happened, though I was only about one percent of the equation.. 

A few years ago a friend from high school--I will call her Kay--reached out to me via Messenger. Though I couldn't find the original message, I remember that this friend was being drawn back to the Church and had reached out, I think, because she knew so few Catholics. 

I always knew her as an extremely perceptive and intuitive person, but I hadn't seen her since high school. She was living in a metropolitan area on the West Coast now, married with two children. She had been taking her kids to a Protestant church, but kept being drawn to Catholic churches, especially those with Latin Masses, and adoration chapels. In an email exchange we had a few years ago, she tenderly noted that she could not bring herself to go in, but lingered outside the doorway. "No words really to describe the experience."

For me, there is honestly nothing more moving than to see a soul being stirred by grace, but especially when it's someone you know. I have had people and friends I've tried to share the Gospel with who I thought were open to it; not in an aggressive way, but just by planting seeds, and it can be deflating when they never seem to sprout. But Kay was different. I didn't really do anything or play much of a part, besides maybe offering some material to read by way of my blog. Rather, I just had the good grace to witness the Holy Spirit nudging and moving her to come home. A true privilege worth living for. 

Her last Confession was also her first, some 30+ years ago. She shared in that email from a few years ago that, 

"My Confession is scheduled for Thursday morning. I feel like I’m standing in two worlds. Just recently I found Flannery O’Connor’s quote “Grace changes us and the change is painful.” I had no idea. My whole life I’ve walked through the world seeing “meaning” and “beauty” everywhere I looked, and now I know it’s been God all along."

I hope she will forgive me for sharing that, but it gives me hope; we are being ransomed, all of us, in dribs and drabs. The days of the mass conversions of St. Francis Xavier are not so common in our culture today. Maybe souls escaping the Titanic of our culture and finding their way to shore on life rafts, or pulled upon rescue boats, is as much as we can hope for. I take to heart St. Paul's words to "become all things to all people...so that I may save some." (1 Cor 9:22)

But again, it has little to do with me or you except that we are foot soldiers, pencils, instruments in God's hands to sow the seed. We have little capability to make it rain, shine the sun, pollinate the buds. The best we can do is labor, scatter, till, and fertilize. The rest is grace. But isn't it a wonderful thing to see a flower bud, a tree bear fruit, in its due season? It is a miracle of nature. 

We can never force or manipulate grace, however. God is loving but wholly sovereign, and the Holy Spirit is like the wind that blows where it wishes (Jn 3:8). The featherweight pods of grace are carried across the fields, floating until they rest on a tender heart. But a heart cannot be rushed or hurried along. It reminds me of a passage from Nikos Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek, 

"I recalled one dawn when I had chanced upon a butterfly’s cocoon in a pine tree at the very moment when the husk was breaking and the inner soul was preparing to emerge. I kept waiting and waiting; it was slow and I was in a hurry. Leaning over it, I began to warm it with my breath. I kept warming it impatiently until the miracle commenced to unfold before my eyes at an unnatural speed. The husk opened completely; the butterfly came out. But never shall I forget my horror: its wings remained curled inward, not unfolded. The whole of its minuscule body shook as it struggled to spread the wings outward. But it could not. As for me, I struggled to aid it with my breath. In vain. What it needed was to ripen and unfold patiently in sunlight. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to emerge ahead of time, crumpled and premature. It came out undeveloped, shook desperately, and soon died in my palm.

This butterfly’s fluffy corpse is, I believe, the greatest weight I carry on my conscience. What I understood deeply on that day was this: to hasten eternal rules is a mortal sin. One’s duty is confidently to follow nature’s everlasting rhythm."

When I think of my friend Kay, I think of the mercy and goodness of God first and foremost, and then the privilege of witnessing grace working to flower faith in its due season in my friend's heart. Her marriage and her relationship, in her words, has completely transformed. Meaning and beauty is everywhere, but now with the eyes of Christ the Divine Artist, my friend's heart has been able to fully bloom and recognize the threads in the tapestry of her life. A contrite heart, O Lord, you will not spurn.

When I think of my friend, I breathe a sigh, because I can go to my eternal rest a sated man, can enjoy a happy death. Because the Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad (Ps 126:3). As she noted, it's been God all along. I was just glad I was able to be gifted a ticket to the show.

The New Circumcisers

 

A few weeks ago a friend sent me a post from a priest I know who was purporting that anyone who chose to “take the jab” (putting “vaccine” in quotes) would “probably be dead in two years” due to the antibody priming that was programmed into the jab. As if this wasn’t jarring enough, he exhorted those who did take this course of action to repent of doing so before they meet their inevitable demise. A follow-up post a few days later was the sharing of a meme in which Satan takes Jesus up to a high mountain (during the temptation) with the words “All of this can be yours if you just get 2 vaccines.”

I should say that this is a priest with a large and devoted following whose zeal and commitment to traditional Catholicism I admire. I would consider him unorthodoxly orthodox. I have gleaned some helpful teaching and admonishments in the past from him to live a more moral life, especially in regards to the practical application of the faith and how to live a traditional Catholic life. We have had text exchanges in the past, and he has said masses for us. That being said, unchecked zeal can be a precarious thing, and I have noticed most of his energies as of late have been directed into talking/writing about COVID and vaccination to a greater degree in an almost “prophetic” manner.

I am in the strange position of most of my circle being comprised of orthodox and traditional Catholics, many of whom who staunchly and as a matter of conscience have made the decision to not be vaccinate against COVID. Because it seems the government and the world are barreling down on them with the looming prospect of mandatory vaccinations in many spheres of life, vaccine passports, and the like, I would suspect many find solace and support in circles in which people feel similarly and hold similar views. These are all people of good will with a “live and let live” attitude who value freedom of conscience, personal liberty and autonomy. Because of my limited scope, I don’t know if this is a large or small contingent in the general populace, but from where I stand, it’s sizable.     

We all make choices and must accept the consequences of those choices; that is one thing. It is, however, quite another when a member of the clergy purports in a shocking and public manner predicting the death of millions of people who have vaccinated, and that they would die outside of a state of grace as a result, with no verifiable basis. I want to see traditional Catholicism grow and flourish, but not due to things like this. I would go so far as to say it is a wildly precarious position to put oneself in as a priest, and largely irresponsible to the state of souls, especially given that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has approved the moral licitness of receiving the vaccine. 

Though this may be a limited vantage point of spoiled American Catholicism that has the luxury of debating such things while our brother and sister Christians in Afghanistan, China, and Nigeria are being jailed and slaughtered for their faith, they do need to be dealt with. The Church has been dealing with how to live out the faith in the light of Revelation, and how to exercise its authority, stamp out heresy, and uphold orthodox teaching, from its founding.

While I wouldn’t put the issue of the role of vaccination or masking among Christians on the same level as some of the ‘crises’ within the early church community, it is something in which one finds contention within the church today among the faithful with pastoral implications. 

One of the first precursors to subsequent ecumenical councils was called in 50 AD due to the division within the Church over the issue of circumcision for gentiles among Jewish Christians. The Judaizers were a party of Jewish converts to Christianity who emphasized the necessity of retaining the Jewish customs, especially circumcision, to be saved. They also sought to impose this on the new Gentile believers, which is where the crisis in Antioch comes to a head. In his letter to the church at Galatia (where the Judaizers were also spreading their “mischief”), Paul takes a forceful tone for he sees the threat of a “little leaven” that has the potential to ruin the whole batch of dough:

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love. You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who called you. A little leaven leavens all the dough. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine; and he who is troubling you will bear his judgment, whoever he is. But if I, brethren, still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? In that case the stumbling block of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would mutilate themselves!” (Galatians 5:6-12).

Paul also re-asserts the primacy of freedom from the law in Christ Jesus, and of grace, in the service of love to one another:

“For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:13-15) 

At the Council of Jerusalem, Peter recounts his encounter with Cornelius who was a God-fearing Gentile. Cornelius was sent by the Holy Spirit to Peter to make sense of his vision in Acts 10 in which Peter is commanded to “kill and eat” what he had previously regarded as unclean. When Peter preaches to Cornelius and his household that “God shows no partiality” (v. 34), and to underscore the new covenant which is still being fleshed out among the believers, the Holy Spirit comes upon the Gentiles gathered there and reference is made to “the believers among the circumcised” who “were amazed” that the uncircumcised would receive this gift. As the saying goes, one should not “major in the minors” and so baptism (which is, in fact, necessary for salvation) is carried out regardless of the whether one was circumcised or not (not a prerequisite for being saved, as the Judaizers claimed).

Paul’s famous “I opposed Peter to his face” encounter is recorded in Galatians 2 in reference to Peter’s lack of integrity over this issue. Peter had previously eaten with Gentile converts (the uncircumcised) but out of fear of the judgment of the circumcision party and zealots who came down to Antioch, withdrew from doing so until being confronted by Paul. Though Peter and Paul were of the same mind in terms of principals, the practical conduct of believers and how to enforce it was what was in question.  

Paul forcefully adjurated any possibility that such discrimination be allowed to take place within the body of believers, and St. Peter in true humility recognizes the justice inherent in such a rebuke. The authority to declare that Gentile believers are saved by faith not by circumcision or the law comes from Peter, who holds the authority to make such declarations for the Church.

However, as to quell contention among the two groups, James advances the pastoral initiative in Acts 15:28 “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.” What were these necessary things? “That you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity” (Acts 15:29).

The issues of the day for the early believers around 50 AD was whether the non-circumcised would be saved. In 2021, as a result of the mischief of a few who end up laying a “greater burden” than is necessary on the faithful, the issue in the aforementioned circumstance is whether or not the vaccinated will be damned (on its account). The Magisterium, even if She has taken the more “liberal” approach in warranting to allow for those who wish to get vaccinated without fear of sin, should give solace to those faithful who wish to do so without threat of scruples or scandal. 

As for being judged in the court of opinion by the faithful who continue to fuel the fire of these kinds of erroneous assertions from celebrity priests, I have not been subjected. This is because my friends and those I associate with are largely, as I said, people of good faith and good will who happen to have come to a different stance than I have by way of their conscience. 

But for those (primarily on-line) New Circumcisers that saddle one’s vaccination status with a soteriological element, they should be opposed to their face for spreading mischief to the weaker brethren. Extra-Catholica Jansenism is a bad look for the Church. “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love.” (Gal 5:6). For every idle word tweeted or posted, they will be forced to give account at the Judgment. 

Mine Charity Has Run Cold

I sometimes wonder these days if I am alone in feeling numb to the world, though I suspect not. The repeated ripping off of the scab of the past year and a half has produced a kind of scarring of our collective psyches, I think, in a kind of low-level trauma. 

This past week I got messages from friends of people we know in the ICU with COVID; people who have been fired from their job because of vaccine mandates; friends' diocese who have been stripped of the Latin Mass; the debacle of the withdraw from Afghanistan; the re-emergence of the delta variant and the constantly shifting goalposts of CDC protocol; and devastating weather-related incidents. Add to this my own personal work-related stresses due to personnel change and other internal pressures, and I feel like I'm on the ropes just taking body blows. 

I may be more susceptible to it, but in times of stress and, dare I say, trauma, I think it is common for the mind and body to kind of shut down as a defense response. In many ways, lately, I have gone numb. Care and concern feels like a luxury for good times when you have the bandwidth for it. This is the embarassing truth, when gold is tried by fire to become pure gold. That is, when faith be genuine it be tested by suffering and comes out genuine (1 Peter 1:7) 

I am in survival mode. My prayer is a pilot-light: steady and sustained, but not heating anything. I feel I have very little of myself to give; certainly not of any caliber of those of the saints. We like to imagine ourselves a Maximilian Kolbe or a Fr. Ciszek ministering to our brothers and sisters in the gulags during such times. It's humbling to realize your reserves are pretty shallow, and your selfish self-preservation deep. 

If I'm honest, too, I have noticed with a bit of horror a kind of resentment in myself in being a cheer-giver during such difficult times as well. I'm running on empty myself, and catch my self thinking, "Who will fill me up? Who will cheer me on? I am done with this. I have nothing to give." I've retracted my sphere, into concentrating on my family and my work, and my faith is in maintenance mode. Even when I have wanted to serve, it seems opportunities have dried up with COVID liability fear.

One thing that has shook me, made me cynical, is that I trust very few people these days. I don't know who to listen to. I don't trust what's coming out of Washington or the Vatican alike. But I've also felt turned out by voices I previously thought were solid, who I no longer trust. Whether they are false prophets or true prophets I will leave to the Lord to judge, but the things they speak no longer resonate with me. If there is anything diabolical about this virus, it is it's ability to deceive and divide, and there are no shortage of people on both sides riding its coattails. 

In reading the scriptures, our Lord sets as a precursor that false prophets precede the running cold of love among the faithful:

"And Jesus answering, said to them: Take heed that no man seduce you: For many will come in my name saying, I am Christ: and they will seduce many. And you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that ye be not troubled. For these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in places: Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows. 

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be scandalized: and shall betray one another: and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many. And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold." (Mt 24:4-12)

There are two things that fill me with terror: the thought of hearing the Lord say, "I knew thee not," (Lk 13:27), and to not have love (charity). For what does St. Paul say, should our love run cold? Everything becomes for naught:

"If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up; Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never falleth away: whether prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall cease, or knowledge shall be destroyed. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away." (1 Cor 13:1-10)

Some days I lament that I will never be a saint, because I am nothing more than a common man with an average-amount of love to give. That I will be put into the furnace and disintegrate, crack under pressure, turn over my brothers, surrender my faith. That my trust in the Lord to achieve the impossible is untenable. I pray so much for the grace of final perseverance these days, and try never to miss First Fridays and First Saturdays, because it is only grace that will sustain me--I am realistic enough to know I have no power or greatness in myself of my own accord. 

I have grown weary in love, tired and distrustful of anyone but the Lord Christ, feeling used up and washed out. Lord, please renew your charity within me so that I may serve your people. Because the love of the world is in me, the love of the Father is not. Take this worldly love from me, Lord. I can do nothing without you, and nothing without love matters. Lord. send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth. Replace this heart of stone with a heart of flesh so I may do Your will.