It Is Only For Your Love Alone That The Poor Will Forgive You The Bread You Give Them

This morning some guys and I are going to head downtown to do some homeless outreach and ministry on the streets. This is nothing organized or pre-scripted: to be honest, we're just kind of winging it and praying to be used by the Holy Spirit. Last night my daughter and I made sandwiches and made up some care packages with granola bars, some snacks, toiletries, a Miraculous Medal and Ven Matt Talbot prayer cards. I stuffed the freezer with bottles of water, since it's been in the mid-nineties this week and especially hot and humid. 

I wrote an article recently on some practical ideas of how to practice the works of mercy, both spiritual and corporal. There are many different ways to do this work, and this just compiled a few. What we are doing this morning is pretty basic, but of course goes to our Lord's command in Matthew 25:

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink" (Mt 25:35)

In The Key That Opens The Door To Paradise, I wrote about the act of Perfect Contrition, that is, contrition motivated by the love of God rather than the fear of Hell. From the Catechism:

When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called “perfect.” Such contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible.

The contrition called “imperfect” is also a gift of God, a prompting of the Holy Spirit. It is born of the consideration of sin’s ugliness or the fear of eternal damnation and the other penalties threatening the sinner. Such a stirring of conscience can initiate an interior process which, under the prompting of grace, will be brought to completion by sacramental absolution. By itself however, imperfect contrition cannot obtain the forgiveness of grave sins, but it disposes one to obtain forgiveness in the sacrament of Penance. (CCC 1452-53), 

What came to me in prayer this morning was that in the act of charity, there is also a kind of perfect and imperfect charity. I imagined that when we arrive on the streets near the train station this morning, walking around with our bags of food and cold water, and are asked, "Why are you doing this? Why are you out there," one could reply in two ways:

"We are doing this because our Lord commanded it." (Mt. 25) "So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty. '” (Lk 17:10). And this is a perfectly acceptable way of responding.

But there is also another way, when you encounter someone laying on the street, sweating and hungry, and they ask "Why are you here? Why are you doing this?" to respond:

"Because you are hungry. Because it's hot, and you thirst."

This is the charity motivated not by duty, but by love. When we pray for grace and feel the loneliness, the hunger, the thirst of our brothers and sisters in need, and wish to alleviate that suffering in some small way, this is the motivation of a more perfect charity not bound by duty but by love. We can also only feel it and enter it it when we have felt it ourselves. As St. Mother Teresa observed,

“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

We should remember that in "doing our duty," we are also given the great privilege of grace in service. I want to tell the guys too before we set out, "It's ok to give someone you meet today a hug. Ask their name. Tell them they are loved. It might be awkward, but think about the last time someone may have afforded them such comfort. Be prudent, be careful, but don't harden your heart." 

St. John Chrysostom was known to preach such uncomfortable sermons, not in removed, lofty and theological discourses, but earthy and convicting:

"Do you wish to honor the Body of the Savior? Do not despise him when he is naked. Do not honor him in church with silk vestments while outside he is naked and numb with cold. He who said, “This is my body,” and made it so by his word, is the same that said, “You saw me hungry and you gave me no food. As you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.” Honor him then by sharing your property with the poor. For what God needs is not golden chalices but golden souls.

…It is such a slight thing I beg…nothing very expensive…bread, a roof, words of comfort. [If the rewards I promised hold no appeal for you] then show at least a natural compassion when you see me naked, and remember the nakedness I endured for you on the cross…I fasted for you then, and I suffer for you now; I was thirsty when I hung on the cross, and I thirst still in the poor, in both ways to draw you to myself to make you humane for your own salvation." (Homily 50 on Matthew)

And St. Vincent de Paul,

"You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see. And the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them."

I think it's good to "get your hands dirty" in the trenches on the regular if possible, to bring us down from our safe and removed theological perches. Not because we have to (we do), but because we get to. Not because we make any lasting impact, for the "poor you will have with you always;" but because in doing so our hearts soften, become amenable to grace and the realization of our own dependence and wretched state. We also have to remember we are guests in their home, even if that home is the streets. This is where they live, and many have wounds we cannot see from lifetimes of trauma or neglect. We have to tread lightly, respectfully, not as personal messiahs but only as guests doing small things with, hopefully, great love.

 The Lord affords us the opportunity to make sure our faith is not a dead faith, as St. James says, one that manifests in works for our salvation but also in the physical manifestation of the small alleviation of suffering to those in need. It is the practice of mercy that perfects charity, and we can't do that while we remain holed up with our wagons circled in our safe spaces. The work is not for the poor, but for us.

I don't have a script this morning, or a real plan. I'm hoping the Holy Spirit will just guide and protect us, and send those neglected Christs to those whom we are meant to encounter, and that me and the guys too get some training in humility and service in the school of charity. So your prayers are very much appreciated. Thanks in advance. 

It's Not Easy Being Perfect

Apart from the $1 scratch offs my mom gives us every Christmas, I've never played the lottery. But the convenience store down the street from us just sold three Powerball tickets totaling $1.4 million. And I heard a Skid Row bodega sold the winning $1 billion Powerball ticket. Irony of ironies. 

In 2002, when businessman Jack Whittaker won a record-setting $315 million Powerball ticket, he was already a self-made millionaire. But he, like many others before him, was beset by the "lottery curse"--drinking, gambling, strip clubs, overspending, death, divorce, violence, bankruptcy etc as a result of the fast infusion of wealth. He admitted later, "I wish I had torn the ticket up."

I'm giving a talk on virtue of prudence next week, so have been thinking about how this virtue applies particularly in finances. Prudence is the intellectual virtue which rightly directs particular human acts, through rectitude of the appetite, toward a good end.As a moral virtue, it is a habit that makes its possessor good. You don’t just know the good, you DO the good. You behave well.

Obviously there were wealthy and blessed men in the scriptures (Abraham, Job, Zacchaeus, Joseph of Arimathea, to name a few), but that didn't keep Christ from preaching on the danger of riches:

“He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like the green leaf.” (Prov 11:28)

“Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mk 10:23)

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Mk 6:24)

“And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” (Mt 13:22)

“When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Dt 8:10-14)

“If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.” (1 Tim 6:8-9)

“Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” (Lk 12:15)

On the topic of wealth, it's often the mean that gets missed when we speak in extremes. I made this point in my post "Not 'Clown Masses' Nor 'Golden Unicorns': The Truth of the N.O. Lies In the Liturgical Mean;" when it comes to liturgy, people point out the ideals of the reverent Novus Ordo (ad orientum, chant, Latin, etc) and the existence of things like liturgical dance and other cringe abuses while neglecting the fact that 80% of Masses in the New Rite are simply beige and banal. To the degree that one moves toward reverence in liturgy is the right trajectory; to the degree that one moves towards "Gospel simplicity" we'll call it (in terms of material goods) is the right trajectory as well.

The same may be said for the false binary of the "1%" versus the homeless on the street or minimum wage workers just trying to get by (who also may be homeless!). Of course we see this example in the sixteenth chapter of Luke's gospel with Lazarus and the rich man. 

"Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish." (Lk 16:25)

What we neglect to realize is that we, too, have stepped over those lying in destitution on the way to our jobs, or driven quickly past at intersections, just as the rich man neglected to share his bread with Lazarus even though he would have been content with the crumbs from his table. If we had to identify with one man or the other, which one would it be?

Though we are what you would call "middle-class", rarely a day goes by in which I experience the pangs of hunger, and even when I do (by fasting), it is self-imposed not because of circumstance. I feast sumptuously every day (3 squares a day, from Aldi), and am dressed in clothes that I have chosen and bought myself, even if they were from Goodwill or Walmart. 

"Woe to you that are filled; for you shall hunger." (Lk 6:25)

Not only that, but I am not dependent on buses or rideshares, but own not one, but two cars. And not hoopties either! My children can play in our yard and street safely...they are not confined to inside due to violence. Even if they were, though, they have plenty of space, and even their own bedrooms! It's hot, we turn on the central air. It's cold, we fill up the oil tank. An appliance breaks, we buy a new one. 

If that weren't enough, we have a degree of choice and control over our lives because we are debt free. And not only that, but we contribute to retirement and savings each month from our paycheck, and take a yearly vacation as well.

"And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” (Lk 12:16-21). 

I even have health insurance through work, so we don't have to worry necessarily about being blindsided by massive medical bills in this broken U.S. healthcare system. We are in good health for the most part, though...another mark of good fortune.

Though we are what you would call "middle-class", and I make a median salary, which man do you think I share more in common with? To whom is Christ speaking his admonitions? When Nathan brought the scales down from the indignant King David's eyes, it was with the words: YOU ARE THE MAN! (2 Sam 12 7:14).

And that's the thing with regards to my point above--most of America is not in the extremes but in the mean. The 1% are in their own (gated) worlds, and the truly poor theirs. Even though the middle class is shrinking in the U.S., many of us are still quite comfortable and deal more with wants than needs. 

One of the more challenging books I have read in recent years is Fr. Thomas Dubay's Happy Are You Poor. It’s one of those books you want to throw across the room. I think the reason it is challenging is because it was written for people like myself who are have our needs met but who wouldn't consider ourselves "rich" and so give ourselves a pass while clinging to the power and security that wealth--even if it is modest--provides. Fr Dubay does not give an out, never takes his gentle foot of the gas--his tone is not one of condemnation or judgment, but simply a challenge to "be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). And what does our Lord say to the good, earnest young man asking about eternal life? "If ye wish to be perfect, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven" (Mt 19:21). 

I'm going to share something personal here: for the first time, I had a real seizing fear of my parents passing one day. Not because of their deaths, but that all that my father had accumulated in this lifetime in terms of wealth is earmarked for my brothers and I. And while I had always been grateful for that sense of security and future safety net, all of a sudden the other night, that thought of a sudden influx of wealth made me very, very apprehensive.

It's not that I'm not a responsible, prudent, financially literate person. But as Francis Chan said once in a sermon, "Money does weird things to us. You're rich. I'm rich. And that puts us at a very serious disadvantage spiritually."  Knowing this, my first temptation would be to treat that inheritance as a kind of hot-potato, and give it away in a way that provides for the Church and those in need right away in an abundance of spiritual caution. But would that be dishonoring my father? Foolish? Imprudent? If so, on what would I spend it? I literally feel like a rich man already, and have everything I need (even if those needs are admittedly modest). 

A study came out in 2010 saying that happiness doesn't increase much above a $75,000/yr salary (adjusted for inflation, I'd say $100,000/yr would be appropriate). Now a new study out of Penn puts that number at $500,000/yr. I don't know where they get these numbers, or what criteria they use to determine happiness. It's not really about the actual numbers per se, and happiness is also a matter of perspective as well. I think its reasonable to say that once one's basic need are met, things above and beyond do have the potential to plateau. 

Compared to the riches of the Gospel, and the invitation to eternal life, riches in this life pale in comparison. Even if He were to liquidate my savings, my home, take my family from me...nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Rom 8:37-39). And that is true treasure. 

Fr. Dubay makes the point that "sensible people do not choose emptiness for the sake of emptiness. Of itself, negation has no value. It is literally nothing is worth nothing. Reality is made to be and to be be full. The value of negative things derives, must derive, from something positive, something they make possible" (54). This is what he calls the "radical readiness" of the disciple for the kingdom. And I realized that the fear I experienced the other night could be viewed as a threat to that readiness, that girding of loins, if it ever got to the point that I was clinging to not only what I have now, but what is promised to me in inheritance. "Having wealth is damaging to the pursuit of the kingdom because the very having does something to one's inner life, one's very ability to love God for his own goodness and others in and for him. The more we possess, the more we are--in our own minds" (59).   

Robert Couse-Baker, on his blog devoted to Fr. Dubay's work, makes a good point: much of the unhappiness we experience as a result of wealth is tied up with the unfortunate American ideal of individualism divorced from community: 

"The platitudes about trusting in God...can all come across as very patronizing to the poor. In reaction to this, he advocates a certain kind of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Both positions miss a fundamental point. Jesus didn’t come to give humanity a code of ethics that individuals could adopt at will; rather, he came to found the community of the Church. Within that community, we’re supposed to be as tightly joined to one another as the members of a physical body. For an isolated individual or family, poverty entails a damaging lack of security. The only way to attain security as an individual is through the accumulation of wealth.

The pursuit of such individual security is harshly condemned by the Gospel. What is often missed, however, is that Christians are called to replace the individual security based on accumulating wealth with the security that comes from being part of a loving community. The rich fool with his barns was condemned, while the first Christian communities described in Acts shared their goods to such an extent that “there was no needy person among them”. (Acts 4:34) If we’re going to tell the poor to trust in God, then we have to get busy and ensure that their trust is not in vain. We have to act as the agents of God’s providence; otherwise, as St. James tells us, our faith is dead." (James 2:14-17)

I realized that much of my current state of contentment is that my family and I already possess the pearl of great price--the assurance of salvation in Christ. I have meaning and purpose in my life because I actively try to conform my life and will to His, and meaning and purpose are two major ingredients for happiness. Cultivating gratitude as well, which we do by recalling our blessings and all God has given us. We have a good, caring community of other Catholics. We help those in need financially. We are not alone, and have one another as well. What more could I ask for? 

But the Devil is wiley. He was working in Ananias and Sapphira, whom Peter harshly admonished for holding back part of the money intended for the Apostles for themselves (Acts 5:1-11), while they themselves were struck dead. I think the greatest hurdle to overcome myself is that 'holding back', not trusting completely the Lord God who says, "Test me in this, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it" (Mal 3:10). 

What is a work-in-progress is the way of perfection, and perfection is--well, perfected--the closer we move towards confidence in God and not individual reliance. To the degree that confidence is strengthened , those things which strengthen it should be pursued and the things which threaten it should be kept guard against. 

To circle back to the issue of the virtue of prudence: prudence applies universal principals to particular situations. Whereas the WEF dictates the universal to the particular: "you will own nothing and be happy," the Christian realizes that private property is a right and good, "pre-eminently in conformity with human nature" (Pope Leo XIII). And yet when we give the poor to alleviate their destitution or want, as St. James indicts us regarding (Jas 2:14-17), we "are handing over to him what is his. For what has been given in common for the use of all you have arrogated to yourself" (Populorum progressio, no. 23). 

I think one thing that is worth remembering is if all things are a gift from God to be used in His service, it is a great privilege to use wealth--should we be afforded it--in the service of others rather than on our own amusement, diversion, or accumulation of goods. The change in perspective fulfills what St. Paul writes: God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor 9:7). The opportunity to give, then, becomes the gift. This does not even depend on wealth per se, but the heart. For the widow's mite had infinitely more value because it was given not out of abundance but out of need, even though its value was minuscule. Despite the fact that the parents of St. John Vianney were not rich, they practiced great hospitality toward the poor and needy. Evening after evening a number of poor and needy wayfarers were set at table at the the family meal. Many times the elder Vianney would bestow his own share upon some belated arrival. This noble example made a profound impression upon the boy’s pious disposition.

How we carry out this charge we have been tasked with as Christians rests on this virtue of prudence to apply these universal principals (charity) to particular situations. In the manner or to the degree we do so depends on our individual or family circumstances and state in life; but that we do so as a universal injunction we cannot excuse ourselves from.

"The Razor's Edge": A Response To Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

 Dear Peter,

I wanted to thank you again for your email, in response to my post Long Live Pope Francis which I wrote on the fly while in St. Louis a few days ago.  I wasn't expecting to receive it, as I was surprised you even read the post, but have been thinking about it the past couple days. I promised you two things: to read your article which you asked I read, and that I would wait until after I had prayed at my 11pm holy hour this evening before responding; I have made good on both of those promises.

You began your email with "I couldn't disagree more," (which is of course fair) but I should have sought clarification in our back and forth the essence of your disagreement with my post. I made a few points for consideration: accusing myself, first and foremost, of rash judgment, lack of charity, and sins of the tongue in general, and also in regards to the Holy Father; my inability to suffer well and endure trails patiently; my low-standing in the Church as a common layman and sinner; the ability of God to bring good out of evil circumstances.   

Just as a Carthusian will not have the same religious charism or calling as a Franciscan, or a Jesuit, or a Carmelite, so too I try to accept that I am simply one side of a prism trying to reflect the light of Christ back into the world. I am not an intellectual. Though I sometimes wade into the waters of ecclesiastical politics, I mostly write with a more personal focus: faith, family, manhood, marriage, etc. I rarely spend more than half an hour per post, given my other responsibilities in my state of life. I am a horrible editor, and was never trained or learned to write apart from the act of simply giving it a go for the past thirty years. Apart from a few priest friends, I'm not particularly "in the know" about Catholic insider baseball outside of what I glean from those with more connections and clout. I am certainly a small fish in a vast pond. But I have to trust that God can still work through that, for some whom He deigns to read it.

And so, it's intimidating for me to write any kind of refutation or defense of something I wrote to someone such as yourself who is a heavyweight in this realm. As the prophet protested, "I do not know how to speak; I am too young" (Jer 1:6). 

A few weeks ago I attended a week-long Ignatian silent retreat, guided by a Benedictine abbot, who flew in from Tasmania. It was water in a desert for me--daily Latin Mass, solid spiritual direction each day, meaty discourses, and ample time for prayer and meditation. No web-surfing, no news of the outside world. Although there were twenty four other men present, I never spoke to them or learned their names--silence was maintained at all times (outside of spiritual direction). Even then, I found myself struggling with assumptions, judgments, and annoyances--this guy seems like the pious type. This guy is aloof. This guy is such a Boomer. Etc. 

At one point in spiritual direction, I mentioned that I sometimes pray, like David, "Who can discern his own errors? Clear thou me from hidden faults" (Ps 19:12): spiritual blind spots, if you will. The Dom pointed out a prayer in our book for the Spiritual Exercises, and encouraged me to pray sincerely and ask the Mother of God for this grace--that of weeping for our sins. In the chapel, with about an hour to prepare for Confession, the Lord afforded me this grace, that of true contrition.

What was at the root beneath that rotten stump? The sins beneath the surface of my spiritual veneer--pride, vanity, lack of charity, and unwillingness to suffer. Personal things, which I often write about. Nothing out of the ordinary, but again, they were spiritual blind spots for me. 

Driving back from Ohio that Friday, I made the mistake of committing to an invitation to attend a men's conference for a day back home; I was given a free ticket by the organizer, who had reached out to me after reading my article Why Your Catholic Men's Group Will Eventually Fold that Crisis had published a few months ago, since he wanted to meet me in person. Coming straight off my retreat, the contrast was jarring--instead of silence and traditional sensibilities, I found myself amidst constant chatter and discourse. Whereas the Dom had disappeared during the holy sacrifice of the Mass while on retreat, the "celebrity priest" at this conference made a show of himself versus populum with the altar as his stage. The fruit of silence was sweet and natural, and now I was being pumped full of aspartame. The Latin Mass was an exotic fruit I had been feasting on, and I was suddenly in the cafeteria eating Aramark fare. The contrast could not be more striking.

I write all this because I went on this retreat to learn in the school of charity--how to pray better, how to listen better, how to love better. If St. Ignatius was a soldier, he knew how to fight, and wanted to train others not to obtain the perishable crown, but the imperishable. I was not gifted with a formidable intellect, skills in rhetoric and debate, or overwhelming charity. But I do have faith and pray, and in that God can accomplish what otherwise seems impossible given my deficiencies and ignorance. "My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast" (Ps 57:7).

You had mentioned in your article "ecclesiastical quietism," the idea that "all circumstances and situations would be relative, equally opportunities for accepting God’s will and then suffering whatever He sends." It is interesting, because I am reminded of the 17th century Spanish priest Miguel de Molinos, who was jailed in 1685 on the orders of the Inquisition in Rome for preaching the heresy of Quietism. As a Jesuit and contemporary of Molinos, Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade's theology of "the Sacrament of the present moment" seemed to flirt dangerously close to this heresy. And yet, his message was that everything in life is to be welcomed as the expression of the will of God, and that we must "accept what we very often cannot avoid, and endure with love and resignation things which could cause us weariness and disgust." This, in his words, is what holiness means. In this, he shares the practical wisdom of St. Francis de Sales, the childlike trust and simplicity of St. Therese, and the profound mysticism of St. John of the Cross and St. Theresa of Avila.

I mention this because what you wrote in your email--that the line between 'be obedient' and 'put up with being abused, gaslit, led astray' is "razor sharp" in today's church--and in that you are quite correct. As I mentioned, sometimes the posts I write are a tough needle to thread. And I don't always get it right either. 

I often wonder if I was in a personal audience before the Holy Father, knowing that I would fall into the camp of those he classifies as a "rosary counter," "self-absorbed, Promethean Neo-Pelagian," "vain, pagaent Christians" what I would say to him. And I recall the words of the Lord in scripture, "the insults of those who insult you fall on me (Ps 69:9). And so perhaps I would smile in deference, and keep silence as the best recourse in imitation of our Master, who when he was oppressed and afflicted, opened not his mouth (Is 53:7), as well as the words of St. Paul, "we are reviled, and we bless; we are persecuted, and we suffer it" (1 Cor. 4:9-14).

But being right, for me, was not the point of the post which prompted your email. It was not a call to action, or any kind of repudiation of traditionalism in favor of the shores of ultramontanism or hyperpapalism, but simply trying to thread this needle as a common layman of the honor and deference due to the Holy Father as a Catholic in the shade of the seeming cacophony of criticisms against him. As St. Athanasius said, "Our speech is the image of the Word, Who is the Son of God" (Orat. ii. cont. Arian, n. 78).   

In his treatise Sins of the Tongue, Monseigneur Landriot, Archbishop of Rheims, wrote something that gave me somber pause when I read it, 

"Now listen to the counsels of religion. True piety will lead you to meditate often on your own misery and weakness, and without causing sadness of discouragement, it will teach you to have a thorough distrust of yourself; to know your own defects; to take every means of correcting them; to consult serious and experienced men; and to consult them in such a manner as to show them that you are sincere in your desire to be told the truth. After some months, perhaps some years, of this constant watchfulness over yourself, you will have humbled your pride; and, though you may not have entirely rooted it out, it will be no longer visible, and each day will lessen the number of its numerous offshoots. Then your tongue will lose the habit of talking perpetually about your own concerns. You will neither talk of them yourself, nor draw others into talking about them. You will cease making yourself the centre of conversation; you will not go about throwing ridicule, disdain, and discredit on every person who does not happen to suit you, because, without knowing it, they cast you into the shade, and are an obstacle to your pretensions. Both grave and trivial attacks on our neighbor have very often no other source than wounded vanity, and that self-love which is ever seeking to raise itself on the ruins of everything which excites its envy. If you follow these counsels you will avoid numerous sins against charity, while, at the same time, your conduct will be in accordance with the dictates of prudence and practical wisdom...Therefore does the Holy Ghost, after having said that 'in the multitude of words there shall not want sin,' add, 'but he that refraineth his lips is most wise;' as if to show us that the gifts of prudence and knowledge of the world are the accompaniments of virtue." (p. 47-48)

And that, really was the poorly-executed point of my post: that, personally, I would do better to refrain from a critical spirit--whether that be towards my brother or the Holy Father himself--for the sake of my own Judgment. Nor does it mean remaining in a state of ignorance, as I'm quite aware of how bad things are in the Church. It was less about obedience and more about prudence, given that I am not qualified to exercise such criticisms, nor do I gain anything by it, and so the trade off for me is not worth it. That does not mean an overly-pious passivity, or an omission of holy anger when warranted or encouraging spiritual Stockholm syndrome--only that in my own discernment, I have decided to try exercising more prudence in both speech and written word. It's a work in progress. 

In closing, this evening during my Holy Hour I prayed for a word from the Lord in Scripture that might speak to this conversation we are having and given that I am indebted to all your good works in defense of tradition and our spiritual patrimony. When I read that St. Francis and St. Therese were in the habit of opening the scriptures through divine inspiration and accepting what they read as inspired, I adopted the same habit each time I am in the presence of the Lord. And so I opened the scripture, and read from Jeremias:

"For this city hath been to me a provocation and indignation from the day that they built it, until this day, in which it shall be taken out of my sight.

Because of all the evil of the children of Israel, and of the children of Juda, which they have done, provoking me to wrath, they and their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets, the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

And they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces: when I taught them early in the morning, and instructed them, and they would not hearken to receive instruction.

And they have set their idols in the house, in which my name is called upon, to defile it.

And they have built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Ennom, to consecrate their sons and their daughters to Moloch: which I commanded them not, neither entered it into my heart, that they should do this abomination, and cause Juda to sin.

And now, therefore, thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to this city, whereof you say that it shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence:

Behold I will gather them together out of all the lands to which I have cast them out in my anger, and in my wrath, and in my great indignation: and I will bring them again into this place, and will cause them to dwell securely.

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me all days: and that it may be well with them, and with their children after them.

And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and will not cease to do them good: and I will give my fear in their heart, that they may not revolt from me.

And I will rejoice over them, when I shall do them good: and I will plant them in this land in truth, with my whole heart, and with all my soul.

For thus saith the Lord: As I have brought upon this people all this great evil: so will I bring upon them all the good that I now speak to them." 

(Jer 32:31-42)

These are strange times in the Church, and I know for myself I will only be able to walk that razor edge of discerning in the dark and confusion when I am hidden in the silent mantle of Our Lady. I have great hope for renewal.

In Gratitude,

Rob

Long Live Pope Francis

 “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” (Mt 12:36-37)

I fear my judgment. Of all the things I fear most, it is the idle and thoughtless words, the “Racas” both spoken and written, that I will be held to account on. Though I have confessed them, I doubt my penance in this life will ever make sufficient retribution.

I was convicted this morning while reading the life of Padre Pio and his saintly example of docility and obedience of my own culpability here. Obviously I am not a religious and under no vow apart from that to my spouse. But my example is a far cry from this son of the Church. 

One area that convicted me was Padre Pio’s great love for and devotion to the Supreme Pontiff, Christ’s vicar, who in his life was Paul VI. His filial obedience was so deep that he chaffed at even the slightest criticism of the Pope, even when it was in his own defense:

“Padre Pio was very severe with those who attacked authority because they felt unjust restrictions had been placed on him. Doctor Festa, in his book, Mysteries of Science and the Light of Faith, had written irreverent words about the Father General and accused him of not having taken Padre Pio's defense. Padre Pio wrote Dr. Festa a letter in which he begged him to leave out these words and even threatening him with divine punishments. 

The mayor of San Giovanni Rotondo also learned something about this persecution and had prepared a white paper which he intended to have printed in defense of Padre Pio. But when Padre Pio read it, he took the author by his neck and shouted at him in one of his outbursts of sacred fury: "Satan, go and throw yourself at the feet of the Church instead of writing this foolishness. Don't oppose your mother"

Padre Pio did not protest or dissent, which is so much in fashion today. He did not judge his superiors actions. He bowed his head and Obeyed.”

—Padre Pio: The Wonder Worker, FFI, p.63

I will readily admit I struggle as a Catholic under the current pontificate. I let my hurt and frustration come out from time to time, and I do not suffer well. But my “sufferings” as a traditionally minded Catholic absolutely pale in comparison to what Padre Pio endured at the hands of the Church. And how did he respond to this unjust persecution?

“During the two years of his trial Padre Pio didn't make the slightest complaint. He was always docile, humble, obedient, and patient with everyone. Those who tried to comfort him in some way never heard a complaint or the slightest criticism of authority. For him this was God's will. He would say, "The hand of the Church is gentle even when it strikes us because it is our mother's hand." And he bore his imprisonment, as he called it, with strength and faith. He recognized the will of God in it more and more. And he wanted to fulfill His Will and he did so willingly.“

Are we better than this saint? No, we are much worse in fact. At the slightest inconvenience we are quick to complain and air our grievances publicly for anyone to hear. We consider ourselves as martyrs when our preferences are not met. We take to the press and make loud lamentations. We trade our crosses for lighter ones more pleasing to our sensibilities.

If we follow these promptings, indulging our will like a dog that licks his sores, we find that we are now no better than dogs. We are not victims, but rather centurions with the mallets in our hands. We protest to Pilate that they have the wrong man, that our King should not suffer and die, but live and reign so that dignity might be restored to Israel.

But Christ accepted his scourges, shame, and sentence with docility, like a lamb led to slaughter. He “opened not his mouth.” He offered his beard to be plucked. Because he knew there was no atonement without sacrifice.

I may not “like” much less love our current pontiff. But who am I? Why should God hear my sighs and petty complaints? His Vicar sits on His throne, and the Lord is not in the business of accidentals. His Will is sovereign. He uses who He wills to accomplish His purposes. Our idle complaints do not go unheard. But that should fill us with compunction and fear, not satisfaction.

“And he said unto his men, The LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the LORD's anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD.” (1 Sam 24:6)

May God have mercy on me, a sinner. Let us say with our Mother, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to thy word.” And long live the vicar of Christ.

Do Not Cling To Me

 I have always struggled with the idea of impermanence. Why do people we love die? Why do friends come into our lives and then just ghost us for no good reason, or leave? Why are cities bombed and monuments destroyed? Why do things fall apart?

I think it's why I was drawn to Buddhism initially as a teenager before becoming a Christian. Impermanence--or if you like in western metaphysics, the law of entropy--is not the exception, but the rule. Tibetan Buddhists manifest this law tangibly in their creations of intricate sand mandalas that take months to create, working eight hours a day for weeks on end. Then in one final ceremony, they brush every last grain of colored sand away.

I was thinking about this this afternoon because I had been struck yet another blow at work with someone on our team leaving for greener pastures--my sixth director in five years. I felt foolish, thinking it would be different this time with this man, whom I had grown close with professionally. In a small way, I got a taste of what foster children must feel like.

When I lived and worked in the inner-city serving Christ's poor, the man who had founded the House of Hospitality told me as we were smoking cigarettes on the dilapidated back porch, "Rob, this work is hard. I pray a lot that my heart not close off and get hardened." He, too, would leave a few months later...in the dead of night, and without a word, leaving the rest of our community to figure things out on our own. 

When I meditate on the Mystery of the Ascension, I often pray, "Lord, I know you will not leave us orphans." And yet I experienced this feeling very acutely and unexpectedly when we were told the news at work. Instantly, my heart scabbed over and developed a shell. I was hurt and angry, even though I knew I shouldn't be. I didn't congratulate him on his new position; in fact, I went off camera, shell-shocked. I shouldn't have been. His position seems cursed almost, too much for one person to manage. I don't even blame him. But once again, I find myself professionally orphaned and starting once again from square one with a soon to be new direct report. This is normal in my industry; why I should think otherwise points more to my foolishness, not any fault of those who leave or get better opportunities elsewhere. 

Even though this is a professional scenario, I've been thinking too that it applies to our life as Catholics remaining in the Church. We don't have a loving shepherd for a spiritual father in the universal Church, but one that seems cold and vindictive, elevating apostates and giving audiences to heretics while he throws those prelates who are faithful to the wolves. I wrote in To Have Become Like Orphans in a text to a priest-friend, 

"All I feel is peace, because the fissures are so clearly drawn, and we have no excuse not for girding our loins for what's coming. Just because your father is passed out at the wheel doesn't mean there's not work that needs to be done and siblings who need to be fed and cared for."

Who are we to rely on? Who can we trust? The bad bishops stay in power, while the faithful ones stepping "out of line" get called into the Vatican's principal's office. Good priests get canceled, while the lukewarm and those riding out their status quo terms stick remain insulated because they don't rock the boat. We are essentially neutered as Catholics by the episcopacy. And yet the harvest which is great still needs to be gathered in, the vineyard still needs pruning. It gets tiring, because there are so few doing the work.

This idea of impermanence, however, I don't think is resigned to the East. It takes a different guise in our own tradition, but it is a universal law. 

Our Lord reassures the disciples that there is a purpose in his going back to the Father after his forty days on earth: "But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you" (Jn 16:7). 

And to Mary Magdalene after he was raised, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended. to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (Jn 20:17). 

On Mount Tabor, Peter wanted to preserve the moment of transfiguration in time, proposing to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah" (Mt 17:4). But Moses and Elijah vanish, and God the Father makes His terrible voice heard, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" (Mt 17:5). 

Peter, who loved the Lord Christ so much, with a obstinate zeal, refused to accept his Master's death initially. "Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”" (Mt 16:22). 

The fact that people leave, loved ones die, bosses transfer, priests get reassigned, and bishops don't have the back of the faithful should not scandalize us or lead to hurt or dejection. We should expect it. And yet, we are still human, and so it does hurt, because we attach ourselves to that which we don't want to die, leave, or end. Our suffering is proportional to our attachment, and so few of us (myself included) are perfectly detached. 

We can sometimes compensate by scabbing over our hearts to keep this hurt at bay, saying things like "I don't care," "Whatever," or "Screw them anyway." But this isn't what we are called to. It is a carnal, worldly response; and as Christians, we are not called to conform ourselves to the world. The supernatural rises above the natural. Job is a good example here of the detachment (which does not mean dispassion) that is righteous: "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I return there" (Job 1:21) Job cursed the day he was born, but he did not curse his Creator. 

Christian life is not a life of dispassion. You cannot love without freedom, and love involves loss as well. We don't shield or wall ourselves off from potential hurt or betrayal, because we imitate Christ who left the comforts of Heaven to debase himself in the Incarnation; was betrayed by one of his closest friends; had no where to lay his head. Our sojourn on earth is limited to a hundred years at most--a drop in the bucket compared to eternity. 

In many ways, though, it will remain a mystery to me why good things don't last, why we suffer loss after loss, and why people will leave us orphans. I've struggled with it for years, and today was a reminder that these instances touch a wound deep in my soul that I didn't even realize was there. But there is still work that needs to be done. And so our only choice is to take time to mourn it, then get back to work.

The True, The Beautiful, The Good

 I don't do promotions much at all on this blog, but I felt called to share an organization that is run by a friend's cousin up in Chicago out of St. John Cantius called the Catholic Art Institute. Her name is Kathleen Carr, and she is an amazingly talented realist painter. Her personal artist's website is here if you want to check out her body of work. This is just one example from her website:

Supporting the arts has traditionally been confined to the patronage of the wealthy, but I think our family is going to try to support them as well even with our modest means. As an artist and writer myself, it can be exhausting and grind you down that our society puts little monetary value on the arts, which adds so much to our lives, and that it can be pilfered and chewed up/spit out by a society bent on content consumption. It can also feel "frivolous" in a utilitarian, STEM-oriented culture which has little regard for beauty or nuance and gorges on a diet of pop-culture. I make almost non-existent money from my years of writing, but I don't do it full-time either, and I consider it a kind of vocation that God has charged me with and so I'm okay with that.

Most artists feel called (compelled?) to create (which is a gift from God) but are not compensated in proportion to what they offer the world. But imagine a world in which beautiful Catholic art did not exist. It would be a barren existence. Beauty is food for the soul, and beautiful art also attempts to communicate it's sisters--truth and goodness. The transcendentals of what it means to be human. 

I realize many people are struggling in this economy, but if you are a person of means who wants to see more beauty in the world and support the artists training to bring it into existence, consider supporting Kathleen's organization, the Catholic Art Institute. It would be money well spent.

 I've heard it said that King Solomon wrote Song of Songs in his youth, Proverbs in his middle years, and Ecclesiastes near the end of his life. This makes sense. Song of Songs is passionate, poetic, erotic, full of youth and vigor. Proverbs is a solid compilation of practical wisdom concerned with the nuts and bolts of living. And Ecclesiastes is the legacy capstone of the wisest man who ever lived and has experienced everything life has to offer and realizes in the end that it is all completely meaningless.

I had a young man respond to my Crisis article, Why Your Catholic Men's Group Will Eventually Fold, with an article of his own. While my reflections in that piece I wrote came from a place of mid-life disillusionment, I did not think the observations were out of line; in fact, the article seemed to have struck a nerve with various spin-offs and responses, including the one cited above in which the author (in his early twenties, I gathered) was in his "Song of Songs" phase, full of youthful idealism. I probably would have shared his sentiments, trying to make a name for himself, twenty years ago as a younger man.

But entering mid-life is a real bear. I feel like I'm at the bottom of the U-curve of happiness, hoping that the next decade will be on the upswing. My thirties--my "Proverbs phase" of the proverbial hustle-n-grind decade--now over, the specter of Solomon in his final chapters of life are peeking around the corner. 

All things are hard: man cannot explain them by word. The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing.

I don't even know where the malaise comes from. It's not depression. It's not even necessarily discontentment. I have everything I could possibly want--not in terms of riches and wisdom, but in my wife and kids, a job that allows me to provide, and my faith. I haven't accomplished anything great. My name will be easily forgotten. But again, that is why the wisdom of Solomon in Ecclesiastes is canonical--it's not depressing or negative--it's simply the reality of the truth. Vanity of vanity, all is vanity. And I still have a lot of years left to live.

What is it that hath been? the same thing that shall be. What is it that hath been done? the same that shall be done.

In terms of the riches of human capital, I'm probably better off than most. There are a lot of guys I could call up in a time of physical need, and a strong community that we can lean on. Despite all this, I still get hit with these periodic waves of loneliness in which I realize my wide swatch of friends lacks the depth of love and fidelity that you see between David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel. 

Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us.

I'm resentful of the 'busyness' I see all around me, that everyone over schedules themselves and no one has time set aside to be wasted. I get resentful too that I'm always the one calling or texting people, but if I pull back on that and go quiet, so does my phone. I check my email hoping someone will write me, just for the sake of writing, but no one does. I get resentful of the guys that never seem to need to go beyond work and their families...why can't I be more like that? I'm tired of pouring into things, projects, people, when in the end it's all just vanity of vanities. 

There is no remembrance of former things: nor indeed of those things which hereafter are to come, shall there be any remembrance with them that shall be in the latter end. 

I'm also lonely. I have no Jonathan, and I'm no David either. I haven't learned how to be alone that well. I wish I was more like my wife--the fact that everyone wants to be friends with her, but she just wants to be alone. In my mid forties now, new things don't come easily--not friends, not skills, not reading new books or learning new things--just a weighted blanket of ennui. Even if I was granted a Jonathan in my life, I would not be worthy of him because of my self-centeredness. 

Because In much wisdom there is much indignation: and he that addeth knowledge, addeth also labour.

I pray sometimes that God will just take me sooner than later, that I don't live to be old, that I can just retire from life early, meet my Maker ahead of schedule. I worry about my wife, and my kids growing up without a father. I'll keep living for them, as long as the Lord wants from me. But it's wearisome. I'm living the cliche of the crisis, but without the accouterments. No sports car, no desire to be unfaithful, no heavy drinking, no wild shake-up. I'm sure some people would miss me when I'm gone. But then they'd get over it, of course. 

So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

"Too Ugly For Polite Company": A Film Review of "The Sound of Freedom"

 

"What man of you that hath an hundred sheep: and if he shall lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which was lost, until he find it?" (Lk 15:4)

God bless Jim Caviezel. He reminds me of the leper who was healed by Jesus in Luke's gospel--one of ten but the only one to return and give glory and thanks to God (Lk 17:11-19). I think because Caviezel himself recognizes the debt that has been settled for his life, and the ransom paid in blood, is he able to return to the screen to give God the glory in his profession as an actor. He knows he is a man who was dead to sin, but saved by Christ and set free (Rom 6:11). He knows what it means to be saved.

And God bless Tim Ballard, the real life DHS agent-turned-vigilante about whom the film is based. The Sound of Freedom is tough viewing, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be viewed. And that's not because of any graphic depictions or lewdness, but simply because of the subject matter itself. Child sex trafficking is a multi billion (with a B) dollar industry that operates on the market principals of supply and demand. And the Devil's business is booming.

One of the frustrating things about being awash in societal "issues"--from climate change to cobalt mining to you name it--is that it becomes easy to paint in generalities: that somewhere out there something bad is happening, and someone is vying for our attention to "do something about it." In that sense, the producers of The Sound of Freedom are not unique in trying to mobilize action for a cause. 

But as a father myself, it was very hard to be a neutral viewer. "These are God's children," as Ballard says in the film. I don't think any father can really be a completely academic or neutral party in this nightmare. You see your own children in the faces of these poor children stolen and sold into a life of slavery of the most degrading type imaginable. "How could you sleep," the father of the two Honduran children who Ballard sets out to rescue tells him, "when you know their bed at home is empty?" The fact is, as a parent of such victimization, I don't think you ever sleep again.

That such heinous sin (let's call it what it is) passes right under our noses, day in and day out, not just here in the U.S. but in every country in the world, it may be easy to grow numb to it and feel dis-empowered. But that's where I think the film shines, because it highlights a man who could have easily said, "What difference does it make? We save one kid, and there are ninety-nine others who are lost?" Being ten months away from being vested in his government pension, it would have been easy to Ballard to settle in and do what he can from the sidelines, taking the safe and acceptable route of doing his part to fight this scourge. 

But Ballard doesn't do that. Realizing he is neutered by government bureaucracy that gives him the leverage to catch pedophiles while the child victims remain "out there somewhere" is a crisis of conscience for him. He heeds the call "not to hesitate" when called, leaves the Department of Homeland Security and teams up with some other players just outside the law to "go big or go home" in staging a faux "paradise island" as a method of entrapment for pedophile kingpins. A former cartel runner (who himself has his own dark reckoning with his past life and personal sin) and a well-financed entrepreneur form Ballard's small vigilante operations team, and lead them to rescue over fifty child sex slaves in one sting.

There is another backstage hero in this film, however, and that is Ballard's wife who fully supports this unorthodox mission: "You quit your job," she tells him, "and you go rescue those kids." With six kids of his own, and on his own deep in rebel territory in Columbia looking for a proverbial needle in a haystack (the sister of the first boy he rescues), this is no small act of faith on his wife's part. There is no one looking for this poor Honduran girl. There is no incentive, no reason, no will. Except for Ballard, her fate would be sealed and she would be completely lost. He has everything to lose. I think his wife is as invested in his mission as Ballard is.

To see the panic of Rocio and Miquel's father's face when he returns to the "talent company staging room" to pick them up only to find it empty and his children missing is utterly heartbreaking and every parent's nightmare. It is my own nightmare--not because it has happened to me, but because what's to keep it from becoming my reality? It's bad enough to know your children's beds at home are empty, but to reckon with the reality that they are being hurt or abused in some way, and you are completely powerless to help them, is a thousand times worse. And this happens to tens of thousands of children--God's children--every day, both at home and abroad. They are like lumps of coal, these victims, these child slaves, feeding the insatiable furnace of depravity that we perpetuate by our own complicity with sin. 

The sheer scale of this insatiable appetite for the corruption of innocent flesh is almost incomprehensible. The sins cry to Heaven for justice, and as Ballard quotes Matthew 18:6 in the film to one of the pedophiles "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and be cast into the sea." 

And yet many of these lost children are never found, but remain chained in slavery of the most horrible kind, their innocence crucified on a tree at the hands of vile men. For every one that is rescued, hundreds remain in bondage. This has the potential to be a great challenge to one's faith in a good and loving Father and in his only begotten Son who debased himself to come to earth and search out the one that was lost (Lk 15:4) when they remain out there, somewhere, in a dark room subjected to unspeakable traumas. 

And yet, "there is no one righteous, no not one" (Rom 3:10; Ps 14:3). Many of us are complicit in the sins of the flesh which have perpetuated this abominable slave ship, though--we fuel it not just with clicks and downloads, but by our apathy and fence-sitting in the face of such evil. Christ was utterly crushed by the weight of sin (Is 53:5)--our sin. He came to ransom us, left a comfortable Heaven to debase himself here on earth (Phil 2:7) and pay the price with his sacrifice and death (Rom 5:7-8). He was innocence itself (1 Pt 3:18).

I don't know Tim Ballard's back story, if he is a Christian or not, but I will say Jim Caviezel was the right man to play him in this role. When Tim is describing his "line of work" to someone in the film, he mentions that this reality (of sex trafficking) is "too ugly for polite company." 

And that hits home. Sin is ugly and it is real, and Christ didn't die on a cross in some removed, prim and proper manner amidst polite company. He was scourged and mocked, reviled with contempt and beaten to a pulp, among "bad men." God "got his hands dirty" to ransom us from perdition, and sacrificed his son, his only begotten son, to do it. There was no other way to bridge that divide. And if we are to imitate Christ in his life as his disciples, we cannot sit balancing on a fence. We, too, are called to get our hands dirty, sacrifice, and pay ransoms to set captives free. Whatever capacity one does that is between him and God. But he cannot be passive, cannot be neutral. 

God bless Tim Ballard for leaving the ninety-nine to seek out the lost one, and God bless Jim Caviezel for taking on this role. The Sound of Freedom deserves our support, and not as a charity case either. Though I viewed the film through the eyes of a Christian, it is not an overtly or even remotely "religious" film. It is well shot, well acted, and is a compelling if not difficult watch; well worth a trip to the theaters to see. I hope this film goes mainstream and convicts the heart of those who view it--even if the subject matter is "too ugly for polite company."     

The Shifting Axis

 Eric Sammons had a great podcast a couple weeks ago titled The Death of Catholic Apologetics? He says "the apologetics movement is losing steam...and their impact has been greatly neutered" and points to three main reasons why: 

1. An increased apathy towards religion 

    -If you don't care--aka apathy--about religion, you're not going to spend any time trying to determine what is true.

2. The Church has lost her witness

    -People may have hated the Catholic Church a hundred years ago--but people respected it. You knew what you got with it. She is now weak, with a scandalous pope that makes things that much more difficult for apologists. 

3. The fracturing of Catholicism 

    -What Catholicism do you represent? "Just Catholic" doesn't exist anymore. 

I wrote to Eric and commended him for the podcast, and also sent him my post The Time For Preaching and Teaching Are Over that I wrote three years ago, essentially saying the same thing (he declined to publish it for Crisis, although he said he enjoyed it, since it would have been too much overlap given his recent podcast on the topic). 

It's interesting times we are living in. While a spark to the powder keg of civil unrest has France burning, I'm reminded of another perceptive insight from Marine Le Pen (who lost the French presidential race to Emmanuel Macron, who was re-elected in 2022):

“There is no more left and right. The real cleavage is between the patriots and the globalists.” Macron makes the same claim: “The new political split is between those who are afraid of globalisation and those who see globalisation as an opportunity.” 

And on U.S. soil, Trump, for all his flaws, perceived this changing landscape as a political dark horse: “The future does not belong to the globalists. The future belongs to the patriots,” he told the U.N.

 

If you're a Weigelian neo-conservative still acting like it's 2003, and we're duking it out for souls with Protestants or inquiring Atheists in the internet comboxes, I'm sorry to say that ship has left the harbor. Traditionalists are the 'new kid on the block' (though, arguably, the longest-standing), the "patriots" of the Church who are willing to fight for their patrimony. They still compromise a small but growing percentage of those in the pews, but that doesn't mean they are inconsequential. They want the Faith--the TRUE Faith, not some watered-down version of it--and they live by it, the way a patriotic American would still hold to the ideals of the Constitution and believe that America is still a great country founded on noble (and proven) ideals. They need to be taken into account in the shifting landscape of the Catholic world, because they are not going away (as much as people like Michael Lofton would like them to)

Meanwhile, it would be a misnomer to tag any Pope as a "globalist," since this political nomenclature doesn't overlay on the Church very well--the Church is, by nature, global in scope and reach; she has a global dimension and mission. But it does seem that Pope Francis has more sympathies with the mindset of those in the globalist camp. 

In the aforementioned blog post, I wrote:

"What did this religious mean, "the time for preaching and teaching is over?" My first reaction when my friend mentioned it was YES. But then, why? 

Haven't the Word on Fire videos brought many spiritually curious people to intellectual assent of the faith? Haven't we been learning to make "intentional disciples" in parishes and through workshops and conferences and retreats? Haven't we been DOING something to address the "failure of catechesis"by LEARNING more about what the Church professes, TEACHING more about the truths of the Faith, EVANGELIZING by having discussions on social media with non-believers? Haven't we been preaching the good news to the poor, the imprisoned, as a kind of spiritual product to be considered to improve one's life, gain eternal life, attain peace?

I'm sorry to be so negative, but I'm in a bit of a stripped down state of being right now. The words my friend shared by the erudite religious--the time of preaching and teaching is over--point to a harsh and unsettling reality we are faced with as followers of Christ in war.

In fighting off demons of despair shooting arrows in my back, another wise friend also sent me a scripture that made me exclaim, once again, "Wow":

"And the places that have been desolate for ages shall be built in thee: thou shalt raise up the foundations of generation and generation: and thou shalt be called the repairer of the fences, turning the paths into rest" (Is 58:12).

But we are not in this state yet either, I suspect. We are in an in between. The well-produced teaching and catechetical materials, the preaching to a pagan culture--I have lived through these endeavors and been a part of them myself. I don't know how effective they are, or if they are making wrong assumptions about things. I do have a friend who makes rosaries and plants them for people with instructions on how to pray it; he does is clandestinely. Someone he knew even picked one up and considered it a sign to come back to the faith. So you never know. 

But we are not saving masses here, we are pulling stray bodies on the ark who, I'm sure, are ultimately grateful to be there. Like writing a book these days, it is, I'm afraid, ultimately futile. Not to those who have been saved, who would consider it anything but. And there is it's place--of course, we need to preach and teach when called for, one on one. But we are not going to convert the world by well-produced series on the history of Catholicism, or using any of the tools of the modern age. Those going to the front lines are getting mowed down by the culture because they are ultimately going alone with no shepherds to have their back, no critical mass to support them long term. The Steubenville degree and Thomistic defenses of Natural Law in a disordered society, I'm afraid, may not hold their weight against the breaches." 

The left-right paradigm is falling away. Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same corrupt coin. Liberal Catholicism is a sterile ecclesialastical vasectomy of course, but even Neocons are becoming increasingly irrelevant post JP2. Traditional Catholics may have more in common with Orthodox Jews and fired up Muslim parents in the culture war than with lukewarm CINO's. 

The 18th century American "experiment" worked because people believed in the ideals and fought for them. But it wasn't a guarantee, as we are seeing that an immoral society divorced from virtue has no claim to its fruit. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political thinker and historian, traveled to America in 1831 on behalf of the French government to examine the penal system and report back on what he learned. Tocqueville marveled at the flourishing American democracy at that time, recognizing that the uniqueness of such a system depended on a liberty "which cannot be established without morality, nor without faith." 

I used to think globalism was a made-up thing, until the World Economic Forum basically laid it all out in the open: You will own nothing and be happy. In other words, the Great Reset is not some Orwellian fiction: IT'S RIGHT THERE (HERE). Read them. If these ideals seem at odd with the freedom of the Christian and fill you with dread, you may not be a globalist in your heart of hearts. And if you oppose the ideals of globalism or if you think to yourself "this doesn't seem right," prepare to be humiliated, the way LGBT activists will humiliate those who oppose their ideology, the way Communist governments seek to humiliate those who oppose it. Prepare to be called a "far-right nationalist" or something similar. The incisive words of Theodore Dalrymple should then sear into your subconscious to draw on when the gaslighting gets especially bad and you start to second-guess yourself:

"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."

 Just as those who truly believe in the tenants of the Faith of our fathers, Tradition, the depositum fidei, and live by it will be the future rebuilding of the Church from the ashes, as prophesied by Cardinal Ratzinger. It betrays the contempt those within the Church who are lukewarm or who do not believe as to why they hate traditionalists. The axis has shifted...as it has throughout history, and I'm not sure how long this center can hold both in the nation and in the Church herself before the Antichrist comes. 

Tell The World About The TLM. But Let's Keep Homeschooling Our Little Secret

 

I've always considered myself a more-or-less "evangelical Catholic." I was radically saved by grace, and I'm always quick to want to show other beggars where the bread is. Because I'm grateful. When you love something, you want others to know about it. We don't hide Christ under a bushel basket (Mt 5:15)

This has extended to my liturgical leanings with regards to Catholic Tradition and how the Latin Mass has buyoued our faith and the expression of it in worship. I tell people about it, I encourage people to explore it, I invite people to Mass with us the same way a family did for us years ago. As I see it, Tradition and Charity are a force for renewal in the Church. I know there are probably factions that want to keep it the best kept secret in the Church, but I don't think that's the way forward. This is a good thing that people need to know about, and then make their own choices about. From 1998 to just five years ago, I didn't even know it existed. I think that's starting to change.

Attending the Latin Mass and homeschooling have always seemed to me like two sides of the same coin. But I am not so evangelistic about homeschooling. It has been a huge blessing to us, and I feel blessed we were led to educate our children from home. They are well adjusted, VERY well socialized, and learning what they need to learn in an efficient manner that leaves plenty of room for play. I didn't always feel this way, and was pretty resistant to the idea at first. But the fruits have been apparent. 

I do not feel the need, however, to tell everyone about how great homeschooling is. If anything, I want to keep it on the DL. This is mostly because the more it gets on the government's radar, the more I worry about government interference. Just leave us alone and give us the liberty to educate our children. Many pioneer homeschoolers worked hard to ensure that laws were amenable to homeschooling when it was just a blip on the societal screen. Now that it is becoming more common and mainstream, I worry that the government will ruin it like all good things with over-regulation or controlling what we can and can't do as parents. 

I pay my school tax bill (which is substantial) and don't use any of the public school services. That's fine, whatever, just leave us alone and let us file our initial affidavit and yearly evaluation and stay out of our business. Our children are doing fine, great even. I can't imagine sending them to a government school at this point, and the meager fruits of Catholic education make that a non-starter for our family as well. 

I'll continue to advocate for the Latin Mass and Catholic Tradition, because it bears good fruit and should be normative, not some scorned leper within the "synodal" Church. But homeschooling? It is literally the best kept secret that I feel no need to shout from the rooftops about. I'm glad more people are discovering it, but just maybe be discerning in who you tell about it, huh? I'm sure the government and school districts have noticed by now, but no need to poke sleeping giants.