The Great Divides

It's no secret that I write a lot on this blog about the Latin Mass, Traditionalism (the good, the bad, and the ugly), and ancillary topics as they relate to the aforementioned. I'm no expert on these things, just a guy writing from the pew, and that pew where we sit now as a family has changed over the years. As I've written about here, I'm an Eastern Catholic (Byzantine) by rite, but came under the wing of Charismatic monastics early in my year as a Catholic. We spent periods in beige suburban parishes where we felt like fish out of water, but in the last five years have found a home and laid roots in a diocesan Latin Mass community, attending the Latin Mass every Sunday exclusively. 

I'm no stranger to the rich spiritual and liturgical heritage of the East, and am probably more cognizant than your average Catholic that the Church herself is big and diverse, encompassing 5 other rites (besides the Latin rite) and 25 particular churches unified under the Pope in Rome. Neophytes to the TLM can sometimes suffer from "Latin (tunnel) vision" and don't realize something so fundamental about the Church and the liturgy that I think it's worth mentioning.

When we were first discovering the Latin Mass, I wrote a post titled Tradition and Charity: The Face Of Renewal to try to reconcile (for myself) this newfound love of the traditional liturgy with the nagging feeling that the life of a Christian disciple must nonetheless go beyond the walls of the church where we find such safety (in the rubrics of the TLM) and comfort (being among like-minded believers); that we are meant to be a light to the world, and take serious the command (not suggestion) to "make disciples of all nations" (Mt 18:19-20). I spent time early in my conversion devoted to serving the poor, the drug addicted, and refugees in the inner city trying to "pray the black, do the red." I wanted to follow the Holy Spirit, the "wild goose" and go wherever he led me, even when it took me to crazy places. I hit the streets doing public evangelization and made a fool of myself in many ways--a fool for Christ. In all of this, God has been faithful, wasting nothing in the process.

But that nagging feeling has persisted--yes we have found a solid community of like-minded believers; yes, the Latin Mass is more edifying than the Novus Ordo and objectively speaking, is more fitting for Catholic worship. Yes, we have lost many of the powerful prayers and rites that have been excised in the post-conciliar church, and the reclaiming of our patrimony is a good thing. The temptation for all good things, however, is to pitch a tent and set up camp, as Peter proposed on Mt. Tabor at the Transfiguration and say "Lord, it is good that we are here" (Mt 17:4). 

So, when my friend Kevin texted this afternoon because he was taking a course through Encounter Ministries and was getting impatient to "do something" (going "out there" to make disciples and heal the sick, spread the Good News, and proclaim Christ to the world), it was a bit of a crisis of conscience for me. Hadn't Dr. Mary Healey (who is the Encounter School Curriculum Advisor) written critically of the Latin Mass and the renewed interest in the TLM in Church Life Journal? And hadn't Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (whom has been a supporter of many of my pieces, and for whom I had written a review of one of his many books) skewered her and her colleagues in response in the edited work Illusions of Reform? And hasn't Fr. Ripperger mentioned in a number of his conferences about his wariness of Charismatics in general? This is all insider-baseball in the Catholic liturgical and traditionalism world where I write from the peripheries, stuff my friend Kevin most likely isn't aware of or if he is, could care less about. All he knows is a fire has been lit inside of him, and he is seeing with eyes that see that the Catholic faith and the power of the Holy Spirit are the best kept secret that simply can't be hidden any longer. It has to get out there. 

I remember watching the Fearless documentary when it came out a few years ago, probably not long after I got back from attending a St. Paul Street Evangelization conference after listening to Fr. Mathias Thelen, Ralph Martin, Janet Smith, and Mary Healey speak, and experiencing the sessions of healing that took place there, thinking to myself "Yes, yes." And then also having a similar (though more subdued) reaction after watching the Mass of the Ages documentary (though that was after having attended to the Latin Mass exclusively for three or four years already)--"yes, yes." It didn't take me long to realize, though, that these kinds of Catholic enclaves--the Charismatics and the Traditionalists--were as far apart from one another as the Irish and black ghettos were in New York City in the early 20th century. As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too. 

One thing I admire about Elon Musk is his unwillingness to play by the way things are supposed to be done. People said you can't disrupt the automotive industry--it's too hard, too entrenched--and he took it as a challenge and Tesla was born. People said you can't have a private company that does space exploration, and he responded in the same way. Whereas NASA's model was "Failure is not an option" and had stalled for decades as a result of their unwillingness to take risks and think outside the box, Musk assured his SpaceX team "It's ok to fail." Because nothing great ever happens without risk.

I sometimes wonder if Peter and Andrew had hesitated when Christ called them to leave their home, their family, and their jobs and come follow him. But scripture makes clear they dropped their nets "at once" (Mt 4:20) at those three words. When we get comfortable in our tribes and risk-averse, we tend to keep our radios tuned into the same stations. I know faithful Catholics who won't even attend a Latin Mass--either out of principal or based on second-hand information--just as I know many traditionalists who hold Charismatics and things like healing ministries in suspicion. 

Because my friend Kevin is looking to me to help him "go out there and do something" for Christ I don't want to let him down. He wants to go straight into the warzone of Kensington (one of the largest open air drug markets in the country, just a half hour from my house) and pray over the tranq-addicts, arming ourselves with Narcan just in case we accidentally brush up against some fentanyl in the process. And I would, but I told him this evening "let's start local and work up to that" with a smile. 

The thing is, I must have a little bit of that Elon Musk thinking in me because I'm thinking to myself "Well, why can't we? Why can't we have our cake and eat it too?" Just because I assist at the Latin Mass doesn't mean I can't pray over people in need of healing and the Holy Spirit on the street? Or just because I'm open to such things and believe in faith that God can move mountains, heal instantly, move mountains...that means I'm resigned to worship in a way that is less fitting, less reverent, less traditional just "because trads are 'mean, rigid, etc'"?

While people on the traditionalist side are angsting over the Strickland hammer drop and writing articles and worrying about everything coming out of Rome, and people on the Charismatic side of the spectrum would never consider giving the TLM a chance, I'm here in the middle thinking to myself "I want it all. I want the traditional liturgy. I want the power of the Holy Spirit. I don't want to choose" in this binary manner. And I look at the enthusiasm with which my friend Kevin has, his amusing impatience, and his pure intentions and I think to myself "Well, why not? What do we have to lose? We have the Truth. We have the assurance of faith. We have everything we need by grace. Why can't we do big things for Christ?"

Like Tex-Mex and Asian Fusion, maybe there's a place for traditionally minded Catholics like myself to stretch and push ourselves uncomfortably out from the safe space of the parish walls and follow the Holy Spirit where he leads--whether that's on the streets, witnessing at a gay pride parade, starting a conversation with a complete stranger, or simply being willing to look like a fool for Christ. And maybe there's a place for charismatic Catholics to be open to worship that isn't extemporaneous or untethered, but disciplined and structured and efficacious. If you say "no, you can't do that," I would simply ask "Well...why not?"  

You can't pick grain on the Sabbath (Mt 12:1-2)

You can't heal today (Mk 3:1-6)

You can't talk to that woman (Jn 4:9)

You can't cut through that region (Jn 4:4)

You can't feed all these people (Mt 14:1-2; Mk 6:14-16; Lk 9.7-9)

It's interesting that the only place where Jesus "couldn't do any miracles" (Mk 6:5) was because of the lack of faith of those in his hometown, and this lack of faith "amazed him" (Mk 6:6). But to those who possess faith, what does he say?

“Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done."

These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." 

Do not be unbelieving, but believing" (Mt 21:21; Mk 16:17-18; Jn 20:27)

As the Church descends into more and more factions and camps, those who side with this or that prelate, who worship in this or that manner....maybe there is a place for others who aren't content to accept the boundaries we establish, the walls we erect to keep ourselves in and others at arms length, or the stunting of faith with regards to what is possible for true renewal in the Church and in the world. "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 18:3) For the kingdom of God belongs to the child-like... and little children have not learned these artificial divides--the actual from the imaginary, the possible from the impossible, the real from the ideal. They dream big and they believe the words of those they trust and love, even when they don't have the head knowledge or life experience or bitter disappointments to tell them otherwise. Maybe it's time we humble ourselves and follow the example of these little ones, so that we too can begin to get to work and not be put off by the divides we see that are, for all intents and purposes, largely illusory.  

Here I Am. Send Me.

 

A lot of hand-wringing and angst-tweeting by faithful Catholics with the in-your-face juggernaut of corporate Pride, Inc. as the month of June is peeking its colorful head around the corner. It can often feel like a David and Goliath situation and I don't blame our brethren for staying in their safe spaces and raising cain from a keyboard. Real life is sloppy and often unscripted. A lot of times, even though people won't always admit it to themselves, people are just trying to figure things out as they go.

I spent the afternoon having lunch with a now-friend who is a member of our parish community. I listened intently to him for an hour and a half relay the tales of the pre-indult period spent fighting to sustain the Latin Mass in our diocese, from the early 1960's til not too long ago. He (and his elderly father) were in the trenches: invested in time, money, energy, and spiritual capital to keep the flame of tradition alive when everything around them was working to make sure it was snuffed out for good; the "Latin Mass celebrated in a hotel" were not just fairy tales from a time long long ago. They also endured hostility from all sides, and were not immune to in-fighting as well.  At times it was barely a flicker of light in a vast darkness, and I don't think many people newer to tradition realize what was endured during those early days. 

There were no blue-prints or script for how to go about fighting these battles; but they knew what was at stake and that it was worth fighting for. I admire that, as I admire my now-friend, even if there is a lot I am still working through myself and how little I still know about the history of the Council and the tumultuous wake it left faithful Catholics in. In speaking (or rather listening) to him, it became clear that there is no 'perfect way' of going about these things, and the only ones who get it right are the Monday-morning quarterbacks and critics highlighting the shortcomings after the fact. 

I'm a little bit of a thinker, but it's more outweighed by the impetus to 'do.' I loathe meetings and conferences and talking ad nauseum when it isn't followed by action. When I reflect back on my time spent in the Lion's Den of San Francisco Pride six years ago when I took a red-eye out from the East Coast to SFO to witness to the 1M+ attendees there to the truth of the Gospel, there were many times I thought to myself "What the hell am I doing? I just dropped $700 on a flight to stand in the middle of a mob of gay activists and BDSM hedonists for four hours and hand out rosaries and witness to a people who want to hear nothing of what I have to say, then fly back the same day. And I have an abject fear of crowds to boot! Why, why am I doing this? I don't want to do this!" The answer was pretty straight-forward: The Lord through the Holy Spirit sighed "Who shall I send? Who will go for us?" and before I could think twice or second-guess it, I replied: Here I am. Send me! (Is 6:8)

I didn't know what to expect, or what I was expecting. It seemed like a fool's errand. But as I have lived as a Catholic for the past twenty five years, my inner convictions in one area have stayed firm: if I can bring even one person to Christ and the Gospel and the truth of the Catholic faith, I can die having lived a good and purposeful life. In that massive sea of rainbow fish, there may have been one soul swimming upstream in his mind but not knowing where he was going. It was raining men all day, but I was fishing--not with a massive net on a commercial ship, but with a single rosary line on a clapboard tugboat. Souls are often won one at a time, and even that one soul you may have to fight and plead tooth and nail for. 

So, I went. I remember feeling like a fool, but also at peace for having the assurance of the Holy Spirit that at least in that moment, I was doing what God was calling me to do. Not bitching, not complaining, but taking action. It was a good lesson for me, and one I kept close to my heart years later. 

The funny thing is there was a moment when I felt the Holy Spirit clearly saying GO and I hesitated for an hour or so. We were on vacation at the time, and I remember when I was checking available flights online (an hour later, as I was hemming and hawing and thinking this was crazy), the one I was going to book suddenly jumped up $200 more than the one from an hour before. It was the only flight out of PHL that came back the same day, but it was going to cost me a good bit more. So I booked it. It was a good lesson--when the Lord calls, don't hesitate to answer. 

 I should mention too I work in an extremely LGBTQ friendly-Marxist environment, so it felt especially tenuous and I was fearful of any professional repercussions were I to get caught up in any media presence, etc. A lot of those fears were unfounded. A valuable lesson I learned from a civil-rights activist (which I quoted from in my article Christian Men, Take the Beating) and took to heart was this:

"They made black people experience the worst of the worst, collectively, that white people could dish out, and discover that it wasn’t that bad. They taught black people how to take a beating—from the southern cops, from police dogs, from fire department hoses. They actually coached young people how to crouch, cover their heads with their arms and take the beating. They taught people how to go to jail, which terrified most decent people.  

And you know what? The worst of the worst wasn’t that bad. Once people had been beaten, had dogs sicced on them, had fire hoses sprayed on them, and been thrown in jail, you know what happened?

These magnificent young black people began singing freedom songs in jail. That, my friends, is what ended the terrorism of the south. Confronting your worst fears, living through it, and breaking out in a deep-throated freedom song. The jailers knew they had lost when they beat these young Negroes and the jailed, beaten young people began to sing joyously, first in one town then in another." 

If you know what's right, you don't count the cost. You fight for it. You go where you are called. You obey the Lord. You take the beating. 

I found in a deep-recess of my email my reflections from that day in the belly of the beast. It's interesting to read it now, because I, too, get comfortable in my little Catholic bubble, my safe space. I don't want to look like a fool. I have a lot to lose. But there is a danger, too, in not obeying the Lord, passing by opportunities to witness, ignoring grace or signal graces or gut-feelings, not only speaking when you should hold your tongue but holding your tongue when you should speak, or only speaking when you should be marching, or only marching when you should be locking and loading. 

We are called to labor and work, and we don't need to always do it perfectly, with imaginary Catholic critics in the back of our heads pointing out all the things we are doing wrong. Half the battle is showing up, and when you live by faith you are given your marching orders but not a crystal ball. The Lord gives us what we need to know in that moment, and not before. 

I may be accused of getting things wrong more often than not--but it's harder to accuse those who seek to be faithful and follow and back it up with the imperfect labor of the the second son, the one who says, "I won't go," and then puts his gloves on.  

So, do the work. Don't worry. After all, you are called to be faithful, not successful. 

Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2017 at 08:21:35 PM EDT

Subject:

It has been a marathon day, and I'm pretty spent, but God is so good. A few reflections from SF Pride while it's fresh in my mind:

The first is that everyone was pretty pleasant and free-spirited for the most part. There was not a lot of belligerence, no yelling and minimal confrontation. These are not "bad people," but as i see it, they are lost, hurting people, and also other people just going along with the crowd. There was a lot of drugs in the air, you could smell it everywhere, so maybe people were just happy I don't know. Joseph is very mild mannered and polite and admits that his presence there is a bit of a Johnny Appleseed operation. People didn't know what to make of us. I think they were so pleasant because there were many gay-affirming churches present at booths and I guess they thought we were just members of another one of them, since we were wearing shirts that said, "Jesus loves gay men and women." Which is true, but hard to go into it on the street...that Jesus everyone without exception, loves us so much he wants more for us than what we degrade ourselves to. It was boots-on-the-ground ministry and hard to connect one-on-one, so we gave out rosary bracelets and a card with Joseph's website, I think in the hopes that they will visit the site after the parade at home when things aren't so crazy. Joseph said his site gets about twenty times more traffic in the days after Pride. I remember the first post I read when I found his website was 'Hell is For Real' about his near-death experience. I think that's what struck me about the day, what I made mention to Susan: this parade, this world...it's not reality. It's somebody's reality, but it's not what is really true and really real. It is as if there is a cliff behind the curtain, and nobody really sees it. For four hours I wore a smile (a genuine one, mind you) and said more "God bless you's" than I could count. But on the inside I was breaking up at the offenses against our Lord, the perversion. I offered up the soreness, the sunburn, the hunger and thirst to The Lord in the hopes he would pardon such offenses, an act of reparation that pales with what he endured on the cross for us.

Something interesting note as well was that this really was a quasi-religious event, albeit not in the traditional sense. There was a procession of sorts, down Market Street. There were men in underwear dancing on platforms wearing angel wings. One man was dressed as the pope in mockery, blessing people...another, Our Lady, a kind of blasphemous Madonna. Why would they do this? Like Satanists who do not have Black Masses at a Methodist church, or an Episcopal church, or a Baptist church...they mock the Catholic Church, and desecrate the Eucharist. And it was very similar here. Satan mocks, and he doesn't bother to mock what has no power. But there was also a hunger here, a hunger for God and what is religious and even Catholic...but not on God's terms. It was a perverted substitution. There was also a legitimate sense of a craving for love and affirmation, but somewhere along the line a hurt, a trauma maybe came in and something must have failed along the way. Joseph has written about this. You wouldn't believe how many rosary bracelets we gave away, people wanted them, but in a way in which they did not understand.  There was dancing and laughter and happiness, but it felt like a facade because like Joseph, I know what's on the other side. It is easy, so easy to go along with what is around you, when you are surrounded by it as the majority, and it's even seen as good. But it was like...I felt like I was in an alternative universe where everything was upside down. It didn't shake my faith, but it made me fearful of God's judgment. God has been so patient with us, and I think that time may be running out, and so I pray the rosary every day and if anything flying out here has convinced me to start fasting and offering up sacrifices for conversions. Because there is really nothing we can do on our own, the force against us is to strong. We need God. NEED Him. And prayer is an indispensable weapon in this fight.

One thing that bothered me was seeing children at an event like this. I thought of my own children, and so many other children...toddlers, pre-teens, and adolescents...who are just being born into this confusion and won't know any different.

Joseph made an interesting point too, that there were many corporate sponsors of the event, a lot of backing. It felt like Goliath, honestly...a powerful force to be reckoned with. I felt like a needle in a haystack. I had peace and an assurance of being on the 'wrong side of history,' because it was evident that this was the history of man, not God, for God is not the author of confusion (1 Cor 14:33). It made my heart heavy, but only because as a Christian I was finally entering into the fray; it was new to me, but not new to human history, for the world will hate us because it hated Him first (Jn 15:18), and we'd better get used to it if we want to be Christ's disciple.

My final reflection is that the scene was just saturated with sex. It's like you get numb to it. And that's not how God intended sex to be. There was no modesty at all, and I'm not talking in a prissy kind of way. I wasn't scandalized by it per se, but it's just...if people knew the power and holiness of sex as God intended it. I don't know. It's like a secret, but one that God wants us to know. There was a part of the parade where people would engage in all kinds of perversions, and Joseph said in the past he has gone over and prayed over that area, you know outstretching his hand and all. And people would react violently, the way demonics would react to being exorcised kind of.

I can't help but think the Church has let people down. I'm not talking about the Catechism or the Holy Spirit's assurance that the gates of Hell will not prevail against Her. I'm talking about waffling and wavering in practice. The temptation to be liked is so strong, and I'm sure those in ministry and pastoring have made the mistake of capitulating so as not to be hated. Well guess what? If you're not hated for your faith, it should give you pause. Because we are past time for dialogue and understanding. You'd better pick up sides and get on your knees when you see what we are up against, the way Satan has his way in the world. Now, I'm late to this fight, so maybe I'm just as much to blame. But the narrow path is becoming more clear to me as the only way to be saved. It should have been clear from the start.

I'm tired and sunburned, hungry and thirsty, and I thank God and give him praise for the opportunity to offer it up these pittances and to taste some of the derision and sorrow He experienced as he hung for us, men of the mob who favored Barrabas over the very Son of God. I don't know why he called me fly out here from Philadelphia. I hope maybe we touched one person. God bless Joseph for his endurance and compassion and commitment to Truth in a way that is not always understood or accepted as normative, and to people who most of us would not minister to. What a blessing to go into the trenches with him, even if just for a day. And thank you thank you thank for all your prayers, they sustained us for sure.

Courage Is A Gift Of The Holy Spirit

In our dining room hangs a printed photograph, Aid From The Padre by Héctor Rondón Lovera. You can see it for yourself, here:

Navy chaplain Father Luis Manuel Padilla was giving last rites to soldiers in Venezuala during a military uprising in 1962. I love the photograph on a lot of levels, but in large part because it captures the kind of terror of war on the priest's face as bullets fly all around him. At the same time, though, he is there in the middle of it all, defying his very human fear, holding up the soldier. 

We often think we are brave when we are not, and end up having courage when we feel the least like it. It reminds me of the parable of the two sons in Matthew 21:

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered." (Mt 21:28-31)

Fortitude, or courage, is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It allows us to face those humanely impossible situations that faith sometimes demands, when we really have nothing but fear and dread in our hearts. Gifts are freely given, not merited, but we can ask for them, as our Lord says, "ask and it shall be given to you" (Mt 7:7). Fortitude buoys our spirits to do the work of faith when our body and human will fail us. When we are scared out of our mind and frozen in our tracks, but move forward anyway by this gift of God's grace, this gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will give you the words to say at the moment when you need them (Lk 12:12). The Lord tells us not to pre-rehearse them. 

Even the most humanely courageous of us will lose heart in the spiritual war without this gift. Our Confirmation strengthens us to fight, to take courage, to give witness. Like the Padre giving aid to the dying soldier in times of war, we may find ourselves humanely terrified, saying "I will not go!" Yet there we are in the midst of it all, doing the work of God, proverbial bullets chewing up the concrete all around us. Give glory and thanks to God for the gifts of the Spirit. We would be completely ineffectual without them!

(And Happy Independence Day, to all my fellow American readers.)