The Means and Ends of the Mass

Note: I have submitted this piece to various publications, some of which I'm still waiting to hear back from. In the event it is published, I will remove this post and direct you to the link.

One would think attending Mass every Sunday has the potential to make one holy, but we know there are plenty of people who attend Mass weekly who would not fit such a description. On the flipside, were someone not to attend Mass at least weekly, assuming they are able to, we would not typically think of such people as especially pious or holy. That does not mean they can’t be “good” people, but to willfully neglect the 3rd Commandment is a grave matter and objectively contrary to the worship of God by faith, hope, and charity demanded in justice and at odds with the virtue of religion. I don’t think it is unreasonable to deduce that one cannot become holy as a Catholic outside of assisting at Mass, provided there are no impediments from one attending. Mass, then, is one of the means by which we attain the end of knowing, loving, and serving God.

Weekly Mass attendance (for the 17% of Catholics in the U.S. who do so) is one matter at hand being discussed here. Some may see Mass attendance as the end (fulfilling one’s obligation, receiving Eucharist, seeing one’s friends, etc), rather than a means of holiness. But there is another matter; for if holiness (and not simply Mass attendance) is both our means and our end in this life, what bearing does the form of Mass one attends have on the attainment of holiness?

This question has been kicking at the backdoor of my mind since we have been exclusively assisting at the Traditional Latin Mass as a family for the past five years. At times I have had to ask myself why we made the switch over: is it because we feel more at home among those who attend the TLM, with people of like mind? Is it because we know what to expect and can set our watch by the rubrics? Is it because it fosters an atmosphere of devotion (it does) and rightful orientation (ditto)? Is it because it gives us some kind of bragging rights, since the Traditional Latin Mass is defacto and objectively a “better” Mass that reflects its true sacrificial nature? Has the Mass, in this way, become a kind of “end?”

And do the degree that we are talking about the means: has the Traditional Latin Mass made me holier?

This is an unnerving question to ask oneself. On the one hand, God often shields our eyes from our spiritual progress for our own benefit. Were we to see the degree to which we have progressed in the spiritual life, we may get puffed up with pride or believe we ourselves are the reasons for our advancement. 

But on the other hand, what if the form of Mass that we attend truly has no bearing on the ultimate means and ends of personal holiness? What if we are simply “trading” sins and imperfections in transferring our record from one Mass to another, like playing Spiritual Whac-a-Mole?—we were once lax and presumptive, but now we are haughty and judgmental, for example. What if the Mass is akin to a Sacrament which always give grace, but only if we receive it with the right disposition? In other words, just because we have the form down, doesn’t mean our dispositions are worthy. And at the end of the day, isn’t holiness for God’s sake the end we should be seeking, by whatever means we are afforded?

The first lesson in the Baltimore Catechism concerns itself with the End of Man--the purpose for which he was created: namely, to know, love, and serve God. Children recount this from their St. Joseph’s catechism: “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.” This is in accordance with the greatest and first Commandment given to us by our Lord himself in Mt 22:37: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.” 

In the 19th chapter of Matthew’s gospel preceding this proscription, a man approaches Jesus seeking the end of attaining everlasting life (Mt 19:16), to which Jesus gives him the means: to keep the Commandments (v 17). The man replies that he has kept all these, to which Jesus replies, “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me” (Mt 19:21).

St. Peter exhorts in his first epistle, “According to him that hath called you, who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy. Because it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16). Of course he is simply reiterating what Yahweh communicates to His people in the Torah, “Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev 19:2).

An end of something is the goal, the destination, what one seeks. The means, in contrast, are what one uses to achieve the end. According to Paul Tatter, “Ends are about the present, not about the future.  A present end may not survive into the future, but it might be helpful now.  Ends help us to decide what to do in the present; they are useful guides in our activity.”[1]

So, what then, is our end as Christians? To secure eternal life for ourselves? Or to be holy? Are they one and the same? And in what does holiness consist? In faith? In works? In perfection (detachment)? 

Even then, we must ask, “is holiness itself a means or an end?” If we fulfill the Greatest Commandment to “know, love, and serve” God with our “whole heart, soul, and mind,” we have achieved the end, the purpose for which we were created according to the Catechism. But to pursue holiness for its own sake as an end is gravely misleading; for as Scripture also attests, “no one is righteous, no not one” (Rom 3:10). To the degree that we attain holiness in this life as a means, however, this gets us closer to the state of union with God, which should be our ultimate end both in this life and the afterlife. What must we do to save our souls? To save our souls, we must worship God by faith, hope, and charity; that is, we must believe in Him, hope in Him, and love Him with all our heart.  

What, then, is the purpose of the Mass? When we ask ourselves if holiness is a means or an end in order to determine that “useful guide in our activity” in this life, and if we must worship God by faith, hope, and charity in order to save our souls, we should remember that the means instituted by our Lord to enable men at all times to share in the fruits of His Redemption are the Church and the Sacraments (BC, Q114). 

The ends for which the sacrifice of the Cross was offered were:  1. To honor and glorify God;  2. To thank Him for all the graces bestowed on the whole world;  3. To satisfy God's justice for the sins of men;  4. To obtain all graces and blessings  (Q267). Likewise, the four ends of the Mass (the memorial of the sacrifice of the Cross) are: Adoration, Thanksgiving, Atonement and Petition. 

Ask any ordinary Catholic on the street why they attend Mass on Sundays and you might get any of the following responses:

“The Church says I have to.”

“I enjoy seeing and interacting with the people in my faith community.”

“I desire to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.”

“I recognize that God’s justice demands due worship.”

“It keeps me in line and makes me a better person.”

If one googles “What is the purpose of going to Mass?” you get back a varied number of responses ranging from “The Mass is an opportunity for us to join together as a community of believers and pray and celebrate together” to “its purpose is to send forth the faithful to bring forth the Good News of Jesus, and to be His presence in the world.” Some responses focus more on why one should go to Mass, or spits out bullet-point “Five Good Reasons to go to Mass” type articles.

Simple observation would preclude me from being able to deduce that the Latin Mass has made me a holier person by itself. Does it have the potential to do so like a sacramental that excites in us pious dispositions, by means of which we may obtain grace (in contrast to a Sacrament which gives the grace itself)? Yes it does, of course. But so does the Novus Ordo Missae, as countless canonized saints from the twentieth century who never attended the Latin Mass but only the N.O. attest to. They have run the race and attained the end of holiness, men and women and children who lived in the friendship of God in this life and are now eternally with him in the next.

What I am realizing—whether it was five years ago at my standard-fare suburban parish or now as a devoted TLM adherent—is that at the end of the day after Mass has ended, it is me that is kneeling in the pew. 

Still me. Same me. 

Now, can I say that if we would have remained in the New Mass I would have had to contend with barriers to attaining holiness, or perhaps we would have “bloomed where we were planted” as a family?; On the flipside, can I really affirm that the Latin Mass has defacto made me a better, more sanctified Catholic—or simply one with an liturgically ideological prerogative? It’s hard to say outside the mind of God.

To the degree that I am abandoning myself more and more to the mercy of God and becoming imperceptibly holier day by day in the process is the degree to which the means I am employing attain the ends which I am seeking; ie, a “means to an end.” But when I ascribe the form of the Mass—or even just attending Mass by itself in whatever form—as an end in and of itself, I can be assured that it will not “make” me holier of its own accord. At the end of the day, I remain. The same me, failing to be reborn and attain my end and pointing to this or that as the reason why; the same me in need of regular confession, mercy, and grace. A beggar takes grace like bread--wherever he can get it. And we are all no better than hungry beggars before the majesty of God.

Majoring In The Minors

 I'm preparing to give a talk this evening at our monthly men's prayer fraternity on the virtue of chastity, and in doing so was making various back-of-napkin notes. Every virtue has an opposing vice, and related to the virtue of chastity I wanted to discuss the vice opposed to the virtue of perseverance, which is mollities, or "softness." St. Paul uses this verb in 1 Corinthians 6:9 as it relates to the sin of sodomy. I think it really needs to be discussed in the context of the virtue of chastity because while sexual immorality is the one temptation we are instructed to "flee" from, there is still a good bit of fighting against the flesh that goes on. We run, yes, but we also must fight the temptation to indulge the flesh. For the man used to a pattern of self-abuse, putting a stop to it involves ardor, and to the degree that he shirks from that mortification and suffering betrays a kind of mollities spirit, whether he is heterosexual or homosexual. 

But there is something else I want to cover in this discussion on chastity, and I use it as a segway into what I want to discuss here, and that is that the external trappings of chastity (modesty of dress, fasting of the eyes, temperance, continence) are all servants of love/charity, the good and end of this virtue. 

I think St. Paul sums this up for me famously in 1 Cor 13:1-3: 

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing." 

We've heard this passage so many times it tends to become white noise. But isn't it really the essence of Christianity, of our faith? Isn't it primary, served by all the secondary ends? Doesn't it deserve primacy of place in our spiritual lives, our praxis, and yes, our Lenten observance?

We can call into the same problem with fasting during this season--doing the exact thing our Lord warns us not to do: adopting a gloomy continence, or becoming preoccupied with the nuances of our fast or either self-congratulatory or self-condemning while neglecting the weightier things of the law--that is, the law of love. Our Lord admonishes the Pharisees for this "majoring in the minors" in Matthew's gospel, "For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others" (Mt 23:23).

I see this all the time in the online Catholic world. Whether it's a particular outrage du jour, or a pet project of picking apart some TV show as if our eternal salvation depended on such critiques, or even the insider baseball in-fighting over liturgical nuances, these things wouldn't be as much of a hollow gong if they did, in fact, communicate the love with which they supposed to be concerned with. Often what I see as an observer is the antithesis of charity--I see the Saul, the righteous Pharisee defender of religious orthodoxy, and not the Paul who becomes weak, "all things to all men," and boasts only in his weakness. Again, we hear it like white noise, but how much meditation have we lent to the continuation of Paul's letter to the Corinthians.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Cor 13:4-8)

Lent often degenerates for many people like myself because we neglect an elusive charity in our hearts in exchange for the tangible ticks and notches our forty days affords us--signs that we are progressing in the spirit, mortifying our flesh more, becoming more disciplined and hard-packed. But to what end? If we are not growing in charity, we are gongs. We forget our purpose, our Lenten raison d'etre. Like the chaste man who is cold in his heart, who has choked out love and openness and self-deference because he sees it as a threat to his tenuous virtue. Who is so consumed with tamping down the weeds of lust and avoiding occasions of sin that he forgets how to love. Because his heart has not been born again, but only patched on the outside. Chastity is really a matter of the heart, not the groin.

I had a therapy appointment yesterday, because I have really not been feeling myself since undertaking some of these disciplines--having gone cold-turkey off of nicotine a month ago, and coffee (switching to tea) a week ago, in addition to fasting every day and more severely on Wednesdays and Fridays...all potentially "good" things. But I'm sleeping 12 hours a day now, and feel a little...hollow. Not myself. It may just take some time to adjust, but my faithful Catholic therapist suggested it was too much taken on all at once, and encouraged me to "just have a freaking cup of coffee" if I need it. I was actually relieved to hear that, and I didn't take it as a free-pass but simply perhaps a bleed valve in case my charity grows too cold. If you're fasting and a jerk to your wife and family, you're not doing it right. I haven't taken that liberty of the cup of joe yet, but it's good to know that it's a minor thing in the shadow of the majors, which is namely, charity.

Increasing in charity is really a slow grow--you can't force it anymore you can get that orchid to bloom in time for your birthday. But you can practice in order to make it more....common for you. The way a bad habit needs to be replaced by a good habit, and aided by grace. Pray for an increase in charity, and then endure the hard work of self-deference of blessing someone when you'd rather curse them, praying for your enemies, giving alms when it hurts to do so and even when people are undeserving, making time for someone in need of a pep talk or tea at the kitchen table. Charity is the master, and these things its servant.

If you are deep in prayer and your neighbor in need knocks on your door in need, you are majoring in the minors if you piously refuse to rise and answer--not only the external door, but the door of your heart. For even the Lord healed on the Sabbath. He knew how to tell the meat from the bone, the major things from the minor ones, the purpose of the Law in addition to it's letter. He was so critical of the Pharisees because they were experts at "majoring in the minors." They converted no one, but set themselves up as judges and executioners of righteousness. Don't be like them, our Lord says. 

The Tertullians of our day are out there, observing and noting how we as Christians conduct ourselves. To the degree we give them pause and they note, "see how they love one another!" we are doing things right. To the degree we are focused on the minor barnacles of our faith when they do not serve the larger purpose of that love, we are missing the mark, gongs resounding from a shallow and hollow core.  

Shaken, Not Affirmed

About fifteen years ago I was driving to work and came inches from being sideswiped at an intersection. I'm sure my Guardian Angel was working a double that day. When I got into my office it took me an hour or so to calm down--I was visibly shook up from almost being T-boned; my day could have looked very different were something not have stopped me at that intersection before pulling out. Death smelled my cologne, but I was still here. Everything seemed brighter that day.

It occurred to me  that I can't for the life of me remember the last time I came out of Mass feeling that way. And that's an indictment, not a positive. I have never heard a homily from the pulpit that stayed with me, that I couldn't shake, that kept me up at night. Most of what we hear every Sunday and Holy Day is safely forgettable. Why waste your time reading an easily forgettable book; you want one that you throw across the room. 

I don't know why that is apart from the fact that it is easier to deliver middle-road sermons--just enough to make us pause for a moment while still allowing us off the hook so that we don't have to actually change when we leave Mass, all the while avoiding any blow back from parishioners that might not like what you have to say.  

I remember a friend and fellow member of our parish telling me he went to a retreat that Fr. Isaac Mary Relyea was doing at the local Society chapel. He went because his wife told him he should go. He hadn't been to Confession in over thirty years, and yet the opportunity presented itself at this retreat and he moseyed into the confessional. Fr. Isaac reemed him a new one--and it was precisely what he needed to be awoken from his self-assured slumber. He's straight on the narrow now. He got shaken, not affirmed.

In the car on the way home from a friend's house today I had the scriptures on audio as I do when I'm driving. I was listening to the Letter to the Hebrews and the Lord spoke thus,

 

For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not correct?

But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons.

Moreover we have had fathers of our flesh, for instructors, and we reverenced them: shall we not much more obey the Father of spirits, and live?

And they indeed for a few days, according to their own pleasure, instructed us: but he, for our profit, that we might receive his sanctification.

Now all chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but afterwards it will yield, to them that are exercised by it, the most peaceable fruit of justice.

Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

And make straight steps with your feet: that no one, halting, may go out of the way; but rather be healed. 

(Heb 12:7-13, DRV)

And verses 26-28 (in the KJV version, which is all the library had for the NT):

Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.

And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

When Christ expired, the temple was shaken and torn in two. This is what should happen to our souls and consciences at the Holy Sacrifice, by the nature of the sacrifice and the Word, but also by the sermon from the pulpit which is usually nothing but a wasted opportunity to burn and sear the sheep. 

Priests typically see their flock for an hour once a week, and they have ten minutes within that hour to reset a wayward trajectory--and 99% of the time, they let it fall fallow. They let the hands of the parishioners stay comfortably in the lap, rather than shake them so that their hands drop and their knees go feeble (v. 12). Without chastisement, you have no true father--you are a bastard (v. 8). 

I don't care what it is, use it--the sin of contraception, fornication, co-habitation, presumption, receiving Communion in a state of mortal sin, lack of Confession, gossip--there's no shortage of comfortable sins 90% of Catholics are sitting like babies in a warm pool in. Most of your flock are affirmed and gently cajoled and asleep at the wheel careening off a spiritual cliff getting ready to be ejected from the mouth of the Lord (Rev 3:16). For God's sake, use that ten minutes to shake and beat them like a true father. If they are walking out the same way they came in, you are not doing your job, or at least not all of it. 

I make the analogy that since so many people are blind and asleep, you need to throw cold water in their face to shock them, then split em open. When the temple is torn in two, lob the seed of the Gospel in with the might of your arm so that it drops down in a deep recess. When they come to and are sewn back up by the world, that seed is going to sprout from somewhere deep--it may not be that day or that year, but when God calls it forth. Your job is not to sprout the seed--it's to rototill with your sermon, split the earth and sow in the furrow. 

Be a father; don't tell them what they want to hear, or what won't rock the boat, or what will keep the donations flowing. Split them open, shake the hell out of them, let them leave. We get enough affirmation from the world, we don't need it from the pulpit. You shake them now so that they will not be shaken later. For the Lord will remove those things that are shaken, that those things that can not be shaken will remain (Heb 12:27). 

Paper Thin

 I used to marvel at people online who could take hits like Mike Tyson and let it roll off like water off a duck's back. As a budding writer and a generally conflict-avoidant person, I was much more sensitive to saying the wrong thing and getting push back for it. I never went looking for a fight but sometimes I found myself in one. My skin was paper thin.

One of the advantages of getting older is that I'm now finding myself less and less susceptible to the opinions of others, whether I'm liked or not someone's cup of tea. The more I write and the more I try new things, the more inclined I am to shrug my shoulders--if something works or sticks, great. If it doesn't, no big deal. You can't please everyone, nor should you try to. 

I also find myself trying to simplify my life more. One of the reasons I started taking cold showers every morning was because the hot water would take forever to reach our upstairs bathroom. So now I just turn it on to the coldest setting every morning and step in. It hurts, but it's not complicated.

Because I'm not catering my writing to this group or that group, I write what I feel God is leading me to write and let the chips and seeds fall where they do. If people glean something useful from it, great. If not, there's no shortage of other content out there. Negative comments I just kind of shrug off, which I would never have done in the past. I had someone reply in all caps (I assume, to underscore the point) UNSUBSCRIBE when I sent out a yearly personalized email to those who subscribe to this blog, which is fine as well. I've learned to trust my voice, something I never thought would happen. I've seen some fruit, but not an overwhelming harvest, but maybe at some point my day will come. In the meantime, we have to keep doing the work--the hard work of mercy.

Recently I had to do something very hard for me, something I didn't want to do, when it would have been easier and less troublesome to keep my mouth shut. I realized that keeping silent would have been easier, but my conscience kept nagging me, even when the consequences may potentially be losing a good friendship. I turned it over to God, tried to trust my instincts, and was given the grace of indifference and detachment--if it cost me the friendship, so be it. In a marriage or a friendship, in public office or in ministry, it's best to be transparent with nothing to hide, since our secrets can eat us alive. If nothing else, for simplicity's sake.

It's honestly refreshing to not care too much what people think--if you are a writer, you're probably in the wrong business if you're too susceptible to it anyway, since there will always be critics and detractors. In a friendship, if you can't be honest and truthful in charity with someone, even when it's hard to do, what is that friendship based on? 

Because our time is our most valuable currency as we age, we learn to be more discerning with it. More energy spent worrying about the opinions of others, or people who don't agree with us, is just wasted time. I've gotten a little crankier too--more patient in some things, and less in others--and so I'm more inclined to say what I think though I could do a better job doing so in a spirit of charity. If people are pruned from our lives, maybe it's because God is doing something in and for us that we can't do ourselves, and for a purpose we can't see. 

In any case, I'll continue the slog, continue trying to be truthful, continue trying to learn charity and not be so preoccupied with the opinion of others. As St. John Vianney said, "You cannot please both God and the world at the same time.  They are utterly opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires, and their actions."

As my skin gets tougher (not a bad thing), I pray it is always seasoned with truth, but tenderized with charity. 

The Wisdom In The Mean

 "You're kind of an...extreme personality, aren't you?" my wife said to me one morning as I was frying up a skillet full of bacon and eggs. It was day two of my trial run on a modified "carnivore diet" which I had adopted to try to lose a few pounds and damp down some inflammation. The science seemed to make sense (from the limited amount I had read)--you starve your body of carbohydrates and enter into the Nirvana of ketosis by eating like a savage caveman coming home from the bar and you magically burn fat stores like a Pakistani incinerator. Bacon, eggs, steak, sardines--everything is free game as long as it's (primarily) meat and has zero carbs.

"You're not wrong," I replied. "And I'm willing to try anything once." 

Two days in, though, and I'm already not feeling super hot. It seems like the curse of "too much of a good thing," and my biggest lingering fear is that meat (which I love) will become something I have trouble looking at if this goes on for more than a few weeks. It could have been a case of keto-flu, but something about this particular diet touted by the likes of Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson seems, I don't know...unbalanced. Extreme, if you will. Plus, truth be told--it's kind of boring!

The problem came in when I went out to eat with a priest friend and had some pita bread with my gyro and four french-fries; that handful of carbs jacked my stomach up something fierce. A diet like carnivore/paleo/caveman necessitates rigid discipline, and rigid discipline is not my forte. 

I know it was short lived, but I think it was better to come to the realization earlier than later before I stock my chest freezer with a butchered half-cow from Lancaster county. Wouldn't a more sensible approach, perhaps, be to, say, simply cut out pasta/rice/potatoes/bread and refined sugars instead of just eating nothing but three pounds of meat a day? Or going back to intermittent fasting? My body my choice. 

Why must we always be driven to these polarized extremes--not just in diets but in politics, in policy, in ideology, in rhetoric and communications? I used to think bi-partisan political moderates were a good thing, but the DT era changed all that. They became the Rev 3:16 candidates--lukewarm, salt without saltiness, good for nothing but the dung pile. 

You see it too in this big push for all-electric cars. The gas-electric hybrid--which always seemed to make the most sense to me from a pragmatic standpoint and which industry leaders like Toyota had by now perfected and have stood the test of time--became a kind of feeble leper overshadowed by the Telsa revolution. But no--we need to outlaw all ICE vehicles by 2025 or whatever California is doing. Never mind our dilapidated and already-strained U.S. electrical grid which struggles to keep up with people running their AC in the summer. Forward march! 

And sad to say, the liturgical equivalent is there too. While St. John Cantius in Chicago appeared on many people's radar during the COVID era--the reverent Novus Ordo done ad orientum in Latin with chant--this is still, from a liturgical purist point of view, an inferior hybrid; ie, lipstick on a pig. 

But where does virtue lie? According to Aristotle--who of course influenced the likes of Augustine and Aquinas--virtue is a mean between two extremes; the midpoint between an excess and a deficit. By way of example, a deficient of courage might be cowardliness and an excess is foolhardiness. Neither is desirable, but the middle is where the magic (and wisdom) is.

I'll grant that I probably didn't give enough time for this particular diet to get broken in, so any benefits from it that may have come after a month or so may not have been realized. But our diets--like our politics, our liturgical preferences, the cars we drive, etc--often depend upon our personalities. Even though like my wife noticed, I may have "extreme" tendencies, I do realize for myself that that is not where virtue finds a home. It may make for likable posts or click-baity articles, and may even feed into a subconscious desire to be unique or special. At the end of the day, for me, balance always seems a less sexy but more reasonable (not to mention sustainable) way forward.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some prunes to eat.

"Just Catholic"

We've all probably overheard a Christian of the evangelical persuasion describe themselves matter-of-factly as being "just Christian." The innuendo, of course, is that denominational distinctions are an unnecessary and distracting dressing from the real work of following Jesus. Thus there is a sort of proud (not necessarily bad) self-satisfaction that the "just Christian" is above such trappings; whether one is a Methodist or a Presbyterian or a Baptist isn't concerning to the so-called non-denominational Christian. Even the qualifier "just" in "Just Christian" of evangelical Protestant reductionism is essentially a form of unapologetic (Christian) Minimalism. 

For traditional Catholics, this Christian Minimalism is a foreign concept. Although some modern(ist) Catholic churches and architectural styles have sought to borrow from this kind of Christian essentialism and distilled the liturgical space to only what it deems "necessary," historical Catholicism makes no apology for it's opulence and adornment as a point of pride. To hell with minimalism--we are Maximalists the core. 

Architecture and liturgy do not exist in a vacuum, though. They reflect and manifest the law of belief in every gilded leaf and marble cherub. One may be able to distill Christianity into one great law, as our Lord did: Love God, love neighbor. But to attempt to apply the same principal to a religion as rich, deep, and theologically layered as Catholicism would be insultingly simplistic. Evangelical Protestants may be able to get away with this kind of distillation, because it is congruent with their low-church, anti-intellectual ethos. But there is a lot more to Catholic history, theology, spirituality, and liturgy than meets the eye.

That's why I smile a little when Catholics themselves use this kind of nomenclature. "I'm Just Catholic," they might say. I don't think we always realize just how much of the Protestant ethos we have absorbed as Catholics in not only our modern liturgy, but our worldview. This tends to manifest itself in comments like, "Jesus in the Eucharist is what matters," or "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or "I'm involved in my parish," etc. 

To be honest, though, there's a kind of innocence (or willful ignorance, depending on the person) that seems...nice. The way you want to go back to a kind of Stand By Me childhood when things weren't so contentious and complicated and you could just walk for days on a railroad track looking for a dead body with your friends. When you could be "just Catholic" and qualifiers like being a "Pope Francis Catholic" or a "JPII Catholic" or a "Trad Catholic" weren't necessary. 

I envy that innocence a little, lamenting that I can't unsee all that I've uncovered as a Catholic digging for the truth of things for the past twenty five years. One of the worst parts of that is the kind of caste-system many of us have developed--whether consciously or subconsciously--as it relates to the other members of our corporal body; that is, each other.

If you're reading this as a trad Catholic, and you're honest with yourself, you probably look at yourself and your branch of the Church Militant as a kind of elite fighting force, not unlike the Marines. The ARMY, by extension, just Aint Ready (to be a) Marine Yet. Even within your own branch, there's the rank-banter. Like, "whose tougher, the MARINES or the SEALS?" Or you have people acting like top-brass while not even realizing or caring that the Merchant Marine or U.S. Coast Guard exist.

We don't always make these biases known, but we tend to have a kind of Maslow Hierarchy of Needs for our personal Catholic liturgical life. A lot of people were forced to take a look at their liturgical values and do a needs assessment during COVID when churches shut down and Traditionis Custodes was dropped on us. People were exposed to curious oddities in their youtube searches like the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius in Chicago, or found their local Society chapel open for business. 

As a result, we often unconsciously size up people, not as fellow "Just Catholic"s, but in a kind of liturgical caste system. I know you know what I'm talking about, because I unfortunately do it too. And if you don't, let me try to illustrate what it looks like using Microsoft Paint on my computer. Ah, here we go:

 

Now, this is just one hypothetical example I came up with, and may look different depending on your vantage point. You might be the "I'd rather die than participate in the New Mass" type and so you may have the SSPX at the summit and all the other limp-wristed modernists under your spike-studded thurible. Or you may be an Eastern-rite Catholic smirking at the fact that many Latin-loving Catholics don't even know there are 23 other rites beyond their own in the Church. Or you may be a patriotic American Catholic who has no issues with guitars at Mass as long as the priest gives a good homily. Or you might not ever want to set foot in a TLM because you "heard those people were 'not nice'." Whatever, you get my point. 

The thing is, this is such insider baseball, and I feel like I'm seeing more people in the Church who are getting so-called "red pilled" who are majoring in the minors and getting tunnel vision. I'm glad I traveled when I was younger, both across the U.S. and abroad, because it was good for me to see there was more to the world than outside my state or local community. But we also know people who have never left the town they grew up in, and have strong opinions about lots of things but not always the larger-scale ability to see outside their own walls. 

Whether you travel or never leave the state is kind of besides the point, though. Both are completely valid ways of approaching life. The issue is more when the globe-trotter comes home from Kathmandu and looks their nose down on their local community for being "ignorant," or when the local community shuts out an outsider simply because "he's not from around here."  Both are examples of the way we have trouble seeing outside our own bubbles.  

I really try not to have this kind of special-forces attitude attached to any kind of liturgical preference. Because we will not be judged (by God) on what liturgy we attend, but on the degree to which we sought to become holy in this life given the circumstances we find ourselves in. Not everybody has a FSSP, SSPX, and diocesan TLM within half an hour of them the way we do. I realize that colors my perspective, and belies my ignorance. Some people are lucky to have a mission chapel or even just a standard fare N.O parish within an hour or them if they are really rural. To feel that you cannot be saved unless you find a TLM is, I don't know...it just seems off base. 

I know many people who not only don't give much thought to the TLM, but are content to stay in their local Novus Ordo parish. For them it's not a matter of Aint Ready to Marine Yet, but being proud to be ARMY. And to be honest, a lot of these folks put me to shame in their personal piety, sanctity, and charity to others. I could use a little bit of that humble innocence. When did things get so complicated, anyway? 

All this being said, we are going to be down at the beach this weekend and I find myself in the First Friday/First Saturday conundrum. Do I go to the local casual vacation Novus Ordo and just put my head down and swallow my....pride? Do I drive an hour and a half four times to attend the TLM back in the city? Do I look up the SSPX RESISTANCE rogue "independent" priest down there for Communion (I'm not inclined to do this, just using it as an example of the complications we find ourselves in these days)? 

Some days, I find myself looking back longingly on my early days as a Catholic, when I didn't know any better that there was anything beyond being "Just Catholic." But those days I wept softly in my hands before Communion, whereas now my heart has scabbed over more and there are more layers to chip away at. Those days I read voraciously--the Catechism, the Fathers, the spiritual classics. Now I'm lucky if I pick up a book and make it through more than a chapter, so lazy and complacent I have become. Back then, I was excited to meet other Catholics in public and on the street--fellow pilgrims! Kindred souls!. Now I size people up, vet, view with suspicion: well, just what kind of Catholic are you now? 

There's something to be said to the awe and wonder of a new Catholic who hasn't had too much weight placed on their shoulders yet, whose innocence has been preserved--not from sin and a sordid past, but from the toxic in-fighting and lack of charity in our own ranks. Who recognize their ransom debt is stamped PAID and can think of nothing else but how grateful they are, like the Samaritan leper in today's Gospel who returns to give glory and worship to Christ while the other nine can't be bothered to.

I would love to go back to those early days to visit, get some perspective, feel a little more virgin and a little less jaded. Where the Mass was not something to scoff at or force yourself to stomach, but a pearl of great price you run home to sell everything you have to buy. Where I was more concerned with working out my salvation in fear and trembling than I was with what category of Catholic I am. If you figure out how I can reclaim this beginner's heart, please let me know. I do miss it.  

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.

Your Secrets Will Eat You Alive

 

For all my many faults and sinfulness, one thing I hope I cannot be accused of is being dishonest. This is as much an issue of pragmatism for me as it is morality--I simply cannot keep a secret. Part of that is due to having a horrible short-term memory, and not being able to remember things; to compensate, I respond to emails and texts right away lest I forget, and have to rely on my wife to let me know events of even a day or two ago. I would be horrible on the stand during a trial. "Where were on the night of June 12, yesterday?" I don't remember! Ha.

Knowing this about myself, however, I have always tried to tell the truth, even from a young age. I still remember when I was caught in a white lie, when I was around eleven years old and my parents asked me if I was on the phone with a girl and I told them I wasn't when I was. I was so eaten up by it I probably vowed from that point on just to always tell the truth about things to make my life not easier, but simpler.

A few years before my wife and I met, she was in a relationship with a compulsive liar. He would lie about even the most trivial of things, in a pathological fashion. I also had a friend years ago who was also involved with a pathological liar. The thought of having to keep that complex web of stories and scenarios straight wearies me just thinking about it.

I think it was on my second date with my now-wife that I confessed a secret to her--not one of a moral nature, but deeply embarrassing (to me). It was much too forward for a second date, but in my mind I discerned that she was completely trustworthy (my instincts were right on that one) and I wanted her to know that I had no intentions of keeping things from her should our relationship progress more seriously. I think she was both amused and touched. 

While I strive to be a trustworthy person as a matter of personal integrity, and it affects me deeply in the heart when I feel I fall short of that or even remotely betray trust, I also hold that regard for those I meet. 

This weekend we were at a social function, and a man whom we had been acquainted with a few years ago was there. I recounted this initial encounter in my post You Are Being Used from a couple years ago:

I'll never forget my wife being approached by a friendly young woman our age at our former parish who wanted to "connect." We were new to the parish and were happy to make some friends; that is, until we realized she was connecting with us as part of her network to sell essential oils. 

The same thing happened to us when a man from my bible study invited my wife and I out to coffee with him and his wife. So friendly, took an interest in us, asked us questions about our faith and family. After the second meeting (which we had gotten a baby sitter for, and driven half an hour to meet them), I surmised from the vagueness of his talk about his "mentor" and "opportunities for growth" and "financial security," that something was off. It turned out to be an Amway pyramid-scheme pitch. I felt completely used, and foolish. 

I remembered the man, and instantly felt unease in my gut. He was very pleasant and smiled a lot, but I still avoided him remembering this encounter. I don't even know if it even registered for him; perhaps he did not feel like he did anything wrong, that his motivations were pure or whatever. But I imagine if our radars did not go off and we dropped a few grand on this "opportunity" and were left holding the bag, if I would have felt even more betrayed. Thankfully, I listen to my gut and intuition when things seem 'off.' To be trite, I can forgive such things, but that doesn't mean you forget. 

With the news of Fr. Jackson's sentencing, and in the wake of other clerical predators like McCarrick et al, I'm reminded again of the awful spectre of skeletons in one's closet. I could never run for public office given my past (I'd be raked over the coals by the press), but even for those who seem squeaky-clean, there is always a part of us we keep tucked away from sight--not only the embarrassing, but the immoral. This is why the sacrament of Confession is so healing and psychologically healthy--we were not meant to live double lives. 

Even the noble, though, fall and can also be accused of duplicity to boot. Think of King David--before Nathan called him out for his sinful transgressions against Uriah, was he striding around the palace as if he did nothing wrong? Was he unaware, and/or rationalized it? Would he have kept his sins hidden as long as possible before the Lord sent the prophet to accuse him?

To a degree, we all keep some secrets. We cannot and should not be a completely open book to all those we meet. But I don't know how people walk around and go about their lives with such heinous sins hidden and still be able to function. It is almost a kind of cognitive dissonance and pathology.

Even when some religiously noble and high ranking folks fall, they think, "This can't get out--what will people think? The reputation of the [family/order/party] will be compromised." There are so few who are honest enough to confess and apologize publically, and the temptation to stuff things away out of view is so strong. 

We watched a French film (didn't finish it, but got about halfway through) called Les Innocents (2016), about a group of cloistered nuns who were raped by Soviet soldiers in Poland during World War II and subsequently found themselves pregnant. They were not culpable for this crime, obviously, but whether out of shame or pragmatism, the Mother Superior ordered the event be kept a secret, that the sisters go on with their daily lives, and even stories made up when the babies were given up. While not judging the circumstances of her decision, the weight of this secret takes its toll on the community, leading to a loss of faith, suicide, and other unfortunate outcomes. The trauma is bad enough from such an egregious act, but the weight of keeping it hidden can be psychologically even heavier. 

If you demand honesty from others, you must live honestly yourself. We don't have to walk around without a filter, telling everyone what we think of them even when it is hurtful. The truth doesn't always have to delivered cold and brash; it must be tempered with the herbs and garnish of charity. 

And one must have a degree of sensitivity and incisive intuition, to pay attention to the gut when 'bad man' signals go off. Even that, however, is no guarantee. The fact that so many degenerate predators could play the act and charismatically gain the trust of so many despite their double lives speaks to how intricately pathological liars and men of duplicity will keep their skeletons hidden, and the lengths to which they will go to conceal sins. 

The only antidote I can see, as much as I can see, is to prioritize honesty and trustworthiness, even at the expense of reputation or stature. Act like an oncology surgeon with your sins, lest they mestasise, turning them over to the Lord and making restitution publically. Better, though, is as St. Peter says to keep, "a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil" (1 Pt 3:16-17).

Your secrets will eat you alive if you are not careful. Even though man does not see, God sees all things, and all things hidden will be brought into the light, if not in this world, in the next (Lk 8:17). Walk in the light, as children of light, and shun the works of darkness (Eph 5:8)

A Practical Guide To The Works Of Mercy

 

One of the lamentable pendulum swings in the Church today is to associate the works of mercy we are commanded by the Lord throughout scripture to perform with the "SJW" camp. It's not an unmerited reaction: at the small CINO college where I used to work, the Catholic identify of the institution was summed up in a pithy "we do service." And indeed, the students made sandwiches for the homeless, ran clothing drives, and visited the elderly sisters in the convent's nursing home.  All good things that we are called to as Christians--and all things a secular humanist could do just as well. 

So what makes Christian charity different? Love undergirds everything in the true Christian life, as the Apostle writes, "let all your things be done in charity" (1 Cor 16:14), while charity comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith (1 Tim 1:5). 

In the fourth chapter of his epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul also writes of the different gifts of the Spirit given to the brethren:

"And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (Ep 4:11-12)

Likewise, the Church lays out for us once again a "both/and" charge to do the works of mercy-- corporal and spiritual. Whereas a Social Worker (who may or may not be Christian) may devote his or her life to the former as a matter of vocation (in the secular sense), a devout Christian may see his work primary as spiritual in nature: praying, making reparations, etc. And indeed some cloistered religious do devote their life to this noble calling 24/7 (Carthusians, Carmelites, etc) 

But for many of us lay persons living in the world, I think a both/and approach is appropriate for our state in life. The degree to which we are able to serve and in what capacity given our constraints varies, but I do think many of us do structure our lives in a way which precludes much "space" for charity--the way we often given "from our surplus, not our need" (Mk 12:44) when God calls for first fruits. As Catholics, we know we are capable of structuring our lives to put "first things first," i.e., the Divine Law, as evidenced in making Sunday Mass and the laying fallow of the Sabbath a priority regardless of our schedules and circumstances. But do we also prioritize the practical exercise of charity to evidence our faith in the same way?

It is harder to do when we see the exercise of charity and the works of mercy as an obligation (which it is) rather than an opportunity and means of blessing for both giver and those that receive it. This is not always easy to do, especially for those who tirelessly work in fields in which their exercise of this work goes unappreciated and taken for granted. But this, too, is a blessing from the Lord, who sees in secret and repays in kind (Mt 6:4). And the Lord makes this a practical opportunity, for "when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind; And thou shalt be blessed, because they have not wherewith to make thee recompense: for recompense shall be made thee at the resurrection of the just (Lk 14:13-14).

So, we are called to exercise charity, to perform the works of mercy--both corporal and spiritual. So, what are they, and what are some ways we can live them out in a concrete manner? See below (note, in the interest of brevity I may share some links of things I've written already on the particular work of mercy from past posts):

THE CORPORAL

Feed the Hungry

Give Drink to the Thirsty

Clothe the Naked

I am grouping these three corporal works together because in the hierarchy of human needs and in our modern society, they can be performed simultaneously. At our old parish, we would pack snack bags with granola bars, fruit, sandwiches, etc with bottles of water and do a "walk around the block" before Mass so our kids could hand them out to the veterans and others who seemed like they could use some nourishment. We also encouraged them to pray beforehand and ask the Holy Spirit to "send someone" into their purview to receive this offering.

In recent years we have pulled back on donations to formal charities and instead have also prayed for opportunities to exercise this in a way that hurts a little more with particular families in need. In more than one occasion we were made aware of large families in which the husband had been laid off, or injured; in many of these instances the families were not destitute but it was also harder for them to qualify for aid (the "fall through the cracks" dilemma) and we wanted to simply ease the burden for them. In every circumstance so far, they were eventually able to get back on their feet and use the money for groceries, mortgages, and other necessary expenses. I try to write the check quickly, for an amount bigger than I would rationalize if I was using my head, send it off and forget it was ever written. 

Visit the Imprisoned

This work of mercy, too, can be a literal application. It took me a while to get clearances at our local county prison, but once I did I made monthly visits to both large groups of men (to read the scriptures to them out loud) and to individual inmates. Not everyone may be able to do this, but in lieu of physical visits there is always the opportunity to be a pen-pal to someone who is incarcerated. What's nice about this is even busy homemakers or working dads can carve out a half hour to write a letter and all it costs is the price of a stamp. When was the last time you got a letter in the mail? Isn't it nice?

Shelter the Homeless

Sheltering the homeless can be taken literally, but for many of us with families and small children, it is not always prudent and takes discernment. However, one thing we have done as a family is host families of limited means for a few nights whose child with cancer needed treatment at a nearby city hospital when Ronald McDonald house was full. We did this through this organization, which is not religious but nevertheless provides a good service for those who may not be able to afford hotel accommodations. 

Visit the Sick

This afternoon my daughter and I paid a visit to an elderly woman in a rehab facility. This is really low-hanging fruit that really cheers the neglected Christs in places like this, many of whom do not have families to visit and suffer from crushing loneliness. We brought some flowers from the yard in a jelly jar and a Miraculous Medal on a chain as a small gift. We stayed and chatted for about ten minutes total. It's also a nice thing to do with your kids, since the elderly seem to really love seeing them. I got the contact from our parish secretary who knew of shut-ins and those unable to get to Mass. It wasn't complicated, took no special skill, and took all of half an hour. 

Bury the Dead

This is one where many us, unless we are undertakers, may not do. We have a funeral to go to in a couple weeks, but are of course not actually doing the burying. But we did have a Mass said for the deceased, which is a great spiritual benefit to their souls. 

THE SPIRITUAL

Admonish the Sinner

See my post Why (and How) To Admonish a Brother In Charity. This can be a very hard work of mercy, and takes discernment, but may save his soul in the end. 

Instruct the Ignorant

I had a co-worker mention that she went to Mass recently because her son was going through CCD and doing his first Penance. I knew she didn't go to Mass regularly, but mentioned she received Communion. I mentioned (as charitably as I could) that the Church expects us to go to Confession at least once a year, and always when we are in a state of mortal sin, and that not attending Mass every Sunday and HDO is a mortal sin. I emailed her a detailed examination of conscience and told her to read it and encouraged her to join her son and make use of the Sacrament of Penance. She admitted she is a "bad Catholic" for rarely attending Mass outside of Christmas and Easter and never going to Confession. But at least she can't claim ignorance now.

Sometimes we need to pop people's bubble as a spiritual work of mercy, regardless of how uncomfortable it is and how badly they have been catechized so they no longer have any excuse. We can do it charitably, but we need to do it when we have the opportunity, or we will be judged just as harshly as a sin of omission.

Counsel the Doubtful

Comfort the Sorrowful

My wife is good about being available to women with things like a kitchen table and a cup of tea. She's a good listener, and a good encourager too. Many people today are struggling with doubts and anxiety, and we can encourage by making time and space for them in invitation. As St. Paul says, "encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing" (1 Thes 5:11) And when we encounter someone who is downcast and hurting, we share their cross, mourning with those who mourn (Rom 12:15). "Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is the one thing hurried people don't have."

Bear Wrongs Patiently

See what this looks like in my post By Your Words You Shall Be Condemned, where I cover some of St. Ambrose's treatise on the matter. 

Forgive All Injuries

Forgiveness can take really deep work, and grace is necessary for it to be perfected. See Forgive Quickly, Before You Change Your Mind. If we do not forgive our brother, our heavenly Father will not forgive us. So it's important!

Pray For The Living And The Dead

See my article The Tender Favor of Indulgences for more on this efficacious and much neglected work of mercy.

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We will be judged on our tangible charity (Mt 25) and true religion is caring for widows and orphans (Ja 1:27). But it doesn't have to be complicated! As mentioned above, a lot of these are low-hanging fruit, and don't take any special skill--just charity, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit given to anyone who asks (Mt 7:11). You may also find you do not hit all of these, and that's okay too. But it's also okay to "try out" different works to round out your character as a Christian. These are just some suggestions, and I only share what we have done not as any kind of merit, but to give some tangibility and examples of what one can do. The perfect is the enemy of the good. As one of my friends is fond of saying, "half the battle is just showing up!"

The Virtue of Faith (Talk)

 We will be starting up a men's holy hour/rosary one a month at our parish, followed by beer and wings and a talk on the virtues. Sharing my notes here, so I have them somewhere, since I am giving the talk this month. 

I'd ask you to pray for this initiative, since I'm the one who proposed it and offered to head it up, so feeling a little pressure. Build up the men, build up the family, build up the Church is the idea. 

Thanks so much.

The format for these talks will be to take one virtue each month and discuss, as well as its antecedent vice which is contrary to that virtue, so we can live out the former and resist the latter in our lives as Catholic men. 

For the first three months, the plan is to discuss the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity), and subsequent months the cardinal virtues. These talks are not meant to be academic or strictly theological, but practical.: how do we live it out? How do we combat vice in each area? Additionally, each virtue will hopefully be paired with one of the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost. 

For this month, that fruit is "Faith" as well.

So what is Virtue?

St. Augustine, referring to the infused virtues : 

-virtue is a good quality of the soul enabling man to live well, which no one can use for evil, produced in man by God without man’s assistance. The nature of virtue is understood more clearly by comparing it with the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost and with the beatitudes.

-In other words, the virtuous man is a good man--not good as meriting any thing of our own right, but because of the cooperation and assent of the will with grace. One thing that separates us from the Protestants is that we understand that the will and right reason operate in *co-operation with divine grace.

-Why is it important to live the virtues as a Catholic man? Because we are a light on a hill, as St. Matthew says, which no one hides under a bushel. Correspondingly, when we are beholden to vice, we give rise to scandal among the pagans, for we set a bad example in imitation of our Master, who is Christ.

-The fruits of the Holy Ghost (Prumer, with St. Paul, lists 12: charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity) are habits accompanying sanctifying grace whereby a man is well disposed to receive the inspirations and movements of the Holy Ghost. In the gifts, therefore, it is the Holy Ghost Himself who inspires man towards goodness ; in the virtues man is moved by right reason aided by grace. The gifts of the Holy Ghost are seven in number : wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, piety, fortitude, fear.

1. In relation to their origin, virtues are either *acquired or *infused, according as man acquires them by his own acts or God infuses them together with sanctifying grace.

2. In relation to their object, virtues are either intellectual, moral, or theological. The intellectual virtues perfect man in his understanding of truth (whether speculative or practical), and of these there are five: understanding, wisdom, knowledge, prudence, art. The moral virtues perfect the powers of man to enable him to use correctly and well the means to his supernatural end ; these can be reduced to four as being more fundamental than the rest and are known as the cardinal virtues : prudence, fortitude, justice, temperance. — The theological virtues have God as their immediate object and are given and revealed by God alone ; these are three in number : faith, hope, and charity.

The virtue of FAITH

In our culture today, we have a crisis of faith. Not only among the secular, the non-Catholics and non-Christians, but among our own people. A Pew Research study found that only 1/3 of Catholics today actually believe in the True Presence. That is scandalous. But because belief in the True Presence is a reflection of the virtue of faith, we should not be surprised our Church is in the state it is in, among both laity, clergy, and the episcopy alike.

Faith is, as St. Paul says, "that which gives substance to our hopes, which convinces us of things that we cannot see” It gives us fortitude to endure suffering when we are presented with it, because we have a WHY. St. Peter in his letter says we should “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” This is why it is important to KNOW our faith, so that we can LIVE our faith. 

The properties of faith: Faith is supernatural, free, infallible and certain.

It is not enough to have faith and not live it out. "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was," as St. James says. The Code of Canon Law (c. 1325, § 1) expresses the precept in the following manner : “ Christ’s faithful are obliged to profess their faith publicly whenever their silence, subterfuge, or manner of acting imply an implicit denial of faith, a contempt of religion, or an insult to God, or scandal to the neighbour.”

VICES CONTRARY TO FAITH

Sins against faith are those of commission and those of omission.

1. Sins of omission contrary to faith are : a) the non-fulfilment of those precepts which enjoin internal and external acts of faith (cf. n. 194 sqq.) ; b) deliberate ignorance of the truths of faith which ought to be known.

2. By commission a person sins against faith either by excess or by defect.

Sins of excess contrary to faith are rash credulity and superstition. A man commits the sin of rash credulity when he believes as part of faith truths which in fact are not, such as a man who gives credence to private revelations too easily. Superstition, which is a form of profession of disbelief through an external act, is contrary both to faith and to the virtue of religion (cf. below, n. 430).

Sins of defect contrary to faith are committed by infidelity whether negative or positive. Negative (material, involuntary) infidelity is the lack of faith in a person to whom the faith has never been sufficiently declared. Positive infidelity (formal) is the culpable lack of faith in a person who does not want to believe. Paganism, Judaism, and heresy are three types of positive infidelity. Apostasy which is a complete lack of faith in a person who previously possessed the faith is a form of heresy. Schism is distinct from heresy, inasmuch as there exists a stubborn refusal to be obedient to the Pope. Therefore schism, although not directly contrary to faith, is nearly always conjoined to heresy, because schismatics not only refuse obedience to the Pope but also deny his primacy.

I think it's also important to note that faith is a gift of God. It is given to those who sincerely ask, but it does not come from us initially. Our Lord says to all, 'seek and you will find,' and that applies to the virtue of faith. As it says in scripture, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."

We receive the gift of faith by asking for it; but faith is not a guarantee. We can lose faith (apostosy), and we can doubt, which is human. But we cultivate this virtue through prayer, the sacraments, and the Mass. 

I think it's important that faith gives us a reason to keep living. "Keep the faith" is a secular as well as a religious term. As Victor Frankl, who survived the Holocaust, famously said, “He, who has a why to live for, can bear with almost any how.”

Faith is also a path to freedom. It allows us to immitate St. Paul, who discovered the "secret" to life by being content in all circumstances. This is because all things--good and bad--come from the hand of God, as Job notes. We cannot be saved without faith. We especially need this virtue at the hour of our death.

But our faith is not just in anything, but in Jesus Christ the God who became man. We live out our faith in the context of our religion, which is the Church that Christ founded, the Catholic faith. The formal object of faith is the primary and essential Truth. We are given the blueprints for the faith in the Catechism, the Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, and the example of Christ himself.