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Ah . . .

Back home.

I cannot tell you how glad I am to be back in my own sweet parish. It is not perfect, but it is not bad. Not bad at all. Not as bad as it could be. Not nearly.

Has that given you a clue as to my experience over the last couple of days?

I’ve often quipped that I am so glad that I am a priest and do not have to put up with a lot of what the guy in the pew has to deal with. (This usually comes after a quibble about the sign of peace.) It can be rough and irritating out there. How do you people put up with this . . . junk?

Sunday morning, because of the situation, I attended mass in the pew at the church where I was as opposed to my usual role as celebrant. The mass was so poorly celebrated, there were so many invented rites and additions to the mass that I found myself angry. It was a struggle to remember that I was there to pray and not to critique but all I could think of was grabbing the priest afterwards and asking what the get out he thought he was doing. (I didn’t.)

What was perhaps one of the most ironic and bizarre things experienced was in the music ministry. Traveling around the city and touring churches with some family I was explaining why Catholic churches tend to have choirs in the rear and Protestants up front (having to do with a secondary role to the Eucharist rather than a primary role of focus unto itself in many Protestant churches.) Well, this went over well until we attended mass and for EVERY SONG, PSALM, MASS PART, that choir stood, walked in front of and facing the congregation so that they were directly before the altar and sang. Now I will grant that they sang phenomenally well. In fact, they sang incredibly poor music about as well as I have ever heard it. But can you imagine, say during the Sanctus, the choir standing, walking in front of the altar and singing? GAH . . . .

The best part was the bass who was not singing a particular piece who just yawned gape mouthed staring out at the congregation. I hope his mother saw him and slapped him upside the head. (He looked to be a bout 35.)

Anyway, I take this moment to sincerely apologize for anytime I may have done something out of the norm during the mass even inadvertently to distract from your celebration of the mass. Man, we priests can be annoying.

“The priest is above all a servant of others, and he must continually work at being a sign pointing to Christ. . . This is seen particularly in his humility in leading the liturgical action in obedience to the rite, uniting himself to it in mind and heart, and avoiding anything that might give the impression of an inordinate emphasis on his own personality.” Sacramentum Caritatis 23.

A big thank you to Habemus Papem for manning (womaning? personing? - we'll go with manning) the wheel of Adam's Ale whilst I was away.

"THE EASIEST WAY TO HATE IS TO HATE FOR JESUS" - anonymous

How many times have you been in a conversation about “those people” and the direction of the conversation devolves from debating what those people do or believe to just plain dislike of those people themselves? It is easy to get caught up and difficult to repair once the line is crossed. The odd thing is though, as soon as the line is crossed, we automatically become “those people,” that is we become what we hate: the bearers of un-truth.

Alice von Hildebrand (she is just so cool) points out in her article in the Pastoral and Homiletic Review (April 2007) that St. John tells us that God is love. “No other religion has united Truth and Love as two essential perfections of God Himself.” It is antecedently impossible therefore to proclaim truth without love.

“When Christ chases a devil from a man possessed, and he exclaims, ‘Though art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ Christ, to our amazement, forbids him to say so. . . . it becomes luminously clear that the Evil One when proclaiming the key Truth of Christianity does so without the charity of which he is forever deprived: the Evil one knows the Truth but this knowledge is totally severed from love and is therefore poisoned. To proclaim truth without love is to insert a subtle poison in the nectar of truth.”

Let us be clear though. To love is not synonymous with being nice. Nice is synonymous to a type of tolerance which is not necessarily connected to truth or love. Nice means doing whatever it takes to keep everyone happy, not holy. Love on the other hand since it is always united to truth does not always look nice. It can call people on the carpet. It allows people to deal with the consequences of their actions. But it always does so with charity.

The Eucharist is the source and summit of our lives as Catholics. Pope Benedict XVI in his Eucharistic Exhortation the sacrament of charity (1) which should embrace our “whole life” (77). We are called to love all persons, even those we do not like (88). “A Eucharist that does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented” (82).

So love that is true love cannot be said to exist without truth and conversely, truth cannot be said to exist without love.

A woman in the parish experienced this: She was protesting in front of an abortion clinic when two people (though a true story, you can insert almost any one of “them” here – abortionists, homosexuals, liberals, anti-Catholics, radical feminists, whatever) started heckling them. Later, when one of the hecklers was standing alone she felt moved to talk to the person. It was an inner conviction which she tried to fight off but couldn’t. She went up to the person and was eventually able to minister to the man and tell him that God loves him too. God hates no one. People do, but not if they are truly in God. And that if he wanted, he could find a place in the Church. He was moved to tears. No one told him that these simplest of Christian thoughts could apply to him. Funny, if you tell prostitutes and tax collectors that they can get into heaven (even if it requires something of them) they start coming to Church.

If we want to be men and women of the Gospel, followers of Christ, and true representatives of His Church there is only one way to proclaim truth and that is to become like Him. And to be like Him is to be a source not only of truth, but also of charity.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I will be away for a couple of days. Habemus Papem will be posting in my stead. Enjoy!

OF BARS AND ADAM'S ALE

I was robbed a while back. It was mostly cash and electronic devices. The cost of replacing it all was far above my deductible. However, since the electronic devices were more than a year old, the insurance company depreciated them to such an extent that I received no compensation causing a huge drain on my resources when it all had to be replaced.

The person who did it was caught, but of course everything stolen was long gone (and snorted up his nose.) I never met the young man who did it. The police called me once to ask for a sentencing recommendation but that was about the extent of my connection with the whole affair.

It became a defining moment for the people with whom I lived at the time. Daily a decision was made with reference to “the time we were broken into.” A certain amount of fear became part of life in the house.

Then a letter came. It was from the young man from his prison cell. Of course it expressed remorse and apologies. I still have the letter. It was instinctive that a response was needed but I could not think of a thing to say to him.

Recently I was reading Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Exhortation Sacrementum Caritatis, being completely blown away at this wonderful document, when I landed upon the paragraph concerning the care for prisoners (59). I did not expect an exhortation on the Eucharist to go in this direction but go it did. It talked about the Eucharist being made available to prisoners and to help their “faith journey” and “full social rehabilitation.” He goes on to say, “I ask Dioceses to do whatever is possible to ensure that sufficient pastoral resources are invested in the spiritual care of prisoners.” (emphasis added)

This past Monday there was a segment on NPR’s Talk of the Nation concerning restorative justice. Recognizing that our penal system is largely broken, it explained how this set of principles is trying to restore some humanity and healing. It puts the persons who are convicted of crimes in contact with their victims and lets them interact.

The person interviewed, who saw her husband murdered and her daughter raped, talked about being Roman Catholic and taking seriously the faith which states that we should forgive those as we are forgiven. “If I am forgiven,” she says, “how can I say I don’t forgive?”

Wow.

The goal of these controversial principles is not only to help the victim, but to help the criminal examine his life. Most, when taken to court, see themselves as being tried against the state, not a person. Many times they have never examined their lives and do not understand the damage that they have caused. The last step is to have them accepted back into society, to be told that they are worth something.

The focus is on healing people, not simply punishing them. Think about it. What makes most people commit crimes? It usually has to do with some kind of need (legitimate or otherwise) or they feel oppressed. What does a jail sentence do? If you had a need before hand, it will be greater after. You will have less money, you will have less opportunity to get a job, you will have fewer ties to the community, you will be looked down upon more, and you will feel more oppressed.

This letter appeared in a column in Tuesday’s Akron Beacon Journal:

". . . I am an ex-offender here in Akron, Ohio. . . .I have been out of trouble but now I am back in trouble. My biggiest obsticule was and still is finding employment and housing. I am tired of going know where in my life. I would like to know if you have information that would help me obtain employment and housing. I really need all the help I can get. I am trying very hard."

An advice radio host often says to wives that there are two roads that they can choose in dealing with husbands who are not sticking around the house. They can nag and make home life miserable (making him want to escape from home even more) or you can risk making home life pleasant and try to lure him back. In a similar mode if a person in trouble feels they are living against society rather feeling a part of it, what are the chances he will give two cents about “society” if he feels society does not give two cents about him?

Interestingly the recidivism rate for persons convicted of a crime where these principles are in place seems to drop precipitously. And isn’t that what we want? Victims want those who commit crimes to know what damage they have caused to real people, society wants them to experience the consequences for their deeds and to have them not do it again, the perpetrator needs to be healed and become a constructive part of society and God wants us to forgive.

Apparently it works. More often than not according to the news segment. Which is far better than what we have now which is not working more often than not.

Which leads me back to my letter. Isn't funny that I’m almost afraid to write it? What if it comes back with baggage? But what if it comes back from a healed young man? It seems all so risky. But, darn it, "risky" so often seems to be a part of the definition of faith.

For those interested in prison ministry, the Diocese of Cleveland has this site that might help.

YOU'RE GETTING TO BE A HABIT WITH ME

An update from the postulant from St. Clare who is joining the Sisters of Life in New York: She appreciates any prayers that may have been offered for her interview with MTV. The taping was for a news segment that will air sometime in April. She asked that our prayers may help people who see the segment "know that there is a God who made them and has a plan, a purpose, [and] a dream for them in their lives."

Those of you who mentioned such things will like to know that she and her fellow postulants are currently in the process of sewing their own habits. It turns out that none of them had ever sewn before so I hope that doesn't bode poorly for what they will look like once the don them! One more quote from her general letter, "It was also amazing because it was time to ponder our external transformation that will happen in June that will reflect the internal transformation that is happening through formation. One of the most awesome realizations is that it is a sign to the world and myself of the eternal, we are all made for something more, for that glorious union with Christ which real. More simply put, it is a sign that God is alive and well; a sign of hope."

WOW!

Now that I am the last person to report on such things, (I am just now getting together a group of people to with whom to study it) here is a link to take you to the exhortation that came from Rome concerning the Eucharist, "Sacramentum Caritatis". Enjoy!