FIRST PRINCIPLES REVISTED

Two of the first things one learns about revelation (in the Catholic Church especially) is that, firstly, Jesus is the fullness of revelation.  He is the final “Word” when it comes to the understanding of our faith in this world.  Because of this, the second point is that all revelation came to and end with the death of the last Apostle.  The reason for this is that they walked and talked with Jesus and are the last of those who could let us know what Jesus revealed to them.

This is taken into account when the Blessed Virgin or another saint or angel is said to be appearing and giving messages or locutions.  If anything new is being said, the claim that such an event is taking place is not recognized as being true.  So, for example, when Mary was purported to be appearing in Barberton, as long as she was saying things such as, “Pray,” and, “Listen to my Son,” we as Church were at least open (and extremely curious.)  But when the message changed to the end of the world being upon us, on a certain date, and that we should get cabins in the woods and stock up, it was all over.  Jesus never revealed that.  In fact, He revealed quite the opposite.  This is also the reason that an apparition will not be reported as being worthy of attention until it is over and everything is reported.

We may be accused as Church of defining things as dogma as late as the 1950s.  But even these things had to be in line with what was believed since Apostolic times, with the teachings of the Church Fathers, and held in belief by the earliest times in the Church.  They have simply recently been defined.  If it invents something or runs counter to the past 2,000 years of faith and Tradition, it is to be thrown out.  This is how we keep on track.  We can’t say, “Now we know better!  We were wrong the last 2,000 years!”

Which brings me to a sign I saw on a local church building the other day.  Printed over a rainbow was the slogan, “God is still speaking.”  What does this imply exactly?  It seems that the banner makers are saying that some of the ways of believing that sexuality has been revealed to us has changed.  If this is the case there are only two possibilities.  1) Revelation has somehow reopened.  2)  Somehow the modern movement in the understanding of sexualtiy, gender and related issues IS in keeping with 2,000 years of belief.  Proving this would be an onerous undertaking.  

I DO believe God is still speaking.  Which, now that I think about it, means that I could have misunderstood the banner.  God is still saying, pray, love, forgive, unity, hope.  On that I think all agree.  But as for the how we need to look to the Fullness of Revelation as the true fullness of revelation.  If you want to challenge the Catholic Church on these topics, these are the playing grounds on which to engage it; more ancient than the death of the Apostle John, more stable than the Coliseum.  

GOOD THING GOD INVENTED FIGS

As a student, for a summer, I lived with an alcoholic.  At first I was living on my own, house sitting through the graciousness of a friend and then was told, “This guys needs a place to stay.  He’s just coming off drinking and is trying to get his life together so I though he could stay in the house with you.”

I was cool with that and realized that I would need to get rid of the wine in the refrigerator that I enjoyed with dinner at night.  Now, I could have whined (ha) and complained and said, “I have every right as an American citizen to eat and drink as I wish and choose.  Everybody else should be responsible and control themselves.  This guys should be responsible for his drinking and I should not have to live differently just because he isn’t.”

The problem is that there is a modicum of truth to that but it would be cruel and idiotic.

Yet that is exactly what we do as a nation with something far more powerful and potentially damaging.  We push sexuality to the fore, we exploit it for advertising, use it gratuitously in art, demand that in the name of equality men and women be put in potentially compromising positions with each other (aka the near occasion of sin,) and push to promote the rights of those who wish to act out provocatively in public as far as possible with just the barest and thinest veil of modesty still in place.  Then, when people act out inappropriately (as we all agree they should NOT do) we are surprised, shocked, angry, and vengeful.

This is a broken model that is not working well.  It is a problem when we both celebrate liberty as license and do not recognize the fallen nature of man.  It is problem when we overly celebrate the individual and not the communal (catholic) nature of humanity.  It is dangerous when we don’t balance the dignity of the individual with the life of the Body of Christ.  It is not dealing with the fact that, while under our clothes we are all naked, there is a reason for fig leaves.

I LOVE YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE

The Episcopal Church has been running a campaign for the past decade or so which says, “God loves you.  No exceptions.”  It is absolutely true.  It wouldn’t be a bad slogan for the Catholic Church to kick around.  It is defiantly a part of our theology and perhaps not expressed often enough.

 

Jesus, of course, demonstrated this.  Did he limit Himself to just loving those who got straight As in school and only crossed the street at the crosswalk?  No.  He hung out with prostitutes, talked with Samaritan women, and cured a Roman guard’s servant.  God loves every one of His creation.

 

The problem is with leaving the statement there.  God does love you.  But what does that mean?  Coming to realize that God loves you requires a response.  Love requires a response.  “This is me, love me or get away” is not part of the relationship of love.  Jesus loved the prostitutes but he didn’t love them because they were prostitutes.  He had something better in mind for them.  To have an encounter with Jesus was to know that God loves you.  But is also an encounter with the perfect being.  Part of His gift to you is to lift you up, raise your dignity, your sense of worth, to expand your freedom, increase joy, and push you toward the ideal.  Who in Scripture did Jesus leave exactly as they were?  Those that had no intention of changing never became part of His circle.  That does not mean that He did not love them.  He even loved the soldiers putting Him to death, but if He couldn’t work with them, He moved on.

 

When the Catholic Church says, “Jesus loves you, no exceptions,” she does not mean, “So therefore you need not change one iota.”  It means, “Jesus loves you and He wants MORE for you.  More life.  More freedom.  More healing.  A greater capacity for love.  A broader notion of who you are.  Love with God is a relationship that requires a response.  It will not leave you stationary.  (If it does, something is very wrong.)  This is ride to someplace beloved one.  Get ready for a journey.”

IS THE SMOKER MERELY INCENSING THE TEMPLE?

Sometimes at the end of a confession, when a person has expressed all of the sins they can recall, will ask me, “Can you think of anything else?”  They are not supposing that I know them so well that I might make some suggestion of sin of theirs that I might know about but rather is there any area that they may not have considered.  Visiting a whole examination of conscience is a difficult thing to do especially with Easter on our tails and long lines outside of the confessional, but there are generally a couple of questions I might ask.

 

One is, “Are you taking care of yourself?”  We often think of the Christian life – particularly the road to sainthood – as one of denial.  There are times when the denial of the necessities of life are called for.  There is also both a time for denying ourselves the surpluses in life and a time for celebrating with them.  But as a general rule, we are to treat our bodies (that is, ourselves) with care.

 

The body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.  There is a certain dignity that is present in that.  We should treat it at least as well as we treat our church buildings.  We believe our churches should be clean, well maintained, well appointed without being ostentatious, welcoming, inspiring, consecrated and wholly directed toward the things that are Godly and noble.

 

Should our bodies, physical and living temples of the Holy Spirit, receptacles of the Body and Blood of Jesus being any less so treated?  Do we give ourselves the rest we need (to the extent we are able), consume the proper food and drink at the appropriate amounts, do we exercise, follow the direction of our doctors, observe the times of penance as well as the times of rejoicing, and adorn our bodies modestly?  

 

Being Christian does not mean we ignore our bodies or our health unless it is called upon for the greater glory of God or benefit of our brothers and sisters.  (After all, we do hold up martyrs as an ideal.)  But this life is also gift, and we should treat this gift as preciously as we can.

IF YOU WANT TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT, YOU FIRST HAVE TO FIND THE RIGHT RING

There are two major mistakes that people make when they fighting personal vices especially in matters of chastity. They are to be avoided at all costs for any number of reasons the most important of them being that they do not work and that they can be at least mildly heretical.

The first extreme involves the idea that, “I’m going to get all cleaned up and then I will come back to God and ask for forgiveness,” or even if one is inclined already to confession they have in their mind, “I am going to beat this FOR God.” Christopher West refers to this as “White Knuckling It.” “If I try really, really hard I will beat sin on my own!” If this were even possible we would not have needed a Savior. We are in a relationship with God a kin to a marriage. We would not say to our spouse, “I’m going to work on our relationship and then I will return to you and we will live happily ever after.” No, you work on your relationship together each aiding the other in his need.

In a like manner God does not expect, desire, or even consider that we could become saints on our own. He desires all of us, warts, bald spots, and all, not just the pretty parts. He loves us for better or for worse, good times and bad, sickness and health. We should not even try to hide or protect or deny Him access to any part of us – particularly those parts that need His healing!

The other extreme are those who cry out to God to simply take some disordered desire away from them. On the surface this seems like a reasonable enough request. “I want God want, Who I want to love above all else, to take away from me this possibility to love something else more than Him.” Yet if all of our inordinate desires were simply whisked away from us, if we had no choice but to love God, we ironically would not really love Him at all. In order to love one must have free will. If one has free will one must be able to not-love for it is only to the degree that one can not-love that one can love.

So the second step to healing (the first was to realize that healing needed to take place) is to find the right path. The right path is neither “white knuckling it” nor having our problem annihilated. The Christian’s path lies directly between these two and involves recognizing and engaging our true relationship with our God. We, the Church, are the bride and Christ is the Bridegroom and we tackle the difficulties in our relationship together. Before, during, and after every temptation to stray from our Divine Spouse we implore His assistance. He wants to help us and waits for our invitation. We need not be mavericks nor puppets on a string, but partners on our path to holiness and salvation. As Julian of Norwich explains to us that when we entrust God with our whole selves in this way, God, Who is all powerful, then can use that which is damaged in us to bring us more closely to Himself by having the very thing that is designed to pull us further away from Him actually catapult us more deeply into His heart. Such is the power and wonder of God and the frustration of the Devil!

Jumping on the right path may not get you home overnight, but at least now you will be on the right path and the possibility of getting home is greater than it was before.

1 CORINTHIANS 6:19 - GUEST BLOG

Today is a second of a two-part guest blog. If you did not read what M wrote in part one (or want to be reminded of which post it was) look here: JOHN 8:11. The first part may be a bit uncomfortable to read but she brings it home brilliantly as we travel her road to healing with her. This is a difficult topic. The hope is that if someone is on a similar path or contemplating starting down the same path, this sharing of her struggles might lead you to healing or to avoiding needing healing in the first place. Thanks for you bravery M!

PART II

The second healing I needed was from having pre-marital sex. When we were going through Pre-Cana counseling, the priest told us that if we wouldn’t refrain from pre-marital sex for religious reasons, at least do it because once you are sexually active you lose your objectivity about the relationship. Unfortunately, it was too late for us. But I know now how true it is…if you have given another person everything you can, if you have held back nothing, you can’t afford to believe he doesn’t love you.

So again, I went to the adoration chapel. Here is my conversation with God:

I need to be reconciled with my body.

I hate my body. I hate that it’s fat and ugly. I hate that when it’s not fat and ugly, it’s sexy. I hate that even when it is fat and ugly, it’s sexy. I hate that it is a source of sin.

Yes, a source of sin. It was a source of sin when I was young – I used it to get “love in all the wrong places.” I used it in desperation. I was so desperate to be loved that I sold my body…and my soul. Sometimes I think it cost me everything. I know that’s not fair. I know God write straight with our crooked paths – but sometimes I wonder – although I dare not – what would have happened if I had not been so promiscuous.

A source of sin…the sin of contraception, the sin of abortion, all the sexual sins. If I didn’t have a body, I wouldn’t be a sexual being. I could be loved for who I am, not what I look like or what physical ecstasy I bring another person. I hate that the first thing someone sees about me is my body – an empty shell. I hate my body.

If you didn’t have a body, you couldn’t get hugs.

I wouldn’t need hugs

If you didn’t have a body, you couldn’t see or hear or taste or feel

Don’t angels hear and feel (maybe not taste, but if I didn’t have taste, I probably wouldn’t be a food addict – so there!)

Angels don’t hear and feel and see the way you do. They can hear thoughts, but not the crunch of snow or the laughter of children. They cannot see rainbows or sunrises or smiles or a wink. They cannot feel the warmth of the sun or the bitter chill of arctic air.

I would give it all up

They cannot partake of the precious Body and Blood of Jesus

They dwell in his presence!

You do not.

I don’t care. I hate my body!

Hate is a very strong word.

Let me repeat, I hate my body!

Look at me.

Why…why do you always make me look at you?

Look at me.

OK

I knew what it was like to live without a body. I chose to live in one…

I didn’t!

Stop interrupting

Yes sir.

I chose more physical pain than you will ever have. I chose more emotional pain than you will ever have. I made my choices with full knowledge of the consequences, you did not. And I have forgiven you…your body is not the source of your sin, it is your mind. Your body is simply the instrument you use to carry out your sin. You hate your body because you want to separate yourself from the sin.

Hate the sin!

Separate yourself from the shame. Forgive. You were right when you decided that the person you need to forgive the most was yourself. Forgive yourself. Begin to reconcile yourself with your body. It is a gift from me…love it and use it wisely.

Love my body. What is there to love about my body?

It is relatively healthy considering how much I have abused it for the last XX years.

I can see…things I like to see – snow, flowers in the spring, the sun through the clouds, smiles. My children!

I can hear…things I like to hear – music! Rain, wind, the gentle breathing of someone asleep, a baby crying, thunder, a clock ticking, a cheering crow, my own precious name.

I can feel – things I like to feel – hugs! Smooth soft things like velvet, a baby’s skin. My own tears. Cold, warmth. Things I don’t like to feel, but that tell me something is wrong – pain.
I can taste and smell – chocolate, coffee, cinnamon, sweet and sour, bitter, salty. The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

I can walk and run. I can use a computer.

But if I don’t blame my body, I have to take responsibility for my actions. Then I have to forgive me.

I have to forgive me for being so needy.
I have to forgive my parents for not knowing how to love me.
I have to forgive myself and my partners for taking advantage of each other.
I choose to let go. I choose to forgive.

FIT FOR A KING

A priest friend of mine was always fond of talking about our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit but he smoked like a chimney. I once asked about that incongruity. After all, if the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, should we not take better care of it than that? To which he replied, “I’m just incensing the temple.”

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “You must know that you body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is within – the Spirit you have received from God. You are not your own. You have been purchased, and at a price. So glorify God in your body.”

Of course the greatest way to glorify God in your body is to strive to be holy. “Rend you hearts, not your garments.” (Joel 2:13) And indeed many saints focused their sanctity there, as well we all should. They did not all necessarily sanctify their bodies in the physical sense I suppose. They didn’t all have the nice slender, healthy, well built bodies sculptures and painters would like us to believe they had. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas is said to be have been large enough that a circle had to be cut into the table in order for him to pull himself up to it.

But there is merit in glorifying God by treating your body well. Your creation after all is good. You were made good and intended to be good. The Holy Spirit abides in you and at mass you become a tabernacle of the Lord when you receive Holy Communion. So what we do with this gift of our bodies is significant.

It is not a neutral but a morally good thing to treat the body well (and to assist others to do the same.) This includes eating well (and sometimes fasting), exercising and trying to get enough rest. It also means adorning it with modesty, remaining chaste, and using our gifts of the senses to take in what is good and shunning that which is base as we develop our minds. It is also a call to develop our abilities for the glory of God and the building up of our brothers and sisters.

Your body is a gem of creation making you capable of bringing incredible good into the world, of being an image of Christ for others. Treat you body with the respect, dignity, care, and modesty such a gift deserves.

ITS ALL ABOUT MEME

Tag. You’re it. Take this 2X4 meme and run with it. It is actually a good exercise. It allows you to stop and contemplate life just a little bit. Thanks Adoro for tagging me.

Name four things that are new to you in the last four years that you either learned, experienced, or explored.

1. As far as learning things, it would be a toss up between taking more seriously and studying Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and gaining new insights on hope. Perhaps learning about hope surprised me more. I never thought about it too much. How much can you say about hope? A lot as it turns out. A priest retreat with Fr. Benedict Groeschell CFR and Fr. Gene Fulton a couple of years ago focused on this theological virtue. I was not thrilled about the topic but went just the same knowing them to be great retreat masters and was glad that I did. I never realized what a rich field this area of our faith provides and it has in turn greatly benefited my ability to minister to others.
2. Last summer I went to the TX Ranch and took 500 head of cattle across the Montana/Wyoming boarder to their winter-feeding grounds. I have never worked so hard or lived so rustically in my life. It was a great learning experience. “Old West” history came alive for me that summer. I also now hate cows.
3. Perhaps taking Theology of the Body a bit more seriously I am trying to eat better and exercise better which meant finding a coach to help. I am sleeping better, I feel better, I have more energy, which in turn all benefits my ministry. Take care of yourselves! You are worth it! And it will make life so much more enjoyable both for you and those around you!
4. Blogging is a completely new concept to me. I accidentally discovered it coming across a sight that commented on an article of mine that was published. On the same sight was “Chastity Rome-Chick Blues.” That is how I met Dawn Eden and she introduced me to blogging and prompted me to start writing Adam’s Ale. The two greatest benefits of it has been finding out about so many of you out there striving to live the faith as best you can (which has in turn been an inspiration for me) and secondly – I watch even LESS T.V. now! Woohoo!

Name four things that you would like to do in the next four years.

1. I want to travel overseas again. Hopefully next year will find me in Australia for World Youth Day (*ahem* Habemus Papem).
2. I will be moving on from Saint Clare (if things go according to plan) in about two years, most probably (but not definitely) to be a pastor. It will be interesting to see if I will be a good father to a parish in fact as in theory.
3. I want to canoe the Colorado.

4. There are several projects resting on the back burners of my mind and I would like to complete at least one of them over the next four years.

THE ONE, THE TRUE, THE GOOD, AND THE BEAUTIFUL

“The poor of the world need more than the crude fundamentals of food and shelter, they also need beauty.” This is not the exact quote as I could not find the reference this morning, but it does explain why I will never apologize for the Church commissioning works of art. (Okay, I take that back, there are a few works of art for which I apologize, but at least they tried.)

“The One, the True, the Good, and the Beautiful: they come together and they go together. When all is said and done, we will be saved by the Beautiful (and) one of the things we are in danger of losing today is the Beautiful.” (Fr. Benedict Groeshel giving a retreat for priests.)

Having this in mind the Church has always been a Patroness of the Arts. Yet today, in the most affluent society ever to exist in all of history, we relegate our purchases of “art” to mass-produced pieces ordered from catalogues. Now, like being able to find a McDonald’s hamburger in any city or hamlet in the world, you can find a Catholic Church with the exact same crucifix as the one in your hometown. This, in turn, means artists do not find a market for nor hone their skills on religious art. The chain effect is that it then becomes more and more difficult to commission works of art from artisans who understand Christian symbolism and the difference between art for art's sake and liturgical art.

Find a way to be part of the cure. There are many ways in which this might be done depending on your resources and level of influence (of which you have more than you realize.) Seminarians from the seminary of the Diocese of Cleveland have a “John Paul II Night of the Arts” each year in which they celebrate prayer and art. Poetry, music, improvisational comedy, artwork, photography, and the theatrical arts are presented for the community.

Occasionally money is donated to a parish for a “work of art.” When this happened at my last parish we decided to ditch the catalogues and hire a local artist to create a piece for us that would be unique to the parish. We had the parish crest made in stained glass for the school. And for my Aunt’s eightieth birthday my cousin had a piece commissioned from the same company as her gift (see below).

Find ways in which you can support the work of artist. Clevelanders will have a unique opportunity to do so on March 25th. The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus will be performing Rachmaninoff’s “All-Night Vigil (Vespers – all of it) at Severance Hall (a great opportunity for Lenten reflection) to raise money for the Chorus.

Even if you have no monetary resources, go to that concert in the park and take young ones with you so that they can learn what it is to enjoy the arts. When they grow older they will appreciate art and be promoters of it. Rob, who visits Adam’s Ale from time to time has a website on which he posts his short stories. The first one is a heart-wrenching story of what happens when the Theology of the Body is forgotten or ignored and persons sexually use each other as a means to an end. (WARNING: SEXUAL CONTENT) But venues such as this allow you to give encouragement to artists in our midst.

Here are just a few more suggestions of ways in which Catholics can promote the arts in general:

* Become a member of a local arts organization. It does not have to be great. Even the local community theater forms budding artists and trains youth how to attend the theater.
* Attend live performances.
* Donate to worthy arts organizations.
* Promote the use of primary source artists in your home, school, business, parish, and community.
* As much as possible, influence arts toward the promotion of the dignity of the human person and the glory of God.
* Develop your artistic skills.
* When possible, employ live musicians in lieu if recorded music.
* When purchasing souvenirs, look for original or hand-made works of art or arts and crafts. (Why go to Italy and bring something home made in China?)
* Consider sponsoring a performance or art show in your home, community, or parish.
* Try to purchase recordings or pieces directly from the artist when possible.
* Consider donating to a scholarship for artists.
* When enjoying a street or park performance, donate as well as you can when the plate is passed.

ALL OF ME, WHY NOT TAKE ALL OF ME

The good news is that I was still able to genuflect today, though just barely.

A guy at the gym yesterday who knows that I am a priest asked what disciplines he might take on for lent. So we talked about it a little bit. Then he asked me what I was doing. “Partly,” I said, “is in being here.” Being a disciple of Christ is not a solely spiritual endeavor. Christ’s teaching and Church law are about making us become the best persons we can possibly be spiritually, mentally, and physically. Sin is anything that works against this.

We are a people of the incarnation. We are our bodies. They are tabernacles of the Eucharist and temples of the Holy Spirit. (A classmate of mine from the seminary used to promote this theme a lot but smoked like a chimney. When confronted with, “If the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, what’s with the smoking?” he replied, “I’m just incensing the temple.”) Part of being Christian is to take care of yourself as far as possible.

In the confessional when someone asks for assistance in confessing I always add, “Are you taking care of yourself? Eating right? Exercising? Getting enough sleep? Adorning the body modestly?”

The same goes for that in which we engage mentally. Saint Ignatius talks about reading profane things and how, though they may excite at the moment, there is a certain let down afterwards. And while the reading of spiritual things may be more challenging, the positive effect lasts and we have absorbed those things that will aid us in life rather than distracted us from it.

A report form the The University of California, Berkley states that Americans spend NINE TIMES as many minutes watching television than all leisure time physical activities combined! Is “American Idol” really that good of a show? In the time that it would take to watch two back-to-back episodes of “Law and Order” TWO HOLY HOURS of prayer, reading, and exercise could be accomplished. Most of lent is still ahead of us! Think where you could be spiritually because of your extra prayer, what you will have to talk about because of what you read, and how much better shape you’ll be in to mow the lawn and wash the winter salt off the car come spring. Glorify God in your body. Step away from the potato chips and pump iron for glory of God.