IS THERE ANYTHING GOOD TO COME OUT OF THE MURDER OF THE PRIEST IN FRANCE?

The murder of the priest in France is both sad and frightening.  It is difficult to find anything but tragedy in the whole situation.  Even the Pope made the statement, "Some might think it is war of religion. It is not. All religions want peace. Others want war.”  Is there even the slightest ray of hope or goodness in this situation or is it all just a horrible, black happening in a cold universe?

Today’s Gospel sheds light on this question.

In Matthew 13:47-53 it talks about the Kingdom of Heaven being like a giant net thrown into the water hauling up everything in its path.  This net would be about a quarter of a mile long and six to ten feet in depth with floating cork on the upper side and weights on the lower.  One team would keep an end on shore while the other team took the opposite end out into the water and then swing it around ending up a distance down the shore.  Then the two teams would haul it ashore and everything in the mouth of the net would be trapped.  The fishermen would then have to sort through that which was good and preserve it, and that which was bad and discard it.

The fish are all of humanity.  The fishermen are God’s angels.  The net is the final judgment that all must face.  Notice that both good and bad alike are caught in the net.  That means that the Kingdom of Heaven exists in the this world right along side the kingdoms of earth.  There is goodness and grace in the world right now.  The Kingdom exists whenever and wherever you live it.  

At the moment the story in France was taking place, both kingdoms were present and in action.  To many people, it appears that the kingdom of this world prevailed.  But we know that the matter was settled about 2,000 years ago.  It is not unlike the Japanese soldiers that were found still fighting WWII on islands years after they lost and the war over.  They may still fight and appear to win a battle on some island, but the matter is already settled.

As we all are, both the priest and his attacker are to face death.  When the final net is dragged in, that is when the victory of that particular battle will finally be revealed, not earlier this week.  So we do not fear.  We love life and are not afraid to die.  Death for the Christian is an entrance into true life where there will not longer be a mixing of the two kingdoms.

We mourn for the priest and that community.  We also know that there is still hope there and goodness to be expressed.  We pray for his attacker because he chose a path destined for loss. We have no need to answer with anger and hate.  

I BEG YOU PARDON

Lynn Anderson sang, “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.” 

 

At least that line would not be a bad one for spiritual directors to sing to those who are embracing the faith for the wrong reason such as those who think, “If I am really, really, really good that means that God is going to love me more and take away all my distress, hurt, and angst.”  Rather than creating a rose garden where all of your troubles are gone, He is there to strengthen you, give you wisdom, hope, guidance, and understanding so that you may overcome your obstacles. 

 

The great saints did not talk about how life was easy for them once they started taking their faith seriously.  They talked about the Dark Night of the Soul, about desolation and doubt.  But remaining faithful and passing through such a time, they ended up with a mature faith, greater strength, more insight and empathy, they became silver refined.

 

Here is an analogy:  When my first nephew was born it was amazing to watch him develop.  One day, when he was still a baby (I was a kid myself), he was lying on his back on a blanket on the floor.  For the first time he was coming incredibly close to turning himself over.  He would get oh! so close and then fall back on his back.  I just wanted to give him the tiniest of helps.  It would only take slight pressure from my index finger to help him over.  My sister dissuaded me wanting him to do it on his own.  She wanted him to know how far he had to push.  She wanted him to build the muscle.  She wanted to give him the accomplishment and then the praise.

 

If that “almost turning over” could be substituted for a problem we need to get over, though He is always there to work with us, we can picture God allowing us to gain the knowledge and strength we need so that this hurdle will never be a problem for us again.  To simply take it away would mean being weaker, dependent, and more fragile.

 

I love a God Who wants me to be the best that I can be.

EX

There has been a lot of talk about excommunication in the news lately.  One story involved a woman in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) who was excommunicated because of her “progressive” views.  She was a head of a large movement of women within the Mormons that promoted such things as priesthood for women.  (Ha!  Thought WE were the only ones facing that challenge.)  The news made it out to be a punishment for someone who has gone beyond the pale of what the Mormons were ready to accept.  Her case will be reviewed in a year.

 

Pope Francis also was in the news recently for excommunicating members of the mob.  For Catholics, excommunication is not to be seen as a punishment.  It is a warning that person is acting in a manner or teaching something that put their soul and possibly the souls of those around them in danger.  Excommunication is to be a last ditch effort to wake someone up – shock them back into the fold.

 

Today’s Gospel from Matthew says, “Not everyone who cries out Lord!  Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven but only the one who does the will of my Father.”  As a mobster you may go to Mass and confession, pray the rosary and grace before very meal, give huge amounts of money to the Church and charitable organization, and even teach your children the faith, but if you are stealing, murdering, distributing drugs, bribing officials and police, crying out “Lord! Lord!” will not get you into heaven.  One must also act the part of a Christian.  This excommunication is a wake up call.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: NEVER COUNT YOURSELF OUT

Now here’s a case when I will use the term “the spirit of Vatican II” and think it has merit.  As we head into the last throws of advent (or perhaps slow boil of advent would be better,) we enter that part of Lumen Gentium that makes clear Mary’s role in salvation history – Totally unplanned which makes it cool.

 

One of the reasons the Harry Potter books were so popular was that it held out hope that even if it seemed completely unlikely, there is a chance that you are special; your ordinary life was masking great power, notoriety, talent, and all that.  So can you think of being a young girl in a backwater town, dirt poor, and of no note?  What if, in actuality, your life was actually part of one of the greatest stories ever told – of the greatest family lines in history – of a dynasty that would last forever?  And look at you sitting at home wishing something exciting would happen in this one light town.

 

The story concerning Mary goes back to Genesis (para 55 of LG).  There will be a virgin and a conquering of the serpent.  In Isaiah further prophecies are made.  Throughout Scripture, a blurry picture becomes clearer and clearer until one night it snaps into sharp focus on a young, faith filled woman, by the announcement of an angel.  From obscurity she is plucked, though in God’s eye she was never out of the center of His plan.  From her our God is given flesh and entrusted to her care until He could go about the business of saving us from our self destructive ways.

 

(This is not in this paragraph but my own thought.)  You, Christian, are not much different.  Scratch just below the surface there is greatness.  It is not in your wealth, your ability to command, your ancestry, or your prospects (or lack thereof!)  All that will pass and be forgotten.  But like in a C. S. Lewis novel, you have already been named a king or queen with great dignity, inheritance, and rule, and it will only come to light for the faithful who remain true to their nature and enter into the kingdom of our heavenly Father.

HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU KID

Do you feel sorry for millionaires? The responsibilities! The extra effort required in the spiritual life! The daily facing people who want part of your wealth! The complication of financial affairs! The burden of having to decide and pick out the car of your preference instead of having to settle for the one that you can afford.

Bet you don’t. Unless you are a millionaire. If you are not one, there tends to be very little sympathy. “Life is hard,” it is thought, “but it is sure a whole lot easier if you have a few bucks to see you through.” But one only has to look at the ruined lives of those who win the lottery or those whose lives crash because everyone bends to their whim in awe of their resources never supplying them with the needed societal boundaries that would keep them on track.

I set before you a blessing and curse.

People with good looks rarely get any sympathy either. More often than not I think lesser looking people would fall into envy rather than think on any burden that may be involved. Even I fall into the thought pattern every now and then of, “I’d like to look like that.” (Though being a celibate, I do not exactly what I would do with my newly found good looks.)

Yet for all the good fortune that we assume goes hand in hand with looking beautiful, there are many traps also. Being beautiful does give a person many breaks and opportunities that those who are beauty impaired are not given. But conversely I’ve seen equal amounts of beautiful people crying out for structure, accountability, and, in a way, acceptance and failing because everyone wants to be a friend of the good-looking person. More people may want to be your friend or even your lover, but just as often they want to take advantage of and use a beautiful person. A beautiful person may have an easier time making friends quickly, but they also have some friends because of how they look, not because of who they are. They may be given many breaks because of their beauty, but they can also be horribly unprepared to deal with everyday life when that beauty fades or suddenly disappears.

You cannot tell a book by its cover, but we try just the same. But how is it that God must see us? “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” 1 Samuel 16:7. What if appearance did not register at all with us and we dealt with each other solely on the basis of the appearance of our souls?

“Honor and virtue are ornaments of the soul, without which the body, though it be really beautiful, ought not to be thought so.” Don Quixote

In the next life we might be surprised at who is truly beautiful and who is not. Beauty is wedded to truth without which beauty is empty; it is a lie. There will be those who are thought both ugly and beautiful in this life who will be radiant as the stars in the sky come the next, and those ugly and beautiful who will fade like the grass in the fields.

Rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, all have hurdles to overcome. It is said that one third of the world is starving and another one third is eating themselves to death. Because someone has a gold ring does not that life is easy or that their soul is saved. Because someone is hungry does not mean that they are sad or that their souls are not mightier than most powerful man on earth. Remember it was Lazarus who was named and went to heaven while the rich man remains anonymous and did not. (Luke 16:19-31)

All of us are needy. All of us called to service. Never assume that someone has it all. They may be the ones most in need.