bearing blog

Invitations to mercy.

Still mercy-blogging.  I want to riff further on a paragraph from a few posts ago.  Writing about inappropriate exercise of the duty to "instruct the ignorant" and "admonish the sinner," which are two of the seven spiritual works of mercy:

I look back at the corporal works of mercy, which are so much easier to understand.  Feeding the hungry is a work of mercy; but force-feeding even the dangerously malnourished is a work of cruelty.  Giving drink to a thirsty man is a work of mercy; waterboarding him is not.  Visiting the sick is merciful; barging in on one who needs privacy and quiet is not.

I was trying to get at the idea that when we go out to reach people, we're in the business of issuing invitations to mercy---offering gifts, without strings attached---and making good on them when they're answered.  

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I'm not the first to suggest that there are limitations on the duties implied by the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  

The 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia (that venerable online resource) refers limitations on the corporal works of mercy to the article on Alms and Almsgiving, which gives a sort of survey of different ideas theologians have had about alms.  Such as:  Two categories of your surplus material goods*, three categories of poverty**, and two kinds of almsgiving***, and some different ideas to combine them to figure out whether you have satisfied your duty to "give to all who asks."  It's not definitive, but it's a good start for thinking about it if you are struggling with guilt and fear over the details: whether you give enough, whether you may say "no" to any solicitation, how many of your material advantages you may permissibly enjoy.  

Without forgetting that many of the saints displayed and taught radically generous charity, a systematic analysis of principles seem to soundly establish limits.  Our binding duty is, like the examples of the saints, boundless in theory (we may be called upon, unexpectedly, to give everything); in day-to-day living, it normally calls for prudence and discernment.

In short, that article recognizes a right to own and to use property:  as long as you do not stand by while you know someone else to lack vital necessities, you have the right to use your material advantages.  You may keep enough to maintain your own bodily needs and even enough to maintain your social status and carry out purely social duties.  You are not obliged to donate yourself into poverty or even into a different social stratum.  

These are limits on what one must do.  In current terms, we might say:  It's an affirmation that you may set boundaries.

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Limitations on the duties outlined in the spiritual works of mercy fall into a different category.  You might call it "limits of competency."   Where the first set involves setting reasonable boundaries so as not to imprudently exhaust your powers, the second set involves recognizing the boundaries of your own qualifications.  At the risk of repeating myself, here is the money quote from the relevant CE article:

Likewise the law imposing spiritual works of mercy is subject in individual instances to important reservations.

For example, it may easily happen that an altogether special measure of tact and prudence or, at any rate, some definite superiority is required for the discharge of the oftentimes difficult task of fraternal correction [i.e., "to admonish the sinner"]. 

Similarly to instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, and console the sorrowing is not always within the competency of every one.

By reason of our relationship with the person and the specifics of a situation, we can find ourselves under the obligation to do the best we can regardless of whether we think we can do a good job; but much of the time if we lack special competency, it's okay and quite possibly better not to step in and possibly make things worse.

Or you could say that special relationship---a relationship of trust or of place in a hierarchy---is its own kind of competency.

Or yet again you could make a sort of four-way matrix:

• If you have competency and relationship:  You have a duty to offer these works, and the recipient may have a duty to accept your offer.
• If you have a relationship, but no competency:  You may have a duty to offer to connect the recipient with someone who is competent.
• If you have competency, but no relationship:  You may have a duty to invite the recipient to enter into relationship with you, either before accepting your works or by accepting it.
• If you have neither competency nor relationship:  The obligation to offer help may not exist, and should be undertaken only with considerable prudence.

In contrast with the four "competency-based" works of mercy, the CE goes on to remind us that we don't need any kind of special competency "to bear wrongs patiently, to forgive offenses willingly, and to pray for the living and the dead."   These works, the silent works, the universal works, bear fruit silently as well. They cannot impose on anyone else because they happen within oneself and are brought to fruit only by the action of grace.

But about all the works of mercy this additional caveat holds:

It must not be forgotten that the works of mercy demand more than a humanitarian basis if they are to serve as instruments in bringing about our eternal salvation.  The proper motive is indispensable and this must be one drawn from the supernatural order.

Which is to say, that in the realm of Christian duty (as opposed to merely humanitarian duty that any moral person ought to try to carry out in order to help their neighbors), improper motives may make these "services" not worth performing.  If you perform the acts associated with mercy in order to look good in the eyes of others, or to make yourself feel superior, or (heavens) in order to shame someone, then perhaps it would be better for everyone if you didn't.

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So I want to suggest another potential limitation on the manner of performing works of mercy:   that they ought to be everywhere and always offered by way of an invitation (or a response to a request), never an imposition.

The human person is a being with knowledge and will, and that agency needs to be respected.

So, let's take a look at (most of) the corporal works of mercy in the form of invitations:  almsgiving and friendship.

• Would you like something to eat?
• Would you like something to drink?
• Would you like help getting clothing, bedding, outdoor gear, shoes?
• Would you like help finding a place to stay?
• Would you like me to stop by for a visit, or to bring a meal, or to help out somehow?
• Would you like some company?

(Burying the dead is a little bit odd as we aren't generally able to secure their permission except in advance.  But we can extend invitations to the bereaved:)

• I am sorry for your loss.  Would you like help and company in your grief? 

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 The competency-based spiritual works of mercy in the form of invitations:

• Would you like more information?
• Would you like some advice, or suggestions?
• Would you like a heads-up, or a word of warning?
• Would you like someone to come sit with you?

 The silent works of mercy do not require invitations.   No one needs permission to be patient, to forgive someone, or to pray for someone.  But it may be worthwhile to resist the temptation to announce your intention via an assertion.  "I forgive you" and "I'll pray for you" can have a distinctly non-comforting effect if deployed indiscriminately.

• Bearing wrongs patiently is something you show, not tell.  (And be careful with this one:  It's not the same as allowing someone to abuse you.)
• Forgiveness is something to be offered freely for the asking; but if no one ever asks for it, it can remain in your own heart.
• "Would you like me to pray for you?" is at least as kind as "I'll pray for you."  And often, more so.

In any case:  there need be no outer sign of these works of mercy at all.  As with all the works of mercy, you must send them into the world trusting that the outcome is essentially out of your hands.

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Related:  This recent piece by Simcha Fisher.

 

 

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*The two categories of surplus material goods:  Those that are over and above your vital necessities, and those that are over and above what you need to maintain a standard of living appropriate to your social class.  It is an interesting exercise to consider what is meant by the latter in one's particular case.

**The three categories of poverty:  Extreme (without vital necessities), pressing (experiencing a sudden reversal of fortune or crisis), and ordinary (having regular difficulties in the quest to meet the basic needs of life).

***Types of almsgiving:  Transitory (help offered in response to an individual, whether it's a stranger asking for money or a family member in need); organized (help offered to an organization that provides services to the poor).

An addendum to the previous post: One diocesan policy.

Apropos of yesterday's post about the hypothetical dilemma of "the pregnant student at the Christian school," here is one Catholic high school's life-affirming policy, informed by the policy set by the Catholic diocese of Lafayette (LA).

As represented (I've added paragraph breaks) by the school website:

Diocesan Policy adopted in the spring of 1999 reads as follows: 
  
The Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirms the teaching of Christ regarding chastity in stating:

“All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has ‘put on Christ,’ the model for all chastity. All Christ’s faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life.”

As we continue to form young men and women in their baptismal commitments through Catholic education, each educator within our school system should take an active part in teaching the virtue of chastity. When a student or unmarried faculty member has not lived according to the virtue of chastity and the sexual act results in an unwed pregnancy, the clergy and the principal are to counsel and offer pastoral care to those involved. Counseling should include the added responsibilities of the new parents, which will arise, with the birth of the child(ren). 
  
While premarital sex is wrong, the pregnancy is a gift from God, and unless the sex act occurs on campus or at a school-sponsored event, students may not be penalized or punished by the school.   A female student who becomes pregnant may continue her education on-campus unless her own physical, spiritual or psychological state requires at least temporary withdrawal and the beginning of a course of home study.

As one major concern is for the health and safety of the pregnant girl while attending school, the student shall furnish a Pregnancy Status Report to the Administration as soon as the pregnancy is confirmed and then at least every six weeks thereafter. If this form is not completed or if it is not submitted within the time frame set forth, the principal may consult the appropriate people and then take whatever action is deemed suitable to ensure that the health and safety of the young lady involved is protected. 

Seems in accord with justice and mercy to me.  It's true that "unless her own ... spiritual, or psychological state" is a loophole one could drive a truck through, if you were a school administrator bent on punishing a student anyway; but a girl at least theoretically would have recourse to the diocese if she and her parents felt that this was happening.

The same page notes that procurement of an elective abortion is something for which students (male and female) are "liable to" expulsion.  It would seem that this wording allows room for counsel and consideration of specific cases, while making it clear where the school's priorities are with respect for life.

 

Messaging vs. mercy, and the principle of double effect.

I've been writing about mercy recently, spurred on by the quote-meme my friend posted on FB a couple of weeks ago.  I'm at the point where I think I need a hypothetical situation to analyze, a situation where one party stresses the importance of the message "this person is very wrong and we are right," and in the process utterly--and needlessly--fails to display a loveliness that might draw anyone in.

Let's call this situation "the pregnant student at the Christian school," a situation that must happen far more often than it makes the news.  Here are the features of this hypothetical:

• A girl attending a private religious school, which may or may not have a written moral code forbidding nonmarital sex, becomes pregnant.
• When school officials learn of the young woman's pregnancy, they either expel her or punish her by removing her access to certain school functions.

Here are typical arguments put forward by defenders of such a punishment policy:

• The school has a moral code, written or unwritten, to which the family agreed explicitly or implicitly upon enrollment; the pregnant girl has clearly violated said code; the punishment is justified.
• The policy is not sex-discriminatory because the school would of course punish in the exact same way a boy who fathered a child, if the mother decided to carry to term.*
• The girl's education is not being restricted by anyone; she has lost nothing to which she has a right, only privileges.
• The school's intent is not to punish, only to prevent her from being a scandal to other students.
• The school's intent is not to punish, only to prevent her from representing the school to the community.
• The school claims to be acting in the pregnant girl's best interest.
• The school claims that they must punish her because otherwise the school would be teaching the falsehood that nonmarital sex is permissible, something they may not do even for good reasons.

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I oppose the punishing of students for pregnancy at Christian schools.

 This won't surprise you, I think, but I would like to offer some analysis that goes beyond the two obvious reasons (namely, "punishing students for being visibly pregnant encourages abortion" and "punishing students for conceiving children is de facto unfair to female students.")  These two concern justice alone, and I'd like to move beyond justice to mercy.  

But again:  don't get hung up on the specifics.  The whole reason I bring this situation up is to move back out to general principles that can guide us in other situations of messaging vs. mercy.  So let's begin.  I can think of several principles at work here, moving from the specific to the general.   All of them at least permit the school to decline to punish the pregnant student; I think they all argue against punishment, too.  See what you think.

In the following I draw on Catholic sources to back up my doctrinal arguments, but I believe them to apply broadly.

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(1) No pregnancy is a scandal.

Scandal is a technical term; it is defined (CCC 2284) as "an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil."  

There's a bit more to that:  people are guilty of scandal if they "establish laws or social structures" which degrade morals or religious practice or which make it "difficult and practically impossible" to obey the Commandments and conduct a Christian life (CCC 2286).

Pregnancy cannot in and of itself constitute a scandal for a very basic reason:   it is neither an attitude nor a behavior; it establishes nothing.  Rather, it is a biological state which naturally progresses to its end.  

 

Furthermore,

(2) An unmarried woman's pregnancy is not evidence that she is in violation of any life-affirming moral code.

Simply put, the pregnancy is not sufficient to "convict."  You can hem and haw all you want about likelihood and about gullibility and about these kids today, but it is true: a girl's pregnancy is not evidence that she is in violation of any life-affirming moral code.

• Sexual activity is not always freely chosen.  The fact that a pregnancy is in progress says nothing about whether the pregnant young woman exercised full freedom in the sexual act that resulted in the pregnancy.  And there are degrees of freedom, coercion, and competence
• Even if freely chosen, sexual activity that is (by Christian standards) illicit has the same character as any other sin:  its guilt can be absolved via repentance and (for a Catholic) the sacraments.  Pregnancy says nothing about whether the pregnant young woman is in a state of grace.
• It would  be a grave violation of the  student's dignity for a school official -- in fact for anyone who is not her parent -- to attempt to coercively extract from her a confession about the freeness of her choice, the degree to which she regrets or repents her choices, or the identity of any persons who have had sexual contact with her**.  If she freely seeks the sacrament of confession--which she cannot be made to seek -- then she is protected by the seal of the confessional.

Objection:  "But the pregnancy is only part of the picture -- can't there be additional evidence that proves the student is in violation of the moral code?" 

Reply:  Sure, this is a hypothetical, so we can imagine more information.   A student might brag about bad behavior (not just sex; could be drug use, shoplifting, bullying), or get caught in a banned activity, or be overheard pressuring other students to misbehave, or parents could choose to bring problems to the school's attention in an attempt to get help.   But if you've got any of that, a pregnancy doesn't add any information relevant to "Should we punish this girl?"

 

(3)  All Christian ministries, including schools, can distinguish between the people they serve and the people WHO serve.

What I'm getting at here is the notion that a pregnant or parenting student is disqualified from school activities because she cannot represent the school the way that the school wants to be represented.   The ministry of a Christian school is to provide a Christian education to the young people who are enrolled in the school.  The students do not bear the burden of "representing" the school.  The school is represented by its board, its officials, its employees, and its volunteers:  grownups.    

Schools sometimes tell young people that they are "representing" the school when they travel outside of it for extracurricular activities, and so they should be on good behavior.  This is faulty reasoning.  They should be on good behavior because good behavior is good.  They should practice good behavior as a student because that is how one learns to behave.  It's not for the institution's benefit that the institution teaches good behavior, but for the clients of the institution:  the people served by its mission.

The real representatives of the school are the adults who serve students through the school.  The school protects its identity in part by vetting its employees and volunteers for their commitment to the institution's mission.  

Even extracurricular activities are means by which a school serves the children it is teaching, not means by which the children are meant to serve the school.  An institution does not need to require correct moral character of the people it exists to serve; it does need to require good moral character of the people doing the serving, because that is how it ensures good service that is aligned with the mission.  Unless you want to come right out and say that your mission is only to serve people who are of good moral character; in which case, I commend you for your honesty, but not particularly for your charity.

 (An institution does, however, need to require clients to refrain from obstructing other clients' receiving service safely.  More on this below, so as not to leave a loophole.)

All this is to say:  Yes, you can expel or punish students for violating the moral code; reasons may exist why this makes sense.  However:   "because they make our school look bad" is not a Christian reason.  

If you persist in thinking that this is a reason, you might rather unjustly think that visibly pregnant students, because they make your school look bad (to people who haven't thought it through), must be expelled or punished too -- even if you somehow knew the student to be repentant or not at fault!  

 

Now I want to address the notion that a school must punish a pregnant student in order to avoid inadvertently teaching that freely engaging in nonmarital sex is okay.  "We could give scandal if we don't respond punitively," the school might argue, and since a school (unlike one pregnant girl) is an institution that is capable of establishing social structures within itself (cf. CCC 2286 again), it's true:  a school can give scandal.  And they are supposed to try to avoid it.

This is the most difficult to answer, because it is undoubtedly within the school's mission to convey Christian doctrine regarding sexual conduct, and they are right to want to avoid scandal.  However, we can be guided here by a sound principle of moral reasoning:  the principle of double effect.  

(4)  The principle of double effect permits a Christian institution to decline to punish a student for reasons aligned with their mission, even if giving scandal and leading others into error is a foreseeable outcome.

There are many good reasons for a Christian school to accommodate a pregnant student without reservation.  It provides the girl -- like any other student at the school -- the education that she and her parents have chosen and that the school thinks best.   It welcomes her child into the world.  It teaches by example that unborn children are a gift and not a burden, and that supporting women in difficult pregnancies is a work of mercy.  It lets other students know that, should they become pregnant, they need not have an abortion to finish their education at the school.

Although it's obvious, it's necessary for completeness to note another condition upon the principle of double effect:   accommodation of the girl is not itself illicit:  there is nothing inherently wrong about educating pregnant girls.  The school needs to do nothing whatsoever that is inherently contrary to its mission.

It is foreseeable that some people -- perhaps students, perhaps parents, perhaps members of the community -- may interpret the school's declining to punish the girl as teaching that Christianity passes no judgment on nonmarital sexual activity.  But because this outcome -- which would indeed be, technically, the school's giving scandal -- is a foreseeable side effect of the charitable and merciful act of accommodating the pregnant student, and not an intended outcome, the accommodation is permitted under the principle of double effect.  

Not only that, but the school is in an excellent position to use its foreknowledge to mitigate the outcome of possible scandal.   It is a teaching institution, after all; it can, you know, use its words to teach Christian doctrine about both sexuality and mercy to the rest of the school and to the community even as it is using its powers of administration to try to enact Christian teaching in the lives of one of its students and her child.

If the school actually intends  to teach that nonmarital sex is not grave matter, or if they try to accommodate the student by the inherently illicit means of teaching "Nonmarital sex is not a big deal, there is no shame or guilt in it" -- well, then, they would be guilty of scandal.  But concern that people might get that unintended impression is not, actually, a reason that requires school officials to punish the student.

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A possible objection:  "Technically, the principle of double effect could also work in the opposite direction.  The school intends to firmly teach a Christian moral code.  The school does not intend to encourage students who become pregnant to try to hide their pregnancies or to seek abortions, either.  Nor does the school intend to block a student from receiving an adequate education.  Nor does the school intend to teach the error that carrying a pregnancy to term is the real sin.    Therefore, the school officials, who intend to promote morality and discourage nonmarital sex, are permitted to punish students whose sexual contact is discovered because of carrying their babies to term.  That other students may, for example, conclude that abortion is the better option, or that babies are unwelcome, is a foreseeable but unintended effect of the school's visibly consistent enforcement of its moral code."

This reasoning is, as far as I can tell, correct; so it becomes a matter of deciding which of two paths are better.  

• Let us stipulate that to punish a pregnant student directly teaches that chastity is important while at the same time it risks indirectly encouraging other students to destroy the living human evidence of their sexual activity.
• Let us also stipulate that to accommodate such a student directly teaches that unborn children are welcome gifts while at the same time it risks indirectly encouraging other students to view nonmarital sexual activity as permissible in the eyes of Christian authorities.  

If we accept both stipulations, then it is impossible for the school officials to choose a path that certainly avoids all scandal, since how others receive their messages is ultimately out of their control.   

We must turn then to CCC 2287:  "Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged."

The school must choose which evil it would rather risk being held responsible for.

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I'm going to write more about double effect and double messaging, I think.  I suspect there are more applications, anytime we feel that we are caught between showing truth and showing love.

 ADDED:  Here I write about, and link to, one Catholic diocese's life-affirming policy on student pregnancy in its high schools.

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*N. B.  Try googling to find examples in the US of such a policy being enforced against a boy.

** (If a crime is suspected, law enforcement and child protection should be involved and the student should have legal counsel; it's not a job for school officials).

 

The immovable object and the irresistible force.

I've been doing some mercy-blogging recently, trying to stab at some unformed thoughts.

• Can we obtain the fruits of the Eucharist on behalf of people who do not receive it? (An argument from pronouns)
• Trust as the necessary atmosphere for engaging with anyone
• Failing to love the person you proclaim the truth to = proclaiming a falsehood by denying their personhood

 What all of them have in common is the concept of "meeting people where they are:"  -- a point of difficulty for many Catholics who are engaged in the world, because it seems to put two values in tension:  

• speaking the truth without compromise
• welcoming, loving, and serving people without reservation.

The reason for the tension is the combination of the two "withouts" -- it seems as if we wish to put into play both an immovable object and an irresistible force.  

You know that old paradox, right?  There is a handy Wikipedia article about it.  It goes like this:

The irresistible force paradox, also called the unstoppable force paradox, shield and spear paradox, is a classic paradox formulated as "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?"

...The immovable object and the irresistible force are both implicitly assumed to be indestructible, or else the question would have a trivial resolution.

Furthermore, it is assumed that they are two separate entities.

The paradox arises because it rests on two incompatible premises: that there can exist simultaneously such things as irresistible forces and immovable objects. The "paradox" is flawed because if there exists an irresistible force, it follows logically that there cannot be any such thing as an immovable object and vice versa.

....The problems associated with this paradox can be applied to any other conflict between two abstractly defined extremes that are opposite. 

We wish to speak the truth without compromise:  that's the immovable object (and indeed, we are not relativists, we affirm that there exist immovable truths).    We have a duty of self-donation:  to love the neighbor as ourselves, to serve everyone -- but believing in the human person as subject means always and everywhere the interaction of service must start with inviting everyone in, hopefully successfully; we wish our love to be an irresistible force which attracts everyone.

 Unsurprisingly, we run into problems. It seems that we wish both to radiate a love that is stronger than truth, so that it draws people in regardless of whether we tell them the truth, and proclaim a truth that is stronger than love, so that our poor showing in the love department does not matter.

This cannot stand.  The commonest resolution of the irresistible-force-immovable-object paradox, mentioned above, is to point out the logical fallacy:  both cannot exist in the same causal domain.  Thus the easiest answer comes to mind:  Either there is no truth that cannot yield, or there is no love that can move every heart.  

If I stick within the rigid fence I build from Truth, and my attempts at Love from within its boundaries fail to move people outside it, I conclude those people are unreachable by Love.  Not my neighbor. 

If I regard Truth as essentially flexible, then when in the course of exercising Love I encounter a person who resists it beyond my ability, I conclude those people are un-attractable by Truth.  I feel free to distort, deny, or denigrate Truth to attract them; I draw them wherever I can draw them, in the process taking both of us off-target.  

In practice (practice only), faced with any moral dilemma or tension that appears between serving truth and serving others, Catholics seem to fall into two camps:  the "truth" faction and the "love" faction. 

In that practice, by the way, it isn't a moral fault, may simply reflect incompetence or lack of practice, to find ourselves stuck in one camp. 

I mean, how do I stay within the bounds of truth, and yet reach out to people in love?  Maybe I'm just not good at navigating a particular situation.  We might find it very easy to avoid distorting the truth, but not know how to reach out.  Or we might find ourselves overflowing with energy to serve all sorts of people, but be flummoxed as how to answer questions truthfully and stay in that place of tact and kindness.

The crucial trouble -- in practice -- comes when the two camps point at each other and say "You are the problem."

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There is an intriguing hint at the resolution (sadly, marked "citation needed!") in the Wikipedia summary of the irresistible force paradox.

One of the answers generated by seeming paradoxes like these is that there is no contradiction---that there is a false dilemma....

[A]n irresistible force, an object or force with infinite inertia, would be consistent with the definition of an immovable object, in that they would be one and the same. Any object whose momentum or motion cannot be changed is an immovable object, and it would halt any object that moved relative to it, making it an irresistible force.

The less common resolution is not to deny the existence of the opposing realities, but to remove the assumption that they are separate, and to assert that they both exist in the same entity.  They will never meet each other because they are fused in their essence from the beginning.  

I think this is the correct way for Christians to look at it:   Love and Truth are  one and the same, and in fact are personified on earth in Christ.

In theory Christians accept this, actually.  It's just that we don't behave like it.  We behave in every situation as if one is more important than the other, and to emphasize the "wrong" one is sure to lead to disaster.

(See above regarding "in practice.")

In theory, whichever camp we fall into, we claim we are uniting Truth and Love.  

The "sola veritas" crowd theorizes, "I am putting Love first, because I put Truth first, and Truth is the same as Love."

The "sola caritas" crowd theorizes, "I am putting Truth first, because I put Love first, and Love is the same as Truth."

But in practice, because it is difficult, we usually compromise one for the sake of the other.  And always, always, always, we point at people who make the opposite error -- even people trying hard in good faith! -- and say, "You are the one making it hard for the rest of us!"

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Only in the person of Christ have Truth and Love ever been perfectly united.  In one sense this lets us off the hook:  we don't have to be perfect, because we can't.  On the other hand it means we have to let other servants off the hook in the same way.   And we have to strive for that unity, and encourage others to strive for it too:  point out the contradictions, point out the gaps into which people fall, keep bringing that fraying thread right up to the the eye of the needle over and over again.

 

If Love isn't first, then something else is.

Yesterday, I posted something my friend said in response to a quote-meme:

Everything starts with actually loving people. If you don't love the person first, for who they are right now, why the heck would they want to converse with you about deeply personal topics? I sure wouldn't.

Love before all else. Love underlying everything. Love informing every action.

So, essentially, the friend had attempted a link, an identification:   the problem with reaching-out-with-correction, she was saying, is that it does not start with loving people.  It does not put love before all else.

I thought:  Yes, intuitively that seems to be an accurate identification.  

And I thought:  I wonder, then, if love is not coming first, then something else must be put first.  So what is the value, or message, or whatever, that is being put ahead of love when people make the mistake that the meme quote is calling out?  The mistake of trying to "draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what we believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are."  The mistake of failing to show them "a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it."

If the problem is caused by not putting love first, then something else is being put forward in its place and underlying the attempt.

And yet I am sure that the problem is obscured.  Whether they say "You are wrong, you do wrong" explicitly or subtly, I think many evangelizers of that sort would say that they are putting The Truth first.  And that, because Truth = Jesus and Jesus = Love, this means that they are putting Love first.  "You don't love someone by hiding the Truth," we might imagine them saying.  "You don't love someone by lying to them.  That's not loving."

You might imagine such a person pointing out that right in the midst of the Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy are "Instructing the Ignorant" and "Admonishing the Sinner."  They are instructing and admonishing; ergo, they are offering Mercy.  If the listener stops listening or responds in defensive anger -- or, say, simply stops tweeting back -- whose fault is that?  "Perhaps I planted a seed," says the evangelizer.  "I'll pray that his heart softens."

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I know that this line of reasoning -- which I know I've articulated so poorly that it's simplified to a near-caricature, forgive me -- is not quite right.  At least, that's not all there is to it.  The pieces are right -- truth is good and Jesus is the Truth and instruction is a work of mercy -- but they seem to have been put together crooked.  How to put them back together correctly, and show what went wrong?

+ + +

I look back at the corporal works of mercy, which are so much easier to understand.  Feeding the hungry is a work of mercy; but force-feeding even the dangerously malnourished is a work of cruelty.  Giving drink to a thirsty man is a work of mercy; waterboarding him is not.  Visiting the sick is merciful; barging in on one who needs privacy and quiet is not.

Not a work of mercy.

A crucial ingredient of mercy is respect for the knowledge and will of the human subject.  

+ + +

Whenever the subject is Love, we do well to consider some ideas that were articulated by Pope St. John Paul II.  These are my paraphrases, which we'll put together in order to understand what it means to put forth, before all else, love; and what it would mean to let something that was not love underlie our outreach.

• Idea 1:  The human person is the entity towards which the only proper response is love.
• Idea 2:  The human person must always be regarded as a "subject" and never as an "object."
• Idea 3:  The opposite of love (the noun) is use (the noun)' to use a person, instead of loving the person, is to treat the person as an object.
• Idea 4:  An object, but never a person, may be treated as a means to an end; if we catch ourselves treating a person as a means to an end, we may be sure that we are not loving them.

It strikes me that in every interaction or contact with another person, we either can put love first; or we can put first the furthering of some end that we find desirable.  

In the first case, the person exists for us as an end in himself; perhaps we enter into a transaction, a conversation, a mutual labor, or a cooperation together, as two subjects whose equal dignity is a reality to us.  

But in the second case, the person exists for us primarily as the means of furthering that different end that we desire.  How do we know that we have treated someone as the means to an end?  We fail to recognize their subjectivity, their personhood. We treat them as a being devoid of knowledge and will, at least for the length of that interaction.  We do not engage them as persons, but as a tool; or perhaps as a creature that we have the power stimulate as we wish in order to evoke a looked-for response.  If our stimulus yields the desired response, we are content, and if it gives us a response we do not like, well then, that particular one is messed up, broken, won't work.  

 + + + 

So, if we aren't putting love first when we try to draw people to Christ, what are we putting first instead?  How do we reconcile the intellectually obvious fact that Truth = Love from the intuitively obvious fact that certain presentations of the Truth are not demonstrations of Love?

I think the answer is that if you aren't putting Love first in the interaction, you are seeking -- not really the good of the other -- I mean, maybe if everything worked perfectly that would be a by-product -- but are seeking an end that satisfies your own self, your ego.  

You are perhaps using that person in order to make yourself feel good about yourself.

Or as a mock-debate partner (an involuntary one) on which you can practice your logical argument.

Or to rack up points on a scoreboard in your head.

Or to amuse and impress the onlookers or the readers of your blog.

Or to satisfy your sense that you have done all you could for that person and you are clear of any obligation to try to reach them any more.

There are lots of things you could be seeking entirely for your own good, while you tell yourself with plausible deniability that you are really only seeking the instruction of that ignorant person, the admonishment of that sinner.  And you could be using that person not as a subject, but as an object, a toy with which to stroke yourself, for your own intellectual or emotional or moral gratification.

+ + +

It is really easy in even close relationships for an abuser to convince himself that his abuse is a kind of love.  So in distant or tenuous or momentary relationships it should be even easier to convince yourself that your using that person is a kind of love.

+ + +

The 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, the online incarnation of which I referred to just now to check my memory of the lists of works of mercy, offers a helpful reminder:

It has to be remembered however that the precept [to perform any of the works of mercy] is an affirmative one, that is, it is of the sort which is always binding but not always operative, for lack of matter or occasion or fitting circumstances.  It obliges, as the theologians say, semper sed non pro semper.

Thus in general it may be said that the determination of its actual obligatory force in a given case depends largely on the degree of distress to be aided, and the capacity or condition of the one whose duty in the matter is in question.  There are easily recognizable limitations which the precept undergoes in practice so far as the performance of the corporal works of mercy are concerned.... Likewise the law imposing spiritual works of mercy is subject in individual instances to important reservations.

• For example, it may easily happen that an altogether special measure of tact and prudence, or, at any rate, some definite superiority is required for the discharge of the oftentimes difficult task of fraternal correction.

 

• Similarly to instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, and console the sorrowing is not always within the competency of every one.

 

• [on the other hand.... ] To bear wrongs patiently, to forgive offences willingly, and to pray for the living and the dead are things from which on due occasion no one may dispense himself on the pleas that he has not some special array of gifts required for their observance. They are evidently within the reach of all.

 

• It must not be forgotten that the works of mercy demand more than a humanitarian basis if they are to serve as instruments in bringing about our eternal salvation.  The proper motive is indispensable and this must be one drawn from the supernatural order.

 

It seems I have been too harsh.  It could be that some of the people who are "loudly discrediting what people believe," "telling them how wrong they are," are failing to draw people to Christ out of simple incompetence.  They are out of their depth.  They do not know that they need to have a relationship with a person -- must be fratres -- before they can exert fraternal correction.  They do not realize that the relationship they have is the wrong one.

There comes a time, however, when incompetence is confronted with its lack of results and must decide whether to go on being incompetent just the same, or whether to attempt to acquire competence, or to go off and serve people by some method that is actually in the servant's wheelhouse.  And it is maybe in that  moment when the motive becomes clear, and whether they ever meant to serve at all.

 

Which came first? The truth, or the love?

Last week I tried to start writing about why it seems so hard, for so many Catholics trying to live faithfully, to "meet people where they are," to really welcome people in. I wound up veering off course (seemingly) into a monograph about pronoun usage in the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

I mean, it is relevant, but it wasn't quite where I intended to go, as I tackled this mass of unformed thoughts I have been having.

This is me coming back around from another direction and trying another stab at the beast.

And as you'll see, I wind up being deflected again into a place I didn't mean to go when I started the post.

+ + +

A friend of mine posted this quote-meme on Facebook:

My friend added,

Everything starts with actually loving people. If you don't love the person first, for who they are right now, why the heck would they want to converse with you about deeply personal topics? I sure wouldn't.

Love before all else. Love underlying everything. Love informing every action.

+ + +

I agree with her, and I agree with the meme, except I would tweak it in one way. I would prefer a different adverb, or no adverb at all, where the meme says "loudly." No qualification there is needed.

Discrediting what others believe does not do any of the work in drawing people to Christ; or at least, it pulls very little of the weight, and then only if it's done by an unusually well-spoken and sensitive person.

Now: Lots of us believe that people are intellectually convinced by good arguments. Especially, those of us who value logic and therefore believe that we ourselves were convinced mainly by good arguments, like to believe this. I believed it for a long time. Let me tell you a story:

Once when I was a teenager, mostly still being shuffled back and forth between weekends at one parent's house and school days at the other parent's house, I found myself away and alone and with an opportunity to go to Mass. I stayed after everyone else had finished shaking hands, had left; and approached the priest (very, very nervously) and asked if I could talk to him.

When I got him alone I spilled out my story, living at home, no car, longing for what the Church offered, having many months before I would go away to college, wondering what to do in the meantime.

He listened to me and he gave me a copy of a book that he had handy -- it was a catechism for adults -- it's not important which one -- but not "the Catechism," which wouldn't be released yet for another year or so. A thick paperback, about the size of the Catechism that would come out later, but written by some American priest. It had an IChThYS on the cover. I took it home and hid it and read the whole thing. It explained so much that I had been wondering about.

And you know, for years and years I told myself that the important thing, what pushed me to go through RCIA when I finally found myself living in a college dorm across the street from a Newman Center, was content of the book. That its clear and logical explanations, along with other ones I encountered later when I sought out more books like it, had spoken to my mind and my intellect, had convinced me.

The book was important, yes. But:

It wasn't until relatively recently that I realized that the thing that started everything moving forward was not the book, but that the priest listened to me, and that he responded. The first thing that this first representative of the Church offered me was not, actually, the book that explained Catholic doctrine. The first thing he offered me was a chair and a box of tissues.

The thing is, even I do not know how significant the chair and tissues were, relative to the book. I am a fairly cerebral person, and a private one; it was easier for me to accept the book (free book!!) than to accept the tissues. Perhaps the main thing that drew me in for good really was the catechism, and the tissues -- the "You are welcome" message of the tissues -- only mattered insofar as they got the book into my hands.

Then again, maybe they were everything.

+ + +

So, that is the story that I did not plan on telling today when I started writing this post. But now that I have, I want to get back on message. Let me just throw something out there:

We, human beings, are evidently readier to listen to and understand new and different ideas when they come to us from a person with which we have a relationship based on trust.

This is inconvenient to people who like to believe that the only thing that matters, or should matter, is objective evaluation of the facts. But apparently many apparently rational decisions are really made in intuitive reaction to rapid emotional response. One of the ways we fool ourselves, apparently, is by letting our reasoning powers (Jonathan Haidt called human reason the "press secretary of the emotions" in his fantastic book The Righteous Mind) convince ourselves retroactively of the satisfying logic that supposedly led to our judgments -- judgments that our emotions made in a flash, leaving our reason to catch up.

(Besides Haidt's book, I strongly recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman for more on how intuition makes decisions that reason subsequently ratifies.)

None of this, by the way, implies that the steps of reasoning are faulty; it only means that most of the time, unless we are sitting down to do a geometry proof, we don't begin with an intellectually reasoned step in the most logical direction. The reasoning part, especially if we are careful to remain skeptical of our own biases (as scientists are supposed to be trained to do), can be transformed from a satisfying rubber-stamp of our impulses into a check upon them. I find that writing out those steps of reasoning -- or of back-justification, or of rationalization, call it what you will -- does at least sometime lay them bare to where I am forced to recant my first conclusion.

Kahneman put it this way: "People can overcome some of the superficial factors that produce illusions of truth when strongly motivated to do so." (Although they often do not.)

+ + +

If you need logical convincing of the practical importance of relationship-building in evangelization, you would do well to read those two books.

Haidt, for example offers data that demonstrates that the only thing that is reliably associated with the moral benefits of religion is how "enmeshed" people are in relationships with their co-religionists, and that our minds are designed for a sort of groupthink, based on feeling a sense of belonging with the group. This can be a feature, not a bug, if we accept that it isn't going away, if we reach out to people with commonalities instead of right away underscoring the things that set them apart from us, send the message "You could belong -- if you change -- which means that you don't belong at this time."

Each human being is, evidently, adapted to regard with suspicion and skepticism all groups to which s/he appears not to meet the criteria of belonging.

Furthermore, information (this is Kahneman again) that comes from "a source you trust and like" carries with it the "sense of cognitive ease" that reinforces an impression of truth; this implies the converse, that information that comes from a source you dislike or distrust carries with it a sense of cognitive stress that doesn't dispose you to accept it.

I don't write this in order to advise you to pretend that you are trustworthy and likable in order to get people to swallow your difficult message.

I write this in order to make plain that few interlocutors will consider your pleasant-sounding but difficult-to-believe messages, let alone your unpleasant-sounding ones, if you are not demonstrably worthy of their trust.

+ + +

Like, not putting on a trustworthy face, but actually really you are really trustworthy, and they can sense that reality.

If you can't do that, it is not their fault if they do not listen to your truth.

 

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Kuku for asparagus (recipe).

Today Mark came home early, right around lunchtime, to take our oldest to the local university for an afternoon visit at the college of business.  I have some hopes that he and I might go out for a dinner date this evening, so I decided this morning to make the food that had been intended for tonight's dinner for a quick family lunch instead.  I expected the smaller children to eat their fill of peanut butter sandwiches, leaving the tasty vegetables for the rest of us.

First I started bread in the bread machine, then considered a fat bunch of asparagus, probably at least a pound, that I had picked up on sale a couple of days ago.   Then I scrounged around in the pantry and found a jar of roasted red peppers; in the fridge I found half a red onion and some aged white cheddar.   Perfect for finishing off a carton of eggs.   My inspiration here is the Persian frittata known as a kuku, which often contains herbs and spices and feta and huge handfuls of greens—but which can be adapted to contain almost anything you might put in an omelet.  The recipe is very elastic—you can increase the vegetable-to-egg ratio quite a bit, probably by fifty percent or more, and it will still hold together fine.

This recipe is  3-4 servings, sized to fit a seasoned 10" cast-iron skillet.

 If you double it, either use two skillets, or bake the vegetable-egg mixture for a longer time in a well-oiled glass dish (after sautéing the vegetables on the stove top).  You can also bake it in muffin cups.  Baked outside the skillet, I bet, this would be a great dish for a brunch potluck.

Asparagus and Red Pepper Kuku with Rosemary and White Cheddar

• 1 pound (or more) fresh asparagus, trimmed, tips set aside, and tender stalks cut into 1/4" lengths
• 1/2 a large red onion, sliced 1/4" thick
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup roasted red peppers (I used a jar of piquillos), cut into thin strips
• 3 oz extra sharp white cheddar cheese, cut into small dice
• 2 tsp dried rosemary leaves
• Plenty of olive oil (sorry, I don't measure this)
• 6 to 8 eggs
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400° F.  

Heat the skillet dry over medium-high heat.  When it is hot, scatter the onion slices in the dry pan, then cover and cook five minutes to begin caramelizing the onion (following the technique here).  Uncover, add oil and salt, and continue sautéing and stirring the onions until they soften and are nicely caramelized.  Transfer to a bowl.

Add more oil to the pan along with the cut asparagus stalks.  Sauté a few minutes until they begin to brown a bit, then add the rosemary, salt, and pepper.  Add a couple of tablespoons of water to the hot pan, cover, and steam until the water evaporates.  Add the tips and continue to sauté for just a couple more minutes until the asparagus is tender and the tips are crisp-tender.   Transfer to the bowl with the onions; mix in the roasted red peppers.

In a  separate mixing bowl, beat the eggs well.  Fold the vegetables into the beaten eggs, mixing well.  

Return the skillet to medium heat and add oil, coating the bottom and sides of the pan.  Pour the vegetable-egg mixture into the hot skillet and cook for 2-5 minutes (or more if needed), until the edges are set.  Dot the top of the mixture with the diced cheese and transfer the pan to the preheated oven.  Bake until firm, 5–10 minutes in the cast-iron pan.

Allow to cool at least ten minutes before cutting into wedges.   Serve warm, room temperature, or cold.  

I had it ready before Mark got home, and we enjoyed it hastily with warm buttered homemade wheat bread before he had to run off to his appointment with the big boys in tow.  If it weren't eleven o'clock in the morning, a cold witbier or hefeweizen would have been a lovely accompaniment.    And the leftovers will make you a beautiful breakfast.

Pronouns in the Divine Mercy chaplet.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the mercy-related problem of, so to speak, "meeting people where they are."  About one dilemma of the good news:  some demands of Christian life are scary, off-putting, downright repugnant at times.  Certainly from outside, but I've felt that way from the inside from time to time too.  So how do we attract and welcome people, exercise the hospitality and mercy we are commanded to do, avoid hurting people or driving them away, and yet, be honest and not lie about the difficulties?  We know we must reject lies and reject everything that separates human beings from God; we must not do so by rejecting human beings, or provoking them.   "The truth hurts" is the world's saying, not ours. 

It is an old problem, tackled by saints and yet not solved; a problem that reinvents itself in every place and time.  So even though it's the saints' problem it's our problem too.  We can all try to approach it and yet be doing new work.  

+ + +

It's been a long time since I made it to any Saturday-morning mass, let alone a first Saturday, so I was glad this past weekend to be entirely free.  I carried some special intentions for old friends having hard times, and one of the children's rosaries hooked away from its thumbtack on the schoolroom bulletin board, to the parish thirty blocks south where daily mass happens on Saturday.  

I got there near the end of the rosary but before the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.  And found myself, as I recited along with the parishioners, thinking about the first-person pronouns in the CDM.  I copied them down in my notebook after the chaplet, while I waited for mass to start.  Let me show you what I mean:

Eternal Father, 

I offer You the body and blood, soul and divinity of Your dearly beloved son, our Lord, Jesus Christ,

in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

 

So what I was asking myself is:  Who is "I?"  Who is "us" and is it the same "us" to whom belong "our" sins?  

Who is "the whole world?"  Is that the same "us" or is it actually a "them?"  Or is "us" a part of "the whole world?"

+ + +

One of the beauties of communal prayers, like this one, with agreed-upon texts, is that they can and do have slightly different meanings inside the heads of all the individual people who say them.  But I want to be clear about what they mean inside my own head.  I want them to be real words, not just my mouth moving in agreed-upon patterns.  So I think about those words and sometimes form theories about them.  Even the pronouns.

(If you like this sort of thing, here's a guest-post I did for Jen Fulwiler some years ago.  Good times.)

 So let's get started, and why not start with the first person.  I'm not exactly taking these phrases in order as they appear in the poem, by the way, but more in the order in which they came to my mind.

1.  "I" offer

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the "I" refers to the person speaking the prayer.  For now let's just note that it's an "I" not a "we," although later we'll speak of "us" and not "we."  The agent of the offering-sentence is an individual, not a collective, despite the fact that the Chaplet is very often a communal prayer, and it has a very communal-prayer feel to it if you ask me.  The sense of community comes out the most when it is recited -- even alone -- at 3 p.m., the "hour of mercy," the time when the Church especially invites us to recite it.  So at that hour one knows that one is among many with the same, or similar, intention.  And yet we do not say, "we offer you."  I offer you.   This offering is a personal offering.  I offer the part that I possess in myself, however much or little that may be.  It is not, so to speak, pooled, at least not at the moment that I offer it.

2.  ...[to] "You"

Is "You" God?  Yes, but more precisely, "You" is another "first person" -- in this case the first person of the Trinity, the Father, and precisely, distinct from the Son and from the Holy Spirit.   This is made obvious by the first two words of the prayer.  The Father is the one whose will Jesus does on earth, and the one to whom he makes offering of himself on the cross.  So when "I offer" the offering mentioned in the prayer, "I" make that offering to the same Person.  

3.  ...in atonement for "our" sins and those of the whole world"

This sentence makes it clear that "I" am making an offering not just for myself, but for others.  In fact I am making the offering on behalf of everybody ("the whole world.")  

But here is a curious puzzle.  As long as this offering is meant to make atonement for everybody, why do we not just say "...in atonement for the sins of the whole world?"  Why is there an "us" and a "them" of sorts here, or if not that, at least an "us" and a wider "us?"  

I see two possibilities.  Either we are meant to make a sort of mental distinction between "us/our" and "the whole world," or we are meant to make a distinction  between the "our sins" and "those [sins] of the whole world."    The prayer makes it clear that everybody's sins demand atonement, "ours" as well as "the whole world's," but why the distinction?  Who is "us?"

Before embarking on this contemplation, my mental picture of the "us" had been framed by my habit of reciting the CDM mainly in community, like I was doing on Saturday with other parishioners before Mass.  I had been picturing the "us" as "all the people here in this room with me, all of us here together reciting in this place."  "The whole world" then, must have meant to me "everybody outside this room."  And it may be an acceptable interpretation of the phrase; I don't know.  

 But it breaks down for me a bit when I remember that the chaplet is not only to be said in community, but also alone.  So I'm inclined to think that "our" is more expansive than "the people in this room."   Fortunately there is another clue...

 

4.  "our" Lord, Jesus Christ 

Here at least, "our" is apparently those of us of whom it may be said, Jesus Christ is Lord.  The phrase "our Lord" is an appositive; it mentions a second time and renames "Your dearly beloved Son;" it is, strictly speaking, unnecessary.  One of its purposes is apparently to stress that Jesus is "our" Lord.  So going out on a limb here and assuming that the two "our"s have the same antecedent:  the "we" is the set of all faithful Christians, all those who recognize Jesus and sincerely call him Lord and try however imperfectly to follow His commands.   I tend to think that here we can interpret the set relatively broadly and not restrict it to Christians who are visibly members of the Catholic Church; I think there's room for discussion there.

So what does that get us?  Well, I think it means that "the whole world" refers to all the other people who don't call Jesus Lord for one reason or another, and possibly some people who do call Jesus Lord but insincerely or with an entirely wrong idea about who Jesus is or what Lord means.  Roughly, Christians and non-Christians, or followers of Christ and others, or the Church and people outside the Church (with perhaps some acknowledgment that there may be folks who are really in the Church but only God knows it).  This does jibe pretty well, incidentally, with Scripture tending to contrast "the world" with Christ.

And the salient point here is that "I" am making this offering in atonement for the sins of Christians, and, apparently equally, for the sins of everybody else.

 

5.  Have mercy on "us" and on the whole world

I don't need to belabor the point again, so I'll just note that the distinction between "us" and "the whole world" is significant enough to make it twice.  I think this underscores that it's a real distinction.  "I" ask for mercy for "us" and for all the other people too.

 + + +

All this being said, let's come back to "I" in the context of exactly what it is that "I" am offering.

 

6.  the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity

It's meditating on the meaning of this that got me thinking about this at all.  How can "I" offer this, which is basically "Himself," what Jesus offered on the cross?  I know how Jesus could do it; it was His to give.   I know (sort of) how a priest at Mass does it:  He is alter Christus and makes the offering in persona Christi.  What is it for someone like me to offer these back to the Father?

The way I figure it is that "I" can offer the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ only because I somehow possess it -- and the way I possess it is through having received it the Eucharist.

I freely admit that I may have worked it out wrong, but the Eucharist itself only remains literally with a person for a short time after Communion.  So one possible meaning here is that each of us makes this offering by dedicating the fruits of the Eucharist that he has received to do God's work and God's will; another is to consecrate the graces the Christian has received from it back to God, which may mean, so to speak, allowing God to redistribute or enact them for His good will and not specifically the good of the person making the offering.  

+ + +

The latter possibility, I clearly came up with under the influence of the idea of Marian consecration, and perhaps it's mixed up too much, so let's explore the first option:  That "I" offer the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, by dedicating the fruits of the Eucharist that I have received outside myself somehow.

The fruits of the Eucharist are said to be seven (cf. the Catechism, ¶1391--1398; scroll down from this link to the section):

• augments our union with Christ
• separates us from sin
• preserves us from future mortal sin
• wipes away venial sins (specifically, by strengthening our charity)
• makes the Church
• commits us to the poor
• signifies our unity

There are many, many people who in their circumstances do not or cannot receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity.   But the whole world can receive its fruits, no matter who they are or what their circumstances.

God can increase and make full any person's knowledge of and union with Christ.

God can detach any person from whatever sins trouble them.

God can wipe away any person's venial sins.

God can preserve any person from mortal sin.

God's power and mercy can incorporate anyone God chooses into the mystical body of Christ.

God can turn any heart toward the poor.

God can, someday, unite any person at all to the rest of us in the gift and sign of the Eucharist, and grant to any person the possession, not just of its fruits, but of the Eucharist itself.

+ + +

I think that when "I" am offering to God the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, I am saying:  You, Father, may take these fruits back from me, and spread them around to everyone; or at least, I say to you, God, that the fruits you have given me through the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, help me to use these fruits for the good of everyone else.  To realize these fruits for the people who (though they cannot yet receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity) may yet receive its fruits, by my words and actions.

By the works, you may say, of mercy.

The offering makes atonement, and enacts mercy, at the same time.  Atonement requires a sacrifice, and the sacrifice that the Chaplet enacts is a commitment to turn the great gift of the Eucharist outward, not keep its fruits just for myself, but actively work toward their wider distribution.