bearing blog

Branches.

Today I am two weeks post-vaccination for COVID-19.  I went out into the back yard to take a new maskless selfie for my FB page.   

I'll still be wearing one quite a bit for a while, indoors in public or with unvaccinated friends at least, while we all navigate through this in-between time.   I'll keep them around for when I have respiratory symptoms, for sure.   But I felt like marking the milestone some way.

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I'm planning on going to Mass this weekend.  (How odd to be writing that sentence!)  Just me, by myself; both Mark and I feel like starting off with relatively uncrowded spaces if we can.  My solution is to go early:   I signed up to go to the 7:30 a.m. Sunday Mass at our own parish.  Mark is not such an early bird; he may try a weekday Mass first, or a smaller congregation nearer our house.    We'll probably take turns until we decide it's prudent to bring the children.   

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Last Sunday, the Gospel—on the parish livestream—was "I am the vine, you are the branches."  It's tempting to think of returning to Mass as a sort of re-attachment, but that is stretching the metaphor too far.  I have not been utterly cut off from the vine.  I have had regular, if infrequent, access to the sacraments. I have maintained a prayer life that's maybe been even more lively, on average, than before.  I have been part of the great mass of Christians, friends and strangers, praying for one another for intentions small, large and unknown; I've studied, even co-hosted a little book group for the end of Lent and the start of Easter. 

I'm still here, as are many others who always have been attached:   the tendrils of the true vine are invisible.  Did we forget?  There always, always, always have been people for whom attending Mass in person, often or ever, is imprudent or impossible.  And yet they are infused with the green life, whether we remember them or not.  Now that I've been one of them, let me not forget again.

What will it be like to return?  Jesus is the same.  I'm changed.  Something has sharpened in me.

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Aloneness, and media, provides a lot of opportunity for intercessory prayer.  I mean, a lot.   And I know I haven't taken all the opportunities there have been.  But... so much suffering happened over the last year-and-then-some, and so much more came to light.  A great deal of cruelty and selfishness was exposed.  And maybe more than this, a great deal of carelessness:  a kind of breaking and spilling and muddying, and wandering off without thinking, probably across the clean floor with muddy shoes, never noticing, never taking note later that someone has come by and cut themselves on the shards, and a someone else has come by and cleaned up the mess.  Unintentional, to be sure.  But somewhere there's a willfulness not to look behind you.  And when you really see that carelessness, the carelessness of people who do not seem to see how careless they are (and yet... how could it not be obvious?) you realize that yes, you also must have been this careless, at least a little, and how often?  How would you know how many messes you have made when it is someone else's role to clean them up?

So, a lot of penitential prayer as well.

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MrsDarwin and I hosted, as I mentioned, a brief book club on Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ.  (Buy her edited, prefaced, and newly-typeset paperback edition here.) It was a good book for a strange time.  Different people got different things out of it, for sure.  Here's what it did to me:  I opened it thinking "Perhaps this will tell me how to get closer to Jesus," and found that—for me—it really has been a matter of appreciating how close He has come to me already.  I mean, He's right there.  All the time.  No, really, right there.  Right here.   

Even things that I thought were a way of holding Him at a distance are means by which He comes very, very close.   I know that more than I did before, and really believe it.  

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All of a sudden, I started to find anything that smacks of purity....

UNBELIEVABLY tiresome.  

I don't mean the virtues that include the term "purity," although the word used all by itself, well, its attributes should be broken up and assigned to other virtues.  Ninety percent of the time when Catholics start talking about the virtue of purity,  they are really just trying to avoid speaking frankly about sex, and it drives me up the wall.   No, I mean purity like... this fear of contamination?  This fear of going out to the margins, of exploring the distinctions, of making contact?

I've been a practicing, communing Catholic since I was eighteen.  I had to figure out the culture gradually, as a sort of teenage immigrant to it.  Am still figuring it out, as I continue to encounter the astonishing diversity of thought and experiences that makes it up, has made it up, across the centuries and nations, so that it's more like cultures than culture.   And I'm sure a lot of my memories of the process of figuring it out have been colored by all kinds of cognitive biases.  I started out with a longing to belong, trying to understand what it meant to be part of a larger community of believers, and trying out the different kinds of "belonging" that there are.  We do things this way here.  If you are Catholic, you will be a certain way.  I have tried to do things this way, and that way, and other ways, to see which ways fit, to see how to belong.  

But all belonging means a definition of "self" and "others"—of "us" and "them—and more and more I am convinced that the "us" and "them" is and always has been an illusion.  There are ridiculous "us/them"s within the Church as well.  But it isn't real.   There is no us and them, there is only everybody:   trying or not trying, or trying to some degree, to align themselves with the way and the truth and the life, which presses us invisibly from all around.  Our job is to align ourselves and in so doing, strengthen the field, so to speak, and just doing that for real helps align others.  

Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Yes, yes, baptism is real and a maker of an "us," but nobody is excluded from it in principle; it's a difference in marking, not an essence.  We need collective humility, very badly.  We could use a little less fear that the Church will come crashing down if we have frank conversations with the wrong kind of people.   We could use a little less fear of doing love wrong by sending the wrong message.   We could use a little less gatekeeping; the gates will not prevail, after all, no?   Caretakers of the deposit of faith have been provided for us, thank God:  but lately I've become very aware of the large number of, shall we say, volunteers who have decided it is their job to staff the gates.

The pandemic found me doing a lot of "well, if I was in charge I'd do things a lot differently" and at one point it occurred to me that I am not in charge, and I didn't really want to be.  In fact I'm not in charge of anyone, with the possible exception of my own children, and there are signifcant limits to that.   I am my brother's keeper, but not his gatekeeper.  

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When I come back, I come back changed.  I come back more aware of a certain awarelessness that will probably follow me my whole life.  I come back more aware of the closeness of Jesus.  I come back tired of separations.   I love orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and always have; I've often felt a little ashamed of that, from the pressure of the personal-relationship-with-Jesus crowd; but I've learned that these are not things that stand between us and that relationship; they are a way He befriends us.  What has sharpened for me is a new desire for a Jesus-first orthodoxy, a Jesus-centered orthopraxy.   I come back seeking to strengthen it.

On detraction.

One day last week I felt like writing for once. But I couldn't form my many roaming thoughts into anything coherent, so instead I opened up my copy of Introduction à la Vie Devote and started translating one of the chapters, the one entitled "De la médisance:"  "On detraction."  Or perhaps, "On speaking ill of people."   

Translation for fun is a pleasant exercise when one feels creative but not too creative:  a comfortable tension between being scrupulously exact, and rendering into modern English.  And a text like this is not quite as difficult as translating poetry, but it still contains enough interesting imagery, allusions, and the like to allow for a little poetic interpretation.  Of course, diving into theology (even a theology for the practical layperson) is a bit risky, so I hope you all understand that this text carries no official stamp.

St. Bernard says that the one who defames and the one who listens are both possessed by the devil, who has one by the tongue and the other by the ear.   The detractor's tongue, forked and sharp (says David) like a serpent's, strikes twice:  poisoning at one stroke both the listener's ear and the victim's reputation.

I beg you then, dear Philothea, never to defame anyone, neither directly nor indirectly: 

• take care never to impute against your neighbor false crimes or sins;
• nor to reveal those that are secret, nor to exaggerate those that are apparent;
• not to put a bad spin on a good work, nor to deny the good that you know to be there in someone, nor to maliciously omit it, nor to minimize it by yor words;

for in all these different ways you would greatly offend God, but especially in making false accusations and denying the truth to the point of harming your neighbor.  For it is a double sin to lie and, in doing so, to harm another person.

Our city experienced a second, short burst of anger, with destruction and looting, not long ago:  a man suspected (correctly, it seems) of murder shot himself in the mouth, in the middle of downtown, as police (witnesses say) ran toward him with guns drawn; someone somewhere suggested the police had summarily executed him, an all-too-plausible scenario after George Floyd's murder; the spreading rumor attracted an angry crowd.  Police released a surveillance video of the man's suicide, and perhaps that was enough to send some of the people in the crowd away satisfied, but not everyone.  Large, angry crowds are not unlikely to contain individuals who feel like breaking and burning things, if they are still assembled there when dusk turns to night.

...Even if you've once seen someone drunk, don't say 'Such-and-such is a drunkard.'  Nor, just because someone was once caught in the act, call him an adulterer or a committer of incest, for a single act does not give its name to the actor... To take the name of a vice or a virtue, one has to have made it a habit and progressed some distance along its way.  Similarly it is a slander to say of a man that he is bad-tempered, or that he is a thief, just because you have once seen him angry, or known him to steal.

I turn again and again to the Introduction as my guide in ways of personal holiness.  I am always open to suggestions of other books that might do the job, but I've yet to find anything that offers such practical advice for Christians living in the world: 

Christians busy with many everyday duties and tasks,

Christians whose colleagues, neighbors, and loved ones might object to their practices,

men and women,

married and single and widowed, from the wealthy to the poor: 

anyway, Christians who do not live in a bubble.

Even when a man has been for a long time the picture of wickedness, we run the risk of lying when we call him "wicked." 

Simon the Leper called Mary Magdalene a sinner because she had been one, not long before; nevertheless he spoke falsely, for she wasn't anymore, but by then was a holy penitent, and so Our Lord took her side. 

The foolish Pharisee considered the publican to be a great sinner, or perhaps to be a cheat, an adulterer, or a thief; but he fooled himself greatly, for at that very moment the publican had been vindicated by God. 

Alas!  since the goodness of God is so great, that at any moment we may ask for his grace and receive it, what assurance could we possibly have that yesterday's sinner must be a sinful man today?  Yesterday must not pass judgment on today, nor must today judge yesterday:  of all days, only the last will be the judge. 

Thus we can never call a man wicked, without risking great error:  what we can say, should it be necessary to speak, is that he did such-and-such a wicked act; or that he lived wickedly at such-and-such a time; or that he is acting wickedly now.  But we cannot deduce from yesterday any conclusion about today, nor derive yesterday from today; and still less can we conclude anything about tomorrow.

Living not only in a family, but a neighborhood and a wider community, I waver unsteadily between priorities.   Not quite the dilemma of Martha and Mary, of activity and contemplation, but something related.  Shall I lay a shoulder, beside many others who know better what they are doing, to the nearest out-of-alignment joint of the whole structure of power and justice?   Shall I instead look for people, a person, and see what works of mercy could do?  Do I just open my wallet?   The wavering itself says, perhaps: wait, it's I who am disordered. 

Tells me:  Put my own house and heart in order first; I can't do anything of use in this state; I'm the very embodiment of a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Though we must be extremely careful to never commit detraction against others, at the same time we have to guard against falling into the opposite error, as some do when in order to avoid speaking ill of another, praise and speak well of those others' sins. 

• If you happen upon a person who slanders others, don't excuse them with words like 'straightforward' or 'independent-minded';
• nor describe someone who's obviously conceited as 'generous' or 'fastidious.'   
• When you see someone dangerously pushing against appropriate boundaries, do not call it an innocent mistake. 
• Nor must you dismiss disobedience as merely a type of 'getting carried away,' nor arrogance as a type of frankness, nor lewdness as a type of showing favor.   

No, dear Philothea, you must not try to flee the error of slander by favoring, fawning over, and feeding other errors.   No, you must promptly and frankly call evil 'evil,' and lay blame upon blameworthy things.  In doing so we glorify God, provided that this be in accord with the following conditions.....

Truth:  Wading helpfully in makes screw-ups possible.   Probable, even, when the do-gooder doesn't understand the situation, or offers a kind of help for which they are manifestly incompetent.   The most dangerous do-gooder is the one with a loveless motivation:  the one who hopes to play the hero and savior, or to confirm their own image of the self, or to enjoy a side order of punishment and vengeance.

[First condition for calling out evil.]  In order to condemn the wickednesses of another without being condemned ourselves, it must be necessary for the good of the other:  either the good of those whom we are speaking about, or those to whom we speak. 

Suppose someone is telling stories, in the presence of the young, of certain men and women carrying on recklessly with each other; or describing so-and-so's obviously lecherous words or actions.  Should I fail to clearly condemn this wrong, or should I make as if to excuse it, those tender souls who are listening might stumble into something similar. 

These disgraceful things require my frank condemnation in the very moment, unless I can carry out this duty more effectively and discreetly at a later time.  

Justified or not, a certain awe in the face of my own shortcomings keeps me from stepping forward, even in very small ways.   There are many situations I do not understand—and how would I know, most of the time, if I correctly understand them?  Years of mortifying evidence tells me I do not know how to interact correctly with strangers.   And my motivations are always, always suspect.    

[Second condition for calling out evil.]  Besides this, in order to speak on such a subject, it must be my proper place to do so. 

For example, if in a certain company of people I am counted among the leaders, I might seem to approve of a wrong if I do not speak up. 

But if I occupy a lower place, I must not take it upon myself to censure.

Positive outward acts of justice and mercy seem only rarely safe from my blunderings, that is, when I stick to what I know well and keep to things in which I have competence.

[Third condition for calling out evil.]  Above all I must choose my words precisely, not saying a single superfluous word. 

For example, if I criticize the intimacy between a young man and a young woman, on the grounds that they seem dangerously indiscreet:  O God, Philothea, I must walk a very careful line so as not to exaggerate the problem, not even a tiny bit;

• if there is only a slight appearance of impropriety, I must say no more than that;
• if it is only a matter of simple imprudence, I will not say that it is more;
• if there is neither imprudence, nor a serious appearance of wrongdoing, but only something that a gossip might latch onto, either I will mention only that or say nothing at all. 

For my tongue, when I speak about my neighbor, rests in my mouth like the scalpel in the surgeon's hand, ready to make an incision among the nerves and tendons; I must cut precisely, so as to say neither more nor less than what is.  

There's freedom in uncertainty:   I choose prudence in the sober acceptance that it might really be cowardice, if only because I prefer it to choosing courage that might turn out to be recklessness.   

[Final condition for calling out evil.] And finally, in condemning the vice, I must ever be careful to spare the person as much as I can. 

It is true that one can speak freely about those who infamously and publicly make their sins manifest---provided that this be done with a spirit of charity and compassion, and not at all with arrogance and presumption; nor to take pleasure in the sorrows of another, for this betrays a vile, mean heart. 

I only except those who declare themselves enemies of God and of his Church, for those we must decry as much as we can, along with heretic and schismatic sects and their leaders; it is a kindness to cry wolf wherever it is found among the flock.

Still, though, there are two things left.  One positive; one, a double negative.

One, I had better act on myself, so as not to persist in the ignorance, incompetence, and self-love that I see in myself and that gives me reason not to take more action.   

I do  have a responsibility to learn about the situations in the world that require more justice and mercy;

I do have a responsibility to form myself in the kinds of skills that would make me a better servant to others, and to locate uses for the kinds of skills I already possess;

underlying both of these and primary to it:   I do have a responsibility to cooperate in the rooting-out of self-love and the cultivation of correct love; to decrease that Another can increase.   

All of these actually are positive acts.  They're quiet, they may be noticed by absolutely no one while the work is going on, but they are things to do.

Everyone thinks themselves free to judge and criticize a prince, and to speak ill of entire nations, based on feelings.  Philothea, don't make this mistake:  for besides offending God, you could provoke a thousand quarrels. 

• When you hear someone speaking ill of another, raise objections and doubts about the accusation, if you can in justice do so;
• if you cannot, give the benefit of the doubt to the intentions of the accused;
• if that does not work, be evidence of compassion towards him, and change the subject, reminding yourself and everyone in the company that it is only by the grace of God that anyone manages not to fall. 

Call out the gossiper, but gently; and mention, if you know it, the good in the person who has been so defamed.

Two, even if I haven't the clarity to see whether I have the love to act, I might yet have the clarity to see how I can love by declining to act.  

It seems pretty rare that I get the chance to do real work that increases the justice in the world, at least not in a way that doesn't risk going terribly wrong.  But I get so many far-more-obvious opportunities each day to enact selfishness:  to tear at, or at least pick at, the fabric of mercy and justice.   

There isn't much risk of screwing up by deciding, through an effort of love, NOT to do that.  Making tiny and thankless decisions to not act, to not tear down, to not demand adulation, to not seek retribution, to not mock, to not gossip, to not assent to mercilessness and injustice. 

Lay down the mallet; damp the gong;  rest a quieting hand on the cymbal.

 

The greatest commandments and the city council.

I am out of practice, so expect a somewhat stream-of-consciousness post today.

...

Today I listened to a relatively short homily in which one point went like this (paraphrased from memory): 

We cannot expect the city council to solve our problem, because our problem is sin, and Jesus is the only solution for that.  We cannot put all our hopes in them or set them above God.  Our problem will only be solved by conversion of hearts, and so that is where we have to look first.

None of this is false, and yet I went away troubled and unsatisfied by the homily.  Part of the truth is, I think, missing from it.

Surely one reason I am unsatisfied is the lone reference to the “city council.”  It is true that the city council cannot solve the problem of sin, but it’s also true that the words “city council” call to mind for those of us living now in the Twin Cities something quite specific.  The Minneapolis City Council is in the process of dismantling the status quo ante of the police department, and everyone, whether they live in Minneapolis or not, seems to have an opinion about it.  So I am left with a strong impression that the homilist meant that whatever we hope the city council might do, we ought to mostly focus our efforts not on influencing it, but on conversion of our own hearts regarding such things.

But maybe what was really meant was not to point just to city government, but to government in general.  That would be a more expansive view, and so less incomplete.  It isn’t just the city council who can’t solve the problem of sin.  Traffic and parking can’t; the state legislature can’t.  Federal judges cannot solve the problem of sin; getting the right president in office will not solve the problem of sin.  Only conversion of heart will solve the problem of sin.  Now, it is true that I do not remember ever being warned on the Sunday preceding the first Tuesday after November 1 that I should be careful not to trust in federal judges to solve our big problems.  But I am as subject to cognitive bias as anyone else, and my memory might be faulty.

Anyway, all that is not wrong.  We cannot set any level, any branch of government up as a substitute salvation that will solve the big problem.  There is certainly a risk that we might.  As the legend goes, progressive atheists want to set government up as a new idol, substitute central planning for morality.  I am not sure there were very many of those listening to the homily.  But the point is taken. Government is not the solution to the Big Problem.

And yet, even if we don’t fall for the idea that government can solve The Big Problem (sin, or if you like, selfish human nature), still we think government can be useful to solve, if not THE problem, then just A problem, here and there, from time to time.  How do we work to get our government to solve A problem without accidentally making an idol of it?  Without neglecting conversion of hearts?

If I look to the city council for help keeping, say, police officers, from, say, murdering unarmed Black residents, is that so wrong?  Surely what we really need is for a bunch of hearts to be converted so that no one tries to murder anyone at all, but do we have to see many more people die while we try to convert them?  And are we working on the correct set of hearts?

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I often think about the two great commandments, Love God and Love Your Neighbor.   Probably I should think about their content, but I often think about their number.  Why are there two?  Jesus says that in those two are contained all the rest of the law.  But at least superficially, one might think that they are also contained in each other.   “Love God” should imply loving His creation, including the neighbors, no?  And “Love your Neighbor” should imply the existence of a law of Love higher than ourselves, which must come from God, no?  So why do we get both instead of one or the other?

Let’s suppose we only had been given one, and see if it gets us somewhere different.

1.

If the only greatest commandment were “Love God,” then we would at least know to love God more than neighbor.  And that seems to go with other bits of scripture, like today’s, where Jesus says we ought not love parent, son, or daughter more than we love Him.  But without “Love your neighbor,” how could we really be sure that our neighbors even exist as real people?  What if they are illusions?  What if I, and the voices in my head, are all that is?  The voices in my head, or the desires in my heart, might themselves be God.  I might try to love God only by obeying those voices, or only by obeying my desires.

But because “Love your neighbor” is also a great commandment, I have a way to test the voices in my head and the desires of my heart.  If they tell me to hate, to harm, or to use my neighbor as a means to an end—anything impossible to square with loving the neighbor—then I know it isn’t God I am serving if I do what they tell me.  I know the god to be a false one.

2.

And what if the only greatest commandment were “Love your neighbor as yourself?”  Then I know I am always to will my neighbor’s good, yes, in the same way that I will my own good.  But what is my good?  What is my relationship with Good?  Who am I?  What am I?  If I cannot understand myself and how I relate to Good, how do I will and enact good to others?

This is why I also need the commandment “Love God.”  I am a creature, but not a thing.  I need God and am to love God.  And since I am to love my neighbors as myself, they are also creatures who are not things.  I owe my love, because I owe myself, to God.  And so I can also test my love of neighbor:  if I attempt to will and enact the good of my neighbor in a way that violates my own right relationship as a child of God, with my own dignity and my own duties, I have chosen the wrong way.

Conclusion:

The two commandments interpret each other, test each other, and together they test all the others.

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The two together are, I think, the test of most moral questions, questions of right relationship— such as whether we have inadvertently set some useful tool up as an idol.  Any tool, even a quite useful one, can be an idol if we attempt to obtain and wield it at all costs—in particular, if we are willing to violate the two great commandments.

Yes, even if we wish to use the tool (once we have it) to love God or to love (some) neighbors.

If you try to obtain the tool, or the power to use it, by denying or wounding or neglecting God—or by harming your neighbor, or using the neighbor as a means to get the tool—or by lying or deceit or cheating

—yes, even if you hope to use the tool to help someone later, or a great number of someones—

your tool is an idol.  Even if it’s the city council; even if it’s a federal judge.

 

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But... if you haven’t set it up as an idol....

....your tool can be simply a tool. 

There is nothing wrong with writing to my city council representative, or showing up to a public meeting, and telling her my opinion about how a future public safety department ought to be organized.  There is nothing wrong with me writing that I will vote for her if she does one thing and against her if she does something else.  There is nothing wrong with my voting.  Nothing about any of that is inconsistent with loving God or my neighbor, as long as I form my opinion with an honest attempt to serve the common good, and to spend my vote and my words and my work to get the best outcome for that common good that I can get.  And it doesn’t prevent me from hoping for conversion of hearts, or even working for conversion of hearts, in some other way.

Trying to make civil society better, fairer, safer, more just is not a risk of making it a substitute for God, unless you choose means that violate your relationship with God or your relationship with your neighbor.  And there are usually means available to you that do not violate them.

There are also probably means available to you that would so violate them.  And those means might well seem as if they will get the job done faster, better, or with more certainty.  Congratulations: this is what is known as a “temptation.”  They are common, and the point is to avoid them if you can, and if you can’t, then not to give in.

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And so it comes back, as it so often does, to means and ends.  We may use any thing—a tool, a structure, a process, an organization—to love our neighbors, giving them what is justly theirs, and to love God, giving God what’s due.

We may not use, or harm, a neighbor in order to get hold of the tool; and we may not deny or neglect God either.

If we aren’t breaking those commandments, I submit that we ought to be confident that accusations of setting up false idols are baseless.  And so we shouldn’t be scared away from using those means to try to protect the powerless, provide for the poor, and make whole the injured.

Or, for that matter, to reach and speak to all those unconverted hearts, even ours;  the ones that work together, maybe without knowing it, to embed the Big Problem—selfish human nature—deeply in all the systems we participate in, including the ones we want to use and change to lift the very burdens that oppress us all.

 

Consolations and the prosperity gospel.

Amy Welborn recently put up a post on the prosperity gospel's more subtle forms, a "well-trodden road" that she's considered many times.   

This is an interesting discussion, because while some versions (the "health-and-wealth" gospel) are so obviously out of line with orthodox Christian thought as to be almost a parody, others are more difficult to untangle precisely because they seem to grow right out of unarguably Christian and Judeo-Christian beliefs.  

It’s easy for us to look at an interpretation of Christianity with which we disagree and dismiss it out of hand, mock or condemn it – especially something as obviously wrong as the health-and-wealth gospel. More fruitful, I think, is to look at the why and the roots and explore how aspects of an incorrect interpretation might have crept into our own thinking. To examine it, see what’s true, what’s false and use it as a way, not so much to condemn others – over whom we have no control – but to grow in our own faith and conform ourselves more closely to truth.

So let’s take the most recent newsworthy example – pastor John Gray purchasing a $200K Lamborghini for his wife.  Gray defended his purchase against criticism by pointing out that he’d not used church money to buy it, but rather money from a book deal, a television show on Oprah’s network and other income sources. He didn’t go whole hog Prosperity in defending it, but he did say: “God helped me to make my wife’s dream come true,” he wrote in an Instagram post Tuesday night. “Why not? She’s made mine come true!”

This is a little different from promising the impoverished that if they align themselves correctly with God’s will, they’ll find more material comfort, but the very basic fundamentals are the same: When we do God’s will, it shows in our earthly lives. God helps us make our dreams come true.

This is not, of course, incorrect. The deep roots of the Prosperity Gospel are in the ancient life of Israel. Read Psalms, read Proverbs. External blessing is a sign of God's favor in our tradition.

But then along came the Exile.  And the challenge of Job. God’s people had to ask themselves: What does it mean to be blessed by God? What does God’s presence among us look like?

The philosophical problem here is that our faith teaches that here on earth, all good things, visible and invisible, do come from God.   And we have plenty of Scripture to back us up that God does (at least some of the time) provide some kind of good to His faithful servants.  Perhaps health and wealth and safety; perhaps supportive mentors, friends, and family; perhaps graces of understanding and acceptance that help us put into perspective our lack of such things.  

And yet... if this is the leaping-off point... can we leap off in the wrong direction?  

One of the biggest dangers would be if we become satisfied.   Satisfied that our temporal blessings (visible and invisible) constitute evidence that we are doing the Christian life correctly.  Satisfied, too, in the sense of no longer... longing.

Amy muses in this direction:

It seems to me that the fundamental error of any “Prosperity Gospel” lies in the elevation of the truth that yes, we find authentic peace and true joy when our wills and choices are aligned with God’s will. That’s the truth we find in the very beginning of Scripture: Adam and Eve at peace in the Garden, and then at war with each other, God, nature and themselves outside of it.

The way that a “Prosperity Gospel” twists this truth is when it encourages us to uncritically identify the fruits of a right relationship with God with anything temporal.

It instrumentalizes the spiritual life.

So now, look beyond the easy targets of health-and-wealth. Survey the contemporary popular spiritual landscape, Catholic and otherwise. If there’s a current self-help trend out there, are spiritual gurus close behind, baptizing it?

ou might see and hear some of this:

Through faith, I came to understand my purpose and look at the success I’ve found because of that.

Through faith, I came to see and accept how beautiful I am, and what true beauty is.

Because of faith, I feel great about myself and affirm my life as amazing and accomplished.

This is hard, this is tricky, and I hope I can tease this apart correctly. Because I’m sure this might be striking you as just wrong. Because isn’t that  part of what faith is? In accepting Jesus as Lord of my life, aren’t I opening myself to a re-orientation, a proper understanding of myself and my relationship to the world that’s going to bear this fruit?

True. All that is fruit of a relationship with Christ.

Plot twist: But it’s really not that important, either.

 

There's more, and you should go read what she has to say.   

But I think there may be a way to... make it a little less tricky?  The Prosperity Gospel is a modern thing, but human nature is the same as always, and I suspect it's merely a new-ish manifestation of a very old temptation.

In short:  Humans are perfectly capable of taking true graces that truly come from God and... screwing up our responses to them.

+ + + 

This is what I wonder: 

This sort of celebration of temporal happiness and satisfaction, accompanied by a broader understanding of what happiness and satisfaction means

--e.g. “Now that I know what true beauty is” — something unspecified, but more than just conventional outer attractiveness — “I see that I am beautiful.”

--Or: “now that I know what true wealth is, I see that I am wealthy”) ---

might fall under the category of “consolations.”  

Consolations are, in the writings of the saints and in the writings of the magisterium, the opposite of affliction.   These are free gifts of happiness, contentment, felt blessings, confidence in the presence of God, strong feelings of conviction. All bestowed by God on some of the faithful, and occasionally understood to be withdrawn from them by God, as a means of increasing their (or someone's) growth in faith.

Numerous saints have warned Christians against mistaking the consolation for something it is not. It is not (necessarily) a reward or a punishment; it is certainly not a reliable indication of the holiness of the individual, such that holier people receive more or fewer consolations; and while we may hope for consolations, we are expressly warned against making the consolation the end that we seek.

In the Introduction to the Devout Life (IV.13) St. Francis de Sales includes "Spiritual and sensible  consolations" in the catalog of temptations to be overcome. 

[Man's state] is ever changing, constantly in movement; his life on earth like waters which ebb and flow, sometimes lifted up by hope, sometimes depressed by fear, swept one way by consolation, another by affliction; no day, no hour, exactly the same.

It is well to remember this, for we must strive to preserve our equanimity in the midst of these various changes; though all should change about is we must remain immovable, our eyes and our hearts ever fixed on God.

He then lists items of "particular advice," which are really quite detailed and wonderful but which I will paraphrase here for brevity.

1. Feelings of pleasure, sadness, consolation, or compassion which make our spiritual exercises pleasing or agreeable are not evidence of real devotion and can even be "snares of the devil, who encourages them to make much of these consolations and take such satisfaction in them that they no longer seek true devotion, which is to do constantly, resolutely, promptly, and energetically whatever we know to be pleasing to God."
2. However, they are sometimes very useful, for they make the spiritual life attractive to us.  "
3. How to know the difference between the two situations?   You will knmow them by the fruit they yield.  Our hearts are as trees, our feelings and desires their branches, our actions which follow from them the fruit.  If [consolations] make us more hunble and patient, considerate and merciful towards our neighbour, more fervent in mortifying our evil desires and inclinations, more constant in our devotion, more docile and submissive to those in authority over us, more simple in our lives [!], there can be no doubt that they come from God; but if we seek such feelings for our own satisfaction, if they make us selfish, irritable, self-assertive, impatient, overbearing, proud, presumptuous and harsh towards others and make us imagine that we are already saints and no longer in need of guidance or correction there is no doubt that they are false and evil....
4. We must receive consolations with humility, never taking them for evidence of our own goodness, and use them according to God's intention, and also "occasionally detatch ourselves" from consolations by protesting to God that we seek only His love and not the sensible goods that he sends.

Now, St. Francis doesn't take the position that I suggested above, that all consolations come from God and it is our response to them that matters.  He phrases it that some consolations are good and come from God whereas others arise "from our fallen nature" or are "sent by the devil."  I think either construction works.

If indeed the sentiments that lead one into the prosperity-gospel error are incorrect responses to real spiritual consolations, then the ancient and medieval fathers will have much to say to us about how to avoid falling into this apparently modern error.

 

 

 

Repost: The lack of checklists.

This is a repost from October 2014.

+ + +

Recently a friend of mine asked me if I could recommend any books for someone who was struggling with scrupulosity -- in particular, the Do I Have A Sufficiently Serious Reason To Delay Pregnancy sort of scrupulosity, mixed with depression and struggles with anger and being overwhelmed. I wanted to help, so I put some thought into it.

Longtime readers will know of my irritation with the tendency of some corners of the Catholic internet, lacking any actual lists of rules from the Magisterium, to write their own rules for what constitutes a Serious Reason and then disseminate them.

My position is that those entrusted with the teaching authority of the Church, as well as the inspired writers of Scripture, knew what they were doing when they didn't, for example, add "subclinical depression isn't a good enough reason to watch your fertility signs" or "if only one spouse is sure that it's a good time to try for another baby, the other one should get in line." The fact that the Church has declined to give further guidance beyond generosity and the good of the family, is itself a kind of guidance: a signal that discernment about family size and childbirth timing belongs not to theologians and pastors, nor to doctors and therapists, nor to social media friends and Twitter, but to a well-formed married couple themselves -- and no one else.

I couldn't think of any books that I could recommend through experience, although I found some promising titles via Google. I know of a number of web-published articles and blog posts that make the case for backing off from pressuring others with the so-called Grave Reasons and minding yer own business, but as it was of course web-published articles and blog posts that helped convince my friend's friend that her own struggles were not bad enough -- that she was not good enough, and if she could only be better she could handle everything, and maybe the first step towards being better was to take on more and more and more -- well, I wasn't sure that piling more websites, no more authoritative than the others, would help.

So I suggested working on recognizing scrupulosity in general, and left it at that.

+ + +

Later on this week it occurred to me that there is another sort of commandment -- one that is much, much more fundamental to the Christian life than anything having to do with married life, since it applies quite strictly to everyone of any age and state of life -- that, despite its importance, is similarly light on the details.

We all know we've got to do it. In a very real sense our salvation is said to depend on it. But no one -- not Christ's words in scripture, not the Catechism, no papal teaching document, no synod -- has ever told us exactly how to do it, or how to know when we've done it, or given us a checklist of features of successfully practicing it. And yet this virtue, this activity, is not something that is purely spiritual or invisible; like generosity in the service of life, it plays out in the arena of real contact between real human beings, and if we invite it in, if we practice it, somehow (but no one will tell us how, exactly) it will change the course of our days.

I am speaking of forgiveness. We know it's always necessary: Jesus said himself that we can't be forgiven unless we forgive. We know it must be offered again and again, without practical end; that, at least, is what the exegetes tell us that "seventy times seven" times means to say to us.

But beyond the teaching that we have to do it, and that we are never allowed to give up doing it -- we are not told what we have to do to be forgiving.

How can we ever forgive enough? There is no "enough," because our model of forgiveness -- just like our model of life-giving generosity -- is God Himself.

There is only what we are called to do. And because it is a matter of a call, no one can figure that out for us. We have to discern on our own.

+ + +

Let's talk extremes: Almost nobody (unless they are trapped, themselves, somehow) believes that the injunction to forgive means that a physically abused person must go on putting himself or herself in danger of more abuse. We don't say that there is a limit on forgiveness; rather, we advise that forgiveness doesn't require the risk of being harmed by a dangerous person.

And yet... all forgiveness means some level of risk and vulnerability (otherwise we wouldn't have to remind people to do it). And so there is always the open question of how much vulnerability we can create before we have forgiven.

The question is open. There is no checklist.

"If your neighbor commits such-and-such a crime against you, and then he apologizes and makes restitution, forgiving him means declining to press charges. But if your neighbor commits such-and-such a different, particular, crime, and then apologizes and makes restitution, forgive him some other way while you still press charges." Nope. We don't get advice like that.

"If you lend money up to $X and the borrower never pays you back, forgiveness means that you stop demanding the money and you should be willing to lend to that person again. If the unpaid amount is between $X and $Y, forgiveness means that you stop demanding the money, and don't think of it again, but probably you should not lend to that person again. If the amount is between $Y and $Z, it is permissible to take the borrower to court for the money, while forgiving the borrower in your heart..." Nope. We don't get advice like that.

"If a family member hurts you in such-and-such a way, forgiveness means that you tell the person of your hurt and then never speak of it again, and not gossip to other members of the family, and keep going to visit the relative who hurt you, and send Christmas cards, and the like. If a family member hurts you in a different way, forgiveness means that you keep silent about the hurt, keep visiting with that person, and learn to change the subject when necessary to avoid the topics that lead to people saying hurtful things. But if a family member hurts you in such-and-such a different way, it's okay to separate yourself completely from that person and quietly work on your own anger issues without subjecting yourself to further mental abuse, and that is what forgiveness means in that case." Nope. No specific advice.

Look in the encyclicals all you want. Read the Bible as much as you want. There is no algorithm.

But isn't this dangerous? Aren't some people going to feel trapped by the injunction to forgive, trapped in cycles of self-hatred, trapped in abusive relationships, trapped by toxic family members demanding what they have no right to demand?

Yes. It is dangerous. And people are trapped in this way.

And yet it would be dangerous in a different way if we were given such an algorithm, because we would none of us have any room for discernment -- for working out the best way to forgive in a specific situation, with specific human beings.

We have a Church, not a clinic; we have a Teacher, not a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual; we deal with disordered human persons (including ourselves), not with disorders. We have to judge the situations that we are in by looking at the needs of the people who are affected by the situations. We as individuals are the only ones who can see the details of our surroundings. A predictive, exhaustive flowchart (if P then Q) would, I presume, hobble us; leaving no room for a flowering of authentic human forgiveness, it would tempt us to go just so far and yet no farther.

It might serve as an excuse to limit forgiveness, by telling us when we had forgiven "enough."

Forgiveness comes in different shapes, and we have to see the shape it will fit into, in our hearts and in our relationships, and work over and over again to more fully fit it into its place. But it isn't ever done and isn't ever enough. The nature of forgiveness, like generosity, is a nature of readiness-to-serve; never saying "I am done," but instead always ready to be called to do something more.

What that something may be, we apparently have to figure out on our own, for it to be forgiveness and not some other thing -- maybe, a good thing, but something else.

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."

+ + +

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!"

+ + +

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.

 

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.

 

 

St. John Bosco and how to *not* punish kids (a repost).

St. John Bosco, like St. "Mother" Teresa or St. "Padre" Pio, is one of those whose names started to sound a little weird when their popular monikers got altered by the application of sainthood.  He's often "Don" Bosco even though his name is John-actually-Saint-John-now, "Don" being the honorific applied typically to diocesan priests in Italy.  I think this is because he, like they, like some others -- Thérèse comes to mind too -- is one of those saints that once you know them, you just sort of make friends with.  The "saint" can feel a little embarrassing between friends.  Or because a straightforward humility, a groundedness, is so much a part of their persona that they succeed in never feeling... I don't know, lofty.  

Here's a repost about Don Bosco for his feast day, Jan. 31.  In which I write about why I take him as my personal role model in his approach to child discipline.

+ + +

My personal parenting/discipline ideal has always been to avoid punishing kids.

I get the impression from other people that the idea alarms them, because it sounds a lot like "avoiding discipline;" perhaps it calls to mind the stories of parents who insist their offspring can do no wrong.  You know, the kind who sue the school when their child is suspended for cheating on a test or something like that.

That's not my point.  By punishment, I mean those arbitrary unpleasantnesses inflicted in return for misbehavior:  the spanking, the grounding, the confiscation. Mrk and I aren't what you'd call permissive parents.  We try to be authoritative, if not authoritarian.  We use the term "obedience" with the kids and are clear about what it means and why it's important.   But (this is our ideal, mind you, not always the way we manage to make it work) we try not to get to the point where we need a "punishment" in the first place.  

We try to let them experience the consequences of their actions, insofar as it isn't dangerous.  

• Didn't pack an extra dress like you were supposed to?  Well, I guess you'll be wet and uncomfortable now that you've run through your friend's sprinkler in your clothes.  
• Refused to eat your lunch at lunchtime?  Ooooops, snack time isn't till 3:30, I guess you can have some of these plain almonds I keep in the car for emergencies.
• Shrieked at each other in the car while we were running errands?  After all that, I (honestly) don't feel anymore like taking you out for lunch, so instead we're going home and having tuna sandwiches.

On the occasion when something truly egregious happens -- such as when one of my kids came to me and admitted that a long string of perfect scores on math assignments had been faked -- consequences are meted out rather than merely allowed to happen; but we really try to have it make sense.  In the case of the spurious perfect scores, since I had no way to know whether the child understood the material, the child was assigned double math lessons for as many days as the lessons had been faked, each day doing the regularly scheduled lesson and at the same time re-doing one of the lessons from before.  That plus a long conversation about honesty.  And dangerous misuse of a tool around here is very likely to result in revocation of privileges to use said tool until competency and proper respect for risk is demonstrated; that's just common sense, not a punishment.  

It was difficult for us to figure out when our first was very young, but we hit our stride eventually, and he grew out of the normal frustrations of toddlerhood into an earnest child and now a delightful teenager, and that has given us a lot of confidence as we continue to bring him up, him and the four that have followed.  It's true that I yell more than I wish I did, and lose my temper.  It's an ideal I fail to measure up to.  But I still strive for that "no-punishment" ideal.

+ + + 

I notice, however, that this isn't language I tend to hear from my fellow Catholic parents much.  Indeed, at more than one parish I've seethed while listening to a priest (including in the homily at my daughter's baptism) cheerfully recommend vigorously and frequently spanking small children.  

I think this is an American Catholic phenomenon, borne of being caught between a decadent permissive culture and an army of evangelical Protestants -- in many ways, serious American Catholics are constantly playing "keeping up with the Bob Joneses," and so, for better or for worse, we have been inculturated with what I personally see as a break-the-child's-sinful-will, thou-shalt-honor-us-because-of-the-ten-commandments sort of  attitude toward child discipline.  

The exceptions are the super-crunchy attachment parenting Catholics.  Am I one of those?  Sort of; as a young parent, AP wasn't good enough for me and if you were foolish enough to ask me about it I would talk your ear off about how I was into "CC" parenting, which stands for "continuum concept," which, well, some other time....    

I did have plenty of role models for the way that I felt was right for me to parent my kids, but I lacked Catholic ones.   And that's why I was so excited when I first learned about the educational philosophy of St. John Bosco.  AKA "Don" Bosco (1815-1888) because that's what you call a diocesan priest in Italy.   Here's Wikipedia on him, for some background:

At that time the city of Turin had a population of 117,000 inhabitants. It reflected the effects of industrialization and urbanization: numerous poor families lived in the slums of the city, having come from the countryside in search of a better life. In visiting the prisons Don Bosco was disturbed to see so many boys from 12 to 18 years of age. He was determined to find a means to prevent them ending up here. Because of population growth and migration to the city, Bosco found the traditional methods of parish ministry inefficient. He decided it was necessary to try another form of apostolate, and he began to meet the boys where they worked and gathered in shops, offices, market places. They were pavers, stone-cutters, masons, plasterers who came from far away places, he recalled in his brief Memoirs.

The Oratorio was not simply a charitable institution, and its activities were not limited to Sundays. For Don Bosco it became his permanent occupation. He looked for jobs for the unemployed. Some of the boys did not have sleeping quarters and slept under bridges or in bleak public dormitories. Twice he tried to provide lodgings in his house. The first time they stole the blankets; the second they emptied the hay-loft. He did not give up. In May 1847, he gave shelter to a young boy from Valesia, in one of the three rooms he was renting in the slums of Valdocco, where he was living with his mother. He and "Mamma Margherita" began taking in orphans. The boys sheltered by Don Bosco numbered 36 in 1852, 115 in 1854, 470 in 1860 and 600 in 1861, 800 being the maximum some time later....

In 1859, Bosco selected the experienced priest Vittorio Alasonatti, 15 seminarians and one high school boy and formed them into the "Society of St. Francis de Sales." This was the nucleus of the Salesians, the religious order that would carry on his work....In 1871, he founded a group of religious sisters to do for girls what the Salesians were doing for boys. They were called the "Daughters of Mary Help of Christians." In 1874, he founded yet another group, the "Salesian Cooperators." These were mostly lay people who would work for young people like the Daughters and the Salesians, but would not join a religious order.

Bosco's capability to attract numerous boys and adult helpers was connected to his "Preventive System of Education."

Don Bosco explained his "preventive system" in an essay, "The Preventive System in the Education of the Young," which can be found here.  It begins by contrasting his "preventive" system with the "repressive" system.  The "repressive" system, he says, has its place "in the army and in general among adults and the judicious, who ought of themselves to know and remember what the law and its regulations demand."  

The repressive system consists in making the law known to the subjects and afterwards watching to discover the transgressors of these laws, and inflicting, when necessary, the punishment deserved.

According to this system, the words and looks of the superior must always be severe and even threatening, and he must avoid all familiarity with his dependents.   

In order to give weight to his authority the Rector must rarely be found among his subjects and as a rule only when it is a question of punishing or threatening.  

But Don Bosco's system is different:

[The preventive system] consists in making the laws and regulations of an institute known, and then watching carefully so that the pupils may at all times be under the vigilant eye of the rector or the assistants, who like loving fathers can converse with them, take the lead in every movement and in a kindly way give advice and correction;  in other words, this system places the pupils in the impossibility of committing faults.

This system is based entirely on reason and religion, and above all on kindness; therefore it excludes all violent punishment, and tries to do without even the slightest chastisement. 

"Excludes all violent punishment, and tries to do without even the slightest chastisement" being what I was going for all along, I was so glad to find this.  

The basic idea is that children are closely supervised at all times by leaders who care for them, model good behavior, encourage reception of the sacraments, participate in their games, and converse with them frequently about behavior norms in a way that "appeals to [their] reason" and "generally enlists [their] accord."  Close supervision and "forewarning" means that there is little chance for a child to commit a fault. Don Bosco believes that young people misbehave, initially at least, because of inattention, not malice:

The primary reason for this system is the thoughtlessness of the young, who in one moment forget the rules of discipline and the penalties for their infringement.  Consequently, a child often becomes culpable and deserving of punishment, which he had not even thought about, and which he had quite forgotten when heedlessly committing the fault which he would certainly have avoided, had a friendly voice warned him.

To apply this system Don Bosco lists several principles of education and discipline.

1.  Close supervision by the people entrusted with the children.  "[The Rector] must always be with his pupils whenever they are not engaged in some occupation, unless they are already being properly supervised by others."

2. Moral teachers who actively lead the pupils to and in each new place or activity. "Teachers, craftmasters, and assistants must be of acknowledged morality... As far as possible the assistants ought to precede the boys to the place where they assemble; they should remain with them until others come to take their place, and never leave the pupils unoccupied."

3.  Allow rowdiness and physical activity.  "Let the boys have full liberty to jump, run, and make as much noise as they please.  Gymnastics, music, theatricals, and outings are most efficacious means of obtaining discipline and of benefiting spiritual and bodily health.  Let care be taken however that the games... are not reprehensible.  'Do anything you like,' the great friend of youth, St. Philip [Neri] used to say, 'as long as you do not sin.'"

4.  Encourage and promote, don't force, the sacraments.  "Frequent confession and communion and daily mass are the pillars which must support the edifice of education, from which we propose to banish the use of threats and the cane.  Never force the boys to frequent the sacraments, but encourage them to do so, and give them every opportunity.... [L]et the beauty, grandeur, and holiness of the Catholic religion be dwelt on..."

"Avoid as a plague the opinion that the first communion should be deferred to a late age... When a child can distinguish between Bread and bread, and shows sufficient knowledge, give no further thought to his age... St. Philip Neri counseled weekly and even more frequent communion."

5.  Exclude bad materials and trouble-making people.  "[P]revent bad books, bad companions, or persons who indulge in improper conversations from entering the college.  A good door keeper is a treasure for a house of education."

6.  Brief daily reflections -- a sort of community examen.  "Every evening after night prayers before the boys go to rest, the Rector or someone in his stead shall address them briefly, giving them advice or counsel concerning what is to be done or... avoided.  Let him try to draw some moral reflection from events that have happened during the day... but his words should never take more than two or three minutes."

7.  Love before fear.   "An educator should seek to win the love of his pupils if he wishes to inspire fear in them.  When he succeeds in doing this, the withholding of some token of kindness is a punishment which stimulates emulation, gives courage, and never degrades.... With the young, punishment is whatever is meant as a punishment.... in the case of some boys a reproachful look is more effective than a slap in the face would be."

8. Do not  shame children.  "Except in very rare cases, corrections and punishments should never be given publicly, but always privately and in the absence of companions."

9.  Employ patient reason and religion. "[T]he greatest prudence and patience should be used to bring the pupil to see his fauly, with the aid of reason and religion."

10.  No corporal punishment.  "To strike a boy in any way, to make him kneel in a painful position, to pull his ears, and other similar punishments, must be absolutely avoided, because the law forbids them, and because they greatly irritate the boys and degrade the educator."

 11.  Clear communication of expectations.  "The Rector shall make sure that the disciplinary measures, including rules and punishments, are known to the pupils, so that  no one can make the excuse that he did not know what was commanded or forbidden."

+ + +

I think these principles of Salesian education and discipline are sound ones that speak for themselves, principles that seek to form and transform human nature rather than to fight against it, and principles that respect and elevate the dignity of both child and educator.    When I discovered Don Bosco I felt I'd finally found someone who was truly on my side.    

If only I'd known about him when I was having to make post-baptism chitchat with Father Spare-the-Rod!

 

St. John Bosco, like St. "Mother" Teresa or St. "Padre" Pio, is one of those whose names started to sound a little weird when their popular monikers got altered by the application of sainthood.  He's often "Don" Bosco even though his name is John-actually-Saint-John-now, "Don" being the honorific applied typically to diocesan priests in Italy.  I think this is because he, like they, like some others -- Thérèse comes to mind too -- is one of those saints that once you know them, you just sort of make friends with.  The "saint" can feel a little embarrassing between friends.  Or because a straightforward humility, a groundedness, is so much a part of their persona that they succeed in never feeling... I don't know, lofty.  

Here's a repost about Don Bosco for his feast day, Jan. 31.  In which I write about why I take him as my personal role model in his approach to child discipline.

+ + +

My personal parenting/discipline ideal has always been to avoid punishing kids.

I get the impression from other people that the idea alarms them, because it sounds a lot like "avoiding discipline;" perhaps it calls to mind the stories of parents who insist their offspring can do no wrong.  You know, the kind who sue the school when their child is suspended for cheating on a test or something like that.

That's not my point.  By punishment, I mean those arbitrary unpleasantnesses inflicted in return for misbehavior:  the spanking, the grounding, the confiscation. Mrk and I aren't what you'd call permissive parents.  We try to be authoritative, if not authoritarian.  We use the term "obedience" with the kids and are clear about what it means and why it's important.   But (this is our ideal, mind you, not always the way we manage to make it work) we try not to get to the point where we need a "punishment" in the first place.  

We try to let them experience the consequences of their actions, insofar as it isn't dangerous.  

• Didn't pack an extra dress like you were supposed to?  Well, I guess you'll be wet and uncomfortable now that you've run through your friend's sprinkler in your clothes.  
• Refused to eat your lunch at lunchtime?  Ooooops, snack time isn't till 3:30, I guess you can have some of these plain almonds I keep in the car for emergencies.
• Shrieked at each other in the car while we were running errands?  After all that, I (honestly) don't feel anymore like taking you out for lunch, so instead we're going home and having tuna sandwiches.

On the occasion when something truly egregious happens -- such as when one of my kids came to me and admitted that a long string of perfect scores on math assignments had been faked -- consequences are meted out rather than merely allowed to happen; but we really try to have it make sense.  In the case of the spurious perfect scores, since I had no way to know whether the child understood the material, the child was assigned double math lessons for as many days as the lessons had been faked, each day doing the regularly scheduled lesson and at the same time re-doing one of the lessons from before.  That plus a long conversation about honesty.  And dangerous misuse of a tool around here is very likely to result in revocation of privileges to use said tool until competency and proper respect for risk is demonstrated; that's just common sense, not a punishment.  

It was difficult for us to figure out when our first was very young, but we hit our stride eventually, and he grew out of the normal frustrations of toddlerhood into an earnest child and now a delightful teenager, and that has given us a lot of confidence as we continue to bring him up, him and the four that have followed.  It's true that I yell more than I wish I did, and lose my temper.  It's an ideal I fail to measure up to.  But I still strive for that "no-punishment" ideal.

+ + + 

I notice, however, that this isn't language I tend to hear from my fellow Catholic parents much.  Indeed, at more than one parish I've seethed while listening to a priest (including in the homily at my daughter's baptism) cheerfully recommend vigorously and frequently spanking small children.  

I think this is an American Catholic phenomenon, borne of being caught between a decadent permissive culture and an army of evangelical Protestants -- in many ways, serious American Catholics are constantly playing "keeping up with the Bob Joneses," and so, for better or for worse, we have been inculturated with what I personally see as a break-the-child's-sinful-will, thou-shalt-honor-us-because-of-the-ten-commandments sort of  attitude toward child discipline.  

The exceptions are the super-crunchy attachment parenting Catholics.  Am I one of those?  Sort of; as a young parent, AP wasn't good enough for me and if you were foolish enough to ask me about it I would talk your ear off about how I was into "CC" parenting, which stands for "continuum concept," which, well, some other time....    

I did have plenty of role models for the way that I felt was right for me to parent my kids, but I lacked Catholic ones.   And that's why I was so excited when I first learned about the educational philosophy of St. John Bosco.  AKA "Don" Bosco (1815-1888) because that's what you call a diocesan priest in Italy.   Here's Wikipedia on him, for some background:

At that time the city of Turin had a population of 117,000 inhabitants. It reflected the effects of industrialization and urbanization: numerous poor families lived in the slums of the city, having come from the countryside in search of a better life. In visiting the prisons Don Bosco was disturbed to see so many boys from 12 to 18 years of age. He was determined to find a means to prevent them ending up here. Because of population growth and migration to the city, Bosco found the traditional methods of parish ministry inefficient. He decided it was necessary to try another form of apostolate, and he began to meet the boys where they worked and gathered in shops, offices, market places. They were pavers, stone-cutters, masons, plasterers who came from far away places, he recalled in his brief Memoirs.

The Oratorio was not simply a charitable institution, and its activities were not limited to Sundays. For Don Bosco it became his permanent occupation. He looked for jobs for the unemployed. Some of the boys did not have sleeping quarters and slept under bridges or in bleak public dormitories. Twice he tried to provide lodgings in his house. The first time they stole the blankets; the second they emptied the hay-loft. He did not give up. In May 1847, he gave shelter to a young boy from Valesia, in one of the three rooms he was renting in the slums of Valdocco, where he was living with his mother. He and "Mamma Margherita" began taking in orphans. The boys sheltered by Don Bosco numbered 36 in 1852, 115 in 1854, 470 in 1860 and 600 in 1861, 800 being the maximum some time later....

In 1859, Bosco selected the experienced priest Vittorio Alasonatti, 15 seminarians and one high school boy and formed them into the "Society of St. Francis de Sales." This was the nucleus of the Salesians, the religious order that would carry on his work....In 1871, he founded a group of religious sisters to do for girls what the Salesians were doing for boys. They were called the "Daughters of Mary Help of Christians." In 1874, he founded yet another group, the "Salesian Cooperators." These were mostly lay people who would work for young people like the Daughters and the Salesians, but would not join a religious order.

Bosco's capability to attract numerous boys and adult helpers was connected to his "Preventive System of Education."

Don Bosco explained his "preventive system" in an essay, "The Preventive System in the Education of the Young," which can be found here.  It begins by contrasting his "preventive" system with the "repressive" system.  The "repressive" system, he says, has its place "in the army and in general among adults and the judicious, who ought of themselves to know and remember what the law and its regulations demand."  

The repressive system consists in making the law known to the subjects and afterwards watching to discover the transgressors of these laws, and inflicting, when necessary, the punishment deserved.

According to this system, the words and looks of the superior must always be severe and even threatening, and he must avoid all familiarity with his dependents.   

In order to give weight to his authority the Rector must rarely be found among his subjects and as a rule only when it is a question of punishing or threatening.  

But Don Bosco's system is different:

[The preventive system] consists in making the laws and regulations of an institute known, and then watching carefully so that the pupils may at all times be under the vigilant eye of the rector or the assistants, who like loving fathers can converse with them, take the lead in every movement and in a kindly way give advice and correction;  in other words, this system places the pupils in the impossibility of committing faults.

This system is based entirely on reason and religion, and above all on kindness; therefore it excludes all violent punishment, and tries to do without even the slightest chastisement. 

"Excludes all violent punishment, and tries to do without even the slightest chastisement" being what I was going for all along, I was so glad to find this.  

The basic idea is that children are closely supervised at all times by leaders who care for them, model good behavior, encourage reception of the sacraments, participate in their games, and converse with them frequently about behavior norms in a way that "appeals to [their] reason" and "generally enlists [their] accord."  Close supervision and "forewarning" means that there is little chance for a child to commit a fault. Don Bosco believes that young people misbehave, initially at least, because of inattention, not malice:

The primary reason for this system is the thoughtlessness of the young, who in one moment forget the rules of discipline and the penalties for their infringement.  Consequently, a child often becomes culpable and deserving of punishment, which he had not even thought about, and which he had quite forgotten when heedlessly committing the fault which he would certainly have avoided, had a friendly voice warned him.

To apply this system Don Bosco lists several principles of education and discipline.

1.  Close supervision by the people entrusted with the children.  "[The Rector] must always be with his pupils whenever they are not engaged in some occupation, unless they are already being properly supervised by others."

2. Moral teachers who actively lead the pupils to and in each new place or activity. "Teachers, craftmasters, and assistants must be of acknowledged morality... As far as possible the assistants ought to precede the boys to the place where they assemble; they should remain with them until others come to take their place, and never leave the pupils unoccupied."

3.  Allow rowdiness and physical activity.  "Let the boys have full liberty to jump, run, and make as much noise as they please.  Gymnastics, music, theatricals, and outings are most efficacious means of obtaining discipline and of benefiting spiritual and bodily health.  Let care be taken however that the games... are not reprehensible.  'Do anything you like,' the great friend of youth, St. Philip [Neri] used to say, 'as long as you do not sin.'"

4.  Encourage and promote, don't force, the sacraments.  "Frequent confession and communion and daily mass are the pillars which must support the edifice of education, from which we propose to banish the use of threats and the cane.  Never force the boys to frequent the sacraments, but encourage them to do so, and give them every opportunity.... [L]et the beauty, grandeur, and holiness of the Catholic religion be dwelt on..."

"Avoid as a plague the opinion that the first communion should be deferred to a late age... When a child can distinguish between Bread and bread, and shows sufficient knowledge, give no further thought to his age... St. Philip Neri counseled weekly and even more frequent communion."

5.  Exclude bad materials and trouble-making people.  "[P]revent bad books, bad companions, or persons who indulge in improper conversations from entering the college.  A good door keeper is a treasure for a house of education."

6.  Brief daily reflections -- a sort of community examen.  "Every evening after night prayers before the boys go to rest, the Rector or someone in his stead shall address them briefly, giving them advice or counsel concerning what is to be done or... avoided.  Let him try to draw some moral reflection from events that have happened during the day... but his words should never take more than two or three minutes."

7.  Love before fear.   "An educator should seek to win the love of his pupils if he wishes to inspire fear in them.  When he succeeds in doing this, the withholding of some token of kindness is a punishment which stimulates emulation, gives courage, and never degrades.... With the young, punishment is whatever is meant as a punishment.... in the case of some boys a reproachful look is more effective than a slap in the face would be."

8. Do not  shame children.  "Except in very rare cases, corrections and punishments should never be given publicly, but always privately and in the absence of companions."

9.  Employ patient reason and religion. "[T]he greatest prudence and patience should be used to bring the pupil to see his fauly, with the aid of reason and religion."

10.  No corporal punishment.  "To strike a boy in any way, to make him kneel in a painful position, to pull his ears, and other similar punishments, must be absolutely avoided, because the law forbids them, and because they greatly irritate the boys and degrade the educator."

 11.  Clear communication of expectations.  "The Rector shall make sure that the disciplinary measures, including rules and punishments, are known to the pupils, so that  no one can make the excuse that he did not know what was commanded or forbidden."

+ + +

I think these principles of Salesian education and discipline are sound ones that speak for themselves, principles that seek to form and transform human nature rather than to fight against it, and principles that respect and elevate the dignity of both child and educator.    When I discovered Don Bosco I felt I'd finally found someone who was truly on my side.    

If only I'd known about him when I was having to make post-baptism chitchat with Father Spare-the-Rod!

The seventh corporal work of mercy.

Philando Castile (whom I mentioned in a post the other day) was laid to rest here in the Twin Cities on Thursday. Mr. Castile's funeral was hosted by the Cathedral of St. Paul at the request of Valerie Castile, his mother. There are some moving photos taken outside the building here at this article from the St. Paul newspaper website. There you can also view photos of the program detailing the chosen readings and speakers.

At the end of the article are comments, which I in no way recommend you to read. Some of them gave me the impression that the Archdiocese has received some comments from persons identifying as Catholic who object to the Cathedral's welcoming the Castile family to bury their son at a public ecumenical service. Castile was not a Catholic, and a Baptist minister was invited to deliver a sermon, while the rector of the Cathedral delivered introductory prayers.

My impression was strengthened by the Cathedral's release of the following statement:

 

The Archdiocese was honored that Philando Castile’s mother, desiring that her son’s funeral be an opportunity for “people to come together in a new way,” thought our cathedral could be a fitting setting for an ecumenical service at which our community could unite with her family to pray for peace and reconciliation.

During his general audience on September 9, 2015, Pope Francis said “the assembly of Jesus takes the form of a family and of a hospitable family, not an exclusive, closed sect.”

At this difficult moment we feel privileged to have the opportunity to offer hospitality to the Castile family and to our hurting community.

We are praying that our cathedral might serve as a place where all might encounter a God who offers consolation and hope.

 

I endorse this wholeheartedly.

Some of the objections to Mr. Castile's burial from the Cathedral are of a character that I will not dignify with a rebuttal.

On the other hand, the question "Why can Mr. Castile, a non-Catholic, have a 'Catholic funeral?'" is a reasonable one, even if expressed--rather insensitively--during the funeral in question, to judge from the time-stamps on the various comments. So is the corollary continuation "....when my brother/dad/son/grandpa was not allowed to have one?"

Let me just offer some context for that one.

The term "Catholic funeral" is imprecise. There is such a thing as a Requiem Mass, which is the quintessential "Catholic funeral." It can only take place inside a Catholic church or Catholic chapel.

There is also among the ecclesiastical funeral rites a "Funeral Liturgy Outside Mass," which is also a type of Catholic funeral. If you have been to a "Catholic funeral" in a funeral home chapel, in a private home, or in a cemetery chapel, that is what you most likely experienced. Sometimes (for example, in families that include Catholic and non-Catholic members) this is deemed the most fitting pastoral choice regardless of the location of the funeral.

It is also permitted (in fact it is encouraged!) to hold ecumenical prayer gatherings inside Catholic churches, presided over by Catholic and non-Catholic clergy, for many different reasons. These can include funerals and memorial services. Mr. Castile's funeral would seem to fall into this category.

Finally, at any memorial service at all, at a gravesite, in another church, at a wake, in someone's home: if a Catholic priest happens to be in attendance, he might accept an invitation to offer prayers or a blessing.

The first two categories, because they belong to the ecclesiastical funeral rites, are properly called "Catholic funerals." The latter two are not.

 

The diocese and the pastor have leeway in deciding who may or may not be buried according to the ecclesiastical rites, anyway. In some dioceses, under some circumstances, a baptized non-Catholic may be buried with full funeral rites. In other dioceses and in other circumstances, it may not be allowed. It can seem as if the standards are looser for non-Catholics than for Catholics, because in some dioceses a so-called "non-practicing" Catholic might not be permitted a "Catholic funeral" while a person who never was a Catholic might be permitted one, or at least might be buried in a Catholic cemetery.

It is undoubtedly upsetting for a bereaved family, at a vulnerable time, to be told that their loved one cannot receive a requiem Mass, or that a requiem Mass cannot be held at the location and/or time that they are planning to have the funeral, or that the deceased is ineligible for the ecclesiastical rites at all. Some of the commentary and pushback probably comes from this place.

To that I can only say: This post is the short answer giving reasons why Philando Castile could be permitted a memorial service in the Cathedral. There really is no short answer as to why some particular person might not be permitted the type of funeral desired by his or her family. You would have to talk to the pastor, and listen to the explanation, and then possibly do a lot of reading, in order to understand that. No short answer. I am sorry I cannot help relieve that pain.

 

The purpose of Catholic ecumenism is to foster true Christian unity. When Valerie Castile called the Cathedral and asked that it host her son's funeral "for people to come together in a new way," this was precisely what she was asking -- and she asked it not just of the Cathedral parish, but of the whole local church, the diocese. In a sense she asked it of our universal Church.

Who are we to turn her son away?

If I had been the one to take that call, I would have wept in humility before Mrs. Castile. It was she who honored our church, not the other way around, by reaching out to us.

Furthermore, everyone knows that Mr. Castile's funeral was not just a funeral. It was also a gathering to call for peace, justice (in the Christian sense), and love in the wider community.

For what the Catholic Church has said about ecumenism, I encourage you to refer to the Pontifical Council's Directory for Application of Principle and Norms on Ecumenism (link). Here is an excerpt:

108. Where appropriate, Catholics should be encouraged, in accordance with the Church's norms, to join in prayer with Christians of other Churches and ecclesial Communities. Such prayers in common are certainly a very effective means of petitioning for the grace of unity, and they are a genuine expression of the ties which still bind Catholics to these other Christians. Shared prayer is in itself a way to spiritual reconciliation.

109. Prayer in common is recommended for Catholics and other Christians so that together they may put before God the needs and problems they share—e.g., peace, social concerns, mutual charity among people, the dignity of the family, the effects of poverty, hunger and violence, etc. The same may be said of occasions when, according to circumstances, a nation, region or community wishes to make a common act of thanksgiving or petition to God, as on a national holiday, at a time of public disaster or mourning, on a day set aside for remembrance of those who have died for their country, etc. This kind of prayer is also recommended when Christians hold meetings for study or common action.

110. Shared prayer should, however, be particularly concerned with the res- toration of Christian unity. It can centre, e.g. on the mystery of the Church and its unity, on baptism as a sacramental bond of unity, or on the renewal of personal and community life as a necessary means to achieving unity. Prayer of this type is particularly recommended during the "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" or in the period between Ascension and Pentecost.

111. Representatives of the Churches, ecclesial Communities or other groups concerned should cooperate and prepare together such prayer. They should decide among themselves the way in which each is to take part, choose the themes and select the Scripture readings, hymns and prayers.

I see no evidence at all that Mr. Castile's memorial service was not a suitable instance of the sort of ecumenism discussed in this document.

(Incidentally, paragraphs 120 and 121 of this same document explicitly grant to the local ordinary -- normally the bishop -- the discretion of offering full funeral rights as well as prayers and blessings of other types to non-Catholics.)

For a deeper examination of the role of ecumenism, one could consult two documents of the Second Vatican Council in particular, Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio.

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I am grateful to Mrs. Castile for reaching out to our diocese, and I am glad that our Cathedral rector responded with welcome. I'm sorry that anyone calling themselves Catholic publicly objected to the rector's decision, which was entirely in accord with Catholic teachings. May Mr. Castile rest in peace, and may eternal light shine upon him.

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Repost: The difference between faith and belief.

I am going to try to get back in the blogging habit by reposting some old stuff when I can't think of anything new to say. This post is from March 2012.

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I do believe; help my unbelief!" -- Mark 9:24

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Darwin excerpts a cordial discussion between some theists and some atheists about the meaning of the word "faith."

It's worth reading on its own, and I am not going to respond to the entire excerpt, but just make my own comment and expand on it here.

Some proposed definitions from the excerpt:

• "Faith is knowing by testimony rather than by experience. I believe that the Earth orbits the Sun, because the scientists tell me so, and I believe them. "
• "[F]aith is what fills in the gaps of the probabilities. If, say there is a 70 % probability something is the case then to conclude more than that 70% probability is faith..."

Darwin chimes in to make two points. First, what "faith" originally means:

The old Catholic Encyclopedia in its article on faith describes the Old Testament use of the term to be essentially "trustfulness" or "steadfastness".... This usage still informs the way that we use the term in reference to interpersonal relationships. I have faith that my wife loves me. She has faith that I am faithful to her. Etc.

Second,

faith is an act of the will.

Darwin's points are both correct, but he does not go as far as I do. He classifies "faith" as being an act, and this is correct; but it seems that he identifies it too much with "belief," or with being convinced "enough" of something. Here is the statement of Darwin's that I disagree with:

This usage still informs the way that we use the term in reference to interpersonal relationships. I have faith that my wife loves me. She has faith that I am faithful to her. Etc.

Obviously, in this sense one can have faith in any number of things or people, and as it notes, faith in this sense necessarily presupposes belief. I can hardly have faith in my wife's love (as in, trust in its existence and steadfastness) if I don't really believe that I have a wife or don't really believe that she loves me. When Christians talk about "having faith" however, they're pretty specifically talking about "having faith in God" -- that combination of believing in God's existence and of trusting in God to remain steadfast and trustworthy in His love for us.

Darwin is failing -- at least clearly -- to make a distinction between "I am faithful to my wife" and "I have faith in my wife."

The first is concrete. The second is the metaphor.

The faith that Christians are supposed to have is not the same thing as trust that God's love exists and is steadfast to us. The faith that we are supposed to have, I am certain, is faithfulness *to* God -- fidelity to the laws and precepts that He sets out for us insofar as we are aware of them. When we are told to have faith, this is not at all a command to believe something. (How can you be commanded to be convinced of a truth?) It is a command to do something: to live your life, in your body, in your mind, in accord with the will of a God.

Faith is not trust in God's steadfastness; it is a firm determination to remain steadfast to God. It is as the original Hebrew meant.

And the point that I want to make, the point where I disagree with Darwin, is that faith understood in this way does not presuppose belief.

Faith understood the way (I think) Darwin is trying to understand this would presuppose belief, because he is identifying faith with belief. "I can hardly have faith in my wife's love if I don't really believe that she loves me." Well, of course, if "faith in my wife's love" == "belief that my wife loves me."

But my understanding of faith does not presuppose belief. Darwin could choose to remain faithful to his wife -- by which I mean nothing more nor less than the earthy sort of "faithful," i.e., he could remain sexually faithful to his wife, forsaking all others, and not abandoning her or their children -- even if he lost all confidence in her love for him. Indeed, he could (and should) choose to remain sexually faithful if Darwin became thoroughly convinced that MrsDarwin did not love him at all.

And what if he did not believe that he even had a wife? Well, millions of still-single people find themselves in that situation every day, not having promised marriage to anyone, and yet they can still be "faithful" to the future spouse they might or might not have by living a chaste life. Such is faith: steadfastness.

One may be "faithful" while having severely impaired belief, even no belief at all. (Which raises the question: Why would someone who did not believe in God ever strive to live according to God's laws? I will not answer the question here, and maybe will bat that question back to Darwin, but I will simply note that it is not logically impossible to be faithful in this way without belief; whereas if faith == belief, it does become logically impossible to have faith without belief.)

The idea of "faith" as a purely mental or spiritual assent to a theological statement is, I suspect, a highly Protestant innovation. Because if you understand "faith" to mean "faithfulness" or "fidelity," then there is no distinction, none at all, between faith and works. The whole concept of "faith vs. works" presupposes that it is even possible to segregate a thing called "faith" away from the daily acts of living and interacting with other human beings and with our God. I say, it is not possible.

Here is the second chapter of James:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?ⁱ 15If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, 16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?^j 17So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18Indeed someone might say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works. 19You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble. 20Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless? 21Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?^k 22You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works. 23Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called “the friend of God.”^l 24See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25And in the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by a different route?^m 26For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

The Greek word for "faith" in James 2 (the faith and works discourse) is the same Greek word (pistis) translated as "belief" in the passage from Mark that I quoted above. Does pistis mean "steadfastness" in any way? Or does it only mean an intellectual assent? It goes on to use pisteuis in the next verse to mean "believe" as in "You believe that God is one" and then "pisteuousin" in "Even the demons believe, and shudder." The "faith" mentioned in James is then the same as the "belief" which even demons can have.

I don't really think of demons as "steadfast."

Anyway, as I said in my comment to Darwin's post, the image of a faithful spouse is apt. Faith in, and faithfulness to, a spouse are very precisely designed to be an image of faith in, and faithfulness to, God. They are so bound up in each other as to not be separable; but at the same time, it is possible to "be faithful," to "do faithfulness," even in times of doubt or -- God forbid -- abandonment.

This is what I would like to get across to anyone who says they wishes they could have faith but that it has never come to them. Anyone can, without committing a single act of intellectual dishonesty. It is simply a matter of becoming a faithful servant, or spouse, or child of God. To act faithfully -- the precise nature of the "acts of faith" depends on our state in life and our circumstances -- is to have faith. The ability to act faithfully, the possession of faith, both come from grace, the only thing by which we are saved.

 

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