Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 360

Caitlin O'Rourke on Lent

Guest blogger Caitlin O'Rourke is a member of St Bridget's, Church, High Dudgeon, New Jersey. Caitlin is eight years old.



I always give up candy for Lent especially jelly beans which are my favorite and Flora does too and that's what we always do and when Sister Mary Agatha said that maybe we ought to think about giving up being unkind to people and making fun of them especially teachers and I felt sorry for her because she looked sad and Flora said she thinks Sister had been crying and then Jimmy Pochowski said that teachers ought to give up being unkind to children for Lent and Sister told him he should have more respect and then Leonora the colored girl stood up on her chair and started singing that song which is R-E-S-P-E-C-T and she was wiggling her bottom around and everyone laughed and started to sing along and pretend to dance and sister got so mad she pulled Leonora out of the room by her arm and just then Father Florsheim came down the hall and he saw how mad Sister was and he must have told her something like go home and have a nap because she didn't come back in the class for along time and Father Florsheim came in and yelled at us and said that we must be very bad children because we had made Sister cry and then we did feel bad because Father never gets mad at anybody ever and that's the truth so we had to stay in for recess and write I will be kind and respectful one hundred times until our wrists hurt from writing so much and then me and Flora were waiting for a long time for Mom to pick us up from school like she is supposed to and we were the last ones waiting and Sister Mary Albert was cross and Mom didn't come and finally Aunt Margaret picked us up and I could see she had been crying too and I knew that something else was wrong and I had already had a not very good day and Aunt Margaret waited until she took Flora to her house and dropped her off and she took me home and Mom was there and she was crying and then they told me that Grandma had died in the hospital and so I cried too and now I feel like Our Lord in the wilderness because Grandma was always real nice to me and when she laughed Papa said she sounded like a donkey and it made me laugh and once when I was sick she brought me a get well card that played happy days are here again when you opened it up and a bag of Tootsie pops and a miraculous medal which I wore every day since then and I got better real soon because of it so then when they asked me at school what I was giving up for Lent I said I was giving up Grandma for Lent and they didn't know what I meant and I wasn't going to tell them either because its none of their business especially Jimmy Pochowski who would only make fun of me anyway and next Thursday is Grandma's funeral Mass and Mom says you can put flowers or something on the coffin and I'm going to put a red Tootsie Pop on there along with the miraculous medal and I don't care what anybody says not even Father Florsheim.

Caitli O'Rourke on Lent

Guest blogger Caitlin O'Rourke is a member of St Bridget's, Church, High Dudgeon, New Jersey. Caitlin is eight years old.



I always give up candy for Lent especially jelly beans which are my favorite and Flora does too and that's what we always do and when Sister Mary Agatha said that maybe we ought to think about giving up being unkind to people and making fun of them especially teachers and I felt sorry for her because she looked sad and Flora said she thinks Sister had been crying and then Jimmy Pochowski said that teachers ought to give up being unkind to children for Lent and Sister told him he should have more respect and then Leonora the colored girl stood up on her chair and started singing that song which is R-E-S-P-E-C-T and she was wiggling her bottom around and everyone laughed and started to sing along and pretend to dance and sister got so mad she pulled Leonora out of the room by her arm and just then Father Florsheim came down the hall and he saw how mad Sister was and he must have told her something like go home and have a nap because she didn't come back in the class for along time and Father Florsheim came in and yelled at us and said that we must be very bad children because we had made Sister cry and then we did feel bad because Father never gets mad at anybody ever and that's the truth so we had to stay in for recess and write I will be kind and respectful one hundred times until our wrists hurt from writing so much and then me and Flora were waiting for a long time for Mom to pick us up from school like she is supposed to and we were the last ones waiting and Sister Mary Albert was cross and Mom didn't come and finally Aunt Margaret picked us up and I could see she had been crying too and I knew that something else was wrong and I had already had a not very good day and Aunt Margaret waited until she took Flora to her house and dropped her off and she took me home and Mom was there and she was crying and then they told me that Grandma had died in the hospital and so I cried too and now I feel like Our Lord in the wilderness because Grandma was always real nice to me and when she laughed Papa said she sounded like a donkey and it made me laugh and once when I was sick she brought me a get well card that played happy days are here again when you opened it up and a bag of Tootsie pops and a miraculous medal which I wore every day since then and I got better real soon because of it so then when they asked me at school what I was giving up for Lent I said I was giving up Grandma for Lent and they didn't know what I meant and I wasn't going to tell them either because its none of their business especially Jimmy Pochowski who would only make fun of me anyway and next Thursday is Grandma's funeral Mass and Mom says you can put flowers or something on the coffin and I'm going to put a red Tootsie Pop on there along with the miraculous medal and I don't care what anybody says not even Father Florsheim.

Mission Territory

It's a joy to be here in the Archdiocese of Galveston Houston. Mary Queen parish in Friendswood is a large community outside Houston. My duties this weekend were to preach at all five masses, and celebrate two. In addition to that I've been drafted in to speak to the Saturday morning men's breakfast, and the youth event this evening (Sunday).



My homily on the woman at the well compared 'Coca Cola Catholicism' which is all fizzy and bubbly and sweet with 'Clearwater Catholicism'. The three traits of clear water Catholicism are that it is pure, prayerful and powerful. In a town where Joel Osteen has his mega church I thought a comparison with Coca Cola Christianity might be apte.



On each day of the mission I will speak after the 8:30am Mass and then at 7pm. On Monday I will tell my conversion story, on Tuesday I do a presentation with powerpoint called 'What Do You Think?" in which I examine twelve different 'ism's' that plague modern day America. There set out in four sets of three. On the third day I provide the solution--which is to be One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.  Each set of three are countered by one of the four marks of the church.



Being away from school, family and parish is an increasing drain, and it seems to be God's will that I am receiving fewer invitations to speaking engagements. Over the next year I hope to focus instead on more writing and broadcasting work--which I can do from home.

Of Airplanes and Angels

Sitting in Atlanta airport and waiting for a plane I am always amazed and disturbed at flight. We climb into these metal cans with wings and belt ourselves in. Then it roars and shudders into flight, and after all these years and all these flights I still grasp the arm rest and clutch my rosary and smile. Below the earth recedes and we are for an hour above the earth and through the clouds to the heavens above.



To earthbound mortals the heavens are empty air, but I am always caught up in C.S.Lewis' vision in Out of the Silent Planet in which the hero Ransom travels through the heavens and does not perceive it as 'empty space' but as a place that is burgeoning with life and power and grace and goodness. It is earth that, in comparison, is a dead rock hurtling through space with bits of transplanted physical life clinging to it for dear life. The heavens are thronged with angels and spiritual beings far greater for their invisibility than all the physical realm below.



In that book C.S.Lewis suggests that the reasons angels seem to us to be ethereal and 'unreal' is not because they are unreal, but because we are. The angels are not less real than we are, but more real. It is simply a matter of perceptions and expectations. He explains that if we were looking at a wall of fog and we assumed that the fog was solid and substantial, and if a man were to step through the fog and come to us, that we would assume that the man was insubstantial and ethereal and 'ghostly'. In fact, the reverse is true. It is the fog that is insubstantial and the man solid. That's why he could move through it with ease.



So, he suggests, the angelic beings (and the resurrected Lord) were able to move through walls and doors and things that to us seem solid and material and physical--because the spiritual beings are more solid and substantial than all we think so solid and physical. And what is matter anyway, but a collection of particles held together with energy? Is this table so solid? Is this chair so solid? I am glad they seem solid, but those who know physics better than I do might suggest that given the right conditions, we would be able to see just how ephemeral all the physical world really is.



This being the case (as I believe it is) then let us invest in the spiritual realm for it is not less real than this world, but more real. And this is what I sometimes feel as I stand at the altar and celebrate Mass--that at times the paten and the host--usually so lightweight--feel heavy. They are hard to lift, and the chalice with the precious blood, and the monstrance at Benediction--these are heavy and substantial things--for they are the containers of Christ the Lord--present in a greater reality than any of us can very often perceive.



So as I finish my beer and leave this little Wi Fi hotspot to board my flight, it will be with thought of the angels who are there--closer than I think and always ready to accompany me in a life that seems to lived in a realm of physicality on this earth, but which already (by God's grace) has one foot in heaven.

Annunciation

The angel and the girl are metEarth was the only meeting place.For the embodied never yetTravelled beyond the shore of space.The eternal spirits in freedom go.See, they have come together, see,While the destroying minutes flow,Each reflects the other's faceTill heaven in hers and earth in hisShine steady there. He's come to herFrom far beyond the farthest star,Feathered through time. ImmediacyOf strangest strangeness is the blissThat from their limbs all movement takes.Yet the increasing rapture bringsSo great a wonder that it makesEach feather tremble on his wingsOutside the window footsteps fallInto the ordinary dayAnd with the sun along the wallPursue their unreturning waySound's perpetual roundaboutRolls its numbered octaves outAnd hoarsely grinds its battered tuneBut through the endless afternoonThese neither speak nor movement make.But stare into their deepening tranceAs if their grace would never break. Edwin Muir 

Lone Star

I'm off for about a week to conduct a Lent mission at Mary Queen parish in Friendswood, Texas. If you live down that way y'all come! Y'hear?



We had confirmation at Our Lady of the Rosary parish on Tuesday. What I love about the Catholic Church is her universality. In the congregation were Vietnamese, Palestinians, Nigerians, Poles, Philippinos, Mexicans, El Salvadoreans, French, German and more...why there were even a few converts there too.



We were all united in one church, one faith, one baptism. The bishop was there and our priesthood was united with his and with the gift of Our Lord to the Apostles.



In addition to the ethnic mix there was the socio-economic mix--executives from Michelin and BMW mixing with Mexican immigrants and everyone in between.



To be a part of this great family of God is such a privilege and a joy. To be a priest for his people--that is simply awesome!

Do Beautiful Churches Produce Vocations?

I know a young priest who was brought up as a Baptist. He went into a beautiful old Catholic Church during the liturgy. This was a classic neo-Gothic church with stained glass windows and a beautiful liturgy. He fell to his knees and said that he knew then and there that he not only needed to be a Catholic, but that he was called to be a Catholic priest. He's not the only one. I know two other guys who eventually made the same decision for the same reason, and numerous other converts who were drawn by the beauty and reverence of worship including the reverence evoked by the beautiful church.



The unknown architect of Glastonbury Abbey in England wrote, "I want to create a church so beautiful that it will move even the hardest heart to prayer." Can a beautiful church produce vocations to the priesthood? Perhaps we should reverse the question and say, "Does an ugly church discourage priestly vocations?" To answer the question we must think through, and come up with a theory of aesthetics and think through the reasons for both ugly churches and beautiful churches. Once we understand the mentality behind both we will be able to answer the question of whether a beautiful church can help produce new vocations to the priesthood.



The modern churches we deem 'ugly' are usually designed from a utilitarian point of view. Modern architecture has taken as it's creed Frank Lloyd Wright's dictum, "Form follows function." Therefore most modern architechts, when considering the building of a church will ask, "Where will everyone sit. What kind of an artificial sound system should we install? Where will the heating, air conditioning and toilets go? Where will the Sunday School rooms go? What about disabled access? Do we need elevators?" All these practical and utilitarian questions must, of course, be answered, but if they are the only considerations you will end up with a practical, inexpensive and ugly building. You'll end up with a building that is simply an auditorium.



Then, of course, Catholics will want their church to be 'pretty' so they'll spend lots of money adding a layer of gloss. They'll throw in some marble. They'll buy some second hand stained glass windows from an old church in Ohio or somewhere. They'll add a nice tabernacle or some statues. That's all well and good, but the building itself is still probably an ugly, utilitarian, cheaply built structure.



We then have to ask what these churches say about the faith, for the church building is a sacramental. It states what we believe. A building, whether we like it or not, is a statement of our values, our faith and our world view. A cheap building with no inner integrity of beauty--a cheap building that is 'dressed up' to look Catholic or 'pretty' with decorations is superficial and shallow and only skin deep....just like our faith too often I'm afraid! In our superficial, face lift world we build churches that are superficial where the 'beauty' is really on 'pretty' and skin deep.



What about the liturgy that goes on in such buildings? Too often it also is superficial, sweet and comfortable and skin deep. Does such liturgy and do such buildings inspire vocations? Do they say to our young people, "Look what sacrifices we have made to worship God?" Do they say, "We have given all to build something beautiful for God"? or do they actually say, "It's okay to give God second best. It's okay to give him what's left over."? Do they come out of the building yawning and wondering what next for Sunday or do they come out full of awe and thankfulness for the beautiful worship of God?



A beautiful church, that required great sacrifice to build, on the other hand--combined with beautiful liturgy and an awesome and reverent worship of God is more likely to inspire the reverence and awe and sacrifice required of our young people who are thinking about a vocation.



This is my theory: sacrifice much to build a beautiful church and you will find that your children will sacrifice much to become the priests, brothers and sisters to fill that church for a next generation.

Zero Tolerance

Some folks who are hopping mad about the latest allegations against beloved priests have blamed me for not commenting on the bishops' 'zero tolerance' position regarding accusations that are made against priests.



I'm sorry, but I have made myself a promise that this blog will not be used to negatively criticize any particular priest, bishop or the particular policies of our bishops. I'm just not going there. I prize my priestly obedience. I'm not speaking out against the bishops. Let the laity do that.



I do comment, however, on general trends or problems at times, and from time to time I realize I haven't kept my promise to myself and maybe criticized the actions and attitudes of some bishops' conferences. If I have, I'm sorry.



All I would say about the 'zero tolerance' policy is just driven by common sense, and the need for Christian charity and justice:



1. Every priest should be very careful to not only behave himself, but put every safety mechanism in place for his own protection. The instutional policies should encourage safe practice and extreme caution at all times. So, for example, if I have a private interview, I make sure that I am not alone in the building with that person. This applies to men and women, young and old. Also, wherever I meet the room always either has a glass door or the door remains open. I inform someone else in the building that I am meeting with the named person, and I have the appointment in an appointment book. As a result, I have a record of the time of my meeting and witnesses to the meeting. I try not to meet with anyone without these safety mechanisms in place. If I am in a social situation with other people it is never alone, except with a few trusted male friends.

2. As part of his protection, I think priests should have their own, third party, independent insurance policy and legal counsel. If an allegation comes up he should not trust the diocese to look after him. He should immediately seek his own legal counsel and contract a third party investigator who will make an objective report. This check and balance for the protection of the priest and his reputation should be put in place by the diocese or the parish.

3. The Dioceses should operate with professionalism and compassion for both the accused and the accusers. They should be aware that in our present climate an accusation in itself can ruin a man and his ministry. Without any attempt at a cover up, the Diocese should operate in privacy and with discretion. A public scandal can be avoided while still dealing firmly with wrong doing.

4. All people should be presumed to be innocent until proven guilty



This makes it sound like the priest is responsible for what happens to him. I guess that is my instinct because I don't trust 'city hall' or for that matter 'the chancery'. This is not because I think the bishops and their staff are all evil and corrupt, but because they have so many different people and concerns to consider in what are usually very complex and difficult situations. They should have a pastoral concern for the priest, and I think they usually do a good job, however, they also have to look after the good of all the faithful, the good of the whole diocese and the reputation of the whole church. Sometimes other pressures push them into decisions that they later regret in their actions against a priest who has been accused. This being the case, I think the individual priest should also be aware of the present climate and be as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove.



There are some innocent priests who have been accused, but more often the case is complex and there is more to it all than meets the eye. The present climate of accusations from 'victims' is extraordinary. So, for example, there is great confusion about the definition of 'abuse'. It used to mean that a woman or child was repeatedly raped, beaten, sodomized, humiliated and destroyed by some monster. Now, at school we hear of a child who complains of 'abuse', and when you probe a bit further you find that her mother shouted at her for not cleaning up her room. You hear a woman complain of twenty five years of 'abuse' within a marriage. You think her husband came home drunk every Friday night, kicked her down the stairs, raped their daughter, beat up her sons and was a serial womanizer. You find out that she means 'emotional abuse' because he watched football too much on TV, ignored her and once had an email correspondence with an old high school girlfriend.



Throw in a dash of sexual neurosis, a touch of paranoia, a pinch of persecution complex add the fury of a woman scorned, the imagination of a sick mind and the lure of a rich payout and the whole thing gets very very fuzzy indeed. So, for example, the accuser might say the priest 'touched her inappropriately'. We think he put his hands on some erogenous zone. In fact, in passing, he patted her on the back or touched her forearm in a gesture. Some young man says the nun abused him at a Catholic school in the 1960s. It turns out he was a bad kid and she paddled him. But, paddling kids in schools was allowed back then. Everybody spanked kids.  I'm not excusing anything--just pointing out how complex the whole situation is, how times change, standards change and it all gets very very messy and difficult to sort out.



It gets worse: the legal profession are involved, and they not only like lawsuits, they like complicated lawsuits that take a lot of time to sort out. Remember, they bill by the hour. Remember, they like big payouts because they are working for a percentage. As a result, the legal system itself cannot be trusted to deliver a just verdict. I'm not damning all lawyers, but there are plenty out there who are corrupt and care more for the big bill than justice for the accused.



Consequently, the priest, in my opinion, must be as professional and thorough as possible in protecting himself through proper boundaries, and his own checks and balances and security systems, but the investigating authorites must also be as professional as possible in assuming innocence rather than guilt and sorting through the complexities as fairly as possible to avoid injustice on the one hand and exercise compassion on the other.

Encounters with Angels

Here is my latest article for Catholic Online. In which we consider angels, New Ages spooks and other phenomena.

These Holy Hands

A priest friend of mine in England used to joke that his working class mother would take his hands in hers and gently make fun of him by saying, "Look at these hands! So soft--never done an honest day's work in his life..." She loved her son, and it was her wry British sense of humor way of admiring him and the priestly ministry he had been granted.

I look at a priest's hands and think what a beautiful symbol they are of the whole priesthood. Here are his hands, and after his face, they speak of the man himself. Are they tough and rough and scarred from physical labor? So is he. Are they plump with gold rings? He probably is too. Are they unclean and not trimmed and groomed? Maybe he is a bit scruffy too. Are the nails bitten down? Maybe he's nervous and has inner tensions that you do not know about. Are his hands soft and fat and manicured? So is he. Do they emerge from tattered old cuffs or from starched white cuffs with gold cuff links? You can see what he think of material blessings. Are they knotted in fists? He's a fighter. Are they old, pale, thin, veined and shaky? So is he.

These are the hands that do everyday things. They chop the vegetables and pet the dog. They type the newsletter and turn on the lights and use the screwdriver and turn the page. They gesture and point and talk as he talks. They get dirty fixing the chain on the bike, digging in the garden and cleaning out the septic tank. These are the hands that fulfill the body's functions. Yes, these hands are also hands that engage in sin. They are given over at times when the priest yields to temptation. They are used for the most ordinary, human, physical tasks, but these are also the hands that bless.

What does the priest do with these hands? He anoints the sick. He embraces a child. He lays hands on the dying and those about to be confirmed. These are the hands that are raised in blessing and folded in prayer. These are the hands that do the most ordinary and earthly things, but these are also the hands that sign the head, the lips and the breast when the gospel is proclaimed. These are the hands that float above the altar as the Holy Spirit is called down. These are the hands that lift the host and lift the chalice as God comes down to transform this matter of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. These hands are extended in peace and blessing. These hands distribute the precious body and blood of Christ. These hands bless the penitent at absolution, turn the pages of the breviary and clutch the rosary as the last action at night.

The hands of the priest are the sign of the priest--in the ordinary the extraordinary is seen.  Through his humanity God's divinity wants to shine. This is the mystery of the sacrament of ordination. Holy Church teaches that through ordination an ontological change takes place in the man. A new dimension to his humanity is unlocked. He opens out into becoming something he was not before. His ordination is a completed gift and yet also a gift that has to be completed through a life of dedication, prayer, sacrifice and suffering. This is the mystery of ordination that I have experienced: through a lifetime of following Christ I have come across priests and bishops who, from a human perspective, have been failures, losers and boors. I have come across priests who were venal, short tempered, scheming and back stabbing. I have come across priests who were child molestors, perverts and alcoholics. And yet...

And yet I also saw in each one a man who wanted to be fully conformed to the image of Christ--a man who longed to be all that God created him to be. A man, despite the cynicism and sin and fear and frailty, who longed for heaven, whose heart was once filled with faith, and who still, despite all things, longed for faith again. I insist that I saw, even in those priests, the image of Christ--supernaturally planted there by their baptism and their ordination. It may have been faded, smeared and bleared by their fallen humanity; it may have been so twisted and perverted by their weakness and human evil, but something gold was there--something glimmered in the darkness like a diamond lost at night. Something supernatural was there in a way far deeper and more mysterious than I can put into words.

All I can say is that it is a mystery--and a mystery is something that can be experienced even if it cannot be explained. This mystery of divnity working its way through our humanity like yeast in the dough is a mystery that will not be fully understood until the final day. Then we will see how even the horrors were part of the glory. Then we will see that even the most terrible terrors were woven into the divine plan. Then we will see that for the elect nothing was lost and everything was redeemed. For those who are called, and who follow Christ all will be transformed, and everything will be harvest.