Lin Wilder's Blog, page 17

The Virgin Shall Conceive

Nativity Of Jesus Scene With The Holy Family With Comet At SunriseThe virgin shall conceive

Since the beginning of Advent, the readings of the Christian liturgy have been from the Book of Isaiah. But there’s one that is increasingly haunting with each pasing year. It’s King Ahaz’s perplexing refusal to his God:

“Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God; let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!

But Ahaz answered, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!”

Perplexing, because he makes himself sound reverent and humble. But the Lord, though the prophet, reads the heart of the king and knows how stupid, vain and prideful he is.

Haunting because Ahaz doesn’t sound like a long ago leader. Instead, Ahaz acts just like those in charge of almost everthing today.

Isaiah’s words are the Lord’s:

Listen, O house of David! 
Is it not enough for you to weary men,
    must you also weary my God? 
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
    the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and shall name him Emmanuel.

Perplexing too because King Ahaz is in trouble…of the humungous kind. Assyria was about to invade. Jerusalem would fall, but the prophet is telling this weak, idolatrous king that if he asks, he and his nation will be saved.

But he will not ask.

These people in the old testament are like looking in a mirror, aren’t they?

How many times have we closed our minds and hearts to His help, wisdom and love? Transfixed by the horrifying headlines, anxiety overwhelms:

Like King Ahaz, we’re blinded to the miracles shimmering right in front of us. And are deafened to His call to real freedom and so we trust mere men for our salvation.And yet the virgin shall conceive.If we peel back the layers of history,

the depth of Ahaz’s problem, and reason for the prophet Isaiah’s dramatic intervention become clear. Israel is facing an extreme threat from Assyria. In his book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, Pope Emeritus Benedict explains.

“…Ahaz is facing a critical situation, where two neighboring kingdoms are entering into an alliance against the superpower of the day, Assyria. These two kingdoms are trying to pressure him into joining, but Ahaz thinks this foolish and will not do so. The king is fearful of these kingdoms and so enters a protection alliance with Assyria against them. The problem with this treaty was that the “payment” Assyria demanded was idolatry. Isaiah is trying to keep him from this, as idolatry will have devastating consequences for the people of God…The answer given by the king appears pious…[but] the king’s refusal of the sign is not, as it appears, an expression of faith, but on the contrary an indication that he does not want to be disturbed in his Realpolitk” (Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, 46-8)

Despite a lifetime of wanton rebellion, flaunting of the Law and blasphemous conduct, God still works to save Ahaz from himself! Thus, is there any sin of yours and mine- or of anyone else- that this majestic, mysterious and merciful God will not forgive?

Could we stop placing our trust in flawed men and institutions?

If we bend our necks and knees and ask, more accurately, beg– for ourselves- and for all the King Ahaz’s in our world, can can we serve as channels for Peace?

Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God, let it be as deep as the netherworld or as high as the sky: the virgin shall conceive!

January first isn’t just the first day of the new year

but it’s also the Solemnity of Mary.

Mary: the woman we can’t help but be thinking of during these holy days of the Christmas season. The impossible circumstances of her life.

Brad Pitre notes in his book Jesus and the Jewsh Roots of Mary, that:

Pope Leo l wrote: “For he was conceived by the Holy Spirit within the womb of the Virgin Mother, who gave birth to him in such a way that her virginity was undiminished…descending frim his heavenly throne the Son of God enters into the infirmities of this world and, not leaving his Father’s glory, he is generated in a new order and a new birth…”

And Gregory of Nyssa, “Christ’s birth alone occured without labor pains…began to exist without sexual relations…Just as she who introduced death into nature by sin was condemned to bear sin in suffering and travail, it was necessary that the Mother of Life…having conceived in joy should give birth in joy…”

Ancient Christians saw the pains of childbirth as unnatural: the result of the fall. They believed precisely what the ancient Jews did: in the new creation birth would no longer cause suffering. Just as the birth of Jesus was the beginning of the new creation, the new Adam, so Mary is the second Eve.

Our words are not just inadequate in describing the incarnation but they beguile us into thinking we understand what is incomprehensible., the magnitude of Jesus’s condescension, the immensity of the love and mercy of our Triune God.

A poem by a priest comes close.

And nothing would again be casual and small

is the title of a piece by Claire Dwyer. She takes the line of a stunning poem by Reverend John Duffy for her title.

I Sing of a Maiden
by Rev. John Duffy, C.S.s.R.


And was it true, 
The stranger standing so,
And saying things that lifted her in two,
And put her back before the world’s beginning?
Her eyes filled slowly with the morning glow.
Her drowsy ear drank in a first sweet dubious bird.
Her cheek against the pillow woke and stirred
To gales enriched by passage over dew,
And friendly fields and slopes of Galilee
Arose in tremulous intermixture with her dreams,
Till she remembered suddenly…


Although the morning beams 
Came spilling in the gradual rubric known to every day,
And hills stood ruinous, as an eclipse,
Against the softly spreading ray,
Not touched by any strange apocalypse
Like that which yesterday had lifted her sublime,
And put her back before the first grey morn of Time —
Though nothing was disturbed from where she lay and saw,
Now she remembered with a quick and panting awe
That someone came, and took in hand her heart,
And broke irresistibly apart,
With what he said, and how in tall suspense
He lingered, while the white celestial inference,
Pushing her fears apart, went softly home.


Then she had faltered her reply,
And felt a sudden burden of eternal years,
And shamed by the angelic stranger standing by
Had bowed her head to hide her human tears.
Never again would she awake 
And find herself the buoyant Galilean lass,
But into her dissolving dreams would break
A hovering consciousness too terrible to pass —
A new awareness in her body when she stirred,
A sense of Light within her virgin gloom:
She was the Mother of the wandering Word, 
Little and terrifying in her laboring womb.
And nothing would again be casual and small,
But everything with light invested, overspilled
With terror and divinity, the dawn, the first bird’s call, 
The silhouetted pitcher waiting to be filled.

The post The Virgin Shall Conceive appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Curbing the Aggressive, Capricious, Untrustworthy Intellect

Brain training with dumbbells, human train intellect, mind workout vector illustrationCurbing the Aggressive, Capricious, Untrustworthy Intellect

It’s a heck of a phrase, isn’t it?

The adjectives strung together are strident and wholly negative modifiers of—the intellect.

Huh?

In our knowledge obsessed twenty-first century, the statement, Curbing the Aggressive, Capricious, Untrustworthy Intellect sounds like heresy. Unless we stop, really HALT.

And think about the amount of words we read, hear, and maybe write. As a ‘wordsmith,’ I’ve had a love/hate relationship with words for most of my life. For example, when I fulfilled my promise to John that the move from Nevada wouldn’t include tons of books. Among the countless discarded books, articles and the like were the textbook that took six years to write, the dissertation and beautifully framed image of the doctorate that together took close to ten years to complete. Once they were gone, I felt empty, hollowed out. It took a while to figure out that, just like Seymour, I don’t like change. So many words, gone into the ether.

Not that I have regrets. I have none. I just am reminded of the exquisite pain of growing spiritually because the process demands that we excise parts of ourselves that once defined us.

Please forgive the non sequitur but that statement about a love/hate relationship with words seemed to beg for details, brief explanation.

That eloquent critique of the untrammled human intellect

isn’t mine. But instead is Cardinal John Henry Newman’s. It’s his description of our ostensibly educated human minds when untrained in theology, right, theology!

The word means, after all, the knowledge of God.

Worth a double space, I think.

Humanity’s dismissal of God began with the “Enlightenment.” Sixteenth and seventeen-century philosophers in France and England, and later Germany, began to object to the domination of man by God, Dominus. And the Age of Reason began.

The spirit of lawlessness came in with the Reformation, and Liberalism is its offspring.”29 Once this subjective viewpoint had become normative it did not take much more to conclude that “no religious tenet is important unless reason shows it to be so,” that “no one can believe what he does not understand,” that “no theological doctrine is anything more than an opinion,” and so on. Newman regarded it as an inexorable philosophical sequence leading from Protestantism to Latitudinarianism, to Liberalism, and finally to atheism.

Newman on the Secular Need for Religious Education

David Marsh’s piece on Newman is excellent albeit dense. And warrants more than a single paragraph. However, this is Christmas Day and I need to explain why I’m writing about curbing the Aggressive, Capricious, Untrustworthy Intellect.

Mary, Joseph and Zechariah each contended with their intellects, their reason.

Zechariah first:

I’m an old man, my wife is far past the age of child-bearing!

How can this be?

Joseph next:

His betrothed, Mary, returns from the Hill Country where she stayed for three months helping her elderly cousin Elizabeth, give birth to St. John the Baptist, evidently visibly pregnant. He resolves to quietly divorce her.

Mary’s oath of virginity for her Lord:

“I do not know man, how can this be?” transforms to My Soul Magnifies the Lord,

Each of these holy people is faced with the incomprehensible.

Our stories of the manger scenes and the songs about them imply randomness, even cruelty: a sudden census requiring a long journey, no room at the inn, His birth amidst animal offal.

But once we breathe in what we know about the Lord, the King of the Universe, curb our aggressive, capricious and untrustworthy intellects we ask ourselves:

Is it likely or even possible that the Lord of the Universe left the details, the manner, people and place of His incarnation up to chance?That Emperor Augustus just happened to declare the need for a census requiring Joseph and Mary to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem?Or that the too-small inn was happenstance?And would St. Joseph have genuinely believed that Mary had lain with another man?

Brad Pitre offers his thoughts on, “The hidden king: St. Joseph.”

This is the manner and the methods chosen by God to enter time and change the course of human history. A stark and shocking mystery which simmers under the tender, peaceful, and magical scenes of the small family under the star or Hallmark cozy images on Christmas cards.

The manger symbolizes the reality: The infant Word is to be real food and real drink, without which we die.

Why do you wonder? He is God. Consider His divinity, and all cause for wonder will cease. Let amazement pass away; let praise ascend; let faith be present; believe what has happened.

Has not God humiliated Himself enough for you? He who was God became Man. The inn was too small; wrapped in swaddling clothes, He was placed in a manger. Who does not marvel? He who fills the world found no room in an inn. Placed in a manger, He became our food. 

St Augustine Sermon 189

“O King of the nations [Gentiles] and Desired of all, You are the cornerstone that binds two into one: Come, and save humankind whom You formed out of clay.”

The post Curbing the Aggressive, Capricious, Untrustworthy Intellect appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Let’s Get Away From The Crowd

A Goldfish jumping out of a small crowded bowl into a larger empty bowlLet’s get away from the crowd

Time goes so fast, doesn’t it? These blessed days of Advent are slipping away far too quickly. Christmas Day’s a week from today! And there are numerous holy practices still to be done. Let’s get away from the crowd and use these days to make straight the path of the Lord.

Before dissolving into panic, a reminder: Christmas isn’t a day but a season. The Christmas Octave is eight days long, the Christian liturgy stretches the merciful, miraculous celebration ofJesus’s birth into eight holy days. And then the Christmas season continues for another twelve days though to Theophany: Epiphany, the Baptism of Our Lord.

This four-week-long little Lent is about hope, peace, joy and love.

Huh?

Why call Advent a little Lent?

Because each of us needs the three-pronged stool of fasting, penance and almsgiving to smooth the path of our souls for Him to find rest. In a recent post, I quoted a locution from the Lord to an online friend.

“I gave you that gift at confirmation but you’ve not yet opened it.”

There are worlds contained in that phrase of His.

if our minds are filled with junk news, are we capable of opening the gift of understanding?

How can we access the gift of Good Counsel when we uncritically read surveys claiming that most of us don’t believe that it’s His Body and Blood we consume each Sunday? When you look around at Mass, I’ll wager you see what I see: God’s holy people in grateful receipt of real food and real drink.

We need solitude, silence and a quiet mind to flush out the debris. Let’s get away from the crowd for this last week of Advent.

The sin ceiling lowers

as we progress in faith. Once we begin to glimpse the horror of sin, mortal sins no longer beckon. And the venial sins once thought of as insignificant, now loom larger, becoming gigantic.

Gossip.

Repeating things that are of no benefit to others.

That cause them distress, fear or sadness.

Watching or reading movies or books that at best, waste our time. At worst, titillate to the point of sexual arousal.

Ignoring the nudge to befriend the solitary man who dresses oddly and shouts rather than talks.

Filling our minds with the daily horrors and lies of our world. And justifying the addicition with claims that we must, it’s our responsibility to ‘know what is happening.’

Denying ourselves joy.

Perhaps that’s the worst of the list.

In a fascinating piece called This is Satan’s only real enemy: Take it Seriously, Fr. Peter John Cameron, “a big believer in joy'” writes:

“…But so often we remain oblivious to that Presence, giving short shrift to joy. Joy by definition is the gladness, the satisfaction that appears when our will possesses something which leads to our genuine happiness….And here is the wondrous thing about joy: Joy can coincide with sadness—because of the promise joy contains. But, joy cannot coexist with fear! Why do we end up becoming manipulated by fear, surrendering our life’s joy? Because we are no longer anchored by The Promise. We no longer have our gaze fixed on The Promise. As long as we are afraid, we are not looking for love. Instead, when menaced by something, we’re on the lookout for power. Keeping our eyes focused on The Promise is what Advent is all about.”

The reason for the season

is a hackneyed phase, trite. It’s said by those of us who get annoyed by the relentless secular commercialism, sappy Hallmark movies and saccharine sentiments of Christmas. (couldn’t resist the alliteration, sorry.)

But, like almost everything, it depends on how you look at it. The excessive cheer reveals a fundamental truth about humanity: We need joy!

Even in this secular wasteland of modern America, where the true meaning of the holiday is widely ignored, the celebration of Christmas is nevertheless widespread. The festival is kept with great fervor and gusto, even by those to whom the birth of Christ means nothing. It seems clear to me that what motivates these continual celebrations is the hunger for jollity. This “Christmas spirit” is a thing of such grandeur that even those who are ignorant of its ultimate source crave it. The pure and unadulterated joy which provokes such wholesome cheerfulness is so beautiful that it cannot help but be attractive.

The Importance of Being Jolly

Holy Bible open to Galatians 5. Focus on verse 22.

The post Let’s Get Away From The Crowd appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Remembering: Was it Really Two Years Ago?

Remembering: was it really two years ago?Remembering: Was it Really Two Years ago?

We’re free to enter our churches and worship during these so very holy days preceding the Incarnation of Our Lord. We can receive Him: real food and real drink. And can receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation as often we feel the need to do so. The ubiquitous fear has abated; we see one another’s faces now.

I hope never to take these facts for granted. Because remembering: was it really two years ago, feels both like yesterday and more than a decade ago.

This piece was written just after we sold our Nevada home and, to our surprise, moved to live fulltime in our small vacation home on the central coast of California.

Just two years later, we have moved again. Again, to our surprise, we left California and, for me, back to Texas. This time though, not Houston but the Texas Hill Country just outside of San Antonio.

Texas, where the Governor refused to keep the Texas churches shut down.

Texas where the word sanctuary’s meaning isn’t perverted in the promotion of death for the most vulneralble among us.

These weeks before Christmas

In my new home of California, the churches are closed again. Therefore, we are not able to see the simple beauty of the Advent wreath, purple vestments and candles on the altar. But no mind, I found the box containing my Advent wreath and candles and they are now displayed- for these weeks before Christmas have become cherished ones.

During my pre-conversion life, these weeks before Christmas were jam packed with parties, mostly work-related and therefore obligatory, along with shopping excursions to unearth novel gifts for people who did not need them. And planning vacation when the week of Christmas and New Year’s finally arrived.

The holiday held no religious significance to me. So when friends tell me they don’t want to attend church because they have no need for it, church is irrelevant to them. I understand. There was a time I felt the same way, occasionally quoted Nietzsche’s acerbic comment, “God is dead. He choked to death on theology.” Wholly oblivious to the wonder of the incarnation: …

The very Son of God, older than the ages, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the incorporeal, the beginning of beginning, the light of light, the fountain of life and immortality, the image of the archetype, the immovable seal, the perfect likeness, the definition and word of the Father he it is who comes to his own image and takes our nature for the good of our nature, and unites himself to an intelligent soul for the good. to purify like by like. He takes to himself all that is human, except for sin. 

He who makes rich is made poor; he takes on the poverty of my flesh, that I may gain the riches of his divinity. He who is full is made empty; he is emptied for a brief space of his glory, that I may share in his fullness. What is this wealth of goodness? What is this mystery that surrounds me? I received the likeness of God, but failed to keep it. He takes on my flesh, to bring salvation to the image, immortality to the flesh. He enters into a second union with us, a union far more wonderful than the first…

We converts get emotional

when attempting to explain to cradle Catholics-or to those who don’t yet know Him-what it feels like to belong…after years of searching for a faith that reeks of truth. One with rules. Not suggestions.

Commandments.

Even after all these years, I need to reign in the passion to  speak and write coherently about before…and after.

In a conversation with a good friend the other day, I paraphrased CS Lewis while explaining why I thought we need church, religion, an association with a religious institution.  I explained the sense I’ve had for most of my life that life is a series of battles. Only upon my conversion did I realize why: The Spiritual combat for which the gains or losses mean no less than everything.

Lewis learned what each of us does when we reject the faith of our fathers-and our mothers. We lose our way, get distracted, make stupid, silly-eventually, evil, choices. And spent the rest of his life explaining why Christianity is the only truth to be found. Like this wonderful anecdote from his book, Mere Christianity:

“In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, “I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!”

Theology is like a map.  (Italics are mine.)

Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God—experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused…

In other words, Theology is practical: especially now.

In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected.”

Mere Christianity

These weeks before Christmas contain days when we can dust off oft planned

but not executed practices like prayer. Not just our routinized prayers but actually talking to Jesus.

Isn’t that what prayer is?

A conversation with God?

Believing that He loves his creatures, all of them, even the weak, flawed and most pitiful of sinners. Which is all of us. All seven and a half billions souls whether in or out of church. Even you and me. Trusting Him enough to bring him our greatest fear, the one we tell no one. Elizabeth Mitchell’s two-year-old article is worth a reread. She begins by discussing a young priest’s homily:

In clear and unequivocal tones, the young priest stated, “God wants to meet you at the point of your greatest fear.”  Go, he explained, to the point of your greatest fear, in your mind and heart, and God will meet you there.  When He meets you there, tell Him about the fear, and He will help you there.

Those words struck me in my core.  I had to admit that although I had consecrated my life to Jesus through His Blessed Mother, and was on intimate terms with a number of saints, St. Thérèse of Lisieux in particular, I tended to avoid meeting God directly.  I kept Him at arms’ length, in the safe and superficial distance.

What was it that I was avoiding?  

The Catholic Thing

Advent is about hope

And our best teacher? Mary: The teenager who was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. She who instructs how to follow her gift of never going astray. Hope, author Mitchell declares, is the antidote to fear. My friend Meg, whose Mom died this past week told me, “Mom no longer needs to hope. She knows, she’s there—with Him!”

It’s when it’s the darkest when we need our mother Mary so deeply. Because she knows that darkness. Escaping in the middle of the night to Egypt holding on to her Divine Child. Searching for the child Jesus, thought to be with their caravan. Three days, she and St. Joseph had lost Jesus. And then meeting her son on the way to Cavalry.

She knows.

Mitchell writes:

“St. Maximilian Kolbe, the great saint devoted to the Immaculate Conception whose Solemnity we celebrate on December 8th, declares, “Through holy obedience we actually become instruments in the hands of the Immaculate. . . . Our will is united to her will, as her will is perfectly united with God’s will.

And along with holy obedience, fierce hope in God is an attribute of the heart of Our Lady. In his spiritual diary, In God’s Hands, Pope St. John Paul II writes of Mary’s virtue of hope: “Virgin Mary, no human connections, no human support. And therefore, Her hope is the greatest.  At all stages of Her life.  Under the cross, and especially later:  She supported the early Church with this hope of Hers.  And Her hope is kept within the early Church.  To what extent do we participate in Mary’s hope?”

Hope and obedience.  Meeting Christ at the point of our greatest fear.  Radical courage.

In these days where there is so much, presumably, to fear, so many dangers, and so much doubt, we can turn to Our Lady and She will lead us to the Cross.  Our Lord will meet us there, at the point of our greatest fear.  He will listen.  And He will hold our heart.”

The Catholic Thing

The post Remembering: Was it Really Two Years Ago? appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Our Bodies Ourselves or Vehicles for Mission?

Male and female anatomy human character, people dummy front and view side body silhouette, isolated on white, flat vector illustration. Black, outline and cartoon mannequin people scale concept.Our bodies ourselves or vehicles for mission?

We women of a certain age remember when Our Bodies Ourselves was written and published. It was revolutionary on many levels, primarily in leading women—not just here but worldwide, to take ownership of their health. Although its subject is limited to sexuality, the effects of the “movement” resound decades later, with consequences that are both positive and not just negative, but evil.

Like most revolutions.

On the positive side, the “Women’s Health Initiative” was one of the first organized efforts to regain control over health. The rise of the medical profession’s power began in the early twentieth century. Within the blink of an eye, collaboration between the American legal and medical professions medicalized birth and death and numerous other aspects of American life. For many of us, this culture of professionalization creates a sense of powerlessness over our bodies and health. One of the primary reasons for this results from erroneous beliefs. Like that the astounding drop in mortality from infectious diseases in the last century was due to antibiotics.

Wrong, it was improved hygiene and sanitation.

Many Americans believe that the more medicine, the better our health.

Wrong. There’s a dangerous disconnect between medicine and health.

A group of eleven Boston women began the Our Bodies Ourselves project in 1969. Their preface to the 1973 edition warrants a careful read.

For us, body education is core education. Our bodies are the physical bases from which we move out into the world; ignorance, uncertainty — even, at worst, shame — about our physical selves create in us an alienation from ourselves that keeps us from being the whole people that we could be….We are better prepared to evaluate the institutions that are supposed to meet our health needs-the hospitals, clinics, doctors, medical schools, nursing schools, public health departments, Medicaid bureaucracies and so on. For some of us it was the first time we had looked critically, and with strength, at the existing institutions serving us.

Our Bodies, Our Selves

If it’s good information, why either/or?

The more we learn and understand our indivdual bodies, the better we can make of them the vehicles for mission. But wait- our bodies ourselves or vehicles for mission: Must it be an either/or?

Yes.

A brief cruise through the book, Our Bodies, Ourselves reveals the secular end point of the movement: We’re autonomous woman with the right to give life or discard it. The evil mantra that our sexual license is limitless but our choice of motherhood—or not, is paramount.

For much of my life, I agreed wholeheratedly, growing up in the heady days of equality for women. Extremely ambitous, I believed that the sole differences between women and men were anatomic and physiological. Since God didn’t exist for me, neither did His Law. Knowledge became my idol, true until I came face to face with the inanity of its pursuit. And hit the wall.

Upon my conversion to Christian Catholicism, the walls of my unbelief shattered and I began to study, in earnest, the ways of this mysterious God. And us, who were created in His image, male and female, created for one another and for a singular purpose: mission.

The phrase: our bodies as vehicles for mission isn’t mine. But is taken from Bishop Barron’s sermon for the Feast of Christ, the King of the Universe. His phrase stuck with me and prompted this piece because it so radically opposes the secular, wholly foolish and deadly narrative of Our Bodies, Ourselves. Foolish because of the obvious fact that all women are not meant to be mothers. Foolish because the effects of promiscuity on women and our psyches are deadly—for us and the babies we refuse to carry.

Instead, the notion of ‘our bodies as vehicles for mission’ opens up the astounding, jaw-dropping, adventure of entering into God’s will. And of learning who He intends us to be. About our intrinsic dignity and step by faltering step, becoming temples of the Holy Spirit.

Mission: Go and do likewise

That’s what He tells us at the end of the Good Samaritan parable. After all the life-saving ministrations of the beaten and dying stranger lying at the side of the road—you, me and each one of the almost 8 billion souls on this planet, He’s explicit about just who our neighbor is. None is excluded.

To those of us who shy away from the notion of mission:

“I’m too old!”

“I’m too young!”

“Missions are for Priests, Deacons, nuns not for an ordinary person like me,”

Janet Klasson’s ruminations on Words, Time and Food are cogent and practical. One of Janet’s locutions applies, comically, to keeping our vehicular bodies in shape for mission.

“For most of my life food was the guest of honor at every emotional banquet I hosted. It was my idol—thoughts of breakfast are what got me out of bed in the morning. It has taken years of prayer and the sacraments to smash that idol…Once, in prayer as an adult, I asked for the gift of temperance. Immediately I heard these words in my head, “I gave you that gift at your Confirmation.” Then he added wryly, “You haven’t opened it yet.” Mea maxima culpa!“

How many gifts of the Holy Spirit lay unopened for you and me?

Because we lacked the courage and/or the will to ask?

It’s the second Sunday of Advent

For some of us, there’s no joy excitement, life. We’ve lost too much health, financial security or trust in those we feel no longer warrant it. We can feel overwhelmed by what Fr. Derek Sakowski terms hopesickness:

“Many aspects of life went “back to normal” nine months ago. But no amount of socializing or traveling, getting or spending has restored joy or peace. Many of us feel depleted, burnt out, or discouraged. We struggle to remember how long ago things happened, and feel a great uncertainty and dis-ease about where things are headed. Even when we keep returning to our holy desires, we can sometimes feel stuck.

I have a word for this dis-ease: being HopeSick. I’m sure I’m not the first one to think it up. I sometimes feel sick amidst my hoping. And yes, like the prophet Jeremiah, sometimes I cry out to the Lord because I am feeling sick of hoping…Advent is a season of presence. Advent is a season of renewed Hope.”

These precious days of waiting are filled with grace if we but open our hearts and souls to His middle coming, that like a road, leads from the first to the last:

“Keep God’s word in this way. Let it enter into your very being, let it take possession of your desires and your whole way of life. Feed on goodness, and your soul will delight in its richness. Remember to eat your bread, or your heart will wither away.” St Bernard

The post Our Bodies Ourselves or Vehicles for Mission? appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Hope Holders: Reflections on Mary

Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus with plain and zigzag border and white backgroundHope holders: Reflections on Mary

                      HOPE HOLDERS

                  Do you wonder why these beliefs have taken root in your

                                                                Soul?

               Roots which deepen, burrow into the secret places of mind and

                                                              Heart?

Year after year, prayer by prayer, tear by tear, doubt by doubt until

                                                              Fixed?

Do you wonder why you believe the impossible-god as infant born of a

                                                            Virgin?

Do you wonder at this girl child, at her trust in the incomprehensible

                                                           Answer

                How can this be, she asked, how can this be, we ask?

Why such Love For faded facsimiles of divinity, stumbling blindly toward light and Truth?

         The Holy Spirit will overshadow you, Gabriel answered… is that an

                                                         Answer?

                   Enveloped by wisdom, she carried eternity in her womb,

                A child emptied of ego, of self, of sin, full, instead, of grace.

                 She who was filled with the hope of Adam, she who came

                 To dry the tears of Eve through her incomparable sorrows.

           Do you wonder if there is a price for these gifts we have been freely

                                                         Given?

                   Must we not somehow offer back to Him some tiny

                                                         Crumb?

                 Struggle and sacrifice, penance and passion, some small

                                                         Sharing?

               Finally we hear, we see and understand from her silence, her

                                                        Knowledge

             Too immense for words, cannot be contained by the sea or the

                                                              Sky

                         We are to proclaim, to put in our hands and our hearts, to be

                                                       Hope Holders.

Poetry as language of the heart

I wrote that poem, “Hope Holders Reflections on Mary” back when poetry was the sole method for me to convey the search for, and then the gift, of this faith— the stunning, world-shaking, descent of it. Poetry has never been a form of writing that appealed to me. And yet, during those years, the “language of the heart” worked…when nothing else did.

The Greek word for conversion or repentance is metanoia- some, like me, think of it as turn around-180 degree turnaround. Think of a small child whirling around and around…then stopping, often to fall on the ground, giggling. Repentance just is not a big enough word, it’s too bounded and packed with narrow, rigid thought.

Turn around is better.

World shaking?

Most assuredly.

A Zen koan comes close, but only kind of: “Before enlightenment chopping wood and carrying water; after enlightenment chopping wood and carrying water.” Close because superficially, everything’s the same. But interiorly, nothing is the same.

Fr. James Brent translates metanoia as transformation of the mind. In a beautiful piece called, The Pathways of Metanoia, Fr. Brent writes,

The eyes of the heart are even capable of beholding God by grace. By the light of grace, the eyes of our hearts can behold God enigmatically in this life, through a certain reflection of him in our hearts, and face to face in the next (1 Cor. 13:12). Since the heart has eyes all of its own, and is capable of cognition, it is sometimes also called mind.

The Pathways of Metanoia

Once I learned about Advent,

it became of critical importance and becomes more so with each passing year. True, I think, because increasingly I see the awful consequence of sin. My own, and that of all of us. So these upcoming weeks are rife with opportunity for spirtual growth. To think about her: The young girl so reflective of the Lord that the angel Gabriel addresses her not with her name. But as “full of grace.” We could ponder that greeting for the rest of our lives and not plumb its depths!

Amidst the Hallmark Christmas movies, red bows, tinsel, parties, Christmas music and ubiquitous political clamor, lurks a presence. A whisper deep in our hearts, in our psyches and in our souls. One which evokes the proper phrase “the shaking reality of Advent.” It isn’t mine, but belongs to Jesuit Priest and martyr, Alfred Delp. A man who chose not to close his eyes to the growing evil around him, Father Delp was the Rector of St. Georg Church in Munich and an outspoken critic of the Nazi regime. Falsely accused of conspiring against Hitler, Fr. Delp was arrested in 1944, imprisoned, tortured and executed on February 2, 1945.

His phrase does not conjure images of jingle bells or merriment; he doesn’t intend them to. Instead, the shaking reality of advent inspires fear and trembling-even awe- if we but pause, close our eyes and let the Truth pierce through the myriad distractions, lies and evil which surround us.

Consider this statement written from Tegel Prison just months before he would be killed-

Oh, if people know nothing about the message and the promises anymore, if they only experience the four walls and the prison windows of their gray days, and no longer perceive the quiet footsteps of the announcing angels, if the angels’ murmured word does not simultaneously shake us to the depths and lift up our souls—then it is over for us.

Advent of the Heart

Worth a repeat:

Father Alfred Delp’s words. “if the angels’ murmured word does not simultaneously shake us to the depths and lift up our souls” were penned in a prison, a Nazi prison by a man who knew he would be executed.

“If we want Advent to transform us – our homes and hearts, and even nations – then the great question for us is whether we will come out of the convulsions of our time with this determination: Yes, arise!

The Jesuit priest’s words exhort—from his grave:

” There is perhaps nothing we modern people need more than to be genuinely shaken up. Where life is firm we need to sense its firmness; and where it is unstable and uncertain and has no basis, we need to know this, too, and endure it.

Here is the message of Advent: faced with him who is the Last, the world will begin to shake. Only when we do not cling to false securities will our eyes be able to see this Last One and get to the bottom of things. Only then will we have the strength to overcome the terrors into which God has let the world sink. God uses these terrors to awaken us from sleep, as Paul says, and to show us that it is time to repent, time to change things. It is time to say, “all right, it was night; but let that be over now and let us get ready for the day.” We must do this with a decision that comes out of the very horrors we experience. Because of this our decision will be unshakable even in uncertainty….

We need people who are moved

by the horrific calamities and emerge from them with the knowledge that those who look to the Lord will be preserved by him, even if they are hounded from the earth.

The Advent message comes out of our encounter with God, with the gospel. It is thus the message that shakes – so that in the end the entire world shall be shaken. The fact that the son of man shall come again is more than a historic prophecy; it is also a decree that God’s coming and the shaking up of humanity are somehow connected…

Being shocked, however, out of our pathetic complacency is only part of Advent.

There is much more that belongs to it. Advent is blessed with God’s promises, which constitute the hidden happiness of this time. These promises kindle the light in our hearts. Being shattered, being awakened – these are necessary for Advent. In the bitterness of awakening, in the helplessness of “coming to,” in the wretchedness of realizing our limitations, the golden threads that pass between heaven and earth reach us. These threads give the world a taste of the abundance it can have….

We must not shy away from Advent thoughts of this kind. We must let our inner eye see and our hearts range far. Then we will encounter both the seriousness of Advent and its blessings in a different way. We will, if we would but listen, hear the message calling out to us to cheer us, to console us, and to uplift us.”

Advent of the Heart–

The post Hope Holders: Reflections on Mary appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Feast of Christ the King of the Universe

Feast of Christ the King of the UniverseFeast of Christ the King of the Universe

Just a few moments of reflection about the state of the world in 1925 compels us to stop.

And think very hard about the inspiration which led Pope Pius Xl to proclaim the Sunday ending the liturgical year in the Christian liturgy as the feast of Christ the King of the Universe.

Imagine:

Four years of the “war to end all wars,” A war that resulted in the deaths world-wide of 16 million people.Followed by a global plague of epic proportion, infecting one out of every three people and killing at least 50 million.And then a deflationary global depression, which would lead to an even more terrible economic crisis in a few short years.

Those facts put into perspective the “c” words, politics and just about everything else.

Don’t they?

Almost 100 years ago, in 1925, Pope Pius XI wrote Quas Pimas (In the First.) Concerned about the growing domination of communism and its axiomatic atheism, the Pope introduced his 1925 encyclical by recalling the theme of his papacy written three years earlier[The Peace of Christ is the Kingdom of Christ]:

“..manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations. Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ…”

As always, the work of researching and writing articles like this one brings me more than a little consolation and infusion of Hope.

In his timeless encyclical, Pope Pius Xl exhorts us:

“…if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights.”

Quas Primas

Today’s second reading warrants rereading:

Brothers and sisters:
Let us give thanks to the Father,
who has made you fit to share
in the inheritance of the holy ones in light.
He delivered us from the power of darkness
and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the blood of his cross
through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.

In Him all things hold together

I believe this, I do.

And yet, I see the headlines about missiles fired into Poland. Or the population of three states voting to “enshrine abortion” up to the moment of birth. Of our insane pursuit of equality. And I get shaken. Sometimes to the point of focusing on the darkness and the speed with which it’s encroaching in our land, instead of on Him.

Rereading Janet Klasson’s intriguing post on Words, Time and Food, gives me pause. Her comments on words recall my training in the limitation of language—the rigidity of the boundaries of mere words. And the Dominican nun who impressed on me the fact that cultural context is crucial for an understanding of meaning.

One of the last classes I took to satisfy the number of courses needed for my undergraduate major in English was linguistics. With thoughts and viewpoints far beyond her time, head of the English department, Sr. Marie Bernard was fascinated by the power of the vernacular upon those who lived and spoke it.

Her admonitions to her students were simple and practical: while the meaning of a word may be clear and precise to you as a writer or a speaker, understand always, there are those in the listening or reading audience to whom the meaning of that word may be something else entirely…

So many years later, I remember gratefully the time I spent under her tutelage. Lessons taught by a woman who belied her stiff, starched black and white appearance of the Dominican  habit. Instead, she took real delight in understanding the nuances of language adopted by people living in a particular time and place. She understood that language is alive, constantly changing. And yet, insisted on precise, careful writing from her English major students.

Sister Marie Bernard had a passion for learning and for awakening her students to the joys inherent in the pursuit of wisdom.

This Solemnity of Christ the King

grabs and shakes me.

“WAKE UP!!”

“BE STRONG AND STEADFAST.”

My faith is no mere feeling.

Nor is it an opinion.

It’s more real than the chair I sit on as I write. And that fact, I know, is pure gift…unadulterated grace. On that momentous day when I received four sacraments: confession, conditional Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist, I was reborn:

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away….

Faith is not merely a personal reaching out towards things to come that are still totally absent: it gives us something. It gives us even now something of the reality we are waiting for, and this present reality constitutes for us a “proof” of the things that are still unseen. Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a “not yet”. The fact that this future exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of the future.

Spe Salvi

A fitting symphony:

Friday night, Michelle Smith and I were immersed in the magnificent music of Holst’s, The Planets. Stunning visuals accompanied the seven movements corresponding to the seven planets in our solar sytem.

Live symphony is always thrilling and this performance didn’t disappoint. Throughout the concert, I kept thinking of the “coincidence” of the San Antonio Philarmonic Orchestra performing this towering score on the weekend of the Feast of Christ the King of the Universe.

Just in case you’ve not heard it recently, or ever, turn up the speakers on your phone or tablet and bask in the Glory of God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth!

O praise him with resounding cymbals,

praise him clashing cymbals,

Let everything that lives and that beathes

give praise to the Lord.

The post Feast of Christ the King of the Universe appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Combative Hope

Combative hopeIt’s one of those wonderful oxymorons:

combative hope. And makes no sense at all until you let it sink in. Slowly. And then the phrase hits home because combat is part and parcel of life. All life.

You disagree?

Consider the time energy and sheer grit it took to get to where you are, wherever that is. Weren’t there times that you wanted to just give in?

Walk away from needy children?Or your suddenly unlovely spouse?Or the education that got you the job you have now?

Weren’t they combat? And wasn’t the hemorrhaging from the wounds sometimes a flood?

Our lives are composed of many battles.

A theme I’ve written about a  time or two.

I first came across this phrase, combative hope, in In Him Alone is Our Hope: The Church According to the Heart of Pope Francis. It was released just after the Jesuit priest Fr. Jorge Borgoglio, who no one had ever heard of, became Pope.

Jesuit Pope Francis wrote his book from a series of talks given to his fellow priests about the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises.

The Pope suggests that we pray for the grace of a combative hope.

This spiritual hope is much more than mere optimism. It is not full of fan-fare, nor is it afraid of silence. Rather, it penetrates deep down within us, like sap in winter roots. Hope is certain, and it is the Father of Truth who gives it to us. Hope discerns between good and evil. It does not worship at the altar of success: falling into optimism; nor is it content with failure: wallowing in pessimism. Because hope discerns between good and evil, it is called to do combat. Yet it fights without anxiety or illusion, with the assurance of one who knows that he pursues a sure goal…

In Him Alone is our Hope

St. Ignatius is another of my friends.

How can I call a fifteenth-century soldier-turned-priest and founder of the Jesuits friend?

Because I got an answer to a distressing problem through him.

John and I were in Rome, had visited the Vatican several times but it was the Chiesa di Sant Ignazio that beckoned me. St Peter’s was stunning to be sure; the Sistine Chapel, indescribable. But it was at the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola where I wanted to worship, over and over again. It was there that I wanted to participate in the Mass.

And it was there that I began to think of this long dead man, this soldier who had come to Christ in a way I could get. Seemingly by accident for the lack, if you will, of anything better to do, as a source of direction for me.

Although it felt decidedly strange, I knelt at the coffin-shaped wooden box where his remains are housed and asked for his help—more accurately begged.

I believe in the community of saints... we claim this belief each time we recite the Apostle’s or the Nicene Creed. The community of saints feels itchy when we decide to act on our belief—to take the risk of asking for intercession…to make the invitation to a person or people whom we are told await our invitation. And when we receive a response…what then?

Chiesa di San Ignazio, RomaIn this “post Christian” era,

the word hope is a passive verb describing a weak and timid emotion.

When Pope Francis calls us to the theological virtue of combative hope, he uses a phrase which will knock us off our pews to get our attention. To tell us that this is not the wishy-washy, tentative concept that we call hope but the theological virtue of Hope: Combative Hope. Moreover, that these theological virtues of faith, hope and charity are not mere words but are each infused with the Spirit of Christ.

He’s not using a mere word, one which can be replaced with a synonym without alteration of the meaning or even a euphemism but Something More. Instead, this “Combative Hope” is the Word.

In Paul’s explanation of faith: “The realization of what is hoped for; the evidence of things not seen,” we sense the immense power, mystery and splendor in this, the first of the theological virtues and dimly grasp the Presence suggested by these words.

At first we understood the virtues to be mere words, nouns to be sure, but not fully apprehending the Person who imbues these virtues with Strength and Wisdom far beyond our meager capacities. Now we see hope as a Person; through whom we can wage combat on our frailties; through whom we can come to Love all persons- including those who wage war on our ideas, beliefs and institutions.

That last phrase is worth repeating:

Because hope discerns between good and evil, it is called to do combat. Yet it fights without anxiety or illusion, with the assurance of one who knows that he pursues a sure goal…

In Him Alone is Our Hope

The field of combat?

Let’s be clear: Our battleground is our hearts and minds.

I’m stunned at the speed with which a trivial problem can shred my peace of mind. Usually by doing just one more task at the end of day filled with them.

My day started with an easy job: Planting the milkweed and gregg’s mistflower for the Monarch butterflies. But it took far longer than anticipated. You know how you get started with a thing and it morphs? These plants need pruning, so do these and this super heavy stone needs to move way over here….

Where are those racks to cool the cookies coming out of the oven? Why aren’t they where I keep them?

Just like Seymour when the doorbell rings: Grrrrr….

The source is always the same: ego. pride. Determined to complete the mental list of tasks despite a few taking far more time than anticipated. Hence being late for the last—and most important, Adoration.

Noting my haste, John said, “You can wait until tomorrow to make those…”

“Nope, I promised you cookies for your Marine Corps birthday…”

I think of the magnifying glass. The perfect metaphor descibed by Grace Abruzzo.

““While many people picture the devil with a pitchfork, he actually has a magnifying glass,” writes Father John Paul Oullette, CFR.

“He puts it in front of us some small defect or issue and makes it big. Then he keeps pointing at it until finally the person gets distressed, then depressed, and then falls into despair, maybe even death….”

But we must grab the magnifying glass back, magnifying the good works, like She does: My soul magnifes the Lord.

Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus with plain and zigzag border and white background Author of combative hope

The post Combative Hope appeared first on Lin Wilder.

November’s the Month of the Dead-Why Should We Care?

day of the dead calendar day first of november November’s the month of the DeadNovember’s the month of the dead

“I continue to think that we start from very different places on the question of death itself, what it is and what, if anything comes after it…I have trouble getting myself to the point where I believe that anything happens to the individual after death.  I can’t get beyond, once you are dead you are dead and that is the end of it.” November’s the month of the dead-why should we care?

This was Jeff’s reply to my renewed emphatic urging that he just ask Jesus if he’s real….just speak the words.

Over the last couple of decades, my friend-since-childhood Jeff and I have had countless online conversations about God. And all related topics like faith, religion and what Jeff terms his “secular humanism.” Of late, he’s had a few serious medical events and so I’ve asked him to risk a conversation with Jesus—said with a bit more detail.

Jeff and I grew up together. We were in the same classes from kindergarten through high school and even the same confirmation class at our parents’ church, St. John’s Episcopal church in Sharon, Massachusetts.

Within four years, I was an atheist. Sometime during his year in Viet Nam, college or graduate school, Jeff decided he was a secular humanist. Our lives diverged for years. But then, we reconnected because of a textbook I’d published. One that my very proud Dad showed his father. Ever since, we’ve corresponded fairly consistently.

Frequently, our virtual conversations plunge into areas most avoid: religion and politics. My conversion—more accurately, my deep dive, into Catholicism has caused extensive discussion between us over the years.

Jeff’s reply to my request takes care of the problems of purgatory and hell quite neatly—if there’s nothing after death then

“Let us eat and drink,

for tomorrow we die.”

Why should we care?

Well, if you agree with Jeff, there’s no reason to. It’s actually a waste of time. One which our friend St. Paul makes clear.

“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, …And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied…But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep…”

For centuries, the fact that we humans are both body and soul was truth. No longer.

“Science” has “finally” explained the soul: neurophysiology. Our minds create our universe.

Until Jeff and I entered into this latest conversation, I’d no clue that the existence of the human soul is being debunked by “science.” But in a climate where murdering ourselves and our babies are “rights” and “healthcare” while a sitting President insists that mutilating kids is legitimate and moral, we can’t be surprised.

We know the origin of stunningly stupid claims like “our minds create the universe.” And of these purely evil laws which use a phrase like “abortion sanctuary” as if that’s even possible. And of euthansia of children and the mentally ill.

This isn’t from people, politicians or governments.

No, this is Satan and his legions escalating their attempt to destroy humanity.

Tuesday and Wednesday this week were

All Saints Day and All Souls Day respectively. November’s the month of the dead. Tuesday we celebrated our friends in heaven and Wednesday, those in purgatory. Our Mass was held outside, in the cemetery. It was beautiful, sacred and fitting. But to another, perhaps, macabre.

The concept of purgatory makes us stumble, individually and collectively. To the point that more than a few Catholics and Christians claim there’s just one destination for faithful souls: heaven. And hell? Well, “surely a loving God wouldn’t create and damn anyone to hell.” Hold that thought.

Although All Saints Day is considered uniquely Roman Catholic, a little research reveals that John Wesley-founder of the Methodist Church loved All Saints Day.

And purgatory?

For first-century Jews, purgatory was axiomatic. And was based on the Torah, specifically the Book of Maccabees: “If he [Judas] had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the (dead. . . . Whereupon he made an atonement that they might be delivered from sin”; for this indicates that souls after death pass through an intermediate state in which they may by some intercession be saved from doom.”

Our Catholic catechism is clear. Purgatory’s not a matter of opinion, but fact: “All who die in God’s grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification so as to attain the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name “Purgatory” to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.

(Catechism 1030-1031).

And what about hell?

Does it exist?

Logically, a belief in heaven necessitates a corresponding belief in hell. But that is apparently not the case. A 2015 Pew Research study of 35,000 people found 72% of Americans believe there is a heaven, but less than 58% believe in hell. For increasing numbers of us believers, the notion of hell-even of purgatory- does not conform to their notion of a loving God. Despite our weekly recitation of the Apostle’s Creed.

Curious, isn’t it?

And from our secular friends?

Theologians and philosophers talk about “the problem of evil,” and the hygienic phrase itself bespeaks a certain distance from extreme suffering, the view from a life inside the charmed circle. They mean the classic difficulty of how we justify the existence of suffering and iniquity with belief in a God who created us, who loves us, and who providentially manages the world. The term for this justification is “theodicy,” which nowadays seems a very old-fashioned exercise in turning around and around the stripped screw of theological scholastics. 

Holiday in Hellmouth

New York Times columnist Russ Douthat’s explanation of our disbelief in hell is worth a repeat:

“But the more important factor in hell’s eclipse, perhaps, is a peculiar paradox of modernity. As our lives have grown longer and more comfortable, our sense of outrage at human suffering — its scope, and its apparent randomness — has grown sharper as well. The argument that a good deity couldn’t have made a world so rife with cruelty is a staple of atheist polemic, and every natural disaster inspires a round of soul-searching over how to reconcile God’s omnipotence with human anguish.”

In the end,

it’s a matter of faith.

Faith is a gift from God. But it’s also the product of a mysterious and mystical cooperstion between God and us. He does 99% of the work but if we’re incapable of accepting His grace, it’s an invitation that can be refused. God’s desire is the restoration of humanity to its original divinity but if we say no, it’s our choices that determine our eternal destination.

Either Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born to save humanity. Or He and His story are elaborate fabrications.

When I converted to Christian Catholicism, my decision wasn’t due to research. Nor was it a result of “shopping around.” In fact, as I reflect, it wasn’t a decision at all. But more a sense of finding what I’d not known I was searching for…It was a knowing that contained more than could ever be imagined. And belonging, finally, belonging.

When I announced my conversion to more than a few Christian Protestant friends and colleagues, they showed none of the shock I expected. Instead a calm and trusting acknowledgement, “Yes, we’ve been praying for you, Lin.” They’d expected this.

November’s the month of the dead—why should we care?

We faithful are obligated for those who cannot or will not pray for themselves.

“IT IS A HOLY THOUGHT TO PRAY FOR THE DEAD.

What is man, that you are mindful of him? What is this new mystery surrounding me? I am both small and great, both lowly and exalted, mortal and immortal, earthly and heavenly. I am to be buried with Christ and to rise again with him, to become a co-heir with him, a son of God, and indeed God himself.

If only we could be what we hope to be, by the great kindness of our generous God! He asks so little and gives so much, in this life and in the next, to those who love him sincerely. In a spirit of hope and out of love for him, let us then bear and endure all things and give thanks for everything that befalls us, since even reason can often recognise these things as weapons to win salvation. And meanwhile let us commend to God our own souls and the souls of those who, being more ready for it, have reached the place of rest before us although they walked the same road as we do.

St. Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop

Purgatory-Canto one Maura Harrison An Illustrated Comedy- The Design Room, Inc. Used with Permission November’s the month of the dead

The post November’s the Month of the Dead-Why Should We Care? appeared first on Lin Wilder.

The Patron Saint of Politicians: Thomas More

Bronze statue of the Tudor politician, considered by Catholics to be a saint, Sir Thomas More. Next to Chelsea Old Church, London. Sculpted by L Cubitt Bevis, erected 1969. The Patron saint of politiciansThe Patron Saint of Politicians: Thomas More

In the year 2000, then Pope John Paul ll declared that many leaders of nations, states, and governments had asked him to proclaim Saint Thomas More the Patron of Statesmen and politicians. The Pope’s Apostolic Letter which details the proclamation, begins:

The life and martyrdom of Saint Thomas More have been the source of a message which spans the centuries and which speaks to people everywhere of the inalienable dignity of the human conscience…Precisely because of the witness which he bore, even at the price of his life, to the primacy of truth over power, Saint Thomas More is venerated as an imperishable example of moral integrity. And even outside the Church, particularly among those with responsibility for the destinies of peoples, he is acknowledged as a source of inspiration for a political system which has as its supreme goal the service of the human person….This harmony between the natural and the supernatural is perhaps the element which more than any other defines the personality of this great English statesman: he lived his intense public life with a simple humility marked by good humour, even at the moment of his execution.

Why would modern day government leaders relate to More, the patron saint of politicians, who lived and died in the sixteenth century?

What relevance does a medieval feudal figure have for twenty-first century democracies?

There’s no comparison bewteen us and the 16th century, so why the interest in the drama of King Henry V?

CS Lewis provides one answer:

I am a democrat [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure… The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. —C.S. Lewis

Present Concerns

More was beheaded because he refused to sign the Oath of Supremecy: the declaration that the King of England was Supreme Governor of the Church of England, irrevocably breaking with Roman Catholicism. And freeing King Henry Vlll to marry Anne Boyelyn.

More’s last words: “I am the king’s good servant but God’s first.”

It’s election time again in America.

And even those like me who stay as far away from the news as possible, am taking this election seriously. The yawning abyss that separates candidates makes our vote important, if not critical. So, I am thinking about the patron saint of politicians-Thomas More. And I’m praying for More’s intercession to enlighten the consciences of the long list of men and women competing for office across the country.

I “met” Thomas More in an English literature class through the lens of Robert Bolt. One of the more successful playwrights of the last century, Bolt wrote the screenplays for Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, and The Mission. But it was A Man For All Seasons for which he was best known. During those classes, I read the play. And found myself yearning for Something or Someone I loved so much that I would die for it.

Like he did.

Norfolk: I’m not a scholar, as Master Cromwell never tires of pointing out, and frankly I don’t know whether the marriage was lawful or not. But damn it, Thomas, look at those names… You know those men! Can’t you do what I did, and come with us for friendship?
More: And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for friendship?
Cranmer: So those of us whose names are there are damned, Sir Thomas?
More: I don’t know, Your Grace. I have no window to look into another man’s conscience. I condemn no one.
Cranmer: Then the matter is capable of question?
More: Certainly.
Cranmer: But that you owe obedience to your King is not capable of question. So weigh a doubt against a certainty — and sign.
More: Some men think the Earth is round, others think it flat; it is a matter capable of question. But if it is flat, will the King’s command make it round? And if it is round, will the King’s command flatten it? No, I will not sign.

This person portrayed so vividly by Bolt, springs to life from the pages of the screenplay.

That he’d lived and died 500 years ago matters not one jot. The yearning we feel for the love he described to his daughter Meg is tangible. We can touch it.

Here’s the conversation I refer to:

MARGARET “Then say the words of the oath and in your heart think otherwise.”

MORE “What is an oath then but words we say to God?”

MARGARET “That’s very neat.”

MORE “Do you mean it isn’t true?”

MARGARET “No, it’s true.”

MORE “Then it’s a poor argument to call it “neat,” Meg. When a man takes an oath, Meg, he’s holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. (He cups his hands) And if he opens his fingers then-he needn’t hope to find himself again. Some men aren’t capable of this, but I’d be loathe to think your father one of them.”

MARGARET “In any State that was half good, you would be raised up high, not here, for what you’ve done already. It’s not your fault the State’s three-quarters bad. Then if you elect to suffer for it, you elect yourself a hero.”

MORE “That’s very neat. But look now . . . If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we’d live like animals or angels in the happy land that needs no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all . . . why then perhaps we must stand fast a little-even at the risk of being heroes.”

MARGARET (Emotionally) “But in reason! Haven’t you done as much as God can reasonably want?”

MORE “Well . . . finally . . . it isn’t a matter of reason; finally it’s a matter of love.”

Thomas More was surrounded by religious men like himself.

Like Archbishop Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, More served his sovereign king with the heart of a patriot. And like them, More was ambitious, he enjoyed the luxuries and privileges of being a confidante and trusted advisor of the king. Like them too, More had spent his life learning how to use the law of the land to his and his family’s advantage.

But in one area, he was wholly unlike them. Playwright Bolt explains.

At any rate, Thomas More, as I wrote about him, became for me a man with an adamantine sense of his own self. He knew where he began and left off, what area of himself he could yield to the encroachments of his enemies, and what to the encroachments of those he loved. It was a substantial area in both cases for he had a proper sense of fear and was a busy lover. Since he was a clever man and a great lawyer he was able to retire from those areas in wonderfully good order, but at length he was asked to retreat from that final area where he located his self. And there this supple, humorous, unassuming and sophisticated person set like metal, was overtaken by an absolutely primitive rigour, and could no more be budged than a cliff.

A Man for All Seasons

I wrote in a piece a while back that not only do I think we have friends in heaven but that I wondered if they choose us. I say this because these people like Thomas More show up at precisely the right time. During those years at that precious Dominican college in Houston, I was lost. No matter how hard I worked to figure stuff out, the answer eluded me. And did so for many years to come.

And yet, these people show up, like a lighhouse.

More’s words written from the Tower, not long before his death are precious gems not just to statesmen and politicians, but to us all.

….”I will not mistrust him, Meg, though I shall feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome with fear. I shall remember how Saint Peter at a blast of wind began to sink…Margaret, I know this well: without my fault he will not let me lost…do not let your mind be troubled by anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.”

A Man for all Seasons

Jesus The Good Shepherd, Jesus and lambs.A PS from Bishop Barron

on the first reading of the Christian liturgy for October 30, 2022.

Creation is happening now.

NOW! God did NOT stop creating when He created the heavens and the earth. When we open our eyes to see the creatures, divinity…It’s all is the overflowing, overwhelming expression of being “loved into existence!”

Even you and me!

And then, there’s the Gospel story of the sinner on steroids—Zaccheus—whose ‘one little spark’ of interest in Jesus floods his house with grace.

Wowza!

The post The Patron Saint of Politicians: Thomas More appeared first on Lin Wilder.