Lin Wilder's Blog, page 2
July 26, 2025
Politics of the Common Good
Politics of the common goodThat phrase, “politics of the common good,” reads as naivete. In a recent post, I wrote that politics is the pathetic name we give to the art of governing. Our immersion in our “shock and awe news” entices us to judge, criticize, and offend Jesus by neglecting his command to love. Saint Paul is clear.
“First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth….
Thanksgivings be offered for all in authority…not just prayers.”
Ahem.
Ten years ago, Pope Francis addressed the United States Congress.
With artfully chosen language, the Holy Father invokes the ideas of a higher calling, teleology, and goodness without using any of these expressions. More than most, this speaker knows well how incendiary a mere word can be. And he asserts the truth of the meaning of life for each of us, whether retiree or productive worker, whether student or teacher. “We are all here in this place and during this time for a reason, specific and unique to each human person.” In his opening remarks, the Pontiff assures his audience that he speaks not only to Congress but through them to the citizens of this country, all three hundred and twenty million of us.
“I am most grateful for the invitation to address this ….’in the land of the free and the home of the brave’…I would like to think that the reason for this is that I, too, am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility…. “Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility.”
In less than four thousand words, the Pope declares that the task of the legislator is a noble one.
Pursuit of the common good as the aim of politics.“Your work,” claims Francis, “is to assist America to ‘grow as a nation…You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people.”
This is a phrase which is redolent with paradox in a country priding itself on individual freedoms and rights for vast varieties of minorities. A thing like the common good seems unattainable. But the Pontiff repeats the phrase four times in his forty-five minute speech, each time with different verbs: Love of the common good, cooperating generously for the common good and last, service to the common good. The words feel like gentle rain in our strident and polarized culture.
In an apparent acquaintance with the unattainable, even the impossible, Pope Francis invokes Moses as a symbol for the American legislator.
“On the one hand, the patriarch and lawgiver of the people of Israel symbolizes the need of peoples to keep alive their sense of unity by means of just legislation. On the other, the figure of Moses leads us directly to God and thus to the transcendent dignity of the human being. Moses provides us with a good synthesis of your work: you are asked to protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human face.”
One of many phrases that touched me deeply was the Pope’s warning against ‘simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil.’ So often, our discourse devolves to a primitive level. When people are defined by the weight of labels like “Republican” or “Democrat”, “Socialist” or “Catholic”, we can be blinded and deafened to truths merely because of the label.
“We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.”
Through his use of simple but universal terms, this Pope speaks to people of faith and people without faith with his appeal to the Golden Rule as a metric for dealing with the Gordian knots of immigration, global poverty, environmental crisis and the death penalty. Beginning and ending his talk with four Americans, Abraham Lincoln, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King and Thomas Merton, Pope Francis weaves a unique fabric for thought and inspiration.
A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to “dream” of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.
In these remarks I have sought to present some of the richness of your cultural heritage, of the spirit of the American people. It is my desire that this spirit continue to develop and grow, so that as many young people as possible can inherit and dwell in a land which has inspired so many people to dream.
God bless America!
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July 19, 2025
Thinking About Capernaum: Woe Onto You
Ruins of the great synagogue of Capernaum Israel. Capernaum is an ancient fishing village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel.Thinking about CapernaumCapernaum was Jesus’ town. The ruins pictured above were the great synagogue where Our Lord preached. It’s here where five of the twelve apostles lived: Peter, Andrew, John, James, and Matthew. Jesus’ town was the site of numerous miracles, among them the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead and the healing of the hemorrhaging woman by touching the hem of Jesus’ cloak. It was in Capernaum where the Roman Centurion’s understanding of Jesus’ power and authority caused Jesus to declare, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith in all of Israel!”
The Capernaum synagogue was constructed of white limestone, in marked contrast to the buildings surrounding it. It was a beautiful building, the pride and joy of the community. All in all, Capernaum was one of those places artists and poets dream of discovering…
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the seacoast, in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali, That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah, the prophet, saying, The land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations; The people who sat in darkness saw great light, and to them who sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up (Mt. 4:13–16)….
“As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth [partakes of] me, even he shall live by me” (Jn. 6:57). Sadly, His hearers would not respond positively to His works or words. “This is an hard saying,” they declared. “Who can hear it?” (Jn. 6:60). Later, even many who had professed to be His disciples would walk “no more with him” (Jn. 6:66).
Capernaum: A Town that Lost the Light
Why am I thinking about Capernaum?
Because of last Tuesday’s Gospel reading.
Woe onto you.“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst
had been done in Tyre and Sidon….
But I tell you, it will be more tolerable
for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.
And as for you, Capernaum:
Will you be exalted to heaven?
You will go down to the netherworld.
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom,
it would have remained until this day.
But I tell you, it will be more tolerable
for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
We Christians and Christian Catholics comfortably dilute Jesus’ message as one of love and mercy by closing our eyes to his own words,
Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother…Gospel of Matthew
And so glibly proclaiming that we and our loved ones are in or will go to Heaven. When doing this, we ignore the other pillar of Christianity, God’s Justice and Judgment.
While watching torrential rain from my back patio at noon on the now infamous Texas Hill Country Friday, July 4th, all I could think of was the Wrath of God. The volume and velocity of the rain caused literal rivers to appear on both sides of our house. The one at the base of the hill to the south of our property widened second by second. A deer appeared in the trees above the ever-widening furious river and seemed to look at us for help.
But we were powerless.
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus reproaches the unrepentant towns where he performed most of his mighty deeds. The idea of Jesus as judge is one with which we are distinctly uncomfortable, yet even the most cursory reading of the New Testament reveals its unavoidability. Indeed, it has been said that in front of every church there ought to be a statue of the compassionate Jesus and a statue of Christ in full flight of fury, since both are indisputably present in the Gospel stories.We were spared
The point is that when God’s own ordo appears in the world, he necessarily judges the disorder that surrounds him. To judge, in the biblical sense of the term, means to bring into the light, to throw into sharp relief. When good and evil are confused or intermingled, divine judgment separates them, clarifying the issue.
By his very nature, in his every word and gesture, in the very way that he stood, Jesus, God’s Word, was a judge. He was the light of the world, harshly exposing that which would prefer to remain in the dark; he was the unadulterated criterion, the truth in the presence of which falsity necessarily appeared for what it was. Bishop Barron: Daily Gospel Reflection
the horror if those camping on the Guadalupe that weekend. And that unwarranted mercy compels my somber reading of Janet Klasson’s post. I am reposting it here in its entirety because it contains valuable information.
I pray that I and each one of us can assimilate this phrase into our being:
Hate evil in a divine way.
[image error] By Janet Klasson on July 13, 2025 Luke 10:1-3
After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.
We heard in this Gospel reading from Sunday, July 6, 2025 that Jesus sent the 70 disciples out in pairs to prepare the way for him, to heal the sick and cast out demons in his name. He said he was sending them out like lambs in the midst of wolves. Having been a Franciscan penitent for almost 20 years, the wolf reference immediately reminded me of the story of St. Francis who confronted the wolf of Gubbio and, in effect, converted the beast who had been viciously terrorizing the townsfolk.
From The Little Flowers of St. Francis: Of the Most Holy Miracle of St Francis in Taming the Fierce Wolf of Gubbio
At the time when St Francis was living in the city of Gubbio, a large wolf appeared in the neighbourhood, so terrible and so fierce, that he not only devoured other animals, but made a prey of men also; and since he often approached the town, all the people were in great alarm, and used to go about armed, as if going to battle. Notwithstanding these precautions, if any of the inhabitants ever met him alone, he was sure to be devoured, as all defence was useless: and, through fear of the wolf, they dared not go beyond the city walls. St Francis, feeling great compassion for the people of Gubbio, resolved to go and meet the wolf, though all advised him not to do so.
Making the sign of the holy cross, and putting all his confidence in God, he went forth from the city, taking his brethren with him; but these fearing to go any further, St Francis bent his steps alone toward the spot where the wolf was known to be, while many people followed at a distance, and witnessed the miracle. The wolf, seeing all this multitude, ran towards St Francis with his jaws wide open.
As he approached, the saint, making the sign of the cross, cried out: “Come hither, brother wolf; I command thee, in the name of Christ, neither to harm me nor anybody else.” Marvellous to tell, no sooner had St Francis made the sign of the cross, than the terrible wolf, closing his jaws, stopped running, and coming up to St Francis, lay down at his feet as meekly as a lamb. And the saint thus addressed him: “Brother wolf, thou hast done much evil in this land, destroying and killing the creatures of God without his permission; yea, not animals only hast thou destroyed, but thou hast even dared to devour men, made after the image of God; for which thing thou art worthy of being hanged like a robber and a murderer. All men cry out against thee, the dogs pursue thee, and all the inhabitants of this city are thy enemies; but I will make peace between them and thee, O brother wolf, if so be thou no more offend them, and they shall forgive thee all thy past offences, and neither men nor dogs shall pursue thee any more.”
Having listened to these words, the wolf bowed his head, and, by the movements of his body, his tail, and his eyes, made signs that he agreed to what St Francis said. On this St Francis added: “As thou art willing to make this peace, I promise thee that thou shalt be fed every day by the inhabitants of this land so long as thou shalt live among them; thou shalt no longer suffer hunger, as it is hunger which has made thee do so much evil; but if I obtain all this for thee, thou must promise, on thy side, never again to attack any animal or any human being; dost thou make this promise?”
Then the wolf, bowing his head, made a sign that he consented. Said St Francis again: “Brother wolf, wilt thou pledge thy faith that I may trust to this thy promise?” and putting out his hand he received the pledge of the wolf; for the latter lifted up his paw and placed it familiarly in the hand of St Francis, giving him thereby the only pledge which was in his power. Then said St Francis, addressing him again: “Brother wolf, I command thee, in the name of Christ, to follow me immediately, without hesitation or doubting, that we may go together to ratify this peace which we have concluded in the name of God”; and the wolf, obeying him, walked by his side as meekly as a lamb, to the great astonishment of all the people.
Now, the news of this most wonderful miracle spreading quickly through the town, all the inhabitants, both men and women, small and great, young and old, flocked to the market-place to see St Francis and the wolf. All the people being assembled, the saint got up to preach… (Brother Ugolino,The Little Flowers of St Francis of Assisi,Part I, Chapter XXI – earliest manuscript year 1390) * I
In the gospel reading, Jesus did not tell the disciples to avoid the wolves, run from the wolves, or even fight the wolves. He put them in the midst of those wolves in human clothing, to convert them in the power of his holy name, driving out demons and bringing peace to their souls so that they could walk by Our Lord’s side as meekly as lambs.
This, dear friends, is the end game of salvation history—the conversion of even the greatest sinners. The world is full of wolves, arguably never more of them and never more in need of conversion than in our time. In the writings of Luisa, particularly the Twenty-Four Hours of the Passion, we are made starkly aware of the unfathomable depth of sorrow that Jesus and Mary experience at the loss of the souls who reject the free gift of redemption – of having had their debt paid in full at an inconceivably high cost by Jesus, with the full consent and cooperation of His Mother.
In the pattern of the 70 disciples and the faithful St. Francis, we too are called as his disciples—in the Divine Will—to convert wolves in all times and places, not through clever words or convincing arguments, not by being more loud and abrasive than they are, but through meekness, courage, the Holy Name of Jesus, and the Sign of the Cross, most especially in the Hours of the Passion.
We do it by living the Fiat, seeking the lost in all times and places in the pattern of Jesus, Mary, and Luisa who spared nothing of themselves so that all might be saved and, like them, by loving the wolves as much as we love the lambs, hating evil in a Divine way as Jesus explains in the following passage: Volume 12, April 8, 1918 [Jesus to Luisa:]
Have you seen what living in my Will is? It is to disappear and to enter the sphere of Eternity; it is to penetrate into the Omnipotence of the Eternal One – into the Uncreated Mind, and take part in everything and in each Divine act, as much as it is possible for a creature. It is to make use, even while on earth, of all the Divine qualities; it is to hate evil in a Divine way. It is extending oneself to everyone without exhaustion, because the Will which animates this creature is Divine. (L. Piccarreta, Volume 12, April 8, 1918)
To hate evil in a Divine way is to see our fellow sinners as God sees them, as the innocent babes he created them to be, now corrupted by all the evil influences of this fallen world, wallowing in the stench of the human will (see prayer below). Well do we know that we are all sinners, that if not for the prayers of others, we ourselves might also have become hardened in sin. There, but for the grace of God, go we. Instead, by God’s unfathomable mercy, we have been offered the Gift of Living in the Divine Will, not for our own sake, but so that the most souls possible might be saved. Our sacrifices, prayers, acts and rounds in the Divine Will are critical to this mission of the harvest of souls. It is a mission in the exile for all in the exile, as God wills.
Of course, we know that not all will be saved. But God does not give up as we see in this excerpt in which Jesus tells Luisa that the moment of death is their daily catch: Volume 35, March 22, 1938 [Jesus to Luisa:]
“Our Goodness and Our Love are such that We use all the ways and all the means to pull him away from sin—to save him; and if We do not succeed during his life, We make the last Surprise of Love at the moment of his death. You must know that, in that moment, We give the last sign of Love to the creature, providing her with our Graces, Love and Goodness, and placing so many Tendernesses of Love as to soften and win the hardest hearts. When the creature finds herself between life and death—between the time that is about to end, and the Eternity that is about to begin—almost in the act of leaving her body, I, your Jesus, make Myself seen, with an Amiability that Enraptures, with a Sweetness that chains and sweetens the bitterness of life, especially in that extreme moment.
Then, with My Gaze, I look at her, but with so much Love as to pull from her an act of contrition—one act of Love, one adhesion to My Will. “In that moment of disillusion, in seeing—in touching with her hands how much We Loved her, and do Love her, the creature feels so much pain that she repents for not having loved Us; she recognizes Our Will as Principle and Completion of her life and, as satisfaction, she accepts her death, to accomplish one act of Our Will. In fact, you must know that if the creature did not do even one Act of the Will of God, the doors of Heaven would not be opened; she would not be recognized as Heiress of the Celestial Fatherland, and the Angels and the Saints could not admit her in their midst—nor would she want to enter, being aware that it does not belong to her. Without Our Will there is no Sanctity and no Salvation. How many are saved by virtue of this sign of Our Love, with the exception of the most perverted and obstinate; although even following the long path of Purgatory would be more convenient for them. The moment of death is Our Daily Catch—the finding of the lost man.” (L. Piccarreta, Volume 35, March 22, 1938)
So, Jesus is giving us our assignment, sending us ahead of him as he sent the 70 disciples, to prepare hearts for the greatest harvest of souls ever imagined. But he also cautions us that he is sending us out like lambs in the midst of wolves. The difference is that we are lambs living in the Divine Will! Like St. Francis of Assisi, we are being called not just to save the lambs but to convert the wolves as well in the power of the Fiat! Come Divine Will, let us save souls with your love! Fiat! (* is the home page of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, a huge collection of Christian classics in the public domain, all available for free download.)
Prayer to Jesus, Restorer of lost innocence Beloved Jesus, Restorer of lost innocence, I love you, I praise you, and I thank you for redoing our lives during your agony in the Garden, and for consummating your love for us on the Cross. Making your agony my own, I redo all lives in the Divine Will as if no one had ever sinned or been sinned against.
Fused into you, in the name of all, I give you a return of the Divine Love with which you fashioned Adam innocent in the Garden of Eden and with which you suffered for all in the Garden of Gethsemane. With Mary and Luisa, I want to repair you for all sins against innocence and every rejection of your free gift of salvation. I empty the Heavenly Treasury into the Stream of Need an infinitude of times, pouring the Divine Will into every human heart. Let us save souls with your Love!
Holy Spirit of Love may your kingdom come and come quickly. Amen.
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July 12, 2025
God As Mystery: Desperate Need for Silence
God as mystery���What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?��� So they sent word to Joseph, saying, ���Your father left these instructions before he died: ���This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.��� Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.��� When their message came to him, Joseph wept.
His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. ���We are your slaves,��� they said.
But Joseph said to them, ���Don���t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don���t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.��� And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
The strange story of Joseph, the youngest and most beloved son of Jacob���Israel, is so very fitting for these post-flood days here in Texas. Who can help loving this story of the seventeen-year-old boy who doesn���t know the rules?
Or maybe he does and just ignores them?
It���s likely that Joseph���s brothers made their hatred of him apparent. Jacob preferred Joseph to all the others because ���he was the son of his old age.��� And yet, Joseph told his brothers about the dreams predicting Joseph���s lordship over them all. Finally, when Jacob had created a special coat for the boy, Joseph hastened to find his brothers to show them.
The boy evokes this as he appears in his ���coat with long sleeves.��� ���Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; we shall say that a wild beast has devoured him and we shall see what becomes of his dreams. But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, ���Let us not take his life���.Shed no blood������
It���s got everything, this tale: love, jealousy, hatred, maybe pride on the part of Joseph. But primarily, Joseph���s story foreshadows Christ: humilation, rejection, forgiveness, and salvation.
I wrote the above over two years ago, but the liturgical readings of this week have been Joseph’s strange, eternally puzzling story. It’s eerily fitting for these heartbreaking days of devastating losses in our beloved Texas Hill Country.
Desperate need for silenceI avoid the news, but it’s impossible to escape the word battles raging in social media. Whether it’s weatherpeople justifying themselves by blaming the inaction of others, or criticism of the camps’ inadherence to 100-year flood plans, we know this is only the beginning of the blame and shame game: The pathetic name we give to politics.
I’ve been a Catholic Christian now for close to thirty years. And I’m convinced it’s an all-or-nothing deal. I mean by this, we cannot join in this ongoing pejoration of our brothers and sisters and call ourselves Christians.
Not that we should not, we cannot.
Are there responsible people who didn’t do what they should have done?
Most likely, yes, but can’t that be said about you and me?
You might be thinking, “Yes, but my (fill in the blank) didn’t cause the death of over 250 innocent people.” But think for just a second or ten, quietly, silently, empyting yourself to hear the God As Mystery.
Saint Benedict’s memorial was on Friday. Saint Benedict is important to me because his school has taught me far more than did over twenty-four years of education. The Rule of Benedict contains just seventy-three chapters. As a Benedictine Oblate I read and reflect on the rule daily. It’s Chapter Six I write of today: On the Spirit of Silence, our desperate need for silence.
Let us do what the Prophet says:
“I said, ‘I will guard my ways,
that I may not sin with my tongue.
I have set a guard to my mouth.’
I was mute and was humbled,
and kept silence even from good things” (Ps. 38[39]:2-3).
Here the Prophet shows
that if the spirit of silence ought to lead us at times
to refrain even from good speech,
so much the more ought the punishment for sin
make us avoid evil words.
Therefore, since the spirit of silence is so important,
permission to speak should rarely be granted
even to perfect disciples,
even though it be for good, holy edifying conversation;
for it is written,
“In much speaking you will not escape sin” (Prov. 10:19),
and in another place,
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21).
Long ago, I Iearned from a good friend, the real reason for my moral outrage.
“I just had to talk with you!”
She listened patiently to my rant. There was no other word for the torrent of my words.
When certain I was done, Almita was quiet for a long minute. Then she spoke.
“Lin, I have found that when such strong emotions are evoked by the actions of another, it is often something in ourselves that we are reacting to. Something we dislike intensely because we are embarrassed or perhaps ashamed of the feeling when it appears unbidden.”
Us Versus Them: The Deliciousness of Moral Outrage
Joseph’s stirring reply to his justifiably shamed brothers, ���Don���t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don���t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.��� And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them,” emanated from one source: Love.
“When their message came to him, Joseph (Jesus) wept.”
���War begins in here and finishes out there. The news we see in the papers or on television��� Today so many people die, and that seed of war, which breeds envy, jealousy, and greed in my heart, is the same ��� grown up, become a tree ��� as the bomb which falls on a hospital, on a school, and kills children…God makes peace with us but it is not easy to care for peace. It is a daily task, because within each of us is that seed of original sin, that is, the spirit of Cain which ��� for envy, jealousy, greed, and the desire to dominate ��� leads to war.���
War Begins in the Heart
Pope Francis
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July 5, 2025
Doubt Isn’t the Opposite of Faith
Doubt Isn’t the Opposite of FaithFear is.
Father Eric Ritter’s comment, “Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; fear is,” remains in my mind days after I heard him preach the homily for Saint Matthew’s Tuesday 6 AM Mass. The Gospel passage for Tuesday was:
As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him.
Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea,
so that the boat was being swamped by waves;
but he was asleep.
They came and woke him, saying,
“Lord, save us! We are perishing!”
He said to them, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?”
Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea,
and there was great calm.
The men were amazed and said, “What sort of man is this,
whom even the winds and the sea obey.
We know Saint Francis’ prayer, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;…”
Therefore, switching the antonym of faith from doubt to fear gets our attention. And compels us to spend some time on this familiar Gospel passage. So familiar, perhaps, that its meaning has been lost.
The first time I imagined being in a fishing boat in a raging storm with Christ asleep on a cushion was during a meditation on that Gospel passage shortly after I converted to Catholic Christianity. The Legionnaire priest giving the meditation received my undivided attention because of the simple imagery he used, effectively applying the words to my life, to the lives of each of us.
The Gospel of Mark adds the details given in that long-ago meditation:
“A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, ���Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
The priest talked about a friend of his, an intimate friend: Jesus. And his faith that was both simple and convoluted. Throughout the meditation, his expression was joyful. His smile lit up the room as he spoke of Who and what he loved. That priest took me by the hand as we climbed into that boat, to sit there and see what these guys saw, feel what they felt: the terror and then the awe. These men spent much of their lives on the water. ��Rough waters were part of the job; annoying but expected. To cause such terror among these experienced men, those waves had to be colossal.
Why are you terrified?Reflecting on fear, faith, and doubt recalls one of Michael Crichton’s best novels: State of Fear. Like many of Crichton’s thrillers, it is jam-packed with research. Twenty-one years ago, when Crichton’s book was published, global warming was the cause of worldwide political unrest, even frenzy. And impassioned ‘believers,’ were religious in their crusades, some to the point of terrorism and murder, the subjects of this novel. It’s a fun read.
However, it is just one character that I remember years after reading the book. Professor Hoffmann doesn’t appear until the last quarter of the book. An iconoclast, Hoffmann spectacularly debunks the concept of global warming, which makes him the enemy of most of the characters in the book. And some modern readers who opine about “the toxic legacy of Michael Crichton.”
When young protagonist, Evans, admits that he has no idea what Professor Hoffmann does, the professor declares,
���I study the ecology of thought,��� Hoffman said. ���And how it has led to a State of Fear.���
State of Fear
With that statement, this story changed from a fun read to something far more intriguing.
���the military-industrial complex is no longer the primary driver of society. In reality, for the last fifteen years we have been under the control of an entirely new complex, far more powerful and far more pervasive. I call it the politico-legal-media complex. The PLM. And it is dedicated to promoting fear in the population���under the guise of promoting safety…
…. modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular panic over things they can���t even see���germs, chemicals, additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them.
Remarkable! Like the belief in witchcraft, it���s an extraordinary delusion���a global fantasy worthy of the Middle Ages. Everything is going to hell, and we must all live in fear. Amazing…
It isn’t just climate change that Professor Hoffmann denigrates in this remarkably prescient story, however. It’s an insidious and sinister amalgam of forces in the “political, legal and media complex” that combine with academia. Because of the knowledge explosion during the last decades of the twentieth century, the university was no longer the arbiter of knowledge, it was accessible to the unmatriculated.
���What happened,��� he continued, ���is the universities transformed themselves in the 1980s. Formerly bastions of intellectual freedom in a world of Babbittry, formerly the locus of sexual freedom and experimentation, they now became the most restrictive environments in modern society. Because they had a new role to play. They became the creators of new fears for the PLM. Universities today are factories of fear. They invent all the new terrors and all the new social anxieties. All the new restrictive codes. Words you can���t say. Thoughts you can���t think. They produce a steady stream of new anxieties, dangers, and social terrors to be used by politicians, lawyers, and reporters. Foods that are bad for you. Behaviors that are unacceptable…
The modern State of Fear could never exist without universities feeding it. There is a peculiar neo-Stalinist mode of thought that is required to support all this, and it can thrive only in a restrictive setting, behind closed doors, without due process. In our society, only universities have created that���so far. The notion that these institutions are liberal is a cruel joke. They are fascist to the core, I���m telling you.���
There’s far more to stimulate and provoke in this excellent novel: grab your own copy.
Saint Thomas, the doubter.On Thursday of this week, the liturgical church celebrated the Feast of Saint Thomas, the apostle. His is yet another Gospel passage that begs for contemplation. Because like each of us, the apostle now called ‘doubting Thomas’ is complicated.
Saint Thomas the Apostle has a biblical modifier: the twin. John the Evangelist mentions it three times. The repeat makes us wonder, doesn���t it? Consistently we refer to Thomas as ���the doubter,��� even using it as an adjective for a skeptic���doubting Thomas.
But could Didymus mean something other than a twin sibling?
Like a description for a dual nature?
One that both doubts and believes?
Like us who say we believe but frequently reveal our lack of belief?
Saint Gregory the Great explains:
Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. He was the only disciple absent; on his return he heard what had happened but refused to believe it. The Lord came a second time; he offered his side for the disbelieving disciple to touch, held out his hands, and showing the scars of his wounds, healed the wound of his disbelief.
Dearly beloved, what do you see in these events? Do you really believe that it was by chance that this chosen disciple was absent, then came and heard, heard and doubted, doubted and touched, touched and believed? It was not by chance but in God���s providence.
In a marvellous way God���s mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master���s body, should heal our wounds of disbelief. The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened. So the disciple who doubted, then felt Christ���s wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the resurrection.
Touching Christ, he cried out: My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him: Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed. Paul said: Faith is the guarantee of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. It is clear, then, that faith is the proof of what can not be seen. What is seen gives knowledge, not faith. When Thomas saw and touched, why was he told: You have believed because you have seen me?
Because what he saw and what he believed were different things. God cannot be seen by mortal man. Thomas saw a human being, whom he acknowledged to be God, and said: My Lord and my God. Seeing, he believed; looking at one who was true man, he cried out that this was God, the God he could not see.
What follows is reason for great joy: Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. There is here a particular reference to ourselves; we hold in our hearts one we have not seen in the flesh. We are included in these words, but only if we follow up our faith with good works. The true believer practises what he believes. But of those who pay only lip service to faith, Paul has this to say: They profess to know God, but they deny him in their works. Therefore James says: Faith without works is dead.
From a homily on the Gospels by Saint Gregory the Great
Caravaggio: The Incredulity of Saint Thomas
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June 28, 2025
Thinking of Another Early July: Gettysburg
Thinking of another early July: GettysburgMichael Shaara’s magnificent historical novel, Killer Angels, is required reading at West Point Academy and should be required in all American colleges.
Why?
There are countless reasons I write this but primarily two.
When we reflect on the extraordinary history of America, “We should kneel down in gratitude!”
Secondly, from the first page, author Shaara places his reader there with searing, heart-wrenching prose that captures our hearts. Like these words of Major-General John Buford, a soldier’s soldier:
He had held good ground before and sent off appeals, and help never came. He was very low on faith. It was a kind of gray sickness; it weakened the hands. He stood up and walked to the stone fence. It wasn’t the dying. he has seen good men die all his life, and death was the luck of the chance, the price you eventually paid.
What was worse was the stupidity. The appalling sick stupidity that was so bad you thought sometimes you would go suddenly, violently, completely insane just having to watch it. It was a deadly thing to be thinking on.
Job to be done here. And all of it turns on faith.
We know what he’s talking about, this soldier. We’ve witnessed stupidity: our own and those above us. But the stupidity of powerful people who can’t or won’t admit their ignorance is another level entirely, especially in war and medicine. There, stupidity is lethal, perhaps even sinful.
Gettysburg, the 1993 movie, is an epic.Gettysburg follows Shaara’s book precisely. Therefore, it’s long, requires concentration, and highlights both the insanity and nobility of war. It does so through a careful step-by-step recreation of the two armies meeting at this place no one had ever heard of before, each initially surprised by the presence of the other. And a growing sense of inevitability.
Tom Berenger’s performance as James Longstreet is brilliant in his futile efforts to persuade Confederate General Lee to retreat from a fight that can’t be won. Union General John Buford’s (played by Sam Elliot) intuitive decision to place his cavalry strategically in the high ground of the cemetery offers the Confederate Army no good choices when two corps of Union infantry arrive.
Each actor in the film’s immense cast is impressive, but Jeff Daniels’ portrayal of Col. Joshua Chamberlain, a former Bowdoin College history teacher, commands the screen.
Chamberlain’s situation is bizarre. While Chamberlain and his regiment are camped a few miles from Gettysburg, a Union soldier delivers a large group of imprisoned Union soldiers. He tells Chamberlain he is free to shoot them because they deserted. (No fiction writer could have made this situation up.) Lee’s Confederate army is heading to Washington, intending to capture the capital. Three years of mostly victories have emboldened the Southern General, and he’s hoping to end this war: Chamberlain needs these 120 deserters desperately.
We’re moving out in a few minutes. We’ll be moving all day. I’ve been ordered to take you men with me, I’m told that — that if you don’t come I can shoot you. Well, you know I won’t do that. Maybe somebody else will, but I won’t. So that’s that.
Here’s the situation. The whole reb army is up that road aways waiting for us, so this is no time for an argument like this. I tell you, we could surely use you fellas. We’re now well below half strength. Whether you fight or not, that’s — that’s up to you. Whether you come along is — is — well, you’re coming. You know who we are, what we’re doing here, but if you are going to fight alongside us there are a few things I want you to know.
This regiment was formed last summer in Maine. There were a thousand of us then. There are less than three hundred of us now. All of us volunteered to fight for the union, just as you did. Some came mainly because we were bored at home — thought this looked like it might be fun. Some came because we were ashamed not to. Many of us came because it was the right thing to do. And all of us have seen men die.
This is a different kind of army. If you look back through history, you will see men fighting for pay, for women, for some other kind of loot. They fight for land, power, because a king leads them or — or just because they like killing. But we are here for something new. This has not happened much in the history of the world. We are an army out to set other men free.
America should be free ground — all of it. Not divided by a line between slave state and free — all the way, from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here, we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here, you can be something. Here, is the place to build a home.
But it’s not the land. There’s always more land.
It’s the idea that we all have value — you and me.
It’s impossible to watch this film, or read the book it’s based on, without thinking about war and its justification.
Just so,Was President Trump’s last weekend surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear production facilities a good decision?
The vehemence against it is strident: “Immoral and dangerous.“
These are strange times. But if we scan history, all times are bizarre. Many of us seem to believe the only justified war is the one between Ukraine and Russia, despite the deaths of over a million people. Certainly, no entry into war receives unqualified support. Whether it was the Revolutionary War, Civil War, or either world war, countless Americans have been in opposition.
I just finished reading Michael Shaara’s (Jeff Shaara’s son) The Glorious Cause. Forgive the aside here, but our upcoming commemoration of the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain demands more than barbecue and beer. Aren’t we morally obligated to reflect on this country’s wars and why they were fought?
While we do so, we must consider the hopelessness of the American Revolutionary War. The obstacles placed in front of George Washington were gigantic.
That a mostly barefoot, starving, barely clad, unpaid, and often unarmed army of farmers could achieve victory over the greatest army in the world was impossible.
And yet they did it.
Last year, on the eightieth anniversary of the Normandy invasion, Meir Y Soloveick’s published I Will Not Fail Nor Forsake You. The piece is short, I’ve embedded it here because it warrants a thoughtful read. Soloveick’s essay is insightful and a challenge to those of us demanding peace at all costs.
In his well-known 1985 Normandy speech, President Reagan spoke of General Matthew Ridgeway’s tossing, turning, and praying the night before the attack.
“I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.” The sleepless Ridgeway recalled the Lord’s words to Joshua on the eve before that momentous battle, as he listened in hope to hear the same words.
A year later, in 1985, at Arlington Cemetery, President Reagan returned to General Ridgeway in a far more somber speech.
“We endanger the peace,” Reagan reflected, “and confuse all issues when we obscure the truth; when we refuse to name an act for what it is.”
Only after making this clear did Reagan refer to the American obligation to those who had died; only then did he invoke the Ridgeway story:
Peace fails when we forget to pray to the source of all peace and life and happiness. I think sometimes of General Matthew Ridgeway,
who, the night before D-day, tossed sleepless on his cot and talked to the Lord and listened for the promise that God made to Joshua:
“I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”…Let us make a compact today with the dead, a promise in the words for which General Ridgeway listened, “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
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June 21, 2025
Making an Oratory of the Heart
VALLETTA, MALTA – JUNE 18, 2018: The masterpiece Oratory of St John Co-Cathedral with rich decors and altar icon depicting Beheading of St John the Baptist, on June 18 in Valletta.Making an oratory of the heart…The phrase “oratory of the heart” is not common parlance. I first encountered it in Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence of God,. and had to stop and think about the word oratory: Oratory is defined first as eloquence in public speaking and second as a place of prayer. Brother Lawrence refers to the second meaning.
It’s an arresting phrase, but when coupled with the image of the Oratory of St John Co-Cathedral it becomes wondrous. Imagine if our hearts could reflect the glory of God like this altar?
This is precisely what an unknown monk, Brother Lawrence, from the seventeenth century, invites us to do in The Practice of the Presence of God. Embedded in this second link is a free PDF. The book contains four ‘conversations’ between Brother Lawrence and an unknown writer who explains the simple secrets. Following the conversations are fifteen letters totalling twenty-two pages, which I read every few years. In the fourth letter, Brother Lawrence details the thirty-year practice of “one of our society”. In the narrative about his own experience, the monk provides a timeless template for living in the presence of God.
The first secret lies in willing His presence and in understanding that it’s not about us. It’s all about Him, Christ, His grace, and mercy. The anonymous conversationalist writes:
Making an oratory of the heart
…that we might accustom ourselves to a continual conversation with Him, with freedom and in simplicity. That we need only to recognize GOD intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment, that we may beg His assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful, and for rightly performing those which we plainly see He requires of us, offering them to Him before we do them, and giving Him thanks when we have done.
That in this conversation with GOD, we are also employed in praising, adoring, and loving him incessantly, for His infinite goodness and perfection.
That, without being discouraged on account of our sins, we should pray for His grace with a perfect confidence, as relying upon the infinite merits of our LORD. That GOD never failed offering us His grace at each action; that he distinctly perceived it, and never failed of it, unless when his thoughts had wandered from a sense of GOD’s Presence, or he had forgot to ask His assistance.
That there needed neither art nor science for going to GOD, but only a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to nothing but Him, or for His sake, and to love Him only.
It is not necessary for being with GOD to be always at church; we may make an oratory of our heart, wherein to retire from time to time, to converse with Him in meekness, humility, and love. Every one is capable of such familiar conversation with GOD, some more, some less: He knows what we can do. Let us begin then; perhaps He expects but one generous resolution on our part. Have courage. We have but little time to live;
when war seems endemic?
When threats of the Third World War rage in the Middle East and the endless Ukrainian/Russian wars?
Or, closer to home, the thirteen people who drowned in San Antonio from the welcome rains ending our long drought? They were driving early Thursday morning when fast-rising flood waters carried their cars into a creek.
How do we keep our hearts free of all that is dark, violent, and terrifyingly random?
Fr. Chris Kanowitz, then a priest in Garderville, Nevada, introduced me to a painting which answers this question. The Franciscan artist titled it The Madonna of the Holocaust.
This painting is shocking. As soon as we recognize precisely what the artist, Franciscan Brother Mickey McGrath, has painted, we feel disquieted- even to the point of turning away, closing our eyes.
God of Our Fathers, let the ashes of the children incinerated in Auschwitz, the rivers of blood spilled at Babbi Yar or Majdanek, be a warning to mankind that hatred is destructive, violence is contagious, while man has an unlimited capacity to cruelty.
Almighty God, fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah: ���They shall beat their swords into ploughshares . . . nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.���
Amen.
The Madonna of the Holocaust and The Presence of Christ
Each of us ponders the whys of terror, hatred, and the spectacular violence of humans upon one another.And how and why God permits them.
[The Book of Job is] the portrait of a spiritual journey from simple piety to the sudden painful awareness and eventual acceptance of the fact that inexplicable misfortune is the lot of man.
The Book of Job
Moshe Greenberg‘s meditation on the Book of Job warrants our reading and time. Job, he writes, is you and me���”Pious people who, when confronted with an absurd disaster, refuse to lie to justify God.” Suffering results from sin was axiomatic of the ancient Jewish religion. But then we read about this entirely righteous man, Job, confronted with pain and loss so great that he begs never to have been born. Could Job, Greenberg asks, in his former prosperity, have understood the victim of a senseless tragedy who expresses a death wish?
���Through nature, God reveals Himself to Job as both purposive and nonpurposive, playful and uncanny, as evidenced by the monsters He created. To study nature is to perceive the complexity, the unity of contraries, in God���s attributes, and the inadequacy of human reason to explain His behavior, not the least in His dealings with man.
“For it may be inferred that in God���s dealings with man, this complexity is also present���a unity of opposites: reasonability, justice, playfulness, uncanniness (the latter appearing demonic in the short view). When Job recognizes in the God of nature, with His fullness of attributes, the very same God revealed in his own individual destiny, the tumult in his soul is stilled. He has fathomed the truth concerning God���s character: he is no longer tortured by a concept that fails to account for the phenomena, as did his former notion of God���s orderly working.���
Corpus Christi SundayLo! the angel���s food is given
To the pilgrim who has striven;
see the children���s bread from heaven,
which on dogs may not be spent.Truth the ancient types fulfilling,
Isaac bound, a victim willing,
Paschal lamb, its lifeblood spilling,
manna to the fathers sent.Very bread, good shepherd, tend us,
Jesu, of your love befriend us,
You refresh us, you defend us,
Your eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see.You who all things can and know,
Who on earth such food bestow,
Grant us with your saints, though lowest,
Where the heav���nly feast you show,
Fellow heirs and guests to be. Amen. Alleluia.
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June 14, 2025
The Weapon of Prayer
The weapon of prayerWe don’t think of prayer as a weapon. At least I don’t, especially when I mitigate its power by saying, “All I can do is pray.” Yet, I know this life is a battle, so I have written about spiritual warfare countless times.
Why then don’t I use my primary weapon for combat?
Why then diminish prayer?
The answer’s simple and terrifyingly discouraging: I forget that without God I can do nothing.
Father Jacques Phillipe declares,
���Without Me you can do nothing���.(John 15:5)
He didn���t say, you can���t do much without Me but you can do nothing.���
Searching for and Maintaining Peace
He’s crafty, our relentless enemy, slithering in when we least expect it to persuade us we can do this ourselves. The worst part about the pride is that I’m oblivious to it, unaware that I’m relying on myself, that most unreliable of creatures. And then, of course, the self-recrimination starts, sometimes to the point of disgust. Again, Father Philippe instructs:
Can reading and watching the news be sinful?
To preserve our hearts in perfect tranquility, it is still necessary to ignore some interior feelings of remorse which seem to come from God, because they are reproaches that our conscience makes to us regarding true faults, but which come, in effect, from the evil spirit as can be judged by what ensues. If the twinges of conscience serve to make us more humble, if they render us more fervent in the practice of good works, if they do not diminish the trust that one must have in divine mercy, we must accept them with thanksgiving, as favors from heaven. But if they trouble us, if they dishearten us, if they render us lazy, timid, slow to perform our duties, we must believe that these are the suggestions of the enemy and do things in a normal way, not deigning to listen to them.
(The Spiritual Combat, chapter 25)
Excuse the leap from satanic activity to the news, but this writing evokes thoughts about occasions of sin and how to avoid them, like gossip. Long before I converted to Catholic Christianity, I stopped watching the news. I lived alone, and the torrent of information pouring from the lips of these “Opinion-makers with perfect hair and teeth, which somehow augmented their credibility,” had the opposite effect; they turned me off. Much of what they opined about seemed calculated to frighten or disturb me: Did I need to know about the “Kickin Burglars?”, referring to men who would kick in locked doors to rape and rob?”
No.
Now, decades later, what we see as “news” boggles the mind. Undiluted detraction and calumny pour from the lips and fingers of secular and Christian opinion makers in torrents. But I hadn’t thought of this as sinful until I read the remarks of Fr. Raymond de Souza in his Lenten reflection, Spiritually Toxic News. Father de Souza writes:
This news didn’t make CNN or any legacy media
The spiritual life of millions of souls has become toxic too. We can see the degradation of our public life. The interior life is harder to see, but a similar degradation is quite advanced and threatens the sanctity of souls seeking to live close to God. A few recognize this and seek forgiveness in Confession ��� and the grace of the sacrament to resist this particularly powerful vice. Good for them. For many more, the interior is life continuously corrupted without awareness or apparent remedy. Their minds, hearts, and souls are daily drenched in the toxins of ���our poisoned shared culture.���…
[to young men], “I speak of the ���3 Ps.���
I warn him against pornography, pious conflicts online, and politics. All of them are aware of the first danger, and the overwhelming majority were or are addicted to it. But some are surprised that immersing themselves in liturgical and doctrinal disputes online is harmful to their relationship with Jesus. As to politics, nearly all of them began their path toward deeper questions by following popular political voices, most of whom are combative and lacking in charity.
The weaponry of Heaven intervened in embattled Nigeria, where over 60,000 Christians have been killed in the last twenty-five years. In an intriguing piece, Angels Fight Demons for us When We Pray, Jesse Romero writes,
Solemnity of the Holy Trinity Sunday.
Boko Haram, a terrorist organization, was about to execute seventy-two Nigerian Christians by firing squad���and angels intervened. The terrorists had their rifles cocked and were preparing to take aim at the persecuted Christians, but suddenly they threw their weapons down and started violently grabbing at their own heads, screaming and shouting that they were covered with snakes. Some of them ran away, but others dropped dead where they stood.
One of the dying terrorists dropped his gun, and a Christian captive reached down to grab it, hoping to shoot at the fleeing Boko Haram militants and help the Christians escape, but the youngest child put her hand on his arm to stop him. ���You don���t need to do that,��� she said. ���Can you not see the men in white fighting for us?���
All seventy-two captives survived and escaped.
Angels Fight Demons for Us When We Pray
Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine
and declare it to you.”
Let us recall and follow Pope Francis’ exhortation to live, pray, and when necessary, fight with combative hope:
This spiritual hope is much more than mere optimism. It is not full of fanfare, 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���
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June 7, 2025
The Advocate Will Teach You All Things
Holy Bible open to Galatians 5. Focus on verse 22.The advocate will teach you all things
“Now I am going to the one who sent me,…
because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts.
But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go.
For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
And when he comes he will convict the world
in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation:
sin, because they do not believe in me;
righteousness, because I am going to the Father
and you will no longer see me;
condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.”
The words are Christ’s, said prior to the horrors he would shortly face-horrors that the disciples had no understanding of.
Nor do we.
We Christians hear those words frequently in the liturgy preceding Pentecost. But until recently, I had never considered the Holy Spirit-Holy Ghost- as a lawyer. But that is the meaning of the word advocate.
“I will send you an advocate and He will teach you all things.” To whom is the Lord speaking when He makes this promise? To His Disciples and Apostles, we reply automatically. But to the rest of humanity, baptized, unbaptized, believers, and non-believers?
A resounding yes!I can speak from personal experience. Although I had no idea then what it was, I have seen the Spirit. There was no human form in the shape of Lady Justice; instead, I saw amorphous light: blinding, intense, and invasive.
The first time was in a college philosophy classroom watching a Dominican priest outline Aquinas’ Hierarchy of Being on the blackboard. Still dazed and lost from my late-teen experience, which convinced me that Jesus, religion, and faith were mere fantasies, I was seriously considering suicide.
Why write about this strange-even eerie- experience today?
Standing in his long black robes, his right hand started at the bottom of the board, in broad sweeping strokes of the chalk on the blackboard, wrote, “Archangels,” above that “Principalities,” and then “Virtues” on to the “Seraphim.” The entire board was covered. I sat staring at the words, wholly uncomprehending of them. It felt as if I were looking at an alien language. And began to ponder while gaping at the board that this was an absolute fabrication, none of this existed, there was no God.
But there was none of the sarcastic teen I had been before in my thoughts. None of the wisecracking quoter of Nietzsche’s “God is dead, he choked to death on Theology” that I parroted on frequent occasions mostly to achieve the satisfying shock the comment generally elicited from my listener. There was just despair, pure and black. And I sat wondering if it just would not be far simpler to end all this. The more I considered the idea of suicide, the faster the bleak thoughts flashed through my mind.
When abruptly, the entire panel of windows lit up. I was seated right by the blackboard, five rows away from the wall of windows which were so bright that I was convinced that it had finally happened. Russia had dropped a bomb. World War III had begun.
But the Monseigneur continued to stand by the board and drone on about the Seraphim. And all of my classmate’s heads were bent toward their notes as if assiduously taking down every word out of the priest’s mouth. Only then did I realize that no one in the room saw what I did.
In awe, I sat watching the brilliance which lit up the entire wall of windows. My heart rate accelerated, and the blackness and suicidal thoughts disappeared entirely leaving something which I could not name, but I knew it, almost recognized it.
Then a powerful impression of peace enveloped me, almost like a blanket. That night, I went home and wrote a poem. I called it the Divine Spark, a tiny light which existed somewhere in me, somewhere deep but there and connected me to something I could not name. That was the first time I saw the light. There would be others.
On this Pentecost Sunday, 2025, I’m compelled to remind myself where I came from.
And why I’m no longer there.
Our histories are important, even, maybe especially, those periods we look back on with sadness and regret.
Why?
The blinding light in the University of Saint Thomas windows healed me: existential dread was gone and never recurred. Unable to deny its uniquely personal message, the experience simmered, readying me for the belief and faith that would come after I finally stopped trying to live this life alone and dropped to my knees.
It’s the decision we each must make.
The memory is critical because it instills confidence, hope, and knowledge that this highly publicized godlessness is a lie. The youth of the world are rejecting the darkness in historic numbers. Just look at what thousands of young Brits and French are doing: dropping to their knees.
With Christ’s ascension into heaven, he brings us, each of his lost sheep. Far from a single event 2000 years ago, the Ascension matters this day, every day. “We must see the ninety-nine sheep as a representation of the Powers, Principalities and Dominations whom the Head and Shepherd has left behind to go down and seek out the one lost sheep.” Gregory of Nyssa adds: “We mankind, are the lost sheep…and have strayed from the other spiritual creates [i.e. the angels].”
Christ is the Light of nations…Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated: each of them in its own special way is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ.(2*)…reborn as sons of God they must confess before men the faith which they have received from God through the Church (4*). They are more perfectly bound to the Church by the sacrament of Confirmation, and the Holy Spirit endows them with special strength so that they are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith, both by word and by deed, as true witnesses of Christ (5*).
Lumen Gentium
The Advocate will teach you all things…
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May 31, 2025
Words are not always a blessing
Words are not always a blessingBrother Jerome Leo (RIP )’s understated remark, “Words are not always a blessing,” refers to Saint Benedict’s sixth chapter, The Spirit of Silence. His comment evokes a wry smile of recognition. The Benedictine monk makes us pause at the truth in the fifteen-hundred-year-old words:
Let us do what the Prophet says: “I said, ‘I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue. I have set a guard to my mouth…’ I was mute and was humbled, and kept silence even from good things” (Ps.38:2-3). Here the Prophet shows that if the spirit of silence ought to lead us at times to refrain even from good speech, so much the more ought the punishment for sin make us avoid evil words.
In our culture of endless rights, the notion of ‘sinning with our tongues’ sounds so fifth-century as to be laughable. But yet if we consider the content we hear, say, and think, the words of Saint James take on breadth and heft.
Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze.
The tongue is also a fire.
It exists among our members as a world of malice,
defiling the whole body
and setting the entire course of our lives on fire,
itself set on fire by Gehenna.
For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature,
can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species
Even the most discerning of us get seduced by gossip often presented as news. We get drawn into the judgment of others’ sins. And so are insidiously drawn away our own sin and distance ourselves from Christ. We do this unconsciously, without thinking. Hence, Saint Benedict exhorts us to refrain even from good speech to avoid evil.
This phrase, a spirit of silence, renews itself, offering help in this exhausting battle of self-control. Jesus has not left us without an aid to do the impossible. To love without exclusion, as he loves us, we’re given the Advocate, the Holy Spirit.
Our Lady of SilenceI can’t resist a smile of recognition at the sign Pope Francis hung on his office door two summers ago. “No complaining allowed!” Even before my conversion to Catholic Christianity, I detested gossip. This is true because, finally, at nineteen or twenty, I realized that my mother’s habit of gossiping about my two older sisters with me would recur when she was alone with them. Of course, she would criticize me and my decisions the way she did theirs!
Roll the clock forward a few decades. When my career took off and I became a manager and an administrator, I had a rule when a manager began complaining about another: “You’re talking about Sally.” Then I’d point to an empty chair. “Only when she’s sitting there can we talk about her.”
If I’d thought of it, I would have hung a similar sign as Pope Francis, “No Complaining Allowed!” True because some believe it is their role to point out problems, as if the person sitting in the chair of responsibility can wave a wand. Or more accurately, they like to complain.
“Near the elevators people take to reach the papal study or meeting halls, the pope hung a copy of the icon of Our Lady of Silence — an image of Mary with her index finger poised gently in front of her closed lips.
“Just think how many Marian icons he gets (as gifts) and he decides to put this one there” as well as a smaller copy of one on his desk, said Capuchin Father Emiliano Antenucci, who commissioned the icon and gave a copy to the pope. The preferential treatment, the priest told Catholic News Service, shows the pope’s deep understanding of the importance of holy and humble silence.”
Into the Deep: Our Lady of Silence
As we head into ordinary time,we do well to pray to the Spirit of Silence, that next week at Pentecost, we receive the gifts that only God’s Spirit can give.
Saint Benedict is challenging us. With his specific examples, the precise details of instructions, the master explains that a spirit of silence is a gift, even perhaps a virtue. Obtained by strict self-control, a focus away from self and toward the other, external noise can fade into oblivion when we cloak ourselves with a spirit of silence.
Emphatically, Saint Benedict writes to refrain “even from good speech.” Therefore, we must resist our temptation to pass on the latest terrifying news about….whatever. We fully know the damage ‘bad speech’ or writing can cause.
It’s Ascension Sunday.
Jesus tells the Apostles and us that we should rejoice. He is going to the Father and will ask him to send us the Spirit.
In the Bible, a cloud is not just something to do with the weather…[T]he Ascension cloud recalls the cloud that covered the Mount of Transfiguration, from which, Luke tells us, the Father’s voice announced, This is my beloved Son. It also points forward to the Lord’s definitive coming at the end of time. Again Luke gives us the very words of Jesus: Speaking of tribulations to come, he assures the
disciples that they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. The cloud will announce that the fullness of time is at hand.
On Ascension Day, Christ does not disappear beyond earth’s orbit. He enters the glory of the Father whereof the earth is full. He effectively fulfills his promise not to leave us orphans. To apprehend this new mode of Jesus’ presence among us, special grace is called for. We need the Consoler, the Caller-to-mind, who will be our source of strength. Christ promises to send him soon. Throughout
Eastertide we have verified that what he says is sure. This word, too, will be fulfilled. Like the apostles, then, let us savor Christ’s Ascension full of joy, waiting with eager expectation for the Father’s promise at Pentecost.
El Greco’s Ascension of Jesus
The post Words are not always a blessing appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.
May 24, 2025
Words of Blessing: Peace and Shalom
Words of Blessing: Peace and ShalomThe weight of words
On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
Revisiting former priest John O’Donnell’s mystically lovely poetry reveals the poverty of certain words. Words of blessing: peace and shalom. They can be diluted into a mere facsimile, like tea masquerading as coffee or a pearl hiding amidst thousands of pebbles. Too often, we do that with the English word peace. This past Tuesday morning’s daily Mass homilist brought the weight of words to my mind when he reflected on Christ’s greeting, “Shalaam.” Jesus said to his disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid…” Read entire Gospel passage.
The homilist declared that the Hebrew word “Shalaam” connotes far more than the absence of anxiety or combat. Instead, it implies restoration, making whole, reconciliation with God, thus conferring health and prosperity on us and our children and families.
Reflecting on O’Donahue’s Blessing Poem, which begins this piece, compels us to stop and think about that other word, “bless.” Another weighty word diluted to automatic at the sound of a sneeze. The poet’s lyrics, for they read exactly like a song, do indeed wrap a cloak around us if we allow them to penetrate.
…May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
What is a blessing?
In his lovely book, To Bless the Space Between Us. John O’Donahue writes:
What is a blessing?
A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal, and strengthen. Life is a constant flow of emergence.
The beauty of blessing is its belief that it can affect what unfolds. To be in the world is to be distant from the homeland of wholeness. We are confined by limitation and difficulty. When we bless, we are enabled somehow to go beyond our present frontiers and reach into the source. A blessing awakens future wholeness. We use the word foreshadow for the imperfect representation of something that is yet to come. We could say that a blessing “forebrightens” the way. When a blessing is invoked, a window opens in eternal time. The word blessing comes from the Old English: Blêtsian, blêdsian, blœˆdsian. As intimated in the sound of blêdsian it means “to sanctify or consecrate with blood….”
It is interesting that though the word blessing sounds abstract, a thing of the word and the air, in its original meaning it was vitally connected to the life force. In ancient traditions blood was life; it connected the earthly, the human,and the divine. To bless also means to invoke divine favor upon….
The beauty of blessing is that it recognizes no barriers—and no distances. All the given frontiers of blockage that separate us can be penetrated by the loving subtlety of blessing. This can often be the key to awakening and creating forgiveness. We often linger in the crippling states of anger and resentment. Hurt is always unfair and unexpected; it can leave a bitter residue that poisons the space between us. Eventually the only way forward is forgiveness….
“Beauty is a human calling.” When the poet John O’Donahue makes that statement, our hearts soar. We know the truth and understand our profound revulsion at ugliness upon thinking about it. The Irish poet attributes his lifelong love of beauty to his upbringing on the west coast of Ireland. “I suppose I was blessed by being born into an amazing landscape in the west of Ireland. It’s the Burren region, which is limestone. And it’s a bare limestone landscape. I often think that the forms of the limestone are so abstract and aesthetic, and it is as if they were all laid down by some wild, surrealistic kind of deity…I love Pascal’s phrase that you should always keep something beautiful in your mind. And I have often — like in times when it’s been really difficult for me, if you can keep some kind of little contour that you can glimpse sideways at, now and again, you can endure great bleakness.”
I’ve read or listened to this conversation four or five times. With each read, something new pops up. Primarily, though, I’m reminded of our elemental need for beauty, not as an aesthetic but real food. Nourishment of the psyche, the heart, and the soul, if you believe you have one, is as necessary as water and air.
Tippett:It was actually in your book that I first realized, and I had never thought about this, that the root — the Greek root for the word “beauty” is related to the word for “calling”; to “kalon” and “kalein.”
O’Donohue:That’s right. That’s it exactly.
Tippett:That’s fascinating.
Music as language…always, when I think of beauty, because it’s so beautiful, for me — is I think of music. I love music. I think music is just it. I mean, I think that’s — I love poetry, as well, of course, and I think of beauty in poetry.
But I always think that music is what language would love to be, if it could.
The Inner Landscape of Beauty
Friday evening, I had the privilege of attending the San Antonio Philharmonic’s performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection). It was the first time it had been performed in Texas, declared the Music Director Jeffrey Kahane. The composition requires over 100 musicians and a 100-member choir, which is monumental. I cannot describe my and several hundred others’ immersion in this magnificent eighty-minute concert as anything but sacred: God’s language.
“Always when I think of beauty, I think of music…music is just it….But I always think that music is what language would love to be, if it could.”
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