The Fever Chart

Grace Thirty-Eight: A Busy Day

You awoke today just a few miles from the city, in the village of Bethany, near the home of your friends Mary and Martha, and their father Lazarus. You could have stayed with them, as you had so many times before, but you chose to spend last night in the relative discomfort of Simon’s little hovel on the edge of the village. Simon, that simple saint, who still bears the marks of the leprosy that once ravaged him … Simon was so happy to repay your healing love with what hospitality he could muster. The others much prefer the comforable pillows and hot food at Mary and Martha’s place, but as usual they have so much to learn.

You’ve just sent a group of them off to see the man you dreamed about. They looked dubious, but you’ve never been wrong about these things (even though they keep expecting it to happen). In fact, you’ve never even missed a detail, no matter how small. The man will be there, and the room above his shop will be just right, with plenty of table space and seating for a proper Seder. And it will be located adjacent to that lovely olive grove with its winding paths and spectacular views of the Temple.

You rest your back against the low lip of a well, your legs warming in the sun, your face shaded from the glare by a nearby carob bush. What a busy day today will be. Soon, you will perform your morning ablutions for the last time. Then you will marshal the remnant of your followers for the brief walk into the city. Later, you will preside over the meal, and the words of blessing you offer will both console and confuse your friends. Finally, they will understand (or, at least, they will think they understand) what you meant when you said, “my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” But the mysterious disappearance of one of them will disturb and frighten the others, especially after you speak so darkly of memory and betrayal.

When the meal is concluded, you will lead the group out into that beautiful grove. Kephas, as he always does, will move in close to pledge his love and loyalty. Your response will leave him stunned and muttering as he slips off to sleep under a fig tree. Soon, they will all join him in sleep, even as you stroll alone down the path. Near a small, thorny bush the reality of the moment, of what comes next, will crash down upon you like a tidal wave. Wracked with fear, your body heaving, you will fall to your hands and knees and pray for deliverance; but with every entreaty the certainty – the necessity – of what you must do will become clearer and clearer. Your will, which once called the universe itself into existence, will wash away with your thick, viscous tears, dissolving into the will of your Father. When the moment has passed and the fear subsides, you will awaken your friends and turn to face the jangling, angry crowd making its way up from the Kidron Valley.

Yes, it will be a busy day. But right now, the sun feels good and you can feel your robe, moist from the early morning air, begin to stiffen. You think about your mother and the simple years in Nazareth, years that passed so slowly, and too soon. From somewhere you pick up the smoky scent of meat grilling. A rock pigeon gurgles softly nearby, as if to console you. But at this moment, you need no consolation. You think of Simon, his need, his joy, and his gratitude. You think of Simon the Leper and you are overcome with love for him … for them all.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Grace Thirty-Seven: St. Thérèse and the “Little Way”

 
Yesterday’s meditation was on the subject of humility. Humility, it was noted, is the necessary antecedent to a thorough examination of conscience, which is itself the prerequisite for genuine confession and reconciliation. Today, I write about a woman who made humility a deliberate way of life and in so doing became one of the most popular saints of the past hundred years and one of only thirty-three saints who has been honored with the title “Doctor of the Church.” In her pursuit of “The Little Way,” St. Thérèse of Lisieux would up counted alongside such giants of Christian history as Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, and Teresa of Avila!

Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin was born in Saint-Blaise, Alençon, France, on the second day of January, 1873, to a jeweler and lacemaker. She was a sickly but happy child, the youngest of five surviving girls. Thérèse’s mother died when she was four and the family moved to the town of Lisieux to live with her uncle and aunt. At 13, she had a vision of the Child Jesus and experienced what she called a complete conversion in an instant. A year later, at 14, she requested permission to enter the Carmelite order, following in the steps of two of her older sisters. In 1888, at 15, she became a Carmelite postulant, then a novice, and eventually making her final profession as Thérèse of the Child Jesus with the specific mission to pray for priests.

Throughout her time in Carmel, Thérèse made a practice of praying for and serving her fellow nuns. In fact, she deliberately sought out sisters whose personalities she found difficult or even repellent and put herself at their disposal. In pursuit of interior poverty, she even refused promotion beyond the designation “novice,” since by remaining a perpetual novice she would never be elected to any position of importance within the cloister, and would instead have to ask permission for everything from the other, fully-received sisters. She sought out the lowest place in the pecking order, in imitation of Christ, who likewise chose the “downward” path: “The foxes have their lairs, the birds of heaven their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Thérèse did all this not in an attempt to perfect herself – she was in fact convinced that God was not offended in the least by her faults – but in order to strip herself of herself, and thereby gain union with God. There is a peculiar kind of self-absorption in the person who is constantly taking inventory of their failures and “working” on getting better. Thérèse wanted none of it. She wanted to recede from view entirely. She was small and insignificant, and that’s the way she wanted it, writing: “May creatures be nothing for me, and may I be nothing for them, but may You, Jesus, be everything! … Let nobody be occupied with me, let me be looked upon as one to be trampled underfoot. … May Your will be done in me perfectly.” The littleness of Thérèse was her joy, her obscurity the very source of her hope. As she wrote, “Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.” 

On Good Friday in 1896, Thérèse went to bed and was almost immediately stricken by a severe, wet cough. The next morning she found blood on her handkercheif, a sure sign of the then-fatal disease of tuberculosis. She would battle the disease – largely from bed – for  the next 18 months. Her suffering during this time was horrific, but she used the slow descent into death to continue her mission of prayer and service, and even wrote her spiritual autobiography, “The Story of a Soul,” which has become a popular classic. (Incidentally, as befits her devotion to self-abnegation, Thérèse at first refused to write about herself, but finally relented under orders from her Mother Superior.) Thérèse died on September 30, 1897, at the age of 24. It is reported that in her final hours she said, “I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more, because all suffering is sweet to me.” Her last words were, “My God, I love you!”  Thérèse was canonized in 1924 by Pope Piux XI, and in 1944 she was named the co-patroness – along with St. Joan of Arc – of France by Pope Piux XII. She was recognized as a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997.

According to accepted chronologies of Holy Week, the Wednesday before our Lord’s Passion is something of a mystery. It is a hidden day. On Sunday he rode triumphally into Jerusalem. On Monday he cursed the fig tree and chased the moneychangers from the Temple. On Tuesday, Jesus denounced the Scribes and Pharisees; preached the Olivet Discourse, which prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, the signs of his coming, and the end of the world; gave us the Seven Parables ( The fig tree, the time like in Noah’s time, the two men in the field and the two women grinding wheat, the master of the house and the thief, the faithful and evil servants, the ten virgins, and the talents); and preached the Final Judgment.

But on Wednesday, it appears that he remained at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany, a few miles from Jerusalem. He had a quiet, hidden day, no doubt in prayer. There would be no more public appearances for Jesus until he stood on the portico of Pilate’s House, an object of horror and ridicule. It is fitting that on the Wednesday of Holy Week we recall a saint, Thérèse, whose whole life was given over to hiddenness, to humility, to the Lord who now rests quietly in preparation for the storm that is about to arrive and is his destiny.

“We adore you O Christ and we bless you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Grace Thirty-Six: Humility

Yesterday, I wrote about the examination of conscience as a necessary antecedent to confession and reconciliation. Today, the topic is humility, which is itself the necessary antecedant to a thorough examen. In his classic, Humility of Heart, Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo wrote:  “In Paradise there are many saints who never gave alms on earth: their poverty justified them. There are many saints who never mortified their bodies by fasting, or wearing hair shirts: their bodily infirmities excused them. There are many saints too who were not virgins: their vocation was otherwise. But in Paradise there is no saint who was not humble.”

Humility is the foundation of the spiritual life because it begins with an acknowledgement of this solemn and absolute truth: There is a God and I am not him! From this truth springs gratitude (only the humble person can truly be grateful); compassion (the humble recognize their own need for grace and through that recognition empathize with the needs of others); and obedience (“Not my will, but thine, be done”).

It is said that the pagans knew about the power of God, evident in the terrible beauty of nature. The Jews knew about God’s justice, as testified to in the Torah and the Prophets. But as Christians we have been shown the humility of God, through Christ, “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philipians 2:6-8; NIV) Humility is at the heart of the Christian spiritual life because we are called to the Imitatio Christi – the imitation of Christ, who said “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

My own words are beginning to fail. Pride is my cross - God help me! – and all the deformations of character that flow from it. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever progress beyond the very first lessons in the School of Humility. And so, rather than continue writing about something with which I am only barely acquainted, I’ll turn this essay over to those who know far better the role of humility in achieving salvation and pleasing God:

Also from Humility of Heart:

God banished Angels from Heaven for their pride; therefore how can we pretend to enter therein, if we do not keep ourselves in a state of humility? Without humility, says St. Peter Damian, not even the Virgin Mary herself with her incomparable virginity could have entered into the glory of Christ, and we ought to be convinced of this truth that, though destitute of some of the other virtues, we may yet be saved, but never without humility.

From Abandonment to Divine Providence, by Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade:

Humility should be sweet and tranquil, without self-contempt, or annoyance with ourselves or others, without despondency or voluntary vexation … Far from losing, we gain all in abandoning ourselves entirely to God by love and confidence. The sight of yourself: that confused heap of weaknesses, miseries, corruption, should never distress you. It is on this account that I say boldly, all is well, for I have never known anyone endowed with this keen insight, so humiliating, to whom it was not a most special grace of God; nor who has not found in it, combined with a true self-knowledge, that solid humility which is the foundation of all perfection. I have known, and do know many saintly people who, for their sole possession have that profound conviction of their weakness, and are never so happy as when they feel themselves, as it were, engulfed in it. They then dwell in truth, and consequently in God who is the sovereign truth. If you but knew how to walk before Him, your head bowed in this spirit of self-effacement, you would find in it all that makes the spiritual life. It only remains to know how to preserve this spirit of peace and abandonment.

From Story of a Soul, by St. Therese of Lisieux:

I tried my best to do good on a small scale, having no opportunity to do it on a large scale. As it was, all I could do was to take such opportunities of denying myself as came to me without the asking; that meant mortifying self-love, a much more valuable discipline than any kind of bodily discomfort … I’ve always wished that I could be a saint. But whenever I compared myself to the Saints there was always this unfortunate difference – they were like great mountains, hiding their heads in the clouds, and I was only an insignificant grain of sand, trodden down by all who passed by. However, I wasn’t going to be discouraged; I said to myself: “God wouldn’t inspire us with ambitions that can’t be realized. Obviously there’s nothing great to be made of me, so it must be possible for me to aspire to sanctity in spite of my insignificance. I’ve got to take myself just as I am, with all my imperfections; but somehow I shall have to find out a little way, all of my own, which will be a direct short-cut to heaven. Can’t I find an elevator which will take me up to Jesus, since I’m not big enough to climb the steep stairway of perfection?” So I looked in the Bible for some hint about the life I wanted, and I came across the passage where Eternal Wisdom says: “Whosoever is a little one let him come to Me.” To that Wisdom I went; it seemed as if I was on the right track; what did God undertake to do for the child-like soul that responded to His invitation? I read on, and this is what I found: I will console you like a mother caressing her son; you shall be like children carried at the breast, fondled on a mother’s lap. I could after all, be lifted up to heaven, in the arms of Jesus! And if that was to happen, there was no need for me to grow bigger, on the contrary, I must be as small as ever, smaller than ever.

Finally, Blessed Mother Teresa fixes humility at the apex of the pantheon of virtues, because it is only through humility that we can truly love. St. John of the Cross wrote that “in the evening of our lives we will be judged by love.” True, of course, but how we are judged will depend on our progress in humility:

Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Grace Thirty-Five: The Examination of Conscience

As noted in my third reflection, the Sacrament of Reconciliation has been one of the signal graces of my journey into and with the Church.  Today, as we move into Holy Week, I would like to highlight the antecedent step in the process of reconciliation: the examination of conscience.

It is appropriate, I think, to begin the decisive week in salvation history with a thorough examen. On the Monday before his Passion, our Lord woke up in Bethany, at the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. On his way into Jerusalem that morning, Jesus cursed a fig tree that bore no fruit. Later, on his way back to Bethany for the evening, Jesus passed by the tree again, but by then it had withered and died. Although this parable/event has historically been seen as a sign of God rejecting the fruitless covenant with Israel in favor of a wider, more fecund covenant with the whole world through the Church, I take a more personal view, which drives me to the examination of conscience I conduct this day.

In Baptism, we were infused with sanctifying grace and given the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit:  wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude (or courage), knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. But the gifts are given that they might bear fruit, and Scripture identifies the Fruits of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, perseverence, meekness, faith, modesty, self-control, and chastity.

And so, on Monday of Holy Week, I ask: “In what ways have I failed to bear fruit, like the fig tree cursed by our Lord?” Have I loved enough, not just in word but in deed? Do I possess and reflect the joy and peace of the Lord? Am I patient and kind, especially to those it is difficult to be patient and kind with? Do I forgive eagerly? Do I really exhibit integrity; that is, am I the same person in private that I am in public? Have I persevered, or do I quit on God? Am I meek and mild, like Jesus, or have I been haughty and arrogant? Do I really believe, or do I just say I do? Am I modest, not only in dress, but in speech? Have I controlled my appetites, not just for food, but for other pleasures? Am I chaste; have I maintained sexual integrity, both physically and mentally? In short, have borne the fruit of virtue that is my birthright, or have I squandered the chance?

The traditional examination of conscience is organized around the “Thou Shalt Nots” of the Ten Commandments. But I find that negative construction to be an impediment to real growth in the spiritual life, a kind of lowest common denominator focused on acts rather than dispositions of the heart: Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t engage in adultery, and so on. But Christ calls us to a higher standard. He calls us to genuine virtue: “You have heard it said you shall not kill, but I tell you that every man who hates his brother is already guilty of murder.” The Christian life ought to be focused on what we are enabled and empowered to do by the Holy Spirit within us, not on a list of do’s and don’ts! Sin, for the Christian, is not simply the violation of a codex of prohibited acts. That’s legalism, in my opinion. No, to the Christian, sin is a failure to achieve the virtues we are called to. It is missing of the mark, not just avoiding the arrow. And so I often confess to having “sinned against love,” or having ”failed to live chastely.” I find that the focus on virtues rather than commandments not only reminds me of my dignity as an adopted child of God, but it also opens up for consideration vast regions of sinfulness that might otherwise have not been explored.

On this Monday of Holy Week, Jesus cursed the fig tree then continued on into Jerusalem. When he arrived at the Temple, he found its antechambers and outer courts overflowing with vendors selling substitute sacrificial animals. Fashioning a cord into a whip, he went down the line overturning tables and chasing the profiteers from his Father’s house. It is thought by many that in addition to polluting the house of God with commerce, this trade was conducted at the expense of the poor, who had to exchange their ordinary coin, at a loss, for special Temple currency, then purchase doves or sheep at confiscatory prices. I often connect this story to the discourse in Matthew 25, when our Lord promises to say, “Depart from me, you cursed,” to those who fail to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked and visit the imprisoned.  It seems to me that in cleansing the Temple, Jesus is previewing his role as the just Judge, and once again treatment of the poor is at the heart of that judgment.

And so, on Monday of Holy Week, I also ask: How have I treated the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the imprisoned, the unborn, the outcast addict, the immigrant stranger, the mentally ill, the sick and infirm, the single mother, the destitute old person, the troubled child, the prisoner? Have I given something substantial of myself to them, or rather to Christ through them? How have I exercised that “preferential option for the poor” that the Church insists upon? As we move into Holy Week, can I see  that from God’s perspective we are all beggars, thieves, and lost children?

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Grace Thirty-Four: The Apologists

My journey into the Church began in late 1989 and continued for nearly seven years, until the Easter Vigil 1997, when I was reconciled. During most of that time I traveled alone, without the benefit of any Catholic intimates, much less the direction and guidance of a priest or religious. In fact, I didn’t make my first real “Catholic friend” until 1995, and then only as the result of an odd coincidence in a professional setting. (That friend, in turn, introduced me to a priest who eventually persuaded me to make a formal reconcilation.)

And yet, throughout those years of exploration, study and prayer, I was accompanied by a group of friends I think of as “The Apologists,” Catholic writers and lecturers whose work I consumed, and whose defenses of the Faith I put to the severest test. Ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary, The Apologists presented Catholicism in terms I understood well, employing Scripture, history, personal testimony and theological logic to persuade me that the Church is indeed what it claims to be. Some, like Scott Hahn, spoke to me audibly in the very rhythms and cadences with which I was familiar as a cradle-Evangelical. Others, like St. Justin, spoke to me from pages out of the dusty past, but with a clarity so pure and a passion so intense that the intervening centuries were wiped away instantly. Some, like Chesterton, could make me laugh out loud, while others, like Aquinas, forced me to bear down and concentrate. Some, like Francis deSales, were saints. Others are clearly not. Some, like David Currie, are converts. Others, like Belloc, were lifelong Catholics. What all of them shared was a love of Christ, the Church and the truth.

Let me introduce you to my spiritual companions, The Apologists:

Ancients
St. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, Origen, St. Polycarp, Irenaeus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Athanasius

Medieval & Early Moderns
St. John Damascene, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm, St. Francis deSales, Blaise Pascal

Moderns
John Henry Cardinal Newman, Ronald Knox, Hillarie Belloc, G.K. Chesterton, Frank Sheed

Contemporaries
Scott Hahn, Peter Kreeft, David Currie

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Grace Thirty-Three: The Stations of the Cross

The Stations of the Cross is, to me, the Christian devotion par excellence. It’s a beautiful blend of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, a Christ-centered meditation on suffering and salvation but with enough participation by ordinary characters to allow anyone to read themselves into it.

Right now I’m in the middle of another man’s Via Dolorosa, his Way of Sorrows. This fellow has reached out to me for assistance in literally saving his own life, and although it’s been emotionally wrenching and physically exhausting, I’m doing everything I can because he really has nowhere else to turn. Yesterday, after Mass, I prayed the Stations of the Cross, hoping to find in the Passion of Christ an analog to my own suffering, and with it the courage and strength to persevere. Working my way through the story, I came upon the Fifth Station, “Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry His Cross,” and instantly saw my story, and that of my friend, painted there.

Here’s what the Fifth Station taught me yesterday: First, it is my friend’s passion that is central, not mine. Second, in this passion I am Simon, visiting Jerusalem on other business. Third, I would not have undertaken this task had not the Holy Spirit roughly pulled me from the crowd to aid the condemned on his way to Calvary. Fourth, it is a privilege, not a burden, to help my friend carry his cross because in so doing I am helping Jesus himself, and therefore participating intimately in His Paschal sacrifice.

All that grace and wisdom gleaned from a still-life depiction on a wall. That’s the power of the Stations of the Cross. Whatever our circumstances, we can find ourselves there, in the story of Christ’s passion and death. It is the Gospel in 14 (or 15) steps, and it continues to be an amazing grace in my life.

The following reflections on the Stations are not my own, but they are my favorites. I recommend meditating on them with the aid of the spectacular illuminated miniatures by artist Jed Gibbons, from the Chapel of Our Lady of the Ascension, St. Edmund’s Retreat, Mystic, CT.

Station One: Jesus is Condemned to Death
Beaten and weary, You are brought before a judge whose power is given to him only by You. The crowd is asked to choose and, even as You desire otherwise — yearning for the love of Your people — You know they will choose the creature over their Creator. “Barabbas” rings out and, with sad heart, You prepare for the grueling way of Calvary that started before Your birth.

Station Two: Jesus Takes Up His Cross
You accept the cross, knowing fully the agony to come. You take upon battered and bleeding shoulders the weight of all our sins. From dead wood You will bring the fruit of everlasting life. In Eden it was the living tree that brought death. Now, You turn our world upside down, as You show us the true way to life, through the dead wood, the suffering of the cross.

Station Three: Jesus Falls for the First Time
Soon after taking up the cross You fall. So early in the way You are on the ground; God, face down in the dust. The knowledge of the burden of carrying our weight becomes clearer. The nearly overwhelming impact of the hideous crush of sin, the evil pressing down, makes You stumble.

Station Four: Jesus Encounters His Mother
You meet Your Mother on the way. Seeing her brings relief and regret. For a mother to see her Son so wretched wrenches Your heart. What a pain to You to know her grief. She is helpless to save You, but is granted the power to relieve Your suffering merely by her presence. She supports You in Your way of the cross and shares in Your anguish. She is there in the intimacy of a meeting in which you are kept physically apart but are united in the Father’s mission.

Station Five: Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry His Cross
You allow Simon to assist You in carrying the cross and he is reluctant, initially refusing. How foolish of him and us to reject Your invitation to share in Your redemptive plan! Do we not know what a gift You are giving in the cross? In the cross lies our salvation and our unity. In the cross we are never alone. In the cross we are our brother’s keeper, helping each other and making reparation for the wrongs we have inflicted.

Station Six: Jesus Greets Veronica
Veronica sees Your need and offers her consolation. In such a little and tender way she reflects Your kindness and Your courage. Stepping out from the crowd, she risks jeers and public contempt and thereby obtains the only approval that counts. In wiping Your face she serves a simple need, clearing Your sight from the dripping blood and dirt as the flies gather. From this small act comes the greatest blessing. She is given Your image because she reflects You in her kindness. In helping you to see, she is given the perfect vision, the beatific image of the face of God. Touched by Your grace, and in union with You, her humanity is made holy.

Station Seven: Jesus Falls for the Second Time
Now all assistance is exhausted. There will be no more help for You, no further kindnesses to encounter on the way. You are bereft of consolations. From now on, until the triumph over the tomb, there is only the misery of loneliness. You fall in this loneliness, again overcome by the weight of evil, the physical and emotional wounds so insistently inflicted, even as you trudge with Your heavy burden.

Station Eight: Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem
The women weep for You, whether in sincerity or in show. They do not realize that their own guilt and that of their children is more deserving of tears. It is they who are more grievously hurt than the innocent victim. While Your Body is wracked and deformed by pain, their piteous cries hide the deadly ugliness of sin-stained souls. It is this sin that kills You. We kill because we want to be God. But that is what You are offering us through Your Incarnation – a share in Your divinity!

Station Nine: Jesus Falls for the Third Time
Stamina utterly depleted, You fall a third time. Taunted mercilessly by temptations to turn away from Your mission, and weakened by the fatigue of constant pain, You once again stumble into the rocky dirt. Pathetic and broken, You bear the sneers and raucous insults and profanities of a blaspheming crowd that wants a worldly leader to confirm them in their own power. God in the dust? Ha!

Station Ten: Jesus is Stripped of His Garments
Men mock You in Your nakedness, thinking they are revealing how pitiful this God is. In fact, they are showing how God has exalted man by becoming man – bare in his manhood. By seeking to reveal You as mere man, we fail to realize that in Your very manhood lies our divinization. In Your incarnation You have raised us to Yourself.

Station Eleven: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
Wounded, mangled, made to bleed, You consent to the violent attack of the hammer. Patient in Your agony, You allow the cruel penetration of Your Body to make us one with You. You give Bread of life to fill us as You receive our nails. From Your love You bleed. For love of us, for love of the Father, the Child bleeds for the children. Brother bleeds for the brother who is killing Him. You become one with the cross, absorbing completely the burden of sin, allowing it to permeate You – all the rage and loneliness and anxiety and despair and hatred and lust and greed and incessant lies of all mankind through all the ages, sinking into You, filling You up. You are bombarded with poison and still You love.

Station Twelve: Jesus Dies
You hang on a cross with but a few faithful at Your feet. Your Mother is there as her Son drips to death for His human creatures. You ask for a small compassion and are given gall. Even captured on a cross and expiring from the torture, there is no mercy for You, yet You plead for mercy for us. You even give us the Mother You chose for Yourself, impressing upon us our relatedness. Still Your family torments You. And in Your passion, without solace, alone in the midst of the crowd, cut off even from Your Mother and the beloved disciple, You are man utterly alone. Defiled even as You die, cursed and ignored with no possibility of human comfort, You cry from the cross Your agony. At this moment, filled with all the despair of every human heart, You tear any vestigial veil between man and God and plunge into the total hell of sin to purge it for us. It is the final acceptance of death. And then You die in trust that the Father will receive You.

Station Thirteen: Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross
Your Body is given to Your Mother. In her womb You were welcomed into human life. Now You go to her in death. Your Mother is entrusted with the Body of Christ. She cleans it in love and wipes away the signs of the evil inflicted upon it. So it is with us. Your Mother welcomes us into her arms and heals and soothes through Your grace. She is the Mother of the Church, the Mother who accepts the mangled, the bereft, the brokenhearted, even as condemnation is heaped upon her. She takes into her embrace a Body that is accused of irreverence, of presumption, even criminality, and protects it with maternal care.

Station Fourteen: Jesus is Laid in the Tomb
Your Body is laid in a tomb, presumed vanquished, but You cannot be contained. You allow Yourself to be placed in a tomb by us. We voluntarily seek the tomb by turning away from You. To be separated from You is to consign ourselves to death. But we see it differently. We think we can place You far away, outside ourselves, in a tomb, while we live. But the only life is in You. In casting You away we give ourselves to death. We seal our hearts against You and make of ourselves the tomb. How often we do this in receiving the Eucharist, taking You into a tomb we do not open to You and treating You as dead? How often do we put the Body of Christ into a tomb, saying it serves no purpose for us, that we can live without it? We turn away from Your Church, but she will prevail in Your Resurrection. She emerges from every apparent tomb. And in our death to self the Body of Your Church is continually renewed.

Station Fifteen: Resurrection

Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God’s throne!
Jesus Christ, our King, is risen!
Sound the trumpet of salvation!

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor,
radiant in the brightness of your King!
Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!
Darkness vanishes for ever!

Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!
The risen Savior shines upon you!
Let this place resound with joy,
echoing the mighty song of all God’s people!

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Grace Thirty-Two: Stories

I grew up in a home saturated by the Scriptures. My mom in particular was and is a lover of all things Old Testament, and so the stories of my youth were largely drawn from the Jewish Bible: Noah and the flood; Abraham and the offering of Isaac; Sodom & Gomorrah; Joseph and his brothers; Jacob and Esau; Moses and the Exodus; manna in the desert; the giving of the Law; the golden calf and the infidelity of Israel; Joshua at Jericho; Joshua’s conquest of Canaan; Samson and Delilah; Ruth and Naomi; The call of Samuel; all the stories of David, from Goliath to Bathsheba; David & Jonathan; Solomon’s wisdom; Elijah and the prophets of Baal; Elijah and the fiery chariot; captivity in Babylon; Jonah and the whale; Esther’s banquet; Daniel in the lion’s den; the writing on the wall; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace; Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the later prophets; and on and on and on.

These stories formed the background for our understanding of the nation and faith that produced Jesus of Nazareth, who we believed to be the Messiah long promised to Israel. We learned about Jesus and his Jewish world through stories featuring shepherds and angels; a young maiden and her pregnant cousin; a young boy holding court in the Temple; a young man and his mother at a wedding; a would-be prophet meeting his cousin at the Jordan River; a wandering preacher gathering followers to himself; a healer curing the blind and lame; a teacher instructing thousands; a wise and wary rabbi writing in the sand; a miracle worker feeding five thousand; a holy man casting out demons; a man-god commanding the wind and calling a dead man out from the tomb; a rebel condemning the religious leaders of his day; a friend relaxing at Bethany; a simple man hailed as a king; a priest offering bread and wine; a just man falsely accused; a king crucified between two thieves; a body wrapped in linen; a savior victorious over death.

We also learned how to be followers of Jesus through stories. In those tales we heard about tongues of fire, people speaking in strange languages, earthquakes, shipwrecks, prison breaks, stonings, blinding lights, persecutions, executions, arrests, trials, visions, and healings. These stories featured Jews, Bereans, Thessalonians, Phillipians, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, Greeks, an Ethiopian, and many others.

Christianity is not, at bottom, a syllabus of theological propositions. It is not defined by a philosophy, a culture, or even a book. At its heart, Christianity is a story with three main characters: you, me, and God! Surprised? You might have thought I would write that Christianity is about you and God, or me and God. One on one. But that would be heresy. We all know Christians who think they can go it alone. In fact, in this culture the temptation to reduce Christianity to “me, my Bible, and Jesus” is overwhelming. The dominant “story” in our culture is one of personal autonomy, self-reliance, consumer choice and the illusion of ‘freedom.’

But salvation history is the story of God gathering a people to himself. “Father, I pray that they may be one as you and I are one.” “Love one another, as I have loved you.” All of you! Surely, our response to the call is personal, individual. But once made that response is lived out in communion with each other, and together, with God. It is lived out in a Church, which is the Body of Christ. That’s not my story, or your story. It is our story, thanks be to God!

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Grace Thirty-One: St. Justin Martyr

On the Easter Vigil 1997, I chose two Confirmation names, Justin and Maximilian, for Ss. Justin Martyr and Maximilian Kolbe. St. Justin (died 165 A.D.) was a philosopher, a convert, an apologist, and later a martyr. His First Apology and Dialogue with Trypho were among the first patristic works I encountered and they kindled within me a desire to explore the rest of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. These explorations would eventually convince me beyond all doubt that First and Second Century Christianity was in every single respect both “catholic” and “Catholic.” This “discovery,” that the Edict of Constantine (315 A.D.) had not represented a departure from the original, true Christian faith (as I had always been taught), confirmed my still half-formed intuition that Catholicism might indeed be the authentic, authoritative and normative Christian tradition.

On a personal level, though, it was Justin’s bravery in the face of totalitarian Roman emperor-worship that inspired me to choose him as a patron. The Martyrdom of the Holy Martyrs tells the story of Justin and four other Christians who were arrested in Rome for the crime of following Christ. Taken before the Roman prefect Rusticus, the account of their resistance and death matched a pattern repeated thousands of times in the early Church:

“RUSTICUS-’What kind of literature and discipline do you profess?

JUSTIN-’I have tried every kind of discipline and learning, but I have finally embraced the Christian discipline, how little soever esteemed by those who were led away by error and false opinions.’

RUSTICUS- ‘Wretch, art thou then taken with that discipline?’

JUSTIN-’Doubtless I am, because it affords me the comfort of being in the right path.’

RUSTICUS-’What are the tenets of the Christian religion?’

JUSTIN-’We Christians believe one God, Creator of all things visible and invisible; and we confess our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, foretold by the prophets, the Author and Preacher of salvation, and the Judge of mankind.” The prefect inquired in what place the Christians assembled. Justin replied, “Where they please, and where they can: God is not confined to a place: as he is invisible, and fills both heaven and earth, he is everywhere adored and glorified by the faithful.’

RUSTICUS-’Tell me where you assemble your disciples.’

JUSTIN-’I have lived till this time near the house of one called Martin, at the Timothin baths. I am come a second time to Rome, and am acquainted with no other place in the city. If any one came to me, I communicated to him the doctrine of truth.’

RUSTICUS-’You are then a Christian?

JUSTIN-’Yes, I am.’

Then the prefect addressed himself again to Justin in this manner: ‘Hear you, who are noted for your eloquence, and think you make profession of the right philosophy, if I cause you to be scourged from head to foot, do you think you shall go to heaven?’

Justin replied, “If I suffer what you mention, I hope to receive the reward which those have already received who hare observed the precepts of Jesus Christ.”

Rusticus said, “You imagine then that you shall go to heaven, and be there rewarded.”

The martyr answered, ‘I do not only imagine it, but I know it; and am so well assured of it, that I have no reason to make the least doubt of it.’
The prefect seeing it was to no purpose to argue, bade them go together and unanimously sacrifice to the gods, and told them that in case of refusal they should be tormented without mercy.

Justin replied, ‘there is nothing which we more earnestly desire than to endure torments for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; for this is what will promote our happiness, and give us confidence at his bar, where all men must appear to be judged.’ To this the rest assented, adding, ‘Do quickly what you are about. We are Christians, and will never sacrifice to idols.’”

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Grace Thirty: Eastern Orthodoxy

When I was growing up, we lived in a heavily Catholic town. My father was the most prominent Evangelical pastor in town, with a weekly column in the newspaper and a daily, five-minute radio program. The evangelistic goal of our church, to put it crudely, was to persuade as many Catholics as possible to “accept Jesus as their personal savior” and leave the Catholic Church, preferably for ours. We were only dimly aware of other, non-Evangelical Protestant denominations, folks like Episcopalians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, etc. Dimmer still was our perception of the one (Greek) Orthodox church in our town. In all honesty, I thought the Orthodox were a non-Christian group for most of my young life, sort of an older, ethnic version of the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons. For us, the history of the Church had ended sometime around 90 A.D., only to resume in early 16th Century Germany. Everything in between, including the growth of the Church in the Greek world, the first seven ecumenical councils, the bifurcation of Christendom upon the relocation of Roman power to Byzantium, and the East-West divorce in 1054, was considered the history of a false church.

So it was a big surprise when I began to earnestly study the history of Christianity. What became clear immediately was that while Rome may have been the seat of secular power in the first few centuries of the Christian Era, the Church herself was largely Greek, with bishops from Alexandria to Constantinople exercising far more influence on the development of Christian doctrine and practice than the Roman pontiff or his cohort in the West. Figures like Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, Polycarp, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzus, Cyril of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Basil, and John Damescene molded the Faith to such a degree that it is impossible to conceive of what Christianity might have become without them. They were and are the Fathers of the whole Church, and the fact that their spiritual family later divided into East and West is an incalculable historical tragedy.

But it’s not all tragedy. One of the lovely things about the division of Christendom into East and West is that when we look at each other we are reminded of our shared history and the unity of purpose we had when the Fathers walked the earth. At least that was the effect that “discovering” the Eastern Orthodox churches had on me. It was like being introduced to a brother I’d never known I had, one with the same features and expressions as my own, but with a slightly different perspective on the world, a perspective formed by his unique experience, including perhaps his experience of my own cruelty. In the Orthodox “brother” I’ve discovered a devotion to doctrinal purity that has lately been lost in the West. In studying the Church of the East I’ve come to cherish the Orthodox focus on the Holy Spirit, especially manifest as Sophia, or Wisdom. As we know, the East has preserved the Seven Sacraments, but unlike the Latin Church it has clung tenaciously to the ancient Divine Liturgy, with all its rich tradition, ornamental formality and a kind of holy languor.

As a Catholic, I believe the Orthodox rejection of papal supremacy to be a genuine error, and I pray that this block between us will one day be removed. That was also the prayer of Pope John Paul II, who despite all his successes failed in the one thing he desired most: a reconciliation of East and West. While we await that day, however, Catholics should look East as often as they can. They will find there a shared faith, a shared history, and the face of a brother.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Notes on the Sexual Abuse Crisis

Having spent 28 days reflecting on a few of the manifold graces I’ve known as a Catholic Christian, I cannot allow Lent to pass without noting and offering some thoughts on the sexual abuse crisis that continues to afflict the Catholic Church.

I write “afflict the Catholic Church” not out of any sense of defensiveness, much less in an effort to point an accusing finger at the media. Rather, I am conscious that these horrible sins – both the original abuse committed by priests, as well as the criminal negligence demonstrated by bishops and other ecclesiastical authorities – have been committed against the Body of Christ, which is the Church. They have been attacks upon the bodies, souls and faith of Catholics, 99.7% of whom are members of the lay faithful. They have also been a crime against Jesus Christ, who suffers new agonies in the person of each and every victim of sexual abuse (Matthew 25:40). Abuser priests and criminal bishops may never have to face their victims again, but they will not escape the scrutiny of Christ, the Just Judge, who divides sheep from goats according to their works.

Here’s what the sexual abuse crisis is NOT:

It is not a conspiracy by the “liberal” media. If anything, the media has shown remarkable deference to the Church over the years. It is true that most reporters are not Catholic, and it is also true that there are some who seem to have an axe to grind with the Church (although most of those are typically Catholics or ex-Catholics); but there is simply no ground for claiming that this crisis was fabricated or exacerbated by the media.

The sexual abuse crisis is also not about homosexuality in the priesthood. It is true that original acts of sexual abuse, at least in the United States, had an overwhelmingly homosexual character. This was due to a number of factors, including the fact that the celibate priesthood has historically been an attractive vocation for homosexual men who wished to channel their conflicted desires into service to the Church. This may have even been true of St. Paul, who never married and who complained bitterly in Scripture about a “thorn in the flesh” that he asked three times to have removed by God. Whatever the reason, there is no evidence that homosexual men are more likely than heterosexuals to prey on children and young people. Priests are called to be faithful to their vows and the celibacy requirement of the priesthood. With self-control and the aid of grace the vast majority of priests – homosexual and heterosexual – are able to fulfill their promise.

The crisis is not about celibacy. There is plenty of sexual abuse in other institutions, none of which impose a rule of celibacy. Marriage is available for scoutmasters, teachers, camp counselors, rabbis, ministers, policemen, physicians, and dentists, all professions in which rates of sexual abuse are higher than the norm. In fact, the average child molester in America is married, educated, and employed. The New York City school system averages one student complaint of sexual abuse every day, and yet teachers and staff are able to marry. In a now-famous survey conducted in the 1980’s, some 35% of Protestant ministers admitted to illicit sexual contact with a parishioner during their tenure. The fact is that all Christians are called to chastity, in whatever their state. Married men and women are to be faithful to their spouses. Single men and women are to eschew fornication. The same is true for priests.

The sexual abuse crisis is not about the Catholic faith. There are those both inside and outside the Church who would like to use the crisis to undermine that faith. Atheists will suggest that there is something about religion in general, or Christianity in particular, that lends itself to this sort of behavior. Anti-Catholic Christians will dishonestly attribute the crisis to one distinctive Catholic doctrine or another. Dissenters inside the Church will take the opportunity of the crisis to push their theological agendas, which – irony of ironies – typically have to do with loosening Church teaching on sexual morality. The fact is that no one has ever made a convincing case that any article of the Creed – including the invocation of “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church – causes a man to rape a child. Those who imply or make such an accusation remind me of a crack made by the writer G.K. Chesterton. “When a man claims to doubt the validity of the hypostatic union (the doctrine that Christ is fully divine and fully human), he usually means that he’s sleeping with his neighbor’s wife.” In other words, there’s another agenda at work.

Most controversially, I would say that the crisis isn’t even fundamentally about sexually abusive priests! There have always been corrupt, wayward, dishonest, or lustful clergy and religious. The “John Jay Report,” commissioned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and released in 2004, is the most extensive study of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The Report revealed that over a 50 year period, 1.5% of American priests had credible accusations made against them. Satistically, that is not an inordinate number for the profession, which suggests that there is not a causal connection between the priesthood and sexual abuse. Let me be clear: I am not excusing offenders. Far from it. I rejoice every time one of these slugs is tried and convicted of a crime, or removed from the active ministry following an ecclesiastical investigation. But the awful thing about this crisis isn’t that the occasional priestly pederast surfaced. It is that those pederasts were tolerated, even enabled, and that as a result most offenders had many victims – hundreds in some cases – and exercised their predation over long stretches of time. All of which leads me to what the crisis is really all about.

The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is fundamentally about the arrogance of bishops. It is an institutional crisis among those shepherds specifically charged with governing, teaching, and sanctifying the faithful entrusted to them.

In their arrogance, bishops thought they could protect their reputations and the reputation of the Church by playing a shell game with abusive priests. And so, they shuttled these men from one parish to another, apparently giving no thought to the damaged bodies and souls left behind, or the new victims that would inevitably appear. They crushed those in their own chanceries who dared to challenge their handling of these matters. They ignored the cries of victims and the good faith inquiries of third parties. They stonewalled the media, police, and district attorneys. They sicced their lawyers on critics. In some cases they even lied to Rome or to their brother bishops. And when finally cornered, they appropriated for themselves the mantle of victim.

In their ignorance, bishops chose to believe professional therapists who told them that the problem wasn’t ‘sin’ but ‘sickness, and that pederasts could be “cured” by a few months of therapeutic retreat. And so, they sent them away, paid their bills, and then welcomed them back. In their incompetence, bishops believed the lawyers who recommended what lawyers always recommend: limit the damage at all costs. And so they tried to ignore the pleas of victims, erecting a wall between themselves and their needy, aching faithful. Then, when victims could no longer be avoided, they cut backroom deals, cash deals, with side agreements about confidentiality – silence – and limited future liability. They thought and behaved like CEO’s, not shepherds; petty tyrants, not loving fathers; administrators, not mediators of grace.

What should happen now? First, we need to begin talking about it. Weeks, months go by and nothing is ever mentioned in our parishes. It’s as if this is happening on another planet, to another church. I don’t mean that we should remand the subject to religious education, or put everyone through idiotic classes on “sexual harassment.” I do mean that pastors and bishops should talk to the lay faithful about what went on, how it was wrong, and how things are going to be different. They need to do this with humility and honesty, really listening to people for once. They themselves need to become the crosses on which people can crucify their anger and confusion, their doubt and cynicism.

Second, any bishop or priest directly implicated in the cover-up should resign immediately. There will be time for confession and absolution, for prayer and penance. What is most important is that offenders – and by that I mean not sexual abusers, but episcopal criminals – remove themselves or be removed from positions of leadership. Quite frankly, if there is convincing evidence that he knowingly shuttled a sexual abuser from one parish to another, then even Pope Benedict XVI should step down, something that has happened many times in Church history. It will be his prerogative, of course, because no power can remove from office the man who exercises “supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power.” But for the sake of the Church, the Faith, the Gospel, and Christ Himself, the former Archbishop of Munich should resign if guilty. Moreover, if the Holy Father or any other bishop is guilty of breaching the criminal law, he should be prosecuted and, if convicted, jailed.

Third, the Church must find a better means of identifying, selecting, naming and empowering bishops. The fact is that most bishops are organizational yes-men, often chancery bureaucrats or glad-handing monsignori. They come to the attention of the Church not because of their personal holiness, teaching prowess or preaching ability, but because they have proven themselves to be effective managers, fundraisers, ecclesial executives. Once named bishops, these men are then moved around like marbles on a Chinese checkerboard, which only makes them more detached from the laity and more dependent on chancery “experts” who give them bad advice.

Finally, our hearts and hands must turn to the victims of sexual abuse and their families. They are our brothers and sisters, and we owe them prayer, love, understanding, and support. Many of them will never again darken the door of a church. Others are sitting in the pew next to us. In every case, we need to see Christ in them, and recognize that in their suffering He is crucified over and over again. For love of Him we must love them.

Napoleon Bonaparte once expressed the desire to crush the Catholic Church, which was frustrating his plans for hegemony over all of Europe. Upon hearing Napoleon’s desire, Cardinal Consalvi replied “If in 1,800 years we clergy have failed to destroy the Church, do you really think that you’ll be able to do it?” The more things change, the more they stay the same. Once again, Satan is sifting the Catholic clergy like wheat. We need to join with the overwhelming majority of faithful, holy priests to strengthen our brothers and sisters. Talk about the Catholic Church “surviving,” is ridiculous. Not only is the Catholic Church the 2000 year-old bedrock of Western Civilization, it operates under a divine guarantee that “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” The Church is going nowhere, but it is reforming, as it always must be.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”