On My Way

I'm on my way;
I'm on my way;
I'm on my way back to where I started.

- "Down in the Valley" by The Head and the Heart

Early tomorrow I embark on yet another - my fifth - trip to El Salvador.  January 5 is the same day I traveled there last year, but this time its quite a bit different.  Other than us celebrating yet another important sacrament, almost everything else has changed - at least for me.

Last year, I was staying for three months.  This year its not even a full week.
Last year, I was living in Ohio, jobless.  This year I'm working full-time in North Carolina.
Last year, I was representing Kent's Newman Center.  This year I'll visit my new parish's sister community.

You get the point, for me, everything about the trip is different.  This sense of difference reminds me of why we started a relationship with Fr. Rafael and his ministries in the first place - to bring about change.  Yet, this year in Agua Caliente what is different?  The school is still struggling financially.  Marta and her group of teachers is still fighting against an uneducated culture.  The diocese is still not supporting the Newman Center's efforts.  Oly, Alicia, Santanita, Jamie, Freddi and the whole lot are still struggling for themselves and their children.  Is life so different for them?

Guilt is my first reaction.  Guilt because of the life my birth country allows me to live.   Guilt because of the little I do to change the lives my friends live in Agua Caliente.  But we can't live fruitful lives from a place of guilt and so I hope that my guilt can be washed away in Jimenita's baptismal waters.  That I can rise up with her from those waters a new being, one that works for justice from a place of love - not guilt - like the priest, prophet and king that I was anointed to be in my own baptism.  This is my hope and without it there will be no kingdom...pray for all those who need us (read: the U.S.) to be more mindful of their existence.

75% of the Kids We Confirm this Year Will Leave the Church by 2018

(I don't plan on reflecting on the Sunday readings with the blog for the foreseeable future.  Fr. Pat now has a blog (http://frpatearl.blogspot.com) where you can enjoy his wisdom-filled weekly reflections, so long as he sends them to me to post.  Instead, I will write about the joys and pains of ministry in the Catholic Church.  Read on if you dare.) 

A conversation I had with a parishioner the other day went like this:

Me: "So you're saying that my confirmation students can't have one of the two service time slots you promised them, but a group, the majority of which are not parishioners, can keep their four slots?"
Parishioner: "Well, they have a legacy."
Me: "Our kids ARE our legacy!"
Parishioner: "Are you serious?"

When I started preparing to design a curriculum for the final year of a confirmation program I read a great deal about the theology of the sacrament.  One essay sticks with me.  In his book "A New Look at the Sacraments" William Basuch includes a chapter describing the murkiness of confirmation theology.  Not only is it not well grounded in scripture or the life of Jesus, like say baptism, anointing, or reconciliation is, confirmation, in fact, has no clear theology.  Throughout history culture and circumstance reordered the practice of a bishop laying hands on and anointing a person with Pentecost's spiritual Advocate so many times that the ritual practiced today (and the process leading to it) is beyond misunderstood - it is blatantly ineffective to the point that it's detrimental to the future of the Church.

A more traditional Catholic might argue that the "graces" of the sacrament (love, joy, peace, etc.) will work on the hearts and souls of it's recipients, even despite their own motivations.  I beg to differ.  The last time I checked kindness, goodness, temperance and so on were learned habits, not supernaturally granted attributes.  Sacraments, I'm told, are ritual actions that point to and participate in the life of Christ.  Maybe a "going-through-the-motions" confirmation process, like what most churches have today, points to a life in Christ, but it surely doesn't help our kids desire, or form habits, to participate in the life of Christ.

The confirmation program we developed, inspired by Pedro Arrupe's call for Jesuit education to "form men and women for others", hoped to place our students in the heat of the many efforts to build a kingdom of justice made by the parishioners of my parish; hoped to prepare them to carry the uniquely Christian flame of justice - forgiveness, healing, and communion - to the world.  Opportunities for service and justice education were schedule.  A classroom curriculum that weaved together confirmation, Ignatian Spirituality, and social justice was designed.  Young adult mentors were recruited. But, I am told, our children our not our legacy.

Here is a fact.  "85% of the kids we confirm today will leave the Church before the age of 30," reports the Dynamic Catholic Institute.  "Oh," you say, "they'll be back when they want to get married or have kids."  No, they won't.  There are 18 million more Catholics today in the US than in 1972, but there are 60% fewer weddings in the Church.  That doesn't even include the couples who register, marry, and then stop coming in a year.  Why do they leave?  Because we don't work hard enough to keep them!  10% of catholic teens go to youth group.  Is it because their parents won't bring them?  No.  They don't come because the programs we offer lack resources, (adequately) paid staff, meaningful events, or priority in parish life.

Our kids our our legacy whether we admit it or not.  If we don't start acknowledging this, then our legacy is a dying Church.  Our legacy is not the meager amounts of justice that we brought to the world through charity or advocacy - it is the people we leave behind to carry that torch.  And if the people we leave behind aren't prioritized, then flame of justice we so ardently champion will surely smolder.  There is a genius to the Catholic faith, but it must be passed on from generation to generation through relationship, not by inadequate faith formation programming.  Until Catholic adults come to see this, our Church, and the justice it strives to bring, are at great risk.

Pray for our youth, but more importantly, pray for the Catholic adults who are blind to the importance they can play in forming the future Church. 

Al-Hallaj and St. Paul

My last semester as a student at John Carroll University was mainly spent finishing my thesis on how the new translation of the Roman Missal is a Vatican political move to revert the changes of Vatican II, but every Thursday I took a much needed break from that chaos to study Sufism with Zeki Saratoprak. 

Zeki is a kind man, maybe the kindest I encountered at JCU, which is certainly saying something.  Not only would he offer me his lunch or dinner every single time I ran into him heating it in the staff microwave, but he would treat me with such warm hospitality even when I had interrupted one of his 5 daily prayers.  Through Zeki’s class I not only came to appreciate Islam and Sufism, but to envy their faith.  Daily prayer not only reminds a Muslim, but also helps them put into practice, the literal meaning of the word Islam – surrender to God.

The God which Muslims surrender to is the same God Christian’s call the Creator/Father/Lord Almighty/etc…, but the Muslim imagination projects a few distinct non-Christian traits on our shared Creator.   For instance, a Muslim could never accept Jesus as both God and human because God cannot be man; God is other.  In fact, God is so much so “other” that Muslims say no matter what is said about God is untrue.  God is not of this world; God is other.  This is clearly quite distant from the Christian theology of an incarnate, fleshy God.

Yet listen again to Sunday’s reading from Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are you ways my ways,” says the Lord.  “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.

Is this pre-incarnation image of God so different than that of Islam?  The Lord is clear – our thoughts are not the thoughts of the Lord.  And beyond that, the Lord clarifies that our ways and thoughts are worlds apart.  We’re not even on the same playing field…

…except that we are.  For Christians, we have faith in an incarnate God, a God made human.  Muslims, especially in the Sufi tradition, rest their belief in a God whose reflection can be found in all things.  The 99 names of God can be found in every existing thing.  For example, in a tree is the reflection of Al-Khaliq, God as Creator.  Its fruit is a reflection of Ar-Razzaq, God the Provider.  Its shade reflects Ar-Rahman, God the Merciful.  Its height reflects the Al-Aliyy, God the Most High. And, even when a tree falls and tragically takes a life, it’s a reflection of Al-Mumit, God the Causer of Death.  God’s reflection can be found in all things.  Sound similar?  Sound like the Jesuit idea of “finding God in all things”? 

Al-Hallaj was a famous Sufi martyred in the middle ages for claiming that the only thing inside his cloak was God.  His meditation and prayer brought him to see only Allah’s reflection in everything he encountered, including himself.  For Al-Hallaj, the blasphemous statement made perfect sense, he was a reflection of Allah in all Allah’s glory. 

For Paul this Sunday it’s the same.  He writes, “For if we live, we live for the Lord and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”  He could not have been more right on so many levels.  Literally, yes, our life and death is at the hands of our maker, but it's deeper than that.  We are the Lord’s…image, body, hands, feet, breath, speech…we are the Lord’s reflection AND action in the world.  When we wake each day, we should find ourselves saying, like Al-Hallaj, that everything inside this cloak is God, that everything inside this cloak is the body of Christ.

September 4, 2011
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordnary Time
Ez 33:7-9
Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
Rom 13:8-10
Mt 18:15-20

My best friend, Steve, has no formal religion.  He is like many in my generation. Raised by semi-religious parents in the Christian faith, but without much grounding in a tradition other than democracy and consumerism.  Even after living together for two years and once spending a college summer galavanting around the southwestern national parks with him, Steve and I have talked about faith less than you would think.  Whenever religion did come up, as it often does for someone who works at a church, Steve would interject, "I believe you just have to be good to others."  That's his moral ethic and as close to a religion as he's come.

St. Paul gives us a different one word ethic in Sunday's epistle: love.  "Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another,"  he tells us.  Sure, Paul is crafting an argument that has a more specific goal (includsion of gentiles in salvation) than simplifying religion to a word like Steve, but does this nonethless by borrowing Jesus' revised second greatest commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.

What's odd for both Steve and St. Paul is that they both only tell half the story.  Being "good", whatever one self-defines that to be, is always "I" centered at its root.  The "good" ethic only calls you to be what you desire to be to the point it doesn't knowingly infrindge on others, maybe like non-interventionalist foreign policy.  Paul does more or less the same thing with his one-word-ethic of love.  Loving your neighbor as yourself is dependent on how you love yourself.  His "love" ethic relies on how you choose to love yourself - still an "I" centered activity. 

The broader scope of Christianity, however, calls for a different ethic. Yes, love is at its core, but a love centered first in and of God (see Christ's first great commandment or Thomas Aquinas on moral ethics). This love ethic should push us beyond ourself, beyond our space, to seek a justice-centered love.  The reading from Jewish scripture reminds us of this.  God says to Ezekiel:

You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel;
when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me.

God goes on to say that if we do not speak out against injustice we will face the same punishment of the injust.  Depending on how you read Paul, this could fit his love ethic, but surely is not just being "good".  God's guide for how to live this week calls us to be prophets in the world, to live for others in all our actions, whether its what we buy, who we vote for, or the quality of how we listen to our neighbor.  God calls us to be men and women for others.  Goodness and love that is drawn from an ethic of "I" do not begin to encompass this calling.

Here's a small story: Andy is fixing some plaster in the church office for us.  He's the best plaster guy in Charlotte, so I'm told.  He's also dying.  He and cancer have been walking together for three years.  Chemo, radiation, chemo, surgerys, two times being told he was cancer free, and yet a month ago he started waking up every day with piercing headaches.  The doctors found 5 tumors in his brain.  They want to do the chemo, radiation, etc. dance all over again.  Andy refuses.  He'll die with dignity, he tells me.  He'll come to work everyday and do whatever his body and the painkillers will let him.  He says he's ready for heaven, for hell, for whatever death will bring, so long as he begins that journey with the dignity he deserves.

I know Andy's story because he asked me how I was doing.  I told him that I had a headache and he told me to get my coffee and take a seat.  Then he told me his story and called me to give him the dignity he deserved.  To listen, to reach out beyond mysef to be with someone who needs love, to be a man for another.  May God bless Andy, help him continue to call us to be for others, and help us to challenge others to be for the Andys we ignore.

Adult Peer Pressure?

August 28, 2011
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jeremiah 20:7-9 - Jeremiah laments but cannot fail to speak in God's name.
Psalm 63:2-6,8-9 - Our souls yearn for God.
Romans 12:1-2 - Paul encourages the Romans to stay faithful to God.
Matthew 16:21-27 - Jesus speaks of his Passion and rebukes Peter for his objection.

At some point in my youth I had heard the term peer pressure until it became trite. "Peer pressure this... Peer pressure that... Avoid, avoid, avoid." Now that I'm an adult, those warnings seem warranted. More than a few of my poor college decisions were the result of peer pressure. Oops! Live and learn, I guess.

The readings this Sunday remind us that peer pressure doesn't end when we reach adulthood. Jeremiah laments that he, even when he tries to submit to the pressures of his society, cannot turn away from God. He says this about when he tries to repress of his desire to speak of God:

But the it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.

The gospel portrays Peter pressuring Jesus to rise up against Israel. To fight against Roman oppression like the disciples thought he would. But Jesus rebukes Peter calling him "Satan" and reminding us that following God's ways are not easy, even our friends can steer us wrong.

Finally, the beautiful lines from Paul's Letter to the Romans reminds us that every generation will face peer pressure:

Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect.

Today, when industrialization is killing our environment, people are starving throughout the world, and we don't think twice about the amount of polution created by eating a hunk of Argentinean beef, we must ask ourselves tough questions. How we conform to this age? How do we allow the pressures of society, government, peers, even (maybe especially) Church, to prevent us from being a living sacrifice, doing what is good and pleasing and perfect in God's sight?  Liberation Theology and Vatican II got it right, we must pay attention to "the signs of the times."  We must face adult peer pressure by recalling the burning fire in our bones for God, justice and love, and be transformed by renewing our minds.

The Doubting Jesus

August 21, 2011
Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
Is 22:19-23
Rom 11:33-36
Mt 16:13-20

What Jesus knew about himself and his role in salvation has always bothered me. In high school I remember thinking, "if he knew that his death would save the whole world, how hard could it have been to make the sacrifice?" Allow "high school Mark" some leeway on this because, while the question was a bit naive, it points to a bigger question, the question of Jesus' self-knowledge.

Traditional Christian logic would follow like this: God is all-knowing, Jesus is God, therefore Jesus is all-knowing. This same logic traditionally reads this famous gospel story as Jesus testing his disciples and finding Peter to be his number one pupil. Try a different approach, try reading the story from the perspective of Jesus' humanity.

Hiding out in Caesarea Philippi far north of Jerusalem, maybe Jesus pondered his own ministry. Maybe his thoughts went something like this: First, John, my one-time mentor and cousin, was beheaded by Herod for stirring up the people. Am I next? And the last time I encountered the leaders of my own people, men who I studied with growing up - the Pharisees and Saducees - I insulted them, calling them hypocrites. And recently, while fleeing my homeland for safety's sake, a poor gentile woman kept calling to me, begging that I heal her daughter. When I finally listened, my what faith she had! What is my Father asking of me? Who is God asking me to be?

Is it wrong to think that Jesus's humanity often left him in such doubt, wondering to what God was calling him? Doubt is not a sin, so long as we do not bow to it. When Jesus asked the disciples "Who do you say that I am?", couldn't it have been because he wasn't yet sure? And isn't that what discerning people do - take their doubt prayerfully to those who love them? Today's passage from Romans says: "For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?"

Yet, we scorn ourselves when we doubt. We allow uncertainty and the unknown to haunt us instead of embracing them with a spirit of discernment, asking our friends and familes how they see us. A great lesson from Jesus this week is exactly this: when we struggle to know who and whose we are, we should not fear asking our friends for help. Identifying God's call in our life is never an individual task, but always one in which we need to call up our community. In times of struggle, may we remember Jesus' response to adversity, allowing ourselves the freedom to doubt, and taking those doubts to people who love us.

The Faith of Canaanites

August 14, 2011
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Is 56:1, 6-7
Rom 11:13-15, 29-32
Mt 15:21-28

A quick preliminary note: In the United States we have an option of transferring Monday's readings from the Feast of the Assumption to the Sunday prior. You may not hear the above readings at mass.

In the Gospel Jesus calls a woman a dog, there's no two ways around it. Some biblical scholars have claimed that in the original Greek the word used was better translated with an affectionate tone, like puppy or lap dog, but they're just evading the truth - Jesus called a woman a dog.

You might not believe me. You might think I'm crazy. "Jesus, divine love incarnate, would not do such a thing," you might be saying. But, according to the the author of Matthew, he did. And, call me crazy, but I love this passage. I love what it says about Jesus' humanity and divinity. I love what that further reveals about God. A closer examination of the reading will show you what I mean.

By the time Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem Canaanites didn't exist. The Jews had seen to their destruction years earlier. Calling someone a Canaanite was like calling someone a Benedict Arnold - everybody knew exactly what you meant and it wasn't very nice. Actually, it's worse than not nice. Calling someone a Canaanite is saying "you're the lowest of the low, you don't even exist."

Jesus was human and accordingly he was a man of his culture, place, and time. Sure, Jesus hung out with sinners, but usually Jewish sinners, not random Gentile women from far north of Israel. Jesus even goes so far as saying, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." That is, not to Gentiles, and definitely not to this Canaanite woman.

But something powerful happens in their encounter. After ignoring her, ordering the disciples to send her away, and then insulting her, Jesus changes his mind. Something in him shifts. Her faith - the faith of the one that barely exists in his eyes - is a mission altering encounter for Jesus. Her faith not only heals her daughter, but widens Jesus' mission from Israel to the whole world.

There's plenty of evidence for this in the rest of the gospel. For instance, just before their encounter Jesus fed 5000 hungry families - all Israelites; but after their encounter when Jesus feeds 4000 more families they're all Gentiles. His vision of salvation grows to include all of humanity because of this women, a woman seen at the time as nonexistent and hated.

If we believe that Jesus is the revelation of God, that Jesus reveals to us Who God is, then the image of a Jesus who changes, grows, and allows for his vision of love to widen tells us that we have a God that does the same. We have a God who hears prayers, especially those of the poor and outcast, and changes His plan for them. We have a God who hears the persistent prayers of a people of faith and adapts to love them better.

When I ask myself how I can become more like Christ, I find myself wondering who are today's Canaanites. What people do I ignore? What people do I refuse to listen to? What people do I ask my friends, family, and coworkers to dismiss on my behalf?

The homeless guy I try not to make eye contact with - Canaanite.

My grandma who lives at a retirement center that I rarely call or visit - Canaanite.

The coworker I ignore or am cold to - Canaanite.

The poor Salvadoran whose land was taken to mine gold for yet another gift for someone I love - Canaanite.

How can I be more aware of these people? What can their faith teach me? How can I grow to love them, and the world, more fully? This is the challenge of the gospel then and today. May it change us like it did Christ.