23 November 2012
Black Friday, then Small Business Saturday make a Triduum. Cyber Monday tacked on, and now a #Giving Tuesday. Naturally, the conservatives will be hopping all over this attempt to get charity out of government hands and into the people’s, where it belongs. If anything, the GOP will need to get way out in front of the 2016 buy-off, eh?
What else can be added to make a neat little octave heading into December?
7 November 2012
Recently I was researching a bit into my daughter’s heart condition. In previous generations, she would have been like Pearl. There were no reconstructive surgeries possible, and she would have died long before she was ever available for adoption. I never would have known her, let alone loved her and had father-daughter chats over hot chocolate, or gone sledding, or kicked a ball around the backyard.
My wife was shocked when I told her not every HLHS parent chooses surgery. There are two operation options these days–a heart transplant or a three-stage reconstructive procedure. Each carries its own risks. Ten percent failure rates for each open heart operation. The five-year survival rate is about fifty percent. Beyond that, the heart impairment during pregnancy or infancy seems to affect brain development, and some older children have learning or emotional challenges.
So not every parent chooses surgery. It happens in one out of three HLHS infants. My wife asked me, “Who wouldn’t opt for surgery?” I guess that some people can’t afford it. They opt for palliative care and make the small, slender life of their child as comfortable as possible for a rather short time. So it’s like the few weeks of life for little Pearl.
Pearl’s dad:
Things didn’t go wrong. God has designed Pearl the way he wanted, for his glory and our good.
Well, maybe. I don’t have a window into God’s plan. I’m not convinced the anguish of parents and a life ended in infancy is “God’s will,” as the headline suggests. I think it’s okay to suggest that tragedy like this is definitely not the intent of God, nor is it to be borne with passive acceptance by mothers and fathers. But I do think these sad situations provide us with opportunities. And it seems that many people are touched by Pearl and her parents’ witness of faith. And that is a good thing, a very good thing indeed, if by means of Pearl, a little more tenderness and compassion enters the world.
I still can’t get my head around the numbers on HLHS. I feel even more grateful for my healthy, well-adjusted daughter. One-third survive the womb. With her surgery one-half of those survivors live to age seven, if they were one of the seventy-percent who didn’t have complications from open-heart procedures. One half of those survivors have some developmental disability. And one-half of those survivors have emotional trauma that involves some psychological intervention. By my math, the young miss is one-in-35 to make it to where she is now, mid-adolescence. I should get down on my knees in thanksgiving for that more often than I nag her about finding a confirmation sponsor or worry about her possible career choices as a forensic scientist or a spy for the CIA.
5 November 2012
Saint John Vianney has a marvelous quote appropriate for November, for thoughts of pilgrimage and the inevitable death that awaits each of us before we reach the final stage:
Our home is—Heaven. On earth we are like travelers staying in a hotel. When one is away, one is always thinking of going home.
Of course, there’s also the modern sensibility that the journey is the whole point of the experience–it is in the pilgrimage itself that we are tested, where we find fulfillment, and are prepared for the end of the trail.
Robert Lowry’s hymn comes to mind. I was introduced to the Charles Ives’ setting by my voice teacher almost thirty years ago. I have a version on cd sung by Dawn Upshaw with orchestral accompaniment. The original piano & vocal is here.
26 October 2012
Ping! is not how my priest friend describes it. It doesn’t quite capture my sense of the Spirit’s subtle influence either. Maybe it’s a bit too frivolous. But it’s close.
Many believers think of a well-formed conscience in terms of avoiding sin. And certainly, steering ourselves away from moral transgression, mortal, venial, serious, not-so-serious, or whatever is an important part of our Christian formation.
Lately, I’ve been thinking of conscience formation not only in terms of avoiding sin. And also not only in terms of doing good deeds. But I’m looking for the more subtle and mysterious. I’ve been more conscious of it since I was sent home from reconciliation a number of years ago after confessing a sin against my family.
My confessor told me that for my penance, I would need to listen carefully to God. And that over the next twenty-four hours, it would be made obvious what I needed to do as an act of satisfaction.
Curious, I thought. But I can go with this. So I spent the next few minutes on the way home thinking about it. And wouldn’t you know, over the next day, I was urged not once, but seven times to do small acts of kindness. Something popped into my head–getting a glass of milk for the young miss, running an errand for my wife, putting in a load of laundry, and a few other things I’ve forgotten. Indeed, by lunchtime the next day I stopped keeping track. And when I walked to the grocery store two blocks away, I found a shopping cart halfway there on the roadside near an apartment complex.
Ping! get that cart.
Unping, what if someone sees me and gets the wrong idea that I borrowed the cart and I’m bringing it back?
Ping! take the cart back anyway.
I admit that my rational, American, scientifically-trained self was amazed by this experience. So I did the best rational thing I knew to do. I kept looking for the Ping!
My priest friend has told me one or two amazing stories about responding to that Ping! nudge. I’ve talked to him about it a few times since. He gets the big events that leave no doubt. I think I’m okay with the small stories. I’ve even asked God not (necessarily) to show me the results of the Ping! An illustration …
One of my pet peeves is getting lost in the car. Or even missing a turn. Several wrong turns ago–maybe two or three years–I asked myself why I was getting so upset. Really: I’ve been driving a car for twenty-five years and I’ve only gotten into one serious accident (and thank God, no injuries). I’ve seen accidents unfold in front of me–some avoided, and some mishaps like seeing the car passing me on a snowy interstate spin off into the ditch. Maybe it was a more subtle ping that nudged me on a different road, a different path to take. Maybe I saved my family and myself from something more dangerous by going a route I hadn’t intended to drive. I realized I didn’t need to scan the internet headlines the next day for an accident on, say, US 30 that I missed. I can go with the subtle, small things. Plus, it makes for a calmer, more cheerful disposition for driving and for conversations in the car.
Anyone hear that Ping! lately?
He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. (1 Kings 19:11-13a)
11 October 2012
I’m grateful for Rock’s providing us the text of Archbishop Rowan Williams’ remarks at the synod. I appreciate the strong theme of contemplation as a remedy for the dangers of being so narcissistic as we strive to do the mission of Jesus Christ. This thought begins an unfolding theme in the address:
To be contemplative as Christ is contemplative is to be open to all the fullness that the Father wishes to pour into our hearts. With our minds made still and ready to receive, with our self-generated fantasies about God and ourselves reduced to silence, we are at last at the point where we may begin to grow. And the face we need to show to our world is the face of a humanity in endless growth towards love, a humanity so delighted and engaged by the glory of what we look towards that we are prepared to embark on a journey without end to find our way more deeply into it, into the heart of the trinitarian life. St Paul speaks (in II Cor 3.18) of how ‘with our unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord’, we are transfigured with a greater and greater radiance. That is the face we seek to show to our fellow-human beings.
Read the whole address. I recommend it. There’s much more there.
As I strive for more contemplation and less of myself, I see the archbishop’s reflection as fitting for anyone in ministry. I don’t know how much was poking at the Catholic bishops present, but I see much that applies to me, and to the ministries in which I serve that are liturgical as well as evangelical.
Contemplation should move us from old ways of thinking: how we see ourselves and our place in the world. Contemplation also urges us to new ways of relationships. Instead of people who cling to others for what they can do for me, we become people who cultivate relationships based on what they can do for God. The evangelical mindset would have us ponder each person and wonder: how will they take their part in the Great Commission, in the mind and intent of Christ?
This is difficult, and wholly countercultural, even within the Church. Yet people are watching. Do they see believers using each other just like people in the world use others? Or do they see this substrate of contemplation penetrate our relationships and ministries, not just as a tool for individuals to “get ahead” with God? But as a discipline in which we strive to imitate Christ, and to acknowledge the interior opportunities for growth, change, and even metanoia?
Speaking for myself, I have to consider how I view parishioners. Cogs in a liturgical machine? Souls to be opened by God? People aligning with my mission and ministry? Brothers and sisters each with their own calling? More and more, I sense the truer and deeper path in parish ministry, at least the way I see it, is less as an orchestrator of tasks and more a facilitator of the interior life, urging people to go deep into Christ and come forth with their own great mission in the Lord.
What do you think about Dr Williams’ address, or the impact this view on contemplation may have on parish spirituality and life? Or the bishops in Rome?
8 October 2012
Starting Thursday, the Year of Faith is in effect, and with it, an indulgence. Full news announcement here.
Some highlights, once the believer has celebrated the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist and prayed Pope Benedict’s monthly intentions, there are four opportunities:
Each time they attend at least three sermons during the Holy Missions, or at least three lessons on the Acts of the Council or the articles of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in church or any other suitable location.
I like the inclusion of attending a mission. I wonder how many pastors and staffs are considering adding a parish mission in the coming year. Continuing adult formation, also a laudable idea.
Each time they visit, in the course of a pilgrimage, a papal basilica, a Christian catacomb, a cathedral church or a holy site designated by the local ordinary for the Year of Faith (for example, minor basilicas and shrines dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Apostles or patron saints), and there participate in a sacred celebration, or at least remain for a congruous period of time in prayer and pious meditation, concluding with the recitation of the Our Father, the Profession of Faith in any legitimate form, and invocations to the Blessed Virgin Mary and, depending on the circumstances, to the Holy Apostles and patron saints.
The easiest solution is to celebrate Mass or the Hours at such a pilgrimage location. I wonder if such locations will provide a program of “prayer and meditation” to assist visitors. If I were serving such a site, I certainly would make it available in print as well as online. I would also take care that such online availability extended only to actual pilgrimage visits, not cyberspace.
Each time that, on the days designated by the local ordinary for the Year of Faith, … in any sacred place, they participate in a solemn celebration of the Eucharist or the Liturgy of the Hours, adding thereto the Profession of Faith in any legitimate form.
Which dioceses already have such events posted, planned, or publicized?
On any day they chose, during the Year of Faith, if they make a pious visit to the baptistery, or other place in which they received the Sacrament of Baptism, and there renew their baptismal promises in any legitimate form.
This I like. Very definite little blue thumb.
This is some of what is missing on the baptismal front:
For parents, an observation of each child’s anniversary of baptism in one or more of the following ways:
For Catholic schools, through high school level, a recognition of Catholic students’ baptismal anniversaries instead of birthdays.
For adults, a personal rededication to their baptism anniversary:
In addition, I wonder if the personal sharing of one’s baptism, faith, or conversion with a non-believer wouldn’t be a good addition to the list. I hesitate not because I doubt the spiritual fruitfulness, but because I don’t know quite how to phrase the idea in an accessible way.
The last omission on the baptismal front would be for people who are aged or ill and who cannot travel to pilgrimage sites. Some way of praying for their parish’s catechumens or baptism families would be great. Maybe some way of including a profession of faith with the celebration of anointing. Or with Communion and pastoral visits.
These indulgences strike me as being rather heavy on the promotion of the institution, from bishops on up. Praying for the pope’s intentions is great. But praying for the intentions of parents whose children are being baptized–that strikes me as a needful connection to make. Recognizing the universal church is also great. But other aspects of the Church are often ignored and overlooked: the domestic church, the sick and elderly at the parish margins. An emphasis on “doing” Year of Faith activities can unfortunately steer people away from the interior life, especially people who are not oriented to the life of the clergy.
Any other suggestions for what might have been good opportunities missed on the indulgence list? And by the way, let’s not get hung up on the offering of indulgences. I’d rather focus on ideas that can be encouraged among believers. Whether we bother with indulgences or not, we can agree that many activities can be encouraged among believers just because they have an innate value for deepening one’s faith, and not because something is promised.
24 September 2012
I was recently introduced to the writings of artist and evangelist Lilias Trotter. You’ve probably never heard of her. You have to search deep in the engines to find ample material on her life. All of her books seem to be out of print. I have yet to see it or read it, but this biography is reportedly excellent. She seems to be a person I would like to know better. How on earth a Christian woman could have a flourishing apostolate in the Muslim world of a century ago is beyond my understanding. It might be truly impossible today.
I found her reflection on John 10 in a collection on spiritual writing. She wrote to appeal to those who were formed in the Muslim world, but she doesn’t seem to have compromised her Christian faith. Instead, she presents Jesus as a strong leader who will appeal to those raised in the Arab culture, people who give every bit of allegiance, obedience, and commitment to a leader. Unswerving obedience doesn’t necessarily blind the follower to one’s leader. If the virtue of obedience is stressed, then it is very possible, and probably common for people to adhere totally to an authority yet harbor a sense that the quality of leadership is somehow lacking. Miss Trotter suggests to her listeners and readers that Jesus will not be like those self-seeking masters who expect much of their followers, but who do so at their own profit. Jesus is wholly obedient to his Father’s plan, and does not ask others to lay down their lives without his own sacrifice setting the example and showing the way.
In reading the Lord’s teaching on the Good Shepherd, Miss Trotter identifies four distinct dangers to the flock: the stranger (10:5), the thief (10:8), the hired hand (10:12a), and the wolf (10:12b). The stranger offers a distinct choice from the call of the Shepherd, and it may be a friend who attempts to lure the believer away from faithfulness to Christ. The thief is the one who lurks and sneaks for an opportunity to destroy a believer from within. For the author, the thief is the devil. The hired hand represents the world, an experience of prosperity and the veneer of safety while things go well. But the hired help will flee when danger besets. And the world will readily abandon those who have fallen on hard times. The danger of the wolf seems related, as Jesus links them in the narrative. Miss Trotter sees the wolf as the persecution of believers, the violent opposition that will tear at and attempt to destroy the community.
Many Christians look outside the enclosure for the stranger, the thief, the hireling, and the wolf. While I’m not prepared to deny the external forces of evil amassing against believers, I’m also not inclined to point fingers at people directly. (“You, the wolf! You, the thief!) Why? Because my sense and experience is that all four dangers lie within each of us. Each comes as a form of temptation. We can aim for a grace-filled and God-assisted mastery of these dangers within. In so doing, we focus on another teaching of Jesus, namely the attention to that which clogs our own sight. So I’d like to suggest that we look at Miss Trotter’s four themes and see how they might apply to the forces within.
The stranger within is well known to many saints who have struggled. Saint Paul summarized it with exquisite agony. We believers do things, say things, and think things that in our sane moments we would never do. And in looking back on those dark moments, we ask ourselves how and why. It almost seems as if another person has sometimes coopted our mind. One doesn’t have to be an addict, a compulsive personality to do this and know it. I think we all know it. I know I look back and ask myself those questions. What is needed is a deeper listen to the voice of Christ. And if we’re not sure we’ll hear it, it may be as simple as asking to hear. God will tell us. And the faith community–certainly no strangers–has the wisdom we need to hear.
The thieves are things which steal our love and attention–our idols, it seems to me. I don’t only mean celebrities, which are enough of a danger in this age, both inside and outside of the institutional Church. I’m also thinking of the small and large things that take us away from prayer, family, and good living. It could be as serious as drugs. It could be as innocent as chocolate–but an indulgence that begins small and eventually overtakes the soul by an embrace a little too possessive. It can also be those emotions we hoard and then utilize against others. It can be anything, and usually a good thing.
The hireling–Miss Trotter sees this danger as the lure of the world, and its focus on achievement and success. But fall upon hard times, and the world will be just as hard. We can do it just as easily to ourselves, relishing the initial feelings of joy and perhaps even ecstasy in the spiritual life. But when things get difficult, we abandon God. One prophet accused God of being unreliable. The Psalms are full of such laments. From the cross, Jesus quoted an accusation of abandonment. So the question is: do we cling to God only when we are repaid for it? And if so, are we not unlike others in the world who expect payment in return for loyalty?
The wolf may indeed be that self-destructive urge within us. It might also be that our own tendency to aggression is the wolf within the fold of the Church. Angry words, sarcasm, criticism with that familiar bite: and consider how especially vicious believers can be with sisters or brothers who have not measured up to certain standards. How often does the apostle’s warning ring true for us?
Looking outside the Church at the dangers Christ keeps at bay: I sincerely wonder if this is not a very subtle temptation. From the safe side of the fence, we can point fingers. But human failings are more widespread, as I think we all realize. Those dangers, stranger, thief, hired hand, and wolf are all within the Church and also within each of us, most likely. If we are not prepared to look within, how can we hope to diagnose accurately the more subtle dangers that exist to tear us away from Christ and devour us.
22 September 2012
Only one of my spiritual directors ever suggested I do a daily examen. With such a rousing endorsement, I never found my way into the practice. Or the practice never found its way to me.
In my recent reading on Ignatian spirituality, I’m finding it comes up everywhere. And amazingly enough, I’m also seems the practice has found me.
The Jesuits practice it twice a day. My deacon friend recommended once before bed, but I fall asleep too easily that time of day. And like nearly all spiritual disciplines, most people urge that specific time every day to do it. But an amazing thing has happened. I’ve been practicing the past two weeks now, but at different times during the day, and sometimes even more than twice. I’ve found that the invitation to reflect has been happening at the oddest hours. Unless I’m deeper in resistance than I think (which is always a possibility) once, twice, or three times a day I have an opportunity to look backward and pray. And it seems to work on something like this:
Of course, as I write this out, it occurs to me I’ve forgotten when my last examen was yesterday. Usually I’ve been good about putting up signposts to recall. Probably tells me it’s time to do another examen. So if you’ll excuse me …
18 September 2012
I must be more attuned these days to seeing Jesuits in the news. CNS reports a revamping of the Apostleship of Prayer is in the works. Three points on its revision:
Makes sense to me. Many parishes already have such a structure–some variation of a “prayer chain.” The digital version of the AoP is probably about ten years late. But better late than never. More:
Membership in the Apostleship of Prayer involves a commitment to beginning each day with a prayer offering one’s life to God and praying for the needs of the universal church and the intentions of the pope. Members promise to end each day prayerfully reviewing their blessings and failings.
The morning offering and prayers are the basic membership requirements, and in many countries the apostleship has no registration, no groups, no fees, and no special meetings. The Jesuits estimate that about 50 million people fulfill the membership requirements in the apostleship and its youth wing, the Eucharistic Youth Movement.
Reviewing blessings and failings is nothing more than the daily examen. More tools are probably needed to instill that a bit more deeply.
15 September 2012
Well over twenty years ago, I was seeing a counselor regularly for a few years. Young adult issues surfaced in my life with a roar: sex and relationships, family-of-origin issues, compulsions and self-destructive behavior, an unpleasant boss. Nothing life-threatening, but serious enough that I felt my quality of life spiraling away from me.
But I found a curious thing happened just by talking about my worries. Much of the attractive lure of my indulgences melted away as I gave voice to them. There was one particular issue that was a source of shame, but when I finally worked up the nerve to bring it to counseling, it seemed to lose much of its power over me. I had brought it to confession before, of course. But there was a different quality about it there. I felt forgiven sacramentally, naturally. But the glow never lasted. I didn’t feel as if I had really moved. It was like being covered in mud, then rinsing off when the rain came. When I looked around, I was spanking clean, but the mud was still all around me. It was easier to sit down and roll with it than to trek out of my surroundings and seek out higher ground.
The first two verses of Psalm 40 come to mind. It’s not enough to realize one is in a tight spot. One has to move. If need be, one can ask for assistance to move:
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the desolate pit,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
I’ve been enjoying my recent sojourn into Ignatian spirituality. It has been a fruitful combination of challenge and confirmation. I was struck recently by James Martin’s sharing of the value of having a spiritual director or spiritual friend. This is the person with whom one can speak of secret temptations and lures. Getting something out into the open, out into the light, makes it less powerful in one’s life. According to Saint Ignatius, this counters the enemy’s lure to the person as a false lover, one who urges that temptations remain secret. And in secrecy, they gain power over the believer.
This must be what happened to my friend Shawn Ratigan in his descent into child pornography. Pornography is no question a false lover. I can understand the need to keep it a deep secret. Even adults viewing adults in a context of vowed celibacy or marriage, and when brought into the light, one wants to ask simply, “Why?”
Under the guise of a good, the avoidance of scandal, Bishop Finn also got caught in the trap of the false lover. Much was concealed from people: the reason for the attempted suicide, the contents of the computer, the priest from his friends, parents from the suspicions, the full extent of the crime from police authorities, and even decisions which could have been easily, gladly, and wisely assisted by a close circle of circumspect advisors.
Fr Martin:
What’s the antidote here? Bring everything out into the open–all those negative feelings and temptations and urges to do wrong or to despair or to move away from God.
…
How often this happens in spiritual direction! Someone seems to be dancing around some uncomfortable topic, something he is afraid of revealing, precisely because he knows that once it’s out in the open he will be challenged to recognize how unhealthy it is.
Once it’s revealed, the unhealthy urge, decision, or tendency can be examined, healed, or rejected. When a young Jesuit is tempted to break his vows in any way, for example, he often suppresses the desire to talk about his struggles with his superior or his spiritual director, and the frustrations and fears and secrecy and problems only deepen.
This has certainly been true in my life. Looking back on my late twenties and early thirties, I see I was a muddy mess in a lot of ways. I had the opportunity for invaluable spiritual direction. Of course, I was afraid of mentioning how often I didn’t pray. A lot of wasted time, it would seem.
But today, I’m tempted to focus more on the present, and not so much, “If only I knew what I was doing!” (Likely that when I reach age seventy, I’ll look back on today with a similar lament.)
I think there is a place for a person’s good sense to guide the revelation of secrets. For me, I talk with my wife often, and I try mightily to discuss my small mud puddles before they become desolate pits and miry bogs. I value the setting of the sacrament of marriage. For my wife and I, we often speak in our shared trials as being each other’s ticket to sainthood. It used to be something of a jest between us. As we grow older, I think it has developed a much more serious tone. A good thing, to be sure.
14 September 2012
In the third week of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises the believer places herself or himself with the Lord in the events of Holy Thursday and Good Friday. It’s not just a rereading of the Passion narratives. The intention is for the person to accompany the Lord in his sufferings. James Martin’s book The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything refers to this. He cites David Fleming, SJ on these meditations:
We know the story of the Passion. Ignatius wants us to experience it as something fresh and immediate. We learn to suffer with Jesus, and thus we learn to suffer with the people in our lives.
This really struck me on my walk home last night. I’ve had two ministry challenges early this semester–relationships with people I haven’t quite been able to figure out. Not conflicts, really, but awkwardness that, if unchecked, could lead to misunderstanding or even dispute. I’ve been trying to bring this to prayer. But the Ignatian wisdom of placing oneself with Jesus, with the other person, made an impact.
My ministry experiences tell me how vital it is to be a companion to people I serve. It’s not enough to know about them: name, age, address, cell phone. Or other more personal stuff: number of years married, vocal range, favorite saint. For relationships I choose to take seriously or that I need to take seriously, it is incumbent on me to be a companion, and to experience a sharing of life and faith.
This is one reason why the political pro-life movement has been such a failure. Activists “know” their facts. They “know” church teaching. They “know” their political methods. But they have no “bread with” people who choose abortions. It seems like people who “know” the Lord. Perhaps they can even cite chapter and verse. But without the experience, perhaps they do not know. Not fully.
4 September 2012
James Martin’s book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything has been on my bookshelf for the past week. It’s a popular seclection in our parish library, and I find much to recommend it. Four-hundred pages is a daunting length if your object is to read a book cover to cover. Fortunately Fr Martin is a superb writer, easily able to share and communicate enthusiasm for the subject matter. Which, quite simply, is applying Jesuit principles to (almost) everything in life.
I can see this book on the shelf of a person willing to take it a chapter or so at a time. I’m reading through it cover to cover, however, for a few reasons. First, I like Jim Martin as a writer. And I get ideas from good writers. Second, since it is a much-read tome, I want to be conversant in it generally. Third, I wasn’t expecting to find it spiritually helpful, since it seems to be aimed at people from seekers to believers on the threshhold of a deeper spiritual life. So it’s also been a cure for personal arrogance, and something of a corrective on a previous correction I made about forty-five years ago.
Up to about fourth grade, I did not challenge myself as a reader. I spent most of my allowance on books. And I usually bought books on subjects I already knew about and usually at my own grade level. For science, it was a few grade levels below my working knowledge. But I found a certain comfort in going with what I knew. I used books to confirm my working knowledge, not necessarily to expand it.
But in fourth grade, something changed. When I and some of my peers finished our classwork, the teacher gave us a pass to go to the school library. And at first, I borrowed books that confirmed my knowledge. But that got old quick. So I turned to the shelves where the middle schoolers read–the books without pictures. The books with text for two-hundred or more pages.
So it was new ground, and it was the start of reading way past my horizons. Which I still like to do today.
So I found Jim Martin’s book old ground in many ways: his discussion on discernment, contemplative prayer, retreats were interesting for his own experiences. In some aspects, it was like going back to old ground–just like I did before the fourth grade. But how he brings the Jesuit lens into (almost) everything: this was new to me. The extent of my exposure to the Jesuits has been limited to two eight-day Ignatian retreats, from which I don’t think I absorbed anything particularly Jesuitical.
The one thing that I found most helpful was Fr Martin’s approach to the daily examen. Back in the 90′s my spiritual director suggested I practice it, and I don’t ever think I got a good handle on it. But after reading Fr Martin’s approach, this will be the one aspect of the spiritual life I think I can delve into. More on that in another post, I think.
I told my wife it’s a good thing the Jesuits didn’t have a Jim Martin in the 80′s, because the book almost inspires me to go off and join them. The one kernel of Jesuit spirituality that I’ve been mulling over this past week: finding God in all things. The principle isn’t likely original to the Jesuits. But from how Fr Martin takes it and runs with it, they probably refined the notion to a degree up-to-now unheard-of.
Did I mention the tome runs four-hundred pages? For a guide to (almost) everything, that seems short. Some critics have said the book is too long and needed a tighter edit. Maybe they’re right, if they’re looking for a guidebook. The subtitle of the volume is “A Spirituality for Real Life,” and I think one could easily drop into any chapter, and gain significant food-for-thought for one’s life. Fr Martin weaves in personal experience, Jesuit saints, and Ignatian spiritual principles with great ease.
Consider this a strong recommendation–and I haven’t even finished it yet.
18 August 2012
John Cornwall at The Tablet has a piece up describing “trends” but also some personal experiences, first and second-hand, of the Sacrament of Penance. A few bits I had not considered before, including this co-incidence of sex abuse and the lowering of the age of First Eucharist, and therefore Penance:
Strong and widespread evidence has emerged of a link between early confession and clerical sexual abuse. The lowered age of confession from 13 to seven coincides, according to meta-analyses (see Marie Keenan’s Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church, Oxford University Press, 2011), with the age group of most affected victims. Pius X’s initiative resulted in the frequent exposure of Catholic children to priests untrained in child psychology and pedagogy, in circumstances of unsupervised intimacy. It is perhaps significant that the rise in sexual attacks, which started in the late 1950s through to the 1980s, coincides with not only the explosion of sexual permissiveness of that era, but the tendency for priests to hear confessions outside of the confessional box – in sacristies, parlours and priests’ quarters.
That “strong and widespread evidence,” I’d like to see something of that. I hope it’s something more than blaming the Beatles for Vatican II.
(You readers know I’m a skeptic on the so-called “rise” in attacks in the 50′s. We obviously have no statistics on dead victims and predators. The bell curve of the people we’ve talked to is always going to start somewhere, if we only ask those living as of a certain date. We can never know for sure if there was a slow rise in sexual predation through the first half of the 20th century. That might point to a causation, but it’s likely just one of many.)
I think we can settle that some approaches to rejuvenating the sacrament have failed.
Knocking form III out of the picture hasn’t “forced” people into form I. Form II seems a constant over the years. And for Catholic school students, it may be an interesting part of the problem. School kids can’t be coerced into form I, and the only opportunity many of them experience is form II in an elementary or high school format. Getting into the teen and young adult years, the retreat or pilgrimage experience seems dominant. We have at least a full generation of Catholics who are formed in Reconciliation as second graders, then experience the sacrament in group forms as they mature. But there is little to no follow-up formation in the examination of conscience.
Another interesting insight was that reference to “priests untrained in child psychology and pedagogy.” Six to ten years of hurry-up reconciliation conducted perhaps by amateurs. And even if those retreats and youth events are well-attended, that high is not likely to be found in a Saturday afternoon church where the pastor may have a homily, a wedding, and possibly other concerns.
The author is seeking input on a book. What would you tell him?
31 July 2012
I see RNS picking up and commenting on Fr Longenecker’s possession theme for the Aurora shootings, and I wanted to follow up a bit more on last week’s “Culpability” post. I repeat again: not having direct contact with the person involved, I have no rational claim to say the shooter was possessed, mentally ill, or just plain “fallen.”
What struck me was my lectio in Genesis 4 yesterday, especially this passage (4b-8) following the brothers’ offering the Lord their sacrifices:
(T)he Lord had regard for Abel and his offering,but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.
The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.
After praying I was struck with how this whole passage of lurking and murder was handled in contrast to the snake’s direct seduction of the woman in the Garden of Eden.
This is more in keeping with the ordinary experience of sin, even deeply grave acts. Something in us, something like our “countenance” falls, and sin lurks at the door. Is this “sin” something personified in a supernatural being? Or is it easier for us to avoid blame–part of our fallen human nature–and say the snake “made” me do it.
Maybe the door is an interior one within us. Maybe the battered soul is barricaded in an inner room, and the lurking is something from our own history, our own choices, our own self.
I do think the genius of the Catholic sacramental system provides us with the way out, the escape from sin. Like the nativity, and like the other sacraments, Jesus Christ becomes incarnate in our deepest experience of Reconciliation. It demands that we resist our natural urge to blockade, to defend, to excuse, and avoid. The way out is unlocking the door, admitting our own culpability, and throwing ourselves on the mercy of God.
The only clever maxim I have to go with this:
Easier said than done.
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26 July 2012
Culpability?
Posted by catholicsensibility under Commentary, spirituality, The BlogosphereLeave a Comment
People do incomprehensible, senseless, and evil things. Because we do not have windows over our hearts or in our heads, often times the unbelievable seems to pop up out of nowhere. Fr Dwight Longenecker, like many of us, can’t comprehend a person opening fire with a weapon in a crowded movie theatre. A human being who had Christian parents and who went to a high school with Christian teachers acts in a most diabolical … wait–maybe it’s the devil.
Being neither a practitioner of the demonic, nor an expert in exorcism, for all I know, Fr Longenecker could be right.
On the other hand, I’ve seen the ugly side of addiction close up in my family and in my ministry experiences. I have long-struggled with codependency and the associated compulsions which, in the light of day, make me shake my head and wonder why I behaved in a way I would not choose.
The recognition of my own culpability steers me away from blaming grandparents who were child abusers or alcoholics and who were unable to give my own parents sufficient tools to be good parents themselves. I don’t blame other people. Being a healthy adult in recovery, not to mention a Christian, I fess up to my own failures. I think about having sex with a woman who is not my wife? My fault, not Dad’s. I eat more than I should at the end of a long day? That’s on me, too, not Mom who encouraged me to clean my plate. I lash out in anger or sarcasm? It wasn’t any imp putting bad words and attitude into my mouth. It wasn’t my daughter on hormones. Mea definitely culpa.
I read a few commentators trying to penetrate the accused shooter from his mannerisms, the direction his eyes followed, and such. Someone I read thought he had pinpointed the mental illness from what he saw on CNN. Well, maybe it was mental illness. Or maybe it was an isolated human being who struggled with perspective and who made a conscious (if horrific) choice to do something evil. Why is it so easy for Christians to accept that some people are just bad (or worse, heretics) and so difficult to concede that some sinful choices are just that: choices?
Msgr William Lynn saw bad and sinful choices being made by a cardinal in Philadelphia. (Or so his defense team suggested). His brother priests molested and raped children. The same guys who sat with him in seminary, who shared drinks and good times with the rest of the clergy before the Chrism Mass, and who put a public face at Mass on an otherwise very private and sheltered life. A life that may, for some people, drain perspective and drain the ability to admit culpability.
There’s no big conclusion or wise maxim to come from this essay. The older I get the more I concede I just don’t know. But that doesn’t make me more willing to auto-accept some younger whippersnapper’s clever insight on these senseless things. I don’t have a better idea. But I’m dislinclined to blame anybody else for anything.