The Drop Box

Posted on March 8, 2015 by admin

Just saw a remarkable movie, “The Drop Box”, a documentary produced by Focus on the Family. It’s about a pastor in Seoul, South Korea who was increasingly distressed by the plight of the 200-plus infants left to die annually in his city. (In our enlightened nation, we have physicians to dispose of such children surgically before they leave the womb.)

Children born out of wedlock, as well as disabled children, are considered a disgrace by many South Koreans. It is all too common to leave them somewhere – e.g., a garbage bin – to die.  Even if left outside a church or home for someone to take in, the infant may die of cold before being found.

As it happened, Pastor Lee and his wife’s second child, a son, was born with severe neurological deficits and physical deformities, requiring him to remain hospitalized for 14 years before the Lees could take him home. The Lees practically resided in the hospital during these years. Desperate mothers and their relatives, doubtless impressed by the Lees’ devotion to their son’s care, began bringing them infants that they would have otherwise discarded. The Lees took them in. Infants were also left in baskets outside their church or home. The Lees adopting many of these, placed some for adoption elsewhere, and cared for the many who could not be placed. Without their planning it, their home became an orphanage.

Eventually, the Lees decided to install a “drop box” for unwanted infants in the outside wall of their home, since the babies being left at their doorstep were in danger of quickly dying of exposure. Since the drop box was installed, mothers can drop off an unwanted baby at any time, day or night, sounding a chime within the Lees’ home – often in the wee hours. Pastor Lee’s first move after retrieving the infant, always, is to hold it close to his heart and thank the Lord for saving its life.

The babies are often disabled and require immediate medical care. Many continue to require constant care for their medical disabilities. Pastor Lee is dangerously diabetic and in increasingly poor health: but nobody else has the stamina to stay awake with the children all night, as is frequently required. His wife and able-bodied children, as well as volunteers, help all that they can, but the care and placement of the 400 or so infants they have saved has been a monumental task.

The documentary does not pretty up the Lees’ ministry. The viewer winces as they irrigate their son’s tracheotomy and massage his deformed feet; at the photos of a baby dropped off with his umbilical cord still attached, the blood from childbirth still sticky on his body; at the children’s contorted limbs and twisted faces. Pastor Lee’s rush to the drop box at 2 or 3 am, his face filled with anxious concern; the first sight of the swaddled baby, often with a letter from the baby’s mother; the swirl of activity as the camera pans the barely-awake faces of family and volunteers as the baby’s health status is swiftly evaluated: one feels the tension, the exhaustion, the relentless wringing of the heart.

Then there are the shots of the nursery: so many babies and children; so many needing 1:1, sometimes continuous care. A few of the letters left with the rescued babies are read. They are heartbreaking: “Please forgive me. I can no longer take care of my child…” “I’ve named him ____; please let him keep that name in case I ever see him…””I’m sorry…””Please forgive me…””I left my baby with you, Pastor Lee. I heard of you, and I know you’ll take good care of her…”

But despite the suffering, exhaustion, and heartbreak we see, the overwhelming message is of joy and LOVE. The babies and children smile; they know they’re loved. They are bathed in hugs, kisses, playful pokes, touches. One adopted son lost about 4 of his 10 fingers because of health problems. He is a delightful, smiling, spunky 4th-grader, twice elected president of his class and a martial arts force to be reckoned with. “I want to carry on my father’s work”, he says. We watch as he talks to the Lees’ son-by-birth and strokes his twisted hand.

That son is bedridden and can neither speak nor feed, clothe, or bathe himself. He requires constant care. He has a tracheotomy that requires routine irrigation. “He is my teacher”, says Pastor Lee. “He teaches me that every life is more important than the whole world.” The doctors said that he could only blink his eyes: but he smiles, and it’s clear he knows what he’s smiling about.

Who but Jesus loves that much? Who but Jesus could bring about that joyful sacrifice? The director of “The Drop Box”, seeing that inexplicable love, became a Christian in the course of making the movie. As he saw how disability, deformity, and unwantedness proved no obstacles to the Lees’ God-driven love, he realized that he needed God just as desperately to save him – from his own interior, invisible, sin-twisted deformity. So does He yearn to save us all, scooping us out of whatever drop box we’ve crawled ourselves into, massaging and bathing our hearts, holding us close to His heart, and being the All that we need – if we’ll let Him.

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Keeping the Sabbath

Posted on February 21, 2015 by admin

Keeping the Sabbath day holy would seem basic to the Christian faith, since it’s the 4th Commandment.  Yet few Christians – even committed ones – agree in how to carry this out. What was God getting at when He delivered this commandment as one of the 10 Big Ones, regarded by Jews and Christians alike as basic to living a godly life? That issue has become a minor crusade of mine.

As Catholics, of course, an essential element of keeping the Sabbath is to attend Mass every Sunday (or the Mass of anticipation on Saturday evening). It is clear that the Eucharist (referred to as “the breaking of the bread”) was an essential part of the earliest Christian worship:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (Acts 2:42)

In another passage (Acts 20:7), we learn that the Eucharist was celebrated on Sunday (“the first day of the week”):

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread…

St. Justin Martyr, writing in 150 A.D., confirms that the Eucharist was celebrated weekly by all Christians, on the Christian Sabbath, Sunday (“the Lord’s day”). (Christians had shifted the Sabbath from Saturday, the traditional Jewish Sabbath, to Sunday, to honor the day of the Lord’s resurrection.)

Yet most Christians do not celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday, as essential to early Christian practice as this was. Denominations vary widely in how often the Eucharist (or communion, or the Lord’s Supper) is celebrated: from when the pastor feels so moved, to annually, to monthly, to every Sunday, to (with Catholic and Orthodox Christians) daily celebrations. Only Catholics and Orthodox Christians hold Sunday church attendance (which for them, always includes the Eucharist) to be obligatory. Other denominations see Sunday worship (with or without the Eucharist) as helpful and not to be taken lightly, but not obligatory. So Christians disagree, then, about what “keeping the Sabbath holy” means, on even this fundamental level.

Even among devout Catholics, how the Sabbath is kept varies widely, beyond attending Mass. However, Catholic teaching is clear on the subject. The Catechism teaches that Sunday is a “day of grace and rest”, and elaborates thus:

2184 Just as God “rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done,” human life has a rhythm of work and rest. The institution of the Lord’s Day helps everyone enjoy adequate rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives.

2185 On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body.123 Family needs or important social service can legitimately excuse from the obligation of Sunday rest. The faithful should see to it that legitimate excuses do not lead to habits prejudicial to religion, family life, and health.

The above stress on refraining from non-necessary work is not a Catholic invention. The Old Testament prophets repeatedly refer to violation of the Sabbath as a serious offense against God. Many of Jesus’ controversies with the Pharisees revolved around how to keep the Sabbath: Jesus clarified that works of mercy were not to be neglected, on the Sabbath or otherwise. And certain occupations – in the police or fire department, utilities, etc. – obviously can’t stop on Sunday. But as outlined above, Christians set apart Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, in a unique way. Ironically, although far less commonly than 50 years ago, there are still “blue laws” in regions of the United States, prohibiting retail outlets to be open on Sundays, or liquor to be sold – to honor the Sabbath!

Unfortunately, for the majority of Christians, including Catholics, Sunday has become “catch-up” day for those chores we weren’t able to get to during the rest of the week; e.g., mowing the lawn appears to be a favored Sunday task. A more recent culprit for disturbing the Sabbath rest is children’s sports practices and games. I believe that we have been evangelized by the surrounding culture, that equates worth with productivity. We have lost the rhythm of work and rest that God modeled for us at the very dawn of creation, and around which the life of devout Jews and early Christians revolved.

From the start of our marriage, Mary and I set up some guidelines to try and keep that God-given rhythm. We are “sold on the Sabbath”: keeping it has been a very fruitful part of our marriage and family life. Besides attending Mass, we spend Sunday as a family day: generally, no visitors or outside socializing, except for some special occasions. Beyond meal prep and cleanup, NO WORK is allowed. Keeping to “no work” was truly an act of faith during my doctoral program: I had thousands of pages of reading, dozens of papers, and the endless thesis and dissertation to work on. I at first thought that not studying or writing on Sunday would simply cram the rest of the week with work, resulting in more stress. Instead, Sunday became an island of peace, prayer, and leisure to look forward to. No matter how hard the rest of the week was, I knew I’d have a break.

Refraining from unnecessary work on the Sabbath isn’t a practice in Pharisaical legalism. It is an act of faith in the Lord: a tithing of our time. Tithing money is based on trust in God’s loving provision, the knowledge that God cannot be outdone in generosity. To tithe our earnings is to believe that God will provide all that we need, and often much of what we want, financially. Similarly, if we “tithe” our time by keeping the Sabbath, we are trusting that God will multiply our time in such a way that we have more leisure not only on Sunday, but during the rest of the week. With tithing of time, as with money, we recognize that every moment, like every penny, is a gift from God. He owns all of it, and it is right that we give Him the firstfruits of it. He has promised to take care of us in return.

Keeping the Sabbath also recognizes that what I do is not so essential that the world will drag to a halt if I “come aside and rest a while” (Mk 6:31). Endless busy-ness keeps us from “stopping and smelling the roses”, enjoying leisure and, as the Cathechism notes, taking time to connect with family and friends. If you do not already have this practice, I urge you and your family to start. We and those we know who have done so have never regretted it.

 

 

 

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Humble Trust

Posted on February 2, 2015 by admin

My parish’s Men’s Bible Study is going through Exodus, having completed Genesis last year. As in Genesis, the theme of humble trust repeatedly emerges. It’s a great antidote to prideful mistrust – the “If I were God…” syndrome, with symptoms like, “Lord, hasn’t it occurred to you that…?” With some people, the symptoms are subtle. Others (like moi) have a more severe case.

It doesn’t take too deep an acquaintance with the Bible, and with Church history, to discover that God uses the most unlikely nations, people, and circumstances to accomplish His purposes: Israel’s shockingly humble and transparent history of itself (the Old Testament) shows it to be a rebellious, stiff-necked lot; the Church, even in its Acts infancy, struggled with divisions, heresy, sexual misconduct, and caving to the surrounding culture. The Bible heroes – Abraham, Noah, and Moses; Samson, Gideon, and David; Peter, James, John, and Paul – all had their flaws, often serious ones.

And God moves so slowly! Abraham had Isaac decades after the latter was promised. Israel was enslaved by Egypt for hundreds of years before the call of Moses. Millennia passed before the Redeemer promised to Adam and Eve was born in Bethlehem. Jesus promised, “Behold! I come quickly!” – about 1900 years ago.

The rubber really hits the road in our own lives, however. Although many of us have parents, siblings, spouses, and children for whom we are only grateful, others have to wonder: “Lord, why these parents, siblings, children? Why this spouse?” Few would dispute that we live in troubled times, albeit with conveniences and luxuries our ancestors couldn’t have dreamed of. “Lord, why were my children born into this culture, increasingly at war with Christianity, proclaiming a ‘gospel’ of death? Couldn’t you have placed me and my family in a Little House on the Prairie, with Laura as our neighbor?” This with my little troubles: what kind of questions must the families of the ISIS victims be asking?

The challenge of humble trust isn’t only, or even mainly, about the big picture, however. Let’s say I want to make a difference in the world. I have a big or a little fire in my bones. I’m inspired by the saints; I see the Christians who’ve changed cities and civilizations: St. Francis of Assisi; Blessed Teresa of Calcutta; St. John Paul II; St. Augustine. Do I, really, with my little job, my little family, my little ministry, my small circle of friends and acquaintances, deeply affect anyone or anything in more than the slightest of ways?

If my spouse, children, friends, and co-workers are at all forthright, I’ll be aware of many ways I’ve messed up: opportunities missed and outright harms caused. If I add up the good and the bad, do I come out ahead? Is the world a better place for my being here? Has my life – so far – glorified God? And if so, how much? Even if I can see some good fruit, how scant it is compared to the grace God has poured out on me! St. Francis of Assisi told a brother that he considered himself the worst of sinners: “The worst of sinners would have responded more generously to God’s immense graces to me than I have.” And most would say St. Francis didn’t do so bad.

Humble trust. Lord, I trust that you know better than I. Lord, just who I am; with just my family; just my gifts and flaws; just the nation and culture and era I was born into; just my profession, my parish, my bishop, my pope, my Church with its checked history of glory and disappointment, harm and good; just my training and education; just what I’ve suffered and been blessed with; just my “successful” and failed relationships; just my response and lack of response to Your infinite mercies: You know what You’re about, and I thank You and I praise You for all.

Humble trust. Father, I have no idea whom I’m touching and whom I’m not, through my life and words and deeds. I can’t see with any clarity – though there are heart-stopping glimpses – how Your plan is being worked out in my life and in the world. But I know that it is. With Julian of Norwich, I know that “all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well.” It’s good that You’re God and I’m not. Everything has occurred to You. There are no holes or flaws in Your plan. You have done all things well. I trust You.

 

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Delight

Posted on January 11, 2015 by admin

In today’s gospel, on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, we hear the Father’s voice, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I delight.” And when we look at Jesus, of course, what’s not to delight in? He’s a chip off the old block in a way that no other son ever has been or ever will be. What could His Father say but, “That’s My boy”?

The deeper question is whether we can hear those words addressed to us as well, as adopted sons and daughters of the Father through our baptism. Does God, in fact, delight in me? Most of us, I believe, don’t really believe that He does. If He does, it’s because He really doesn’t know our deepest, darkest, secret selves. We may know this is irrational – God knows everything – but as used as we are to hiding from others, we may feel that we can do this from God. If He does not delight in us, it’s because He really does know our darkest selves, and is disappointed/disgusted/bored/resigned with us. Or perhaps we’re just not on His radar at all, to delight or disappoint Him. It’s a big world, with billions of people, so He must be frightfully busy…

In a funny and thought-provoking TED talk by Brene Brown on “The Power of Vulnerability”, she talked about her 10 years of research on the relationship among how connected people are, how they experience shame, and how vulnerability in relationships affects these variables.  (www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability).   

Dr. Brown found that the people who experienced the deepest connections with others were those who were most comfortable with being vulnerable: with being themselves, warts and all, with others. Such people are secure enough in their worth that the value of connection outweighs the fear, “If this person sees me as I am, he/she will reject me.” As I watched the video, I thought (good as the talk was), “Oh, my gosh – if only she brought God into this topic.” The Father’s delight in us – constant, infinite, “unwithdrawable” – is the perfect fulfillment of our desire for connection, and the perfect antidote to the fear, “If I am fully known, I can’t be loved.”

Certainly, humans can know us and love us, but none can perfectly. None but God know every movement of our hearts, every thought, every temptation. None but God have our entire personal history present to his/her gaze at every moment. None but God love with an unwavering, all-encompassing love. As we receive and become ever more secure in His knowledge of and love for us, we are freed to love others from a deeply secure base, and to be ourselves with others. We are freed to risk, even to do extraordinary things, because we know we are loved through failures as well as successes. We know peace, because we’re not chasing approval or trying to save ourselves: we realize that God is “chasing” us; God saves us; that His delight in us has no contingencies. “Nothing we can do will make Him love me any more, or any less.”

It is amazing how hard it is for us to believe and live in this truth. It must be rehearsed over and over again. A touching story about a long-time evangelist illustrates how bedrock this truth is for living the Christian life. Asked about, of all the things he’d learned in his decades of ministry and evangelization, what was the most important truth, he paused, then sang,

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong/We are weak but He is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!

The Bible tells me so.

It’s so simple. And so it is for the Father. Let us know that we know that we know that we are His beloved sons and daughters. You delight in me, Father; I receive it.

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Christmas Lights

Posted on December 24, 2014 by admin

On this holy eve, I wanted to offer a few reflections on how the feast of Christmas lights the world and our hearts. Christmas lights the world by warming,  by dazzling, and by conquering the darkness.

Christmas warms us. A coldness creeps over the world these days, and it is more than wintry weather. Jesus prophesied that in the end times, “Because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold (Mt 24:12).” Certainly in a general way (we are in the first post-Christian era of the world) and perhaps in a specific way (only God knows), we are in the end times. Nations that have never known the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ’s birth need to be warmed by Christmas; nations that have been evangelized and have lately rejected the Truth that came to birth on Christmas need to discover its warmth anew. Christ came to set fire on the Earth; the lights of Christmas celebrate the first kindling of that fire: the light of the stable, the warmth of oxen’s breath and hay and steaming sheeps and swaddling clothes and a mother’s lap. Carl Sandburg wrote that each baby is God’s vote that the world should go on. In a vetoing and despairing world that slaughters its infants, Jesus is the Babe who shines a fire of hope that cannot and will not die.

Christmas dazzles us. Lights can blind or brilliantly illuminate. One Christmas in the seminary, the dorm Christmas tree was ablaze with so many white lights that it was literally tough to look at. Secular society does a thorough job of yanking our eyes away from the glory of Christmas, through the glitter of money, gifts, busyness; relentless ads, holiday Muzak, free shipping, Black Friday; endless activities. My wife recently saw the Rockettes’ “holiday” program on TV: it managed to avoid any mention of Christ’s birth until the last 10 minutes, then strangely and abruptly shifted gears into a re-telling of the Christmas story followed by carols. There is a wearisomeness and sterility to the elaborate ploys by which secular culture stages a Christmasless Christmas: is anyone actually that much into candy canes, Santa, snowflakes, elves, and red-and-green? Is anyone truly fooled into “paying no attention to the man behind the curtain?”

Yet Christmas dazzles also, by illuminating and overwhelming hearts that are open. Liturgically, the greatest glory and pomp “should” be reserved for Easter. But we can’t help but pull out all of the stops for Christmas. GLORY is the sounding note. There’s glorious verse set to glorious music, such as:

Mild He lays His glory by! Born that man no more may die! Born to raise the sons of Earth! Born to give them second birth! Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King!”

Lights blaze; pipe organs roar; tables creak under the weight of feasts; crèches, candles, holly, ivy, trumpets, flutes, art and costumes and song and dance from every tribe and nation crowd us. Kings spring to their feet at the “Hallelujah” chorus; shepherds, magi, and pilgrims fall to their knees. “Too much is not enough” when it comes to celebrate the Word made flesh, the marriage of God and man.

Through all of the glory, the light also breaks through the illusions to show the things that really matter. Christ in a stable, poor and completely vulnerable, outshines the wealthy and powerful. Mary the Ark of the Covenant, holding in her womb, in her arms, and at her breast the Lord of All, reveals how one humble “Yes” shatters the endless “No” of the powers of darkness. God’s generosity in giving all that He has – that is, Himself – calls forth a similar generosity in ourselves.

Finally, Christmas overcomes the darkness. This Advent, I used for reflection a dense but moving book by Fr. Alfred Delp, S.J., Advent of the Heart: Season Sermons and Prison Writings. Like his compatriot, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr. Delp was imprisoned and ultimately hanged by the Nazis for his resistance to their regime. Some of his reflections on hope, waiting, and confidence that the Light of Christ will overcome the darkness were written while he was handcuffed in prison, on scraps of paper smuggled out by friends, so they carry particular force. Could he have had any idea that his words from prison would still be inspiring people today?

Delp emphasizes Advent as a time of hope, a virtue particularly relevant for those resisting the Nazi regime, but also for so many in today’s world of atheistic or Islamic totalitarian regimes. He confronts the shrug-of-the-shoulder, hands-thrown-up, “what can I do?” attitude that so silenced the voices and shackled the hands of his fellow Germans and continues to shackle so many of us today. It was Delp’s deep faith in the power of the Word made flesh that fueled his faith in the power of the words and deeds of Christians when done in faith and in justice. God became flesh in Jesus, and He continues to become flesh in us, the Body of Christ. “The Father spoke one Word, and in that one Word, He said everything” – and changed everything. He spoke Light into darkness, and He continues to do so through the children of the Light. This Christmas, we can continue to be lights as Fr. Delp was – Christmas lights, that warm, dazzle, and overcome the darkness.

 

 

 

 

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Consecration to Mary

Posted on December 9, 2014 by admin

A crucial development in my life in the Lord occurred some 17 years after I first began to walk with Him, with my consecration to Mary, the Mother of God. She led me to a whole new level of loving Jesus; and she entered into my maternal need and filled it.

As I noted in my post, Mom, my mother was a remarkable woman. But she herself admitted that – sacrificial, hard-working, engaging, and gifted as she was – she was not particularly warm or nurturing during her time raising us. There was also a perfectionism, directed at herself as much as us, that we learned to chuckle at – eventually. For example, her very Irish-motherly response to my getting a doctorate was, “Well, you know, Sean, you’re not the first Ph.D. in the family!” When I’d told her the theme of my master’s thesis, on which I’d labored many hundreds of hours, her tactful response had been, “Isn’t that kind of obvious?” You get the picture. She was a very hard act to follow and not easy to please, although she mellowed considerably in her later years.

Perhaps due in part to my mother’s not-terribly-motherly style, I found that Marian hymns always got to me, even as a child. I’d get teared up at the “fairest child of fairest mother” line of “Sing of Mary”; as an adult, I found Mary’s gentleness and humility (“I am the handmaid of the Lord”; “Do whatever He tells you”) moving and arresting. During one retreat I attended shortly after college, I went to a very difficult Confession to a wonderfully Marian priest. His compassion was profound. As we sat in a bit of silence, he, for no apparent reason, observed, “You’re Mary’s child, aren’t you?”, and I started to cry. I said, “Yes, I am! I don’t get it; I don’t know why she gets to me so; but I am.” It touched a deep place in my heart; a healing occurred then.

Despite this, it was not until years later that I came into a relationship with the Blessed Mother. Just as I’d been unaware that I could have a relationship with Jesus until I was a senior in high school, I was unaware I could enter a relationship with the Blessed Mother until I was in my thirties. A friend invited me to a men’s prayer group led by two priests with a strong devotion to Mary. I became aware that, while loving Mary, I also held her in some suspicion: amid many positive experiences with Protestant brethren, I had been negatively influenced by their strong reservations about the Blessed Mother. The priests kept talking about “consecrating yourself to Mary”, and I didn’t at first know what that meant. I did know it had something to do with surrender, with placing myself in her hands. But wouldn’t that pull me out of Jesus’ hands?

On one level, I knew that the devotion of so many saints to Mary, and the constant teaching of the Church on the benefits of such devotion, argued strongly for the legitimacy of consecration to the Blessed Mother. But I couldn’t shake the fear that she would somehow come between me and Jesus, despite reassurances. “Mary loves Jesus more than any other human being has; how could she lead anyone away from Him?” This made sense to me; yet the reluctance remained.

One of the men in the group embodied a gentle, peaceful, powerful masculinity that greatly impressed me. I essentially asked him, “What’s your secret?” He attributed that gentleness and peace amidst an uncompromised masculinity to his relationship with Mary. This was the first time I realized that relationship with Mary was possible, just as relationship with Jesus was; and that this relationship was the purpose, the result of, consecration.

One of the priests leading the group made the purpose of  consecration clearer. He said that all of those who have gone to Heaven (the saints, canonized or not) experience complete union with the Trinity. Relationship with any of the saints is possible, just as relationship with any brother or sister in the Lord on Earth is. The saints are the “cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1) cheering us on as we run the Christian race. Because of their union with God, the saints share His knowledge of us and love us with His love.

The priest continued: We know that fellowship with devout Christians on Earth naturally leads us to closer fellowship with Jesus. The saints, by definition, have complete fellowship with Jesus, according to their capacity. The Blessed Mother has a preeminent capacity for union with Jesus: of all the saints, she loves Him most. So she, most effectively, “waves us on” to Jesus. This is consecration to her is especially encouraged. Moreover, as Mary is truly the mother of Jesus, she is truly the mother of His mystical Body, the Church, and truly mother of each individual Christian. In her womb, she formed Jesus into Jesus; in the Church, His Body, she forms us into Jesus, through her intimate union with the Holy Spirit.

My doubts were alleviated. There was a prayer, “My Queen, My Mother”, that the men’s group would recite whenever they met. I had never recited it with them, not wanting to recite a prayer I didn’t fully believe. I was ready now to do so. I in fact did do so at home, not wanting to wait until the next meeting.

Something happened. The relationship began. I came to know Mary as a real person, a real mother, just as I’d come to know Jesus as my Lord and my Savior almost two decades before. Finally, I understood. Far from coming between me and Jesus, Mary became like the ruby in the laser, that takes an ordinary beam of light and makes it immeasurably more powerful. I had honestly believed I couldn’t possibly love Jesus any more strongly, but Mary took that love multiplied it a thousand times. She gave me HER love for Jesus. It was breathtaking.

More: with our earthly mothers, we get glimpses – some quite powerful, but mediated through their human limitedness – of God’s infinite maternal capacity. (All good things, including maternity, ultimately come from God.) With Mary, I experience, mediated through her sanctified humanity, God’s maternal qualities in their completeness: through Mary’s total nurturing, acceptance, availability, gentleness, other-directedness, and peacefulness. Now I have a perfect Mother, as well as a perfect Father. Praise be to God.

 

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The “Mother Wound”

Posted on December 6, 2014 by admin

The concept of the “father wound” is a familiar one in popular psychology; that of the “mother wound” is less so. In our frantic, exhausted society, the ability of women to mother their children is strained by careers, soccer, and the paradoxical social isolation that social media engender (Why talk when you can text? Why interact with Mom when you can tweet and IM?). I realize that financial realities sometimes require that toddlers be in daycare and older kids be in after-school care. But for children to spend most of their time being cared for by strangers has to be generating mother-wounds whose extent won’t be fully understood for years to come. What a recipe for poor attachment!

In such an environment, the need for the perfect motherhood that Mary, the Blesseed Mother, offers becomes even more crucial. But she is a remedy and blessing that we always need. Through no fault of their own – only that of our first parents, Adam and Eve – none of our earthly mothers are perfect. One may be too distant; another too protective; another is anxious, or depressed, or angry, or overwhelmed; dominating or passive; overindulgent or neglectful.

The perfect motherhood of Mary and the perfect fatherhood of God are of wholly different orders, yet each are uniquely tailored to our deepest human needs. On the one hand, God is absolutely self-sufficient. He has no need of anything; no aspect of Him is given to Him by someone else – including His “status” as the Father. Conversely, all that Mary has and is, is a complete gift from God. She praises Him for this very reason (Luke 1:46-49):

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,  for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”

She is the lowly servant whom God has raised up; she will henceforth be called blessed because God has done great things for her. Similarly, her perfect motherhood is bestowed, not merited: it is sheer gift to her, and through her, to all who call upon her as mother. (Not surprisingly, the human rhythm of masculine and feminine echoes this pattern: man gives, initiates; woman receives and nurtures.)

I repeatedly have found that Mary uniquely fills any maternal deficits, for those who are willing to connect with her. A woman I worked with during my doctoral training, for example, had a severe maternal deficit. Her mother had been diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder, which indicates a virtual inability to attach to other human beings and a strong dislike of human closeness. On one occasion, when the client was a preschooler, a pot of boiling water spilled on and badly scalded her; her mother’s response to the client’s screams of pain was, “You got water all over the floor!” “Neglect” hardly captured the client’s childhood experience, and there was no father around to mitigate the deprivation.

As it happened, the woman had been raised Protestant but had a long-time interest in and admiration of Catholicism, due to some positive experiences with Catholic friends. I suggested that she ask Mary to be her Mother. The client had initially begun seeing me for panic attacks, the accumulation of years of undealt with emotional pain. When she began praying the Rosary, the panic attacks stopped.

In another example, a Catholic acquaintance of my wife’s had fallen away from the Church after falling into a very worldly lifestyle. She developed chronic fatigue syndrome, to the point that she could barely move from her couch. Her life closed in to the four walls of her house. At some point, she felt inspired to pray the Rosary and ask the Blessed Mother’s help; and day by day, her energy returned more strongly. When we met her, she was a complete dynamo and absolutely on fire for the Lord and for the Church: we would never have believed the inertia from which Mary delivered her.

In my next post, I’ll talk about how Mary became my mother as well.

 

 

 

 

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The Problem with Porn

Posted on November 11, 2014 by admin

I once had a conversation with a recently converted Christian about the problem with porn. He was actually growing in the Lord and was a fine person. Yet he not only looked at porn regularly, but forwarded porn to friends of his. He was aware that the frequency of his porn use might be getting out of control. But it wasn’t clear to him that porn in itself was problematic, as a human being and particularly as a Christian.

As in so many areas, society’s view of porn is extremely muddled. Certain types of porn, most would agree, are wrong, such as child porn. The reasoning is that children can’t give full consent, so any use of them for pornography is exploitative. Most people would also agree that pornography in which the subject is being forced to do sexual acts or assume sexual poses is also wrong: the problem, again, is that the person is not consenting. Finally, most would agree that incest-based pornography is also problematic: but porn and erotic literature are available (I was recently disturbed to learn) in which the subject is sexual acts between parents and their children. Although the sons or daughters in such depictions are purportedly neither minors, nor actual relatives of those they are having sex with, the portrayal is purposely ambiguous enough to leave the viewer wondering.

One would suppose that few committed Christians, and only a minority of non-Christians, would see the above types of pornography as okay. But the problem with obtaining sexual gratification from anyone we’re not married to is not nearly as clear to many. For example, some Christians believe that viewing pornography with their spouses as a kind of foreplay is acceptable. But, for men especially, who get sexual gratification from viewing images, this is simply a kind of adultery: it is inviting strangers into the marital bed. Other Christians frequently see movies (there’s no lack of such movies!) depicting sexual scenes between people who are not married; or movies in which the characters are very immodestly dressed. It doesn’t have to be full frontal nudity or outright porn: anything that gets me lusting after someone I’m not married to is a problem from the get-go.

In his excellent book, Every Man’s Battle, Fred Yoeker writes about his growing realization of the Christian call to sexual purity: rigorous, yet freeing. Before his realization, he never looked at porn – but saw no problem with browsing the women’s lingerie ads or watching movies – “R”, not X-rated – with content he found arousing. But he learned, eventually, to “bounce” his eyes to avoid occasions of sin for him, such as provocative billboards, female joggers, and quick glances below the neckline of female acquaintances. Up to reading his book, I’d felt pretty secure in my practice of sexual purity: his insights helped me realize that my standards had been a bit worldlier than I’d thought, and that Yoeker’s were far more biblically accurate – and attainable! A sort of humorous sidenote: as husbands resolve to honor their marriage by keeping their sexual interest for their wives alone, their appreciation of – and yes, attraction for – their wives increases. Yoeker noted that his own wife was not precisely alarmed, but surprised at the intensity of his desire for her, once she became its sole focus.

The destruction that porn has wreaked on countless marriages and families is extremely well-documented. Porn addiction is a “pandemic”, to quote one expert, taking a toll in every country with easy web access A host of books (e.g., Out of the Shadows, by Patrick Carnes) highlight the suffering porn addicts and their families undergo. Yet in its excruciating political correctness, and despite overwhelming evidence, the DSM-V (the “bible” of mental disorders for mental health professionals) still refuses to consider sex addiction or porn addictions as mental disorders. Makes the blood boil.

The damage to the soul that porn causes is harder to quantify. As I explained to my acquaintance, the heart of the problem with porn is that it dehumanizes those we lust after: we take the unique “I” that each human being is, and reduce him or her to an “it”. We forget that this woman or man is somebody’s daughter, son, sister, brother, or perhaps mother or father. We forget that our use of these people may be taking advantage of whatever so disordered their sexuality that they are willing to sexualize themselves publicly for strangers’ “enjoyment”. Were they abused? Numbed? What happened that they would so lose their human dignity or sense of themselves? By reducing the person to an “it” to arouse myself, I repeat that victimization.

This is evil, because it precisely reverses how God relates to us. To Him, we are always “subjects” – that is, acting, feeling, willing selves, with hopes, fears, gifts, and faults of our own; never simply “objects”. We are never “means” for Him: only “ends”. Every human being is created to be loved: not to be a rag with which I mop up my sexual desire. The face-to-faceness of deepest marital intimacy is no accident. When spouses make love, each gazes in the other’s eyes. Each sees the other, in gratitude, delight, and love. This is how God made us to be with each other; it is a marvelous preparation for when we see Him face to face.

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Zeal for Souls

Posted on October 31, 2014 by admin

“Zeal for souls” is a phrase seldom heard in homilies, on retreats, or in conversations even among devout Christians. This is striking, since zeal for souls has been the force powering the lives of every canonized saint and every significant renewal movement in the Church. One thinks of St. Therese of Lisieux’s vision (in her early teens!) of blood dripping from the corpus of the crucifix as she prayed: she wanted to catch the Blood of Christ, as so many souls had need of it and it tore her to see it wasted. Or of St. Francis Xavier’s holy frustration over the lack of Christians willing to go on mission to the Far East: he saw that the harvest was vast, ripe for conversion, but the laborers were so pitifully few. St. John Bosco’s vivid and often frightening dreams accurately revealed to him those of his young charges who would die soon, along with those who were in danger of damnation – and he responded with zeal to save those souls.

Zeal for souls is fueled by the acute awareness that, as C.S. Lewis memorably put it, every human being I encounter will one day either be transformed into a being glorious enough for me to be tempted to worship, or hideous enough to make me recoil in horror. As Psalm 1 says, there are only two paths, righteousness and wickedness; and as the New Testament clarifies, those paths end in Heaven or in Hell. One corollary of this truth is that the only relationships that will last forever are those that endure into Heaven (nothing worthy of the name relationship persists in Hell). What better way to love someone than to do all in my power to ensure that he or she ends up in Heaven; that is, is saved from Hell? How can I say I truly love without passionately desiring the beloved’s salvation?

After “zeal for souls” was on my heart earlier this week, I began reading Ralph Martin’s The Urgency of the New Evangelization. Martin points out that the new evangelization is often spoken of in terms like, “Relationship with Jesus Christ will enrich your life, give it meaning, make you the best person you can be, make your life fruitful”, etc. Certainly, Jesus Christ alluded to such reasons for believing in the Gospel: but His most frequent reason to believe in and surrender to Him as Lord was to be saved from the fires of Hell and gain entrance into Heaven. The same Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus teaches us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek also contains six or seven references to Hell.

Jesus’ most fiery sermons by far were directed at the Pharisees, who were certain of their salvation but whom Jesus declared were hell-bound. Jesus is clear: “The road to life is narrow, and few attain it…the road to death is wide, and many attain it”. But current preaching and catechesis in the Catholic Church give a kind of sleepy assurance that only strenuous effort and focus will land us in Hell (and even then, would God be so unmerciful?); whereas if we coast along, perhaps avoiding murder, rape, plunder, and pillage, we’re assured a place in Heaven. It’s not that this is preached or taught, in so many words: but it is surely the atmosphere and underlying premise. And such a premise robs the gospel of its urgency. The stakes are extreme and eternal; we need to live in that reality.

Do I love my family? My friends? Do I care about the people I work with, see at church, socialize with? Suppose a word or action on my part helped them to accept Jesus as Lord, thereby rescuing them from Hell and opening to them Heaven? Suppose my failure to speak or act – or my speaking or acting in a way the scandalized or at best obscured the beauty of Jesus shining through my life – turned them away from salvation? I’m not talking “eternal security”/once saved, always saved. But I’m talking about letting others know the joy of Jesus and the salvation that He offers (to be walked out in one’s life henceforth, helped by His grace); and letting them know that ultimately, refusing that joy and salvation means choosing misery and damnation.

St. Teresa of Avila wrote that she would be willing to die a thousand deaths if that would help “one more soul praise God just a little more”. St. Paul wrote to the Romans that he would willingly be separated from Christ if thereby his beloved fellow Jews might be joined to Christ. Lord Jesus, You Yourself wept with longing:

 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Mt 23:37)

Lord, give us that kind of zeal for souls. Give us Your zeal for souls. Let Your thirst for souls, that all men be saved and have knowledge of the truth, rage in us. Let our every thought, word, and deed burn with that zeal. “I have come to cast fire on the Earth: how I wish that it were already enkindled!”(Luke 12:49) Give us no rest until we claim the whole world for You!

 

 

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Anxiety and Trust, Part II

Posted on October 23, 2014 by admin

As noted in my last post, as we look out at world news, including our own backyard, there is much that provokes anxiety and hampers trust. Now, I’ve often noted: “If I thought that there was no God – no plan for my life or for my loved ones; no guarantee that however awful the circumstances, Someone was there to bring good out of it; life is just ‘one damn thing after another’ without rhyme or reason  – I’d be anxious, too!” Yet the anxiety that plagues us far more widely and deeply than Ebola ever could infects us as believers as well.

Part of this stems from our passion for data: bits and bytes of random info; endless “breaking news”, distressing headlines, whirlwinds of political commentary. As Stanley Hauerwas notes in his excellent book Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, the evening news feeds us an endless stream of random, overwhelmingly negative situations. Disaster and misfortune are woven into a chaotic universe: no one is safe, and any one of us could be hit at any time. The media pound us with the unfairness and meaninglessness of suffering, gleaned from sources all over the world. There’s almost a gloating over how innocent, hard-working, deserving people get run over by freak accidents. The subtext, of course, is Godlessness – we’re all just part of the Darwinian struggle, fighting hopelessly against “Nature, red in tooth and claw” and “the evil that men do.”

Hauerwas goes on, however, to note that the media’s story is the antithesis of the Christian account of reality. We are, in fact, part of a Story that God is telling. He knows its beginning, middle, and end. The Story is fraught with meaning; we are essential characters in it with a profoundly meaningful part to play; and if I cooperate with the grace God gives, my story will be caught up in the Story of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension to glory. C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” ends with a glorious reflection on how our lives are the barest first page to THE Story – our life with God in Heaven – that never ends and in which each page is better than the one before. Every human heart hungers for such meaning, such confidence, such hope: this is how God has built us.

Because we have such hope (“and hope does not disappoint” as St. Paul tells us in Romans 8), we can boundlessly trust God. A marvelous way to put trust into practice is not simply to endure my circumstances, but to praise and thank God for them, however difficult. I cannot overstate how fruitful and liberating such a stance is. I’ve had many opportunities to put this into practice.

About 18 years ago, my wife Mary was taking care of her mother (“Grandma D.” for Doman), who was dying of Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS). We moved in with my mother-in-law (a wonderful, saintly, impressive woman) while I was in the 2nd year of my doctoral program, and our son Michael was 3. Mary’s Aunt Alma stayed with us, too, for many months, and she was an immense help, making wonderful meals and keeping Grandma D. company.

As it happened, Aunt Alma had a family emergency back in Texas for which she had to return there. At the same time, Grandma D. had just lost the ability to feed herself. Michael, of course, required a lot of care and attention, too.My studies required that I be away most of each day. We were panicking: what were we to do? Mary couldn’t possibly bear all of the burden, and no other help was available!

Mary and I went up to the master bedroom (Grandma D. had been moved downstairs as she became unable to walk, much less do stairs) and prayed in some anguish. At some point I realized we needed to praise and thank God for precisely our circumstances, and we began to do so, Mary kneeling, I prostrate by the bed. “Lord, we give You honor and glory and praise for every aspect of our situation: Grandma D’s turn for the worse; Aunt Alma’s going back to Texas; the seeming impossibility of our situation. You know what You’re about. You foresaw this from all eternity. We trust you, Lord. We trust you.” We continued to pray in this way

Nothing changed immediately, but we felt relieved of a burden. We felt peace. It was somehow going to be all right. And it was: Mary’s sister Katie came to visit the next week, so that Grandma D’s prayer that she might see her new grandchild before she died was answered. She wanted to see her sons before she died; this prayer, too, was answered: John and Chris came to visit, leaving – as it happened – the day before Grandma D. died in her sleep, a week after our praise session.

Trust Him. His plans are perfect. He knows your situation. Resist (as I sometimes have to) the urge to say, “Lord, hasn’t it occurred to You that…..?” – it HAS occurred to Him. His plans are perfect; they ALWAYS work out. Say “yes”. “Cast your cares upon Him, because He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)” “Have no anxiety at all, but by prayer and petition, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philip 4:6-7)” Trust Him.

 

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