My Blog

(My apologies – if the infrequency of my posts hasn’t driven all readers away! – for not posting so long. I’m resolving to post every Friday henceforth: it gives me a structure, and it gives anyone following my blog to check in regularly.)

I was thinking today about friendship, and what a precious gift it is. In the best friendships – which are rare indeed, but all the more precious for being so rare – the friends form a mutual admiration society. Each feels about the other: “How graced I am to have you in my life! What (good thing) did I do to deserve someone like you as a friend?” In those friendships, that God is deeply involved is obvious: how you met (or reconnected, if you lost touch); how you made it through difficult periods in the friendships; how the other was there for you at a crucial time; how s/he brings out the best in you, and you in him/her; how (most deeply, in the particular friendship that marriage entails, but to a great degree, in any deep friendship) God truly made you for each other.

A little poem runs,

What made us friends in the long ago
When we first met?
Well, I think I know.
The best in you and the best in me
Hailed each other because we could see
That always and ever
Since time began,
Our being friends was part of God’s plan.

~ George Webster Douglas ~

And Sirach 6:14-17 speaks of the rarity and grace of a faithful friend (after outlining what a faithful friend does not look like, in 6:8-13).

¹⁴ A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter:
    he that has found one has found a treasure.
¹⁵ There is nothing so precious as a faithful friend,
    and no scales can measure his excellence.
¹⁶ A faithful friend is an elixir of life;
    and those who fear the Lord will find him.
¹⁷ Whoever fears the Lord directs his friendship aright,
    for as he is, so is his neighbor also.

In my work as a psychologist, I’ve been saddened to find it not unusual – especially among men – for people to have no close friends outside of their spouses or families. For many men, our last experience of a really close male friend was in high school or college, although we may have many acquaintances. It rubs me the wrong way, a bit, when a man tells me, “My wife is my best friend.” Mind you, I love my wife to pieces, but I associate “best friend” with peers of the same sex – David and Jonathan, Jesus and John, Paul and Barnabas, Naomi and Ruth, Mary and Elizabeth. (I realize as I write that the Bible doesn’t mention non-related female best friends; doubtless because, due to its cultural context, not many women are prominent, well-fleshed-out figures in the biblical narrative.) I don’t think close friendships are an “extra” in the Christian life: if Jesus needed them, as He did in His humanity, so do we.

So a good friendship, including that particular friendship, marriage, is a real treasure. But just as even the best marriage points beyond itself to the fullness of intimacy we will experience in the wedding feast of the Lamb (i.e., Heaven) no friendship or combo of friendships, however deep, comes close to meeting the needs of the human heart. It points beyond itself to friendship with Jesus.

Existentialist psychology, as typified in the writings of Irvin D. Yalom, an atheist, notes the four “givens” of human existence: that death is unavoidable; that we have the burden of freedom, that we are essentially isolated, and that existence is meaningless. That is, no matter how we live, we all die the same way; we can run but not hide from the responsibility of deciding what to make of our lives; because no one else can know what our lives are like from the inside, or possibly be emotionally or physically present to us at all times, we are essentially alone; and – given that even the most enjoyable, dedicated, relationally full life ends in the annihilation of consciousness and relationships – our lives are meaningless.

While disagreeing wholeheartedly with its atheism, I admire existentialist psychology for at least facing head-on the implications of an atheistic worldview. Most secular psychology sidesteps the problems, offering a gospel of self-fulfillment while ignoring the basic futility of a “fulfilling” life that nevertheless ends in annihilation. Existentialist psychology, in its atheism, admits that the human heart, faced with a Godless existence, finds itself entirely dissatisfied and frustrated. Yalom asks all the right questions, than (stoically? resignedly?) throws up his hands and says, “There are no answers.” Given his insights, I do find it mystifying that he doesn’t ask, “Why would humans, of all creatures, 1) be designed for (evolve to – pick your phrase) a meaningless, inherently dissatisfying existence; and 2) be designed (evolve) to be AWARE of this futility?”

Back to us as Christians: while friendships are wonderful and good, the “not-enoughness” of even our best relationships touches on each of the issues that existentialist psychology raises. BUT, thanks be to God on every possible level, Jesus truly is the Answer. Yes, our deepest needs are vast. We need to be known completely, loved completely, and give ourselves completely to Someone Else. We need Someone who’s available 24/7; Who knows exactly what we’re going through because He’s gone through it Himself, in His Passion, and lives within us as baptized Christians; Who never tires of listening to us or being with us; Who finds our tiniest concerns worthy of attention; Whose friendship with us will never end. And we have such a Someone.

The closer we grow to Him, the more He clears out of us what is not Him. As we realize the Everything that He has for us, our realization that nothing else satisfies grows correspondingly. “For who have I in heaven but you? And when I am with you, the Earth delights me not,” says the psalmist. “As the deer longs for running streams, so my heart longs for you, my God.” As He enlarges our hearts, our awareness and emptiness apart from Him grows. We don’t love our friends, spouses, and families less: quite the reverse. But we know where and in Whom our treasure lies. No person this side of Heaven is ultimate, nor are we ultimate for any other person. It’s actually a relief – very freeing: I don’t have to demand that you (spouse, friend, child, parent, sibling) be God for me; I cannot be God for you either. But we can love and long for Him together. And with Him, in Heaven, we will also experience a friendship with one another – boundless, eternal – beyond our wildest hopes. Nothing, NOTHING is lost. Praise be to God!

My wife and I frequently talk about a shared sense of urgency: a sense of something more that we’re waiting for, of being on the brink – not just as a couple or a family, or even as a parish or a city, but in national and global terms – of…what? This sense has been growing in me for several decades now: the need to get ready, to be deeply rooted in the Lord, to be firmly anchored in the Reality that He is. The elements of the rootedness include a deep commitment to frequent and intense prayer; an openness to and hunger for intense Christian community; frequent Eucharist and Confession; seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit moment by moment; sharing Christ at any opportunity that presents itself, without forcing it; and in the last decade or so, seeking out the maternal care and intercession of the Blessed Mother through consecrating our lives to her.

The urgency carries with it both weariness and energy: an excitement regarding being born “for such a time as this”, but also a “How long, O Lord?” kind of desperate longing. When my sense of urgency began some 30 years ago, the burden was heavier because I encountered so few people who shared it, and my passion about it probably came off as, at best, unusual if not (to use the technical term) totally unhinged. Progressively, I’ve encountered more and more people who share the sense of urgency, the need for intense preparation preceding a time of severe testing. At present, it seems that more committed Christians than ever see the handwriting on the wall: the clouds are gathering, the oncoming storm will be intense, and we’d best be ready for it. To use another nature image: the tsunami is going to hit, and the time for playing around in the sand and shallows is gone. We need to dive into the deep water of commitment to the Lord, or we will perish.

The clouds that have been gathering for the last couple of decades are remarkable in their vast influence and in the quickness with which they’ve developed. For example, in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union and the decline of communism everywhere but in China, who would have foreseen the rise of Islamic extremism, and how it has radically changed the globe? Who would have believed that increasingly in the West, even to speak against homosexual behavior would be punishable as a hate crime, and that opposition to gay “marriage” would be seen as bigoted and unreasonable? Or that the media and government’s spin on abortion would have morphed from making it “safe, legal, and rare” to enthroning it as the most basic of “rights”, trumping freedom of conscience and religion?

The clouds are darker still in terms of the global and national plight of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. Hostility towards Christianity is rising on all fronts: from intense persecution of Christians in all Muslim-dominated areas of the world; to government support of explicitly anti-Christian agendas; to anti-Christian propaganda pouring out of Hollywood and the mainstream media; to gay activism’s intense attacks on orthodox Christian belief and practice in the areas of sexual identity, gender, and marriage; to the Western public education system’s steady eradication of any sense of moral absolutes in favor of the “dictatorship of relativism”; to the increasing global political and economic influence of the atheistic, totalitarian regime of China.

The upshot: the world has become steadily more hostile to orthodox Christianity and more tolerant towards, if not active in, Christian persecution. If this trend continues – and it’s hard to see what would stop it – every part of the world will end up in explicit or covert totalitarianism.  In that case, as Catholic writer and artist Michael D. O’Brien has observed, how could one escape such a worldwide totalitarianism? Where would one run when there’s nowhere to hide?

Besides the stormclouds gathering against Christianity, the cloud of an increasingly polarized U.S. looms. There is an ample amount of hatred and anger going around, in the areas of race, political affiliation, gender, sexual orientation, and class. Our current president has – perhaps partly to distract his constituency from his glaringly inept leadership, but more to foster his own socialist class-warfare agenda – stoked this fire with frightening success. There are significant rumblings of worldwide economic collapse. If the U.S. economy collapses as well, violence and revolution are all too likely to erupt from this simmering rage. With the profoundest respect for our Jewish brethren, are we watching an eerie replay of Hitler’s rise to power: economic collapse, a scapegoat (the Jews then, Christians now) to unite against, and a demagogue (Obama or his successor) to rally the forces of revolution and save us?

As the crisis we face seems increasingly inevitable, I feel correspondingly overstuffed with learning, Bible studies, conferences, and talks: input, input, input. I have almost a nausea when I think of reading one more reflection or hearing one more insight. As one TED talk had it, “We spend so much time learning so little time thinking”: or more, “I’m sick of learning, I want to DO something!” Pope Francis’s words regarding the need for the Church to move from maintenance to mission resonate. He rightly emphasizes the desperate need to reach out to the lost, to those who’ll never darken the doors of a church; through new venues, ventures, and visions so that they come to know the joy of the gospel. The need to be a proactive Church, more than ever, to be lights in the increasing darkness, is desperate.

So again, the “fire in my bones”: Lord, I want to DO something! “Can’t keep it in”, as Cat Stevens sang back in the 70s. As Pippin observed in “The Lord of the Rings”, as he watched the forces of Mordor advancing on Minas Tirith: “The only thing worse than being in a battle is to be on the brink of a battle you know you can’t escape.” Yet as I cry out, “How long, Lord? When is ‘it’ – the cataclysm, the crisis – going to happen?”, the only answer that comes is, “Wait; pray; trust; keep doing what you’re doing; when it’s time to act, I will make it clear.”

I’m aware of the temptation to so focus on what I  may be called to do in the future that I stop focusing on what the Lord calls me to do now. Glorious dreams of professing the faith in the face of prison, torture, or martyrdom can distract me from the ordinary obedience, patience, and acceptance called for today. It’s important not to escape from the everyday into a fantasy world. Yet I’ve run into so many Christians who share this urgency that it cannot simply be me. To sustain this tension is actually a dilemma as ancient as Christianity itself: How do I live in, yet not of the world? How do I fully invest in and act in the present world, knowing that it is passing and that the Real Life of eternity begins in Heaven? How do I focus on this day’s needs and troubles, while living in hope of the Lord’s return?

Ultimately, as in all things, it is a question of transformation in Christ, into Christ. Jesus himself underwent 30 years of waiting for the remarkable prophecies given at His birth to be fulfilled. During his Nazareth years, he grew in wisdom, age, and grace. He must have had constantly to confide his hopes and expectations to the Father: “Father, I’m ready now: yet not as I will, but as You will.” The waiting, in some mysterious way, purified him: “Son though he was, he learned obedience through what he suffered”(Heb 5:8). And when he was sufficiently purified, in the fullness of time, the call came, and he launched on his public ministry.

So I have to believe that I – you – the Church as a whole – am/are/is not quite ready to face the crisis. Yes, in the midst of the gathering darkness, lights are shining out: wonderful signs of the New Springtime of Evangelization, remarkable renewals and conversions. But we’re not ready: more preparation is needed; more waiting, trusting, hoping. And the waiting purifies; the trusting molds us into the image of Jesus Christ; the hoping transforms us in holiness. In God’s perfect timing, we will be as ready as He needs us to be. In the mean time, we keep our hands on the plow and do the next right thing. And even if the sense of urgency is mistaken or misdirected, still the waiting in hope and trust for whatever the Lord does send cannot lead us astray.

I am a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings (TLOTR). I was obsessed with it, reading it through a dozen times between sixth grade and senior year of high school. After I came into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that senior year, I read TLOTR one more time. I still enjoyed it, but the obsession to plunge again and again into Tolkien’s incredibly realized Middle Earth  ceased. Since then, I have read it once more, to my son Michael; to my delight, he also loved it.

By the time I read it to Michael, I had come to know the Bible much better.  I then discovered how frequently TLOTR alludes to Catholic and Christian imagery, at one point directly quoting from the New Testament (Jn 14:1 “Let not your hearts be troubled”, from the elf-queen Galadriel to the worn-out members of the Fellowship of the Ring). As Tolkien was a devout Catholic, this should not have surprised me.

What had drawn me to TLOTR as early as sixth grade was its sense of “something more”. It was not just the magical powers of Gandalf, the elves, or even the Enemy, Sauron: it was the allusions to Powers that mysteriously guided Middle Earth’s destiny; the certainty that a plan was being worked out; that things happened for reasons that the wisest characters, such as Gandalf, intuited without fully understanding; the assurance that Good would triumph over Evil, even if individual characters failed in their tasks, because some destiny was being worked out.

When I came to know Jesus, I found that what TLOTR depicted “dimly, as in a mirror”, I had come to experience “face to face” (1 Cor 13:12): the providence and plan of God for my life. Tolkien, of course, knew the Lord; so while writing his masterpiece primarily as a really good story, he couldn’t help but thread it through with the “something more” he knew from experience. But having found that life in the Lord was the something more I had longed for, the power of its dim, though marvelous, reflection, in TLOTR lost its compulsion for me.

I continue to love TLOTR; I was delighted with the movie version; I’ll happily discuss TLOTR at length with anyone. But TLOTR has ceased to be The Gospel for me: the “something more”; a way to escape from a life that seemed frustratingly ordinary, although my whole being told me life shouldn’t be so. To my wonder and delight, I found – as all of those who come to know Jesus find – that life in Him is a thousand times the adventure, the epic battle between good and evil, the summons to fellowship, heroism, and hope, that TLOTR depicts. No literary masterpiece, of course – however well-written – compares to the Masterpiece the Lord is writing with our lives.

Yet TLOTR has profound lessons in it. It took many readings to discover one of the profoundest. Before that, I had always been disappointed at the climax of the book. Frodo stands at the Crack of Doom, holding the Ring and looking down at the Fire, knowing that the one purpose of his and Sam’s arduous journey has been to throw the Ring into the Fire and so destroy it. He is too weak, too controlled by the Ring, to do so. Instead, he puts on the Ring and claims it for his own – alerting Sauron to his presence in the heart of Sauron’s realm and risking the downfall of Middle Earth. The Ring is destroyed, nevertheless: but only because Gollum bites it off of Frodo’s finger, and in his dance of ecstasy, tumbles to his death in the Fire.

My reaction had always been: “How anticlimactic. Frodo fails when he’s most needed. Tolkien should have had Frodo summon up his last ounce of moral strength, sweat through the struggle, and nobly toss the Ring to its destruction! To have the Ring destroyed by an accident – by the tortured creature who lost his battle against evil and caved into his desire for the wholly evil Ring: it doesn’t make sense!”

My 10th time through or so I realized that Gollum’s destruction of the Ring was the point of the trilogy. It is foreshadowed and prepared for from the beginning: when Bilbo has the chance to kill Gollum (in The Hobbit) but does not. Frodo complains about this to Gandalf (pardon any errors – I’m quoting from memory): “It’s a pity that Bilbo didn’t kill Gollum when he had the chance!” Gandalf responds, “Pity? Yes, Pity, and Mercy, not to kill without need. Yet my heart forebodes me that Gollum has some crucial part to play in this before the saga ends.”

In the course of TLOTR, virtually every principle character encounters Gollum, has the chance to kill him, and out of Pity and Mercy, decides not to: Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Faramir, Sam, and Frodo. (Even Sauron’s servants – after torturing him for news of the Ring’s whereabouts – let him go free.) So the destruction of the Ring ultimately rests, not on Frodo’s or anyone else’s flawless character or strength of will, but on the repeated acts of mercy shown Gollum.

What a marvelous parable! Frodo lacks the strength to carry out his mission: yet it is accomplished nevertheless, a fruit of not only his own act of mercy, but of the mercy of many others. So with the Body of Christ: I owe my salvation and growth in the Lord to the words, deeds, and prayers of so many others on earth and in heaven. To be sure, my own words, deeds, and prayers matter, yet they are enveloped and carried along in the current of love and grace flowing among the members of the Body.

I can see in my own life times when I could have fallen into grievous sin with tragic results. I wish I could say that it was my virtue that saved me – but it was not. Instead, seeming chance or coincidence, last-minute situational changes, saved me from potentially disastrous choices. Looking back, I can only say, “Oh, the mercies of the Lord! I stood on the precipice, and Your hand held me back.” The Lord took note of previous occasions when I had chosen for him; of the prayers of saints on Earth and in Heaven, and spared me.

A further lesson from Gollum’s destruction of the Ring: how good it is to know that the Lord, in His mercy, doesn’t depend on my strength of character to accomplish His will through me! How wonderful that, in our many moments of weakness and sin (to quote the Twelfth Promise of Alcoholics Anonymous), “We. . . discover that God is doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves”! What a relief that when we can’t do the right thing, God assures us, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). How secure I can be, knowing that when my resolve fails; when I have no strength to fulfill the mission, I discover that God is carrying me.

In the classic He Leadeth Me, Fr. Walter Ciszek tells of how he was held by the Soviets in solitary confinement for five years (later spending 15 years in a hard labor camp in Siberia). He had responded to a call from the Lord to go to the Soviet Union to evangelize, in the late 1930’s. During his solitary confinement, he underwent long interrogations and sleep deprivation at seemingly random intervals. His prayers were geared toward effectively answering the Soviets’ baseless charges and not caving in to their demands that he “admit” to being a Vatican spy.

Fr. Ciszek experiences a crisis of faith years into his confinement, when, worn down by the uncertainty, interrogations, and loneliness, he breaks down and signs whatever allegations the Soviets have made against him. Immediately afterward, he feels abandoned by God: “I asked You for strength and wisdom, and You withheld it!” He goes through a brief period of despair. He has been broken.

Then Fr. Ciszek realizes that throughout his ordeal, he has covertly been relying on his own strength and holiness: that God had to allow him to fail miserably so that he might cast all of his trust on Him. Out of his failure, amazingly, he comes to a boundless confidence in God’s providence: he no longer “gears himself up” for the interrogations, but goes in with serenity, knowing that God will supply the words needed, if God so chooses. At one point, he is led off to what he believes will be his execution, experiencing inexplicable peace in the midst of it (it turns out he gets transferred to the hard labor camp). He has come to know that apart from God he can do nothing (cf. Jn 15:5), but that “with God, nothing [is] impossible” (Lk 1:37).

Tolkien no doubt experienced such grace in his own life, powerfully enough that he made it a central theme of his masterpiece. The God who so worked in his life continues to work in ours. “Praise be to God for His inexpressible gift!”(2 Cor 9:15)

“Your mother was a remarkable woman.”

From person after person at the wake service. Over and over. Hundreds signed the guest book, and we guessed that a hundred more, at least, came. And this for an 88-year-old woman many of whose friends and relatives had already passed on.

“Your mother was a remarkable woman.” Like a refrain.

My mom, Eileen Barbara Stevens, died a little after 2:30 pm, on May 17th, 2013, in Chicago. She’d been hospitalized about a week before after a noticeable decline in her status, including disorientation and inability to swallow. From that point, she spoke little; and what speech there was, was difficult to understand. She recognized the older siblings, speaking their names as they arrived, but it wasn’t clear who else.

My wife and I, as it happened, had already been planning to come into Chicago the weekend her rapid decline began, to pick up our son from college and visit with Mom and family. Many of my eleven siblings reside in Chicago, and as it became clear that death was imminent, the rest began to drive or fly in from out of town. Her last night conscious was the 10th, after which she fell into a sleep/coma from which she never awoke.

The beginning of the next week, Mom was moved back to her apartment, so that she could die at home. This also allowed any visitors who wished, to come and go as they pleased. Immediate family kept vigil during the nights, and during the day Mom’s apartment was filled with family, relatives, and friends: some chatting, some sitting by the bed; and always, always someone holding her hand. As someone commented, it was a lot like a wake, except that the person being mourned was alive, albeit asleep, in the midst of it.

One sister-in-law suggested that someone lead a prayer for Mom every hour on the hour, and siblings took turns doing so. Mom was also anointed at least twice by priests who were friends of the family. At one point, the weather being beautiful, we moved Mom in her bed to a balcony overlooking a courtyard of the retirement center where her apartment was. Her wonderful caretakers had made a point of taking her there whenever the weather was fine.

As I noted in a reflection I e-mailed out shortly after the funeral, the varied ways my siblings and I grieved my mother were touching and beautiful. Only my mother could have brought together and connected so deeply with such an array of personalities! But that was simply a microcosm of Mom’s life in general. I have never met anyone else with her gift of making and keeping friends from every walk of life imaginable. A lady from the retirement center who hadn’t known Mom for that long told us that Mom was her best friend. I realized that Mom’s special gift was to make every person feel that he or she was her best friend. And with her children and grandchildren, as a family member commented, she had the gift of making each of us feel like her favorite.

My grief over her passing has come slowly. I’m grieving her more now than immediately after her death. Part of this may be that her dying was more of a fading than an abrupt ending. She had been steadily losing her memory over the last five or six years, and more recently, her orientation to who people were and where she was. Phone conversations had become brief, as Mom’s short-term memory was so poor that “I don’t remember” was the only way she could answer most questions about how she was doing or recent news.

The last year or so of her life, Mom slept more and more, so that even visits in person involved little conversation or face-to-face time. Visits and outings that she’d previously greatly enjoyed became a tug-of-war as her chronic hip and shoulder pain increased along with her overwhelming fatigue. So (as all of those who’ve seen a loved one decline into dementia know) it was as if most of the “real Mom” had already died. And she herself was so aware of her decline that she was very ready to leave this life.

Another reason that her death is just starting to sink in is that my family and I have lived at least a couple of states away for the last dozen years. Not seeing Mom for months at a time hasn’t been unusual. And since her death, we aren’t in Chicago, as many of my siblings are, constantly running into friends or acquaintances telling us, “I’m so sorry to hear about your mother’s death.” So the realization that I truly will never see her, touch her, hear her again, in this life, has been slow in coming.

It hit me in a deeper way one morning this week. The night before, my son and I had played a puzzle game called “Blokus”, in which you take turns placing different colored tiles in a grid. Whoever is left with the fewest pieces wins. But in the process, the grid is nearly filled with a beautiful, colored pattern.

As I prayed that morning, I realized that my mom was like the large, center piece in a complex, multicolored, beautiful grid. She connected so well with so many people. She touched SO many lives. Besides raising twelve children and being an unusually well-beloved “Grammy” to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she continued to be in touch with friends from high school, college, and the two parishes in which she’d been so involved before moving to the retirement center. Before her own medical issues, she faithfully kept contact with her many relatives from her mother’s side (her mother was one of ten children) here and in Ireland, where Mom was born, as well as the fewer relatives she knew from her father’s side. This besides her thirty years or so of teaching special education in Chicago’s inner city, providing nurture, learning, and structure to kids who often had precious little of any of these things.

That she was “in touch” and “kept in contact” scarcely captures my Mom’s influence, however. She loved, she welcomed; she engaged, she laughed. She was (until her decline) brilliant; a great conversationalist and delightful storyteller; competitive and energetic; extraordinarily well-read; very funny and quick; hard-working; uncomplaining; practical and down-to-earth.

Not perfect, of course. She wasn’t too much for “arm around the shoulder” sympathy: she’d listen politely, for the most part, but approached your troubles – as she did her own – with an “and what do you plan to do about it?” air. She wasn’t easily impressed, nor was she effusive with her praise: not too many swelled heads in my family. For example, when I told her the theme of my Master’s thesis, which I’d sweated blood over, wearing my little typing fingers to the bone (sob!) her comment was, “Well, isn’t that kind of obvious?” And when I got my Ph.D., she observed, “You know, Sean, you’re not the first person to get a Ph.D. in the family.”  She freely admitted, with her dark Irish humor, that she’d have made a lousy therapist. “I’d be telling your clients to suck it up and get a life!” she laughed.

She was a larger-than-life woman, truly. The number of people who had, for example, the full, immediate, unqualified, delighted approval of my mother-in-law (another remarkable woman, by the way) formed a small club indeed. If I had a nickel for every time I heard her say, “Sean, I just LOVE your mother!” I’d be a rich man. But Mom had this effect on nearly everyone she met. The 19th-century cardinal, John Henry Newman, had a beautiful prayer that states, “I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.” Mom linked so many chains, connected so many people.

In her decline, so much changed. Yet it revealed another facet of her amazing strength – how uncomplainingly she suffered what she’d feared most, the loss of the cognitive capacities. After caring for her own mother through Alzheimer’s, Mom’s worst fear was that she herself would go through dementia. What she feared most came upon her, by degrees: she was no longer able to drive; to keep her home;  to walk without a walker; and the last year or two, to remember events from a month ago, a week ago, a day ago, five minutes ago. We eventually needed to have caretakers with her round the clock. They were marvelous! She was unfailingly kind and grateful to them, and they loved her as we did.

A stripping took place during her last years. Mom was always a do-er for others; and like many doers, she had a hard time separating her value and lovability from her doing. (Even before her decline, we’d have to intercept her as she tottered over to “help” us move a piano or a heavy table.) As she was able to do less and less, and as memory loss robbed her of her conversational and storytelling abilities, she’d often say things like, “I’m not much company” or “I feel like such a burden.” I’d tell her, “Mom, you’ve been doing for us for years – we’re happy to be able to give something back!” During her last year, she would become terribly anxious at night, and sometimes disoriented. It was difficult to see her that way. She would ask, “Why am I like this? What’s happening to me?” in a bewildered voice.

We who loved and knew her were stripped, too. We came to realize even more that the one we loved so deeply was simply Mom herself: not what she could do for us, say to us; not her wit and knowledge and wisdom and stories; just her. In the end, all that was left was her physical presence – her hand to hold, her hair to stroke, her cheek to kiss – as she slept those final days. Her near-epic qualities before her decline made the crumbling and collapse that much more poignant and difficult: like seeing St. Peter’s or Notre Dame Cathedral falling apart, stone by stone. We saw her purgatory: stripping, stripping, stripping; yet her beauty remained and paradoxically intensified. There was nothing left to obscure it…

In a way, my firm knowledge that we will meet again – “glorious and grateful around His bright throne”, as a song I wrote long ago puts it – has made the grieving process more complex. The knowledge “but the separation isn’t forever; and she’s happier now than can possibly be imagined” makes it harder to let myself just MISS her. Yet I do, terribly. Shortly after she died, I had a dream. I saw her coffin in an enormous burial vault, with a large house resting on rafters atop the vault. I worried if the house would collapse into the vault, given its precarious foundation. This last week, I have begun again to collapse, to cry; I did, frequently, during her last days and at the funeral, and now the second wave is hitting.

Pray for Eileen, my friends – although I think she scarcely needs our prayers. Much more, we need hers. Pray for those close to her; losing her is hitting us all in very different ways.

“Your mother was a remarkable woman.”

Oh, my gosh. Yes.

An out-of-state friend was telling me about a recent homily at his parish. The priest was apparently upset by some feedback that he should speak out on political issues. He stated that it wasn’t the job of the clergy to talk publicly about politics: that was the laity’s job.

I was saddened to hear this. The impression such a homily gives is that we laity are on our own in the political realm: that the sheep need to shepherd themselves, because the shepherds aren’t allowed to (?); or it’s not their job (?); or they’ll get in trouble with the government (?). As I noted in my inaugural post, the culture is shouting an anti-gospel, and if we don’t speak up, the anti-gospel will win the day. Who but our clergy should lead the preaching of the gospel message? Who but the clergy should be on the front lines in speaking out against the culture of death and for the culture of life? How could a priest arrive at such (to me) an alarming and discouraging conclusion?

As I reflected, I thought back to the years from just after Vatican II until the last decade: years I refer to as the Church’s “Babylonian Captivity”. The uncertainty and disarray following on the Council (this is not a condemnation of the Council, but of how abysmally its implementation was managed in the U.S.) left a vacuum in terms of piety and catechesis. The Baltimore Catechism was out – what was in? Devotion to Mary and the saints; novenas and Benediction; Aquinas and hierarchical authority; sex as an exclusively marital activity: all of these were dispensed with by many of the “clergy-and-laity-of-the-world-unite-we-have-nothing-to-lose-but-our-chains” party, with nothing of substance to replace them. The tumult in the culture at large during the 1960s exacerbated the disorder.

During this era, confusion reigned regarding what was authentic Catholicism: what one must believe and practice to be Catholic. The widespread rejection of “Humanae Vitae”, especially, engendered the scourge of “cafeteria Catholicism”: to the point where, in many cases, a person’s self-identification as Catholic signifies virtually nothing about that person’s beliefs or lifestyle.

In the midst of the chaos, even sincere clergy and laity suffered an identity crisis: who am I? What is my role in the Church? How am I to be in the world as a Catholic Christian: what is healthy dialogue and engagement with secular culture, and what is compromise? Do I incorporate “pre-Vatican-II” piety in my “post-Vatican-II” piety? And if so, how? (George Weigel wisely notes that the idea of a “pre-” and “post-conciliar Church” is itself a fallacy. We have to assume that every era of the Church is “interconciliar”: that is, there will be more councils, so no single council is “the last word”.)

So during the Captivity, we endured about 50 years of largely content-less preaching and teaching, in the parish and in the Catholic educational system. In two of the dioceses I resided in, the homilies boiled down to “be nice” and “help the poor” (although, in most cases, the latter admonition generated vague guilt but no practical action). In the high school seminary religion class, we listened to the Beatles’ “Nowhere Man” and discussed what it meant to us. In Chicago, at least, Catholic educational institutions either left graduates unscathed by any but the shallowest knowledge of Catholic teaching and practice (not to mention the Bible!), or trained in how to dissent from the hierarchy. Stanley Hauerwas, a Mennonite theologian, nicely summed up the pathetic state of catechesis and lived relationship with the Lord in the liturgical churches in his marvelous book, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony. He wryly noted that mainline denominational preaching, including the Catholic Church’s, often leaves the impression that Christianity is equivalent to “being slightly to the left of the Democratic Party”.

You reap what  you sow. The many threats to religious freedom we are facing now; the catastrophic decline in church attendance and practice; the increasing numbers of agnostics, atheists, or people who identify with no organized religious body; the dissent and disobedience of many clergy and laity who still do attend the Church; the increasing conformity of Catholics to secular practices and values; the yawning absence of the twenty-to-forty-somethings at Mass (who, if they’re in church at all, are at the nearest nondenominational megachurch): all of these are the fruit of years of silence from the pulpits and Catholic institutions – including the U.S. Catholic Conference, until very recently – regarding solid Catholic doctrine. We have suffered from a blight: of people pleasing, not wanting to offend, avoiding controversy, and – scandalously – not wanting to upset or alienate wealthy or influential donors by preaching the unadulterated gospel.

I think the tide began to turn with the papacy of Blessed John Paul II. The renewal continued with the release of the Cathechism; the emergence of unabashedly Catholic universities such as Franciscan University; the establishment of EWTN, and in its wake a surge of Catholic radio stations, periodicals, and other media; and a rediscovery by many clergy and laity of the treasure of two thousand years of Catholic tradition, through Bible studies, faith sharing groups, and programs such as “That Man Is You”.

More recently, since the HHS mandate (forcing Christian institutions to provide contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilizations under their insurance) has come forward, it has been refreshing to have the U.S. bishops – at last – speak out strongly and unitedly. In a number of Omaha parishes, including my own, the homilies have begun to address issues I’d never heard preached about before in a Catholic homily: contraception; fornication; same-sex attraction and same-sex “marriage”; pornography. It’s a good start.

But on the parish and national level, the pushback against the culture of death has come very late and needs to be FAR stronger and more widespread. ‘Tis NOT the season, in this day and age, for innocuous, “why can’t we all just get along” homilies; or sermons about fine liturgical points; or simply vague references to the hostility of U.S. culture to living the Christian life. Catholic preaching must frankly acknowledge the  toxicity of the present culture, the war on Christianity in general and on Catholicism in particular by the vast majority of the media. As someone once said, “The Vandals are storming the gates of the city, and we’re discussing the size of lettering on public monuments!” – or rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic: pick your metaphor.

So I urge, I plead with our clergy to SPEAK OUT about what’s going on: to address it boldly, clearly, and frequently. You WILL lose parishioners and donors – the tepid, dissenting, cafeteria-Catholic crowd – but you will gain people who are passionate about the gospel, sick to death of being pummeled with Ping-Pong ball homilies, and hungry for preaching that presents the Gospel in all of its demands and glory. You will be called hateful, bigoted, homophobic: Jesus was slandered, hated, and crucified. But you will also come into the fullness of living unashamedly for the Gospel, and will experience a new level of unity, support, and fellowship with the faithful you shepherd.

I don’t know if clergy have any idea how strengthening, encouraging, and invigorating it is for us laity to hear our shepherds speak out clearly and fearlessly. When our associate, Fr. Michael, first began to do so, many in our congregation (not all!) applauded. We’d been waiting our whole lives for such preaching on the parish level.

I’m not saying, “Speak out, priests and deacons, because we laity can’t.” I’m saying, “Speak out, because we laity need to know that we’re not alone; that our shepherds see and care about the crisis.” We need your preaching to set ablaze the fire in our bones; to validate our distress as well as our unbounded hope in the Lord; to encourage us to speak the truth in love boldly and clearly. Speak! We will support you; we will encourage you; we will love you; we will pray for you; we are with you. We need to know that you are with us.

A consistent theme of late has been: “Don’t give in to discouragement.” I had this in mind for today’s post, and then at Mass this morning, our associate pastor,  preached about not getting discouraged – which had no direct connection to the readings. Ironically, perhaps as a shot from the Evil One, today three of my scheduled clients today cancelled or no-showed.

My wife Mary and I try to pray at some length every Sunday for whatever the Lord puts on our hearts (a spiritual practice I’d heartily recommend for every couple – it has been indispensable in our marriage!). Last Sunday, the passage that came up during prayer was Hebrews 12, which includes the words, “Surrounded as we are by this cloud of witnesses, let us not lose heart in running the race. Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” The Lord also put on our hearts Eph 3:14-20, which concludes with, “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.”

These were words Mary and I needed to hear. Over the last few years, especially, we have seemed to get a leading from the Lord; we would follow it up; and it would seem to dry up. Sometimes we’ve sympathized with Jeremiah – “You have deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived” (Jer 20:7).  Mind you, we don’t try to go it alone: we each have a spiritual director; we run our situations past brethren in the Lord; we are cautious about overreliance on private revelation; we ask the Lord to confirm and reconfirm through external circumstances; everything has to jive with Scripture and Church teaching. So it’s not that we chase after passing thought as a word from the Lord. But the temptation, ever-present, is to think, “Are we doing something wrong? Have we misheard the Lord?”

It is reassuring to know that if we’re sincerely trying to follow the Lord, He will use even our mistakes and mis-hearings. My ever-patient spiritual director has repeatedly assured me that if I’m not getting a particular leading, my task is to wait: to continue to carry out the duties of my station in life and trust that the Lord will let me know the next right thing to do. I’d remind myself of a wonderful talk I heard back in 1977 at a Steubenville youth conference: the speaker noted that we tend to see discernment as a “find the 15 hidden monkeys in the jungle scene” exercise. He pointed out that in fact, the Lord is all too delighted to find people actively seeking His will; He is eager to guide such seekers. He will reveal His will in His time; our “work” in the meantime is patience and trust. “Jesus, I trust in You; Jesus, I trust in You; Jesus, I TRUST in You.” How powerful, how necessary, those words have been to me.

But a shift has happened over the past few months. This blog is part of it, but in general, there’s a very strong sense Mary and I have of “It’s HERE: the new springtime of evangelization in the Catholic Church and the Body of Christ as a whole; the fulfillment of many years of preparation for Mary, me, and so many others in the Body of Christ who have been earnestly praying for renewal in the Body of Christ – ‘who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in [Jerusalem]’ (Ezek 9:4); the time of tremendous grace and tremendous suffering prophesied by the Blessed Mother, Blessed John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict, and many others whose testimony we find reliable.” Signs of renewal are everywhere; the grace I see poured out in my practice, in my parish, and that fellow Christians from all over the U.S. tell me of, is astounding. God is doing something new, something powerful. “The light shines in the darkness” (Jn 1:5).

Accompanying this great hope and excitement is a sense of increased spiritual warfare: we and the brothers and sisters in the Lord with whom we’ve been drawn together over the years are experiencing more temptations and palpable spiritual resistance amidst increased consolation and confirmations. The showdown is here. The alarming political situation in the U.S. and Western Europe, in which Christianity has become the whipping boy for so many, and the stage for unbridled persecution is being set, is one sign; the rise of Islamic persecution of Christians all over the world, glossed over by the mainstream media, is another; the apostasy of so many of the mainline liturgical denominations, in their race to run lockstep with the spirit of secular humanism while calling it “listening to the Spirit’s voice”, is yet another; the murder of millions of children in the womb brazenly touted as a positive good, as a fundamental maternal right;  vitriolic denunciation of those who dare to support marriage as a lifelong union of one man and one woman; the spiritual carnage wrought by sex, drugs, and “absolute relativism” and loss of faith among the young; the list goes on.

So now of all times, we need to stand fast; to remain resolutely confident in the Lord. “Jesus Christ is the Lord of history”, one of the Vatican II documents says. “All things work to the good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose” (Rom 8:28), St. Paul tells us. God foreknew all of these developments; God in His mercy foreordained that we live in just this epoch of history; God, in His mad love for us, chose US, made of dust and ashes yet shot with His glory, to fight the battle of love and faith and perseverance in this best and worst of times. He TRUSTS us; He EQUIPS us. I am so grateful that the Lord, in His graciousness, chose me, chose us, to live at just this moment in time. He knows what He’s about; He holds all times in His hands; and we are utterly safe so long as we stay in His will, in His Son’s pierced Heart, and under the Blessed Mother’s loving protection (who takes all Christians as beloved daughters and sons).

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom should I be afraid?” (Ps 27:1). Be encouraged, my brothers and sisters. In the words of St. Francis of Assisi, “Let us begin, brothers, for up to now we have done little or nothing.”

As promised in my last post, here is how one enters a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. NB: Not to belabor the obvious, but it cannot be overemphasized that having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ IS what it means to be a Christian. EVERYTHING in Christian belief and practice exists only to bring people to this relationship, deepen this relationship, and ensure that this relationship endures forever and ever: every prayer, every sacrament, every liturgy; the Bible, the clergy, the pope, every Church teaching; incense and creeds and candles, altars and holy cards; EVERYTHING. The main difference between Catholic Christianity and other denominations is that the Catholic Church offers every help possible to enter, maintain, deepen, and ensure that relationship with Jesus Christ (and through Him, with the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the whole Body of Christ; and through all, to bring every living person into this relationship). To bring all to a living, saving encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ is the Church’s only purpose.

Some people have had a relationship with Jesus as early as they can remember, having grown up in homes where He was an integral part of everyday life. Some can say, for example, “I’ve always known Him, my parents always talked about Him.” Some of the saints (e.g., St. Therésè of Lisieux) also had this experience. This is probably not the experience of most people, however.

The basic principle of coming to know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior is to seek Him at every possible opportunity, through every possible avenue. The “standard” non-sacramental form of accepting Jesus (one used by many Protestants) is “the sinners’ prayer”: “Lord Jesus Christ, I acknowledge you as my Savior, and that your death on the Cross saved me from the penalty for my sins, namely, Hell. I repent of all my sins and invite you into my heart as my Lord and Savior. I surrender my life to you. Do with me as you will.” It can be very helpful for others to pray with you as you invite Jesus to be Lord of your life. These “others” should be people that already have a relationship with Jesus Christ. In my case, I came to know Jesus Christ in a personal way when two brothers in the Lord from a local Catholic charismatic prayer meeting prayed over me.

On an ongoing basis, the prayer for entering into or deepening a relationship with the Lord can be as simple as “Jesus, I need you”; “Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me”; “Jesus, I love you”; “Jesus, come into my heart”; “Jesus, I want to know you”; “Jesus, fill me with your Holy Spirit”. Ultimately, there is no magic formula: God meets us where we’re at and works with every person uniquely

Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the papal household, has noted that in many Christians’ lives, the grace offered through the sacraments is “bound” and needs to be “released”. For example, Baptism offers all the grace needed to die to self and rise to new life with Christ, but our receptivity to that grace determines how fruitfully the sacrament works in us. Over a Christian’s lifetime, every surrender to the Lord enables a further unfolding of what the Lord has done for him in Baptism. The parable of the sower and the seed (Mk 4:3-9, 13-20) illustrates this principle: the Word of God is living and effective (the seed), but its fruitfulness is determined by the receptivity of the person who hears it (the soil). Neither the sacraments, nor the Word of God, nor, for that matter, the salvation offered us through Jesus’ death and resurrection, are “magical”. Hearts can be either hardened to, or open and receptive to, their saving and transforming power.

Coming into or deepening one’s relationship with the Lord can include being moved by a sermon and responding to it: “Jesus, I want to know you.” Read the Scriptures, especially gospel passages, and realize that the Scripture you’re reading was written with you in mind: put yourself into the Scripture scene (e.g., “Lord, I want to see”, with you as the blind man) and ask the Lord for the vision to know Him clearly.

Finally, for some people, images derived from Scripture can be powerful for coming to know Jesus. Imagine opening the door of your heart to Jesus. Ask him to take you into His pierced heart. Imagine His Holy Spirit welling up in you as a fountain of living water. Kneel at the foot of the Cross and ask for His mercy.

If you pray and at first nothing seems to happen: keep asking; keep seeking; keep knocking. Jesus is the One who has given you the desire for relationship with Him. He is already seeking you, and in His time, He will answer your earnest prayer.

The theme that has been bombarding me lately is “personal relationship with Jesus”. My wife and I had long been aware that one can attend a Catholic parish for years – or, from what I gather, any liturgical denomination, and even some evangelical Protestant denominations – without entering a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, or even knowing that such a relationship is possible. Reading Sherry Weddell’s book, Forming Intentional Disciples (Our Sunday Visitor Press), confirmed our observations and gave some alarming statistics from the Pew Research Foundation to support them.

These stats were reiterated at a recent Catholic men’s conference here in Omaha. One of the presenters (Curtis Martin, founder of the FOCUS missionaries and an EXCELLENT speaker) noted that we have about 100 million Catholics in the U.S.; of these, 30 million attend church occasionally (the others don’t at all). Of the 30 million, a fraction (10 million?) attend church most Sundays. Of these, about 5 million regularly contribute to their parish financially and through active participation in ministries and apostolates. Of these, probably 1 million are “intentional disciples”: that is, they have entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and actively submit to His leading and lordship. So, about 1% of self-identified Catholics have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I would imagine the numbers are no better in the other liturgical denominations.

Sherry Weddell was surprised (my wife and I weren’t!) to discover that many priests and others in long-term ministry in the Church do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. She discovered this through her in-depth interviews with them in attempt to discern their spiritual gifts. As she realized the gravity of the situation – for example, of adults formally entering the Church through RCIA, only 30% are still attending Mass within two years of being welcomed into the Church – she realized that something had to be done: hence, Forming Intentional Disciples and the program she developed out of that.

Matthew Kelly’s The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic addresses the same problem, though perhaps not as directly. He frames it in terms of the 4-7% of Catholics who are “actively engaged” in their Catholic Christian faith. Different terms, same idea. Both he and Weddell note the tremendous need for Catholics to become, first, comfortable with evangelization; then, proficient at it and enthusiastic about it.

Curtis Martin of FOCUS pointed out at the Omaha men’s conference that we don’t need more programs as such to learn how to evangelize: we need more people who have met Jesus and can’t wait to tell others about Him. He used the analogy: if you just went to a restaurant in your town that had phenomenal food, stellar service, impeccable atmosphere, and reasonable prices, would you need a workshop or a book to instruct you how to tell your friends about it? Similarly, if we’ve truly experienced how AMAZING and LIFE-CHANGING Jesus is, how can we possibly keep it in?

Movingly, Martin recalled how, having read the parable of the treasure in the field (Mt 13:44), he suddenly realized that the man sold all he had to obtain the field and its treasure – with joy. In St. Paul’s words, he had “come to rate all as loss, as so much garbage, in the light of the surpassing knowledge of [his] Lord, Jesus Christ” (Philip 3:7-11). Martin compared it to the joy of marrying his wife – “I realized that, if she doesn’t back out in the next two minutes (of the ceremony), I’m really marrying UP! I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh darn, this’ll mean less time for golf; more chores; less space to stretch out in my bed.'” If it’s truly Jesus Christ you’ve come into a relationship with, you’ll know it’s worth whatever it costs: you have gotten by far the better end of the deal!

I have come to realize that many Catholics, many Christians, many people are consciously hungering for that relationship, but they do not know how to enter it. My wife and I have talked about how we can’t make any assumptions in this area: the dots have to be connected very clearly and very simply. For example, in our parish, the previous pastor, the present pastor, and the associate pastor all have spoken openly and beautifully about their relationship with Jesus Christ. Yet I would bet that a surprising number of people, even among the very active in the parish, do not have that relationship because no one has explicitly shown them how to enter it. I gave a couple of teachings at a parish men’s group recently, geared toward leading the men into that relationship. As I’d suspected, several of them indicated their desire for just that, along with their uncertainty as to how to enter it.

For those of us who have that relationship, then, our mission is to bring others to relationship with Jesus: specifically, simply, assuming nothing. For those of us who don’t, my next post will address how to enter that relationship.

Hello, world! This is my maiden voyage into the world of blogging. It got started two weeks ago when I recalled a recent homily with the quote (mistakenly attributed to St. Francis of Assisi), “Preach the gospel at all times; use words when necessary.” And I thought, “That DOES it! I’m starting a blog.”

My reason: the LAST thing that Catholics need to hear today is that we don’t need to say anything about Jesus, or the Church, or “the reason for the hope that is within [us]” (1 Peter 3:15). We’re too timid about evangelism as it is; all too willing to cop out with, “I’ll be a nice person; I’ll pray for people; people will see this and convert.” …NOT!

It’s essential to speak the truth in these days of fog and miasma. It’s so important to speak it in love. It’s getting very dark; it’s so very important to be light in the Lord. We live in a culture that is screaming an anti-Gospel through the media, through fashions,  through lifestyles. If we Christians continue to be silent, who will be heard? If there was ever a time for “quiet witness” in the Church (which I doubt) – now, in the U.S., is assuredly not that time. Let’s rise up, Church: let’s cry out, “I am NOT ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God leading to conversion: first for the Jew, then for the Greek” (Rom 1:16).

Someone once wrote recently words to the effect: “So many public figures are completely unafraid to proclaim lies: about sexual relationships, marriage, abortion, what life’s about, where we came from and where we’re going. Why are we as Christians ashamed to proclaim what we know God has revealed?”

I’ve spent too much time complaining, “Why don’t the bishops/priests/deacons SAY something about the crisis we’re in?” while remaining too silent myself. Some of the hierarchy have begun to speak out. Embarking on this blog, I realize that speaking out won’t be as easy as I thought. If I don’t get flak and outright hate mail, it means I’m not doing my job: orthodox Catholicism is horribly politically incorrect these days. Statements that would have been held as givens 30 or 40 years ago are now seen as hateful. In the areas of homosexuality and abortion, some statements may soon be criminalized in the U.S., as they are in Canada and parts of Europe: statements like “marriage can only be between a man and a woman”; “abortion is the killing of an innocent child”.  Other statements are seen as intolerant: “Christianity is the only religion that has the fullness of truth”; “sex outside of marriage is wrong”.

Yet it all comes down to love: God’s love for me, mine for God, His and ours for all. The way past the barriers is love; the way through the lies is truth; the way through the darkness is light. Jesus is Lord and Shepherd; if we follow as He leads, we will “go in and go out, and find pasture” (Jn 10:9).

God bless you all –

In Christ’s love,

Sean