Faith
A Blast of Trumpets
The design of our parish draws heavy inspiration from the great Italian basilicas. A large dome binds together the transepts, and the oversized sanctuary, adorned in stone, creates a huge, open space with the altar perfectly centered. It’s the kind of design that elevates the mind; beauty that shocks the faithful out of the routine of our daily lives and reminds us of the specialness of this place.
To accompany the breathtaking architecture, we also have a robust liturgical music department. At many Masses throughout the year, guest instrumentalists join the organ and choir to truly elevate the music. A few weeks ago, a trumpet and trombone played at Mass on Mother’s Day. The musicians are seated right up front, off to the right, but where the expansive sanctuary meets the dome. The result, in addition to the acoustically friendly building materials, is a church-filling sound that resounds throughout the entire space.
It’s been many years since I attended a parish where Mass was a standing-room only occasion, where young families like mine filled the pews, and where songs were sung by more than just the cantor. Add to the mix the sound of brass and stringed instruments, and it’s hard to not get taken up in the transcendent experience.
I’m grateful to Fr. Mike Schmitz and Ascension Press for their Bible in a Year podcast. It was just a few years ago that I completed the journey, and I find myself frequently reaching back to what I heard and learned that year. Having that grasp, that context, of the Bible is enriching to my daily life. Hearing the brass horns blaring at the Mass is one of those times.
We go to Mass weekly, sometimes more often, and that can have the effect of lulling us into complacency. Our encounters with the Divine are expected, scheduled, and presumed. But when you are at Mass, and the entrance procession is welcomed with a trumpet blast, your mind is immediately pulled to Psalm 47 or St. John’s descriptions in Revelation. It becomes so easy to imagine the triumph of Jesus Christ mounting His throne to the fulsome blasts of trumpets. You’re instantly reminded of what it is that you labor for, and why we don’t just give up our values and drift mindlessly through life like most of our friends and neighbors.
When I stand there, surrounded by my family, the blast of trumpets reminds me who I am, Whose I am, and where I want to be. It’s enough to shake me awake, to get back in the game, and to keep fighting for that day when I hope to be admitted to the Heavenly Mass, where the trumpets never stop blasting.
Pray, Now
Many times, this blog has noted the depth and breadth of devotions within the Catholic Church. The dizzying array of options can lead to paralysis; having too many options and simply choosing none of them. The truth is that the best kind of prayer is the one that gets prayed.
Like diet, exercise, or any other lifestyle improvement we daydream about, many of us have visions of the perfect prayer life. It’s monastic, regimented, always perfect, and in the most beautiful of settings. The reality is that if you want quiet prayer in a house of children, it likely has to be before the sun comes up or long after it’s gone down. Even hiding in your room for less than five minutes is likely to set off the world’s greatest Search and Rescue efforts orchestrated by your children.
We need, and benefit from, all types of prayer. Group prayer, liturgical prayer, family prayer, and private prayer, it all places our day on pause and elevates our selves to communion with the God who created us. So there’s no point in designing the perfect prayer program, or waiting for just a few quiet moments during that nap time that’s unlikely to yield the intended results.
Simply pray, now.
Above All Things
Starting in our earliest years of formation, we learn that we were made to love God “above all things.” This ideal is a daily challenge to each of us to set aside our heart’s desires, the desires of our family, and to focus first on God, who provides for all things. Even in our Act of Penance, we remind ourselves of this truth by repeating these words.
I was watching the commentator Michael Knowles engage in a discussion with some sex workers, and he noted that one of them frequently wears a cross. He brought up this juxtaposition not as a condemnation, but as a symbol of the constant struggle with which we contend. Michael noted that he wears a scapular, and he will be reminded of that fact when he’s about to sin, and it presents an invitation to reconsider his course of action.
Loving God first, and trusting in His Providence, is difficult because we also know that God wants us to be people of action. We must balance between superstition and idleness in both our discernment and our action.
Regardless of our time, circumstance, or difficulty, the solution almost always is to love God above all things. If we love Him first, as we were made to do, all good things will certainly flow from it.
Mercy, Not Justice
Yesterday was the Feast of Divine Mercy, a holy day that Jesus Himself requested in His apparitions to St. Faustina. Mercy and grace are talked about frequently in Christian discourse and music, but it strikes me that many lack the comprehension of the completeness of God’s mercy.
In St. Faustina’s diaries, she records how Jesus describes His mercy. He uses words like “unfathomable” and “torrents.” The true meaning of these words is so deep that it’s beyond our comprehension. It’s akin to contemplating the depth and size of space, but even then, God’s mercy is beyond even that.
We receive God’s mercy for our venial offenses at the beginning of Mass, but to truly encounter the torrents of God’s mercy, we approach Him in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
On the evening of Easter, when Jesus appears to the 10 Apostles in the Upper Room, His first words to them are the first absolution. Despite their intimate years spent traveling around their region with Him, seeing all the signs and wonders He performed, and living with Him, at His passion they all abandoned Him. So, when He appears in their midst, He forgives them, “Peace be with you.” He then establishes the Sacrament by granting to them to power to bind and loose.
Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the torrents of God’s mercy are unleashed on the repentant sinner, and even those mortal sins that have suffocated their relationship with God and destroyed sanctifying grace in their life are forgiven. Like Lazarus, they are brought back from the dead and restored to the life given to them at Baptism. That is truly complete mercy.
In the early days of her encounters with Jesus, St. Faustina brought these experiences to her spiritual director. Seeking to test them, to ensure that they were truly Jesus, her director instructed Faustina to ask Jesus what sins he had confessed in his most recent confession. The next time Jesus appeared to Faustina, she posed to Him that question, to which Jesus replied that He had forgotten. Complete mercy.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation is not a sacrament of justice, but of mercy. In a true encounter with the risen Christ, out of total love for us, He forgives our worst failings so that we might be with Him forever. That is an unfathomable mercy.
Sequence
Christians, to the Paschal Victim
Offer your thankful praises!
A Lamb the sheep redeems;
Christ, who only is sinless,
Reconciles sinners to the Father.
Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous:
The Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.
Speak, Mary, declaring
What you saw, wayfaring.
“The tomb of Christ, who is living,
The glory of Jesus’ resurrection;
bright angels attesting,
The shroud and napkin resting.
Yes, Christ my hope is arisen;
to Galilee he goes before you.”
Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining.
Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning!
Amen. Alleluia.
Talent
Every priest has a unique gift that he offers the Church. Young men who go straight from high school to seminary offer their youth, extending their priestly ministry by years. Men who enter in middle age or even later in life bring their lived experience to inform their ministry. Some are great preachers, others stunning academics, and still others are driven to give a profound witness through audacious outreach.
Recently, one of our diocese’s scholarly priests celebrated a daily Mass that I attended. Daily Mass is known to be short, mostly owing to the truncated homily. This Mass, however, was different. The readings were on the servant for who his master forgave his “great” debt. The forgiven servant immediately goes out, finds someone who owes him a tiny amount, and throws him into debtors prison. The master finds out and has the wicked servants “handed over to the torturers” until the full debt is repaid.
The homily first took aim at the translation, a “great” or “huge” debt. Going back to ancient translations, he discovered that the debt was originally described in Talents, an ancient denomination. One Talent was equal to 20-30 years wages. Essentially, a laborer, through their whole working life, would earn the equivalent of one Talent. The wicked servant owed his master 10,000 Talents. Not great, not huge, but impossible!
The wicked servant’s debtor, however, owed him 100 Denarii, about 100 days wages.
The entire lifetime of wages for 10,000 laborers vs. 100 days wages for 1 worker.
This somewhat painful parable immediately highlights two things. First, we are indebted to God’s mercy for a debt that we could never hope to repay. Even though we frequent the Sacrament of Reconciliation and experience the wonderment of being in a State of Grace, we keep falling into the same trap. The Passion and death of Jesus, which we’ll soon celebrate, is the payment for the debt of sin that is impossible for us to repay of our accord.
Second, these parables put on full display the genius of Jesus that can only be attributable to the omniscience of God Himself. In a backwater, dusty, hot town 2,000 years ago, Jesus crafted a parable that was readily understood by his illiterate followers and is equally understandable by me, in the most technologically advanced society in the history of the world. They built buildings with simple tools and fished with literal rope. I wrote this blog on a computer only slightly larger than a magazine, using a keyboard that has no physical connections. Yet, the parable still fits exactly to my life.
The parable is reinforced through the Lord’s Prayer, the perfect prayer, “…forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Contend
The nature of the human condition is that we each bear an overriding character flaw. This is colloquially referred to as our crosses to bear, but what it really means is that we will have a singular struggle with sin and failure throughout our lives. It’ll look different from everyone else’s, but it’s our pathway to sainthood.
The problem with habitual sin is the temptation to despair. Almost every time we approach the Sacrament of Reconciliation, it tops our list of failings. Year in and year out, we accuse ourselves, seeking God’s forgiveness once again. In our limited minds, we can understand if God were to grow frustrated with us, but it’s not our place to project onto God our limitations. It’s God’s place to reward our struggle with grace, patience, and ultimately, victory.
In this struggle, as we contend with ourselves and our failures. We’re back to our annual check-in, Lent, where we journey up to Calvary with Jesus, hoping to leave the tomb with Him on Easter morning. If you find yourself in line for Confession this Lent, lamenting your usual roster of sins, remember the line that you’re in. You haven’t given up; you’re still in the fight. God doesn’t want us to surrender to our failures, and He doesn’t want us to be perfect. He wants us to fight, to keep fighting, to keep showing that His love is all that we desire and nothing, not even our own stupid failures, will keep us from Him.
Daily Burn
Each time a pilot prepares to fly an aircraft, he does a fuel calculation. Based on the current weather data and flight plan, he’ll calculate fuel burn and determine exactly how much fuel will be required to safely conduct the flight. Once that calculation is complete, he’ll add in a fixed amount of reserves to ensure that, regardless of what happens once aloft, he’ll make it to his destination.
Fuel planning for a pilot is an operational necessity, as is daily prayer planning for each of us. Fuel powers the plane; prayer powers us.
Each new day greets us with a set of tasks and obligations that must be completed, along with stressors sprinkled in throughout the day. It requires fortitude and discipline to work through your responsibilities and to not give in to the siren song of laziness.
A critical component of our day is prayer. It helps us resist temptation, build love, and act with grace. We need to build a daily routine that will power us to our destination with some room to spare.
Although it does require commitment and discipline, two words which usually are adjacent to something unpleasant, the paradox is that prayer is a respite in our day. It de-stresses us, desensitizes our amped up bodies, and allows the mind the space that it needs. This is the genius of God at work; time reserved for the Creator rejuvenates the entire self.
You will encounter stress and temptation every day. The only question is, will you have enough gas in the tank to fly right past it.
Chasm
There are an infinite number of ways that COVID changed the way in which we live our lives. Though we find ourselves four years removed from the initial outbreak, and more than two years from the return to normal, visages of those early days are still with us, regrettably even at the Mass.
The laity and the priesthood had dramatically different experiences of lockdown. While the church doors were locked, we were prevented from physically receiving the Eucharistic Lord. Although we could rely on solid theology around the idea of a spiritual communion, none of that theology suggests that a spiritual communion is in any way a substitute to the physical presence of our Lord residing within us.
Many priests and bishops went to great lengths to bring the Eucharist Lord to their flocks, through Eucharistic processions in our neighborhoods, and some even taking to the sky to bless the faithful. Though admirable and deeply appreciated in the fog of those days, there’s nothing that can satiate our burning desire to be physically united to the Lord, as He too desires. While we were physically separated from Him, the priests continued to receive Him daily.
It’s difficult for them to know the pain that we felt, unable to return to our parishes, worship God, and receive His strength in our time of need. There’s no doubt that being separated from their flocks was difficult for our priests and bishops, but they had the consolation of our Lord, truly present within them.
That was the reality of those days, and it would be wrong to begrudge our priests the privilege that they possessed in one of the most challenging times in our collective lives. What is wrong, however, is for the restrictions implemented in the spring of 2020 to continue today, precluding the full participation of the laity in the daily life of the Church.
I live in a diocese where the bishop has not reinstituted the reception of the Precious Blood by the faithful. This was one of the earliest changes made to the liturgy in March 2020, and why it continues to this day is baffling.
It’s stipulated that the true presence, even under a single species, is the full and complete Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus. God is indivisible; He is complete, whole, and total, no matter how we receive Him. It’s also true, however, that at the first Mass, Jesus first broke the bread, and then took the cup, telling us to this in memory of Him. This is noteworthy because although one species would be sufficient, His intent was that we receive Him under both species.
The Eucharist is today, as it has been since its institution, deeply scandalous. From the first time that Jesus proposed it, many of His followers went away, never to return. Today, only the Roman Catholic Church, and those in union with it, still possess the true presence. Many Protestant denominations celebrate “communion,” but regard it as perfunctory and performative, a simple commemoration that is merely an adjacent practice of their faith.
Though the theology of the Eucharist is among the hardest to accept, Jesus was unequivocal; the Eucharist is truly His body and truly His blood. Through it, He seeks to nourish His flock in an encounter that is both exclusive and deeply intimate. At the altar, we are fed, and we receive Him physically into our bodies, becoming living tabernacles. Like the love shared between spouses, this is an exclusive experience, reserved for the relationship between the true and living God and His people.
The excessive bureaucracy and clericalism in the Catholic Church that Pope Francis so derided in the early days of his papacy has only grown more entrenched under his reign. COVID broke many things, and though perhaps understandable in the early days, perpetuating this policy of denial is deeply unjust and an affront to the spiritual health and wellbeing of the faithful.
Our priests need the full grace and benefit of our Eucharist Lord to strengthen them to fulfill the high calling of their vocation in the midst of a broken, dark, and hostile world. So, too, do the laity.
Counterfeit Sacrament
It’s been quite the comedown from the moral clarity of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict. John Paul stood up to the evils of the communist system and ignited a rediscovery of the beauty and holiness of the human body. Benedict, both as a bishop and then as pope, wielded the sword of truth and the intellectual strength of the Church to destroy the falsehoods that press in on us. They weren’t perfect, and they made many mistakes. Still, they endeavored to ensure that their every word and action was used for the edification of the Church and the salvation of souls.
Then, there’s Francis.
Centuries ago, St. Francis heard the voice of God and rebuilt by hand the Church of San Damiano. Then, he formed a religious institution that began a much-needed renewal of the Church. Today, Pope Francis works ardently to undo his namesake’s good work.
In the 1960s, medical technology openly began to falsely promise that it could provide reliable contraception. The World gave an inch, and libertine society took a mile. Contraception promised that you could control your creative powers with no effort, no thought, no discipline, and no self-control. It promised freedom, control, and bliss; what we got was absolute misery and total dysfunction. Contraceptives are the only application of medicine wherein the sole intent is to disable an otherwise healthy and functioning system. The society of selfishness, hatred, and violence that contraceptives built was predicted by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae, to a point.
The libertine society returned soon thereafter to open a new front on marriage. Two decades ago, they promised that they just wanted legal protections for irregular relationships. The World gave an inch, another mile was taken. Marriage, to the common man, now means nothing. Marriages are entered and exited with little thought, discernment, or seriousness. This is a dangerous development because the family is the basic unit of society; without the family, society collapses.
Today, in the midst of the smoke, fog, and confusion around marriage comes Francis, shrouded in the authority of his office, wearing the distinctive white robe of the papacy, to place a bomb right in the middle of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
The Church has many expressions of faith, but only seven sacraments. These are outward signs, instituted by Christ, to give grace. Six of the Sacraments are celebrated by an ordained priest or deacon. Holy Matrimony is the only one in which the laity are the celebrants. When a man and woman come together at the altar to make their mutual promises and seal their covenant, they confer the sacrament on one another; the priest’s role is solely to witness and bless the marriage.
The Catholic Church recognizes the human person as God’s greatest creation. Intrinsically included in that recognition is the beauty and sanctity of the human body. God granted us a share in His creative powers through our ability to procreate. It’s from this understanding that the Church can recognize when use of our creative powers is good and holy, and when it is wrong. Human sexuality is an essential good inside of marriage because it binds the couple together and, when physiological circumstances are correct, leads to the loving creation of new life. Our creative powers can be studied, observed, and mastered. Indeed, we’re called to be stewards of our creative powers, exercising them judiciously for the greater good.
Sexual activity outside of marriage is always wrong because it contradicts the design and intent of our creative powers. When used outside of marriage, it’s no longer an authentic loving and giving expression, but rather it seeks to serve only itself.
Francis’ new guidelines are a logical fallacy. Though he claims to do them out of pastoral concern, he focuses only on blessing the relationships of same-sex couples. What about cohabitating couples? What about polyamorous relationships? What about polygamous relationships? What about sexual relationships between adults and children? After all, these relationships may too, to quote Cardinal Fernandez in Francis’ guidelines, “desire to entrust themselves to the Lord and his mercy, to invoke his help, and to be guided to a greater understanding of his plan of love and of truth.” Not so pastoral after all.
The truth is, what Francis and his band of tinkerers have done is institute a blessing that cannot be given. They’ve created a counterfeit sacrament. It looks like a marriage, it sounds like a marriage, but it isn’t one. They offer to the world what they cannot give; they promise what they cannot fulfill.
Although they stress the blessings of irregular relationships can only be granted if it’s clear that it’s not a marriage blessing, this is a true distinction without a difference. Francis is not oblivious to the lack of moral, logical, and philosophical education in the world today. He knows precisely how this will be received and interpreted by the vast majority of Catholics who can barely rouse themselves to make it to Mass twice a year. Worse still, how those who have not had the benefit of a Catholic education will receive this news.
In the face of reality, Francis presses forward with his intellectual pogrom. Any bishop or cardinal who dares speak out against this falseness is dismissed from their office and evicted from their home.
The Church exists to ensure the salvation of souls; that is its mission. It stores up grace, guarantees apostolic succession, provides the faithful with validly ordained priests, and assures access to the Sacraments. Its unwavering positions on faith and morals are not some obstinate adhesion to an outmoded and outdated way of thinking. Rather, it’s the culmination of 2,000 years of deeply thinking about and clarifying a basic set of principles. For those of us on earth, the Church is the lighthouse guiding us away from the cliffs and into the safe harbor.
What Francis proposes, as he willfully continues on his campaign of moral confusion, is to set the lighthouse adrift, where it can blink and float wherever the current takes it. The problem is that a lighthouse afloat helps no one. Many, many will be lost to the cliffs as a direct result of the words and actions of this papacy.
Yet, each time Francis pulls out his sledgehammer to destroy another cleric or another part of the Magisterium, irony abounds. This latest pronouncement comes near the end of Advent. A great star has risen. The people who walk, and live, in darkness have seen a great light. A savior is born, the great I AM, the king of kings, and He is the way, the truth, and the life. While we await the arrival of the bridegroom, we must continue to speak with the moral clarity that even the pope himself cannot seem to find.
This is wrong.