Love Is Patient . . .
All the times I have ever heard or read 1 Corinthians 13, I somehow have always flown over the very first definition of Love. Lately though, I can only meditate on it and it alone. Love is Patient. Love/God is Patient.
In order for us to learn how to love God, we must learn patience. Most of us don’t have to learn how to be patient for the good. Well, I know there is the impatience of waiting for a birth or a wedding, or a special event, but usually joy doesn’t require endurance. I am learning from my trials and from the trials I see others suffering right now, that patience can be the fruit of suffering. When I speak about trials, I have in mind a childhood friend, 28 years of age, a teacher in Nevada, diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. I have in mind my friend–a mother of six children–who has an inoperable non-malignant brain tumor that is not responding to treatment. I have in mind a beloved child, raped by her own father. I have in mind my own trials over the last few years and repeated frustrations, and health challenges. These are hard core, life altering, shake one to one’s core, life events that make a person seek out answers.
And the more I pray, the more I meditate, the more that very first line of 1st Corinthians repeats in my head, and I cannot help but think that God is trying to make me understand that Purgatory occurs. It will occur now or it will occur later and I believe that the length of purgation is determined by our ability to cooperate with it. The pain is patience. Patience, my friends, can be excruciating. My friend, just finished her first round of chemo for her breast cancer. She now must wait to discover if the tumors in her liver have responded to the chemo. As I waited to find out if I had TB or just plain pneumonia, I had to wear a blue mask in public. As I walked the aisles of my grocery store, people looked upon me as “other” and fled in terror of whatever disease I harbored.
Do not get me wrong. I do not believe God causes evil. But what God requests from us is complete and total trust in Him. The Pain is caused when we want to avoid the suffering and when we become angry that we even “have” to suffer. It has become so clear to me why Jesus said it is so difficult for rich people to get to heaven. I don’t think it is necessarily our attachments to our materials goods, as it is our attitudes that will keep us from God. Rich people are not used to being humbled or child like. Suffering is the only thing that I know that makes bendable . . . or not. And if we choose to avoid it, we ultimately choose to reject the first definition of Love. We reject Patience or Love . . . or God.
Resolved: The Church Should Ordain Women as Permanent Deacons
Resolved: the Church should return to the practice of the patristic period and ordain women to the permanent diaconate.
Please discuss.
Before responding, you may want to read the interview with Phyllis Zagano at U.S. Catholic and her response to what she felt were the many factually incorrect comments posted to that article.
Also, since it will probably be referred to by someone, here is a link to Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II’s letter on the ordination of women to the priesthood. (For what its worth, I searched the document and “deacon” and “diaconate” do not appear in the text: it is solely concerned with priestly ordination.)
Conscience Protections and Subsidiarity
The Obama administration’s refusal to provide adequate conscience protections to Church-affiliated institutions that do not wish to pay for contraception is fundamentally wrong. Obama has lost the vote of Michael Sean Winters over this. Given the depraved condition of the modern Republican party, I’m not sure I would go that far, but I know where he is coming from. Not only is this decision wrong, but it represents a betrayal of those who fought hardest and took the most heat – even death threats – for supporting the Affordable Care Act.
An American Christian-Democratic Movement?
I’ve long said that the Republican and Democratic parties are two dead ends in the same blind alley. With respect to Democrats and Republicans writing or reading here, I can’t belong to either party, so odious are their respective defections from basic Christian morality and the authentic teaching of the Church.
Michael Stafford agrees with me. He’s a lawyer and columnist whose latest piece, “A Christian Alternative to America’s Broken Political Duopoly,” is well worth a read, regardless of whether you are a partisan or, like me, a wanderer.
Stafford’s money quote: “British theologian and political philosopher Phillip Blond correctly notes that, ‘the current political consensus’ in the United States is ‘left-liberal in culture and right-liberal in economics. And this is precisely the wrong place to be.’ It’s also the fundamental reason why Christians cannot be at home in either political party – the Christian vision of the social and economic order is almost exactly the opposite of the current consensus.”
(Hat tip: John Medaille via Facebook)
It is commonly thought that criticism of capitalism has its exclusive provenance on the Left, but in fact there is a long tradition of conservative unease with capitalism. Now, by “conservative,” I obviously do not mean that weird and contradictory stew comprised of obscure Austrian economic theories, the “objectivist” ethics of Ayn Rand, Wilsonian idealism, American messianism, and Dominionist/Dispensationalist theology. That’s the “conservatism” of radio disk jockeys like Rush and Glenn, of the Tea Party, and The Sage of Austin, Rick Perry. By “conservative,” I mean what Russell Kirk meant when he wrote that “a conservative is a person who endeavors to conserve the best in our traditions and our institutions, reconciling that best with necessary reform from time to time.”
Contrast Kirk’s definition of “conservative” with the claim of contemporary “conservative” Michael Ledeen, who trumpets the revolutionary “menace” of democratic capitalism, American-style: “Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. Of all the myths that cloud our understanding, and therefore paralyze our will and action, the most pernicious is that only the Left has a legitimate claim to the revolutionary tradition.” (From War Against the Terror Masters)
Southern Strategy – Catholic Edition
Some things never change. As the Republican presidential campaign goes south (geographically!), the racial dog whistles grow louder. Consider this simple fact: the white population of South Carolina is 66 percent. But the GOP primary is 99 percent white. Isn’t that a problem of vast dimensions?
And here’s the sad thing – our fellow Catholics New Gingrich and Rick Santorum seem to be in on the game, despite the clear Church teaching on the innate dignity of every human person (regardless of race) and the core unity of the human race (regardless of race). The Church teaches quite clearly that racism is an intrinsically evil act.
Our friends at Faith in Public Life have published an open letter to Gingrich and Santorum by 40 prominent Catholics leaders and theologians. Here is the letter:
Culture Break: “Old Ideas”
Poet, songwriter, Jewish prophet, Buddhist monk, and master of Christian literary imagery Leonard Cohen, 77, is about to release a new album on January 31. I just gave the album, titled Old Ideas, a “first listen” at National Public Radio. It strikes me as another masterpiece, on par with Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), Various Positions (1984), I’m Your Man (1988), and The Future (1992). If you’re not familiar with Cohen, there is no better introduction than “Live in London,” a two-disk set from his 2008-2009 tour (at the age of 74). I promise that by the time you reach track 6, “In My Secret Life,” you will be a fan, if not a follower.
I have followed Cohen’s career since the mid 1970′s. I “discovered” him through my musical and lyrical infatuation with Bob Dylan (an infatuation which has not abated despite 37 years, 28 live performances and some big disappointments). But it wasn’t until I saw Cohen live in Boston in 2009 that I became deeply invested in his oeuvre, including his poetry. I’ve been to scores and scores of concerts over the years, but nothing had prepared me for the generous, humble, self-donating spirit of the man or the luminous virtuosity of the musicians around him. Combined with the God-haunted lyrics of the songs, the evening was a transformed into a genuine religious experience.
That said, Cohen doesn’t fit neatly into any religious – or musical – categories, so I won’t even attempt to fix him in some lame triangulation scheme. What he does is announce deep truths about sex, mortality, sin, God; and he does so in the language of a man whose first love was poetry. A good example is the following quote, which is taken from an online chat in which someone asked Cohen for his assessment of the state of Christianity today. He answered: “As I understand it, into the heart of every Christian, Christ comes, and Christ goes. When, by his Grace, the landscape of the heart becomes vast and deep and limitless, then Christ makes His abode in that graceful heart, and His Will prevails. The experience is recognized as Peace. In the absence of this experience much activity arises, divisions of every sort. Outside of the organizational enterprise, which some applaud and some mistrust, stands the figure of Jesus, nailed to a human predicament, summoning the heart to comprehend its own suffering by dissolving itself in a radical confession of hospitality.”
I can’t be sure Cohen wrote that, but it sounds like something he’d say. I am certain that he wrote the following lines, which are from a song titled “Show Me The Place,” from the new album, Old Ideas, available for purchase a week from tomorrow:
Show me the place where you want your slave to go
Show me the place, I’ve forgotten, I don’t know
Show me the place, for my head is bending low
Show me the place where you want your slave to goShow me the place, help me roll away the stone
Show me the place, I can’t move this thing alone
Show me the place where the Word became a man
Show me the place where the suffering began
About Those Conscience Protections
Michael Sean Winters is understandably miffed at the HHS ruling that will require many Catholic institutions to cover contraceptives in their insurance policies. Indeed, the president has lost his vote. President Obama never had my vote, but I could add his refusal to expand conscience exemptions to my reasons why.
I understand why he went ahead with the ruling as is. He thought it was the right thing to do. Contra the statements of celibate religious authorities, most people value the widespread availability of contraceptives as a much-needed social good. Obama met opposition from a vocal minority that, let’s face it, doesn’t represent the majority of Catholics, who use contraceptives without a second thought. My guess is that Obama, if he considered the reaction from Catholics at all, figured only a tiny minority would be bothered by the mandate. If the majority of Catholics don’t follow their faith’s teachings to the letter, why should Obama be expected to take those teachings seriously?
The U.S. Is a Mortal Threat to Iran
Sharp wordsmith Mark Helprin is among my favorite novelists, but his occasional meanderings into strategic analysis and wonkery leave much to be desired. Case in point: his latest in The Wall Street Journal, an assumptions-ridden piece peppered with inconsistencies and misrepresentations arguing for a U.S. attack on the “Iranian nuclear weapons complex.” While not calling for an invasion, Helprin suggests “massive ordnance penetrators; lesser but precision-guided penetrators ‘drilling’ one after another; fuel-air detonations with almost the force of nuclear weapons; high-power microwave attack; the destruction of laboratories, unhardened targets, and the Iranian electrical grid; and other means.” He shows no shred of doubt about the consequences of his proposed strike, dismissing any long-term terror retaliation or a military response from either Russia or China. Nor does Helprin express any calculation of the human cost Iran would suffer by the attacks he so desperately champions, a cost which should figure into any consideration of lethal force.
Let me get this out of the way: I don’t for a minute think that the U.S. is a terrorist state, run by a regime enthused by malicious and hateful intent. I wouldn’t equate it morally with worst abusers of human rights around the globe. Having said this, however, it pains me to say that the U.S. and those supportive of its aggressions are gravely negligent and careless about the real human costs of those aggressions. As a result of negligence and carelessness–and, for the record, murders–the U.S. has spilt a lot of blood and piled up a lot of bodies. The truth is this: the U.S. is at least as great a mortal threat as most dictatorial and terrorist regimes are.
“Those that we call monsters are not so to God”
A friend I made through my personal blog sent me a link a while ago to an op-ed piece in the New York Times by Emily Rapp, a memorist-mother whose toddler son, Ronan, is dying of Tay-Sachs disease. If you click over to the link, you will see what an almost-celestially beautiful child he is; nevertheless, the progression of his disease means that he is losing all of his senses and his abilities — by this time, he has become blind — and that he will likely die in a vegetative state before his third birthday.
I check Emily Rapp’s blog, Little Seal, occasionally (her son’s name, Ronan, means “little seal” in Irish), and found a powerful post there the other day which alludes to Michel de Montaigne’s essay “Of A Monstrous Child,” in which the Renaissance humanist describes a grotesquely-deformed toddler whom he met on the streets of Paris, being exhibited by his caretakers as a begging lure. In the end, Montaigne surprises the reader by concluding that it is the shock and horror that men express when they encounter something so outside of the ordinary that is contrary to nature, and not the thing itself. As Rapp notes:
The burden . . . falls on the looker, and the looker is held accountable for the lens through which she sees – and sorts – the world. I love the way Montaigne makes that child . . . extraordinary in the truest sense: brilliant and shiny. The thing you want most to pick up when it glints at you from the street. The man born blind in the Gospel of John did not exist to make people feel grateful for their vision; the text is very clear that he, in fact, possessed the vision that others did not. That his was a looking that saw wonder, saw God, when others did not.
Rapp also references a politician who has stated publicly, as she puts it, that “disabled children are a woman’s punishment for having abortions in her sullied, slutty, ho-bag past.” There is no comment worthy of this perversion of the Christian proclamation, but it is germane to note that it directly contradicts the passage in the Gospel of John mentioned above:
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
As Rapp says of the man born blind, “His body was not a punishment; it was a kind of divine revelation.”
This reminded me of the assertion of Gerard Nadal, bioethicist and father of an autistic child, that the huge spike in autism diagnoses is taking place so that we may truly learn how to love. It reminded me, also, of the passage in Saint Faustina’s diary in which she suggests that God the Father regards the world and its creatures through the wounds of His Son. May we learn to look at each other that way, too.
Is He Dangerous?
The “he” in this case is Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, the French Jesuit, anthropologist and theologian. In a conversation this past week I heard his theological writings referred to as “dangerous, particularly for young minds.” It turns out that this was a paraphrase of a 1962 condemnation of de Chardin’s writing by the Holy Office (now Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith):
“Several works of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, some of which were posthumously published, are being edited and are gaining a good deal of success.
“Prescinding from a judgement about those points that concern the positive sciences, it is sufficiently clear that the above-mentioned works abound in such ambiguities and indeed even serious errors, as to offend Catholic doctrine.
“For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers.”
In 1981 this “monitum” (“warning”) was still treated as in force, though it was not quoted directly, only referred to.
What has happened to us?
If there is one thing we can all agree on in the American political sphere, it’s that we are a divided nation. Sure, our divisions grow more conspicuous going into an election year, but we all know they’ve been there well before the pre-election hype began to take over our national consciousness. As soon as we begin to ask what is at the root of these divisions, however, the question unfolds into a daunting tangle of related questions. When and how did we become so hopelessly polarized? Or are we simply exaggerating the uniqueness of our time, just as people in every age are wont to do? Has it always been this bad? When did partisan gridlock and brinkmanship become such a commonplace occurrence? How did the parties come to be so ruled by fear of their cartoonishly villainous caricatures of each other? And why oh why does the tea party have such sway? And, of course, everyone’s favorite: who is to blame for the mess we’re in?
As a staunch political independent, I cannot, nor do I wish to, take the default partisan recourse of blaming the nearest president from the opposing party. As naive as it sounds in retrospect, both Bush and Obama began their presidencies with great bipartisan promise – including, from what I understand, some decent track records to back it up. And both presidencies have proven to be insanely polarizing. On one level, it is sort of a perverse testimony to the effectiveness of our political system that our public discourse can become so vitriolic without degenerating into large-scale physical violence, but on the other hand, we are deluding ourselves if we assume that unless our violence is physical, it’s not really violence. I suspect I’m not alone in getting the feeling that something – beyond generic invocations of human fallenness – is deeply wrong. Read more…
Sherlock And The Problem of Life
Warning: What follows will contain major Spoilers for those who have not seen the new series of Sherlock.
In the original Sherlock Holmes stories, Professor Moriarty represented the mirror image of Sherlock, the criminal mastermind who rivaled Holmes in ability. There is much to this in the new series version of Moriarty. He was not sure, but in the end, both of them realized this is so.
This version of Moriarty has developed into a rather interesting mixture of evils, becoming one of the most compelling presentations of Moriarty put on screen. Read more…
Benedict versus Bain Capital
“Every economic decision has a moral consequence”. This is one of the core themes of Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict’s great social encyclical. Do we really believe this? On the right, you will see an excessive deference to markets, an attitude seems to hark back to an old theological fallacy on the separation between grace and nature. And on the left, you will hear calls for markets to be regulated and the wealth they generate to be distributed fairly by the state. But what about the people, the entities, the cultures that populate the business economy? This is what most interests Benedict. And it is too often off our radar.
“The Truth of the Father is the Son, and his shield is the Cross, whereby he surrounds you to protect you against the devil, the world and the flesh. In the Cross is humility against the devil’s pride; there is found Christ’s poverty, against the avarice of the world; there is crucifixion with nails against the lust of the flesh. “[1]
Christ the poor, weak man fights the good fight against the fallen powers of the world. Appearing defeated, he is shown to be victorious through the cross. The truth is beaten down, but cannot be overcome. Christ is resurrected in glory, showing the true wealth of heaven while the unjust rulers of the world find the poverty they have forced upon others becomes their out state in death. Christ demands from the rich all that they have unjustly taken from the poor. They are to give it back – with interest – following the example of Zacchaeus. They are given the chance in life to repent of their ways, to take up their cross, and follow Christ. But if they are not willing in life to justly treat those who have suffered at their hands, they will find all that they have gained in life is naught as they are spiritually impoverished in the next life, begging for the scraps of the saints to sustain them in their misery (cf. Luke 16:19 -31).
St. Francis represents the rich man who found the value of poverty. Read more…
They’re Strangers to Me; Kill Away!
The other day, while at a birthday party for a friend of my son, I initiated a discussion with a couple of the parents about the presidential candidates. The subject of the assassinated Iranian scientists came up because I, instigator that I am, brought it up. The two people with whom I was engaged expressed their being okay with possible U.S. involvement in these killings. One of them openly shared her reason for not caring: “I don’t know them. Nobody I know knows them.” Stopping Iran from producing a nuke seemed to be all that mattered. Don’t want to get wacked? Don’t be an Iranian scientist.
Last night, while listening to the latest debate, I heard the audience boo the suggestion that we ought to apply the Golden Rule to our dealings and relations with foreign powers and people. Ares forbid we treat strangers the way we want to be treated. Woe to those who put themselves in another’s place and consider the world from his or her perspective.
Enter Robert Wright: “I’ve long thought that the biggest single problem in the world is the failure of “moral imagination”–the inability or unwillingness of people to see things from the perspective of people in circumstances different from their own. Especially incendiary is the failure to extend moral imagination across national, religious, or ethnic borders.” When I reflect upon the gravest of social ills, I realize he’s correct: a failure of moral imagination underlies all of them. And what’s scary is that, while I cannot picture myself committing horrid deeds along the lines of terrorism, genocide, or butchery, I’m guilty of the disposition that gives these evils birth. For all my talk of hospitality and alterity and all that jazz, I’m a selfish, self-centered lout who all too often cares little to nothing for my fellow strangers, their walks of life, and their perspectives on the world.
We Need A Saint Anthony For Today
It is said that St. Anthony founded Christian monasticism. It is clear that he was not the first Christian ascetic. While St Paul the Hermit might have been the first to become a hermit in the desert, this does not mean he was the first Christian ascetic. In the cities, non-Christian ascetics from different philosophical and religious backgrounds existed, and it is probable that their lifestyle, though pagan, inspired many of the early Christian ascetics and that there is a connection between a non-Christian, pagan monastic movement (such as found in Buddhism) with the Christian monastic tradition. We know Buddhist missionaries made their way into Alexandria, and it is likely that their teachings inspired many to live better, purer lives, even if the Buddhist dharma was not accepted. Certainly, the Egyptian culture influenced the Egyptian monastic movement, with Egyptian priestly garb being used as a foundation for monastic outfits and the style of Egyptian music being used for Christian hymns. St. Anthony followed the spirit of Alexandrian Christianity, a Christianity which was at once bold and adaptive; it is possible some of his earliest teachers in ascetic discipline were not Christian and he had to develop a way to take what he learned and use it for the Christian cause. This might be able to explain some of the sayings we have of St Anthony, where we see Anthony himself reflecting upon his changing relationship with God:
Abba Anthony said, ‘I no longer fear God, but I live Him. For love casts out fear’ (John 4.18).[1]
It is not difficult for one to read the biography of St Anthony and to be pulled in to the great, charismatic figure presented. Read more…
