The Healing Place of Silence

July 20, 2015

A recent book, by Robyn Cadwallander, The Anchoress, tells the story of young woman, Sarah, who chooses to shut herself off from the world and lives as an Anchoress (like Julian of Norwich). It’s not an easy life and she soon finds herself struggling with her choice. Her confessor is a young, inexperienced, monk named Father Ranaulf. Their relationship isn’t easy. Ranaulf is a shy man, of few words, and so Sarah is often frustrated with him, wanting him to say more, to be more empathic, and simply to be more present to her. They often argue, or, at least, Sarah tries to coax more words and sympathy out of Ranaulf. But whenever she does this he cuts short the visit and leaves.

One day, after a particularly frustrating meeting that leaves Ranaulf tongue-tied and Sarah in hot anger, Ranaulf is just about to close the shutter-window between them and leave, his normal response to tension, when something inside him stops him from leaving. He knows that he must offer Sarah something, but he has no words. And so, having nothing to say but feeling obliged to not leave, he simply sits there in silence. Paradoxically his mute helplessness achieves something that his words don’t, a breakthrough. Sarah, for the first time, feels his concern and sympathy and he, for his part, finally feels present to her.

Here’s how Cadwallander describes the scene: “He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. There was no more he could say, but he would not leave her alone with such bitterness. And so he remained on his stool, feeling the emptiness of the room around him, the failure of his learning, the words he had stacked up in his mind, page upon page, shelf upon shelf. He could not speak, but he could stay; he would do that. He began to silently pray, but did not know how to go on, what to ask for. He gave up, his breath slowed.

The silence began as a small and frightened thing, perched on the ledge of his window, but as Ranaulf sat in stillness, it grew, very slowly, and filled up the parlor, wrapped itself around his neck and warmed his back, curled under his knees and around his feet, floated along the walls, tucked into the corners, nestled in the crevices of stone. … The silence slipped through the gaps under the curtain and into the cell beyond. A velvet thing, it seemed. It swelled and settled, gathering every space into itself. He did not stir; he lost all sense of time. All he knew was the woman but an arm’s length away in the dark, breathing. That was enough.

When the candle in the parlor guttered, he stirred, looked into the darkness. ‘God be with you, Sarah.’ ‘And with you, Father.’ Her voice was lighter, more familiar.”

There’s a language beyond words. Silence creates the space for it. Sometimes when we feel powerless to speak words that are meaningful, when we have to back off into unknowing and helplessness, but remain in the situation, silence creates the space that’s needed for a deeper happening to occur. But often, initially, that silence is uneasy. It begins “as a small frightened thing” and only slowly grows into the kind of warmth that dissolves tension.

There are many times when we have no helpful words to speak. We’ve all had the experience of standing by the bedside of someone who is dying, of being at a funeral or wake, of sitting across from someone who is dealing with a broken heart, or of reaching a stalemate in trying to talk through a tension in a relationship, and finding ourselves tongue-tied, with no words to offer, finally reduced to silence, knowing that anything we say might aggravate the pain. In that helplessness, muted by circumstance, we learn something: We don’t need to say anything; we only need to be there. Our silent, helpless presence is what’s needed.

And I must admit that this is not something I’ve learned easily, have a natural aptitude for, or in fact do most times when I should. No matter the situation, I invariably feel the need to try to say something useful, something helpful that will resolve the tension. But I’m learning, both to let helplessness speak and how powerfully it can speak.

I remember once, as a young priest, full of seminary learning and anxious to share that learning, sitting across from someone whose heart had just been broken, searching through answers and insights in my head, coming up empty, and finally confessing, by way of apology, my helplessness to the person across from me. Her response surprised me and taught me something I’d didn’t know before. She said simply: Your helplessness is the most precious gift you could share with me right now. Thanks for that. Nobody expects you to have a magic wand to cure their troubles.

Sometimes silence does become a velvet thing that swells and settles, gathering every space into itself.

Healing – A Theory

July 13, 2015

All of us live with some wounds, bad habits, addictions, and temperamental flaws that are so deeply engrained and long-standing that it seems like they are part of our genetic make-up. And so we tend to give into a certain quiet despair in terms of ever being healed of them.

Experience teaches us this. There’s the realization at some point in our lives that the wounds and flaws which pull us down cannot be simply be turned off like a water-tap. Willpower and good resolutions alone are not up to the task. What good is it to make a resolution never to be angry again? Our anger will invariably return. What good is it to make a resolution to give up some addictive habit, however small or big? We will soon enough again be overcome by its lure. And what good does it do to try to change some temperamental flaw we’ve inherited in our genes or inhaled in the air of our childhood? All the good resolutions and positive thinking in the world normally don’t change our make-up.

So what do we do? Just live with our wounds and flaws and the unhappiness and pettiness that this brings into our lives? Or, can we heal? How do we weed-out our weaknesses?

There are many approaches to healing: Psychology tells us that good counselling and therapy can help cure us of our wounds, flaws, and addictions. Therapy and counselling can bring us to a better self-understanding and that can help us change our behavior. But psychology also admits that this has its limitations. Knowing why we do something doesn’t always empower us to change our behavior. Sociology too has insights to contribute: There is, as Parker Palmer puts it, the therapy of a public life. Healthy interaction with family, friends, community, and church can be a wonderfully steadying thing in our lives and help take us beyond our lonely wounds and our congenital missteps.

Various Recovery (12-Step) programs also contribute something valuable: These programs are predicated on the premise that self-understanding and willpower by themselves are often powerless to actually change our behavior. A higher power is needed, and that higher power is found in ritual, communal support, radical honesty, admittance of our helplessness, and a turning over of ourselves to a Someone or Something beyond us that can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Recovery programs are invaluable, but they too aren’t the answer to all of our problems.

Finally, not least, there are various theories and practices of healing that ground themselves in spirituality. These range from emphasizing church-going itself as a healing, to emphasizing the sacrament of reconciliation, to recommending prayer and meditation, to counseling various ascetical practices, to sending people off to holy sites, to letting oneself be prayed-over by some group or faith-healer, to undergoing long periods of spiritual guidance under a trained director.

There’s value in all of these and perhaps the full healing of a temperamental flaw, a bad habit, an addiction, or a deep wound depends upon drawing water from each of these wells. However, beyond this simple listing, I would like to offer an insight from the great mystic, John of the Cross vis-à-vis coming to psychological, moral, and spiritual healing.

In his last book, The Living Flame of Love, John proposes a theory of, and a process for, healing. In essence, it runs this way: For John, we heal of our wounds, moral flaws, addictions, and bad habits by growing our virtues to the point where we become mature enough in our humanity so that there’s no more room left in our lives for the old behaviors that used to drag us down. In short, we get rid of the coldness, bitterness, and pettiness in our hearts by lighting inside our hearts enough warm fires to burn out the coldness and bitterness. The algebra works this way: The more we grow in maturity, generativity, and generosity, the more our old wounds, bad habits, temperamental flaws, and addictions will disappear because our deeper maturity will no longer leave room for them in our lives. Positive growth of our hearts, like a vigorous plant, eventually chokes-out the weeds. If you went to John of the Cross and asked him to help you deal with a certain bad habit in your life, his focus wouldn’t be on how to weed-out that habit. Instead the focus would be on growing your virtues: What are you doing well? What are your best qualities? What goodness in you needs to be fanned fan into fuller flame?

By growing what’s positive in us, we eventually become big-hearted enough so that there’s no room left for our former bad habits. The path to healing is to water our virtues so that these virtues themselves will be the fire that burns out the festering wounds, addictions, bad habits, and temperamental flaws that have, for far too long, plagued our lives and kept us wallowing in weakness and pettiness rather than walking in maturity, generosity, and generativity.

The Value and Power of Ritual

July 6, 2015

Today we no longer understand the value and power of ritual. This is more than an individual failing. It’s the cultural air we breathe. In the words of Robert L. Moore, we’ve gone “ritually tone-deaf”. The effects of this can be seen everywhere: Allow me two examples:

First, we see this today in the failure by so many couples to grasp the need to formalize their relationship in a ceremony of marriage. They make a private commitment to live together but feel no need to formalize this before a civil authority or inside a church. Their belief is that their love and private commitment to each other is all that’s needed. What does a formal ceremony or a church blessing add to that commitment? The prevalent feeling is that a formal ceremony, ideally even in a church, is nice as a celebration and as something to please others, but, beyond that, it adds little or nothing in terms of anything important. What does ritual contribute to actual life?

We see this same view in many current attitudes towards church-going, prayer, and the sacraments. What’s the value of participating in something when seemingly our hearts aren’t in it? What’s the value of going to church when we feel it’s meaningless? What’s the value of praying formally when, today, our hearts are a million miles away from what our words are saying? Further still, what’s the value in going to church or in saying prayers at those times when we feel a certain positive repugnance to what we’re doing? Indeed these questions are often expressed as an accusation: People are just going through the motions of church and prayer, parroting words that aren’t really meaningful to them, going through an empty ritual! What’s the value in that? The value is that the ritual itself can hold and sustain our hearts in something deeper than the emotions of the moment.

Matthew Crawford, in his recent book, The World Beyond Your Head, suggests that ritual acts positively even when our feelings are negative. His words: “Consider as an example someone who suffers not from some ragging emotion of lust, resentment, or jealousy … but rather sadness, discontent, boredom, or annoyance. A wife, let us say, feels this way about her husband. But she observes a certain ritual: she says “I love you” upon retiring at night. She says this not as a report about her feelings – it is not sincere – but neither it is a lie. What it is is a kind of prayer. She invokes something that she values – the marital bond – and in doing so turns away from her present discontent and toward this bond, however elusive it may be as an actual experience. It has been said that ritual (as opposed to sincerity) has “subjunctive” quality to it: one acts as if some state of affairs were true, or could be. … It relieves one of the burden of ‘authenticity’. … “The ritual of saying ‘I love you’ … alters somewhat the marital scene; it may not express love so much as to invoke it, by incantation. One spouse invites the other to join with her in honoring the marriage, something one could honor. It is an act of faith: in one another, but also in a third thing, which is the marriage itself.”

What Crawford highlights here is precisely, “a third thing”, that is, something beyond the emotions of a given moment and our faith in each other, namely, the institution of marriage itself as a ritual container, as a sacrament that can hold and sustain a relationship beyond the emotions and feelings of the moment. Marriage, as an institution, human and divine, is designed to sustain love inside of and beyond the emotional and affective fluctuations that inevitably occur inside of every intimate relationship. Marriage allows two people to continue to love each other despite boredom, irritation, anger, bitterness, wound, and, in some cases, even infidelity. The ritual act of getting married places one inside that container.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when preaching at marriage ceremonies, would frequently give this counsel to couples: Today you are much in love and you feel that love will sustain your marriage. It wouldn’t. But marriage can sustain your love. Being ritually tone-deaf, we struggle to understand that.

The same holds true for church-going, the sacraments, and private prayer. It’s not a question of going through the motions on days when the feelings aren’t there. Rather it’s going through the ritual as an incantation, as an honoring of our relationship to God, and as an act of faith in prayer.

If we only said “I love you” when we actually felt that emotion and if we only prayed when we actually felt like it, we wouldn’t express love or pray very often. When we say “I love you” and when we do formal prayer at those times when our feelings seem to belie our words, we aren’t being hypocritical or simply going through the motions, we’re actually expressing some deeper truths.

The God of Our Desires

June 29, 2015

What lies deepest inside authentic faith is the truth that God is the object of all human desire, no matter how earthy and unholy that desire might seem at times. This implies that everything we desire is contained in God. We see this expressed in the Psalms, which tell us that God is the object of our desires, and in Jesus, who tells us that it is in God that our deepest hungers and thirsts will be satiated. And so we pray, without perhaps ever really being conscious of what we are saying: My soul longs for you in the night. You, Lord, alone, can fill my heart. You, O Lord, are my all. But is it really God that we are longing for in the night and aching for in our desires?

Do we really believe that God is the real object of our desires? When we look at all that is beautiful, full of life, attractive, sexually alluring, and pleasurable on earth, do we really think and believe that this is contained in an infinitely richer way inside of God and inside the life into which God invites us? Do we really believe that the joys of heaven will surpass the pleasures of earth and that, already in this world, the pleasures of virtue trump the sensations of sin? Do we really believe that faith will give us what we desire?

It would seem not. We, and most everyone else, struggle to turn our attention towards God. We find religious practice and prayer more of a disruption to life than an entry into it, more a duty than an offer, more an asceticism than a joy, and more as something that has us missing out on life than entering into its depths. In most of us, if we are honest, there is a secret envy of those who recklessly plumb sacred energy for their own pleasure, that is, we doggedly do our duty in committing ourselves to something higher, but, like the Older Brother of the Prodigal Son, we mostly serve God out of obligation and are bitter about the fact that many others do not. This side of eternity, virtue often envies sin and, truth be told, this is particularly true regarding sexuality.

But partly this is natural and a sign of health, given that the brute reality of our physicality and the pressures of the present moment naturally impose themselves on us in a way that can make the things of God and spirit seem abstract and unreal. That is simply the human condition and God, no doubt, understands. You would have to be a true mystic to be above this.

However it can be helpful to tease out more explicitly something we profess in faith, namely, that all that we find attractive, beautiful, irresistible, erotic, and pleasurable here on earth is found, even more fully, inside of its source, God. God is better looking than any movie star. God is more intelligent than the brightest scientist or philosopher. God is more witty and funny than the best of our comedians. God is more creative than any artist, writer, or innovator in history. God is more sophisticated than the most-learned person on earth. God is more exuberant than any young person. God is more popular than any rock star. And, not least, God is more erotic and sexually attractive than any woman, man, or sexual image on earth. We don’t ordinarily think that or believe this about God, but those statements are as much dogma as are the strictest church-doctrines on record. Everything that is alluring on earth is inside of God, in even a richer form, since God is its author.

However that does not take away the power of earthly things to allure, nor should it. Countless things can overwhelm us with their stunning reality: a beautiful person, a sunset, a piece of music, a work of art, youthful exuberance, a baby’s innocence, someone’s wit, feelings of intimacy, feelings of nostalgia, a glass of wine on the right evening, a stirring in our sexuality, or, most deeply of all, an inchoate sense of the uniqueness and preciousness of our own lives. We need to honor those things and thank God for the gift, even as we make ourselves aware that all of this is found more-richly inside of God and that we lose nothing when virtue, religion, and commitment ask us to sacrifice these things for something higher. Jesus, himself, promises that whatever we give up for what is higher will be given back to us one hundredfold.

Knowing this, we should live our lives fully enjoying what is earthy and earthly. The beauties and pleasures of this life are a gift from God, meant to be enjoyed. But, by being aware of their source, we can also then be free enough to accept the very real limits that life puts on our desires. And, better still, we need not fear death since what we lose will be trumped one-hundredfold by what we gain.

The Hero-Complex

June 22, 2015

Several years ago, the movie Argo won the Academy award as the best movie of the year. I enjoyed the movie in that it was a good drama, one that held its audience in proper suspense even as it provided some good humor and banter on the side. But I struggled with several aspects of the film. First, as a Canadian, I was somewhat offended by the way that the vital role that Canadians played in the escape of the USA hostages from Iran in 1979 was downplayed to the point of simply being written out of the story. The movie would have been more honest had it advertised itself as “based on a true story” rather than presenting itself as a true story.

But that was more of an irritation than anything serious. Art has the right to exaggerate forms to highlight an essence. I don’t begrudge a filmmaker his film. What bothered me was how, again, as is so frequently the case in Hollywood movies and popular literature, we were shown a hero under the canopy of that adolescent idealization where, by going it alone, the hero singularly saves the world, alone is the “messiah”, and whose self-sequestration coupled with a certain arrogance is presented as human superiority. But that, the classic hero who does it “his way” and whose wisdom and talent dwarfs everyone else, is an adolescent fantasy.

What’s wrong with that “classic hero” as he is normally portrayed in so many of our movies?

What’s wrong is that the great ancient myths and a good number of anthropologists, philosophers, and psychologists tell us that this kind of “hero” is not the mature archetype of the true warrior or prophet. The mature savior, prophet, or warrior is not “the hero”, but “the knight”. And this is the difference: The hero operates off his own agenda, whereas the knight is under someone else’s agenda. The knight lays his or her sword at the foot of the King or Queen. The knight, like Jesus, “does nothing on his own”.

But this isn’t easy to understand and accept. The powerful idealization we throw onto our heroes and heroines is, like love in adolescence, so powerful a drug that it is hard to see that something much fuller and more mature lays beyond it. The obsessive love that Romeo and Juliet die for is very powerful, but a mature couple, holding hands after fifty years of marriage, is the real paradigm for love. The lonely, isolated, unapologetic hero grips the imagination in a way that the more-fully mature man or woman does not: Alan Ladd riding off into the sunset at the end of the movie, Shane; any number of characters played by Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger; and, not least, the hero of Argo, overruling even the orders of the President in saving the hostages in Iran.

The Nobel-prizing winning philosopher, Albert Camus, in his book, The Plague, presents us with what should, by all accounts, be an example of a most-noble hero. His hero is a certain Dr. Rieux who, because he is an atheist, struggles with the question of meaning: If there is no God, then where can there be meaning? What difference does any virtue or generosity ultimately make? Dr. Rieux answers that question for himself by finding meaning in selflessly giving himself over, at the risk of his own life, to fighting the plague. What could be more-noble than that? Few things fire the romantic imagination as does this kind of moral rebellion. So, what could be more-noble than the hero in the movie, Argo, going it alone in taking on the regime in Iran?

Charles Taylor has a certain answer to answer this. Commenting on Camus’ hero, Dr. Rieux, Taylor asks: “Is this the ultimate measure of excellence? If we think of ethical virtue as the realization of lone individuals, this may seem to be the case. But suppose the highest good consists of communion, mutual giving and receiving, as in the paradigm of the eschatological banquet. The heroism of gratuitous giving has no place for reciprocity. If you return anything to me, then my gift was not totally gratuitous; and besides, in the extreme case, I disappear with my gift and no communion between us is possible. This unilateral heroism is self-enclosed. It touches the outermost limit of what we can attain to when moved by the sense of our own dignity. But is that what life is about? Christian faith proposes a quite different view.”

And so it does: We see this in Jesus. He comes into this world precisely as a savior, to vanquish the powers of darkness, violence, injustice, Satan, and death. But notice how, almost as mantra, he keeps saying: I do nothing on my own. I am perfectly obedient to my Father. Jesus was never a hero, a “lone-ranger” doing his own thing while barely concealing a smug superiority. He was the paradigm of the “knight”, the humble foot-soldier who always lays his sword at the foot of the King.

The Best One can do in the Circumstances

June 15, 2015

Recently I led a weeklong retreat for some sixty people at a renewal center. Overall, it went very well, though ideally it could have gone better. It could have gone better if, previous to the retreat, I would have had more time to prepare and more time to rest so that I would have arrived at the retreat well-rested, fully-energetic, and able to give this group my total undivided attention for seven days.

Of course, that wasn’t the case. The days leading up to the retreat were consumed by many pressures in my regular ministry; these were long days that kept me preoccupied and tired. Indeed, in the days leading up to the retreat, I had to do many extra hours of work simply to free myself up to lead this retreat. So I arrived for this retreat partly exhausted and carrying with me still a lot of pressures from my regular duties.

In spite of this, the retreat still went pretty well. I had enough energy and focus to make things essentially work. But it wasn’t the best I could do ideally, though it was the best I could do given the circumstances.

Given that confession, it’s fair to ask: Didn’t those retreatants have a right to have me arrive for this retreat more-rested, more-prepared, and more-ready to give them my full, undivided attention? Fair enough. They did have that right; except that this was mitigated by the fact that all the people who are daily affected by my regular duties also had that same right. They too had a right to my time, my un-fatigued self, my full energies, and my undivided attention. During that week of retreat, my office also got second best: I was not giving it my ideal best; but only what I could do, given the circumstances.

I suspect most time-management experts, and not a few counselors and spiritual directors, would tell me that the reason this tension exists in my life is because of my failure to set clear priorities and be faithful to them and that this sloppy indecisiveness is unfair to everyone on every side. If am over-extended, it’s a fault in my life, pure and simple, which I have a moral responsibility to correct.

But is it really that simple? Are we really meant to have this much control of over our lives? Don’t circumstance and need perennially trump that? Aren’t the generative years of our lives about much more than ensuring our own health and rest? Even if the purpose of our own self-care is not selfish but intended for the better service of others, isn’t that service itself the final culprit? There are needs all over and our resources are finite, isn’t that always a formula for tension?

Circumstance conscripts us and, in the words of Jesus, puts a rope around us and takes where we would rather not go, namely, beyond our comfort, beyond always being adequately rested, and beyond always being in control of our own timetable and energies. Admittedly it’s dangerous to over-extend yourself, except that it’s equally, perhaps more, dangerous to under-extend yourself so as to always have full control of your own energy and commitments and be always well rested and not over-taxed. We can burnout, but we can also rust-out.

This, of course, can easily become a rationalization for not setting proper priorities and for letting ourselves be non-reflectively buffeted by circumstance. But the opposite can also be a rationalization used to over-protect our own comfort and rest. That’s the tension, and it’s meant to be a tension. Sometimes we overextend ourselves and sometime we under-extend ourselves. Most of the people that I admire most in the world suffer from the former, overextension, and, paradoxically, it seems to give them more energy. Jesus, while cautioning proper self-care (Let us go away by ourselves for a while and rest. Mark, 6, 31) also tells us that we should pour ourselves out completely for others without worrying too much about whether this will kill us or not.

I had all of this in mind as I struggled while giving a recent retreat, knowing that neither the retreatants nor my office were getting my best energies … though both got the best that I could give, given the circumstance.

And isn’t this a good image for the whole of our lives? We have finite energies, finite time, finite attention, and we are constantly swamped by circumstance, need, and pressure. There’s always something! And so we are often caught in a major tension as regards our time, energy, and attention. In any given season within our lives, if we are honest, we might have to say: This wasn’t the best I might have done ideally, but it’s the best that I could do, given the circumstance!

Ultimately this is true for our whole lives. It’s never ideal, but it’s the best we can do, given the circumstance. And that should be more than enough when we stand before our Maker in judgment.

A Primal Understanding of the Eucharist

June 8, 2015

Christian de Cherge, the Trappist Abbott who was martyred in Algeria in 1996, tells this story of his first communion. He grew up in a Roman Catholic family in France and on the day of his first communion he said to his mother: “I don’t understand what I’m doing.” She answered simply: “It’s okay, you don’t have to understand it now, later you will understand.”

Jesus, no doubt, must have given his disciples the exact same advice at the Last Supper, at their first communion. When he offered them bread and said, “This is my body”, and then offered them wine and said, “This is my blood”, they would not have understood. There would have been considerable confusion and bewilderment: How are we supposed to understand this? What does it mean to eat someone’s body and drink someone’s blood? I suspect that in the face of their non-understanding, like Christian de Cherge’s mother, Jesus would have also said: You don’t have to understand it now, later you will understand.

Indeed in instituting the Eucharist at Last Supper, Jesus didn’t ask his disciples to understand what they were doing, he only asked them to faithfully celebrate it until he returned. Their understanding of what they were doing in celebrating the Eucharist only developed as they grew in their faith. But initially, Jesus didn’t ask for much of an understanding, nor did he give them much of an explanation for what he was celebrating with them. He simply asked them to eat his body and drink his blood.

Jesus didn’t give a theological discourse on the Eucharist at the Last Supper. He simply gave us a ritual and asked us to celebrate it regularly, irrespective of our intellectual understanding of it. One of his more-explicit explanations of the meaning of the Eucharist was his symbolic action of washing his disciples’ feet.

Little has changed. We too aren’t asked to fully or even adequately understand the Eucharist. Our faith only asks that we are faithful in participating in it. In fact, as is the case for all deep mysteries, there is no satisfactory, rational explanation of the Eucharist. Nobody, not a single theologian in the world, can to anyone’s intellectual satisfaction, adequately lay out the phenomenology, psychology, or even spirituality of eating someone else’s body and drinking his blood. How is this to be understood? The mind comes up short. We need instead to rely upon metaphors and icons and an inchoate, intuitive understanding. We can truly know this mystery, even as we can’t fully understand it.

During my seminary and academic training, I took three major courses on the Eucharist. After all those lectures and books on the Eucharist, I concluded that I didn’t understand the Eucharist and that I was happy enough with that because what those courses did teach me was how important it is that I celebrate and participate in the Eucharist. For all the intellectuality in those courses, their true value was that they ultimately said to me what Christian de Cherge’s mother said to him on the day of his first communion: You don’t have to understand now, later you will understand. Contained in that, of course, is the fact that there is something profound here that is worth understanding, but that it’s too deep to be fully grasped right now.

Perhaps this can be helpful in our search for what to say to some of our own children and young people who no longer go to church and who tell us that the reason they don’t go is that they don’t find the Eucharist meaningful. We hear that lament all the time today: Why should go to church, it doesn’t mean anything to me?” That objection is simply another way of saying what young Christian de Cherge said to his mother at his first communion: I don’t understand this. Perhaps our answer then could be along the lines of the response of his mother: You don’t have to understand now, later you will understand.

The British theologian, Ronald Knox, speaking about the Eucharist, submits this: We have never, he claims, as Christians, been truly faithful to Jesus, no matter our denomination. In the end, none of us have truly followed those teachings which most characterize Jesus: We haven’t turned the other cheek. We haven’t forgiven our enemies. We haven’t purified our thoughts. We haven’t seen God in the poor. We haven’t kept our hearts pure and free from the things of this world. But we have, he submits, been faithful in one very important way; we have kept the Eucharist going. The last thing Jesus asked us to do before he died was to keep celebrating the Eucharist. And that we’ve done, despite the fact that we have never really grasped rationally what in fact we are doing. But we’ve been faithful in doing it because we grasped the wisdom in what Christian de Cherge’s mother to her son: You don’t have to understand this; you just have to do it.

The Deepest Secret Inside Wisdom

June 1, 2015

Everyone longs to know something that’s secret, to know something that others don’t know, but that you know, and the knowledge of which gives you some insight and advantage over others who are outside the inner-circle of that secret. It has always been so. Historically this is called “Gnosticism”, which forever makes an appearance in one form or another.

Today we see this in society at large in the immense popularity of books like The Di Vinci Code and The Celestine Prophecy. Their lure is precisely in the hint that there are secrets that a few elite persons know that contain important, life-altering, information which we, the unenlightened, are ignorant of. Our itch, of course, is to be inside these special circles. We see this paralleled sometimes in religious circles in the over-fascination people have with the private revelations of various self-acclaimed mystics, in special books claiming to disclose critical new revelations from the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in the undue interest shown in things like The Third Secret of Fatima. Gnosticism has many cloaks.

At first glance, Jesus, in Mark’s Gospel, seems to be hinting at just this sort of secret. He tells us there is a secret that is open to us which, if known, puts us into a special circle of enlightenment and community. In Mark 4, 11, he tells his disciples: To you is given the secret of the Kingdom of God, but to those outside everything is in parables. Clearly here Jesus is distinguishing between two circles, one which grasps the secret and is then “inside”, and the other which does not grasp the secret and is then “outside”. Jesus seems to be saying that in following him we can be either “in” or “out”, depending upon whether or not we grasp a certain secret. Genuine disciples are those who (in today’s terminology) “get it”, and those who “don’t get it’ remain outside. But what are we inside or outside of? More importantly, what is the secret?

For Jesus, the secret is the cross; that’s the deep wisdom we need to grasp. If we understand the cross, all the rest of what Jesus teaches will make sense. Conversely, if we don’t understand the cross, all the rest of what Jesus teaches won’t make sense. Grasping the meaning of the cross is the secret to everything. But how, more concretely, should this be understood? What is the deep secret that lies inside the cross of Jesus? What, in essence, do we need to understand?

Various biblical commentators answer this in different, complementary ways. For some, it means grasping the wisdom that’s revealed in the cross. For others, it means understanding the brokenness of Jesus on the cross. Still, for others, it means understanding the invitation that is inside the cross which invites us to live out the demands of the cross. Each of these, in its own way, points to the most-profound secret of all inside human understanding, namely, that in giving love away in total self-sacrifice, at the cost of humiliation, brokenness, and death, we ourselves come to what’s deepest and fullest in life.

But, unlike all Gnostic secrets, ancient or contemporary, this is an open secret, available to everybody and, paradoxically, more-accessible to the “little ones”, the poor, and more-hidden to “the wise and the clever”. Jesus makes the point that he has no hidden secrets by emphasizing again and again that he only speaks openly and in public, never in secret, but in synagogues and market-places. Jesus has no hidden secrets, only open secrets that we fail to grasp.

Interestingly, we see that, in the Gospels, grasping the secret of the cross is not something we do once and for all. Sometimes we grasp it, and we are inside the circle of understanding; and sometimes we don’t grasp it, and we are outside the circle of understanding. For example, after Peter denies Jesus during the passion, the Gospels tell us that “Peter went outside”; and they are referring to much more than simply stepping outside through some courtyard door. In denying that he knew Jesus and in not stepping forward to assume the weight of what would happen if he remained faithful, Peter was stepping outside the circle of both true discipleship and of a true understanding of life. His denial of Jesus took him “outside”. We too, in our following of Jesus, sometimes step “outside” when we give in to temptation or adversity. But then, if we repent of our betrayal, like Peter, we can step back “inside”.

There are various ways that we can enter into an understanding of Jesus’ message and try to appropriate it for our lives, but few, perhaps none, take us so immediately to the center as does the invitation from Jesus in the Gospel of Mark to grasp and accept the wisdom of the Cross.

Inordinate Attachments – Moral Flaw or Struggle with Divine Energy?

May 25, 2015

The renowned spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, made no secret about the fact that he was emotionally over-sensitive and that he suffered, sometimes to the point of clinical depression, from emotional obsessions. At times, he, a vowed celibate, was simply overpowered by the feeling of being in love with someone who was hopelessly unavailable that he became psychologically paralyzed and needed professional help.

Yet, given Nouwen’s moral honesty and the transparency of his life, one would hardly ascribe this to him as a moral flaw, however emotionally-crippling it was at times. He simply could not help himself sometimes, such was his emotional sensitivity.

Almost all sensitive people suffer something similar, though perhaps not as acute as what afflicted Henri Nouwen. Moreover these kinds of emotional obsessions affect our whole lives, including our moral and religious lives. What we do in the pain and paralysis of obsession rarely does us proud and is often far from a free act. In the grip of an emotional obsession we cannot think freely, pray freely, decide things freely, and we are prone to act out compulsively in ways that are not moral. What is the morality of our actions then?

Classical spiritual writers speak of something they term “inordinate attachments”, and, for them, these “inordinate attachments” are a moral fault, something we need to control by willpower. However what they mean by “inordinate attachments” covers a wide range of things. In their view, we can be inordinately attached to our pride, to our appearance, to money, to power, to pleasure, to comfort, to possessions, to sex, and to an endless list of other things. They saw this as the opposite of the virtue of detachment. And, since its opposite is a virtue, “inordinate attachment” is, for classical spirituality, a vice, a moral and spiritual flaw.

There is a lot to be said positively for this view. Normally, lack of detachment is a moral flaw. But, perhaps there is an exception. An inordinate attachment can also be an emotional obsession with another person and this muddies the moral issue. Obsessions, generally, are not freely-chosen, nor are they often within the power of the will to control, at least inside the emotions. As our old catechisms and moral theology books used to correctly teach: We are responsible for our actions but we are not responsible for how we feel. Our emotions are like wild horses; they roam where they will and are not easily domesticated and harnessed.

Hence, I believe, the notion of “inordinate attachments”, as expressed in classical spirituality, needs to be nuanced by series of other concepts which, while still carrying the same warning labels, carry something more. For example, today we speak of “obsessions”, and we all know how powerful and crippling these can be. You cannot simply wish or will your way free of an obsession. But is that a moral flaw?

Sometimes too we speak of “being possessed by demons” and that also has a variety of meanings. We can be possessed by a power beyond us that overpowers our will, be that the devil himself or some overpowering addiction such as alcohol or drugs. Most of us are not overpowered, but each of us battles with his or her own demons and the line between obsession and possession is sometimes thin.

Moreover, today archetypal psychologists speak of something they call “daimons”, that is, they believe that what explains our actions are not just nature and nurture, but also powerful “angels” and “demons” inside us, that relentlessly haunt our bodies and minds and leave us chronically obsessed and driven. But these “daimons” are also very often at the root of our creativity and that is why we often see (in the phraseology of Michael Higgins) “tortured genius” in many high-achievers, romantics, people with artistic temperaments, and people like Van Gogh and Nouwen, who, under the pressure of an obsession, cut off an ear or check themselves into a clinic.

What is the point of highlighting this? A deeper understanding of ourselves and others, is the point. We should not be so mystified by what happens sometimes in our world and inside us. We are wild, obsessed, complex creatures, and that complexity does not take its root, first of all, in what is evil inside us. Rather it is rooted in what is deepest inside us, namely, the image and likeness of God. We are infinite spirits journeying in a finite world. Obsessions come with the territory. In ancient myths, gods and goddesses often fell helplessly in love with human beings, but the ancients believed that this was a place where the divine and human met. And that still happens: The divine in us sometimes too falls hopelessly in love with another human being. This, of course, does not give us an excuse to act out as we would like on those feelings, but it does tell us that this is more an encounter between the divine and the human than it is a moral flaw.

Contemporary Writers in Spirituality

May 18, 2015

Among those who write in the area of spirituality today, who’s being read? Here’s my list of spiritual writers who are highly influential today in the English-speaking world:

· Henri Nouwen- Dutch/American, Roman Catholic, priest. Perhaps the most widely-read and most-influential among all contemporary authors in spirituality.

· Thomas Merton – Roman Catholic, monk, one of the most influential spiritual writers in the past 100 years.

· C.S. Lewis – British, layman, Anglican. Well-known across both religious and secular circles. Brought a literary genius to his articulation of the Christian faith.

· Jim Wallis – American, Evangelical, layman, popular-evangelist, social activist, social organizer. The closest our age has to a “Dorothy Day”. Widely read and respected across all denominational lines.

· Thomas Halik – Roman Catholic, priest, Czechoslovakian, recent winner of the prestigious Templeton award.

· Parker Palmer – Quaker, layman, American, much-respected across all denominational lines. Has written brilliantly on the spirituality of education and on achieving a Christian balance in life.

· Alan Jones – Episcopalian, priest, American. Wisdom drawn from the deep wells of Christian tradition. Practical spirituality with depth.

· Carlo Carretto – Roman Catholic, hermit/monk, Italian. Carretto spend many years living as a hermit in the Sahara desert and writes out of that experience.

· Ruth Burrows – British, Carmelite, nun. Deep insights into mysticism, faith, and contemplative prayer. Eminent common sense, blended with a deep knowledge of the mystical tradition.

· Richard Rohr – American, Franciscan, priest, popular evangelist. Numerous books on prayer, masculine spirituality, addictions, overcoming dualism, overcoming sectarianism, finding balance in your life, scriptural commentary.

· Wendy Wright – American, lay woman, Roman Catholic. A specialist regarding Francis de Sales and Jane Chantel, but with wider writings, especially about the place of devotions within our spiritual lives.

· Peter Tyler – British, Roman Catholic, layman. A specialist in Carmelite spirituality. An emerging young voice.

· Thomas Keating – American, Roman Catholic, monk. The widely-accepted “canon” on contemplative prayer.

· John Main – British/Canadian, monk, a popular, trustworthy guide on Contemplative prayer.

· Laurence Freeman – British, monk, another trustworthy guide on Contemplative prayer

· Kathleen Norris – American, Presbyterian, lay, Oblate of St. Benedict. Deeply immersed in the tradition of the Desert Fathers and equally attuned to our spiritual struggles within contemporary culture.

· Trevor Herriot – Canadian, layman, Roman Catholic. A powerful apologia for protecting nature, but his more explicit spiritual writing are highly reflective essays apposite the place and role of our sexual energies in either protecting or despoiling nature.

· Barbara Brown Taylor – American, Episcopalian, priest, popular-evangelist. Strong literary writer with an audience within secular circles. A unique blend of insight, scripture, tradition, and balance. Always a worthwhile read.

· David Steindl-Rast – American, Roman Catholic, monk, had the distinction of being Henri Nouwen’s spiritual director. Writes with depth, drawing many of his insights from the richness of monasticism.

· Anthony de Mello – Indian, Roman Catholic, Jesuit. Brings the insights of Buddhism and Eastern spiritualities into his articulation of Christian spirituality.

· James Martin – American, Roman Catholic, Jesuit. A key, young voice within spirituality today. Widely popular, and deservedly so.

· Anne Lamott – American, Episcopalian, lay woman. A unique blend of insight, Christian commitment, and blistering iconoclasm.

· Marilynne Robinson – American, novelist, Congregationalist. Not a spirituality writer per se, but an exceptional novelist whose characters express her spirituality. An exceptionally bright apologetic voice.

· Simone Weil – French, Jewish, lay woman. Her writings manifest a spiritual sensitivity and depth that includes her in most discussions about contemporary spirituality.

· Etty Hillesum – Dutch, Jewish, lay woman. Her writings exhibit an extraordinary insight into spirituality. And she backed them up with martyrdom.

· Scott Hahn – American, Roman Catholic, layman. Very popular, catechetical and instructional.

· Rabbi Abraham Heschel – American, Jewish, Rabbi. Exceptional spiritual commentaries on the Jewish scriptures. Widely read and respected.

· Rob Bell – American, Evangelical, popular-evangelist. A brilliant young voice. Good balance, good insights, and an exceptional capacity to speak to a contemporary audience.

· Rick Warren – American, Evangelist. Stunningly popular across denominational lines. His book, The Purpose-Driven Life, has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, and is worth the read.

· John Allen – American, Roman Catholic, layman, journalist. Most everyone’s ear-to-the ground vis-à-vis what’s happening ecclesially around the world.

· Joyce Rupp – American, Roman Catholic, nun. Good, insightful, particularly popular with women.

· Michael Higgins – Canadian, layman, Roman Catholic. Does a lot of highly insightful journalistic commentary on contemporary spirituality. The official biographer of Nouwen.

· Joan Chittister – American, Roman Catholic, nun. Powerful social justice and feminist voice. Knows the tradition of monasticism very well and draws key insights out of its deep wells.

· Paula D’Arcy – American, Roman Catholic, lay woman. Inspires a near-cult following among devotees particularly apposite her spirituality of healing.

· Annie Dillard – American, Roman Catholic (convert), lay. Her writings invariably articulate an aesthetic and moral insight that is a natural friend of religion.

· Elizabeth Johnson – American, Roman Catholic, nun. An exceptional mentor for those who searching for a better intellectual apologia for their faith.

· Bill Plotkin – American, “Naturalist”, layman. Challenging writings vis-à-vis the place of nature in shaping our souls.

· Belden Lane – American, Layman, “Naturalist”, akin to Plotkin.

My apologies to those whom I didn’t name, particularly those young, emerging voices such as Kerry Weber, David Wells, and Bill McGarvey, among others. Who should be more widely read.

Artificial Light

May 11, 2015

What’s the use of an old-fashioned, hand-held lantern? Well, its light can be quite useful when it’s pitch-dark, but it becomes superfluous and unnoticeable in the noonday sun. Still, this doesn’t mean its light is bad, only that it’s weak.

If we hold that image in our minds, we will see both a huge irony and a profound lesson in the Gospels when they describe the arrest of Jesus. Gospel of John, for example, describes his arrest this way: “Judas brought the cohort to this place together with guards sent by the chief priests and Pharisees, all carrying lanterns and torches.” John wants us to see the irony in this, that is, the forces of this world have come to arrest and put on trial, Jesus, the Light of the world, carrying weak, artificial light, a lantern in the face of the Light of the world, puny light in the full face of the noonday sun. As well, in naming this irony, the Gospels are offering a second lesson: when we no longer walk in the light of Christ, we will invariably turn to artificial light.

This image, I believe, can serve as a penetrating metaphor for how the criticism that the Enlightenment has made of our Christian belief in God stands before what it is criticizing. That criticism has two prongs.

The first prong is this: The Enlightenment (Modernist Thought) submits that the God that is generally presented by our Christian churches has no credibility because that God is simply a projection of human desire, a god made in our own image and likeness, and a god that we can forever manipulate to serve self-interest. Belief in such a god, they say, is adolescent in that it is predicated on a certain naiveté, on an intellectual blindness that can be flushed out and remedied by a hard look at reality. An enlightened mind, it is asserted, sees belief in God as self-interest and as intellectual blindness.

There is much to be said, positively, for this criticism, given that much, much of atheism is a parasite off of bad theism. Atheism feeds off bad religion and, no doubt, many of the things we do in the name of religion are done out of self-interest and intellectual blindness. How many times, for instance, has politics used religion for its own ends? The first prong of the criticism that the Enlightenment makes of Christian belief is a healthy challenge to us as believers.

But it’s the second prong of this criticism that, I believe, stands like a lantern, a weak light, dwarfed in the noonday sun. Central to the Enlightenment’s criticism of belief in God is their assertion (perhaps better called prejudice) that faith is a naiveté, something like belief in Santa and the Easter Bunny, that we outgrow as we mature and open our minds more and more to knowledge and what’s empirically evident in the world. What we see through science and honest observation, they believe, eventually puts to death our belief in God, exposing it as a naiveté. In essence, the assertion is that if you face up to the hard empirical facts of reality without blinking, with honesty and courage, you will cease to believe in God. Indeed, the very phrase “the Enlightenment” implies this. It’s only the unenlightened, pre-modernist mind that still can believe in God. Moving beyond belief in God is enlightenment.

Sadly, Christianity has often internalized this prejudice and expressed it (and continues to express it) in the many forms of fear and anti-intellectualism within our churches. Too often we unwittingly agree with our critics that faith is a naiveté. We do it by believing the very thing our critics assert, namely, that if we studied and looked at things hard enough we would eventually lose our faith. We betray this in our fear of the intellectual academy, in our paranoia about secular wisdom, in some of our fears about scientific knowledge, and by forever warning people to protect themselves against certain inconvenient truths within scientific and secular knowledge. In doing this, we, in fact, concede that the criticism made against us is true and, worse still, we betray that fact that we do not think that the truth of Christ will stand up to the world.

But, given the penetrating metaphor highlighted in Jesus’ arrest, there’s another way of seeing this: After we have conceded the truth of the legitimate findings of science and secular wisdom and affirmed that they need to be embraced and not defended against, then, in the light of John’s metaphor (worldly forces, carrying lanterns and torches, as they to arrest the Light of world to put it on trial), we should also see how dim are the lights of our world, not least, the criticism of the Enlightenment.

Lanterns and torches are helpful when the sun is down, but they’re utterly eclipsed by the light of the sun. Worldly knowledge too is helpful in its own way, but it is more-than dwarfed by the light of the Son.

Evolution’s Ultimate Wisdom

May 4, 2015

Evolution, Charles Darwin famously stated, works through the survival of the fittest. Christianity, on the other hand, is committed to the survival of the weakest. But how do we square our Christian ideal of making a preferential option for the weak with evolution?

Nature is evolutionary and, inside of that, we can perceive a wisdom that clearly manifests intelligence, intent, spirit, and design. And perhaps nowhere is this more evident than how in the process of evolution we see nature becoming ever-more unified, complex, and conscious.

However, how God’s intelligence and intent are reflected inside of that is not always evident because nature can be so cruel and brutal. In order to survive, every element in nature has to be cannibalistic and eat other parts of nature. Only the fittest get to survive. There’s a harsh cruelty in that. In highlighting how cruel and unfair nature can be, commentators often cite the example of the second pelican born to white pelicans. Here’s how cruel and unfair is its situation:

Female white pelicans normally lay two eggs, but they lay them several days apart so that the first chick hatches several days before the second chick. This gives the first chick a head-start and by the time the second chick hatches, the first chick is bigger and stronger. It then acts aggressively towards the second chick, grabbing its food and pushing it out of the nest. There, ignored by its mother, the second chick normal dies of starvation, despite its efforts to find its way back into the nest. Only one in ten second chicks survives. And here’s nature’s cruel logic in this: That second chick is hatched by nature as an insurance-policy, in case the first chick is weak or dies. Barring that, it is doomed to die, ostracized, hungry, blindly grasping for food and its mother’s attention as it starves to death. But this cruelty works as an evolutionary strategy. White pelicans have survived for thirty million years, but at the cost of millions of its own species dying cruelly.

A certain intelligence is certainly evident in this, but where is the compassion? Did a compassionate God really design this? The intelligence in nature’s strategy of the survival of the fittest is clear. Each species, unless unnaturally interfered with from the outside, is forever producing healthier, more robust, more adaptable members. Such, it seems, is nature’s wisdom and design – up to a point.

Certain scientists such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin suggest that physical evolution has reached its apex, its highest degree of unity, complexity and consciousness, inside the central nervous system and brain of the human person and that evolution has now taken a leap (just as it did when consciousness leapt out of raw biology and as it did when self- consciousness leapt out of simple consciousness) so that now meaningful evolution is no longer about gaining further physical strength and adaptability. Rather meaningful evolution is now concerned with the social and the spiritual, that is, with social and spiritual strength.

And in a Christian understanding of things, this means that meaningful evolution is now about human beings using their self-consciousness to turn back and help nature to protect and nurture its second pelicans. Meaningful evolution now is no longer about having the strong grow stronger, but about having the weak, that part of nature that nature herself, to this point, has not been able to nurture, grow strong.

Why? What’s nature’s interest in the weak? Why shouldn’t nature be happy to have the weak weeded out? Does God have an interest in the weak that nature does not?

No, nature too is very interested in the survival of the weak and is calling upon the help of human beings to bring this about. Nature is interested in the survival of the weak because vulnerability and weakness bring something to nature that is absent when it is only concerned with the survival of the fittest and with producing ever-stronger, more robust, and more adaptable species and individuals. What the weak add to nature are character and compassion, which are the central ingredients needed to bring about unity, complexity, and consciousness at the social and spiritual level.

When God created human beings at the beginning of time, God charged them with the responsibility of “dominion”, of ruling over nature. What’s contained in that mandate is not an order or permission to dominate over nature and use nature in whatever fashion we desire. The mandate is rather that of “watching over”, of tending the garden, of being wise stewards, and of helping nature do things that, in its unconscious state, it cannot do, namely, protect and nurture the weak, the second pelicans.

The second-century theologian, Irenaeus, once famously said: The glory of God is the human being fully alive! In our own time, Gustavo Gutierrez, generally credited with being the father of Liberation Theology, recast that dictum to say: The glory of God is the poor person fully alive!” And that is as well the ultimate glory of nature.

Praying for Those Not of This Fold – An Open Letter to Roman Catholic Bishops

April 27, 2015

Dear Bishops,

I write to you as a loyal son of the Catholic Church, with a particular request: Could you make an addition to our present Eucharistic Prayers to include an explicit invocation for other Christian Churches and for those who lead them?

For example, could the prayer for the Church and its leadership in our various Eucharistic Canons have these additions: Remember, Lord, your entire Church, spread throughout the world, and bring her to the fullness of charity, together with N. our Pope and N. our Bishop, together with all who help lead other Christian Churches, and all the clergy.” Might our Eucharistic Prayers have this kind of inclusivity?

Why? Why pray for other Churches inside of our Eucharistic Prayer? For three reasons:

First, we should pray explicitly for other Christian Churches during our Eucharist Prayer because Jesus did. In John’s Gospel, Jesus prays explicitly for those who hold the same faith but are separated, for whatever reason, from the community to whom is speaking at that moment. He prays for “other sheep that are not of this fold.” (John 10, 16) Raymond Brown, perhaps the most-respected scholar on John’s Gospel, among others, submits that at the time when John’s Gospel was written (somewhere between the years 90 and 100 AD) there were already divisions within the Church, akin to our denominational divisions today, and that Jesus’ prayer for “other sheep that are not of this fold” is in fact a prayer for other Christians who were separated in theology and worship from the community within which John places this particular saying of Jesus. And Jesus, with a heart for everyone and not just for those who are members of this particular community, prays for those others: “I must lead these too. They too will listen to my voice, and there will be only one flock, one shepherd.”

Second, if we, like Jesus, in fact love those who share the same faith with us but from whom we are separated, it should be painful for us that our Eucharistic table is not complete, that some of our family are not at table with us, that our table has empty places. Roman Catholics are not a whole family. Protestants are not a whole family. Evangelicals are not a whole family. Free Christian Churches are not a whole family. Only together do we make a whole family. A Eucharistic Prayer that prays only for ourselves as a community and for our Pope and our Bishops is somehow incomplete, as if we had no need to acknowledge and feel the real absence of so many sincere persons who are not with us as we celebrate the real presence of Christ on our table and experience the intimacy this gives us. It is joyful to celebrate with each other at the Eucharist; but we need, I submit, to acknowledge, and at a central place in our prayer, that we long for, wish well to, and pray for, those who no longer share the family table with us. And such a prayer should not be seen as a concession to our separated brothers and sisters. Its intent should also be to keep us, Roman Catholics, from being content with a family that is fractured, as if we have no need for those who are not with us.

Finally, there is too a practical consideration, sensitivity and hospitality: More and more, whether it be at funerals, weddings, interdenominational retreats, or other such events that draw other Christians into our Roman Catholic Churches, we are celebrating the Eucharist in situations that require, or at least should require, a keener ecumenical sensitivity. In these situations, personally, as a priest, I find it awkward and not fully-hospitable to pray for our Catholic community, for our Pope, our bishops, and our clergy, without any solicitude for, or mention of, other Christian Churches, their leadership, and their struggles for community in Christ. I think that hospitality asks of us (dare I say, demands of us) a greater ecumenical sensitivity than we have been offering at present. Wouldn’t everyone benefit if we did this? Wouldn’t other Christians, we ourselves as a community of love and hospitality, and the whole Body of Christ (which is wider than our particular historical community), be enriched if we, in this prayer that is so central to us, would pray explicitly for those who share the Christian faith with us, but are separated from us? Wouldn’t this be a gracious gesture of hospitality?

What would we be compromising by doing this? What are we protecting by not doing it? Would we not be more sensitive to the Gospel and Jesus’ words and actions by doing this?

So this is my straightforward plea: Please add an explicit invocation within each of our Eucharistic Prayers that prays for other Christian Churches and their leadership. You will be on safe ground. Jesus did this.

I offer this suggestion in all respect, as a loyal son of the Church.

Who am I to Judge?

April 20, 2015

Perhaps the single, most-often quoted line from Pope Francis is his response to a question he was asked vis-à-vis the morality of a particularly-dicey issue. His, infamous-famous reply: Who am I to judge?

Although this remark is often assumed to be flighty and less-than-serious; it is, in fact, on pretty safe ground. Jesus, it seems, says basically the same thing. For example, in his conversation with Nicodemus in John’s Gospel, he, in essence, says: I judge no one.

If the Gospel of John is to be believed, then Jesus judges no one. God judges no one. But that needs to be put into context. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t any moral judgments and that our actions are indifferent to moral scrutiny. There is judgment; except it doesn’t work the way it is fantasized inside the popular mind. According to what Jesus tells us in John’s Gospel, judgment works this way:

God’s light, God’s truth, and God’s spirit come into the world. We then judge ourselves according to how we live in the face of them: God’s light has come into the world, but we can choose to live in darkness. That’s our decision, our judgment. God’s truth has been revealed, but we can choose to live in falsehood, in lies. That’s our decision, our judgment to make. And God’s spirit has come into the world, but we can prefer to live outside that spirit, in another spirit. That too is our decision, our judgment. God judges no one. We judge ourselves. Hence we can also say that God condemns no one, though we can choose to condemn ourselves. And God punishes no one, but we can choose to punish ourselves. Negative moral judgment is self-inflicted. Perhaps this seems abstract, but it is not. We know this existentially, we feel the brand of our own actions inside us. To use just one example: How we judge ourselves by the Holy Spirit.

God’s spirit, the Holy Spirit, is not something so abstract and slippery that it cannot be pinned down. St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Galatians, describes the Holy Spirit in terms so clear that they can only be rendered abstract and ambiguous by some self-serving rationalization. How does he describe and define the Holy Spirit?

So as to make things clear he sets up a contrast by first telling us what the Holy Spirit is not. The spirit of God, he tells us is not the spirit of self-indulgence, sexual vice, jealousy, rivalry, antagonism, bad temper, quarrels, drunkenness, or factionalism. Anytime we are cultivating these qualities inside of our lives, we should not delude ourselves into thinking we are living in God’s spirit, no matter how frequent, sincere, or pious is our religious practice. The Holy Spirit, he tells us, is the spirit of charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and chastity. Only when we are living inside of these virtues are we living inside God’s spirit.

So then, this is how judgment happens: God’s spirit (charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and chastity) has been revealed. We can choose to live inside the virtues of that spirit or we can choose to live instead inside their opposites (self-indulgence, sexual vice, rivalry, antagonism, bad temper, quarrels, drunkenness, and factionalism). One choice leads to a life with God, the other leads away from God. And that choice is ours to make; it doesn’t come from the outside. We judge ourselves. God judges no one. God doesn’t need to.

When we view things inside this perspective it also clarifies a number of misunderstandings that cause confusion inside the minds of believers as well as inside the minds of their critics. How often, for instance, do we hear this criticism: If God is all-good, all-loving, and all-merciful, how can God condemn someone to hell for all eternity? A valid question, though not a particularly reflective one. Why? Because God judges no one; God punishes no one. God condemns no one to hell. We do these things to ourselves: We judge ourselves, we punish ourselves, and we put ourselves in various forms of hell whenever we do choose not to live in the light, the truth, and inside God’s spirit. And that judgment is self-inflicted, that punishment is self-inflicted, and those fires of hell are self-inflicted.

There are a number of lessons in this. First, as we have just seen, the fact that God judges no one, helps clarify our theodicy, that is, it helps deflate all those misunderstandings surrounding God’s mercy and the accusation that an all-merciful God can condemn someone to eternal hellfire. Beyond this, it is a strong challenge to us to be less judgmental in our lives, to let the wheat and the darnel sort themselves out over time, to let light itself judge darkness, to let truth itself judge falsehood, and to, like Pope Francis, be less quick to offer judgments in God’s name and more prone to say: “Who am I to judge?”

Principles for Interfaith Dialogue and Interfaith Attitudes

April 13, 2015

We live inside a world and inside religions that are too given to disrespect and violence. Virtually every newscast today documents the prevalence of disrespect and violence done in the name of religion, disrespect done for the sake of God (strange as that expression may seem). Invariably those acting in this way see their actions as sacral, justified by sacred cause.

And, if history is to be believed, it has always been so. No religion, Christianity no less than any other, has been innocent. Every one of the great religions of the world has been, at various times, both persecuted and persecutor. So this begs the question: What are some fundamental principles we are asked to live out apposite our relationship to other faiths, irrespective our particular faith?

What’s best in each of our traditions would suggest these ten principles:

1. All that is good, true, and beautiful comes from one and the same author, God. Nothing that is true, irrespective of its particular religious or secular cloak, may be seen as opposed to true faith and religion.

2. God wills the salvation of all people, equally, without discrimination. God has no favorites. All people have access to God and to God’s Spirit, and the whole of humankind has never lacked for divine providence. Moreover each religion is to reject nothing that is true and holy in other religions.

3. No one religion or denomination has the full and whole truth. God is both infinite and ineffable. For this reason, by definition, God cannot be captured adequately in human concepts and human language. Thus, while our knowledge of God may be true, it is always only partial. God can be truly known, but God cannot be adequately thought.

4. All faiths and all religions are journeying towards the fullness of truth. No one religion or denomination may consider its truth complete, something to permanently rest within; rather it must see it as a starting point from which to journey. Moreover, as various religions (and denominations and sectarian groups within those religions) we need to feel secure enough within our own “home” so as to acknowledge the truth and beauty that is expressed in other “homes”. We need to accept (and, I suggest, be pleased) that there are other lives within which the faith is written in a different language.

5. Diversity within religions is a richness, willed by God. God does not just wish our unity; God also blesses our diversity which helps reveal the stunning over-abundance within God. Religious diversity is the cause of much tension, but that diversity and the struggle to overcome it will contribute strongly to the richness of our eventual unity.

6. God is “scattered” in world religions. Anything that is positive within a religion expresses something of God and contributes to divine revelation. Hence, seen from this aspect, the various religions of the world all help to make God known.

7. Each person must account for his or her faith on the basis of his or her own conscience. Each of us must take responsibility for our own faith and salvation.

8. Intentionally all the great world religions interpenetrate each other (and, for a Christian, that means that they interpenetrate the mystery of Christ). A genuine faith knows that God is solicitous for everyone and that God’s spirit blows freely and therefore it strives to relate itself to the intentionality of other religions and to other denominations and sectarian groups within its own religion.

9. A simple external, historical connection to any religion is less important than achieving a personal relationship, ideally of intimacy, with God. What God wants most deeply from us, irrespective of our religion, is not a religious practice but a personal relationship that transforms our lives so as to radiate God’s goodness, truth, and beauty more clearly.

10. Within our lives and within our relationship to other religions, respect, graciousness, and charity must trump all other considerations. This does not mean that all religions are equal and that faith can be reduced to its lowest common denominator, but it does mean that what lies deepest inside of every sincere faith are these fundamentals: respect, graciousness, and charity.

Throughout history, great thinkers have grappled with the problem of the one and the many. And, consciously or unconsciously, all of us also struggle with that tension between the one and the many, the relationship between unity and diversity; but perhaps this not so much a problem as it is a richness that reflects the over-abundance of God and our human struggle to grasp that over-abundance. Perhaps the issue of religious diversity might be described in this way:

Different peoples, one earth

Different beliefs, one God

Different languages, one heart

Different failings, one law of gravity

Different energies, one Spirit

Different scriptures, one Word

Different forms of worship, one desire

Different histories, one destiny

Different disciplines, one aim

Different approaches, one road

Different faiths – one Mother, one Father, one earth, one sky, one beginning, one end.

Where to Find Resurrection

April 6, 2015

Something there is that needs a crucifixion. Everything that’s good eventually gets scapegoated and crucified. How? By that curious, perverse dictate somehow innate within human life that assures that there’s always someone or something that cannot leave well enough alone, but, for reasons of its own, must hunt down and lash out at what’s good. What’s good, what’s of God, will always at some point be misunderstood, envied, hated, pursued, falsely accused, and eventually nailed to some cross. Every body of Christ inevitably suffers the same fate as Jesus: death through misunderstanding, ignorance, and jealousy.

But there’s a flipside as well: Resurrection always eventually trumps crucifixion. What’s good eventually triumphs. Thus, while nothing that’s of God will avoid crucifixion, no body of Christ stays in the tomb for long. God always rolls back the stone and, soon enough, new life bursts forth and we see why that original life had to be crucified. (“Wasn’t it necessary that the Christ should so have to suffer and die?”) Resurrection invariably follows crucifixion. Every crucified body will rise again. Our hope takes its root in that.

But how does this happen? Where do we see the resurrection? How do we experience resurrection after a crucifixion?

Scripture is subtle, though clear, on this. Where can we expect to experience resurrection? The gospel tell us that, on the morning of the resurrection, the women-followers of Jesus set out for the tomb of Jesus, carrying spices, expecting to anoint and embalm a dead body. Well-intentioned but misguided, what they find is not a dead body, but an empty tomb and an angel challenging them with these words: “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Go instead into Galilee and you will find him there!”

Go instead into Galilee. Why Galilee? What’s Galilee? And how do we get there?

In the gospels, Galilee is not simply a geographical location, a place on a map. It is first of all a place in the heart. As well, Galilee refers to the dream and to the road of discipleship that the disciples once walked with Jesus and to that place and time when their hearts most burned with hope and enthusiasm. And now, after the crucifixion, just when they feel that the dream is dead, that their faith is only fantasy, they are told to go back to the place where it all began: “Go back to Galilee. He will meet you there!”

And they do go back to Galilee, both to the geographical location and to that special place in their hearts where once burned the dream of discipleship. And just as promised, Jesus appears to them. He doesn’t appear exactly as he was before, or as frequently as they would like him to, but he does appear as more than a ghost and a memory. The Christ that appears to them after the resurrection is in a different modality, but he’s physical enough to eat fish in their presence, real enough to be touched as a human being, and powerful enough to change their lives forever. Ultimately that’s what the resurrection asks us to do: To go back to Galilee, to return to the dream, hope, and discipleship that had once inflamed us but has now been lost through disillusionment.

This parallels what happens on the road to Emmaus in Luke’s gospel, where we are told that on the day of the resurrection, two disciples were walking away from Jerusalem towards Emmaus, with their faces downcast. An entire spirituality could be unpackaged from that simple line: For Luke, Jerusalem means the dream, the hope, and the religious centre from which all is to begin and where ultimately, all is to culminate. And the disciples are “walking away” from this place, away from their dream, towards Emmaus (Emmaus was a Roman Spa), a place of human comfort, a Las Vegas, or Monte Carlo. Since their dream has been crucified, the disciples are understandably discouraged and are walking away from it, towards some human solace, despairing in their hope: “But we had hoped!”

They never get to Emmaus. Jesus appears to them on the road, reshapes their hope in the light of their disillusionment, and turns them back towards Jerusalem.

That is one of the essential messages of Easter: Whenever we are discouraged in our faith, whenever our hopes seem to be crucified, we need to go back to Galilee and Jerusalem, that is, back to the dream and the road of discipleship that we had embarked upon before things went wrong. The temptation of course, whenever the kingdom doesn’t seem to work, is to abandon discipleship for human consolation, to head off instead for Emmaus, for the consolation of Las Vegas or Monte Carlo.

But, as we know, we never quite get to Las Vegas or Monte Carlo. In one guise or another, Christ always meets us on the road to those places, burns holes in our hearts, explains our latest crucifixion to us, and sends us back – and to our abandoned discipleship. Once there, it all makes sense again.