Showing posts with label Christ-Like. Show all posts

Evangelize with Love

Part of the struggle of bringing Catholic social doctrine to the public sphere (to a great extent, what the Tertio program that I just returned from, was looking at) is the fact that our world is much less receptive to rational, nature-based, arguments than ever before.  Pope Benedict called this the dictatorship of relativism, but quite simply (if tragically) this is the "anything goes" mentality which rejects any objective, unchanging, everybody-can-figure-it-out, truth for a world based on "your truth" and "my truth".  Well, it's pretty simple, if you don't have an objective truth to mutually rely on, you really can't have a discussion: if you don't have any common ground, you can't have a conversation.  So what do we do when rational discussion breaks down?  How do we bring Christ's truth to the world?

I was discussing this with one of the Sisters of Life who were also attending the seminar, and she grinned when I brought up this question, and said "we just have to be martyrs!"  It was an answer I should have known, but it was one that led to a lot of thinking, and praying about, over the following weeks.  We talked about the exact same thing in our small-group discussions; how do we bring the truth of the Gospel to our modern, anti-Gospel, world?  The answer was hanging above our heads, where the crucifix showed us how Christ brought the Gospel to His anti-Gospel world; He didn't argue that God is love, He showed it.

We, of course, have to do the same thing.  And folks, these times where the anti-Gospel is so rampant, allow us to do just that - to proclaim with our lives, with our witness [martyras/μάρτυρας in the Greek], the truth of the Gospel.  People aren't convinced anymore by rational argument - fine - show them that the Gospel is true because your life is evidence for it.  Show them that following the truth of Christ isn't bondage, but freedom, not oppression  but joy.  And here's the key point that I wanted to make in this post: this is exactly the approach we need to take in the (so attacked today) realm of respect for life.  We must show the world that every human person deserves our respect and love by giving that respect and love to every human person.  It's easy to rally in support of the unborn - they're defenseless, yet we mercilessly, pointlessly, atrociously, murder them, that is an injustice that drives us to act.  It's "easy", in this sense, to show our love for the unborn (even if not socially beneficial nowadays), but what about when love is hard?  Our Lord calls us to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" - when was the last time you showed your love publicly for an enemy? Do we go out of our way to show love for those in Planned Parenthood who were recently exposed for selling the body parts of aborted babies?  What they did was unthinkable (though the logical, utilitarian, conclusion from legalized abortion), but how much time have you spent praying for them?  What about the ISIS-attacker, who recently assaulted (and nearly murdered) a tourist at the Colosseum?  What about the gay-marriage activists who have recently won the federal right for two men or women to marry each other?  We may be similarly repulsed by these evils, but does it drive us to love or hatred towards the persons committing them?  

Not for one instant am I saying that what these individuals have done is morally right.  Abortion is wrong because it is the destruction of human life (and selling body parts from that is tantamount to cannibalism), ISIS-executions are wrong for the same reasons (and so many others), and "gay"-marriage is wrong because it not only hurts any children that couple would raise, but destroys the fundamental element, purpose, and structure of society, and goes against one of God's first commands, to "be fruitful and multiply" (besides going against His creation itself: they're called "reproductive" organs for a reason).  What we should realize though is that all these terrible actions are rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding, or ignoring, of human dignity.  Murder and homosexual actions are wrong because human life is sacred, and we cannot destroy, or redefine, what God has created in His image.  But, here's the big point, we must not forget that innate sacredness, that made-in-God's-image, that ability to give and receive love, that is ours as human persons, in our outrage at rejections of that dignity.  Our reaction to sins against the human person must not lead us to commit sins against different human persons (the perpetrators of the original evils).  

John Paul II forgiving his would-be assassin
To hatred, we must respond with love.  To a rejection of God, we must respond with prayer.  To oppression, we must respond with solidarity.  To terrorism, we must respond with charity.  This is as much of a challenge for me as it is for any of you I suppose.  The difficulty lies in hating sin, but loving the sinner, in making reparation for evil, but interceding for evil-doers.  It has nothing to do with being push-overs, but if we take Christ as our model, we see that love must be our answer, to those who love us, and those who don't.  Not a weak, "luv", but the greatest love: of laying down one's life for another (and his eternal life).  Only this kind of love will convert hearts to Christ because only this kind of love truly mirrors to the world the love of Christ. 

Kolbe holds a crucifix for good reason
Story: It is the end of July, 1941, in Auschwitz, and the Nazi's choose 10 individuals at random to die as a punishment for the escape of three of their fellow prisoners.  Fr. Maximilian Kolbe steps forwards and offers to go in place of another man who had cried out upon being chosen for this terrible death (starvation and dehydration in an underground cell).  The shocked Nazi official authorizes the swap, and the 10 men march off to their deaths.  Two weeks later, having sung hymns or knelt in prayer for most of that horrendous time, Fr. Kolbe is still alive and is killed with an injection of carbolic acid.  The guards place his body in a coffin and cremate it.  St. Maximilian Kolbe is an amazing example of love, but not only for the man who's place he took, but also for the guards who he prayed for, and surrendered to, even after they had tortured him, and then sent him to this excruciating death.  That love had an effect!  Not only did Franciszek Gajowniczek (the one whose place was taken by Kolbe) get to return to his family after WWII, but even the Nazi guards, seeing that incredible witness of Christ-like love, were moved to place his body in a coffin and respectfully carry it to the cremating ovens.  That was the only time in Auschwitz that we know of a "respectful" burial, and those guards did that because they saw something different in Kolbe, they saw love in the midst of hatred, grace in the midst of hell, a saint in the midst of sin.  

We're called to that same witness, that same courageous love, which doesn't attack evil with evil, but displaces it with the greater power of charity.  We may not convince the world with our arguments, but we will with our Christ-driven, and given, love.  In a world of great sin, saints are all the more visible.  

"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, 
if you have love for one another." 
- John 13:35 - 
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Humility Strikes Again! - A Look at What Humility Really Entails

In a previous post I mentioned that I was working on collecting ideas for a post on humility, well here is that post!

On Monday, after getting back from my evening class on the mission/history of Catholic schools, I went and spent a few minutes at the optional Exposition that we have on Monday nights.  I had just enough time to say the rosary and spend just a moment or two in more spontaneous prayer when we did Night Prayer and Exposition ended.  After helping put the candelabras and monstrance away, I decided to spend just a minute reading Priesly Spirituality, by Hans Urs Von Balthasar (which is the book that I have started reading after completing A Priest is not His Own, but Venerable Fulton Sheen).  I haven't gotten very far into this book, so I can't vouch for whether it is good or not, in fact I am still in the introduction, but what I found interesting was that I flipped open to my bookmark and the very first thing I read was "Selflessness, evangelical councils, following Christ on the way to Jerusalem - all these things presuppose and simultaneously nurture an important virtue for one called to be a leader in the Church, namely, humility."  I always think it is so cool when the very topic that I'm thinking or praying about - in this case the very topic that I had been meditating on during the rosary a few minutes before - jumps off the page at me.  God's grace at work I suppose!  Anyway, I'll get back to the topic at hand, but first some funny stories (which happen to involve me being made more humble).

Last week I played hockey several times with some of the guys around Brute.  They shoveled off the basketball court that we have out back, put hockey goals at either end, and piled the snow around the outside to form a sort of barrier so the puck wouldn't just slide off.  I guess it is a form of street hockey because we don't wear skates, but the concrete surface is coated in a mix of ice and compacted snow, so there is very little traction.  This means that while playing you have little control over where you are going (and certainly not turning or stopping).  My strategy is to run as hard as I can in the direction of the puck and hope that I can steal, block, or shoot it.  Sometimes this works and I get the puck from the other team and can carry it up the court, pass it, and/or shoot it.  Other times it doesn't work as well and I end up sliding past the puck, often times into the snowy bank surrounding our small rink.  Other guys are a bit more controlled in their propulsion, but I am at a size disadvantage with most of the other guys being 50-100 pounds heavier and 6-12 inches taller, so my only chance to keep up (at far as I can tell) is in playing aggressively.  Well, as it turns out, while the puck-moving strategy for hockey is very similar to soccer (and thus my strategy of sprinting after the puck works well sometimes), the game of hockey involves a lot more colliding with other people than does soccer.  Thus, whenever I don't end up with the puck, or go flying out of the rink, I usually end up smacking into somebody at full speed, a strategy that quickly becomes painful.  Last week, during one of our games I was duking it out with another guy for the puck - both of us trying to shove the other guy out of the court in our attempt to obtain the puck - we both swung at the puck (with our hockey sticks) at the same time and he ended up flipping the puck up into the air and straight into my eye.  Actually, it hit a smidge below my eye, but it still was a freaky moment as I saw the puck, almost in slow motion, fly out from below my field of view and smash into my eye.  You know how people say they see stars, well all I saw was a flash of light as the puck smacked into my face and then black, as my eye snapped shut a split second later.  For just a second I was hesitant about re-opening my eye, not knowing how much damage had been done, but I was relieved to find that I could still see fine and that the puck hadn't done any serious damage.  That said, I did quickly develop a nice black eye, something I hadn't done for probably a decade.  Now, this wasn't much of an issue around Brute, guys just laughed at me for being so aggressive in hockey and forgot about it.  However, a seminarian with a black eye at the March for Life, - that is a bit more noticeable.  I was wearing my warmest coat, which happened to be leather, and apparently a black eye and a leather coat make you look pretty tough (not in a good way).  So, when I walked into the sacristy and met the bishop at our Mass on Wednesday, almost the first thing he said was "did somebody punch you?"  I grinned and said that actually the black eye was from getting hit with a hockey puck, something that the Bishop seemed pleased with, as he is an avid hockey player.  Nobody else brought the subject up (except for other seminarians from here), but apparently my injury was clearly visible from the congregation (as evidenced by pictures) at that Mass with the folks from the Springfield diocese.  

During our retreat at St. Meinrad, I cantored during the Holy Hour one evening.  It must have been the second or third evening because one of the other guys had cantored the night before.  That previous night I was stuck by how fantastic the acoustics were in the chapel there, so I was looking forward to being able to cantor that evening mostly because I figured I could really sound good (yeah, I was a bit prideful).  I started the O Salutaris a bit low, but everybody was able to hit the notes, so it wasn't a big deal., and chanting night prayer also went fine.  The organ there is a full pipe-organ, so that was splendid!   However, the Tantum Ergo didn't turn out as good.  I was determined to start it a bit higher than the O Salutaris) but I ended up starting it way too high, as in, well into the stratosphere high.  I sang the first note and immediately grimaced because I knew it was too high, then the song started going up (in pitch) and my voice started breaking.  Fr. Joe, who has a higher range than I do, glanced back at me when I first got started with this look of suprise and then started belting it out.  Of course, I, along with most of the other guys, were unable to hit some of those notes and the whole things was pretty much a disaster.  It didn't grind to a screeching halt, thank goodness, but it was close.  

 Alright, two more quick stories before I dive back into the more important, spiritual side of the topic.  Last week I was trying to get back into the blogging thing (as I outlined later in the post on Monday) and I was writing one of the ones on the March for Life.  Well, apparently, I wasn't on top of my grammar that day because (as I was reminded after it had been posted for a few days) I used "wondered" instead of "wandered" like 20 times throughout the post.  I was going to joke that I made this mistake because, being in philosophy, I have learned how to wonder, but to be honest I just neglected to notice the mistake.  Sorry about that...

 Today Ray and I went to St. Paul's Hermitage for our weekly ministry to the elderly/ill.  Anyway, we usually take one of the seminary vehicles because then I don't have to burn through the gas in my (less-efficient) car for the 30 minute ride there and back.  Usually Ray drives, but today I had already gotten the keys because I vacuumed out the car today during the work session, so I drove.  This car happens to have a manual transmission, so that took a few minutes to get used to, but I thought that I was doing pretty good when all of a sudden it died.  I was rolling up to a red light when it changed to green, so I put the car in 2nd gear and nudged the gas while releasing the clutch.  Apparently, I didn't give it enough gas because it immediately choked and died.  Of course, there were like 5 cars behind me, so I was in a bit of a hurry to get the car restarted, but I couldn't get it restarted.  I shoved in both brake and clutch and twisted the key - nothing.  I took it out of gear - nothing.  I was flabbergasted (as were the cars, who were now shooting past me) and didn't know what I was doing wrong.  Thankfully, Ray was more knowledgeable about that sort of thing than me and recommended that I pump the gas pedal and try to rev the engine while starting it.  I don't know exactly why that helped, but this time the car started up and we continued our drive without more problems.

 Alright, so there were a few stories where I related times that I was forced to become a bit more humble.  But, humility is so much more than black eyes, bad cantoring, spelling mistakes, and dead cars!  As that quote from Priestly Spirituality continues: "Jesus humbled himself in his priesthood and "became obedient unto death" (Phil 2:8); on behalf of sinners he took upon himself the most extreme humiliation.  That is why Peter, before receiving his office, is humbled by the question about love - the love that he has denied - and given the promise that he will follow Christ to the Cross".  This is humility - looking into the face of Christ and admitting that we have sinned, that we didn't love Him as we ought, that we were afraid to stand up for Him, that we denied Him.  People don't like Confession because it is humiliating, but it is only in humbly acknowledging our sins that we are able to accept God's forgiveness.  If our heart is full of our self it can't possibly accept God.  I am reading a few pages from Edward Sri's book, A Biblical Walk Through of the Mass, before Mass each day, and I just got to the Kyrie.  In this section, the author notes that mercy isn't just being forgiven by God, it involves turning our lives around (through humility)
Biblical mercy is not like that.  Rather, the relationship of mercy is better exemplified by the parable of the Prodigal Son.  IN this story, the wayward son, suffering in his misery, begins to see the sinfulness of his actions.  He humbly repents and returns home to his father.  According to John Paul II, the father in the story "sees so clearly the good which has been achieved [in his son] thanks to a mysterious radiation of truth and love, that he seems to forge all the evil which the son had committed." [JPII, Dives et Misericordia, no. 6]  In this case, the father does not merely pardon his son for his offenses.  Rather, he sees the good taking place in his son - his change of heart, his sorry for his sins, and his noble desire to get his life back on track.  And the father rejoices in seeing this good in his son and eagerly welcomes him back.  [p. 38]
God loves us completely, but He is waiting for us to be humble - to recognize our sinfulness - to give us His forgiveness.   Mary is blessed abundantly by God because she is humble: 
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices on God my Savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.  From this day all generations will call me blessed: The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.  [Luke 1:46-49]
Of course, one could give innumerable examples of how God can only work with a humble servant (John the Baptist's "He must increase, I must decrease"), but I think the point has been made adequately clear.  Humility is more than being humiliated (though that can certainly help us to become humble), humility is understanding ourselves as sinners before God.  Pope Francis has continued to make waves by constantly emphasizing the need to care for the poor, the weak, the downtrodden, but remember how he started his pontificate saying that "I am a sinner".  Only by humbly acknowledging this fact can we continue to become more like Christ (who was unthinkably humble in becoming a man and taking upon His perfect self our world of sin) and become transformed by His love.  We must, like St. Peter, stop protesting and allow Christ to wash our (dirty) feet. 

 Obviously, there is so much more to say on this topic, but, as always, I don't have unlimited time.  Have a wonderful Sunday folks!  
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Setting an Example

St. Paul Preaching in Athens
So today while I was in line at subway (which recently re-acquired a toaster - yay!), I heard the people behind me talking about their class and how it was really boring today, and nobody knew what the teacher was talking about, and then they said something interesting: "even the seminarians were looking out the windows".  I guess I hadn't really thought about it, but as a seminarian, people are watching me, so when I doze off in class, or complain about the cafeteria, or get to class late people notice. This little comment reminded me that, whether I like it or not, I am a role model of sorts and I need to act like one.  Now, I don't want to leave all the pressure on myself, so I'm going to point out that on a larger level the world is watching Catholics in general to see how they live their lives.  Whether we like it or not, we are held to a higher standard in the public's eye.  If we are who we say we are (the true Church started by Christ, with the Sacraments, and the True Presence, etc.), we need to live like it.  Catholics on a whole, not just seminarians, need to set an example as to how people should really live.  Want to convert the world?  Show them that we are a people truly transformed by Christ; the early church did it and look where it got them!
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Love Never Ends - Part 1

I decided to title this post from the conclusion of St. Paul's well known passage about love from the first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 13) because, well, love never ends in the sense that it is really, really important (as you will see) and that it just keeps coming up again and again in my blog posts (and will continue to...)

Here's the back story:  Today we had a meeting of the sophomore service guys.  Basically, all the sophomores here at Brute (plus me because I'm a junior who is also a first year guys here - split the difference and I'm a sophomore...) are required to do 10 hours of service per month and every so often we get together and guys give short talks on how it has impacted their life.  You know, it sounds quite boring and then guys start talking and a bunch of great ideas and thoughts get brought to the surface and I'm like "wow!" that is a great thought.  Anyway, today we got onto the topic of love.  It is an obvious topic that one would talk about when on the subject of doing service for others, and very quickly it became evident that it was an important theme to every guy's reflection.  

Come Follow Me
The dilemma we found was reaching the point where you can help people through true Christ-like love, not requirement or something.  It's easy enough to do 10 hours of service when you have to, or when you enjoy doing that certain work, or when your schedule is open.  But what about the times went there is no requirement, or the type of service isn't your favorite, or you are busy?  It's tough to go pull weeds when you don't like hands-on labor.  It's tough to play Uno with handicapped people when you find it difficult to relate or converse with them.  It's tough to go baby-sit kids in a poor neighborhood when you have 3 tests, a paper, and a Frisbee game tomorrow.  Yet sometimes that is exactly what Christ calls us to do.  

I brought up the point that love needs to come from God, through us, to the world.  Prayer, Adoration, the Sacraments, Grace: it's all ways for us to grow deeper in our relationship with Christ, and thus, grow in our love for others.  The foundation for Christ-like love must be Christ because if we are trying to come at it from any other direction we are bound to fall short.  Seriously, we, as humans alone, just can't love like that.  Personally, I'm kinda selfish, and it's hard to give up time, or energy, or money, or whatever to help others (especially when I really want to help myself).  It's a constant area that I need to grow in, and I would guess that a few other people out there would agree.  It's one of those things that I need to remember to pray for; it's so obvious that I forget to pray for it.  I pray for health, and the weather, and good grades, and to be optimistic, and other such things, but I forget to pray for the important stuff - you know growing closer to Christ, love for others, deeper faith.  Ah, well, I'll keep trying...

Have a fantastic day folks!  (there will be more to come on this topic - get ready!)
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