Open Wide the Doors for Christ!

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).  

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. 

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 - 

Well, this will be brief because I want to get to bed, but basically, I have finished 95% of packing and what-not and should be able to throw it all in the car tomorrow morning.  I have to be to Brute before 4 PM, so I'll be leaving Quincy before 10 AM.  It has been a wonderful summer, and I hate to see it end, but at the same time I am looking forward to a new semester and the challenges, fun, and growth that it will bring.  

Please keep myself and the other 40 some-odd guys that will be at Brute this year in your prayers. 

Thanks for reading my blog, and the prayers!

St. Maximilian Kolbe - Pray for us, that we may be willing to give ourselves totally to God and our neighbors.  Amen

During vacation I have been trying to read Fr. Larry Richards' book, Be a Man!, and while I haven't finished it (yet) I am a few chapters in and the major theme that has hit me is that of martyrdom.  "So the power we get from the Spirit of God is to die to ourselves by bearing witness to Christ... The question then is, are you willing to die every day to witness to Christ?  Will you lay down your life for your wife and for your children?" [page 75]  This is the ultimate challenge, and one that has existed since God first created man.

Genesis 2:15 - "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.""

Notice the words "work" and "keep".  This doesn't just indicate that Adam was supposed to be a gardener, it also means that he was in charge of protecting and preserving creation.  Here's the deal - Adam was expressly given the mission (the challenge) by God to protect creation - and he didn't.  Where was Adam when Eve is tempted by the serpent?  Genesis 3:6 - "she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate."  Adam was standing next to Eve during the temptation and he says nothing; he fails to protect creation.  God gave Adam this seemingly simple mission and he didn't do it.

This is the same mission we have today - do God's will.  Pretty simple right? (wrong!)  God's sense of humor is evident here - Adam and Eve fell to the temptation to "be like God" because they were prideful and thought they could do whatever they wanted.  Well, now our God-given challenge is exactly that: "be like God".  Of course, this isn't in the selfish way that Adam and Eve envisioned it.  Being like God means picking up our cross and following Jesus Christ up Calvary.  It means death to self and total giving of our lives to God, and thus, others.  Being like God has nothing to do with selfishness - because God isn't selfish; God is love, and love means sacrifice.

So, God has laid down the ultimate challenge for all men: "Come follow me".  There is no way to do this without grace.  There is no way to be that loving, that self-less, that totally available to God without His help.  The challenge is supremely daunting - can you give up everything, to follow Jesus Christ?  Can you love God above everything else (power, money, fame, friends, etc.)?  Writing this post has gotten me thinking about just how far away I am from living this way.

Often I would think that martyrdom, being killed for the faith, would be so much easier - you know, profess the faith, get caught, and a few days later you are a saint...  Obviously, the thing I forgot about was the huge amount of faith these people must have had to get to the point where they gave their life for Christ.  They were dying for Christ everyday, in everything they were doing.  It wasn't just a one time thing, it was their entire lives.

St. Boniface, who's feast day was yesterday, said in one of his letters (found in the Office of Readings for yesterday): "Let us trust in him who has placed this burden upon us.  What we ourselves cannot bear let us bear with the help of Christ.  For he is all-powerful and he tells us: My yoke is easy and my burden is light."  Wait a second, you say, hasn't this whole post been about the challenge of following Christ?  That doesn't sound very "easy" or "light" to me.  Here's the thing: the only way to totally follow Christ (even to martyrdom - like St. Boniface did), is by relying on Him.  We, especially Americans, don't like relying on people.  We want to do it ourselves and have that rugged individualism.  But, this challenge, of totally following Christ, is absolutely impossible if we don't do it His way, if we don't do it with Him.  Adam and Eve tried to do there own thing, they tried to be like God their own way, and look where that got them?  Notice that Jesus says "my yoke", not "your yoke".  Following Him is only possible, and even easy, if we do it His way, not our own.

Well, that's all for now.  Of course there is so much more to this topic, but we are trying to pack everything up and get checked out of the cabin this morning, so I should get going...  Have a good day folks!

Martyrdom of St. Boniface