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 - 

I don't know about you, but I often have grandoise, or at least ambitious, plans to do these great things and change myself, the world, or whatever, for the better.  For instance, I was a bit disapointed in myself this past semester because I got really busy with a lot of (great) things and didn't have as much time as I wanted for other (greater) things, like reading those books outside of class, or visiting those churches around Rome that I haven't seen yet, or creating videos around the Eternal City, etc.  So, I've been thinking about next semester and trying to plan on making room for those things.  I want to spend 2 or 3 hours each afternoon reading/studying, at least an hour praying, and, more specifically concerned with this blog, I want to spend more time blogging, like, 30 minutes every day or something.  Problem: I didn't have that much time last semester, and I don't think I'll suddenly have an extra couple hours each day to devote to these, and other, projects, this semester.  It's disheartening!  I want to do so much and then I not only don't get those things done, but I fall down in so many other ways as well!  

So right now I'm actually in Krakow, Poland for something called the Tertio Millennia Seminar, where myself and about 34 (ok, exactly 34) other students from around the US and Eastern Europe are studying the history behind, life of, writings/teachings of, and impact of St. John Paul II.  It's absolutly amazing, not only to be studying in such a cool place, under such great professors (George Weigel, the guy who wrote that thousand-page biography of JPII, is one of them), and in a program instigated by JPII, but all those factors combined with the lucidity, power, applicability, and impactfulness of the teachings of our late, great, pope, and the fact that he's one of my personal favorite saints, is just amazing.  

Long story short, that actually has to do with my complaint in the first paragraph.  Something I've realized over the past year is that I have a streak of a perfectionism, or maybe just over-achieverism (is that a word?  yeah, probably not...) in me, and so when I see a great saint I want to be like them.  Now, obviously, I know that we're all called to a specific time and place, with specific talents, abilities, graces, and history, all of which God directs at an individual vocation, but I still want to be a saint (that's kind of the whole point of being created in the first point).  And so, when I hear that JPII prayed for 6 hours a day (and brought down Soviet communism), or John Vianney lived on a potato a day (and spent 18 hours in the confessional), or Mother Theresa was an absolute beacon of joy while in the midst of great interior darkness (and opened like 500 centers during her life time to care for the poor/ill), I want to be like that.  Saints are just super inspirational, and I get all fired up to live the faith like they did ... and then I fail to even get close.  I don't get even my holy hour in every day, I struggle to pass up one invitation to go get ice cream, and when I get distracted in prayer I give up so quickly and don't even try to give my attention to God.  

Thankfully, there's an answer in our greatest model, Jesus Christ.  Now wait, you say, He is God and man, absolutely perfect, absolute love, how could He possibly be a easier example to follow?  Isn't following Him shooting even higher and doomed to even greater failure?  You think JPII prayed, look at the example that Christ gives in the Agony (and so many other times)!  You think that the Cure of Ars sacrificed, look at calvary (or just Our Lord's life in general)!  You think Mother Theresa's prayer life was dry, listen to the cry of anguish on the cross - "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me" - as Our Lord is burdened beneath the wretchedness of all our sins.  And this is a valid complaint, there is no way we can "match" Christ in his generosity, mercy, humility, obedience, sacrificial love, prayer, or anything.  Yet He still tells us to "be perfect as Your heavenly Father is perfect."  Aren't we doomed to failure?  

No, we're not!  Look to Christ, look to those saints, what did they do?  They were perfect, just as God is, in giving their all.  JPII had the grace to be able to pray for long periods of time, inspire people with his words, and not sleep much, and so He gave that time and ability to God.  Vianney was given the physical endurance to fast constantly, yet minister so completely to so many penitents who flocked to them.  Bl. Theresa of Calcutta was given the strength to carry on, in joy, in the midst of great trial and distress.  All these saints though - and this is the big point - weren't completely, divinely, perfect, they were perfect in as much as they gave everything - their weakness and their strengths - totally back to God, totally in His service.  Saints aren't people who don't have weaknesses, they are those who allow God to fill their weaknesses with His grace.  

These thoughts were running through my head as I knelt in Adoration in the Church of St. Florian here in Krakow (Fr. Wojtyla's first parish after his ordination), and I was very grateful to Our Lord for inspiring me as I gazed at the crucifix, not only with this idea of the weakness of the saints, but also of the weakness of Himself on calvary.  Jesus must have wanted to give so much more on the cross, yet He couldn't, He was physically limited in how much torture he could endure.  Why was He "only" on the cross for 6 hours or so - Pilate himself was surprised when he found out that Our Lord had died so quickly - couldn't he have shown His love in an even more astounding way by even greater sufferings?  Now, don't think I'm saying that Our Lord's sacrifice was inadequate, or that it wasn't one of the most brutal, painful, deaths in the history of the world, His incarnation alone was more than enough to save all of us, but, Christ is all love, and He chose the passion to show that love to us in a most raw and amazing way, and yet He falls on the way to calvary, He cries out in the midst of that anguish, He dies after "only" several hours (some crucified persons suffered for days).  Why?  He was willing to be weak before God, and before us.  He was "humble to the point of death, death on a cross."

This is the essence of sanctity, not to be good enough to do incredible things, but to be humble enough to let God do those incredible things.  JPII, John Vianney, Mother Theresa - these weren't super-humans, they were supernaturalized-humans.  It isn't as if really strong people can live on a potato a day, or shear determination could get somebody through a holy-six-hours, or if you were tough enough then total darkness in the spiritual life doesn't effect you.  No!  It was precisely, and only, in the fact that they relied on God completely, not themselves, that they could do those amazing things, and the same is true of us.  God calls us to give Him everything, and let Him do the rest.  That's true humility, and that is what transforms the world and our own lives.  It was humble, loving, obedience that was asked of Adam and Eve, and they failed, and it was through humble, loving, obedience that Christ came into the world and then saved the world.  We are called to that same perfection, that same awesome vocation, that same fired-up, passionate, sanctity, that same completely self-giving humility, absolute abandonment to love, and filial obedience that we see in the saints (always modeled on Christ Himself) and we, like them, are given the specific graces needed in our lives, our situations, our vocations, to live up to that.  

Don't be discouraged by great examples of holiness: Fall down? Get back up.  Feel weak? Give that to the Lord.  Think you can't change the world?  Take a glance at the coal miner oppressed under the soviet regime (Karol Wojtyla), or the seminarian who couldn't understand theological terminology (John Vianney), or the tiny sister from Albania who is shocked at the poverty of Calcutta (Sr. Theresa).  These individuals didn't expect to change the world, but they were willing to let God do that through them, and so He did.  He wants to do the same through you!

We read the passage from Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians (3:10) that "Anyone unwilling to work should not eat" a few days ago during morning or evening prayer, so when I saw that today we were celebrating the feast of the basilicas of Sts. Peter and Paul it immediately jumped to mind.  I thought "I should write a post on this", and then, as often seems the case, ideas started filling my mind about how such a post might come together.  See, yesterday, right after the usual 4 hours of classes (Pentateuch and Church History), about half of the guys in my class made our way across Rome and proceeded to watch a video for a couple hours about all sorts of different details regarding moving/immigrating/entering Italy.  Most of it was totally inapplicable - we're not planning on becoming Italian citizens, or having kids, or finding family over here, etc. - but it wasn't all bad.  First of all, it was rather hilarious to watch the two people - totally straight faced, and looking absolutely bored - banter back and forth about intricacies of Italian immigration law.  [Laura] "John, I'm so glad you mentioned that, it's sooo interesting, could you remind us of the seventeen types of visas that one can apply for and the penalties that are incurred if you don't apply at your local post-office?"...  Also, I got a bit of seminar reading done while sitting there (we're reading about Scripture, and how God inspired the human authors to record his revelation), so that was a plus! 

How, does this apply to Paul?  Well, while sitting there - half way through eating my lunch and part of the way through the videos - one of the guys (thanks John!) asked if the occasion would make it onto my blog.  I couldn't immediately think of a way to fit it in here - yeah, they talked about marriage, maybe do something with that... - but this morning "the dawn from on high broke upon me" and I finally found a way to blog about it!  And that is the topic of work.  This video, again, and again, and again, spoke about the importance of work for the "unitary parliamentary republic" of current-day Italy.  Work visas, guarantees for work, how the country was founded on and for work...  It was one of the most-repeated topics, and one that I didn't think was very applicable to me, but - as it turned out - it definitely is.  Taking Paul's words literally, if you don't work, you don't eat, it's that simple.  Work is necessary because society wouldn't function without it, people would starve, and that's non va bene (not good).  But, since those words are inspired by God, we can go much further than just the literal meaning! 

Just last week my class had a formation conference on the topic of academic formation, and Msgr. Hanke began his talk with Our Lord's words "the harvest is ready but the laborers are few".  We, as he pointed out, might not be enamored by our studies.  Some classes aren't super-interesting, some even seem to be a waste of time - I could be getting so much more done doing something else - and some are just plain hard.  But, just as we get excited about the next travel weekend, or going out to dinner, or playing a sport, or leading tours of St. Peter's, or going to Mass at magnificent cathedrals, or spending time in Adoration, or getting ordained and working in a parish, we also need to enthusiastically throw ourselves at our studies.  Why? Because there is a much deeper meaning behind Our Lord's words, and St. Paul's words than just the literal of the necessity for work.  St. Paul tells us "Anyone unwilling to work should not eat".  The focus isn't so much "if you don't work, you don't get to eat" but rather "here's the food, now work!"  Our Lord has already given us the food - Himself in the Eucharist, He has already given us the strength and sustenance to go out there and "fight the good fight".  See, not only is our food supernatural, but so is our work, our task, our calling! 

Look at any of the saints!  St. John Vianney spent like 15+ hours in the confessional each day.  St. Thomas Aquinas wrote so many books in his (short) life that he was at times he was dictating two different books, to two different scribes, at the same time.  St. Joseph, St. Faustina, St. Catherine of Sienna - these are saints who put blood, sweat, and tears into their work for the Lord, and they made it to heaven, so they're probably pretty good examples to follow.  But, sticking with St. Paul, we have another fantastic example of somebody who worked hard for God.  He traveled a lot of miles (10,000ish, if you count his last journey to Rome), wrote a lot of letters, ...  actually, he says exactly what he endured for the sake of Christ:

"but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger; by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything" - 2 Corinthians 6:4-10

We, of course, are called to follow in the footsteps of these saints!  We, too, are called to labor for God in this world.  Originally, I was going to end this post here, but there's one more important thing to say.  And that is this: that we do all of this, we tackle every challenge, every difficulty, every cross, with love.  The Eucharist, Jesus giving Himself to us, isn't like some sort of protein bar - giving us a boost of energy to keep working - it's so much more than that!  It isn't just our sustenance, it's the bond between us and God, Divine life within us.  I just read a section in Pope Emeritus Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth (for Christology) and while he's talking about the beatitude "blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God", he speaks to this idea of "seeing God" and how it belongs properly to Jesus, as the Son, to "see God".  "Purification of heart occurs as a consequence of following Christ, of becoming one with him." [page 95]  This union, this "becoming one", happens most profoundly, and most amazingly in the Eucharist!  And what is the very next thing that Benedict says? - "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (quoting St. Paul, from Galatians 2:20).  This is huge!  The Eucharist doesn't just give us a spiritual boost to keep doing whatever we need to get done, it makes us intimately united with Christ, it super-naturalizes our work to become His.  We aren't always writing amazing theological works, or bringing the faith to pagans, or writing letters to the Pope (St. Thomas, St. Paul, St. Catherine did those things all the time), but when we receive the Eucharist we can allow even our menial, boring, day-to-day, tasks become the work of Christ.  When Christ is in us, when we allow Him to work through us and in us, not only are we availed that supernatural energy that comes from following Him, but we are also made co-workers in His vineyard.  This task is tough!  Christ might call us to difficult works for Him, or He might call us to do our typical works, but transformed and inspired by Him.  Either way, we might not be applauded by our world these days.  But regardless, Christ is with us, filling us with His love and strength, and guiding us on the path of following Him. 

And you thought taking out the trash, or going to that class, or watching a "civic education" video didn't matter!  Folks, if you're willing to eat - to consume Christ's Body - be ready to work, to do everything with the challenge of doing it as Christ would, and the comfort of having Him with you!

Notice who is behind St. Paul!  (and the fact that he's carrying a sword...)