Wisdom with a Capital W

 Earlier today I posted on Facebook my initial reaction to Pope Francis' address to Congress, "Wisdom with a Capital W".  I stand with that line for the address and for his entire time in Washington. 

  I came across a few negative comments suggesting that the pope should have given Obama, and later Congress, a "smackdown" or a "setting straight."
   That is just not the way of Pope Francis.To
understand his way we need only look to the talk he gave to the US bishops yesterday at a midday prayer service.  He commended them for their work in calling the nation to respect life and likewise on immigration, but he also warned them against using "harsh and divisive language" and talk that leads to polarization. He also urged them to use a method of dialogue.

   Moving ahead to the address to congress he himself gave an example of these words to the bishops.  He certainly stated clearly that life at every stage of its development must be respected, but he did no moralistic finger waving. Let's face it that approach may sometimes may sometimes make us feel good when it is done to people we oppose, but it usually drives them further away rather than leading them to look at our position.

   Others thought he was really going to sock it to the right on climate change.  In fact, he did not use the phrase "climate change."  He used a softer expression--"man made pollution of the environment." I think that whether we agree with climate change or not we can all agree that we humans have polluted the environment and that we do have a responsibility to care for the earth, "our common home"

     On immigration his Holiness did not directly enter into the area of immigration law.  He used neither the term "illegal" or "undocumented', the buzz words from both sides.  He simply called us to realize why people want to immigrate and asked us to listen to their stories and respond.  This is what he means by dialogue in all areas.  We too easily begin by telling people why they are wrong.  Pope Francis calls us to listen to them first.

  It is because of this approach that I say that this speech was filled with wisdom.

  Even more important than all of this is the way that this talk was crafted in the context of the approaches of 4 great Americans, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.  I hope that Americans not familiar with the last two would get themselves acquainted with them. I do not have the space in this article to go down that road, but they were a great choice by the Pope.

   Lastly I would simply state that Pope Francis has offered a spiritual vision in which we as a nation should see ourselves. It was a call to hope and to dream, and we certainly need more of both.

 

 

Pope Francis in Cuba--A Powerful, But Subtle, Message

   I am spending my last days at San Pedro Parish in the Florida Keys.  About 100 miles from where I sit Pope Francis is visiting the island nation of Cuba, the third pope to do so.

   Because of spending four years in Hialeah, FL, often called "North Cuba" I have several friends who left that nation when Fidel Castro took over, or shortly thereafter.  

   Most of them have very strong anti-Castro feelings but are cautiously optimistic about this papal visit to their homeland.  The mere fact that the previous two papal visits have brought improved conditions for Catholics and other Christians is a good sign.   The opening of diplomatic relations with our country is another.  Nonetheless, there is a long way to go.

   Some people have expressed the opinion that the pope should have spoken more strongly about human rights and freedom.  Regarding this one news commentator suggested that because the pope is not only a religious leader, but a head of state, that his words needed to be careful.  Also it is likely that in his private meeting with president Raul Castro those issues came up.

   I would like to point out here three things that were very significant.

   1.)  In his homily at the opening Mass in Havana Pope Francis, basing his words on the message of service found in that Sunday's Gospel text from Mark, reminded the people that we are called to serve people and not ideologies.  That, to me, was the most succinct criticism of Marxism that I have ever heard.  It was said in a way that was memorable and likely to stick in the minds of the millions who heard it spoken in person or on TV and social media.  Will it subtly stir people to action? Only time will tell.

  2.)  In a similar vein, in his talk to the youth of Cuba, Pope Francis called on religious orders to reach out to those who were seen as "useless".  Likewise he called on young people to realize that no one was useless and that all deserved dignity and respect (My paraphrase of the pope's words). Under Marxist thinking those who cannot work and contribute to society are considered "useless" and they are neglected.  Again, his holiness was planting a seed in the minds of many.

  3.) In his brief visit with  Fidel Castro the pope gave him a copy of a book written by one of Castro's Jesuit high school teachers, as well as some other works on spirituality.  I'm sure that this gesture had to have given Mr. Castro something to think about.


   These three actions, and probably several others, were subtle and were carefully chosen.  I think that the first two especially, have a chance to bear much fruit.

   I will write next week at the conclusion of Pope Francis's trip to our country.  Although we are blessed with freedoms that Cubans do not have, I think that the most powerful things that come from his visit here may be equally as subtle.

   Finally, a request.  Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, interpret anything the pope says to us through the lenses of the political left or right.   Hopefully he will both support and challenge both sides.

  

Louis and Laurie--A Sacrament

  One of the special blessings of being a priest is the privilege of sharing in special family moments.  I had one such moment last night when I witnessed the marriage of my niece Laurie to her husband Louis Strazzulo at Sacred Heart Church in Boston's North End.

   We Catholics call marriage a sacrament.  What does that mean?  Most think that it simply means that a priest or deacon blesses the couple on their wedding day.  That's part of it, but it is so much more.  Matrimony is the only sacrament not given by the priest.  The couple confer the sacrament on each other, not only on their wedding day, but every day of their lives.  In doing so they are a sign to all of us of Christ's love for His people, of God's love for all of us. Each couple is unique and different and reflects that love in their own way.

           Laurie and Louis have known each other for a few years. At first they were "just friends".  It all grew from there and I think that the good Lord had a hand in all of that. I'm sure that they will have a wonderful life together and will bring wonderful children into the world.

   Their wedding reception was held at a hotel on the Boston waterfront.  Given that it was Labor Day weekend there were fireworks during the dinner.  We interrupted the fine meal and went out to see the fireworks.

   I think that when 2 people marry fireworks should always go off. I think that God would like that.

Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood

   As I promised in my last blog post I will offer a reflection on the Eucharistic dimensions of John 6. As Catholics we believe that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are truly the Body and Blood of Christ.  In this Sunday's Gospel from John 6 Jesus tells us "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink." (Jn 6:54-55).
there are several important implications of these words, several aspects of our belief in the Real Presence that we often do not think of.

   First of all Jesus is telling us that He doesn't just want us to look up to heaven and pray top Him.  He wants to be united with us, to enter into the depths of our being.  He desires that we eat and drink, take Him into our selves as nourishment.

Secondly, He wishes to transform us.  there is a saying that says "You are what you eat."  Now I wouldn't go to far with that in terms of some of the things that make up my diet, but in the case of the Eucharist my body, my flesh and blood, joined to that of Jesus must shape my life and make a difference.  This was very clear to the early Christians, but unfortunately it is not so clear to many today.  In Baptism we are joined to the Body of Christ. In the Eucharist that bond is strengthened.  One of the excuses I hear people saying for not going to Mass is that "you don't need the Church to be a good person."  Believe it or not that is true.  We don't participate in the Eucharist to be good. We partake of the Eucharist in order to become holy, to be more Christ-like.



   A third aspect is that the Eucharist is not a me and Jesus event, but rather a we and Jesus event. St. Paul had been dead for about thirty years when John wrote his Gospel.  It was Paul who joined the notion  of the Eucharist as the Body of Christ with that of the Church as the Body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 10:17 he writes "Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, because we all partake of the one loaf."  I have to believe that John and is followers were well aware of those words because the letters of Paul were often read at early celebrations of the Eucharist and were in circulation in the early Christian communities.  If everyone else is partaking of the real flesh and blood food that is the Eucharist and is thus joined to Christ, we are all joined to each other.  How different our attitudes towards other peoples would be if we dwelt on this because this union is not only with those who attend the 10 O'clock Mass with me, but with all people everywhere and throughout the ages that receive the Eucharist.

   A fourth dimension is the part where Jesus says "my blood is real drink."  A rather superficial question that has been raised in recent years is "Is the Eucharist a meal or a sacrifice?"  It is both. It is obviously a meal and began as a meal.  At the same time the blood is Jesus blood poured out on the cross.  In the Mass we are united with His sacrifice and hopefully offer the sacrifice of our lives in union with is.

   Lastly I would like to dwell on the fact that Jesus chose to be present to us in the form of bread and wine, common food and drink made up of, as we say in the offertory prayers, "the fruit of the field and the vine, and the work of human hands. He takes earthly, created things, the fruit of our labor, and transforms them into His Body and Blood.  Pope Francis has recently written a beautiful encyclical on our responsibility to care for creation.  The fact that in the Eucharist we offer the Lord the fruits of His own creation should certainly motivate us to take better care of the Creator's work.

   I believe that if someone understands everything that I have written here they would never avoid participating in the Eucharist regularly no matter what the human foibles of the clergy and other members of the Body of Christ.  We need to do a better job of communicating this understanding
  

What Kind of Bread do you eat?

  Over the past few weeks the Gospel texts for Sunday Mass have been taken from the 6th chapter of John. It began a few weeks ago with John's account of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and continues with the beautiful Bread of Life discourse.  The entire chapter leads us to a wonderful and profound understanding of the Eucharist.  Unfortunately, though understandably, there are many who get the concluding message of this chapter, namely that we are called, as Jesus tells us to eat His flesh and drink His blood in the Eucharist, but who miss out on the first point that the chapter makes, that Jesus Himself is the Bread of Life.

      This is important because it leads us to realize that not only are we to partake of the Eucharist, but that Jesus is to be our nourishment in everything that we do.  That means that Jesus life and teachings are our source of nourishment.  We can't receive Him in Communion and act contrary to His message of love, peace and forgiveness in our everyday lives.  An old Cherokee story that has been circulating on the internet lately helps us, I believe, to understand this point. 

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.
“One is Evil – It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
“The other is Good – It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

   I believe that if one is nourished by the Bread of life that one is nourishing the good wolf.  Unfortunately we too easily feed on the bread of violence, rage and division that comes to us through the media, through politics and even at times from some voices within the Church.  I would clarify here that I am not saying that we should never be angry.  The list of things that we can be upset about is long.  The challenge is not to allow anger to become a state of mind, a way of being.

   Jesus tells us in a later chapter of John "You are my friends if you do what I command you." (Jn 15:14)  What does He command us to do? One might think  of the ten comandments, but I think that Jesus also commands us to turn the other cheek, to forgive seventy times seven times and to seek to serve rather than to be served, just to name a few.  If we are nourished by these things the evil wolf will fall silent.

   John 6 is with us for a few more weeks and I do hope to reflect on the Eucharistic message of this chapter in my next blog entry.

And Jesus Wept.

"Dominus Flevit" "The Lord Wept--outside of Jerusalem

   I am reading  Jesus, a wonderful book by James Martin, SJ. It presents a wonderful and prayerful reflection on Jesus based on the author's experience of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  I am reading it slowly, not because it is difficult to understand, but because so many of his reflections lead me into prayer and meditation.  When I finish reading I may review it on this blog, for now I am picking up on one part of it that struck me today.

   Fr. Martin comments at length on Luke 19:41--"And Jesus Wept."  He goes into what is behind this and all of the anguish Jesus felt on the night before His death.  That lead me to ask "Over what would Jesus weep today?"  It would be easy to answer that question by listing any number of the evils of the day--terrorism, human trafficking, racial violence are among other things that come to my mind.  I'm sure that the list is longer than that.  I would suggest, however, that we go deeper than that to find the answer.

    I think that more than anything else Jesus weeps at the hatred that is in the world, not only the hatred that fuels terror groups like Isis, but the hatred that I see everyday on Facebook and Twitter directed at other races and nationalities, at politicians, at other nations and at other religions. I am taken aback by anger and outrage expressed so vehemently even when I agree with the opinion of the one expressing it.  It is the anger expressed in things like road rage and the random shootings that so often take place. 

   No doubt much of this anger has its roots in hurts that the angry person has experienced in the past.  It comes out indirectly at anyone and anything that gets in their way. We need to work on healing the anger within us.  While I am an advocate of some type of tighter gun control (no, not repealing the 2nd amendment), the real issue is healing the rage that leads to the crazy level of gun violence that we have seen recently.
 
   So, what is the answer to this problem? Interestingly the members of the African-American church in South Carolina where nine of their members were killed forgave the shooter, a young disturbed racist fanatic. In other places further violence erupted after the initial shooting.

   Maybe Jesus's message of forgiveness, which seems so idealistic is not so impractical after all.  Forgiveness is not softness. It is not about excusing bad behavior and injustice. Those folks in Charleston had a great deal of courage.  They were saying that something terrible happened, but they are not going to give it any more power by spreading the violence. Forgiveness is a form of healthy selfishness.  It says that if I continue the cycle of anger, rage and violence I will be hurting
myself, and probably a lot of other people as well.

   In John's Gospel Jesus command to "Love one another as I have loved you.(See John 15:9ff.) is given on the night before he died, knowing that He was to die, and after the betrayal of Judas.  There is a lesson to be learned in this.
 

Social Justice, Politics, Popes and the Church

  There has been  a lot of talk lately about Pope Francis' statements on the world economy and on the environment.  A lot of it has been positive, but a good deal of it has been critical. I have no problem with the criticism.  Even the Pope himself is taking a look at some of the criticisms before he speaks to the US Congress in September and has repeatedly said that he is open to dialogue on these issues. g the What I don't accept is people saying that he is overstepping his bounds, that he should stick to religion.  I'm sorry but caring for creation and helping the poor are moral obligations rooted in our faith. Also, every Pope since Leo XIII in the 1890's as either issued an encyclical or made an important statement on matters of social justice, speaking out on things like worker's rights, war and peace, the arms race and the care for creation.  In fact Pope Francis recent encyclical, Laudato Si, mirrors thoughts put forth by both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Francis has simply made these matters more of a predominant theme of his papacy.

   Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical  Redemptor Hominis expounded at length on the meaning of the redemption that Christ came to bring. All Christians agree that on the cross He won victory over sin and death.  We agree also that He gives us the grace to combat sin in our own lives and in the world.This is where working for social justice becomes a part of our Christian responsibility.  It is not enough just to ask the Lord to help me overcome my personal sins, we must also work to combat all of the terrible evils in the world and to point out those political and economic system that contribute to poverty, injustice and other evils.

   Here in the US people will claim separation of Church and  state.  Clearly the Church has no authority to control government policy, nor does the government have the authority to dictate to the Church. Likewise churches must stay away from endorsing any party or candidate. The churches, however, do have the right to speak up when we believe that something is wrong., whether it is on abortion, poverty, slavery, war and peace, etc.  Several of our forefathers said that the churches must be the conscience of society.  It was the churches that led the charge against slavery.  May we continue to speak a prophetic message to our world.

   Popes and other Church leaders are often criticized for not offering practical solutions That criticism is understandable, but it is also exactly where the dividing line is.  As a general rule religious leaders denounce the evils.  They say in effect, "There's a problem here. It needs to be fixed. This is not what God wants" The appropriate experts then hopefully take action. Pope Francis is saying that the current worldwide economic system needs to be fixed. There is too much greed, too much poverty and inequality.

   The Church does not expect some sort of utopia.   The world will always be imperfect until Christ comes again.  Our task, in the meantime, is to work for a better, a more just, a more peaceful, a more equitable world.  Can we all agree that we can do better?

   Lastly, people often tell me that I am too idealistic, that there will always be war, poverty, etc.  My answer to that is to say yes, that is true, but we must keep the ideal before others so that we don't lapse into cynicism and despair.