Virginal Dimension of Marital Love
In Communio of Summer 2008, Father Antonio Lopez writes in “Mary, our Certainty of Hope” of the primal human fear of final solitude and of Mary as the one who accompanies us, reflecting the love of God as the moon does the sun’s rays, and rooting our hope in absolute confidence, rather than anxiety, because God has already come among us, taking flesh within her womb. Mary teaches us the silence in which to pray “Come” as we long with her for the “undeserved miracle of God’s company” even as we already enjoy that holy company. Along the way, he reflects upon the virginal love of Mary, following his mentor Father Luigi Giusanni. This is a difficult and challenging concept as it moves well beyond the physical into a phenomenology of the interiority of love.
Virginal love:
- Is one that desires to possess the beloved (eros) but with an interior detachment that sets the beloved free (agape).
- Does not impose, but allows and invites a free and creative reception.
- Perceives and delights in the beauty of the beloved in selfless surrender and sacrifice.
- Affirms the other without the impulse to absorb or use her selfishly.
- Beholds and cherishes the beautiful that is gratuitously given in the being of the beloved, in obedience to the form and nature of that beauty, renouncing any urge to control or use from an extrinsic, non-contemplative vantage point.
- Is a reciprocal possession of each other as gift in openness to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.
- Allows us, like the woman caught in adultery and liberated by Jesus, to be completely free, completely ourselves, and yet completely possessed by our Lover.
- Allows union with distinction, rather than fusion into unity and thus dissolution of otherness.
Clearly, such virginal love is the inner form of any pure and genuine love: friendship, marriage, paternity or maternity, and filiality. Why does such beauty-perceiving, union-seeking, other-affirming, liberating love take the specific form of abstinence from romantic/erotic desire and procreation? This virginal love, embodied so perfectly in Mary, is a privileged share in God’s chaste, creative and redemptive love for us. He desires us, but not in the manner of sexualized pagan gods, rather with a liberty and gratuity that guarantees our own autonomy, freedom and capacity to freely reciprocate the love. The spirit of love, the Holy Spirit, is communion with pure distinction; it creates and allows distance, preserving the autonomy of both Lover and Beloved; and in our historic, temporal domain finds a privileged and specific expression in virginity as freely chosen abstinence from romance, sex and family.
Romantic and erotic longings are powerful and overwhelming; they spring from the very deepest needs of the needy human self; they tend by concupiscence to become possessive, selfish, angry and manipulative. In the Garden of Eden before the fall, we can imagine that eros and agape infused each other in a sublime nuptial communion. With sin, however, this union was broken and erotic love became identified with covetousness, deception, control and violation. The inner form or meaning of erotic love, however, will always be a movement into agape, selfless reception of and gift to the other in her distinctive beauty and nature.
Where does this leave married love? Nuptial love if it is to be and become free, total, faithful, and fruitful, must also be virginal. The romantic and erotic dimensions of love are terribly distinct from but not contradictory of the virginal dimension. In the honeymoon embrace, virginity is not lost, is not taken, and is not violated. Rather, it is freely given and (within the natural realm) fulfilled. The marital act is holy and sacramental because of the virginal dimension that is present by grace, even if more implicit than manifest. It is the virginal element that must grow with the marriage as the lovers encounter each other’s selfishness and all the challenges of family life. While the romantic and erotic will ebb and flow unpredictably according to their own rhythms, the virginal aspect purifies, strengthens and lightens the relationship and opens it up to hope.
Such a union is not closed in upon itself in a cycle of mutual selfishness and violation. Rather, the virginal opens the lover to see his beloved as completely free and other because she belongs first and foremost to God, in a relationship of eternal love. Her love affair with God is what defines her and so spousal love is secondary and contributory to that primal love affair. This transcendent dimension opens the lover to appreciate and embrace his beloved in all of her otherness: her maternity, her work and interest and gifts, her failings, idiosyncrasies and weaknesses. It especially allows the lover to see and serve his beloved in the mission entrusted to her by God. As seen in St. Joseph, such love evokes an obedience, a silence, a sacrifice, and a guardianship of the specific and unique vocation of the beloved in all its density, complexity, creativity, enormity, ambiguity, expectancy, fragility and mystery.
With the passing of years, of course, the romantic and erotic diminish along with youthful vitality, endurance and energy; but the passing of time and accumulation of experience can work to enhance the virginal dimension of love: the mutual acceptance and affirmation of each other, without selfish claim or possession. So we see that marital love is already in the beginning virginal; but this virginity is even more so its goal and destination. As physical energies lessen and psychic longings become transformed, virginal delight in each other develops and expands. No need for viagra or hormone therapy here! Rather, with the passing of libidinal energy and fecundity to the next generation, the spouses are free to deepen their guardianship of their shared and specific missions. Their pray life and its service of the young is especially reinvigorated with release from household responsibilities.
Within the Catholic economy, we rightly highlight the bipolarity and mutual fecundation of the celibate and married states. By contrast, Hindu tradition encourages the natural trajectory of marriage from the household stage into a monastic lifestyle of prayer, poverty, chastity and obedience. And so, we might synthesize these insights and marvel that spousal love, always grounded in the virginal, is destined to deepen and purify its inner form with the passing of time, the growth in experience, and the diminishment in physical strength. With John the Baptist, we pray “I must decrease so that you may increase.”
As so, at last, we will say like the guests at the Cana: “You have saved the best wine for now.” (John 2:10)
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Ponzi Finances of Debt; Catholic Economies of Plenty
Our economy is more and more looking like a mega-Ponzi scheme. We got into trouble because everyone was borrowing too much: China has loaned us $1 trillion over the last decade. To get out of the crisis we will stimulate the economy by borrowing another $trillion, probably from China. Isn’t this the way a Ponzi scheme works: expansive borrowing to cover prior debt? If faith in unregulated, low-tax free markets went into crisis in late summer of 2008 with the mortgage bust, we are now witnessing a revived faith in Keynesian deficit spending. Today’s NY Times explains that the Chinese have loaned us so much money because we Americans borrow and spend without saving while the Chinese are making, saving and loaning tons of money without buying anything. We are joined to each other as addict to co-addict. It is hard to avoid the impression that the economy we have created is a macro-monster that no one really can understand, control or predict. The financial wizards and economic experts with their obscure terminology and complicated mathematical modeling did not anticipate this crisis and elicit little confidence that they can resolve it. What are we learning? We are learning to place little trust in things like stocks, credit, planning, pensions, retirement plans and “financial security” in general. It resonates of the Gospel rebuke to the rich man building barns for his harvest: “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded of you!” (Luke 12:20)
Sin as Debt?
The time seems ripe to retrieve the language and imagery of sin as debt. To literally identify sin as debt and debt as sin would surely be simplistic and distorting of both; but there is a sin-like quality to debt and a debt-like quality to sin. The mystery of iniquity is illuminated by many images: disease, addiction, isolation, mimetic contagion, rebellion, deception, darkness, and bondage…to name a few. Sin has traditionally been understood as an infinite debt incurred by offending our Almighty God. This approach has been unfashionable in recent decades but can be helpful. Both sin and debt are progressive and dynamic and lead us deeper into a bondage that can become inescapable; both involve profound deficit, loss and negativity; both bring bondage and oppression; both lead to hopelessness and paralysis. The economic and spiritual spheres of human life are clearly distinct; but they do mutually infuse and influence each other and there is an analogical and interactive relationship between them. In an age of Ponzi schemes and trillion dollar deficits, our fear and loathing of sin might well inflame our dread of debilitating debt and our thirst for frugality, simplicity and generosity.
Grace and Plenty
If sin implies debt and destitution, grace clearly means plenitude, surplus, and extravagance. Christ in the paschal mystery has not only canceled our debt, but has invested us into his own legacy of boundless plenty. In the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, we eat the bread of eternal life and drink from heavenly springs. This spiritual banquet overflows into our economic, domestic and physical, economies. Within the faith of the Church, we daily live the miracle of the loaves and fishes and the generosity of the sinful woman who anointed her Lord with precious oils; we draw from the merits or credit of the Communion of Saints even as we sup on the provisions of Mother Nature.
It is a marvelous time for skepticism about financial instruments and macro-economics; a time for uninhibited immersion in the sacramental economy and the abundance of the Kingdom; a time for vigorous and celebrative simplicity, frugality and generosity.
Our economy is more and more looking like a mega-Ponzi scheme. We got into trouble because everyone was borrowing too much: China has loaned us $1 trillion over the last decade. To get out of the crisis we will stimulate the economy by borrowing another $trillion, probably from China. Isn’t this the way a Ponzi scheme works: expansive borrowing to cover prior debt? If faith in unregulated, low-tax free markets went into crisis in late summer of 2008 with the mortgage bust, we are now witnessing a revived faith in Keynesian deficit spending. Today’s NY Times explains that the Chinese have loaned us so much money because we Americans borrow and spend without saving while the Chinese are making, saving and loaning tons of money without buying anything. We are joined to each other as addict to co-addict. It is hard to avoid the impression that the economy we have created is a macro-monster that no one really can understand, control or predict. The financial wizards and economic experts with their obscure terminology and complicated mathematical modeling did not anticipate this crisis and elicit little confidence that they can resolve it. What are we learning? We are learning to place little trust in things like stocks, credit, planning, pensions, retirement plans and “financial security” in general. It resonates of the Gospel rebuke to the rich man building barns for his harvest: “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded of you!” (Luke 12:20)
Sin as Debt?
The time seems ripe to retrieve the language and imagery of sin as debt. To literally identify sin as debt and debt as sin would surely be simplistic and distorting of both; but there is a sin-like quality to debt and a debt-like quality to sin. The mystery of iniquity is illuminated by many images: disease, addiction, isolation, mimetic contagion, rebellion, deception, darkness, and bondage…to name a few. Sin has traditionally been understood as an infinite debt incurred by offending our Almighty God. This approach has been unfashionable in recent decades but can be helpful. Both sin and debt are progressive and dynamic and lead us deeper into a bondage that can become inescapable; both involve profound deficit, loss and negativity; both bring bondage and oppression; both lead to hopelessness and paralysis. The economic and spiritual spheres of human life are clearly distinct; but they do mutually infuse and influence each other and there is an analogical and interactive relationship between them. In an age of Ponzi schemes and trillion dollar deficits, our fear and loathing of sin might well inflame our dread of debilitating debt and our thirst for frugality, simplicity and generosity.
Grace and Plenty
If sin implies debt and destitution, grace clearly means plenitude, surplus, and extravagance. Christ in the paschal mystery has not only canceled our debt, but has invested us into his own legacy of boundless plenty. In the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, we eat the bread of eternal life and drink from heavenly springs. This spiritual banquet overflows into our economic, domestic and physical, economies. Within the faith of the Church, we daily live the miracle of the loaves and fishes and the generosity of the sinful woman who anointed her Lord with precious oils; we draw from the merits or credit of the Communion of Saints even as we sup on the provisions of Mother Nature.
It is a marvelous time for skepticism about financial instruments and macro-economics; a time for uninhibited immersion in the sacramental economy and the abundance of the Kingdom; a time for vigorous and celebrative simplicity, frugality and generosity.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Waterfront Priest: the Church and the Union
In my childhood home we had a book, The Waterfront Priest, on Father John Corridan S.J., whose defense of workers’ rights on the NY waterfront was later portrayed by Karl Malden as Fr. Peter Barry in On the Waterfront. In that cinematic masterpiece, street-tough Terry Malloy (Marlon Brandon) is torn between the values of the Catholic reformist priest and the corrupt, mob-ruled longshoreman’s union of Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb.) That riveting drama provides an illuminating model for understanding the tense, troubled relationship between Catholic and union values in 2008.
That book was a gift to my father from the Jesuit St. Peter’s Labor School in Jersey City, where he taught Catholic labor principles from the viewpoint of a union activist. His involvement as a Catholic labor man was emblematic of the close, fruitful relationship between Church and union in those days. Unions were full of Catholic ethnics and were closely mentored by priests inspired by papal social teaching. These were fighting for control on two fronts: against mob corruption and leftist radicalism. For the most part, the fight was largely successful and the Church-labor relationship was, in the 1950s, one of mutual infatuation. In a Catholic labor family such as ours, the union was a quasi-divine institution closely engaged with the Church herself and dedicated to fighting dark, greedy forces of corporate greed. The honeymoon simplicity, clarity, and felicity enjoyed in that working class, urban, ethnic Catholic cocoon was not to withstand the changes of the 60s. In that era, Church and union took different directions and now face each other like Johnny Friendly and Father Barry battling for Terry Malloy’s soul.
As son of a union organizer, I always took pride during my career at UPS (5 years as a teamster myself, almost 20 in supervision dealing with the union) in my company’s pro-union philosophy, even as I endured the fierce, combatative tensions between company and union. But my first personal experience with the union was not pleasant. During my trial period as a package car driver when I was trying to earn my 30-day union book, I would come early to work and spend a few minutes of my own time previewing the packages on my truck since I was new to the routes and areas. I was not represented by the union but trying, with some urgency as father of three at the time, to become a union member. The shop steward threatened that if I continued working for the company on my own time, I might be thrown off the truck. Later, in supervision, I had occasion to “brown up” and drive past a railroad picket line (our own union drivers would not do so) in order to retrieve packages from the striking rail companies. At that time I experienced the violence of a picket line. It was not a pretty sight. This was the darker side of the union movement.
In UPS, management and teamster leadership both worked their way up from the ranks so that between the company and union there was no class distinction, but a realistic and wary knowledge and suspicion of each other. A hard-driving, demanding, stress-maximizing corporate climate evoked an angry, defensive, belligerent union reaction, especially in areas like NY/NJ. Union pressures rose to countervail company demands. Tension and anger were, however, always regulated and directed by “The Contract.” This is an eminently sensible way to do business. In my years as dispatcher, I was very happy to work with the shop steward who would let me know immediately if I violated the contract (about things involving seniority like overtime) but defend me against unfair driver grievances and complaints. I lost my naiveté and illusions about the union movement and came to see company and union as equivalent morally: both fundamentally good institutions, equally prone to greed and distortion. Union members were no more morally superior to management than management was to labor leadership.
In the broader social context, however, the union movement increasingly aligned itself with the cultural liberalism on issues like abortion and gay marriage. These should, of course, have remained extrinsic to bread-and-butter economic issues of wages, benefits, safety and job security. But within the umbrella Democratic Party, the union movement came to endorse abortion and the entire ethos entailed. So, for example, in the 2003 contract agreement with GM, UAW leadership attempted to include coverage for abortion as a benefit. They attempted to do this on the sly, without submitting it to the democratic approval of the membership. To President Gettlefinger’s chagrin, word of the innovation was leaked and a pro-life reaction crushed the initiative. It is telling that the social engineering was attempted as an anti-democratic, elitist coup, much like the successes of our activist judiciaries in imposing their liberal cultural agenda. This specific case of worker pushback against the cultural liberalism of the union elite is, unfortunately, an exception. In general, the union continues to live“in sin” with feminist and gay militancy within the Democratic Party.
During these same ending decades of the 20th century, our seven children were attending a parochial school system that was increasingly stressed by the decline of the teaching religious orders. Parochial schools were switching into lay hands and their economic survival, in lower income communities like our own, required some form of tax credit or voucher for families choosing parish schools. Here we find the second anti-Catholic initiative of the union movement. The teachers’ unions, with support of the entire Democratic alliance, became the Number One enemy of financial relief to parents supporting two school systems. In some urban areas, a majority of public school teachers send their own children to non-governmental schools; yet, the unions remain militant against parental choice in education.
And so, an observant Catholic today typically finds himself aligned against his own union on two important issues: abortion and education. This brings us to a more recent issue: the union advocacy of “card check.” As my father and uncles knew so well, our law requires a secret ballot election about unionization after organizers have gathered signature cards requesting such election from 30% of a company’s employees. The new “card check” procedure, advocated by the unions and endorsed by President-elect Obama, would dispense with the secret ballot and grant union certification as soon as union organizers get over 50% of employee card signatures. This is an open process in which organizers know who has signed and who has not. Confidentiality is voided. There is no privacy. This is a problem. Most elections, from President of the nation to home room representative, are secret ballots to protect the confidentiality of the elector. Generally, a person should be able to vote his conscience or preference without public scrutiny and vulnerability to coercion or retaliation. The unions on this issue allege subtle coercion and manipulation by business as a pretext for exposing the worker to greater vulnerability.
The union movement is turning towards the dark side… as it did on the mob-run docks in the 40s and 50s and could have with the Stalinists in the 30s. Plagued with the same gigantism of bureaucratic government and global capitalism, it has aligned itself with both, through the Democratic Party, in an agenda hostile to the Church’s values on innocent life, sexuality and marriage, the education of our young, and the confidentiality of voter choice. These are bad days for the labor movement.
There are only two divinely created societies: marriage/family and the Church. The first preceded the Fall; the second is heaven’s antidote to the Fall. Along with government, military, police, business, and private property, the union is an inherently good institution in accordance with human nature in a fallen world. As such, it is reactive to evil and itself tends to corruption and perversion. Especially in our complex, globalized society, we need these institutions to countervail and correct each other. More importantly, as Catholics, we need to scrutinize them as to how they enrich and support the more primal and foundational values expressed in the family and Church.
By this reading, the union movement is in sad shape today, especially by comparison with the glory days of our fathers in the 1950s. The Father Corridans and Laracy brothers of that time were triumphant over the Stalinists and the mobsters even as they countervailed corporate interests on the part of worker’s rights. Our generation has not done as well.
However, the battle continues. In a capitalist world, the Catholic will always support the union; even though the unions have turned against the Church and the values and interests of their own members. Terry Malloy took a terrible beating from Johnny Friendly on that dock; but he walked away bloody and victorious.
In my childhood home we had a book, The Waterfront Priest, on Father John Corridan S.J., whose defense of workers’ rights on the NY waterfront was later portrayed by Karl Malden as Fr. Peter Barry in On the Waterfront. In that cinematic masterpiece, street-tough Terry Malloy (Marlon Brandon) is torn between the values of the Catholic reformist priest and the corrupt, mob-ruled longshoreman’s union of Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb.) That riveting drama provides an illuminating model for understanding the tense, troubled relationship between Catholic and union values in 2008.
That book was a gift to my father from the Jesuit St. Peter’s Labor School in Jersey City, where he taught Catholic labor principles from the viewpoint of a union activist. His involvement as a Catholic labor man was emblematic of the close, fruitful relationship between Church and union in those days. Unions were full of Catholic ethnics and were closely mentored by priests inspired by papal social teaching. These were fighting for control on two fronts: against mob corruption and leftist radicalism. For the most part, the fight was largely successful and the Church-labor relationship was, in the 1950s, one of mutual infatuation. In a Catholic labor family such as ours, the union was a quasi-divine institution closely engaged with the Church herself and dedicated to fighting dark, greedy forces of corporate greed. The honeymoon simplicity, clarity, and felicity enjoyed in that working class, urban, ethnic Catholic cocoon was not to withstand the changes of the 60s. In that era, Church and union took different directions and now face each other like Johnny Friendly and Father Barry battling for Terry Malloy’s soul.
As son of a union organizer, I always took pride during my career at UPS (5 years as a teamster myself, almost 20 in supervision dealing with the union) in my company’s pro-union philosophy, even as I endured the fierce, combatative tensions between company and union. But my first personal experience with the union was not pleasant. During my trial period as a package car driver when I was trying to earn my 30-day union book, I would come early to work and spend a few minutes of my own time previewing the packages on my truck since I was new to the routes and areas. I was not represented by the union but trying, with some urgency as father of three at the time, to become a union member. The shop steward threatened that if I continued working for the company on my own time, I might be thrown off the truck. Later, in supervision, I had occasion to “brown up” and drive past a railroad picket line (our own union drivers would not do so) in order to retrieve packages from the striking rail companies. At that time I experienced the violence of a picket line. It was not a pretty sight. This was the darker side of the union movement.
In UPS, management and teamster leadership both worked their way up from the ranks so that between the company and union there was no class distinction, but a realistic and wary knowledge and suspicion of each other. A hard-driving, demanding, stress-maximizing corporate climate evoked an angry, defensive, belligerent union reaction, especially in areas like NY/NJ. Union pressures rose to countervail company demands. Tension and anger were, however, always regulated and directed by “The Contract.” This is an eminently sensible way to do business. In my years as dispatcher, I was very happy to work with the shop steward who would let me know immediately if I violated the contract (about things involving seniority like overtime) but defend me against unfair driver grievances and complaints. I lost my naiveté and illusions about the union movement and came to see company and union as equivalent morally: both fundamentally good institutions, equally prone to greed and distortion. Union members were no more morally superior to management than management was to labor leadership.
In the broader social context, however, the union movement increasingly aligned itself with the cultural liberalism on issues like abortion and gay marriage. These should, of course, have remained extrinsic to bread-and-butter economic issues of wages, benefits, safety and job security. But within the umbrella Democratic Party, the union movement came to endorse abortion and the entire ethos entailed. So, for example, in the 2003 contract agreement with GM, UAW leadership attempted to include coverage for abortion as a benefit. They attempted to do this on the sly, without submitting it to the democratic approval of the membership. To President Gettlefinger’s chagrin, word of the innovation was leaked and a pro-life reaction crushed the initiative. It is telling that the social engineering was attempted as an anti-democratic, elitist coup, much like the successes of our activist judiciaries in imposing their liberal cultural agenda. This specific case of worker pushback against the cultural liberalism of the union elite is, unfortunately, an exception. In general, the union continues to live“in sin” with feminist and gay militancy within the Democratic Party.
During these same ending decades of the 20th century, our seven children were attending a parochial school system that was increasingly stressed by the decline of the teaching religious orders. Parochial schools were switching into lay hands and their economic survival, in lower income communities like our own, required some form of tax credit or voucher for families choosing parish schools. Here we find the second anti-Catholic initiative of the union movement. The teachers’ unions, with support of the entire Democratic alliance, became the Number One enemy of financial relief to parents supporting two school systems. In some urban areas, a majority of public school teachers send their own children to non-governmental schools; yet, the unions remain militant against parental choice in education.
And so, an observant Catholic today typically finds himself aligned against his own union on two important issues: abortion and education. This brings us to a more recent issue: the union advocacy of “card check.” As my father and uncles knew so well, our law requires a secret ballot election about unionization after organizers have gathered signature cards requesting such election from 30% of a company’s employees. The new “card check” procedure, advocated by the unions and endorsed by President-elect Obama, would dispense with the secret ballot and grant union certification as soon as union organizers get over 50% of employee card signatures. This is an open process in which organizers know who has signed and who has not. Confidentiality is voided. There is no privacy. This is a problem. Most elections, from President of the nation to home room representative, are secret ballots to protect the confidentiality of the elector. Generally, a person should be able to vote his conscience or preference without public scrutiny and vulnerability to coercion or retaliation. The unions on this issue allege subtle coercion and manipulation by business as a pretext for exposing the worker to greater vulnerability.
The union movement is turning towards the dark side… as it did on the mob-run docks in the 40s and 50s and could have with the Stalinists in the 30s. Plagued with the same gigantism of bureaucratic government and global capitalism, it has aligned itself with both, through the Democratic Party, in an agenda hostile to the Church’s values on innocent life, sexuality and marriage, the education of our young, and the confidentiality of voter choice. These are bad days for the labor movement.
There are only two divinely created societies: marriage/family and the Church. The first preceded the Fall; the second is heaven’s antidote to the Fall. Along with government, military, police, business, and private property, the union is an inherently good institution in accordance with human nature in a fallen world. As such, it is reactive to evil and itself tends to corruption and perversion. Especially in our complex, globalized society, we need these institutions to countervail and correct each other. More importantly, as Catholics, we need to scrutinize them as to how they enrich and support the more primal and foundational values expressed in the family and Church.
By this reading, the union movement is in sad shape today, especially by comparison with the glory days of our fathers in the 1950s. The Father Corridans and Laracy brothers of that time were triumphant over the Stalinists and the mobsters even as they countervailed corporate interests on the part of worker’s rights. Our generation has not done as well.
However, the battle continues. In a capitalist world, the Catholic will always support the union; even though the unions have turned against the Church and the values and interests of their own members. Terry Malloy took a terrible beating from Johnny Friendly on that dock; but he walked away bloody and victorious.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Let’s Talk Salvation
You can’t talk to young people about salvation. What’s salvation? What does salvation mean? My eternal soul? You can only talk to young people in young people’s language, really. And if you’re going to talk to them about salvation, the first thing they will understand is saving the planet. You’re talking about being saved and they will say: ‘What about saving the planet?’
Irish Bishop Kiernan Conroy in an interview.
Christ, give me souls. Let anything you like happen to me, but give me souls in return. I want the salvation of souls. I want souls to know your mercy. Diary of Saint Faustina
Bishop Conroy is SO wrong! Saint Faustina is SO right!
The purpose of evangelization and catechesis is precisely to introduce a new language, a novel vocabulary. Language and vocabulary have the power to unveil and reveal realities that had been hidden and obscure. And so the purpose of religious education is to equip our young with this language that unveils the hidden drama underlying all human existence: the drama of good and evil, the spiritual conflict in every soul between the Kingdom of Darkness and the Kingdom of Light.
And so we need to think and speak constantly of salvation as the Presence of the Great Lover who created us out of love, destined us for an eternity of love, and sent his Son to suffer and die to deliver us from sin back to love. We need to talk relentlessly about sin as disbelief, isolation and loneliness, death, guilt, and shame. What young person does not know loneliness, shame, fear, guilt and death? It is the very air we breath: the pervasive threats to all that we so desperately long for.
I suspect that Bishop Conroy is projecting his own loss of faith, his own incomprehension, his own alienation from our tradition. I find young people to be fascinated with the last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell. These we can return to time and again as they orient us in our pilgrimage through life. They also respond with great interest to:
- Spiritual combat with Satan: the reality that he is constantly on the attack, pulling us away from our deepest longings and our true destination. Who is not interested in possession, seduction, opression, obsession, temptation, and deception?
- Sin in all its variety: mortal and venial, omission, near occasions of sin, the objective and subjective dimensions, primacy of conscience, erroneous consciences as culpable and inculpable.
- The supernatual economy of the Communion of Saints: Mary and all our saint/angel friends in heaven; prayer for the souls in purgatory; indulgences; the question of a populated hell (crowded or empty?); and the very mind-boggling idea of an eternity of joy or sadness.
- The mysterious efficacy of the sacraments, including: the seal of confession, transubstantiation in the Eucharist, the permanent character infused into the soul by baptism, confirmation and holy orders.
- Moral categories that are so illuminating but rarely spoken of: rash judgement, calumny, detraction. How would we be able to make sense of complex moral issues (war, amputation, police actions) without the principle of double effect?
- The language of sexuality as gift, fidelity, chastity, waiting in patience, promise and fecundity. This language is largely unknown and opens up a breathtaking panorama of joy and generosity. (On a street corner here in Jersey City, I once mentioned to two men that a friend, Dave O’Brien comes every year to speak to our youth about “being chaste.” One of them, a street-wise character, was interested. “Oh yeah? Being chased by who…the cops?”)
The list is endless. As a catechist for over 40 years, I find myself more and more enthralled with these spiritual realities as time passes. My grasp of them becomes more lucid and my interest more inflamed. Students respond to this clarity and passion. The ideas may not be entirely intelligible to them, especially if they live in non-observant homes and are not even minimally immersed in a worshipping, believing, obedient community. But at the very least they sense that this strange man is very excited about something.
May we steep ourselves in the thought patterns of saints like Faustina… and pray for Bishop Conroy and so many others who are confused and misled.
You can’t talk to young people about salvation. What’s salvation? What does salvation mean? My eternal soul? You can only talk to young people in young people’s language, really. And if you’re going to talk to them about salvation, the first thing they will understand is saving the planet. You’re talking about being saved and they will say: ‘What about saving the planet?’
Irish Bishop Kiernan Conroy in an interview.
Christ, give me souls. Let anything you like happen to me, but give me souls in return. I want the salvation of souls. I want souls to know your mercy. Diary of Saint Faustina
Bishop Conroy is SO wrong! Saint Faustina is SO right!
The purpose of evangelization and catechesis is precisely to introduce a new language, a novel vocabulary. Language and vocabulary have the power to unveil and reveal realities that had been hidden and obscure. And so the purpose of religious education is to equip our young with this language that unveils the hidden drama underlying all human existence: the drama of good and evil, the spiritual conflict in every soul between the Kingdom of Darkness and the Kingdom of Light.
And so we need to think and speak constantly of salvation as the Presence of the Great Lover who created us out of love, destined us for an eternity of love, and sent his Son to suffer and die to deliver us from sin back to love. We need to talk relentlessly about sin as disbelief, isolation and loneliness, death, guilt, and shame. What young person does not know loneliness, shame, fear, guilt and death? It is the very air we breath: the pervasive threats to all that we so desperately long for.
I suspect that Bishop Conroy is projecting his own loss of faith, his own incomprehension, his own alienation from our tradition. I find young people to be fascinated with the last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell. These we can return to time and again as they orient us in our pilgrimage through life. They also respond with great interest to:
- Spiritual combat with Satan: the reality that he is constantly on the attack, pulling us away from our deepest longings and our true destination. Who is not interested in possession, seduction, opression, obsession, temptation, and deception?
- Sin in all its variety: mortal and venial, omission, near occasions of sin, the objective and subjective dimensions, primacy of conscience, erroneous consciences as culpable and inculpable.
- The supernatual economy of the Communion of Saints: Mary and all our saint/angel friends in heaven; prayer for the souls in purgatory; indulgences; the question of a populated hell (crowded or empty?); and the very mind-boggling idea of an eternity of joy or sadness.
- The mysterious efficacy of the sacraments, including: the seal of confession, transubstantiation in the Eucharist, the permanent character infused into the soul by baptism, confirmation and holy orders.
- Moral categories that are so illuminating but rarely spoken of: rash judgement, calumny, detraction. How would we be able to make sense of complex moral issues (war, amputation, police actions) without the principle of double effect?
- The language of sexuality as gift, fidelity, chastity, waiting in patience, promise and fecundity. This language is largely unknown and opens up a breathtaking panorama of joy and generosity. (On a street corner here in Jersey City, I once mentioned to two men that a friend, Dave O’Brien comes every year to speak to our youth about “being chaste.” One of them, a street-wise character, was interested. “Oh yeah? Being chased by who…the cops?”)
The list is endless. As a catechist for over 40 years, I find myself more and more enthralled with these spiritual realities as time passes. My grasp of them becomes more lucid and my interest more inflamed. Students respond to this clarity and passion. The ideas may not be entirely intelligible to them, especially if they live in non-observant homes and are not even minimally immersed in a worshipping, believing, obedient community. But at the very least they sense that this strange man is very excited about something.
May we steep ourselves in the thought patterns of saints like Faustina… and pray for Bishop Conroy and so many others who are confused and misled.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
The Silence of Advent
It is not an empty, barren, futile silence.
It is full, deep, pregnant, peace-filled, comforting, hopeful, strengthening, and beautiful.
It is the silence of the mute Zechariah, speechless and awe-filled before the overshadowing and the miraculous conception of his son…a silence that would explode into praise after nine months.
It is the expectant, trusting silence of Mary, in quiet dialogue with the angel of the annunciation; the silence that was to ponder these things in her heart; the silence of the Pieta and the exuberant quiet of Easter morning.
It is the listening, obedient silence of Joseph who says not a word but does as directed by the heavenly visitors.
It is the chaste, reverent, nuptial silence between Mary and Joseph.
It is the silence of the inarticulate, embryonic John who leaps for joy in an arena free of sin; the silence of the desert where John would find his voice and lend it to the Word made flesh; the silence of wordless martyrdom.
It is the silence of many hours and miles of quiet pilgrimage, by the three kings, across barren, still, arid lands, following the star.
It is the silence over the shepherds on those quiet hills just before they burst into angelic exultation.
It is the silence of the Innocents; the silence of exile in a foreign land; the silence of waiting and expectancy.
It is the infinite silence in the heart of the Father as he contemplates His beloved Son, and us his sons and daughters.
It is the silence in our hearts as we abide in His delight
It is not an empty, barren, futile silence.
It is full, deep, pregnant, peace-filled, comforting, hopeful, strengthening, and beautiful.
It is the silence of the mute Zechariah, speechless and awe-filled before the overshadowing and the miraculous conception of his son…a silence that would explode into praise after nine months.
It is the expectant, trusting silence of Mary, in quiet dialogue with the angel of the annunciation; the silence that was to ponder these things in her heart; the silence of the Pieta and the exuberant quiet of Easter morning.
It is the listening, obedient silence of Joseph who says not a word but does as directed by the heavenly visitors.
It is the chaste, reverent, nuptial silence between Mary and Joseph.
It is the silence of the inarticulate, embryonic John who leaps for joy in an arena free of sin; the silence of the desert where John would find his voice and lend it to the Word made flesh; the silence of wordless martyrdom.
It is the silence of many hours and miles of quiet pilgrimage, by the three kings, across barren, still, arid lands, following the star.
It is the silence over the shepherds on those quiet hills just before they burst into angelic exultation.
It is the silence of the Innocents; the silence of exile in a foreign land; the silence of waiting and expectancy.
It is the infinite silence in the heart of the Father as he contemplates His beloved Son, and us his sons and daughters.
It is the silence in our hearts as we abide in His delight
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Excruciating Silence of Caroline Kennedy
The campaign of Caroline Kennedy for Hillary’s senate seat is excruciating. In her, there is so much of her father and especially her mother: refinement, taste, wholesome and yet glamorous beauty, intelligence, competence, idealism, maternity, concern for the common good and radiant femininity. But the Kennedy curse hangs over her: abortion.
Last night, her cousin Kerry Kennedy was on Hardball, supporting Caroline’s bid as well as her own book on being Catholic. Chris Matthews asked about Caroline’s stand on abortion: pro-choice or pro-life. Kerry answered that she did not know; it had never come up in conversation. Mr. Hardball was incredulous: “The Kennedy family, so famous for their political conversations…and this has NEVER come up in conversation?” This is, of course, ludicrous. This family is the quintessential political family, the ultimate American Catholic family, a family obsessed with questions about the public order. And abortion is THE polarizing, defining moral, social, cultural issue of the last 35 years, which is to say Caroline’s entire adult life.
How telling it is that a cousin (recall that the Kennedy’s are renowned for their close family ties) cannot publicly speak on Caroline’s position on abortion. Apparently, she has no clear public record on the issue. Is it possible she is pro-life? No, it is inconceivable! She emerged from privacy (an absolute value for her) to enthusiastically support Obama. She herself is being supported by Uncle Ted and the entire choice establishment. She has ties to NARAL and other choice groups. Her book on privacy connected abortion and contraception with the alleged shrinking of the right to privacy. We all know she is pro-choice, probably in the 100% category with Obama, Teddy and Hillary. Imagine a Kennedy Christmas gathering if a cousin were to clearly advocate legal defense of the unborn. This would be worse than a Fleckinstein posting on his (liberal, Democrat) family’s website. It would be chaos! It would be civil war!
Caroline’s silence on this issue is more than shyness. Her deep Catholicism and maternal nature cannot but trouble her. Her silence on the issue is a guilty compliance and acceptance of legal abortion. This is not the Advent silence of the pregnant Mary and Elizabeth that erupted into Praise at the Annunciation; it is not the humble, obedient silence of Joseph who protects the Christ child from the murderous Herod; nor is it the contrite, humble, awe-filled silence of Zechariah at the miraculous conception of his son John. No, this is the silence of a conflicted conscience; the silence of betrayal; the silence of non-resistance to and therefore compliance with absolute evil.
In the political sphere, Caroline will become another foot soldier for the Democrat machinery of annihilation. Let us hope that she returns to her decent, honorable life of anonymous service, preferring the privacy of her mother to the ignominy of Kennedy choice.
The campaign of Caroline Kennedy for Hillary’s senate seat is excruciating. In her, there is so much of her father and especially her mother: refinement, taste, wholesome and yet glamorous beauty, intelligence, competence, idealism, maternity, concern for the common good and radiant femininity. But the Kennedy curse hangs over her: abortion.
Last night, her cousin Kerry Kennedy was on Hardball, supporting Caroline’s bid as well as her own book on being Catholic. Chris Matthews asked about Caroline’s stand on abortion: pro-choice or pro-life. Kerry answered that she did not know; it had never come up in conversation. Mr. Hardball was incredulous: “The Kennedy family, so famous for their political conversations…and this has NEVER come up in conversation?” This is, of course, ludicrous. This family is the quintessential political family, the ultimate American Catholic family, a family obsessed with questions about the public order. And abortion is THE polarizing, defining moral, social, cultural issue of the last 35 years, which is to say Caroline’s entire adult life.
How telling it is that a cousin (recall that the Kennedy’s are renowned for their close family ties) cannot publicly speak on Caroline’s position on abortion. Apparently, she has no clear public record on the issue. Is it possible she is pro-life? No, it is inconceivable! She emerged from privacy (an absolute value for her) to enthusiastically support Obama. She herself is being supported by Uncle Ted and the entire choice establishment. She has ties to NARAL and other choice groups. Her book on privacy connected abortion and contraception with the alleged shrinking of the right to privacy. We all know she is pro-choice, probably in the 100% category with Obama, Teddy and Hillary. Imagine a Kennedy Christmas gathering if a cousin were to clearly advocate legal defense of the unborn. This would be worse than a Fleckinstein posting on his (liberal, Democrat) family’s website. It would be chaos! It would be civil war!
Caroline’s silence on this issue is more than shyness. Her deep Catholicism and maternal nature cannot but trouble her. Her silence on the issue is a guilty compliance and acceptance of legal abortion. This is not the Advent silence of the pregnant Mary and Elizabeth that erupted into Praise at the Annunciation; it is not the humble, obedient silence of Joseph who protects the Christ child from the murderous Herod; nor is it the contrite, humble, awe-filled silence of Zechariah at the miraculous conception of his son John. No, this is the silence of a conflicted conscience; the silence of betrayal; the silence of non-resistance to and therefore compliance with absolute evil.
In the political sphere, Caroline will become another foot soldier for the Democrat machinery of annihilation. Let us hope that she returns to her decent, honorable life of anonymous service, preferring the privacy of her mother to the ignominy of Kennedy choice.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Merry Christmas from President-elect Obama
Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration is a very good sign. It infuriated the Gay left and showed that our President-to-be knows how to say no. Even more significantly, it suggests that moral conservatives, for whom man/woman marriage is absolutely sacrosanct, are not to be disenfranchised in the new regime.
Warren, like most people of traditional faith, sees homosexual activity as dysfunctional and immoral. Obama does not agree. But he acknowledges that Warren’s viewpoint is not disreputable and intolerable. He is saying that the values and disvalues of homosexual actions are things about which we can disagree within the bonds of civility and national unity. This is huge! The militant left, by contrast, cannot tolerate this difference. For them, any critique of same-sex acts is a form of hatred directed at a persecuted group.
In my religion classes, my constant chant is what I learned from my mother: “Hate the sin; love the sinner.” “Judge the action; not the heart of the actor.” “Distinguish the manifest objective act from the subjective intention, which is known clearly only to God.” This simple, clear distinction is quite obvious. I might attack cigarette smoking, because I care about the smoker. The same logic applies to anorexia, cutting, drug or alcohol abuse and the varieties of sexual misconduct. Your average seven-year-old can grasp the distinction. However, the homosexual movement is resistant to this logic and flies into indignant rage at the criticism of their actions. People who smoke, drink, hunt, or serve in the army tolerate moral censure from critics with no loss of self-esteem or psychic trauma. It is only the homosexuals who demand that their behaviors be condoned by everyone in society. They advocate a totalitarianism that suppresses any opinion, no matter how ancient or how scientifically verified, that disapproves of the actions and lifestyle which they have chosen as their identity. (This allergy to disapproval is itself a symptom of psychological insecurity.) Their logic is: “I have sexual desires for my own gender; I must act on theses; these desires and actions define me; disapproval of these actions is a rejection of my identity.” This argument is flawed at every point except for the first: that they suffer sexual attraction. The symbolic choice of Warren says that tolerance is to be extended to those who choose these actions as well as to those who disapprove of the same.
There are indications that the new administration is moving strongly to the center. The decision to keep Secretary of Defense Gates is basically a continuation of the Bush policy of the last two years. This is a radical departure from the quasi-pacifism of the candidate who captured the Democratic nomination by his repetitive, indignant anti-war rhetoric. Likewise, the choice of Hilary for State Department implies a more realistic and moderate positioning regarding world affairs.
Let us hope that the Warren choice is the first move towards the middle on the Culture War issues as well. Obama’s voting record is so extreme that I dismissed all his talk of unity as rhetoric and hype. But the Warren decision has me questioning my cynicism. The real test will be with FOCA and other abortion issues. There were reports this week that his transition team plans a billion dollar bailout for the abortion industry including exportation of Planned Parenthood services overseas. Should he move to use our tax dollars for these purposes and to dismantle the few restrictions on abortion (partial birth, parental notification, etc.), he will ignite a furious Culture War. Let us hope that the invocation choice is not a bone thrown to the right before he implements the draconian regime associated with FOCA. Should he sideline these initiatives and more or less continue the status quo, he has a chance to unite our country in facing the economic crisis as well as health care, immigration and international problems. Now that is a change we can believe in!
Merry Christmas to you also, President Elect!
Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration is a very good sign. It infuriated the Gay left and showed that our President-to-be knows how to say no. Even more significantly, it suggests that moral conservatives, for whom man/woman marriage is absolutely sacrosanct, are not to be disenfranchised in the new regime.
Warren, like most people of traditional faith, sees homosexual activity as dysfunctional and immoral. Obama does not agree. But he acknowledges that Warren’s viewpoint is not disreputable and intolerable. He is saying that the values and disvalues of homosexual actions are things about which we can disagree within the bonds of civility and national unity. This is huge! The militant left, by contrast, cannot tolerate this difference. For them, any critique of same-sex acts is a form of hatred directed at a persecuted group.
In my religion classes, my constant chant is what I learned from my mother: “Hate the sin; love the sinner.” “Judge the action; not the heart of the actor.” “Distinguish the manifest objective act from the subjective intention, which is known clearly only to God.” This simple, clear distinction is quite obvious. I might attack cigarette smoking, because I care about the smoker. The same logic applies to anorexia, cutting, drug or alcohol abuse and the varieties of sexual misconduct. Your average seven-year-old can grasp the distinction. However, the homosexual movement is resistant to this logic and flies into indignant rage at the criticism of their actions. People who smoke, drink, hunt, or serve in the army tolerate moral censure from critics with no loss of self-esteem or psychic trauma. It is only the homosexuals who demand that their behaviors be condoned by everyone in society. They advocate a totalitarianism that suppresses any opinion, no matter how ancient or how scientifically verified, that disapproves of the actions and lifestyle which they have chosen as their identity. (This allergy to disapproval is itself a symptom of psychological insecurity.) Their logic is: “I have sexual desires for my own gender; I must act on theses; these desires and actions define me; disapproval of these actions is a rejection of my identity.” This argument is flawed at every point except for the first: that they suffer sexual attraction. The symbolic choice of Warren says that tolerance is to be extended to those who choose these actions as well as to those who disapprove of the same.
There are indications that the new administration is moving strongly to the center. The decision to keep Secretary of Defense Gates is basically a continuation of the Bush policy of the last two years. This is a radical departure from the quasi-pacifism of the candidate who captured the Democratic nomination by his repetitive, indignant anti-war rhetoric. Likewise, the choice of Hilary for State Department implies a more realistic and moderate positioning regarding world affairs.
Let us hope that the Warren choice is the first move towards the middle on the Culture War issues as well. Obama’s voting record is so extreme that I dismissed all his talk of unity as rhetoric and hype. But the Warren decision has me questioning my cynicism. The real test will be with FOCA and other abortion issues. There were reports this week that his transition team plans a billion dollar bailout for the abortion industry including exportation of Planned Parenthood services overseas. Should he move to use our tax dollars for these purposes and to dismantle the few restrictions on abortion (partial birth, parental notification, etc.), he will ignite a furious Culture War. Let us hope that the invocation choice is not a bone thrown to the right before he implements the draconian regime associated with FOCA. Should he sideline these initiatives and more or less continue the status quo, he has a chance to unite our country in facing the economic crisis as well as health care, immigration and international problems. Now that is a change we can believe in!
Merry Christmas to you also, President Elect!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)