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Spring is the season when the live oaks drop last year’s leaves as the new ones begin to come in. This means that we have huge quantities of leaves in the yard, at the same time that quantities of golden tree pollen settle on cars and everything else.

So I was in the yard, wielding the pitchfork, hefting piles of leaves into a bin, when a nice-looking young man called out from the sidewalk, “I could help you!”

“Thank you, but no,” I replied. “I’m getting my exercise.”

He walked over and persisted, “I could do that, and you could give me a couple of dollars. I need a beer real bad.”

I tried to explain that since the city no longer accepts leaves in plastic bags, and we have only two plastic cans, there wasn’t a lot that could be done in one day.

“I’ll do two bins, and you can give me three dollars!”

“No,” I said again. “The doctor wants me to exercise.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he responded, looking sympathetic, evidently commiserating with whatever grave medical condition would inspire doctor-ordered exercise. “But I need beer,” he added pleasantly. “I drink a lot.”

“Why do you drink a lot?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I’m an alcoholic.”

“That’s not so good,” I said.

“Yeah, man. The stuff’ll kill you.”

“Yes, it can. It killed an uncle of mine.”

“For real, man?” (He sounded surprised, as if he had not seriously believed the danger up until now.)

“Yes, he got cirrhosis of the liver and died.”

After a few more moments of conversation, we shook hands, and he headed off toward downtown.

“Have a nice day. God bless you,” he called out.

“You have a nice evening,” I said. “And don’t drink too much beer!”

When I recounted the conversation to Sister Betty, she pointed out that he needs some lessons in PR, if he really wants to be paid for yard work. I agreed that his sales pitch left something to be desired, but at least he didn’t claim that he needed the money to bury his dear grandma.

All of us are broken in one way or another. Most of us are just better at hiding it – or at least we think we are better at hiding it. And we are all helpless to mend ourselves.

Fertile powerlessness

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are very spiritually sound. Here are the first three:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol [or substitute here another addiction]—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

(For the rest of the Twelve Steps, click here.)

Some of us not in AA or other Twelve-Step programs still suffer under the illusion that we can manage our lives by ourselves. Saint Paul, though, knew that he could not.  He heard God telling him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

My power is made perfect, God says, not in your strength, but in your weakness.

Whether we are raking leaves or longing for beer or managing a Fortune 500 corporation, we stand in need of the powerful and tender mercies of the God who loves us.

The fallen spring leaves witness to the new life already emerging on the oaks, which will look scraggly and unkempt for a few weeks. Our own unkempt, ragged hearts, stripped of what we thought was our strength, offer the fertile weakness through which God’s grace brings new life — both for us and for the blessing of the world.

By what boundless mercy, my Savior,
have you allowed me to become a member of your body?
Me, the unclean, the defiled, the prodigal.
How is it that you have clothed me
in the brilliant garment,
radiant with the splendor of immortality,
that turns all my members into light?

Symeon the New Theologian, trans. by John Anthony McGuckin,
The Book of Mystical Chapters:
Meditations on the Soul’s Ascent from the Desert Fathers
and Other Early Christian Contemplatives

Faced with the grandeur and goodness of God, it is normal to feel unworthy. However, the feeling that we are worthless is not from God. There is a big difference between unworthiness and worthlessness. Each one of us is of infinite worth. “You were bought with a price,” says Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 6.

Where worthiness is concerned, there are, as I see it, at least three stances that are not what we are called to as Christians.

  • The “I’m worthy, but it’s doubtful that you are” stance. This is the self-righteous position. I’m afraid that this false sense of worthiness too often raises its head among church people, especially where there is finger-pointing at those we don’t think are quite orthodox enough in their worship or their beliefs—all the while being assured that we ourselves are totally correct with no possibility of error.
  • I may not be worthy now, but if I work really hard I can make myself worthy. If I just pray enough and discipline myself enough and do enough good works, I can make myself worthy. This is actually a form of an ancient heresy called Pelagianism, which says, basically, that human beings have the ability to choose the good apart from any movement of God in us, and therefore to save ourselves by our own efforts.
  • Despair. The problem with thinking that we have to make ourselves worthy is that no matter how hard we try, we find it’s never enough. We can never be good enough. We can never be unselfish enough or generous enough or forgiving enough or attend enough masses or go to confession often enough or pray well enough to be worthy. So trying to make myself worthy can easily lead to discouragement and eventually to giving up. I can never be worthy, so why try?

But wonder of wonders, we don’t have to be worthy!

In Christ, we are offered the grace to entrust all to the heart of God, and there we are accepted — with our sins, our neuroses, our emotional quirks, our inadequacies, our divided heart — and in the spacious and welcoming heart of God we are shown that peace lies in the handing over of all to God who is always sufficient.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Ephesians 2:8-10

Saying No to Oppression

In the introduction to his book, Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children of the Third Reich*,Boycott Jews (April 1, 1933) Dan Bar-On tells of Andre, a 12-year-old boy in a small German town. One day in 1938 Andre comes home from a youth meeting and tells his father that the next day the children are supposed to throw stones at the shops owned by Jews. He is in a dilemma. Everyone else is going to throw stones. What should he do?

Even though his decision will affect his parents as well as himself, Andre’s father wants the boy to make up his own mind. So Andre goes out for a walk, and when he returns he tells his parents that he has decided not to throw stones. The father is obviously proud of his son, but lets him know that he and his mother discussed the situation, and they came to the conclusion that if Andre’s decision was not to throw stones, the family would leave Germany right away. And so they do leave the very next day.

The question is why so many others just went along with the persecution.  Fear, of course, is the most obvious reason.  Andre’s parents knew his decision not to participate was dangerous.

But what about situations that carry less risk, in which the danger is not loss of life but perhaps loss of a job or even simply disapproval?  Why do we ourselves so often rationalize injustice or turn a blind eye to conditions that exclude or that do violence to others? It is crucial to put a halt to oppression when it is small — if oppression can ever be called small. How tempting it is to say, “I can’t allow myself to get involved,” or “This one incident isn’t important. It won’t go any farther.”

But oppression tends not to stop on its own. On the contrary, it tends to escalate.

At some point each of us is faced with the decision to say Yes or No to oppression and injustice. How we do it in our own context is a matter for prayer and discernment. But it is important to remember that to refuse the No is to assent.

“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?”
[God] has told you. . . what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:6,8

__________

(*Harvard University Press, 1989)

Photograph: Jewish shop in Berlin, April 1, 1933
Source: Yad Vashem (Item ID 30312; Archival signature 4613/224); Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,  Hebrew Edition 1990
Photographer unknown.

Make Haste to Help Me!

When Sister Elizabeth (who was at that time Lieutenant Elizabeth Hillmann) returned from World War II, her post-traumatic stress disorder did not show up right away.  It surfaced after she entered the Cenacle, when she was sent to our retreat house in Middletown, Connecticut.  There, in order for the sisters to go from one place to another, it was necessary to walk through a long basement corridor where all the doors were closed – in other words, where there was no place to run.  For this is what she had been taught during the war, always to have a place to run – to take cover from strafing aircraft, to escape from any potential attack.

The long corridor brought back with a vengeance the terror of war.

Then something else came back to her, something she had read – that the early desert monks had walked about all day reciting the first verse of Psalm 70: “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.”*  She began to follow their example.

Descending into the corridor, Sister Elizabeth prayed, over and over, “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.”  Walking through the corridor, she prayed, “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.”  And eventually, throughout the day, she would pray, “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.”

Gradually, the terror dissipated.

Here is a brief portion of what John Cassian (ca. 360 – 435) says about this verse:

And so for keeping up continual recollection of God this pious formula is to be ever set before you. “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me,” for this verse has not unreasonably been picked out from the whole of Scripture for this purpose. For it embraces all the feelings which can be implanted in human nature, and can be fitly and satisfactorily adapted to every condition, and all assaults. It contains an invocation of God against every danger, it contains humble and pious confession, it contains the watchfulness of anxiety and continual fear, it contains the thought of one’s own weakness, confidence in the answer, and the assurance of a present and ever ready help. For those who call constantly on their protector are sure of having him always at hand.

John Cassian (ca. 360 – 435), Conferences, X

For a helpful reflection on the same verse, see Father Pat Collins, CM, “Learning to Pray at All Times.”

_____
* Douay-Rheims version.  This is the translation of Psalm 70:1 used at the beginning of each hour of the Divine Office (the Liturgy of the Hours).

The phrase “faithful to the magisterium” is found nowadays on websites, in college and parochial school mission statements, in descriptions of parish catechetical programs, Catholic organizations, radio stations, and even Catholic businesses. (“Why buy from us?” asks one.  Among other reasons, because we are faithful to the magisterium.)

It is unfortunate that this expression has become in too many cases a shibboleth used to divide Catholics.  It seems to imply that while we know that we are real Catholics, we are not at all sure about you.

When we consider the history of the Church, we see that the understanding of fidelity as unquestioning docility is contrary toSaint Paul Catholic tradition.  Respectful challenge has been a part of Christian faithfulness to authority beginning as early as the Saint Paul’s challenge to the first pope, Saint Peter, as recounted in Galatians 2.  Paul writes that he opposed Peter “to his face,” as Peter appeared to be wobbling regarding the decision not to require Christians to become Jews according to the law.

The fact is that saints can tend to be troublesome to Church authorities.

  • Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) carried on a lively correspondence with Pope Gregory XVI.  Her letters were both respectful and affectionate, but at times very challenging.  She urged him to return the papacy to Rome from Avignon.  Not long before his departure, however, he received a warning that he would be poisoned in Rome.  Catherine would not accept even the threat of death as a reason for remaining in Avignon.  She wrote, “I beg you in the name of Christ crucified not to be a timid child but a courageous man.”

See The Letters of Catherine of Siena,
translated with introduction and notes by Suzanne Noffke
(Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000).

Joan of Arc miniatureToday Catherine might well be accused of not being faithful to the magisterium.  But for her, fidelity was not the same thing as agreement with everything the pope said or did.  In her case, fidelity to Pope Gregory meant challenging him to do the right thing for the people of God.

  • Saint Joan of Arc, we remember, was tried for heresy and burned at the stake in 1431.  It didn’t help her case that she was considered a cross-dresser.
  • Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) was imprisoned by the Inquisition.
  • It was announced in December that Mary Ward (1585-1645) is declared venerable, a step in the process toward being officially named a saint.   Mary Ward founded the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (IBVM), but her apostolic vision was ahead of its time and not in accord with the subservient role of women in her day.  She was charged with heresy and imprisoned.
  • Mary MacKillop (1842 – 1909) is to be the first canonized Australian saint.  She founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, who established many schools for poor children.  Mary was  excommunicated for a period of several months, supposedly for insubordination.

That Mary Ward and Mary MacKillop are on the way to canonization is a heartening development, considering the events of their lives, but it is not really surprising, for many saints were considered difficult – and sometimes even heretical – in their day.

Did this mean that they and the other vexatious saints just did whatever they wanted and called it God’s will?

No, they would not be called venerable and blessed and saint today if that were the case.  On the other hand, having carefully discerned, it is also unlikely that they would be canonized if they had yielded to the pressure put upon them to act in a way contrary to God’s call.

Saints have to assume, as we also must, that our bishops and popes are men of good will, trying, like us, to be faithful to Christ and intent on proclaiming only the truth of God — just as they must assume that we are trying to be faithful.

Our presumption must also be that other ordinary Catholics are, like us, trying to be faithful.    To quote the “Presupposition” found at the beginning of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola:

…it should be presupposed that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it.

The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, A Translation and Commentary by George E. Ganss, S.J.
(Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1992).

One last word, this time from John Henry Newman (whose beatification has been approved by Pope Benedict XVI with the John Henry Newman by Sir John Everett Millais (London, National Portrait Gallery)recognition of a miracle resulting from Newman’s intercession):

In On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, Newman pointed out that during the time of the Arian heresy, orthodoxy “was maintained during the greater part of the fourth century not by the unswerving firmness of the Holy See, Councils, or bishops [many of whom had been swayed by Arianism], but by the consensus fidelium,” that is, primarily by the laity.

In the case of the Arian heresy, much of the magisterium was in error.  More often in the history of the Church, it has not been a question of the magisterium straying, rather of occasionally needing a nudge in order to recognize the movement of the Holy Spirit.  To acknowledge this is not to denigrate either the authority or the holiness of bishops and popes.  It is simply to accept the fact that God often works through unexpected people and in unexpected ways.  And sometimes, so we learn from our history, one generation is not sufficient for the action of God to become clear to the whole Church.

We are called to be faithful to Christ along with the magisterium who are called to teach us.  The surest way to be faithful to the magisterium, then as now, is to grow in union with Christ in his divinity and in his humanity.

We honor best the teaching authority of the Church when our whole being joins in that wondrous prayer which is said quietly in our name by the priest or deacon at Mass as he adds a small amount of water to the wine:

By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.

This prayer expresses both the path of fidelity and the ultimate purpose of our lives.

____________________

Icon of Saint Paul from Holy Stavronikita Monastery
Painting of Joan of Arc, Miniature, 1450-1500, Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris
Portrait of John Henry Newman by Sir John Everett Millais, 1829-1886, London, National Portrait Gallery

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