The Irony of it All.

A man named Pilate posed the question "What is truth?" nearly 2000 years ago.    The irony of asking that question while standing before Truth itself is still echoing in our society today.  Mankind tends to think of himself as the source of truth instead of seeing it as a static and concrete reality that exists outside of ourselves.  Isn't it just like us to think of ourselves as the center of the universe?  I think we often use that concept to allow our egos to justify our own actions.   The youth of today have this saying, "I'll do me, and you do you."   That is, if your truth does on impinge upon my truth, we can get along.   Truth is more than that though.   Truth cannot just be generated by current societal norms and practices.  If it did, then if whatever we believe to be true is "true".   That means that Stalin was right in what he did, so was Hitler.  That makes rape OK, as long as you think it's OK.    No, all of us understand on some level that truth has to exist outside of ourselves, that some things are evil no matter who thinks they are OK.

In the first reading today we see St. James continuing his exhortation on morality.  He gives us this statement: But above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your “Yes” mean “Yes” and your “No” mean “No,” that you may not incur condemnation.  Some see this as a simple statement that means don't make promises you can't keep, and that's there in a small way, after all James was just writing previously about not making plans for tomorrow without realizing that it's only if God wills it that you do so.   It's more than that though.   It's not a lowering of our promises, as with most of the Gospel it isn't setting the bar even lower than the Law of Moses did, it's raising it.  It all revolves around that ironic image of Jesus as the incarnation of Truth.

By virtue of our Baptism we are infused with the Holy Spirit who guides us to all truth.  We are made in the image of the living God, even more so after He condescended to become man.  That makes Jesus the image which we strive to emulate.  When James says make your Yes, yes, and your no, no.. it means that every single word we speak must be taken as seriously as any oath.   We as Christians are expected to speak Truth, to live Truth, making every action, every idle word count.  No, this is not a leeway to never worry about keeping your word, or to never take anything you say seriously.. but rather a challenge to take every single yes or no we say as seriously as if God were saying them.   When we break our word, when we lie, we sully that image... We are the temple of God, His Spirit has come to rest in us.   Lying, speaking a non-Truth, is profaning that Temple.

This is not a new problem. While our society is on a rampage at the moment trying to redefine truth as fluid, ignoring reality itself to define everything from marriage to DNA as circumspect, even in the time of Moses they could not live out the reality of what God had planned for us.   Jesus reminds the men asking him questions that it was not because God wanted it that way, but because of the hardness of our own hearts that concessions were made in the Dueteronomistic laws. It's funny though, these men sat in front of Jesus asking questions, and yet they did not want answers.  Here they were questioning God himself but rather than seeking Truth, they were seeking to trap him.  Herod had already put John to death for daring to question his marriage.  Jesus answer was just as harsh for Herod as Johns had been, in that both Herod and his wife had rejected their spouses, divorced them, that they might enter into an incestuous relationship together.

With all of that in mind, what Jesus had to say about marriage is one of the most important things for us to remember in society today.  The family is the building block of any society.   Without it, society cannot continue.   People have to come together and raise children or society itself will of course die out.   Even more so, marriage is an image of the trinity itself.   The Father (parent), the Son (child), and the Holy Spirit (the love between them.)  For those of us called to live out the vocation of marriage, we are called to do so in emulation of God.   We of course will always do so imperfectly.   Man alone is incapable of living out the pure love of God, to be infinitely compassionate and merciful.  That's why we need the Holy Spirit in our lives.   Jesus quoted Genesis when he said that a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife and the two shall become one.  Two shall become one.  Mathematically that's impossible right?  1+1=2. 1-1=0.   The only way for two to become one is by adding a third.  3-2=1.   Only when we add God to our relationship and make Him first can we ever hope to live out the Sacramental marriage.

One of my favorite sayings is "A person's heart should be so lost in God that anyone seeking a relationship with them must first find one with Him."   Another saying I heard recently is "If Catholics lived out a sacramental marriage, the world would change."   I think our challenge today is similar to that.  "If Catholics lived out the truth, making their yes, yes and their no, no in all things, the world will change."  Are you ready for that challenge?  Just like 2000 years ago as Pilot and the Pharisees stood before Truth itself, we today encounter the same Divine Person in the Sacraments.   When you prepare yourself to stand before Jesus in the Eucharist ask yourself, "Is there anything in my life that I am still holding on to because of the hardness of my own heart? Lord, help me let that go and cling only to you." 


His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

Can anything good come from Clintwood?

Fifteen years or so ago the company I worked for hired this electrician from Baltimore.  He was supposed to be "all that and a bag of chips."  The one thing I do know, this man could finish a job faster than any other foreman that worked there.   I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder at the time because I was a foreman too but they kept putting me on his jobs as one of his helpers.  I did my job though.  I got fast at what I did, and I helped bang them out.   It wasn't until I'd been working with him a year or so that things began to show up that were iffy.  A problem on this job, a receptacle over here, etc.   Call back time and again to jobs he had finished in weeks, little things that added up to weeks or months of time repairing or fixing whatever it was that was wrong.   In the long run, you can't make money doing that... we spent more time on his jobs, but it always showed up as service calls, etc.

Finally it all came to a head when he asked me to do something that was just wrong.  He wanted me to install a heater with the wire coming through a concrete wall with no pipe, no insulators, just bare wire.  I refused.  So he sent me to work on the roof while he had someone else do it.   Then he asked me to just "stick a ground wire down a pipe" for a ground.  If you know anything about electricity, that's dangerous business.  This on a 200 amp disconnect.  I refused again.  He sent me off the job.   Soon I wasn't allowed on his jobs.  I kept getting crap work from the boss, and this hotshot kept getting all the high paying, overtime things.  He got the company truck, the gas card, the new tools etc..  I got to drive my own car several hundred miles a week, provide my own tools, and so on.   At the time I even kicked myself a bit.. everyone kept telling me just do what he tells you and things will get better.. "Everyone else does it, don't worry about it."  "If you want to make money you're gonna have to learn to cut corners...."   "You're from Clintwood, Virginia.. you should just do what you're told.. who else is gonna hire you?"

Then one winter we were working on a Church and the owner of the company showed up.  You could tell by the look in his eyes that something was wrong.  It turned out that on the roof of that job that I had been told to push a bare wire down a pipe, someone had touched an AC unit and been killed.  I looked at the man before me, I gave him that look... he knew, because I had told him when I was sent off that job why I was sent off.   I had still been punished, but I had stood up for what I knew to be right.  That company changed quite a bit after that.   Short cuts weren't taken anymore and profit wasn't as important.  The owner was a good man.. I know that... but he had allowed things to happen in order to make more money.

That's kind of what I get from the Acts of the Apostles.  Here are these men who have been arrested, thrown in prison and freed by an angel in the night. These were the same men who before were hiding in a locked room so no one would find them.  The same men who had run on the night Jesus was arrested, who had deserted him in his time of need.   Here they are, standing up to the very authority that all their life they had been told was the one to listen to.  This was the Sanhedrin!  If you listened to anyone as a Jew, that's the group of people you should be hearing.   Yet, they stand up for Christ, regardless of the consequences.  "We must obey God rather than men."   It would have been much easier to run away when they were arrested and freed.  Instead they go right back out and begin to preach again.  Later in that chapter we find them being flogged and beaten for this very action, and what happens?   "They left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ."

What about you?  Are you willing to stand up for your faith?  Most of us are not called here in the affluence of America to be Martyrs.  The question is though, what is God calling you to?   Each of us receives a calling.  Each of us is being asked by God to do something.  For some is to be the best mother they can be.  For another the best accountant.  Another the best lawyer.   Our Catholicism doesn't end at the door of the Sanctuary... it is a part of us.   When we receive Christ in the Eucharist we are to go out into the world and be among the world, but not of it.   That means we are a Sacramental people.. we ourselves are a sacrament to the world.. we aren't just lawyers.. we are Catholic lawyers.   We aren't just teachers.  We are Catholic teachers.   We aren't just writers... we are Catholic writers.   Are you ready for that?  Bringing your Catholicism into the world even it means losing your friends?  Your family?  Your job?  The other question I must ask myself when I read this is, do I go forth rejoicing when I am dishonored for him?  Or do I go back to the upper room and lock myself inside spiritually?

We Catholics are given the greatest gift of any possible one.  Saint John says:

The one who comes from above is above all.
The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things.
But the one who comes from heaven is above all.
He testifies to what he has seen and heard,
but no one accepts his testimony.
Whoever does accept his testimony certifies that God is trustworthy.
For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God.
He does not ration his gift of the Spirit.
The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life

That's what we receive in the Eucharist.   How is it that we receive that which is above all, that which pours out God's grace with no limits into our soul, that Blessed Sacrament of the Altar which imparts eternal life and then go forth sour, angry and unchanged?   We cannot.  We must not.   When we receive Jesus into us we must be open to that grace which he pours out on us freely... allowing Him to change us.. to make us more like God... to make us people who speak of heavenly things.. to testify to what we have seen and heart.. like our brother and savior, Jesus Christ.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

Division? Fire? Who is leading your life?

Jesus said to his disciples:

“I have come to set the earth on fire,

and how I wish it were already blazing! 

There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,

and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! 

Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? 

No, I tell you, but rather division. 

From now on a household of five will be divided,

three against two and two against three;

a father will be divided against his son

and a son against his father,

a mother against her daughter

and a daughter against her mother,

a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” 

This reading is the reading for today's mass for Catholics all over the world. It's a reminder to us that Jesus message is not an easy one. It divides friends, families, even nations. We see it in our own Christian walks as we meet other Christians, who are divided from us in our beliefs... all of them believing in Jesus, but finding different interpretations from those that their other brothers and sisters hold. As Jesus quoted Micah to his followers, it makes me wonder if they had any inkling of how true this statement was? How the Word expressed himself to mankind, knowing that they would divide because of their own hardness and stubbornness of heart. Something to meditate on today: Is the division I see in my life caused by a rejection of the truth that Jesus is the Messiah, God's only begotten son? Or is the hardness of my own heart the cause of some of those divisions?

Just a little bad?

Dying flies spoil the sweetness of the ointment. Wisdom and glory is more precious than a small and shortlived folly. - Ecclesiastes 10:1

We as Christians often encourage our children to do the right thing. That's part of our vocation as parents. We are supposed to be teaching them right from wrong, and how to make the right choice. Yet, today's society seems to be teaching anything in moderation is OK. Is that really true?

When we teach our children about stealing, we tell them it's wrong. Should we tell them, but hey if you're going to steal.. make sure to do it with a mask on, and only steal things worth less than a certain amount so it's not a felony? Of course not that's absurd. We believe stealing is wrong, so we tell them not to steal at all.

When we teach our children about drugs, we tell them it's wrong. Should we then tell them, but if you're going to do drugs, make sure to use a clean syringe, or stick to safe things like Marijuana? Of course not. We tell them drugs are bad, and they should avoid them always.

When we teach our children about sex outside of marriage.. why then do we tell them, if you're going to do it, use a condom? We should be teaching them to not do it at all!  Why is it clear to us that telling them that when they do it, to take precautions not to do it too much? Isn't that in fact telling them that we expect them to do it anyway?

If we truly believe it's wrong to have sex outside of marriage, then we should be teaching abstinence, not 'birth control.'