Cultural Reflections

Holy Thursday was a great night for me. I caught a couple hours nap that afternoon, and another before I went to church. I was rested and fully alert as I entered the improvised chapel, where Jesus stood on the altar. And he and I had some good conversations.

I took along a few of my favorite books, although ones I had not glanced at in years. (My favorites are defined as those with heavy underlines, or dashes in the margins to indicate “WOW!” It’s my own sort of shorthand.) On Thursday, I just read the underlines again, and reflected on their meaning. One of the most interesting reads was Life of Christ, by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. With a copyright of 1958, I’m not sure when I last read it, and I was surprised how it was appropriate then, when I last read it, and now. I found lots of my “Wows”. I’ll include some excerpts for your consideration and meditation:

There are only two philosophies of life. One is first the feast, then the hangover; the other first the fast, then the feast.

What is forgotten is that sin is not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing is the denial of sin. If I am blind and deny there is any such thing as light, I shall never see. If I am deaf and deny sound, I shall never hear. And if I deny there is sin, I make forgiveness impossible.

Which will be the first to find Christ with the Cross? The totalitarian states who have the Cross without Love, or the Western world which has love – so often erotic – without sacrifice? We do not know. But we do know that at the end of time, when the great conflict between the forces of good and evil takes place, Satan will appear without the Cross, as the Great Philanthropist and Social Reformer to become the final temptation of mankind.

And the above quotes are just from the Preface!!

We need a Christ Who will restore moral indignation, Who will make us hate evil with a passionate intensity, and love goodness to a point where we can drink death like water.

The people enslaved under the Roman yoke were seeking deliverance; hence they felt that any prophetic of the ancient Josue would have something to do with politics. (My comment in the margin: Even today many expect a political deliverance from poverty, but Jesus showed that a spiritual deliverance from sin is most important.)

The big cities are sometimes thought to contain all the wisdom, while the little towns are looked upon as backward and unprogressive. Christ chose the insignificant Bethlehem for the glory of His birth; the ridiculed Nazareth for His youth; but the glorious, cosmopolitan Jerusalem for the ignominy of His death.

The only way anyone can ever prove love is by making an act of choice.

The first temptation of Our Blessed Lord was to become a kind of social reformer, and to give bread to the multitudes in the wilderness who could find nothing there but stones. The vision of social amelioration without spiritual regeneration has constituted a temptation to which many important men in history have succumbed completely. But to Him, this would not be adequate service of the Father; there are deeper needs in men than crushed wheat; and there are greater joys than the full stomach. … Our Lord was not denying that men must be fed, or that social justice must be preached; but He was asserting that these things are not first. … (to Satan): You would have Me begin with security instead of ending with it; you would have Me bring outer abundance instead of inner holiness…. If I give bread alone, then man is no more than an animal, and dogs might as well come first to My banquet. Those who believe in Me must hold to that faith, even when they are starved and weak; even when they are imprisoned and scourged. … I am not a social worker who has never been hungry himself, but One who says ‘I reject any plan which promises to make men richer without making them holier.’

The Sermon on the Mount is so much at variance with all that our world holds dear that the world will crucify anyone who tries to live up to its values. Because Christ preached them, He had to die. Calvary was the price He paid for the Sermon on the Mount. Only mediocrity survives. Those who call black black, and white white, are sentenced for intolerance. Only the grays survive.

I hope these few quotes give you something to think on this weekend, my friends.

Happy Easter. He is Risen!!