That's Not Me

 

The Gospel today (Mt 8:28) spoke of Jesus freeing two men from demonic possession, casting the demons into pigs which ran off and drowned.  The first reading at that mass was about Abram, and his wife Sarah, who at an old age bore Isaac, a forefather of Jesus.  But Abram had two sons in his old age, the first by his slave, a son named Ishmael, to whom like Isaac, God had promised a great kingdom.  Ishmael is considered the forefather of Mohammed.  So, the Bible tells us that Christians and Muslims are distant cousins of our joint forefather, Abram, each with a great kingdom as promised by God.

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There is a new movie out, Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviesal, who played Jesus in The Passion movie.  I heard an interview with him this morning, as he talked about the movie, his role, and the movie’s topic:  the 300,000 children kidnapped each year into the sex-slave industry --- in our country.  In our country, where so many people support abortion, so many support the sex slavery of children.  To my way of thinking, it all about two things:  1) Money, and 2) The “It’s Not Me” mentality.  The most popular websites in our country are pornography, strongly underpinned by those child sex slaves --- whom we won’t believe are our children until we see one there, as has happened often.

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I will have masses said on August 1 in my parishes, for two intentions:  1) For an end to OUR support of pornography, and 2) For an end to sex-trafficking of OUR children.  The masses will intend to pray to God for an end to OUR sins.  Perhaps some who hear those intentions said (or read them in the church bulletin) will receive the grace to open their hearts, and do something.  Or perhaps, between now and then some priest will not want to hurt anyone’s feelings and delete or change those intentions.

But even among those hearing, many will undoubtedly think: “That’s not me.”

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There’s lots of talk about Christians becoming once again one church, united as it started out.  Not much progress is being made in that area.  But perhaps Christians could unite with Muslims, our distant cousins, to end pornography and child sex-trafficking in this country, even if to just remove our financial support.  Do you think that could wake some politicians up, if our churches said no one will vote for you unless you do something NOW to stop slavery in our country, the abduction and slavery of our children?

At one of my men’s groups the talk got around to the New Evangelization, and some asked “What can I do?”  I gave some simple examples of witnessing our faith, to our family, friends, or even strangers.  “Yes, we could do simple things, but the church is telling us to do more.”  Well, I said, in Poland the refugees from the Ukraine were taken into the houses of the Polish people, and treated as one of their family.  There were no refugee camps for the millions of refugees of the war; there was no need.  So, I asked the men: “Many of us have empty bedroom in our homes, what if we said, as a parish, that we will take in and care for the homeless and those in need?  That would be a great evangelization witness.”  There was silence at the table, and the topic was changed.

Review: Strange Gods

“It would be an interesting exercise, perhaps, to try to keep count of how
many times a day we say (or think) the word I or me – especially if we
put our numbers up against how many times we’d thought of God
or anyone else throughout the same day.”

Those early words of Elizabeth Scalia, in her book Strange Gods, sound like something I might have written here.  They gave me a clue that I might like this book which, quite honestly, I purchased only because of its unique cover.

Besides the early chapter on “The Idol of I,” Elizabeth has separate chapters on the idols of Ideas, Prosperity, Technology, Coolness and Sex, Plans, and what she calls super-idols --- our ideological passions.

In the chapter on The Idol of Prosperity, Ms Scalia brings in some thoughts from the Rule of Saint Benedict for the living of the monastic life.  In it Saint Benedict stresses the ideal of minimal ownership of things, but he points out that some monks have a greater need (not want) of material things than others.  “But, Benedict said, instead of this being a source of pride, it should be a source of humility, because it is better to need less.  Every worldly thing you need is something else that can come between you and God.”  Ms Scalia then goes on to put this in relational terms, noting that those who need more should be given more, and those who need less be given less, BUT: no one should judge either as better or worse for this.  “This can be a difficult way to view the world,” she notes, in our culture where “the have-nots are encouraged to resent all that excess and privilege, and yet they still desire it for themselves.  Saint Benedict tells us that people who have so much are to be pitied because excess is evidence of their need.”  I liked the way Ms Scalia used this monastic view of “stuff” to put the Idol of Prosperity in perspective.        

I thought her take on the idol of the internet also was spot on the money, and I enjoyed her word imagery in that chapter.  “The internet might well be the greatest tempter to ego gratification since the hissing serpent of Eden: --- you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad” (Gn 3:5).  Ms Scalia puts the question to us bluntly: “How can we be alive to God and to the workings of the Holy Spirit, if we are spending hour after hour alive to only ourselves, reveling in our ideas, opinions, and (our) words are reflected back at us, forever and ever, Amen!”  She likens the Internet to a house of mirrors, “a maze of me.”  I know of people who look at the internet in the ways she describes, focused on seeking self-affirmation there.  It is a great temptation.  Her words describing the temptations of the Internet flow smoothly into her next chapter on The Idols of Coolness and Sex.  

Our hungers to “be cool” are fed by the Internet.  Elizabeth explains how the feeling of coolness has to do with fitting in and being accepted.  This used to be a primary role of the family, but, she explains: “Modern parents have done something rather unprecedented: they’ve learned from their enlightened children and become like them.  Parents abdicating their roles in order to follow their children’s sensibilities had a predictably unsettling effect on society.  Suddenly everyone was cool, and no one wanted to be the old-fashioned, uptight grownup, except it seems, the Catholic Church.”  The Internet opened a door to unlimited coolness: “It’s like living in a perpetual state of Christmas anticipation.  We look forward to the day and as soon as it arrives, we rip open the gifts, break them quickly, declare ourselves bored, and look for the next cool thing to come” --- and you’ll find it somewhere on the Internet.

Elizabeth Scalia describes in each chapter how idols distract us from our proper focus on God.  They are users of our time.  In the chapter on The Super Idols, however, she describes idols which support the notion that we DO have a proper focus --- a focus on us --- and how we can act with the moral certainty of God.  “Dress up tribal identifications that accompany one’s participation in a party or a movement, determine that the opposition is not merely wrong but evil, and suddenly mere ideas become glittering certainties.”  “Our ideological passions keep us so enthralled that we begin to measure every headline, every news story, every sermon, every comment and tweet that comes our way by how it conforms to our worldview.”  We lose thoughts of our neighbors or our brothers, and instead “We can begin to think of the person as other.  We lose the willingness to bear with the imperfect, flawed, and sinful humanity of another.  We lose the willingness to ‘bear with one another,’ as St. Paul writes.”

I thought the quote from Annie Lamott printed here was most appropriate:  “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”  How aptly this describes our political arena today, whose members have placed themselves as the moral authority for the country.

Ms Scalia subtitled her book “Unmasking the Idols of Everyday Life.”  I found her turn of the word makes for an interesting read, and if you have not previously pondered the idols she unmasks, I’m sure it will give you much to think about, and perhaps lead you to make changes in your life.  But she leaves that up to you.  She clearly identifies the idols for you, but she offers few suggestions for how to turn from them.  Perhaps that will be her next book, but the omission in this one leaves askance those who read her words and suddenly see themselves naked in the mirror.  For adults, turning from satisfying idols may be a difficult task; for parents seeking to turn their children from those same idols, without further suggestions, well, it may seem a wall too high.

But I guess, as with any journey to a new place, you have to take the first step.  If you want help to honestly look at yourself and how the world may have seduced you (or your kids) from the right path, this book is a good first step.

Meaningless Words: Obscenity, Truth, Gay, Marriage, and Love

Justice Potter Stewart, commenting on Jacobellis v Ohio (1964), could not define the word obscenity, but noted that “I know it when I see it.” 

And we thought Justice was only blind.

In not being able to define obscenity, it seems that Justice Stewart was only slightly ahead of his time.  Today, despite there being laws on the books in various places, there are no prosecutions (and certainly no convictions) for obscenity.  Everyone has their own definition of what the word means, and so Stewart was certainly correct that there is no definition, or certainly that there is not one definition.  In fact, I suspect there are so many definitions, that you would not need a dictionary, but a separate book to just define that one word.  And in our society, there are many words today joining the “un-definable” list of words. 

Perhaps THAT needs to be a new book, not a book with words and their meanings, but a book of words with NO meanings ---- or words which can mean whatever you wish them to mean.  In commenting on Casey, the Supreme Court said that “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of life.”  The Supreme Court said it.  God said: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” but nine Supreme men in our country said no, no: “EVERYONE can define his meaning of truth.”  Therefore there is no truth, or at least not a definition which would fit within a single book, since everyone’s is different.  And along with this supreme law of the land, there is, by law, no Way in America, nor certainly any Life, for each of us is free to define “the mystery of life” as we see fit.

The Supreme Court has commented on obscenity, truth, gay and is soon to comment on marriage.  And in its opinion, there is no definition of the first three, only what any one person defines those words to mean.  And can the very meaning --- or lack of meaning --- of the word “love” be far behind?

The philosopher Josef Pieper wrote wonderfully about love, and the four Latin words used to describe love.  (His book, Faith Hope Love, is an outstanding read!).  It’s too bad that English has only the one word, but it’s sadder still that that one word has taken on an infinite number of meanings.  In colleges a 30-second “hookup” is described as “making love,” while environmentalists talk fervently about loving the earth.  And many of us (but oh, how sadly few of us) know of marriages of 50 years or more, and we see how two people have grown through love into one in their lives ---- a visible foretaste of the eternal love we are all meant to share, grown together in the Body of Christ.  This is the definition of love I know.

How and why can a society which prides itself on growing wiser, choose to destroy the meaning of words which have had meaning from the beginnings of man?  How can it be an advance of civilization when communication is destroyed?  How can it be an advance of civilization when we no longer understand what people before computers, tweeting, texting, and the internet understood? 

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This morning I read from a homily by Saint Basil the Great, bishop:  “What then is the right kind of boasting?  What is the source of man’s greatness?  Scripture says: The man who boasts must boast of this, that he knows and understands that I am the Lord.  Here is man’s greatness, here is man’s glory and majesty: to know in truth what is great, to hold fast to it, and to seek glory from the Lord of glory.”

To know you, O God, is to reach holiness.  (Wisdom 15:3)  This is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.  (John 17:3)

How wise men seek to be, in their own minds.  They think this is the goal and purpose of life, to be what THEY want to be, to have what THEY want to have, not to be who, in love,  they were MADE to be.

We have so much to learn.

And for those who would boast of the advances of science and knowledge, and how the knowledge of old and beliefs of old no longer apply, because THEY know better today, I would encourage them to read about the life of St. Casimir, which I read today also.  He was the son of the king of Poland in 1458; he had all that he could want at his fingertips.  And yet a contemporary wrote: “He always preferred to be counted among the meek and the poor of spirit, among those who are promised the kingdom of heaven, rather than among the famous and powerful men of this world.  He had no ambition for the power that lies in human rank and he would never accept it from his father. … It is difficult to imagine or express his passion for justice, his exercise of moderation, his gift of prudence, especially in a most permissive age, when men tended to be headstrong and by their very natures inclined to sin.”

We think we are so wise and advanced?  That was written about the times of the 1400’s, “a most permissive age.”  Have we advanced from then?  In riches, perhaps, but certainly not in wisdom.

All these things can sound very sad, but only if you wish to focus on sadness.  Lent is a time designated for us to focus on some sad things, true, but also to begin work to change those things, starting with ourselves.  Another thing I read this morning was from Fr. Groeschel’s Lenten meditations.  There he said this:

“Here is a practice for Lent.  Make Christ and His teachings explicit in your life.  Let people know what you believe.  You can start by wearing a cross or religious symbol.  You can mention Christian values in your daily life and identify those as coming from the Bible.  Let people know that you are a believer in a way that does not cause offense but makes it clear that freedom of religion does not mean the absence of religion.  When the media are antireligious or undermine Christian values, write and protest explicitly to the sponsors and advertisers of these antireligious programs.  Christ has said that he will acknowledge before His heavenly Father all who acknowledge him before men.  Pray even for those who undermine moral values and for their conversion.  Then you will be doing the work of God.”

And then you’ll be growing in holiness and love. 

I could think on the words obscenity or truth or gay or marriage for a long time, and make little difference, I fear.  But I will ponder further on love. 

I find it interesting that those who would destroy the meaning of words, to make them all relative, choose the words they choose.  They do not seek to change the meaning or “rock” or “book” or “chair” or words such as that.  Instead they seek to change the meaning of words whose meaning only resides in our minds and hearts.  They wish to change how we think, to think as they do.  And in particular, they wish to change the meaning of words which once were as solid in meaning as rock or book or chair, and make them as flexible as time.  I could worry and ponder all these other debates started in our society, but at their heart is the meaning of a single word:  Love.  All these debates have been dancing around the edges of the meaning of love, and they are only now getting to the heart of it.  The debate about the meaning of love is the most important, for without Love we have nothing.