As we begin this season of Lent the Church wisely (in the readings chosen for this Sunday) calls us back to the “big picture” because it is in the context of the “big picture” that we are to live these next forty days in preparation for the celebration of Easter.  The “big picture” is this: we are created good, marked by sin, redeemed by Christ.

There is a misunderstanding regarding Christianity present in our world and this misunderstanding has roots both in those who are opposed to Christianity and religion in general and also in some Christians themselves who lack a full understanding of the faith.  The misunderstanding is that Christianity holds creation in contempt and sees it of having little or no worth.  This notion flies directly in the face of biblical evidence.  This Sunday’s first reading from the Book of Genesis (Genesis 2:7-9,3:1-7) reminds us that after God created all, after God made man and woman in his own image then God says, “It is good!”  Further, Christianity alone among all the world’s religions has the Creator of the world himself entering into creation in the person of the Son.  No other religion has this movement; the Creator stepping into creation.  We are created good…

But there is a nuance, creation is marked by sin.  Here the Christian faith is realistic and not naive in its understanding of the whole of the human condition and even each of our own unique experiences.  We see it throughout history and we know it in our own lived experiences – that there is something fundamentally off-kilter in the human condition.  “Brothers and sisters,” writes Paul, “through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12)  Sin and its effects are present in our world and our lives but (and this is an extremely important qualification) sin is neither the first nor the last word. 

We are made good by God, we are marked by sin, we are redeemed by Christ.  In this Sunday’s gospel (Mt. 4:1-11) Christ the God-man, “who, though he was in the form of God … emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…” (Phil. 2:6-7), is led by the Spirit into the desert where he is tempted by the evil one.  It is important to note that Christ overcomes each temptation which he is presented with not by calling on his own will to power (remember in Christ the Son “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…”) but rather, he overcomes each temptation by remaining and choosing to remain in relationship with the Father through the Holy Spirit in the very context of the weakness and need of his humanity.

Each of the devil’s temptations is at heart a temptation to doubt the love, presence and providence of the Father.  Christ will not give in to this, in fact he counters each temptation with a scripture passage that affirms both the love of the Father and his relationship with the Father.  Christ will not wound his relationship with the Father. 

We are redeemed in Christ.  In Christ we are, once again, brought into relationship with the Father and made sons and daughters of God and we are given the Holy Spirit that we might remain in relationship. 

As we begin this season of Lent (this time of preparation for Easter) we are given the big picture which should underlie and inform all that we are about these next forty days and in fact all our lives as Christians.   

This coming Wednesday (March 9th) the Church celebrates Ash Wednesday – the beginning of the season of Lent.  Lent is a time of spiritual preparation (often achieved through the disciplines of fasting, prayer and almsgiving) for the celebration of Easter. 

It is helpful to note that we enter into Lent as “church” – we do not do this alone.  Together we mark ourselves with the ashes of Ash Wednesday and together we begin this period of the forty days of Lent.  Although we each have our own specific sacrifices that we make for the season we walk this journey together and there is something quite beautiful and profound about this.

This sense of doing Lent “together” is very Catholic I believe and really at the heart of what it means to be christian and what it means to be church.  Through our baptisms into the Body of Christ we are not set adrift and left to our own devices but in fact knit together into a profoundly intertwined spiritual reality – connected with God and connected with one another.  As Church we are indeed connected and we support one another in ways that we will never be fully aware of I believe until we all stand in the fullness of the Kingdom of God.

As we approach Ash Wednesday it is good to remember that we do Lent together.

Pope Benedict in his book “St. Paul” offers these words on the reality of Church:

“And finally, one last nuance.  In his Letter to Timothy Paul describes the Church as the ‘household of God’ (1 Tim. 3:15), and this is a truly original definition because it refers to the Church as a community structure in which warm, family-type interpersonal relations are lived.  The Apostle helps us to understand ever more deeply the mystery of the Church in her different dimensions as an assembly of God in the world.  This is the greatness of the Church and the greatness of our call; we are a temple of God in the world, a place in which God truly dwells, and at the same time we are a community, a family of God who is love.  As a family and home of God, we must practice God’s love in the world and thus, with the power that comes from faith, be a place and a sign of his presence.”    

The Simpsons – in their tongue-in-cheek way – also help us to grasp a little of this reality…

A beautiful person singing a beautiful prayer.  God-given talent is always beautiful and rings true!   

After fifteen years of listening to confessions as a priest you begin to learn a few things about sin, grace and their effects in life.  Sin wounds us on a variety of levels but I believe that one of the most corrosive effects of sin is how it wounds our memory – individually and as community.  In sin we forget – we forget who God is and who we are. 

In sin we begin to forget who God is…  Throughout the gospels we see that Jesus continually puts before us a specific understanding of God the Father.  God is Abba, “daddy” – the one who loves unconditionally and who gives life abundantly.  In the gospel for today (Mt. 6:24-34) Jesus reminds us that God watches over the birds of the air and the flowers of the field.  God is the father who yearns for the return of the prodigal son and who loves his son just as much when he is lost as when he is found again.  God’s love remains constant.  But we forget.  In sin we quickly begin to think of God as distant, aloof – either a harshly judging and condemning God or so aloof as to be of no real consequence.  We easily replace “God is love” with “God helps those who help themselves” (a saying found nowhere in all of Scripture). 

In sin we begin to forget ourselves…  I have seen this dynamic again and again – the fruit of sin is that little voice in the back of our thoughts constantly murmuring: “Who do you really think you are?” “You are not worthy of love.”  “If people only knew the real you…” “You have no worth, no real value.”  Sin leads one down a very dark alley of self doubt and ultimately self hatred.  

In sin there is this double memory loss: the forgetting of God and the forgetting of self and I believe that this double memory loss is what is at the foundation of the worry that Jesus addresses in today’s gospel.  Throughout this passage our Lord makes clear statements both about our value and worth the very character of God in order to remind us of the truth.  “Look at the birds of the sky; they do now sow or reap … yet your heavenly Father feeds them.”  Then he asks, “Are you not more important than they?  Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life span?”

To address this worrying – rooted in the forgetfulness caused by sin – our Lord brings healing by calling us to memory; instructing us to remember both who God is (God is love.  God watches over all creation.  God seeks out and saves.  God is near.) and who we are (We are beloved of God.  “Look at the birds … are you not more important than they?”)

In today’s first reading we read from the forty-ninth chapter of the Book of the prophet Isaiah.  A few verses before this reading we find this, “The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.”  God knows each one of us even more than we know ourselves.  I believe that one of the graces of the sacrament of reconciliation is that when we have forgotten who we are through sin and are lost God remembers for us and by so doing summons us to truth. 

“Do not worry about tomorrow,” says our Lord.  Be rooted in the sure knowledge and memory of love. 

In his book “Saint Paul”, Pope Benedict offers the following thoughts on the experience that Paul had on the road to Damascus (Acts 9) and its implication for the Christian life:

“As can be seen, in all these passages Paul never once interprets this moment as an event of conversion.  Why?  There are many hypotheses, but for me the reason is very clear.  This turning point in his life, this transformation of his whole being was not the fruit of a psychological process, of a maturation or intellectual and moral development.  Rather it came from the outside: it was the fruit, not of his thought, but of his encounter with Jesus Christ.  In this sense it was not simply a conversion, a development of his ‘ego’, but rather a death and a resurrection for Paul himself.  One existence died, and another, new one was born with the Risen Christ…

We are only Christians if we encounter Christ.  Of course, he does not show himself to us in this overwhelming, luminous way, as he did to Paul to make him the Apostle to all peoples.  But we too can encounter Christ in reading Sacred Scripture, in prayer, in the liturgical life of the Church.  We can touch Christ’s Heart and feel him touching ours.  Only in this personal relationship with Christ, only in this encounter with the Risen One do we truly become Christians.  And in this way our reason opens, all Christ’s wisdom opens, as do all the riches of truth.”

Our Holy Father makes an important point when he reflects that the experience Paul had on the road to Damascus was not an inner psychological development on Paul’s part – a maturing of his ego – but rather an encounter with another, specifically the Risen Lord (the one who once was dead but who now lives).  It is this encounter from without that alone necessitates a dramatic death and resurrection in Saul’s own life.  The one who once was persecuting the Church becomes the Apostle to the Gentiles! 

The Pope then brings this very same dynamic to our doorstep.  “We are only Christian if we encounter Christ.”  The encounter we have may not be as dramatic as that of Paul on the Damascus road but it is just as true.  In our prayer, in Sacred Scripture, in the worship of the Church, in service to another we also encounter Christ.  In all these ways we “touch Christ’s Heart and feel him touching ours.”  The heart of all discipleship is encountering Christ. 

In this realization there is an implication for discerning ones vocation in life.  We cannot necessarily reason our way to a vocation in life!  Christian vocation is not the result of a inner and private process of ego maturation.  Christian vocation springs first and foremost from the encounter with Christ! 

This does not mean that our reason and intellect are unengaged in the process but it does mean putting first things first!  The encounter with Christ is primary and then from this reason is enlightened and fulfilled.  “Only in this personal relationship with Christ, only in this encounter with the Risen One do we truly become Christians. And in this way our reason opens, all Christ’s wisdom opens, as do all the riches of truth.”

We cannot reason our way to a vocation in the Christian life.  If we attempt this route we will just spin our wheels – expending a lot of energy but really going nowhere. 

If you want to know your vocation then go to Christ.  Approach him in the Blessed Sacrament, find him in the Scriptures, recognize him in the face of the poor, listen to him in the silent movement of your heart and will.  Allow Christ to encounter you and then your reason will be enlightened and all the riches of truth will be found.  And do not be afraid.  If Christ calls you then he will sustain you. 

“We are only Christian if we encounter Christ.” 

On February 22nd the Church celebrates the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter.  This feast (which can be traced back to the mid-fourth century) has its roots in an ancient Roman custom of keeping an empty chair in a home for deceased persons from February 13th to 22nd.  The exact date of St. Peter’s martyrdom is not known so custom has ascribed the date to February 22nd.  The bishop’s chair, or cathedra, is an expression of the bishop’s pastoral authority in a diocese.  On today’s feast the Church reflects on the unique authority of the Bishop of Rome as successor to Peter in the life of the Church. 

Below is a recent Angelus message offered by the current successor to Peter.

In his fifth exposition on Psalm 119, St. Augustine reflects on learning the commandments of God both in and through practice.  Augustine writes, “(The psalmist) adds, therefore, ‘Blessed are you, O Lord: teach me your ways of justice.’  He prays, ‘Teach me’: let me learn them as people who carry them out learn them, (bold emphasis mine) not as those who simply memorize them in order to have something to say.”  Augustine then a little further goes on to reflect, “Why then does he go on to pray, ‘Teach me your ways of justice?’  It must be because he wants to learn them by putting them into practice, not merely by repeating them and committing them to memory.”  (Quotes taken from Expositions of the Psalms, New City Press, 2003)

Augustine here is hitting on a very important point.  There is a depth and authenticity of knowledge regarding God’s commandments that can only be gained by and through lived practice.  “…let me learn them as people who carry them out learn them…”  In this Sunday’s gospel (Mt. 5:17-37) our Lord says, “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.” (Mt. 5:20)

The scribes and Pharisees certainly knew the words of God’s commandments and they could certainly quote the Scriptures and God’s law and prophets but they lacked that which is of of the utmost importance: the insight gained only through practice.  “…let me learn them as people who carry them out learn them…”  Therefore the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was lacking and our Lord recognized this. 

Our Lord in today’s gospel is calling for something much more deeper for us – his disciples.  The mere memorizing of words is not enough.  Our Lord, who comes “not to abolish but fulfill” (Mt. 5:17) the law and prophets greatly desires that we have a lived knowledge of God’s law so he steps it up by taking it to the heart – to that place within us where grace and our will interact. 

“You have heard is said, ‘You shall not kill’ …  But, I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”  (Mt. 5:21-22)  “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’ … But, I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  (Mt. 5:27-28)  “Again, you have heard is said … ‘Do not take a false oath’ … But I say to you, do not swear at all.  Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No’.”  (Mt. 5:33-37)

This knowledge which can only be gained through practice begins within – in that place where God’s grace and our will meet and the choice is made to carry out God’s commandment.  This is the knowledge which moves beyond the mere memorizing of words to that which is true, authentic and that which gives life and wisdom.  This is what our Lord greatly desires for us.  It is the only knowledge that can transform lives … beginning with our own.   

I want to unite my life to your life,
my thoughts to your thoughts,
my affections to your affections,
my heart to your heart,
my works to your works,
my whole self to your self,
in order to become through this union
more holy and more pleasing in the sight of your Father
and in order to make my life
more worthy of your grace
and of the reward of eternity. 

I want to join your intentions to my intentions,
the holiness of your actions to mine
and the excellence of your lofty virtues
to the lowliness of mine.

For example, when I pray,
I will join the holiness of your prayer to mine;
in the totality of my life as well as in its every detail,
I will join the whole breadth and height
     of your divine intentions
to whatever I have to do or to suffer.
I will join, if possible, your looks to my eyes,
your holy words to my tongue,
your meekness to my gentleness,
your humiliations and self-emptying to my humility,
in a word, your whole divine spirit to my actions:
and when, in some one of my works,
I discover something not inspired by your spirit
and which proceeds rather from my self-centeredness
or from some poorly mortified affection,
I will renounce it and disown it with my whole heart.
No, my Jesus, I promise myself to have nothing in me
     which is not in union with your lofty virtues. 
                                           (Jean-Pierre Medaille, SJ)

Ignorance of the Catholic faith I can accept.  Intentional ignorance and the effort to proselytize Catholics I have no respect for.  Simple ignorance is a weakness, a lack of true knowledge that can be addressed through education.  Intentional ignorance and proselytizing is a conscious avoidance of the truth and fundamentally a disrespect to the other person which masquerades under the guise of christian care.   

You would think that having grown up in East Tennessee and now serving as a priest for fifteen years here I would not even bat an eye at the efforts by some groups to proselytize Catholics (being so used to it) but I am still taken aback whenever I encounter it.  I think because it runs so counter to a sense of respect for the other person that is deeply ingrained in the Catholic understanding and because these efforts are so often so blatant and “in your face” as if these groups actually think they are outsmarting and pulling one over on us poor Catholics.

I believe they think they are getting away with it because the Church does not respond in kind to their proselytizing efforts.  What they fail to realize is that the Church’s decision to not play the game is not a demonstration of the Church’s obliviousness but rather a demonstration of its true discipleship.  The Church is fully aware of what these groups are about but just because they choose these tactics does not mean that we have to.  The temptation is certainly there to respond in kind.  Like James and John we also might want to call down “fire from heaven” (Lk 9:54) but again and again throughout its teaching and documents on evangelization and mission the Church denounces proselytism and its methods because, at heart, these techniques and the mindset that form their foundation are a denial both of the dignity of the other person and of true christian discipleship.

Below is a list of some of the tactics of proselytism with my own thoughts offered in brackets:

• an unjust criticism and ridicule of Churches and their religious practices; (This might come out in blatant scoffing, promoting a superficial view of the Church as outdated or be expressed through pointed questions asked in “concern” but if one is attentive you quickly realize that the desire to actually listen to and even receive the answers given is lacking.  There is no true dialogue if the other is unwilling to listen and possibly even have his or her own perceptions challenged.)

• the use of moral compulsion and psychological pressure through certain publicity techniques in the communications’ media; (Emotion-filled worship services making use of hi-tech gadgetry and advertising methods is a common technique.  It should be noted that this was also a favorite method used by the Nazi propaganda machine in Germany.  I have a friend who has attended some of these types of services and he describes them as being “an inch wide and an inch deep”.  If you ever happen to be in one look around and see if his description is accurate.) 

• the explicit or implicit offer to help in areas of education and health as well as in material and financial assistance, as a means to create dependency; (The intention here is key.  The help offered is not freely given but it comes with strings attached.  Because of these “strings” it is completely legitimate to ask what is the real motive.) 

• attitudes and practices which exploit people’s needs, psychological weakness or lack of education, especially in situations of exhaustion and desperation, with no respect for human freedom and dignity.  (Any form of manipulation is a denial of human dignity and it has nothing to do with the christian message.)

These points are taken from “Encounter with the Living Jesus Christ: The Way to Conversion, Communion and Solidarity in America” (Vatican City, 1997).

What then to do in response?  There are some things we can do but, it must be noted, they are all “choices for” and not “decisions against”.  Again, we must avoid the temptation of James and John.  As Christians we are fundamentally for Christ and the fullness of the gospel rather than being against anything.   

Be Church in all its fullness, follow Christ in authentic and mature discipleship and promote a true and full understanding of Sacred Scripture and when encountering proselytizing groups say, “God bless you.  Now go away and let me get on with my life.  When you are able to enter into true dialogue then we can talk.” 

In the end all will be revealed and that which is lacking will be made known.

A further note: As I have continued to reflect on this topic I realized that proselytism and its tactics can be applied not just to certain religious groups but also to certain strains of secularism.  Just as there can be religious proselytizers there can also be secular proselytizers, both of which by their tactics deny respect for the other person.