Option 1:   Extending from Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday (roughly six full weeks) for a total of 44 days of Lent.

Option 2:  Extending from Ash Wednesday, except Sundays are exempt, for a total of 38 days of Lent.

Option 3:  Lasting six full weeks, with Sundays exempt, for a total of 36 Days of Lent.

Option 4: Lasting eight full weeks, with Saturday and Sunday exempt, for a total of 40 days of Lent.

Option 5:  Beginning the Sunday after Ash Wednesday and ending on Holy Thursday for a total of 40 days of Lent.

Option 6:  Lent extends over six weeks beginning the Sunday after Ash Wednesday and penance is done only five days of the week for a total of 35 days of Lent.

If you chose Option 1 or 2 then, congratulations, you are living in the current time after Vatican II under the Roman Rite.  If you chose option 3, you are living in Rome under Pope Gregory the Great in the late sixth century and the early seventh century.  If you chose option 4, then you are living in Jerusalem during the late fourth century.  If you chose option 5, then you are living under the Roman rite, likely somewhere in the world after the council of Trent (sixteenth century) and before Vatican II (twentieth century).  If you choose option 6, you are likely living in the Church of Milan using the Ambrosian rite under a practice that likely extends from the time of St. Ambrose himself (fourth century) to today.

If any of this surprises you.  Good.  Because it demonstrates both a universal practice of the Catholic Church as well as the unique cultural take on those universal practices that are acceptable.  But more importantly it helps to answer the yearly question of “How long is Lent?”  The traditional answer to that question is “forty days.”  However, from the data above option 6 is the only modern option in the group that makes Lent exactly 40 days.  In the Roman Rite, no matter how you do the math and what Sundays you take out and add in, Lent does not add up to forty days. So what does this mean?  Absolutely nothing.

The reason it means nothing is that there are various cultural traditions, theological understandings and rites within Catholicism that allow for such leeway in regards to certain feasts, fasts, and penances.  It would be silly to say that Lent must calculate to exactly forty days and not a second longer or shorter, for this would go against the opinions of Saints and Popes.  Take for example option 3, Pope Gregory the Great, for whom is the name sake of Gregorian Chant and the Gregorian Calendar, only celebrates Lent for 36 days.  Though Gregory did attach a meaning of tithing to the 36 days, as he saw the 36 days of fasting and penance as ten percent of the solar year of 365 days, which gave Lent a different theological meaning.  Yet, contrary to the earlier Pope, most post-Vatican II Catholics celebrate a Lent that consists of 44 days in length and can possibly consist of only 38 days of penance.

When asked “when does Lent begin?” the traditional answer that most Catholic know today is “Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.”  But this was not always the case.  Before Vatican II, Lent did not begin on Ash Wednesday.  The first telling support of this is that in the older Roman Missal, on the First Sunday of Lent, the priest would make mention of the “sacrificium quadragesimalis initii,” the sacrifice beginning or initiating the forty days.  The forty days, or “quadragesimalis” is a reference to Lent.  The second example is found in many daily missals of today.  The days following Ash Wednesday up to the first Sunday in Lent are marked as the Thursday, Friday and Saturday after Ash Wednesday as opposed to the days after the First Sunday of Lent that get named specifically by the week of Lent in which the Church is in followed by the day of the week (i.e. Monday of the Second week of Lent or Second week of Lent: Monday).

If Lent didn’t always begin on Ash Wednesday and it really isn’t forty days in length any more, then why do people keep saying Lent is forty days in length?  For three reasons.The first being that at one point in time Lent was forty days.

The second is that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacrament states in paragraph 125 of the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy Principles and Guidelines written in 2001 that “In the Roman Rite, the beginning of the forty days of penance is marked with the austere symbol of ashes which are used in the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday.” Though the document does not say how it calculates the 40 days, it affirms the tradition that Lent is 40 days in length.  Neither does the document mention whether or not Sundays are to be included into that count.

The third tails from biblical theology where the number forty was the number of testing.  A quick glace at the notable forties in the Old Testamet leads to the conclusion that to do something for 40 days means to be tested.  Noah and his family were test in the 40 day flood.  Moses was on Mount Sinai with God for 40 days.  Elijah the prophet traveled for 40 days without food in the desert to meet with God atop Mount Horeb.  Jonah preached to the Ninevites who in turn did penance for 40 days to show God that Nineveh had truly taken to heart the prophet’s call to repentance.  Lastly, Israel traveled in the desert for 40 years.  In a homily on the book of Numbers, the early Christian writer Origen linked the forty years as well as the names and locations the Israelites traveled to a period of testing, training, and purging that needed to happen to prepare Israel to enter into the promise land.  Scripturally speaking, liking the number forty to a person or event is to says that the person underwent a trial or the event was a trial or test.  Therefore to put Christ in the desert for forty day is to say that Christ is being tested, which is later depicted with His encounter with the devil.

Though the math might not make sense (after all Christianity has never been good at numbers as two still equates to three in the Trinity) this is a prime example of connecting to the spiritual and mysterious meaning of Lent, where the Christian undergoes his or her own trial, whether it is set forth by their own means or comes from an outside source.

Ultimately, Lent is a prime example of the spirit of the law meeting the letter of the law.  Both are important, and both are necessary, for a spirit without its body is a horrid and frightful thing, but sometimes the letter and spirit of the law do not always correspond as nicely as we would like.

If time and culture tell us that Lent has varied over the years what is the modern Catholic to do today during this Lent?  Simple.  Follow the wisdom of the Church as guided by the Holy Spirit.

However you count it, we are about at the halfway point of Lent and there is still time for penance.

“It’ a miracle.  The cream saved me.  My fine lines have disappeared.”  She said.  The inflections in her voice rise and fell like she was giving an impassioned sermon.

I sat up.  I watched with wide eyes as she wisped a silky hand over her wrinkle-less face.

“Wow…Maybe I should order some” I said.

As the mother of two college-aged kids,   I was beginning to notice some fine lines on my face that had never been there before.

“I’m getting older” I told myself.

I listened as several other women shared compelling testimonies, their dramatic before and after photos flashing across the screen.  Then, a memory from my childhood began to surface.

I was nine years old again, standing in my grandmother’s kitchen.  It was snowing outside but I could feel the warmth of the bright December sun that streamed in through the windows above her stove.  With her short grey hair waved into pin curls, ”Mema” as we called her, wore an oversized shirt and plaid polysester pants.  She stirred a pan of bubbling sugar and water, twirling a wooden spoon round and round.  I stood close by, under my grandmother’s watchful eye, pouring a cup of corn syrup into the mixture.

I loved being with Mema.  A gentle light radiated from her sweetly furrowed face, a comforting glow that always wrapped around me like an invisible embrace.

Her bright countenance was a sharp contrast to the dark moments she had lived through in her earlier years.  Time and time again, my mother had told me about the hardships she had endured during the great depression; losing the family farm, poverty, and the death of her nineteen year old son during World War II.

Nonetheless, an irrepressible joy poured forth from Mema.  As a child, I always wondered why relatives called her a “rock of faith” given the heartaches of her past.

“God always works everything out.” Mema often said.

The candy mixture came to a hard boil as steam rose from the pan.

“It’s time to add the licorice” Mema said.  She reached into a cupboard and handed me a small bottle trimmed with a red label.

“This is my favorite part,” I told Mema as I opened the bottle of spice, just to breathe in the familiar scent.  “It smells like Christmas.”  I said.

My grandmother stood in the winter sunlight, her curled strands glistening like tinsel.  Her brown eyes twinkled like two candles, shining beneath her thick, bifocaled glasses.  The lines on her face all curved upward like a hundred grins.

“Mema, your wrinkles look like smiles.”  I told her.

Mema laughed.  She wiped her hand on the apron that wrapped around her waist.

“Wrinkles are God’s beauty marks,” she said, hugging me.  “Don’t ever forget that.”

The blond television host continued promoting her product.  She waved her arm over several anti-aging creams that were displayed on a table.  “For only three easy payments of $19.99, we will send the wrinkle reducer and the cleanser at no extra charge.”

As the commercial continued,   I found myself pondering Mema’s life in a whole new way.  The challenges she had faced in life were the tools God had used to impart lessons of trust.  Though her youthful appearance had faded, she had become wise in matters of faith.  It was Mema’s wisdom, born of adversity, that had made her beautiful, inside and out.  And every smiling wrinkle on her face proclaimed her loveliness.

I turned the television off.   I drew near to a mirror in a nearby hallway.  As I stood in the sunlight, I could see all the fine lines that framed my eyes.  ”I’ve earned these” I said as I thought about some of the challenges that I had faced in my own life.  Though I would not have asked for any of the struggles I had been given, God had been faithful to me.   Like my grandmother, I had learned to trust.   Now, my wrinkles were holy impressions, markings of the inner wisdom I had gained.   I smiled.  ”God always works everything out” I whispered.

Wisdom.  It’ not a miracle cure for wrinkles.  It won’t save anyone from crows feet. You can’t purchase it with three easy payments of $19.99.

Yet, in the eighth chapter of Proverbs we are told:

“For wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her.”  Proverbs 8:11.

This is good news for those of us who are often distracted by a culture that emphasizes external beauty.  Each day, television presents non-stop images of airbrushed faces, skinny thighs and flawless hair.  Women’s magazines are packed with articles that highlight the importance of losing weight and developing six-pack abs.  On any given trip to the drug store, the average woman will be bombarded with products that shout: “Don’t do it!  Don’t get older!”

Today, no matter what your age, ask yourself this question:  How have I gained inner beauty?

Then, take a moment to look at yourself in the mirror.  Do you see your inner radiance?

It’s there.  The light of God’s wisdom.  Let’s its warmth wrap itself around you like an invisible embrace.

Then rejoice.

Your wisdom is the beauty mark of God.

And that’s something to smile about.

This problem of distinguishing between what is common to all and what is specifically mine and yours is the puzzle that lies behind the commandment against stealing. If another Catholic writer were to write another essay on the seventh commandment, he could go on for thousands of words and even thousands of volumes and never trespass against the seventh commandment. But if he were to write:

“You shall not steal,” says Exodus 20:15. Once again, the Decalogue faces us with an injunction that seems like common sense (and is) but which is also fraught with all sorts of unexpected difficulties….”

…and continue on without mentioning that I wrote it first, that’s theft.

Certain things are rightly and properly ours. We learn (before we can read or write and often before we can form complex sentences) the basic rule of the universe against stealing. Some of that learning comes from slapped hands if we take something we shouldn’t. Some of it comes from a punch delivered by our brother or sister when we nab their cookies without permission. Natural law tends to be learned via natural consequences. Fairly quickly, we discover concepts like “rights” and the reality that you don’t have the right to my stuff and I don’t have the right to yours. To be sure, some highly educated leftist fools have sometimes attempted to describe all property as “theft” just as some devotees of private property have, with equal folly, attempted to describe all interest in the common good as “socialism” or “communism”. But we must not, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, listen to the over-wise or the over-foolish giants. For (as Lewis also notes) “Opposite evils, so far from balancing, aggravate each other.” The Tradition warns against both envy (the besetting sin of the poor) and greed (the besetting sin of the rich) and labors to help us keep our balance by recognizing what is properly ours and what is common.

One obstacle in applying this commandment justly is the fact that it is often tempting to simply assume that one’s own tribe is all that matters in considering it. White settlers who would never have considered claim jumping on other white settlers had no problem stealing land from Indians. That wasn’t stealing. That was Manifest Destiny. Only when Indians start to count as, well, fellow human beings, did Americans begin to think of the theft of their land as, you know, theft.

In a much smaller way, we see something similar happen with the faceless Others who inhabit the music industry. One $20 bill stolen from a stranger on the bus next to you is theft, but money stolen by downloading music that you haven’t paid for off the Internet is free for the taking. Indeed, for some people, “sharing” music without paying for it has somehow become a positive “right.” And the justification for that right is that the people we are stealing from have “enough money already.”

This brings us to one of the odd engines of theft in the human psyche: envy. The notion that fuels the sin of envy is that harming somebody else is tantamount to “justice”. For unlike jealousy, envy does not seek to better ourselves by keeping up with the Joneses, but to take the Joneses down a peg so that they are no better than us. It is the characteristic sin of a democratic culture as distinct from pride (the characteristic sin of an aristocracy). Our envy-driven culture of theft can be seen even in the strange way that people compete, not to be fraudulent winners, but fraudulent losers. It’s the source of fake Holocaust memoirs and cock-and-bull stories from phony victims such as A Million Little Pieces. In ages past, people pretended to be Anastasia, the heir to the throne of all the Russias, and robbed you blind by dazzling you with fake pretensions or aristocracy. Now they write I, Rigoberta Menchú and rob you blind with fake pretensions of victimhood.

This is not to say the Tradition sides with the rich against the poor. On the contrary, one of the remarkable things about the Church is how empathetic she is with the poor. Indeed, as St. John Chrysostom says, “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.” So there is room for Robin Hood in the Catholic tradition. Indeed, by the reckoning of the Catholic tradition, Jean Valjean never stole a loaf of bread in his life. He took what was rightfully his to feed his family. The Catholic tradition is notably easy on Lazarus and notably rough on the Rich Man, warning the latter, not the former, that much will be required of those to whom much is given. The man who hoards goods he does not need while his neighbor does without basic necessities is, in Catholic reckoning, the real thief.

But the Church is also acutely aware of the fact that just because you are a victim doesn’t mean you can’t be a jerk too. The average MP3 thief or phony Victim of the Week scam is not acting on some noble principle of helping the poor. He’s just stealing and scamming because he’s too much of a slob to pay for it or earn it.

The commandment against stealing is one of the areas where the Christian tradition requires us to think proportionally. Some people want to overlook small acts of theft and focus on things like Corporate Greed. Conversely, on the principle that a billion dollars is a statistic, but fifty bucks can be understood, others want to focus their ire on the small time thief or welfare queen while ignoring the massive raiding from the public coffers for the corporate fatcat’s golden parachute. The general rule of thumb is that we should probably pay most attention to opposing the thief for whom we feel the most empathy, especially the thief who may well be looking back at us in the mirror. The Rush Limbaugh type could do with a lot more concern for the corporations that irresponsibly urged people to take out disastrous loans (“Free toaster! Come and get it!”) while the Air America type could really stand to remember that nobody held a gun to the heads of the fools who took out the loans, and that said fools were often strongly motivated by the desire to get something for nothing.

On the other hand, while proportionality matters and stealing a CD is not the same as knocking over a 7-11 or robbing a Brinks armored car, it should also be noted that stealing can be the occasion of grave interior sin even when the thing stolen is quite trivial. Augustine, it will be recalled, had his first experience of his own capacity for radical, perverse sin in stealing a few pears as a kid. It’s the sort of incident that would not even be noticed by the sheriff of Dogpatch: just some boys being naughty. But Augustine discerned in it his first encounter with, and dark delight in, radical evil. I suspect that’s because theft is the most accessible of the grave sins mentioned in the commandments. Most of us will never murder anybody and adultery requires a certain state in life. But any idiot can steal and any idiot often does. It’s one of the things we can’t not know is wrong, but it’s one of the easiest grave sins to commit. The very fact that it is less grave than murder makes the choice for evil, paradoxically, sharper and more lacerating to the conscience than other sins which we are more successful at muffling under rationalization or avoiding due to difficulty or lack of opportunity.

The flip side of all this business of theft, of course, is generosity. It is, says our Lord, more blessed to give than to receive. The way to avoid the sin of stealing is to cultivate, not the habit of “not stealing” (there is no such animal just as there is no such thing as the habit of not smoking), but the habit of giving. Mind you, I speak here, not as a saint, but as a Catholic writer whose task is to ladle out the Tradition, including parts that I neither enjoy nor obey with notable distinction. The Tradition says what it says: “The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.” I hope in the Lord Jesus to one day be such a person, but till I am I continue to grudgingly give as I can and to do my duty of reporting what the Tradition says till I believe it enough to live it. Let us pray for one another (and ask the prayers of St. Dismas, the Good Thief) that even thieves might discover the generosity of Christ in us.

Instead, stories of sacrifice and redemption ruled the Oscar’s main categories for screenplay, three of the four main acting awards, direction, and best animated feature and best picture.

Precious

Both Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire and The Hurt Locker are intensely personal films. The first is the story of an urban African-American teenager saddled with just about every disadvantage one can imagine: poor, obese, nearly illiterate, living in a severely damaged family, raped and pregnant. Almost anyone would drown in despair, but a teacher and a social worker look beyond appearances and throw out a lifeline. Taking in less than ten percent of Avatar’s domestic box office gross, perhaps this win for best adapted screenplay, along with a best supporting actress win for Mo’Nique will encourage more people to see it.

Crazy Heart

Jeff Bridges won a long-overdue award for Best Actor as Bad Blake, an alcoholic country singer who, when we meet him, hit bottom, smashed right through, and continued his descent. His interview with a music journalist Jean Craddock leads to love and what appears to be a standard redemption formula relationship, but the story refuses to go there. Crazy Heart lacks the witness of Tender Mercies – still the best film of this genre. Still, Bad’s realistic road toward sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous reads hope into an otherwise hopeless life.

The Blind Side

Sandra Bullock was genuinely shocked, I think, that she won Best Actress for her role as Leigh Anne Touhy – the real-life heroine of The Blind Side. The Academy has demonstrated over the years that they are not averse to awarding Oscars to actresses portraying outspoken Christians. Bullock joins Geraldine Page (1985 as Carrie Watts in A Trip to Bountiful), Susan Sarandon (1995 as Catholic nun, Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking), and Reese Witherspoon (2005 as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line) in this vein. You have to go back to 1983 to find an Oscar nod for Best Actor going to an explicitly Christian character (Robert Duvall in Tender Mercies), and before that to 1966 for Paul Scofield’s turn as Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons.

Bullock’s portrayal of Touhy, a wealthy, white Southern woman, who takes in a homeless African American teen out of compassion and Christian conviction, lit up the box office with receipts from people wanting to see a redemptive story. The Blind Side had the added allure of being true. Wiping away stereotypes, director John Lee Hancock explained that this was not a case of simple white guilt. “Leigh Anne Touhy did not put Michael Oher into that car because he was black,” he told me in an interview. “She put him in that car because he was cold.” Bullock won the Oscar because her performance was inspiring. I hope that it encourages Hollywood to make similar films.

Up

Always a long shot for Best Picture, Up still won for Best Animated Feature Film, beating out the dark Coraline, and the forced-feeling The Princess and the Frog. Pixar appears incapable of making a bad film, and Up continued their winning combination of a great story, outstanding voice talent, and incredible animation. Like The Blind Side, Up is a primarily a redemption story about an elderly man, Carl Fredrickson, who makes a perilous journey to find meaning in his life, when what he is looking for is actually standing on his front porch in a Junior Wilderness Explorer uniform. The little boy, Russell, needs to be rescued from a culture of absent fathers – and though curmudgeonly Carl would, at first glance, be no one’s pick for Father of the Year, the film reveals how unusual circumstances can shape us into the people we are meant to be. Pixar’s continuing track record makes me anxious to see their next offerings: Toy Story 3 and 1906.

The Hurt Locker

In his screenplay for The Hurt Locker, writer Mark Boal takes the viewer into the world of ordinance disposal units in Iraq – the guys who step right up to diffuse those improvised explosive devices that we all read about from the safety of our homes thousands of miles away. Kathryn Bigelow, who won this year’s Academy Award for Best Director, wisely skirts the debate over whether Iraq is the Good War or the Bad War. She simply shows us The War, and challenges us to appreciate the mental toughness and sheer bravado required to snuff the life out of a 500-pound bomb. The heroes we meet here are not throwbacks from the “gee whiz” and “as shucks, ma’am, t’wernt nothin’” war films of the 1940s and 50s, but real flesh and blood men you might meet on your flight as they head home from deployment. Boal and Bigelow’s film makes you want to say, “Thanks,” and that is what makes The Hurt Locker the Saving Private Ryan of this awards season and why it deserved its award for Best Picture.

Where is Avatar?

Maybe it was backlash against its Titanic box office haul, but I honestly think the Academy simply did its job. Avatar was an eye-popping film, so it justifiably won a fistful of technical awards. But with a nation at war, an economy in shambles, in the midst of political uncertainty, the Academy largely awarded films that celebrated the triumph of the human spirit, the healing power of love, and the heroism of those who risk all to save the lives of their comrades. As these films get the expected Oscar bump – if they are still in theaters – or find a second life on DVD, such stories invite reflection, response, and discussion. Christians have their own tales of triumph, healing, forgiveness, and heroism. With these themes brought to the fore by this year’s Academy Awards, we should find ways to share them.

This is how my confirmation teacher began his catechetical instruction on sexual morality. Why, you may ask, did he have the need or even the thought of sharing a moment like this? Whatever the reason may have been, it did not provide a sound moral outlook for these students, including myself, at the time.  Any genuine appreciation of the virtues of purity and chastity, let alone a healthy outlook of sexual intimacy within the bonds of holy matrimony, was lost in this critical teaching moment.

Concluding with the story, this poor teacher eventually told us that if you truly love someone then having sex is perfectly fine.  His reasoning reflected “the right” to express your love in the “fullest way possible.”  Therefore, you could imagine what the boys in my class were thinking.  Immediately they began to say, “I love you” to the girls because my Confirmation teacher just opened the door for all of us to reconfigure the notion of love in our minds. The definition of “love” had taken on a false definition. Love only has a physical component and not a supernatural one before the eyes of Christ.  A perversion has taken hold where physical lust replaces true intimacy with Christ.

The moment he crossed the line into doctrinal ambiguity and, even worse, utilized his own personal experience in a distorted way, the doctrinal moment became irrelevant. Fortunately, I knew back then that his instruction was completely misguided. He had the souls of these kids to contend for.  Knowingly or unknowingly, he was encouraging them to engage in a behavior that would potentially lead their souls away from Christ and provide a distorted view of sexual morality.

After this unfortunate instruction, I raised my hand and asked the teacher one question. I asked if he had married his girlfriend. He was not amused with my question. His response somewhat surprised me. He said no! I then proceeded to tell him, “Then I guess you truly didn’t love her.  My second point is this: your instruction on sexual morality is a direct contradiction to the teachings of the Catholic Church.” With that statement, he threw me out of class for being belligerent and misleading. Go figure!

What was his intent in all this?  As I look back, I believe he was trying to find a way to relate to us and grab our attention. There was an assumption that we needed to hear a unique story relating to the ideologies of the day in order for his instruction to take hold. I believe that this was the first of many errors in method and doctrin he engaged in at the spiritual and intellectual expense of the class.

Common Teaching Errors

Let us break down this actual event and see where it went wrong. This example may bring back memories of similar events you may have experienced yourself, hopefully not like my own. The craft of using personal experience is one where the teacher can effectively articulate instruction to an audience based on his/her understanding of the instruction.  It is a method of relating to those being taught. A parallel struck here rests in the use of parables by the Divine teacher, Jesus Christ Himself. The experience of the healing of the Centurion’s servant in Matthew’s Gospel reflects the witness the centurion gave of his faith to Christ (8:5-13), this model can serve us well because it’s anchored on a submission to the will of the Son of God.

When we engage an audience, our experience should direct the student to engage in truth anchored in the saving realities of a Divine Deposit of faith. This unique Deposit of Faith becomes an animator for more truth. Rooted in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture we reflect on the heritage of the Church handed down by Christ to the Apostles (see: Mt 16:16-19; Acts 2:39-42). Our experience must not be used to profess a personal platform away from these saving realities e.g. the sacraments, the Ten Commandments etc. Our instruction must always put people into a communion and intimacy with Jesus Christ (Catechesis In Our Time, 5).

Experience can be negative if it deviates from revealed truth, in the worst case, deviating from Christ. The art of personal experience is a form of preparation or calculated disengagement leading the student to desire more of the “story.” This “story,” centered in Jesus Christ, leads to genuine instruction and proper faith formation.

The potential danger in purely experiential catechesis is the student will merely dwell on the experience of the teacher without anchoring into a firm foundation of how this relates to Christ and His Church. All experience must direct itself to the revelation of Jesus Christ. In other words, experience is fine if one, it is truly authentic and two, it leads the person to holiness. This is the catch. Experience should leave the person desiring to see more truth. In essence, what we have in experience is a subplot of inquiry to lead the person to the deeper mysteries of Christ and His Church.  What are some practical steps to utilize our experiences in a healthy way?

The Art of Experience

Sound experience should be clear concise and lead others to a desire for truth. (Rom 3:4)

• Sound experience should not be driven by a personal agenda.

• Sound experience should highlight the continual plan God has for us in our lives (2 Pet 1:3-4).

• Sound experience is witnessing your relationship with Christ as a child of   God.

• Sound experience is rooted in the truth, beauty and goodness of the Catholic faith at work.

• Sound experience reflects the living witness of the Gospel.

• Sound experience is a carefully crafted catechetical preparation where the teacher leads the student into a journey of faith centered on Jesus Christ.

• The parables offer an example of using experience in a sound manner.

From these practical steps, our aim is to lead the person to the mysteries of Christ. This journey will inevitably lead us to the source and summit of the Christian life. When we speak of the Holy Eucharist as the source and summit, a proper understanding of why the Word became flesh (Incarnation) is in order. Our experiences ultimately reside understanding this doctrine in light of our witness. Experience is fruitless without this understanding.

Motives of Credibility

The Catechism provides a beautiful four-pillar explanation on why the Word became flesh (457-460):

• to save us by reconciling us with God (1 Jn 4:10)
• so that thus we might know God’s Love (1 Jn 4:9)
• to be our model of holiness (Jn 14:6)
• to make us partakers of the Divine nature (2 Pt 1:4).

Our experience should not direct us apart from Christ. On the contrary, it should lead the person to desire more of Him through our personal witness of faith rooted in Him.  If we look at the four reasons, i.e. pillars for the Incarnation stated above, we see a common theme; Christ loved us so much that he endured the ultimate sacrifice for our salvation.

When teaching others, a fundamental all must adhere to is that our teaching is not our own. It is Christ. We have received a gift to hand on to others. This gift includes our experiences in the faith and is of which something my Confirmation teacher should have taken note.  Our teaching directs us to the essentials. The essentials are the revealed truths of the faith that offer “motives of credibility” in our assent to the faith (CCC 156).

Should you share your personal experiences as part of teaching? Wholeheartedly, yes! But only if doing so will encourage your students along the path to holiness and  a deep relationship with Christ nourished by the Eucharist.

“I guess some parents got upset when they heard there was a live, nude model in the art class today,” she smiled and rolled her eyes.  It was clear that this teacher’s sympathies were not with the concerned parents.  Mark and I exchanged glances.  In that silent moment, we spoke volumes to each other: “What?  A nude model!  Are these people insane?!” After home schooling Aaron for 7-9th grade, we were deeply grateful that he was not taking art.

Two years later, our son, Luke started high school.  This time, it was at St. Mary’s Central High School.  Luke had kept some of his friends from the Catholic grade school he had attended from grades 1-3 before we began home schooling. He desperately wanted to go to school with these friends. Although initially we thought we could not afford it, we discovered that the school provided some help and ways for kids to help work towards the tuition.  So, tightening our budget, we enrolled him at St. Mary’s.

During our first parent-teacher conference there, Mark picked up a copy of the school newspaper.  On the back was a parody of zodiac signs and horoscopes.  Granted, it was in jest and many Christians are unaware that horoscopes fall under the occult.  However, we hoped that the Catholic school would not even loosely endorse horoscopes.  Mark held the paper out to one of the teachers, Mr. S., and explained his concern.  The teacher nodded his head wholeheartedly.  “You are right,” he said. “I was just talking about that with Mrs. D. and she agreed with me that we should not have stuff like that in the paper.” To my knowledge, they never did again.

The Catholic Difference

Welcome to the difference. Yes, there are some great teachers at both Catholic and public schools. There are also bad teachers at both.  But at least in our world, we are getting our money’s worth by paying for a Catholic education. We will be sending a seventh child there this fall.  Our kids are learning their faith and integrating it into their day, having it reinforced through small faith and fun clubs such as Little Flowers and Knights of Virtue, weekly school Masses, a dress code (a nude model would not meet it) and a whole Catholic world that supports what we are trying to teach our children.  Oh, did I mention the chapel with the Blessed Sacrament?  During Lent, kids sign up for adoration.  Then, there was the day of fasting the kids chose to participate in to sacrifice for the victims of Haiti.

Can you tell I’m excited about Catholic education?  I’m not blind, however.  Drinking, drugs and pregnancies do occur among the Catholic school kids.  But look a little deeper.   A pregnancy means there was not an abortion.  Also, teachers and the priest on staff are quick to get personally involved on a spiritual level in the lives of these kids beyond school.  And when there is a serious illness or death, the whole school comes together to pray.

Some Things Have Changed

When I attended Catholic school in Dearborn, MI, the standards in academic performance, dress and behavior were much stricter than today. I wore a uniform all twelve years and half the teachers were nuns in full habits. Knuckles were sometimes cracked with rulers for sloppy writing in grade school and nuns kept close watch on hemlines on skirts and the length of boys’ hair. Still we had fun; maybe even more fun at times than students in a less restrictive environment.

In the library in high school one morning, I looked up from my book and saw a fellow classmate climbing in through a window.  The elderly nun/librarian did not notice him quickly pulling a book off a shelf and sliding into a chair across from me.  “Brian, why do you even go here?” I whispered to this student, a public school transfer who was forever trying to get away with things.   “I bet you were much happier at the public school?”

“No,” he answered, looking surprised.  “It was too easy to get away with things there.  Here, it’s a challenge.”  Brian, in his own special way, understood the value of a Catholic school education. You did not get lost in the cracks and the faculty kept a close eye on you–although Brian certainly challenged their vigilance such as the day he used a Bunsen burner in chemistry class to imitate fire breathing. He did make things interesting.

Much has changed since then. In 1960, our country elected a Catholic, John F. Kennedy, as president. It was during this era that the number of Catholic schools reached their high-water mark.   In 1965, 13,300 Catholic schools in this country enrolled 10 percent of all students and half of all Catholic students. But as time passed, Catholics melded more seamlessly into Americana.   They started thinking there were better places to spend their money than on Catholic education. Even though the Catholic population almost doubled from 1965 to 1995, the number of Catholic schools in the U.S. had fallen to 8,220 (a loss of 5,080) with a total enrollment of 2.6 million students.  But, the value of a Catholic education still holds to this day.

Some Things Never Change

In 2004 President George W. Bush spoke to Catholic Educators in Washington D.C. for the centennial celebration of the National Catholic Education Association.  He described Catholic education as a “noble calling” and praised our schools as “models for all schools around the country.”  He stated, “Catholic schools have a proven record of bringing out the best in every child, regardless of their background. And every school in America should live up to that standard.”

The United States Department of Education reported that Catholic School students are consistently high in reading, math, and science skills, and are especially effective in educating minority and low-income students.  Ninety-nine percent of Catholic secondary school students graduate, and 97% go on to post-secondary education.

During this past Catholic Schools Week, Bishop Paul Zipfel spoke of the value of a Catholic education during a Mass at our high school.  He explained that it is about so much more than just academic records.  “Research also shows that graduates of Catholic schools are more closely bonded to the Church, more deeply committed to adult religious practices, have better images of God, and exhibit a greater awareness of the responsibilities for moral decision making,” he stated.  “Although it never replaces the primary education that must take place in the home, it is one of the best investments we can make in the future faith of our children.”

Recently, Pope Benedict XVI speaking in Scotland to that country’s eleven Catholic bishops, endorsed the value of a Catholic education and urged them to protect it. “You can be proud of the contribution made by Scotland’s Catholic schools in overcoming sectarianism and building good relations between communities,” he said. “Faith schools are a powerful force for social cohesion, and when the occasion arises, you do well to underline this point.”

The Pope encouraged Catholic teachers to place special emphasis on religious education in order to produce “articulate and well-informed” followers capable of taking part in the highest levels of public life.  He stressed the importance of a strong Catholic presence in the media and politics, the judiciary, the professions and the universities, “…as people of faith bear witness to the truth, especially when that truth is called into question,” he said.

The Question of Value

I admit, Catholic education has not been easy for us financially. But, the question has been one of value–is there something more important we can spend our money on?  At the same time, we’ve been home schooling during grade school and junior high for the last fifteen years.  I admit it would have been very difficult to pay for Catholic school for ten kids for all twelve years.

Ironically, this article began with the idea of Catholic home schooling being a treasure that many traditional Catholic schools overlook when it comes to building bridges through extracurricular activities or part-time enrollment at the upper levels.  It’s too late in this article to introduce such a big thought, however.  Perhaps another time.

In the meantime, I hope every Catholic reading this article seriously contemplates the Catholic education they are providing for their children whether through Catholic school, home school or providing it at home in addition to a public school education.  As a CCD teacher for nine years, (on and off), I know first hand that the eight-month, once a week class (minus many days off for various reasons) is not nearly enough to provide solid religious training for our children.  And regardless of the type of schooling you provide for your children, it is your God-given responsibility to integrate them into their Catholic faith through teaching and example.

I know that nothing is perfect and we Catholic school graduates all have our “stories” to tell of things that we got away with and shouldn’t have or things that should not have happened but did. It’s not a perfect world but we must look for the school that best reinforces our values.  Hands down, for us, that would be St. Mary’s Central High School.

No doubt there are many good reasons why children from some Catholic families are not attending a Catholic school (whether private or home schooled).  However, no doubt, there are also many bad reasons why Catholic kids are not in Catholic schools.  It’s not about isolation or elitism, it’s about the beauty and fullness of our Catholic faith and not skimping on our children in the most important areas of their lives.

By the time my third son was in need of his first haircut, I let my mom have at it and, as it turned out, time did not improve her hair-cutting skills.  My youngest son ended up with the same bangs that I had worn some 30 years earlier — a wavy line of hair jutting out all over the place somewhere between eyebrows and the hairline.

Things really do change from the first born to the second and then to the third.  And as that is all the children we were blessed with, I can go no further with my experience but my assumptions would be that by the fifth or sixth child, he or she may very well be performing his or her own first haircut.

Now, my oldest is graduating from college, the second is mid-way through his college career, and my youngest has almost completed high school. All the years in between those first haircuts and this point in time have truly gone by in the blink of an eye.

I can’t say, for sure, what each of my son’s take on things has been; but, for me it has been an incredible journey.  And I’ll admit that I look back and find great relief that my oldest, in particular, has been so forgiving towards me in all the ways I tried to shape and mold him into what I thought was right — and certainly in keeping with my post-feminist upbringing which included the need to neutralize any distinctions between the sexes along with my politically-correct interest in taming all things that could even appear to have a glimmer of “inappropriateness” attached to them.

I remember once when my mother was reading a book to my oldest son.  I can’t quite recall the book but in retrospect I am positive it was as bland as everything else I allowed into his life.  She came to some point in the story where, when my husband and I read it, we had always chosen to replace some word or phrase with more “proper” words, but not knowing better, grandma read the actual words.  Well, when he heard her reading it verbatim, he was on the floor laughing, “Grandma! It does not say that!” So much for our attempt at politically-correct censorship.

No matter how hard I tried, though, he was still a “boy.”  And that means something. They all were, actually, very much “boys.”  For instance, they simply weren’t able to pass each other in the hall without a push and a shove for good luck.  Try as I might to dissuade them, they were just so “physical” all the time! I once received a note from a teacher who, in all seriousness, felt it was imperative to tell me that my son, while playing “Duck-Duck-Goose” became so mischievous that he tapped two children instead of one!  I can only imagine the pandemonium that ensued and my son received from me the sternest of warning against such wild classroom antics! At the time I was duly mortified that I would have birthed the child who wreaked havoc with “Duck-Duck-Goose” rules.

Of course, despite such notes and other miscellaneous offenses along the way, my boys were, in fact, quite good kids — in the grand scheme of things. Sure there were times that I was forced to walk away from parent-teacher conferences with a piece of paper held in front of my face in hopes of obscuring my identity as I made a beeline towards the door; but, all in all they were really fine young boys on their way growing into fine young men.

It’s just that I didn’t have brothers and couldn’t figure out why these boys of mine wouldn’t sit down and play quietly with one another or do their puzzles in an orderly fashion.  I could fondly recall how my sisters and I would play school for hours on end. Not a peep out of us as we wrote on the chalkboard and assigned one another “homework.”

The closest my boys came to that sort of quiet, structured, group play was when they were building Legos; but, for the most part, even that time was spent constructing weapons or creating scenarios in which caves, hideouts and counter-attack strategies were necessary.  This, after having been exposed to the dullest of television choices — which were extremely time-limited anyhow — and don’t forget censorship galore on all books!

One dinner, when the boys were around 2, 4, and 6 I remember one of them eating a piece of bread into the shape of a gun and being completely convinced that I had failed as a mother.  “How,” I moaned to my husband, “could they even know about such things?!”

Boys will be boys.

Now that’s a phrase I’m none too fond of but there is some truth to the fact that, well, boys will be boys.  However, if we understand it not as an excuse for bad behavior but, rather, being a plausible testament to some basic genetic truths, we are able to more sufficiently appreciate how God created male and female and the path on which each will proceed towards developing virtuous behaviors and moral choices.  Denying the genetic and natural differences between male and female will not make them go away.

And as a mother of all boys — and never having had any brothers — I have grown to love the way in which God has made male and female.  Raising boys has given me a new appreciation of my husband and how, if we are called to the vocation of marriage, we grow in beautiful ways when we embrace the unique gifts and talents and personalities of male and female.

I am fully convinced that God knew what he was doing when, in His immense wisdom, He gave me all sons.  I have learned so much about our Creator through my life as a mother of boys.  So many of the ill-conceived notions about gender-neutrality, which was part and parcel of my life as a teenager in the post-radical-feminist-movement that pervaded the 70s, have been washed away in the Truth about male and female, their inherent differences, their shared dignity, their beauty as having been created, equally but diverse, in His image, His likeness.

As my own sons grow into men, I am grateful for the gifts they have received from their Creator and feel blessed that I discovered, sooner rather than later, how important their unique “maleness” is and how it has been a gift to participate in helping them grow into all that God has called them to be as they venture out into the world as men.

That maxim has been attributed to several people, most notably Solomon, son of King David, from whose dynasty Christ the Lord entered humanity.  The man who repeated the saying to me was an old spiritual director, after I’d gone to him seeking ways to overcome what a Kempis called “the wretched slavery of sin.”   Now I’m feeling the need to look him up again.

Easter is only a month away and I wonder whether I’m going to make it.  Two weeks into Lent and it seems I’ve given up, that my efforts for holiness have been vanquished.  I hardly put up a fight.  Now more than ever I know that there was a devil and that he wants me to quit.

My natural inclination — fight or flight — led me here.  I came to this monastery in the Berkshire Mountain Region in Western Massachusetts for renewal and recovery.  The seminary is on break and I could have gone to Florida or visited a classmate in Washington, D.C., but I wanted to regain momentum lost since Ash Wednesday.  The idea was to prepare for Easter through more prayer and fasting and to become as pure as snow.

Simple, but not easy.  There is more than snow drifted against my door.  God the Father himself said: “Sin is a demon lurking at your door; his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master” (Genesis 4:7).   Maybe that’s what my spiritual director meant.  Satan is here.  I can hear him clawing away.  Nope, false alarm.  That’s just Trooper, the monastery’s Labrador retriever, nosing around because he smells my bacon frying.

I could not have picked a more bucolic site, and the sport utility dog clinches it.  From this mountain I can see the foothills chock full of Americana that artist Normal Rockwell once committed to the covers of The Saturday Evening Post.  Nearby is Mount Greylock, the state’s highest peak, the humpback arching over the horizon that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick.  Maybe I can write my masterpiece up here as well.  Funny, that’s what I planned to do last year.

Nothing comes to mind.  Instead of poetry, an ironic saying leaps into my head: “No matter where you go, there you are.”  Meaning: geographical cures cannot outrun the devil within.  A year ago I visited an abbey in Connecticut.  I drove from Boston through a blizzard for the same reason I’m in the Berkshires: a spiritual drying out, a renewal to lift my spirits during Lent.  For that is my purpose in Lent: to gain a clearer vision of Christ on the cross and to witness the empty sepulcher at Easter.

When I arrived at the abbey I told the abbess of my plans: prayer, fasting, and silence.  I was not to be disturbed.  “Oh, no,” she said.  “We’re an active contemplative order.  Didn’t you read our motto by the entrance?

“Ora et labora?”

“That’s right — pray and work.”

I sighed.  So much for my silent retreat.  I spent the rest of the week shoveling snow and stacking firewood.  The nuns kept me so busy that I forgot why I’d come to the abbey, which was a good thing.  Forced hard labor — “Whoever does not work should not eat” — proved a delightful distraction.  Perhaps I should try that more often.  Instead, this year, I came to a cloister — but the forty-day desert blues have deepened.

When I got off retreat, I went to see my spiritual director, a religious priest from the sixties.

“O, Father,” I cried.  “I can’t stop sinning.  What am I going to do?”

“The easiest way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it,” he said.

Somehow I don’t think that was what the writer of Genesis had in mind.

One of the difficulties of Lent, I think, is the fear that I can’t win.  The Church says that self-mastery is possible, that, with the help of God’s grace we can defeat the devil if we fight hard enough.  I don’t doubt what Mother Church says, but I do underestimate my ability.  Memory and imagination are the devil’s favorite weapons, and I spend too much time dwelling in the surreality of defeat.  Saint Peter once wrote: “Stay sober and alert.  Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, solid in your faith” (1 Peter 5:8).   Live in the solution, not the problem.

Few stories in the Old Testament excite me as does the story of David and Goliath.  The young shepherd David defeats the giant Philistine using a slingshot and a stone.  It is the classic story of good defeating evil, of mercy triumphing over judgment.  By conquering Goliath, David fulfils God’s will for him and his potential.

The story is set at a critical moment in Israel’s history.  The Philistine army is encamped against God’s people, led by a giant warrior in full armor, mocking the Jews, egging them on to battle.  Not even King Saul, the largest man in Israel, will fight Goliath.  Then David, a “mere youth,” volunteers.  The same Lord who delivered him from the claws and jaws of marauding bears and lions will save him from the Philistine.  When Saul offers David his armor, David refuses.  Too clumsy, he says, and I don’t know how to maneuver.  He goes with what he has: a shepherd’s staff, a slingshot, and five stones from the river.

David put his hand into the bag and took out a stone, hurled it with the sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead.  Thus David overcame the Philistine with a sling and a stone; he struck the Philistine mortally, and did it without a sword. (1 Samuel 17:49-50)

David had confidence in the Lord and he did battle against Goliath with what little he had because he believed that God was with him.  His words to the giant are convincing and powerful: “You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Hosts. … Today the Lord shall deliver you into my hands; I will strike you down” (1 Samuel 17: 45a, 46a).

Lent is a means to an end.  It is a proving ground to condition ourselves against greater spiritual perils. The battle against temptation never stops.  The sins we fight during Lent won’t vanish by Holy Thursday.   If anything, Satan is plotting to go nuclear.  He isn’t afraid of blue skies, warm breezes, and palm trees, nor does he fear any mountain.

David chose not to wear the king’s armor because it felt cumbersome and unfamiliar.  Instead he stuck with what he knew would work and trusted the Lord would provide whatever he lacked.  David’s victory over Goliath allowed him to fulfill God’s purpose for his life and prepare for the Messiah.  God called David a man after his own heart, and no one knows our hearts like the Lord.

The Bible’s stories are populated with characters who sinned and were forgiven.  God showed mercy on Cain even when Cain rejected forgiveness and spurned God’s advice.  David was chosen by God to govern Israel but he did not lead a charmed life.  He enjoyed the trappings of wealth, fame, and power, but when he sinned he humbly appealed to God who forgave him.  (See 2 Samuel 11—12; Psalm 51).  From a biblical perspective these characters seem larger than life but like us they are human beings created in the image of God.   We must follow their examples. By overcoming temptation, we can awaken the giant within ourselves and defeat our Goliath.

Citing “You shall not commit adultery” in our culture is Bad Form among the wine and cheese crowd, like farting in church—if such clever and cultivated people went to church. Vast swaths of our culture rush to reply to such embarrassing displays of crude moralism with scarcely a movement of the grey matter. “Judge not!” they shout from the commanding heights of culture and media. This most popular of biblical verses, trotted out to excuse every sin under the sun, has double the impact on Christians who oppose our culture of serial polygamy since it was, after all, an adulterous woman our Lord defended from the mob in John 8.

Result: huge numbers of biblically illiterate people repeat the only verse they know while the biblically literate feel guilty, think of John 8, and have no clue what to do about adultery. Any contemporary suggestion that adultery is, you know, evil and a grave sin is seen by both believers and secularists alike as reprehensibly Pharisaic and we all act as though the only real sin is the pruney frown of disapproval leveled at a heart that, in words of Woody Allen, “wants what it wants.”

In all this we pride ourselves on having, ‘ow you say? “grown.” In reality, it is but further testimony to the fact that ours is, hands down, the most sexually deranged culture in the history of the world. Rome, in its final stages of decadence, nonetheless confined the decadence to its upper classes. We have achieved the unprecedented marvel of making sexual depravity a broadly middle class phenomenon.

Such feats are not achieved in a day. They take long periods of conditioning and progressive steps of “pushing the envelope”. Back in the 30s and 40s, the Manufacturers of Culture loved making movies about “gay divorcees”. As a general rule, the divorced couple would get back together at the end of the movie. But the idea was still instilled in a broad audience of would-be sophisticates that divorce was rather a cheery thing than otherwise, undertaken by witty adult individuals like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn who bantered cleverly and understood that the breakup of a marriage was mostly an occasion for brilliantly scripted repartee.

As time went on and the culture of divorce began to permeate the membrane of the movie screen and work its way out into pop culture, we saw an increasingly warm acceptance of philandering and Seven Year Itch thinking until, in the disastrous decade of the 70s, we put a bullet to the family by approving the catastrophe of No Fault Divorce. Now every ninny who watched a movie of the week about somebody Doing What I Need to Do for Me could abandon his or her family and go hive off to some new trophy wife or boy toy in their unending quest for personal fulfillment. And this warm and winking approval of adultery (coupled with occasional chin-pulling about statistics on the breakdown of the family) continues to this day. Whole businesses are devoted to helping facilitate adulterous “flings” as they are called. And the press coverage of such enterprises is of the puff piece variety, full of the frisson of “Ooh! How controversial and naughty!” All this has been assisted, of course, by the advent of the Pill, the tendency of the media to trot out the word “taboo” every time some fresh depravity is being contemplated by the Envelope Pushers, and our own addiction to the sins of the flesh. After all, how can you condemn the next perversion without risking the possibility that somebody will condemn you for embracing the last one?

Now it is certainly the case that there are invalid “marriages” which are entered into by people who had no business attempting marriage. Our culture has, among other things, distinguished itself from all previous human societies by inventing the concept of the teenager: a useful marketing demographic by which the servile consumer state has managed to create about two and a half generations of people who are encouraged to embrace all that is worst about both childhood and adulthood and prolong themselves in this state for as long as possible. Imbued with a sense of childish irresponsibility for far too long and a sense of adult rights to sexual thrills far too early, the Boomers of Generation Narcissus (for whom the man-child Bill Clinton really stands as a sort of eternal emblem) managed to inculcate in themselves and their children a fatal formula for irresponsibility that has had disastrous consequences for the family such as a 50% divorce rate). So I have little trouble understanding a major spike in invalid marriages and annulments given such radical immaturity.

But the fact remains that there is real adultery taking place as well: that is, real betrayal of real vows made by people who knew what they were doing on their wedding day. And that whole trail of tears begins in the heart with real sinful choices. The moment we commit ourselves to the proposition that real happiness can only be found through selfishness and betrayal is the moment that all bets are off for any sane sexual ethic. The gospel of Judas is the enemy of the gospel of Christ.

Indeed, the Sexual Revolution of the ’60s and ’70s was a tremendous boon for traitors and Judases. Adultery was euphemized with perky, upbeat words like “affair” and “fling” while the Manufacturers of Culture tended to downplay the whole “stab in the back/knife to the heart/shredding children’s lives” aspect of it. But as Pope John Paul II pointed out, we speak with our bodies as well as our tongues. The highest pledge of fidelity and love we can make to another person is the sexual act. When we make that pledge we speak, with our bodies, a promise of total self-giving to the other. When we break that pledge by adultery we commit one of the greatest betrayals a human being can commit against another. It is a lacerating act of cruelty aimed at the heart of the family, at children, and at all human trust, with repercussions that are felt for generations and which send out waves across all layers of society.

That is why Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery. You don’t forgive people who are not guilty, you excuse them. The woman taken in adultery was guilty as sin, taken in the very act. She was hauled out of the sack and brought before Jesus, covered in the shame of what she had done and when she looked Jesus in the eye (if she could bear to), she had enough sense not to say, “The heart wants what it wants”, nor to chirp “Life is short. Have an affair” nor to burble “Don’t judge”. Instead, she felt the reproaches heaped upon her, insincere as the mob was. She knew that, however much she was being used as a pawn in a game to destroy Jesus, nonetheless somewhere there was a heartbroken wife or her own cuckolded husband. She knew the betrayal she’d committed against her family.

Jesus knew it too: and forgave her. When he spoke to her he did not say, “Yours was a beautiful love misunderstood by harsh and judgmental prigs.” He said, “Go and sin no more.”

Adultery, like all other sins, can be and is forgiven by Christ every day. The deep bleeding wounds and scars it leaves behind can be healed by the power of Christ’s mercy. But mercy is for sinners. And adultery remains what it has always been, a grave and cruel betrayal. If we do not see this—if we fill our minds with rubbish about how the children will be “resilient” and the new girlfriend or boy toy will help us self-actualize better, we will not receive the mercy because we will not admit that we need it. A sense of shame for the sin of adultery is the necessary pre-requisite for the forgiveness of the sin. Let us pray we recover that sense of shame so that we may know the grace, not just of forgiveness, but of never sinning so as to need it. Generations yet unborn with thank us for it.

A popular Lenten email comic strip portrays an average “Joe” carrying a cross in the midst of a crowd of others similarly engaged.  Exhausted, the man begs permission to decrease the weight of his cross. It’s too heavy to bear.  Heaven is silent. He does it anyway.  Once he figures out he can, he stops and shortens his cross several times.  He is whistling as he walks while the rest of the crowd struggles, red faced, sweating and irritated at the unfairness of the situation, which is remedied when they arrive at a gaping crevasse.  Their long crosses bridge the gap and they abandon the fool whose cross is too short to pass over. He is alone. The final heading exclaims “Stop complaining about your cross.”

A friend of mine is right now trying hard to cut short his cross.  It’s not working.  He’s mad, shaking his fist at the heavens.  “God can take it,” he says.  He’s right.  The Psalms are filled with similar wails.  His is the cry of a man in need of a Savior. His world is genuinely filled with pain, heartache and sorrow.  All I can say is, “Yes. Cry out to God with all your heart.  Cry out with all your being to the God Who saves.”  As our High Priest, Jesus sacrificed Himself in atonement for our sins so the gates of heaven might be opened to us. As Prophet, Jesus embodied the Good News that the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.  As King, He lives and reigns forever in that heavenly realm into which we are all invited.  And through our Lenten sacrifices, He beckons to each of us to follow His way.  So in imitation of Him, it is for others that we suffer, just as Jesus suffered not for Himself but for us.  In doing so, we learn “to offer it up”.

Priest, Prophet, King

Reiterating early church teaching, in Lumen Gentium, the Fathers of Vatican II called on the people of God to share in the threefold mission of Christ as priest, prophet and king. At times summarized, “sanctify, teach and govern,” the meaning remains mysterious to many lay faithful.  St. Paul calls all believers to be imitators of Christ, Who began all outward manifestations of ministry in the privacy of prayer to the Father.  At our baptisms Christ sent His Holy Spirit so that we could do as he did.  Beginning in prayer through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit to the Father, each of the three ministries (priest, prophet, king) plays a significant, though related role.  Priests bring the needs of the people, the need for atonement, to God the Father through sacrifice.  Prophets bring the truths of God the Father to the people through prayer and teaching, sometimes even vicariously living out their messages.  Kings offer a safe kingdom, serving the good of their subjects above their own, where the people living in freedom and prosperity can offer songs of praise to God.

By our baptisms in Christ we are commissioned as priest, prophet and king in His threefold ministry.  So let us offer sacrifices for our friends through our priestly role.  Let us intercede in prayer as the prophets of Israel did and let us prayerfully draw them to safety within the walls of the Kingdom as any good king would do. And let us do it all by meditating on the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, as we unite our friend’s suffering through us with Christ.

“Oh God, whose only begotten Son, by His life, death and resurrection has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, grant we beseech thee that while meditating on these mysteries of the most holy rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary that we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.” Perhaps this prayer is better prayed at the top of the rosary, keeping us mindful of our purpose from the start. We pray asking for grace to imitate Christ’s life and to obtain His resurrection for ourselves and for those for whom we intercede.  Every Hail Mary offers the opportunity to put into practice our threefold ministry.  I offer this, my meditation for my friend as an example of this expression of our Christian love for one another.

The Sorrowful Mysteries

I see my friend in his Garden of Agony when his wife gives birth to their little girl. The child is dead, which in itself is enough, but dread deepens with the doctor’s concern that something in the mother triggered the miscarriage.  The agony of waiting…”Please Father, let this cup pass me by.”  I see him in my mind’s eye; his body bent, head bowed, hands gripped in pleading prayer.  His cross is not averted, not cut short. Cancer is her diagnosis.

He is angry. Yet there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus, who knows we are all weak and fallen.  In the midst of our pain, our confusion, our isolation we know we should pray.  But prayer is often the last thing we can do. So at the same time our loved ones suffer, Christ calls out to us to live the dignity of our baptisms and allows us to participate in His divine work of redemption through intercessory prayer. Think about that…allows us to participate in divine work!  Crying out, begging the Lord to help,which He does, in love and mercy, but also in His timing. My friend, a good Catholic, a theologian even, knows this.   Still, even he must wait for his emotions to catch up with his knowing.

The Scourging at the Pillar.  Her body is not her own.  Poked, prodded, and exposed she knows no privacy.  Bound to her as one flesh, he suffers her humiliation and pain. I pray for them both as if they are one.

Consider Mary and the women who followed the first way of the cross.  Mary, first true disciple, model follower of Christ, leads the way. Watching her own Son’s torture and murder, she never turned from His pain.  She bore it courageously, even ran toward it, all for love of Him, a mother’s love that spills over into her love for all God’s children.  She teaches us, by her motherly example, how to do the same for those we love.

Kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, I glance away to see through stained glass windows that Spring is finally coming.  Winter was very long, but now the light filtering through the colored glass is bright and high.  It will be warm outside when I leave.  Easily my mind wanders to thoughts of planting flowers and other delightful outdoor tasks.  Mother Mary calls me back. On my return to prayer it occurs to me that I am, by the grace of God, fulfilling my baptismal role as priest.  My prayer is a sacrifice, however small, offered for the life of another.  I wonder what other sacrifices I might make when I leave this holy place.  Less food, less wine come to mind immediately.  Not great sacrifices, especially when I consider my priests who give up wives and children for love of Holy Church. They humble me, but I must not go beyond the graces of my station. I am a wife and mother, not an ordained priest.  I trust that God, Who has no need of any offerings including those offered by priests of the Old Testament, will accept my simple sacrifices because they come from my heart and because it is He Who called me to a priestly role as a lay person.

The Crowning of Thorns.  Mental anguish consumes her.  Restless on a bed for five weeks, she yearns for focus and purpose to her day.  A brilliant mind, but now her brain is muddled; the thorns dig deep.  Medications impede her thought processes. She can’t think, can’t read, can’t concentrate. When thoughts do coalesce and bring clarity to mind, her motherly nature urges her homeward to ready the room for her new baby.  Yes!  She must focus! She must get well for the baby.  The enemy twists the crown, pressing the thorns into her skull, piercing, it would seem, even to the bone.  Pain from her head wracks her whole body causing a wail from the depths of her soul—my baby is dead.  Terrible memories flood her mind.  Memories of a perfect, lifeless body held in her husband’s palm; memories of retching interior emptiness.

A peculiar characteristic of the prophet is the vicarious nature of their ministry. The prophet Hosea married a Harlot and gave his children horrible names according to God’s will. As prophet he vicariously lived out the relationship of the adulteress Israel with her one true God.  Jeremiah lived among the people in exile, taking no wife, attending no funerals, etc. to exemplify the estranged relationship of God and His people.  My head hurts.  Weeping and sadness caused it.  But my headache compares to my friend’s pain the same as Hosea’s personal struggles compare to Israel’s epic struggle.  How strange…me, a prophet?  But God’s ways are strange and marvelous indeed. See how natural tears of empathic love for a friend become an invitation from God to join in His work?  Grace builds upon nature to prepare prophets for the Lord.

The Carrying of the Cross.  Days of trudging through physical and emotional pain continue, step by step.  Still hospitalized, still isolated from her husband and sweet children, she endures the suffering.  There are instances of relief—kindnesses from nurses and doctors; the bright and cheery voices of her son and daughter over the phone; perhaps even moments when she senses her cross is carried by the prayers of others, modern day Simons.  Mostly, her days are painful, slow movements ascending a bleak hill.

Jesus calls us to be imitators of Him.  While we understand explicitly and implicitly this means there will be a cross to bear, let’s not lose sight of the entirety of His life. He showed us what it means to Live. Faith in the resurrection and ascension bolsters my prayers with fullness of Hope for my friends, both in this life and the next. So I pray in faith, hope and love. In love, I lament with their sorrow.  In Hope I offer thanksgiving for their rescue from distress.  And in Faith, I praise God for the good work He is doing for them, even though it makes as much earthly sense as Christ’s own crucifixion.  In performing this service, I fulfill my kingly role, as did King David when he wrote the psalms leading his kingdom into heavenly worship through liturgical prayer.

The Crucifixion.  Bodily death will overtake us all.  She knows this.  He does too. But her final death will not be today.  Still there are many smaller deaths.  For one, her thick hair is gone.  Seemingly insignificant, it is not.  A woman’s hair is her crown, her beauty, her femininity, her shield.  Looking in the mirror, she hardly recognizes herself.  Greater still, as the chemo medications decrease, is the unfolding reality of the death of her baby girl.  Included is the death of the possibility of future children.  So many dreams for such a young family, crushed.

Remembering the comic strip, I recall the man who cuts short his cross surrounded by other Christians who leave him alone on the other side of the gorge. Reform the image in your mind. Rather than individuals passing over on their own crosses, imagine one Cross and saints running back and forth to aide the sick, lest in their fever they fall into the crevasse. As the Father’s adopted children commissioned in the divine ministries of priest, prophet and king, we are called to be those runners.

Imitating our older Brother and our Head, we begin all our work in prayer through the Holy Spirit to the Father. The Holy Spirit guides our sacramental imaginations and teaches us how to follow Mary’s example of sharing in the suffering of others as if they were each her own Son.  Joining our Lenten sacrifices in this way to His Cross, we participate with Christ in the redemption of those poor souls who desperately need their crosses shortened.   And we answer both of our questions positively.  Yes, we are mad; mad with love for God and his children. And yes, even though seemingly insignificant, our sacrifices united with Christ’s, change the world.