The Practical Side
Overt patriotism has always been vaguely uncomfortable to me. Yesterday, for the first time, I understood it. If I were young enough, I would enlist. I realized how much I love this place, my people, my family, trips to the waterfront, walks in the park, ball games, reading Treasure Island to the children at bedtime: the whole dear dear ordinariness of it all. I felt a love for my people, my American kin, that I had no idea was there till this awful thing happened and it became real to think that anybody I know could be next and everybody I know is threatened by genuinely evil men.
There are so many different things competing in our brains as American Catholics try to make sense of this horror. From a purely nuts and bolts practical perspective (particularly easy for Americans to turn to) the questions that assert themselves in such moments are obvious. Who did it? How did they do it? How do we find them and kill them (for that is what war means)? How do we make sure it never happens again? How do we make sure that there is no other shoe waiting to drop?
From a purely practical perspective, this is War. That's it. End of story. The terror organizations and the countries that harbor and empower them are to be destroyed until there is unconditional surrender and the people we want running these countries are running them. That's what this means. Surgical bombing and other half-measures will not suffice. It will mean bloody conflict and ground troops and battle and the destruction of the infrastructure that made this possible. It will mean a coalition much like the Gulf War, but with final permanent victory and all the pus drained from the boil. There is a time for peace and a time for war. This is the time for war.
That's the practical side of me.
Time to Offer Ourselves
The biblical side of me sees something very different. Not opposed, but different. Just as we must re-arm technologically, we must re-arm spiritually. There is a haunting quality to the words of Revelation:
Fallen! Fallen! is Babylon the Great! For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!
It is awful, at such an hour, to think such a thing. As awful as Jeremiah must have felt telling Jerusalem that their sins had brought captivity upon them. Especially when, as is always the case, the victims of this nightmare were people just like you or me. Nay, people vastly better than me, when I think of the heroes who brought down the Pennsylvania plane, or the giants who courageously tried to save people even as the building came down on them. Jesus warns sternly not to think that people who had a tower collapse on them are somehow specially guilty of something. This is just common sense.
And yet, something of the terrified child's voice within persists in seeing something of a terrible judgement breaking on us. We are reminded, in myriad ways, of all the warnings we've heard for a very long time to the effect that our country has been inviting God's wrath, etc. Fear is strong.
I think of Job–and his “comforters”–and worry if, in wondering the above, I seem to throw in my lot with them and not him. I am reminded that when Jesus spoke of judgement he identified it, not with fiery wrath for the innocent, but with his own Cross:
Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. – John 12:31-32
I think of Moses. When the wrath of God broke out against Israel in its gross sin, Moses did not stand there saying, “You asked for it! And now you are getting it.” He interceded for Israel, offering himself, if possible, in their place. It was, if I may say, a profoundly Christlike thing to do. But not being Christ, he could not do it. Nonetheless, God heard him and relented.
It is, I think, for us to do the same: to intercede and offer ourselves as living sacrifices.
I see the continuity between Old and New Testaments here. The innocent suffer for (and by) the sins of the guilty. This attack was not a “judgement” on us (though I sometimes wonder if it may not end in a “judgment” on terrorists). When the innocent suffer, they take their place rather with Christ the Crucified Judge and join their sufferings with his. His Cross is the judgment on the world and on the “ruler of this world”: Satan. The people in the World Trade Center and all those innocent who suffer with them are in very truth joined with the Offering of the Lamb of God.
That is frightening to me. It is why we have wreathed myself round with comforts and TV numbness and moral apathy and flaccid resistance to evil and the culture of death. I've not put up much of a fight with the culture that says if we sacrifice somebody else to our comfort, it would be well with us. Now I find what I knew in my heart of hearts: it was all a lie. The demand that we offer ourselves cannot be avoided, it must be faced with courage and with the help of God.
Love of God and Country
What “offering oneself as a living sacrifice” might mean is not clear yet. But one thing is certain. It will be made clear very soon and it must be done. And it begins, at any rate, with Paul's letter to the Colossians 3:1-11:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you once walked, when you lived in them. But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.
For too long — far too long — I have waxed gross in body and spirit, inviting, in my own small ways, the evil that has broken forth in our world. Now I must fight it. But in addition to fighting the evil that threatens us from without I must recognize that I have been complicit with that evil by contributing in my own tiny ways to the Culture of Death.
We must, with the help of the Holy Spirit, throw off the sin that so easily entangles and get serious about running the race. I speak to myself as much, if not more, than anyone else. God help us to prosecute a just war, not simply an act of vengeance. And God help us remember our own sins as we do it, lest we fall prey to the peculiar danger of victims: self-righteous pride.
Let nothing weaken our resolve to fight this war through to absolute victory. But let nothing weaken our resolve to make war on our own sin as well, both personal and cultural. And though the love of country burns strong at such an hour, let the love of God never fail to burn even stronger, lest, after vanquishing this foe in our just might, our beautiful land become a snare and an idol.
(Mark Shea is a writer/editor for Catholic Exchange and Catholic Scripture Study. You may visit his new website at www.mark-shea.com.)
May God Bring Us Complete Victory
Therefore, I propose, on behalf of Catholic Exchange, that beginning today, we join with the rest of our nation not only to pray, but to fast as well. I ask that Catholics around the world pledge with us to continue this fasting and prayer each and every Friday until this war is prosecuted to complete victory for the United States and its allies. Not all of us can engage in physical warfare, but all of us can indeed engage in spiritual warfare. And this is, indeed, the most necessary thing. As St. Paul said 2000 years ago:
Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:10-17).
Finally, an important note about how we must conduct ourselves as American Catholics in this hour. The divide between the West and the Middle East is both religious and ethnic. As a result, ancient hatreds stir in their graves. It is very tempting for some to perceive this war as a war against Islam, just as it is clear that the terrorists characterize this as a war between Islam and “Crusaders and Jews” here in the West. It is not. It is a war against terrorist organizations and the rogue states who sponsor and harbor them. In our prayers and actions as American Catholics, let us remember that the actions of these elements of radical Islamic fundamentalism are no more to be seen as what Islam “really is” than the German Christian movement of Nazi Germany can be characterized as what Christianity “really is.” Let us especially take care to pray for our fellow Muslim Americans, that they be protected from vigilante reprisals. The vast majority of these people are ordinary American citizens and regard this despicable act as an attack on them just as any other American would. To them, as to all innocent parties, let us extend the Christian and American hand of peace and charity and speak out against those who would, in the spirit of our attackers, harm the innocent. Let us, in the spirit of St. Joan of Arc, fight a noble and just war first and foremost by being the noble and just people we are.
May God bless us and our country in the days to come and may God bring us complete victory against the foe! Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, pray for us!
