The Call of the Fishermen

I am always struck in the Gospels by the call of the first Disciples. As it says in the beginning of Mark, “As [Jesus] passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, ‘Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ Then they abandoned their nets and followed him. He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him” (1:16-20).

What’s interesting is that there is no conversation. The Disciples immediately stop what they are doing and follow Jesus; nobody asks why; nobody asks, where are we going; nobody says, but I have to help my father. Were the Disciples expecting Jesus all along? Or was there something so compelling about this man that they were moved to drop everything and leave? And they left to follow him into exile, to follow him along the road to his Passion and Death, to persecution and martyrdom for almost all of them; and they did so without a second thought.

This is what God expects from each of us. He is that compelling force in our lives that demands everything, that asks that we give up all in order to obtain even more. We do not stop to demur, delay, or bargain; we simply follow Him into exile. It’s hard, but He has an uncanny way of making everything easy, too. There is a great freedom that comes from doing His will, and a great joy. Following God pays dividends that we could never reap on earth. I like to say that the struggle is worth the effort; the reward far more than covers the costs. It’s the adventure of a lifetime. Who’s up for it?

Flooding at the Heart of the Nation

I wanted to get a few pictures of the Red River flooding here in Moorhead, Minnesota, but sightseeing and picture-taking are being strongly discouraged (that is to say: you can get arrested), so I limited myself to a few shots just out in front of my apartment building. You can see in these photos the clay dike on the street in front that protects the county government office building complex; you can also see the “tube dike” that is a secondary protection on the north-south street that runs just west of my building. The primary protection is the sandbags in the homeowners’ backyards.

The river continues to slowly drop and we are becoming more and more hopeful. We appear to have held back this flood with little more than bags filled with sand and portable electric water pumps. The length of the cities from north to south is roughly 20 miles, and the Red River is carrying almost three times its normal volume of water. That’s a lot of sand, a lot of prayer, and, more to the point, a lot of heart.

The Fargodome sandbag facility, kept going largely by the volunteer efforts of the cities’ high school and college students, turned out 3 million sandbags in a week. I know from my own experience sandbagging at my mother’s house in north Fargo, that kids would show up, work tirelessly for hours, then disappear with no thanks and little more than a donut or a cold sandwich for lunch. To say that I am proud and deeply impressed by the people of my town would be an understatement. Praise be to God for the people of the Red River Valley.

One little story that is going underreported is that the Department of Homeland Security went to Mayor Walaker of Fargo and told him that the city needed to evacuate. The Mayor’s response? We do things differently here, he said, and we’ll handle this in our own way. The Mayor politely declined to evacuate and I’m sure 99% of the residents of Fargo and Moorhead would have agreed with him.

I went to Mass this morning; my parish is borrowing a church in a neighboring town as our church is ringed by sandbags. It’s been a long, long, time since I’ve heard people sing the way we sang this morning. I heard faith, I heard trust, and I heard hope. We are being tested. Dare I say that I think we’ve passed?

The Flood of ‘09, continued

A helper at the Fargodome sandbag facility

Well here we are eleven days after my last post and the situation couldn’t be more different. The Red River of the North continues to rise, having broken its all time record-high flood crest sometime last night. Citizens continue to sandbag and shore up dikes as the river is expected to max out sometime tomorrow, and then remain high for as long as a week. This is significant because the longer the water is high, the more opportunity there is for something to go wrong with the dikes.

Parts of Fargo, Moorhead, and neighboring towns have been evacuated. I am only a half a block from the river though on relatively high ground, but I have an evacuation plan (and a packed bag) just in case. The Alaskan in me also took over the other day as I went to Wal-Mart to stock up on batteries, Sterno, and canned goods in case I have to hunker down at home. Whatever happens, I should be ready.

I’ve been helping sandbag, first at a friend’s house north of Fargo on Saturday, then at my Mom’s twice this week, and finally today at my home parish here in Moorhead where the waters are encroaching on the church. It’s a lot of hard work and I’m discovering that, as my 40th birthday approaches, age really does impose limitations. I don’t have near the stamina I had when I was 21.

The good news is that the rate of rise of the river appears to be slowing, which means we may be approaching the crest. Then it’s just a matter of watching dikes for leaks until the river begins to ebb. My gut tells me that we may have turned an important corner. If that’s so then our prayers have been answered because, in spite of all the dislocation, the cities are in pretty good shape.

What is the role of faith in a time like this? Well, obviously God did not prevent the floods, which is what all of us, myself included, were praying for. Very often in our fallen world God does not save us from suffering; rather, he saves us through suffering. We know that our suffering is redeemed, and that God brings good out of everything for those who love him. We’re already seeing the good: neighbors have come together, people have shown courage and great spiritual strength, and people are placing their trust in God. The Upper Midwest is, in my humble opinion, the spiritual backbone of the nation. This is our chance to show the country what we’re made of. Trust God, and abandon yourself to His will.

The Flood of ‘09

Flooding on the Red River in Fargo, N.D.

It’s mid-March and spring arrived quite suddenly this year in the Upper Midwest. Just last week the thermometer was dipping below zero, and now daytime highs are in the 40’s. The cities of Fargo and Moorhead are beginning flood preparations as all the meltwater from the winter’s record snowfalls has nowhere to go except into the Red River. Residents await each new flood forecast with anxiety; flood insurance is purchased; town meetings are held; and the people closest to the river begin to plan for sandbagging and diking their property.

Why are human beings seemingly so at the mercy of elemental forces of nature when our explicit instructions from God were to “have dominion” and “fill the earth and subdue it”? (Genesis 1:26, 28) If getting flooded out is dominion, then what does the alternative look like? Man does go a long way toward controlling floods with diversion projects, dikes, and sandbags; but it’s a far cry from true dominion when mastery is accomplished each flood season with great anxiety, labor, and concern for our homes and our towns. Shouldn’t all this be somehow easier? Why does the river want to run rampant anyway?

The human relationship with the earth, just like our relationships with God and other people, is marred by sin. The situation here on the home world is just not what it was supposed to be; and that includes problems like climate change, pollution, deforestation, and even “acts of God” like hurricanes and floods. This is not to say that a given catastrophe can be traced to specific human actions; rather, it is the whole relationship, which should be one of gentle dominion, that is ruptured.

So if you are like me and many of our fellow human beings who are concerned about the fate of our planet, my prescription is a surprising one: before you go out and get involved, look first to your own home, your own heart and life; and make sure that you are right with God. Then you will be ready to go out and make a difference for the earth.

The Red Envelope Project

Readers of this site will note that I have broken one of my own rules, namely, the avoidance of political discussions. You’ve probably seen the anti-Freedom of Choice Act ad in the sidebar, which encourages people to speak out against the most stridently anti-life measure this country has ever seen. Today I’m going to break the rule again. The reason is, quite simply, that I believe that the issue of life is of such overwhelming importance that I have to speak about it from whatever platform I can find. This website was originally intended as a way to present the Catholic Faith in a way that is original and nonconfrontational in order to draw people to its beauty; however, now I am using it for political speech out of a sense of great urgency and grave concern.

I want to tell you all today about the Red Envelope Project. This is a project that began in prayer for one man on January 23, which all of us active in pro-life causes will recognize as the date that the infamous Roe V. Wade decision was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1973. The man saw an image of loads of red envelopes being delivered to the President in order to express our outrage over his pro-abortion policies; the envelopes were all empty, each one symbolizing a life lost, unable to offer anything to the world.

I invite each of you to go to the Red Envelope Project’s website at www.redenvelopeproject.org and follow the instructions there to send a red envelope to the President. The goal is to reach 50 million envelopes, one for each child lost to abortion in this country in the last 36 years. Thank you and God bless.

The Ten Commandments and the Moral Law

The Ten Commandments

As human beings we are primarily concerned with being happy, with getting happy if we’re not and with staying happy if we are. This is understandable and perfectly o.k., as God created us for himself, and for ultimate happiness with him. But we get ourselves into situations all the time where we don’t know what the best choice is to secure our happiness. It was for this reason that God, through the Church, gave us the moral law.

The Ten Commandments that God gave to Israel through Moses are the foundation of the moral law. While they are typically remembered as a series of “Thou shalt not…” prohibitions, the Ten Commandments are actually a prescription for happiness, both in this life and in the next.

God understands humanity. After all, he created us. When you and I were children our parents dealt in prohibitions: “Don’t cross the street”; “Don’t hit your sister”; “Don’t leave food on your plate”; and so on. Our parents knew we had to learn certain rules, without necessarily understanding them, in order to grow into balanced and happy adults. Our parents gave us prohibitions and other commands with an eye toward our ultimate happiness. So it is with God.

Our parents, being adults, had a perspective that we as children lacked. They could foresee the likely outcome of our actions and so warn us away from bad behavior that was going to hurt. For example, a small child is unaware of the danger that a car poses, but he knows he must listen to his mother; so when Mom says, “Stay out of the street,” the child obeys because of who is commanding him. Similarly, we understand that we lack complete perspective and we obey God’s commandments and the whole of the moral law because of Who is commanding us.

Jesus said, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17). Jesus was talking about the fullness of life, both today and ultimately in Heaven. Living the moral law is the way to ensure that our lives bear fruit, that we are happy, and that we have nothing to fear from God or indeed from anybody else. Now would be a good time to do an examination of conscience and to ask yourself, where do I stand?

1. I am the Lord your God: you shall not have strange gods before me.
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
3. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s day.
4. Honor your father and your mother.
5. You shall not kill.
6. You shall not commit adultery.
7. You shall not steal.
8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.

Taking a Look Back

The New Heavens & New Earth

At the end of the year it’s natural to want to take stock of things, to look at one’s life and see what could be better (or see how things could have been worse). There is a style of literature found in Scripture called apocalyptic, found in places like the book of Daniel and the Revelation, that is a useful aid to looking back. In apocalyptic, the writer presents future events as having already occurred, as when the writer of Revelation says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” (21:1). This is a clear reference to the end of time, a future event, yet the author presents it in the past tense.

With apocalyptic we have a different perspective from our normal way of thinking, and it is a perspective more like God’s. It is more like God’s because God sees everything, past, present, and future, in a single glance; he takes it all in, with a perspective that you or I, having limited human minds, cannot grasp. But we can do something like what God does, albeit in a small way.

To think apocalyptically requires a little bit of discipline. To start, take an event that was significant to you that happened during 2008. I will use my quitting my job in July. Look at the event from today’s perspective, and say something like, “Anthony has quit his job, and these are the consequences. He now has a new job that he likes better. His application for Disability is well under way. He has had to give up his car but he finds that the walking is good exercise. He has found support and help in many unexpected places, and he is very grateful to God for all that has happened.”

Put this way, you are seeing more like God sees, because you are seeing the action and all the consequences of it. You have a perspective now that you did not have when the event took place. Also, leave your emotions out of your assessment. I remember when I actually quit the job—my emotions ruled the day. I was anxious, frightened, and worried. Now, with time and perspective, the emotions seem unimportant and I can focus on what really happened. And what really happened was all good. This is how God sees our lives, and this is how each of us will see our lives when we die and come before our Lord in judgment. We will see all our actions and all their consequences, for good or for evil. We will acquire a perfect knowledge of ourselves as we become capable of seeing ourselves as God sees us.

We are immortal souls living in mortal bodies. Our every action or inaction has eternal consequences for good or ill. This is why it’s so important always to act with a properly formed conscience, and one way to help form a good conscience is sober self-reflection of the kind I am talking about. It’s the right time of year—why not give it a try?

Edna Schefter, Rest in Peace

Grandma

Today I attended my Grandmother’s funeral. It was a beautiful and magical early-winter day in North Dakota, with a temperature of about 5 degrees, abundant sunshine, fresh snow, and ice crystals in the air that sparkled like something out of Narnia. My Grandma passed away on Friday, December 5, after a brief illness; during the time she was in hospital I had every priest, every Catholic layperson I knew praying for her and for us. I had an entire monastery and a priory praying for her, and priests were saying Masses. Grandma received the Anointing of the Sick, the Viaticum, the Apostolic Pardon, and the Prayer of Commendation. Her death was a good death, about as good as anyone could ask for, and I know that it was because of the Providence of God and His Church that this came to pass in the way it did. I am extremely grateful to God and to all who helped.

Did I mention her funeral and burial occurred on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception? We had to get a dispensation from our Bishop to hold the funeral on a Solemnity, and the readings and propers of the Mass were those of the Solemnity. We heard about the Fall of Man in the first reading, the moment at which sin and its sister bodily death entered the world; and in the second reading we heard St. Paul talk about how we have become “holy and spotless” in Christ. The Gospel was about the conception of Christ, that is, Mary’s annunciation; but the day was all about Mary’s own sinlessness, her own immaculate conception in the womb of her mother. We heard about the beginning of sin–the Fall–and the beginning of the end of sin, Mary. There could hardly have been a better day to bury my beloved Grandma, who bore nine children in her womb and loved each and every one of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren with the charity of Jesus himself.

Grandma, of course, was not the Virgin Mary; she committed sins, though I would be hard-pressed right now to recall any of them, and in any case they seem quite unimportant. I prayed that Grandma would go straight to Heaven, and I know she has. Heaven is what this life is all about, never forget it; our lives are bound to futility unless we have the anticipation of Heaven. We must want Heaven for ourselves and for our loved ones more than anything we want on earth. Aim high with your life; seek the things that are from above, and trust that even the impossible can be achieved. For He is Lord not of the dead, but of the living. May Edna Schefter rest in peace.

Mr. Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States

Barack Obama

It is my usual rule to avoid political discussions on my blog, because I feel that they distract from my true purpose, which is to present the Catholic faith in a way that moves people’s hearts. However, I am unable to let the election Tuesday of Barack Obama as President go unmentioned. Here is what I think.

I spent the day after the election in prayer, reflecting on Tuesday’s events, and then I watched the evening news. I am very happy for African Americans. The election was a great day for them and I am glad that they are my compatriots who now can feel fully a part of this country. They have been waiting a long time, and great injustices have finally been righted. I believe that this is even the hand of God at work.

I don’t know yet if I can call Mr. Obama my president. I call Mr. Bush my president, even when I disagree with him. But Obama is different, and it’s because of abortion. If he remains as radical as he has so far appeared to be, I think I will remain angry. If, however, he truly does seek to fulfill his promise to be one who unites, maybe he will decide not to be as radical as I fear. I don’t know.

He needs the grace of God in order to see the humanity of the unborn. Let us bless God in a spirit of patriotism for our homeland. We should pray for Barack Obama, because our nation needs him to be a leader who protects the weak, and because he is a fellow Christian whose soul may be at stake. We should take nothing for granted—that he is, for instance, a hopeless radical; because the demands of his office may bring out a side of him that we have not seen yet.

Popes, presidents, and kings have been changed by the office that God has bestowed upon them. I believe that Mr. Obama has a good heart, and great sincerity; I think it is quite possible that something we have not seen before may emerge once Obama shoulders his responsibilities. That is what I will pray for. Please help me pray for Barack Obama, and for our beloved country. And may God bless America.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

Holy Communion

The Mass is a form of liturgy within the Church. Many people use the terms “Mass” and “liturgy” interchangeably, but they aren’t really the same thing. A liturgy is any public act of worship; the Mass refers specifically to the re-presentation of Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary. While the Mass is the Church’s most important liturgy, Christ works through all liturgies, including the Liturgy of the Hours (prayed in monasteries and by priests), and the liturgies of the different sacraments.

The Mass is the prayer of the whole Church, and as such it is the same the world over, everywhere the Roman Rite is celebrated (there are other rites, such as the Eastern Catholic rites, but the Roman rite is by far the largest in the Catholic Church). The Mass most commonly prayed today is the Rite of Paul VI, named after the pope who approved it, although the older form of the Mass, called the Tridentine Rite, is regaining some popularity after our present pope permitted it to be celebrated more widely.

The Rite of Paul VI can be celebrated in any language, including Latin, but it is typically celebrated in the language prevalent in the parish community, which in this country is English. It’s not hard, though, to find Mass in Spanish or other languages such as Polish in places where there are communities of speakers of those languages. Whatever the language, the form remains the same, and you will recognize the Mass even if you attend one in a foreign country where English is not used.

The Mass is a sacrifice. It re-presents to us the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. This does not mean that the sacrifice happens again, every time the Mass is celebrated; it means that the participants in the Mass (the priest and all the congregation) mystically enter in to the one sacrifice that happened on Calvary two thousand years ago. In the event that is the Mass, we offer our selves, our sufferings, our hopes, our needs, and indeed everything we have to the Father to be joined to the One Sacrifice on the Cross.

In that union between God’s people on earth and the Cross, Jesus works. Our sufferings are redeemed, which means that they are changed so that good comes out of them; our prayers are heard, in a way that is particularly pleasing to the Father because the priest offers them “in the person” of Christ; and we are nourished by sacramental food, the Body and Blood of Christ which we believe have become Real for us on the altar.

Catholic teaching on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is one of the indispensable doctrines of the Church, one that we must believe if we want to be Catholic. A person’s faith in the Real Presence can grow slowly, as mine did; or it can happen all at once. However it happens, the Catholic comes to believe that it is God who is feeding us through the hands and words of the priest; he is feeding us real food, food that we need in order to become holy in our daily lives. It is a food with many wonderful dimensions: it strengthens us, it nourishes us, it helps us to fall in love with God, it forgives our small failings and faults. Most Catholics that I know agree that it would be impossible to make it through the week without it. And many people are drawn to the Church precisely because they want the Eucharist. Whatever your level of interest, don’t be afraid to look at the doctrine of the Real Presence and ask, “Could it be so?”

The Longing of our Hearts

The Answer to our Longings

Have you noticed that as a product evolves in the marketplace, the manufacturer pays more and more attention to aesthetics? Cell phones are a good example. Back in the 1980’s, when cellular technology was brand new, cell phones were large, heavy, bricklike objects that lacked a certain “form factor,” to say the least. Today cell phones are elegant, have color screens, and are programmable with custom wallpapers and ring tones. The aesthetics don’t add to the functionality; instead, they make the phone more pleasurable to use. The pleasure is an added benefit that is hard to quantify — how many dollars does custom wallpaper add to the value of a cell phone? — but it’s something that people obviously want, because the new phones fly off the shelves as people upgrade their old ones.

Our hearts long for beauty, and we should pay attention to this longing. I’m not saying that everyone who reads this should run out and upgrade his cell phone; rather, realize that the longing is there for a reason. It’s there because God put it there. It’s the sound of God’s call; it’s our sense that something is lacking in this life, that there’s something incomplete about our lives in this world. It is our transcendent natures that speak to us in this longing, that part of us that is too big for this world, that simply doesn’t fit into a material creation.

We long because we are both matter and spirit, and that spiritual part of us hungers for real food. We can’t satisfy it with cell phones, or with Nintendo Wii’s, or cars, or houses, or anything else — only the nourishment of God will satisfy. If you feel this longing, and I think everyone does (at least, everyone who listens to his own heart), there is only one thing that will satisfy, and that is God. And the easiest and most direct way to get that satisfaction is through the Holy Eucharist that God gives us through the Catholic Church. This is God become tangible to us, sacramentally present under the signs of bread and wine. The Eucharist is food that truly satisfies, at least for a few hours or days, and then we become hungry again. But the beauty of it is, that God is always available to us through the Church that Jesus founded. We eat real food today, in anticipation of the overabundant banquet that will be tomorrow, when we see our Lord face to face, after the renewal of all things, in the New Creation that our Father is preparing for those who love him.

Salvation and Redemption: Jesus

Electric Clock

I have my Grandmother’s old electric clock that used to hang in her kitchen on the wall of my living room. It’s a trinket, worth nothing, except for what it is worth to me. Grandma and Grandpa, now in their late 80’s, no longer live on the farm; the farmhouse and all the buildings have been leveled, and there is nothing to see there anymore. But every time I look at this clock, I feel again like I’m standing in my Grandmother’s kitchen; I can smell the baking bread, feel the warmth of the hot summer day, see the view out of her kitchen window looking to the south.

I feel sentimental about this old clock, but there’s something more than sentiment at work here too. I look back to the days of my childhood, so many of them spent on Grandma and Grandpa’s farm, but I am also looking forward. I expect to see the farm again, in a different form perhaps, but everything that is essentially true about my grandparents’ farm is imperishable. It was, it is, and it shall ever be. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

When we have spread on earth the fruits of our nature and our enterprise… according to the command of the Lord and in his Spirit, we will find them once again, cleansed this time from the stain of sin, illuminated and transfigured, when Christ presents to his Father an eternal and universal kingdom (CCC 1050).

Heaven is a place where we can expect to see again what we have left behind on Earth, only purified and perfected. This is the action of Jesus as Redeemer: no detail, no matter how small, of anything human will be left out.

Salvation and redemption hinge on the understanding that all our actions have eternal consequences, because we as beings are part imperishable spirit. Salvation is the blessed assurance that, once baptized and having lived a worthy life, we will spend eternity with God, the angels, and the saints in Heaven. Redemption, on the other hand, is the “turning around” of all our actions and drawing them to the Cross, so that they might be taken up into Heaven and transformed with Jesus as he ascended. Salvation gets us there; redemption provides the reality that we will find once we get there. When I look at Grandma’s clock, I have the hope of my salvation; and I see the clock as part of something wondrous and new in the New Creation of the redeemed.

It is as Jesus said after he multiplied the loaves and fishes in John’s Gospel: “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost” (John 6:12). We can expect, too, that for those of us who are faithful, persevering to the end, truly not the smallest detail will be lost of our lives. We will find again everything we have left behind, only glorified, perfect, and beautiful beyond all telling. God has not forgotten the slightest bit of our suffering either, for it is as he says: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4). This is what we as Christians await: the glory of a new world, where our God will walk among us. Blessed be God forever.

The Sacramental Worldview: Seeing with the Eyes of Faith

A newcomer to the Catholic Faith could be excused for thinking the Church quite a zoo for eccentrics. Catholics come in all shapes and sizes, all political persuasions, all walks of life, and each has his or her own unique opinions and perspective. One pastor I know once remarked (and I paraphrase), “People say the Church is a cult. They’ve obviously never been to a parish council meeting, where we can’t agree on anything.”

Undergirding all this often inconvenient (at least for our pastors), but glorious and God-loving diversity is something unique that all faithful Catholics share, though not all have it to the same degree. It’s something I call the sacramental worldview, a particular way of looking at the world, life, people, and God that is informed not by the scientific materialist way of looking at things but instead by a way that is deeply intuitive, faith-anchored, and broad in its perspective.

One of my favorite definitions of faith is that it is a participation in the knowledge that God has of Himself. Faith is a kind of knowledge and belongs in a hierarchy with other sorts of human knowledge, like our knowledge that apples are red, people can be good or bad, and light from the stars takes years or centuries to reach us. Faith is a knowledge that informs (or “in-forms”) our way of looking at things, and it is a knowledge that places Christ at the center of human history and indeed at the center of the whole cosmos.

The word “sacrament” (which comes from the Latin for “mystery”) is related to the word “sacrifice,” and the sacramental worldview puts Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross at the center of all things. Everything that came before the Cross, was leading up to it; everything that comes after, is in some way a consequence of it. The Cross, the fact that Jesus died on it and so atoned for our sins, is the central mystery of our human existence; nothing that we know today would be here without it, at least not in the form we are accustomed to.

Take the example of suffering. The fact of human suffering — cancer, wars, blindness, child abuse: the list is endless — is probably one of the best arguments against God. At least that’s how the world sees it; suffering to the world is a pointless exercise that benefits no one. But Catholics see suffering quite differently; through suffering, we are united to Christ and his redeeming sacrifice on the Cross; our suffering is fruitful for ourselves and others, in this life and in eternity; and our suffering serves its greatest purpose in making us more like Christ himself. There are reasons that we suffer; life is not just a collection of random events, some more painful than others.

Aside from suffering and the mystery of the Cross, the sacramental worldview also sees mystery in a great many places you might not think to look. Mass is an obvious one; when we celebrate the Eucharist, we do so with the angels and the saints in heaven, who are there, somehow, mysteriously present in a way that we do not understand. But aside from overtly holy things, there is also mystery all over the Creation, in the symmetry of a blade of grass, or the playful barking of a dog, or the glory of the Rocky Mountains. The world, even in its dilapidated and fallen state, is grand, beautiful, and very mysterious: our science hasn’t explained everything, not by a long shot, in fact I’d say it hasn’t explained much at all of the things that are important.

When I invite you, in this website’s tagline, to “see the Church again — for the first time,” I’m asking you to begin to take on the sacramental worldview. You can start by unlearning much that you think you know (I had to do it, too) and looking with new eyes. Try to remember what it was like to be six years old, playing with a yapping puppy for the first time in your life. You can also pray that God will begin to show you the world as he sees it, as it truly is. Once you get into it, you’ll see that this is the way to begin to love God, your neighbor, and the whole of the Creation, and not just with your own love, but with the love of God Himself.

Trust and Discipleship: An Update

I wanted to let folks know how things were panning out for me since I posted a few weeks back that I had quit my job. Well, in a nutshell, my trust has been validated and God is taking care of things. I applied for Social Security Disability, which limits how many hours I can work each month, but I landed a part-time job at my local parish helping Father with his administrative work. I am selling my vehicle because I can no longer afford to keep it, but my apartment is on a bus line and my job is within walking distance.  I was able to pay off some back bills, and I am now able to live within my means on my salary, with some help from the community.

It truly is astounding how God works. It’s as if he knew all along (and he did) that this was going to happen and he prepared a place for me so that I would be able to continue. I’ve never seen trust work like this before. Everything has been falling into place, one piece at a time, as if ordered by an invisible hand (which it is). I feel vindicated, not to mention strengthened, in my trust, and, best of all: this is only the tip of the iceberg. Undergirding all of this activity is the deep, beautiful, glorious, and saving love of Jesus. I know now as I have never known before that Jesus loves me. There is no doubt in my mind.

We don’t serve a God who makes endless demands; we serve a God who is there for us. A relationship of love is a two-way street; it’s not an even exchange, because God does for us far more than we could ever do for him, but he gives and we try to give back. I will pay God back for his goodness to me by trying to honor him more in my heart, and by continuing to seek his will for my life. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

The Holy Name of Jesus

When you are being introduced to someone, the first thing you expect to be told is his or her name. Names are intrinsic to the person; they tell us something about the person, about his or her essential nature, and even about the meaning of the person’s life.

God has a name, which it might surprise you to know. His name isn’t “God” (the word “God” is a what, not a who), and it isn’t really “Jehovah,” either. God tells us his name early on in the Bible in a meeting with Moses, during Moses’ famous encounter with the burning bush. The passage goes:

“But,” said Moses to God, “When I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?” God replied, “I am who am.” The he added, “This is what you shall tell the Israelites: ‘I AM sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:13-15).

So God’s name is “I AM.” This might not seem exactly helpful, so we need to study the matter a bit further. When you or I say “I am,” we always mean by it something qualified, something limited. For example, someone asks, “Are you hungry?” And you respond, “I am.” Or, “Are you ready?” “I am.” “Are you tired?” “I am.”

But when God says “I AM,” he means a lot more. “I AM” for God connotes the very fullness of being, a state of perfection that lacks nothing. God’s state of being is so full that words cannot convey it, and using two of the shortest words in human language attempts to convey it through almost a nonsentence. According to the ancient philosophers, God is utterly complete. This state of supreme Be-ing has many, many implications that we cannot go into here (and that I wouldn’t be qualified to talk about). For now it is enough to understand that God is, He is big, He is powerful, He has the capacity to save.

For that is what the name Jesus means. “Jesus” is the Latin for the Hebrew Jeshua, which means “I AM is salvation.” And Jesus in the Gospels claims for himself the divine name, and by doing so reveals himself to be God. When questioned by his enemies in the Temple, Jesus responds to them by naming himself “I AM” three times, most emphatically the last time: “Amen, Amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM” (John 8:58). He wasn’t just saying that he’s older than Abraham — although that’s part of it. He was using the “I AM” that is reserved for God alone, and everyone hearing him knew it.

Everyone who hears it today should know it too. Jesus wasn’t just a nice teacher who said wise things — he actually claimed to be God. That means he was either a lunatic, or he was right. Pick up the Bible and read a Gospel. Does this sound like the words and actions of a lunatic? If not, then there is no room for sitting on the fence. You will need to make a choice.

Trust and Discipleship

Trust is a hallmark of a Christian’s relationship with God. The disciple (the word means “one who learns” or “takes away”) must place his trust in the teacher before any learning can take place. Trust, even in one who is utterly trustworthy like God, has been a problem for humans ever since the Garden of Eden. Eve trusted in the serpent, who told her that the fruit would make her like God; and so she ate. A trusting nature is a sign of innocence, as Eve was innocent, but it is a consequence of the Fall that we are no longer innocent and hence, no longer trusting.

The problem of trust in God is compounded by the reality that God is invisible. It is much easier to trust in a man or a woman; or in an ideology that we can completely grasp; or even in a slogan. But God is different. We can’t see him; he doesn’t usually talk to us (at least not in human words); he may be there, or he may not. The late George Carlin remarked that people are mocked for believing in space aliens, yet an individual’s belief in God is off-limits to challenge. Carlin was picking up on the problem of invisibility. It is a problem that challenges everyone who seeks to make the act of trust required of a disciple.

Last week I lost my job. Actually I quit, as the job had simply become too stressful for me. I suffer from stress-related health problems and I have to be careful. I hope my reason for quitting was a good one, but whether it was or not that’s water under the bridge. Now I’m looking for work, on extremely limited funds, and I find myself anguished trying to trust Jesus. This is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I call to mind every single past disappointment and failure I have ever lived through and I try to use them as grounds for not trusting. In my doubt I beg God to let it be different this time: Don’t let me lose my apartment… Don’t let me default on my bills… Don’t let this go on for too long.

I would be much more at peace if I could trust. Maybe that’s why this has happened at this time: so I could learn. Trust is not easy. Life is not easy. But life is beautiful, and it is worth the challenge. And so I say: do as I say, and not as I do — trust in God as if your life depended on it. Maybe it does.

The Beatitudes and the Christian Revelation

When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

—Matthew 5:1-12

The Beatitudes are a paradox, for they tell us that the unfortunate (the poor, the sorrowing, the persecuted) will be fortunate in heaven. Jesus is instructing us to see not with the eyes of the world, but with the eyes of faith — to remember, that is, that the beggar in the street who asks you for a dollar may be greater in God’s eyes than you are, and may have a greater reward. Jesus is sharing his own insight into humanity’s situation, telling us what he knows exclusively and we don’t know, and encouraging us to shed our fears and live in a way that is truly pleasing to God.

The Catholic faith is full of insights like this, for this is the purpose of revelation: the speaking of what is hidden, of what we cannot in principle know unless we are told. The purpose of the Catholic Church, ever since the days of the Apostles, is to hand on the Christian Revelation to successive generations and to spread it throughout the whole world. This is our mission — my mission, with this blog. The Beatitudes are an invitation. Come, and listen; come, and see with new eyes. The Word of God is for you.

Why name a Catholic website after a bird?

The red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) is my favorite bird. The redtail is a raptor, or a bird of prey, which means that it hunts for a living. It is very large, with females (the larger of the two) having wingspans sometimes approaching 5 feet. In flight it is magnificent, soaring on updrafts with scarcely a flap of the wing, and, when there are a male and female in season, flying in wide circles together in a kind of dance of courtship. The hawk is a beautiful creature, as is the eagle — but the hawk has something the eagle has not. Eagles are noble, and rare: hawks are common as the rain. The range of the hawk extends from Alaska to Florida, and you see them in places you’d never see an eagle.

The Catholic faith is more like the hawk than the eagle. For our Faith exalts commonness, the ordinary and the everyday. At Mass, wine (mixed with everyday tap water) and flatbread become for us the Body and Blood of Christ, the most extraordinary things imaginable. But they started out ordinary, though they do not remain so. We are like that. We are born ordinary human beings, but through the ordinary everyday of the sacraments, we become creatures like unto God himself. There is much more to the Church than meets the eye — sort of like the hawk, who is noble as the eagle, though he is just being himself.

Welcome to CatholicHawk.com

Welcome! In this space I intend to share my own faith with you, invite you to share yours, and answer questions. I am proposing that there is a way of seeing the Catholic faith that will make it very personal, and very relevant to you: and what I ask is that you set aside any ideas that you may already have about the Church. I am an orthodox Catholic who is not afraid to explore or to be challenged. All I ask is that if you would like to challenge me, you must let me challenge you in return.

I am proud of the Roman Catholic Church. She has some very serious problems, but the Bark of Peter is being guided very carefully by the Holy Spirit, and I have every confidence that she will arrive at her destination—the New Heavens and the New Earth—on schedule and with a full complement of crew and passengers.

We are the People of God, united with Christ through the sacramental ministry of our priests, our bishops, and our Pope. We are your neighbors, relatives, friends and coworkers. We are the bearers of Light into the dark places of the world, and we are not afraid. Take a closer look at us and see the Catholic Church again, for the first time.