Ubi Petrus

This Sunday we heard the familiar story of the poor man Lazarus and the rich man who finds himself one day in hell.  In all his torment he discovers that eternity really is forever, and our final disposition truly is final.  It’s too easy to find in this reading merely a condemnation of the wealthy – of those who have “too much” and in the end of course it is a condemnation of “them”.  That is far too narrow a reading to begin to approach what Our Lord offers us through this parable.

Perhaps most notable about this rich man is the fact that he is not recorded as ever doing anything mean, derogatory or improper to Lazarus.  He doesn’t even have him removed from his gate and allows the man to continue going on begging, possibly even thinking himself somewhat generous for providing a place for this man to do what is natural to his state in life.  Yet in the end he is condemned, and that is where this story really gets interesting.

I once had a person go through the RCIA process who said, “I’m a pretty good person and I think that’s about all there is to it”.  This unnamed rich man could well have said the very same thing – while he enjoyed his station in life perhaps a little too much Jesus never tells us that he was mean or evil in any direct way; he was “a pretty good person”.  Both of these people share the same misunderstanding of Our Lord’s call.  We’re not called to establish our own baseline of “pretty good” and then judge ourselves worthy of Heaven, we’re called to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect“.  (Mt 5:48).  Just because we find this calling to be seemingly impossible does not make it void or mean we can decide to substitute our own measure in the place of that of Our Lord.

This parable is an urgent cry to each one of us to be constantly reviewing our attitudes and our actions – not to the point that we become victims of scrupulosity but that we maintain a constant vigil to ensure we are not slipping into complacency.  We have been given a measure against which to compare our attitudes and our actions, both that of Jesus and those many of the saints.  This is where a frequent and honest examination of conscience becomes a valuable tool.  We ought not to be afraid to find that we have failed in some small or even large way; what we ought to have a healthy fear of is continuing in that failure.  Let us not be so concerned with being a “pretty good person” that we fail to become a saint.

Contrary to some expectations out there, nuns indeed aren’t born wearing a habit (or business suit with a pin, or whatever).  They are very much indeed just as human as the rest of us, which in some ways makes them all the more remarkable if you ask me.

I find myself saying much this very thing over and over again.  Pope Benedict XVI first really brought the concept of a truly Christian joy to my attention, and it is so wonderful to see his successor picking up that very necessary line of thought.

Um … guilty as charged Your Holiness.

From VisNews:

Vatican City, 1June 2013 (VIS) – At 8:00 yesterday evening, Pope Francis participated in the praying of the Rosary held in St. Peter’s Square concluding the Marian month of May. The celebration was presided by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, vicar general of His Holiness for Vatican City and archpriest of the Vatican Basilica. At the conclusion of the prayer and before imparting the Apostolic Blessing to the many faithful present, the Holy Father recalled the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth and offered a meditation dedicated to the mystery that shows how Mary faces life’s journey with great sensibility, humanity, and care.

“Three words sum up Mary’s attitude: listening, decision, and action. They are words that also show us the path before us of what the Lord asks of us in life,” the Holy Father said.

“Mary knows how to listen to God. But be careful: this is not a simple ‘hearing’ but a ‘listening based on paying attention, a welcoming, an openness toward God. It isn’t the distracted manner that we sometimes have when dealing with the Lord or others when we hear their words, but we don’t really listen.”

“Mary,” Pope Francis continued, “also listens to the facts. She reads the events of her life and observes concrete reality without stopping at the surface of things but going in depth to grasp its meaning. … This is also true in our lives: listening to God who speaks to us and listening to our everyday reality, paying attention to people and to facts because the Lord is at the door in our lives and He calls in many ways, putting signs along our path and giving us the ability to see them.”

“The second word,” the Holy Father continued, “is decision. … Mary doesn’t let herself be carried away by events, doesn’t avoid the burden of making decisions. … In life, it is difficult to make decisions. Often we tend to postpone them, to let others decide for us. Often we prefer to be caught up by events, chasing the fashion of the moment. Sometimes we know what we have to do, but we don’t have the courage or it seems too difficult because it means going against the grain. … Mary goes against the current. She listens to God, reflects and tries to understand the reality [of the situation] and decides to entrust herself completely to God.”

“Action,” said the pontiff, “is the third word. … Mary , despite the difficulties and criticism she received for her decision to leave, doesn’t stop at anything. …Mary isn’t rushed, doesn’t let herself by carried away by the moment. But when it’s clear what God is asking of her, what she must do, she doesn’t linger, doesn’t hold back but goes ‘in haste’.”

“Sometimes,” the Pope concluded, “even we stop with just listening, just reflecting on what we should do, perhaps we are even clear about what decision we should make, but we don’t take the steps to act upon it. Above all we don’t put ourselves in play, don’t move ‘in haste’ toward others to bring them our assistance, our understanding, or our charity.”

I was late.  Again.  It’s nothing new for me, but it was driving me crazy none the less.  Around the corner from the parking lot into the separate handicapped parking area I sprinted when a woman with a bag on her shoulder came running up to me so very daintily.  Through the fog of muttering at myself in my head for being late again I almost didn’t even notice her until I heard her ask, “Do you know where they’re having Mass today?”  Still stuck in between self pity and self loathing I turned around and jogged backwards as I nodded my head back and said, “It’s in the Chapel during the week, not in the Church”.  Then I realized this poor lady was trying to catch up to me and I was being incredibly rude to run past her, so thoroughly focused on my own problems was I.

I slowed down to a slightly fast walk (which I now realize was probably all but a jog for this lady as she is a full foot shorter than me) and as she pulled up even with me said, “Oh thank God you were here, I was convinced the Devil was going to keep me away from Mass.”  My body may have kept moving toward the Chapel door, but my brain stopped dead in its tracks right on that spot.

I don’t know why she was so desperate to get to Mass that morning – I’ve never seen her there again since, so I can only imagine it was something very important to her.  She needed to get to Mass and God delivered the help she needed, just not in the way either she or I would ever have imagined it.  I know that God can work good out of bad and even evil situations, but turning my penchant for being five minutes late into being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time wasn’t one I had expected.  Think about that the next time you think nothing is going to help your situation.

It’s with a heavy heart that I realize the post title would probably be the extent of the response most people these days would be able to muster to the question posed below, compared with the eloquence of St. Cyril of Jerusalem.  And yes, I am totally and completely thieving the quote from Mike Aquilina’s A Year With The Church Fathers; I consider it advertising for an eminently worthy work.  Yes, yes that should do nicely.  In an age like ours that so often attempts to blindly put the past behind us it does us well to look back to find the deep riches of wisdom in the words of our forebears.

But someone might say, “If what God is can never be comprehended, why do you even talk about these things?”

So, then, because I can’t drink up the whole river, am I not even allowed to take in moderation what’s good for me?  Because with eyes made like mine I can’t look directly at the sun, am I not even allowed to look at as much of the sunlight as I want?  Or if I go into a big garden and can’t eat all the fruits, would you have me go away completely hungry?

I praise and glorify him who made us, for it is a divine command that says, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:6).  Right now I am trying to glorify the Lord, but not to describe him.  Although I know I won’t be able to glorify him as he deserves, yet I still think it’s a work of piety even to try at all.

— St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 6, 5

… something positive about the Church, you know it’s hard to ignore.  As a Postulant for the Lay Dominicans this article really gave me something to smile about.  It would seem that, contrary to many other signs of trouble in the Church, vocations to the Dominicans are on the rise particularly in Ireland and the Northeastern US.  Why?  In part, as the article says, because they stuck to the fundamentals of the Order and continued to wear their habits and live in community.

“We made a conscious decision a few years ago to wear the habit because we had no vocations and we were in a bad way,” said Father Dunne, 46, who estimates that he has traveled nearly a half-million miles along Ireland’s country lanes and highways in search of recruits. “If we didn’t present ourselves in an authentic manner, who would join us? And that meant going back to the fundamentals.”

…

Even as other orders close houses and parish priests in Ireland are vanishing at a time of clerical sexual abuse scandals, the Dominican order is growing, and not just in Ireland.

…

In the United States, the largest northeastern branch is expecting 18 novices to enter its theology school in Washington, which was expanded three years ago. In the smaller southern region based in New Orleans, the Dominicans are scrambling to finance an influx of novices — six this year — with annual expenses of $30,000 for lodging and theology education over seven years.

Yes, despite what so many would like us to believe, the Church is continuing to win when people take a long hard honest look at what the culture offers them.  Sometimes good news really is as simple as black and white.

H/T to Godzdogz.

…well the old saying says “May flowers” but in my case it’s peas and lettuce (so far).  When you have the relatively short growing period we do up here in the Northeast you take chances every time you plant early.  Sometimes you’re rewarded with a bumper crop, sometimes a late frost wipes out your work before it ever got going and you have to start all over again.  I was always amazed that my mother seemed to know exactly the right time to plant our (to me) huge garden and somehow I never can quite figure that out.  I guess the truly green thumb skipped this generation somehow.

Spending a few hours this past weekend getting the garden ready for the early plants gave me some quality time to think.  Fortunately my gardens are small enough to be turned over with a shovel, so contemplating deeper truths wouldn’t wind up with a runaway rototiller.  That’d be … bad.  I’ve always wondered at God’s providence in timing His Resurrection around the same time as this hemisphere is experiencing the wonders of new growth in nature – buds are popping, flowers are blooming, baby animals are poking their noses out into a fresh new world.

“Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor 5:17)  Even though we’re in the season of Easter it’s very easy by now to have swung back to the way we were living before rebuilding ourselves over Lent for the great celebration of Easter.  In our Baptism we were made new creations in Christ – whether our lives have fully shown that truth or not!  We are those seeds that once buried come to life anew giving life, vigor and sustenance to the world.  Let’s let these new sprouts remind us of our great calling and take up again the new life to which we have been called!

If anyone out there is using the Logos Bible software tool, or its Catholic-targeted derivative Verbum, you’ll want to view the short videos they’ve been putting out every week of Easter thus far.  The videos are all only a few minutes and, while they do have a small amount of upselling going on (and let’s be realistic, if you use Logos much you’re pretty used to their subtle upselling by now), the tips and tricks in them make using this massive piece of software much, much easier.  I found even after just the first two videos that I felt much more comfortable sitting down to do some research – suddenly that feeling that you were going to be swallowed by the ocean of abilities and resources isn’t nearly so bad.  The four videos so far are:

How to use Logos for Apologetics 1

How to use Logos for Apologetics 2

How to use Logos for Apologetics 3

How to use Logos for Apologetics 4