Month: January 2024

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_403homily1.29.2024ordinarytime4.html

Deacon Doug McManaman

It was very difficult to discern an underlying thread in the readings for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, so I will settle upon making just two points. The first point bears upon the second reading taken from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 7: “Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction” (32-35). Because it is a small portion of the entire chapter, taken out of its larger context, it is very easy to misinterpret; one can easily come away with the impression that the celibate life or the consecrated life is genuinely religious, while the married state is not. Such an interpretation, however, would be contrary to Paul’s overall teaching on marriage, not to mention all the developments in the theology of marriage over the centuries, especially the more recent theology of the body of Pope John Paul II. In the larger context of this chapter, we see that Paul believes we are in the last period of salvation history. He refers to his own time as a time of distress, which in apocalyptic literature, is said to precede the time of the Second Coming of Christ. Paul writes: “So this is what I think best because of the present distress: that it is a good thing for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek a separation. Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife…. I tell you, brothers, the time is running out” (26-27; 29). What he says about those who are married and those who are not must be read in this context, otherwise we come away with the impression that marriage has nothing to do with serving the Lord. And of course, that would contradict what Paul teaches in his letter to the Ephesians, where he speaks of marriage as a sign of the love that Christ has for his Bride, the Church. 

Christ’s love for his Bride is a conjugal love, and the love of a baptized husband for his baptized wife is that very same love, and vice versa. This is what we try to get across to couples in Marriage Prep classes, namely, that marriage is just as religious a vocation as is the priesthood and consecrated life. It hasn’t always been understood that way, unfortunately, due to a kind of clericalism that Pope Francis has spoken out against so often in his papacy. But marriage is a sacrament, a sacred sign that contains what it signifies, and it signifies the paschal mystery. For just as God called Abraham to leave the land of Ur and go to the land that He will lead him to, and just as God called Israel to leave Egypt behind with its pantheon of false gods, and just as Jesus leaves this world behind in order to go to the Father (Jn 17), so too in matrimony, two people are called to leave behind a world closed in upon itself; they are consecrated, that is, set apart, for they are called to leave behind their comfortable world of independence and self-sufficiency, to be given over to another, to belong completely to one another, in order to become part of something larger than their own individual selves, namely, the one flesh institution that is their marriage. The couple relinquish their individual lives; they are no longer two individuals with their own independent existence; rather, they have become one body, a symbol of the Church, who is one body with Christ the Bridegroom. The lives of a married couple are a witness of the Church’s response to Christ’s love for his Bride; they witness that love in their sacrificial love for one another, and for the children who are the fruit of that marriage–and raising children well demands a tremendously sacrificial love. In giving themselves irrevocably and exclusively to one another, without knowing what lies ahead, a young couple die to their own individual plans, they die to a life directed by their own individual wills. In doing so, they find life; for they have become a larger reality. 

The second point I’d like to make has to do with the Authority of Christ in the gospels: the people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. I am reminded of a former principal of mine. She retired, but she has been called a number of times to take over a few schools when the principal was off for whatever reason. I know the staff morale at one school in particular was quite low, due to a lack of good leadership, which students perceive quite readily. My friend was called to that school to take over for a few weeks. I asked a former colleague at that school: “How did the students receive her?” My colleague replied: “Instant respect”. And this is just what I expected; she walks and talks with authority. But what does that mean exactly? It means she is a person that the students respect, because she is respectable. Just having a position of authority does not mean a person speaks or acts with authority; most people in positions of authority today, including ecclesiastical positions of authority, have very little authority; they’ve lost a great deal of their credibility and moral authority. Authority comes from within; it has to do with the kind of person that you are, and young people can discern rather quickly what kind of person that is. Authority comes from a spirit of charity, holiness, humility, and perfect love casts out all fear, so it involves a spirit of fearlessness, which is very different from a spirit of audacity or boldness. Boldness is rooted in arrogance, in a condescending spirit, but fearlessness is rooted in holiness and charity. The holier a person is, the greater is their authority, and it is an authority that others recognize. And by holy I do not mean sanctimonious. Jesus was the “Holy One of God”, the Scribes and the Pharisees were not holy, which is why they taught without authority. They were sanctimonious, that is, hypocrites, which in Greek means “actor”. For them it was about appearances and having others fawn all over them, lording it over others, but as Christ said, they neglected the poor and the suffering. The demons were terrified of Christ because he came with the authority of God the Son, who humbled himself and came among us, to deliver us from the Satan’s dominion. The more we grow in true holiness, in the power of charity and humility, the more we will be empowered by his authority. 

Homily for the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.

Deacon Doug McManaman
https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_402marytheotokos.html

As I was going over the gospel reading (Lk 2:16-21), I was struck by one thing in particular, namely, Mary says nothing. She just listens. She listens to the Shepherds, who “made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”

Mary was one of those who was amazed at what had been told by the Shepherds. You would think that the Mother of God would be the one with the words to amaze them, to enlighten them, that she would be one or two steps ahead of them such that their message would be superfluous. But this is not the case. The good news was told to the shepherds, and what was proclaimed to them was proclaimed to the one who conceived the good news himself, in her womb. She was not eager to speak; rather she listens, and ponders all that was said to her, reflecting on them. 

Mary is theotokos, which means “God-bearer”. And our purpose in this life is to become a theotokos, a God-bearer. And we know through Mary’s example what it means to be a theotokos, at least in part. It means first and foremost to be full of God, pregnant with God. The result of bearing the mystery of God within is that we become disposed to listen; we become disposed to ponder, to reflect upon what is happening both within us and around us. When we are filled with God within, everything around us appears in a new light. The world becomes more beautiful and mysterious. 

Everything is subject to the providence of God, but the entire meaning of the events of providence, all that God permits to happen in this world, is always beyond us. Our understanding of what is going on in our world is always deficient; there’s always more to know. I am generally wary of people who offer grand and comprehensive explanations of the state of the world in which we are living, because this world is just far too large and complex for us to understand adequately as a whole. But this point is hard to appreciate when we are young. Everything seems clear when we are young, and the result is we tend to speak a lot, and we speak with a rhetoric of confidence. But as time goes on, experience provides us with much more information, and that new information allows us to see that things were not as simple as they once appeared–but this will happen to the degree that we are silent and reflective, and we will only be silent and reflective to the degree that we allow ourselves to become a theotokos, a God bearer.  

The life of John the Baptist holds some clues as to what it means to become what we are called to become, namely a theotokos. He refers to himself as the best man at a wedding, “who stands and listens to the bridegroom, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice”. The bridegroom of course is Christ. John says: “This joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase, I must decrease”. This life is about learning to listen to Christ the Bridegroom and getting to that point where his voice becomes our joy. And that joy moves us to want to decrease so that he may increase. We no longer want to increase in the eyes of others. Our joy, our deepest desire, is that he, Christ himself, increase—and that we get out of the way. 

But it all begins when we learn to listen to the Lord who dwells in our deepest interior. And that’s the highest kind of prayer: the prayer of quiet listening to God. Not saying anything. Just adoring the Lord in silence. The Lord that we adore is the Word, the Logos. The Word eternally spoken by the Father is noiseless; it is full and inexhaustible, because the Word is everything that the Father can say about himself. That spoken Word, uttered eternally, is silent, and that silence speaks and is inexhaustible in content. The highest kind of prayer is listening to the Father’s silent Word, and listening to the Word breathe his eternal love for the Father. 

This may sound rather easy, but it is very difficult to get to this point in our prayer life; for there are many distractions that occur when we spend time, in the presence of God, in silence. Our mind is like an untrained dog that pulls this way and that. But when this happens, all we have to do is bring ourselves back to the presence of God and leave these thoughts behind. 

This kind of prayer brings real joy and healing to the unconscious mind, because many of the thoughts that come to the surface during this time of silence are often unhealed memories that have been stored in the subconscious. Learning to leave them behind eventually brings about profound healing and peace. 

As I mentioned last week, for those who do not have an interior life, who have not cultivated the habit of prayer throughout their lives, old age will slowly and inevitably become a very unpleasant ordeal, for our ability to cover up our own spiritual emptiness becomes increasingly difficult as the body deteriorates and circumstances change. But for those who have a rich interior life, those who pray and who know the joy of the Bridegroom’s voice, who know the rich and subtle joy of hearing that eternal silence of the Word, growing old only creates the conditions for this joy to increase.

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_401homosexualitydemands.html

Deacon Doug McManaman

Many of the articles coming out against Fiducia Supplicans are interesting to read, but most of them seem to assume the point the author needs to prove in the first place–the fallacy of begging the question. Moreover, what they all seem to have in common is a complaint of ambiguity. I am going to argue that when dealing with pastoral matters, ambiguity is inevitable. The reason is that the more general the level of discussion, the greater the clarity; but as one moves towards a more concrete or less abstract level of discourse, things become rather murky, because they have become more complicated. 

This is a basic philosophical principle. For example, I can estimate the height of the tree in my neighbor’s front yard: between 1 inch and 300 meters. That estimate enjoys the benefit of absolute certainty. I can estimate the price of the house that’s for sale across the street: I’d say it is between $100 and 10 million. Very broad, very general, but certain. My estimates, however, are also relatively useless; they are useless to a tree cutter (in terms of what tools he’s going to need), and they are useless to a potential buyer of the house. To make the estimates more useful, I have to become more precise. However, there is a trade-off; the greater the precision, the more vulnerable to error my estimates become. So, let me say that the house across the street is $950,000. That’s a more useful estimate, but it is much less certain, for it is more vulnerable to error—the house may just as well be $900,000, or $875,000, etc.

We have a great deal of clarity in the Church when it comes to certain theological and moral questions, but pastoral questions bearing upon individual persons are full of ambiguity, unlike general moral questions like abortion or euthanasia. The Church is clear that sexual activity outside of marriage, that is, sexual activity that is not an expression of marital union, is morally deficient. It’s not terribly difficult to show that. But that really doesn’t help me much when I am dealing with someone struggling with loneliness, sexual passion, self-acceptance, addictive propensities, doubts about faith, etc. It’s not enough to simply say: “Sex between two people of the same sex is a sin! Can’t bless sin!  Have a good day!” 

There is a myriad of factors outside of a free-will that account for a person’s character traits, foibles and idiosyncrasies, factors that mitigate a person’s degree of responsibility and which demand from a counselor a certain course of action, tone of voice, things to say and not say, etc., and a good pastor must be able to intuit this rapidly. It is supernatural charity and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as counsel, as well as the charism of discernment, that enable him to achieve this to some degree. Adults should have far more patience and typically provide more room for error for children than for their fellow adults. Similarly in the spiritual life, but very few adults have reached spiritual adulthood, and a pastor who consistently fails in such discernment and treats a person accordingly gives rise to needless suffering and conflict, like a bad parent would. 

The spiritual life of a person is a movement, a process, and a good pastor is in many ways like a good teacher who is able to determine students’ various learning styles and the level at which they currently operate, in order to begin at that point. The problem with education in former times was that this preliminary determination was for the most part neglected; for it was assumed that everyone learns the same way, so those who fell behind were simply regarded as less intelligent–these latter were left to deal with confusing and painful emotions to which this isolating state of affairs gave rise. All such students really needed were teachers who understood that not everyone learns the same way, at the same pace, nor begins with the necessary conditions for success at the expected time. Teaching is an art, and so too is the work of a genuine pastor, and it requires much more than the knowledge of general principles.

There are priests–and Pope Francis is fully aware of this–who have as much pastoral sense as a monkey wrench and seem to think pastoral counsel is all about issues, doctrine, teachings, sections of the Catechism, etc., and that once we have clear answers to general moral questions, dealing with people is a straightforward and easy matter. But life is full of ambiguity, precisely because it is so complex. Papal critics are demanding certainty and lucidity on a level at which certainty and lucidity are not possible. Fiducia is without a doubt vulnerable to abuse and misinterpretation, because the discussion takes place on a lower level of abstraction, as pastoral questions always do. But there’s no getting away from that. I bless prospective married couples all the time, most of whom are living together. Am I blessing their sin? No. Am I condoning their living together? No. Should I pry into their lives to get details regarding their living arrangements, before giving them a blessing? No. If two men or two women approach me for a blessing, I have to be able to determine what it is they want from me, without prying, without turning them off completely, and I have to make them feel welcome, etc. If I know they are gay, do I assume they are having sex? Perhaps it is more likely than not, but I don’t think I should assume anything; for there are chaste gay couples whose relationships are not principally about sex. And what do I say in my prayer of blessing? I can ask the Lord to grant them the grace to live in a way that is pleasing to God, among other things. Fiducia is clear that this should not take place in a liturgical or formal setting, since that would lend the impression that we see this as akin to marriage, and we do not. So, what should we do when two people of the same sex approach for a blessing? Do we just say no? It seems to me that a good pastoral approach will for the most part consist in blessing both persons, blessing their friendship, their commitment to one another, calling upon God to impart to them the grace to want to do what God wants them to do, and leave it at that.

A Church that operates on a very general level in order to avoid ambiguity becomes relatively useless (like the useless estimates of the tree height or housing prices). If the Church is to become more useful to the faithful in the modern world, ready to deal with new matters that are of importance to people today, she’ll have to take risks and pronounce on such matters, knowing that given the ambiguity that is part and parcel of this level of discussion, her teaching will be subject to abuse and misinterpretation, sort of like the aftermath of Vatican II. We are dealing here with a trade-off. Would it have been better had the Second Vatican Council not happened, keeping things “simple, clear and unambiguous” as things apparently were prior to 1962? Many traditionalists think so, but how can we know what the Church today would look like had that been the case? Perhaps society would be paying as much attention to the Catholic Church as they do now to the Amish. 

There is no doubt that there are legitimate arguments on all sides of this debate, but I always thought there is an advantage to being a Catholic–we don’t have to spend our days studying all the arguments to determine the right course of action, for we have a Magisterium that has a teaching charism and we are called to be loyal to the Holy Father:

This loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given in a special way to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra, in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and that one sincerely adhere to the decisions made by him, conformably with his manifest mind and intention, which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which. a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated. (LG 25)

Many liberal Catholic moralists had no use for this section of the Lumen Gentium; today it seems the tables have turned–it is conservatives who seem to be tossing this out the window when the Pope begins to take us down a road that is new and uncomfortable. I’ve been told that obedience is the hardest counsel of the three, and rightly so. Bishops typically demand obedience and deference from the faithful and their priests, but how can those who have shown anything but loyal submission of mind and heart in recent months evade the charge of hypocrisy? They can dissent, but I can’t? 

I’ve been asked how necessary Fiducia was at this time, that is, just before Christmas (2023). I have no idea, but how necessary is all this fuss about it? I have faithfully taught Catholic sexual ethics for close to 40 years, but I don’t particularly understand the current preoccupation with this issue. I’m not gay, and so I don’t see things from that perspective, but if I were gay and trying to be a faithful Catholic, I might be rejoicing over this document and might take it as a great Christmas gift. Basically, I have to trust that the Holy Father has the charism of office and is moved by the Holy Spirit to address what needs to be addressed in this highly complex world whose complexity escapes the comprehension of any individual as such, including an individual pope–which is precisely why he requires a charism that I simply don’t have.