Month: September 2026

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Each year, a number of my students studying to be teachers wonder about how best to deal with the issue of Residential schools and the Church’s involvement with them. Let me say two things here. First, don’t hide it. Bring it out in the open. This is precisely what is so unique about the Jewish people and the Hebrew Scriptures. When you read the Old Testament, which is the history of the Jewish people, the sins of the patriarchs and kings are completely out in the open. There is no attempt to hide such rotten behaviour on the part of Israel’s patriarchs and leaders, from the sins of Abraham, the lying of Rebecca, the indifference of Esau who sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew, the sons of Jacob who out of jealousy threw Joseph down a well and lied to their father about it, the sin of David who committed adultery and murdered in order to cover it up, the great king Solomon who ended up with 700 wives and 300 concubines, the book of Judges and the infidelity of Israel, to the murder of the prophet Zechariah and Uriah, etc. The bible is not about glorifying Israel, but about glorifying the steadfast love (hesed) and fidelity of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And if you study the history of the Catholic Church, you’ll see enough sin and stupidity to send chills up and down your spine. 

Some people, however, like to hide all that and present a very sanitized and harmonious history that is simply not true to the facts. We are a sinful people; every day we pray: “…forgive us of our sins and we forgive those who sinned against us”. So, it is important not to hide these sins, unless of course we are under the mistaken impression that Catholicism is about us, the Church, and not Christ. We cooperated with the Canadian government in the oppression of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. We don’t make excuses for that. The Catholic faith is not at all about us; much less is it about the clergy or the hierarchy. It’s all about Christ. The Church is his body, and he knew right from the beginning that the twelve would betray him. He said to Peter: “…this very night before the cock crows, you will deny me three times”. He knew Judas would betray him, but chose him as one of the twelve nonetheless. When we gloss over the sins of the Church, we set our students up for disillusionment in the future, because eventually they will discover the humanness of the Church. Pope Francis warned not to put clergy on pedestals, but we continue to do so all the same.  

The next point I’d like to make is that it is certainly true and tragic that the Canadian government decided to remove indigenous children from their homes and send them to the Residential schools, and it is true that certain Catholic religious orders, like the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, cooperated with the Canadian government in this unjust usurpation of parental rights, but it is important to realize that doing so was a violation of the Church’s very own principles (the principle of subsidiarity), and although hindsight is 20/20, the religious orders should have known better. In fact, the Church as a whole should have known better, for she knows that it is parents, not the Federal government, who are the primary educators of their children. And so Catholics today need to be very careful about jumping on the government bandwagon and cooperating with government initiatives that are contrary to the express teachings of the Church, especially on the basis of her teaching on human dignity, the rights of immigrants, and so on. The Church has a fundamental obligation to Christ, not to a government bureaucracy whose authority is subordinate to the divine law. That is why it is so important for Catholic parents and Catholic educators to know the faith, to study it, study its principles, and know well the Church’s understanding of the human person. Governments clash with one another because they have a radically different understanding of the human person, and this is true within democracies, like Canada. In a nation like ours, although certain parties embrace the principle of democratic rule, some parties do tend towards a more totalitarian view of the relationship between the individual and the state as a whole, and so we need to watch for that. It is also true that some parties tend towards a more extreme libertarian view of the human person, which is also problematic in many ways. 

God is the unutterable mystery (Gk: myein: to be shut or closed). He is hidden, but present. No one can offer God advice or hold him accountable for the way things are in life. God’s ways are not our ways. 

As we read in the book of Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways…For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

God’s plan is too large for us to understand. It is Mystery pure and simple. We have a small part to play in this life, and so we just do our part without needing to understand the whole picture. But, even though God is hidden, He is present, and our prayer is always before Him; for God inspires our prayer. Our prayer is His breath breathing through us. 

God is hidden, but near; He is present, not distant. I won’t even say He is next to us; rather, He is within you, that’s how close He is to you. 

Think of a newborn baby that is carried by her father or mother in a car seat. The baby doesn’t know what’s going on; the baby doesn’t understand the hospital environment, what this institution is, who everyone is, what they do, but the baby is safe in the hands of her father, who carries her in what is required by law to be a new car seat. To that father, the child he’s carrying is everything, the center of his life. And that’s how God the Father looks upon you and me. We are carried by him, and we have His constant and undivided attention. 

Deacon Douglas McManaman

In the parable of the two sons, the one agrees to work in the vineyard but chooses not to in the end, the other refuses to do so but in time chooses to do as his father asked. The meaning of the parable hinges on the answer to the question: What is the will of the father of the two sons? On the surface, the answer is that they work in the vineyard. But what does that mean exactly? Such work is carried out for the sake of making wine, and according to Psalm 104, God made wine to cheer the heart of man. Hence, wine is a symbol of joy. At the wedding feast of Cana, they ran out of wine, which is a borderline disaster for a Jewish wedding. Jesus’ first miracle was to rectify that situation, which says a great deal about Jesus’ attitude towards throwing a good party. In fact, one of the parables compares the kingdom of God to a king who prepares a wedding banquet for his son, a feast of rich foods and the finest wine. Heaven is going to be one large eternal party, and everyone is invited to feast on rich foods and choice wines (Is 25, 6). But as you know from the parable, not everyone accepts the invitation. Most of the invited have what in their minds amounts to more important matters, business, farming, etc, not necessarily evil things, but on the contrary, the pursuit of goods; they are just not interested in the invitation to the banquet. So the servants were ordered to go out into the streets and to gather all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. 

This world can be divided into two groups: those who accept the invitation, and those who do not but who are set on managing their own lives. In the first century, the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, represent the son who said yes but did not go to work in the vineyard, while the tax collectors, prostitutes, the rejects, the liturgically unclean, represent the son who at first refused but then went to work. But what do tax collectors and prostitutes have to do with wine production? They accepted the invitation to the joyful celebration. In other words, they believed Jesus. And that is precisely the will of the father; for Jesus himself said it: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day” (Jn 6, 40).

The tax collectors, prostitutes, the outcasts, etc., believed in him. But what did Jesus do that required so much faith? The straightforward answer is that he forgave sins. If you recall the paralytic who was lowered through the roof on a stretcher (Mk 2, 1-12). Jesus said to him: “Child, your sins are forgiven”. But the scribes reacted, saying: “He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?” He then went on to heal the paralytic, which was the evidence that his sins were indeed forgiven, because in the minds of the Jews, sickness, poverty, blindness, paralysis, etc., were signs that a person was forsaken by God and paying either for his own sins or the sins of his ancestors.  

What did the paralytic do to deserve paralysis? Nothing, of course, just as the blind man did nothing to deserve his blindness (Jn 9, 1-4). But what did the paralytic do to deserve the forgiveness of sins? Nothing. What did the woman caught in adultery do to merit forgiveness? Nothing. What did Lazarus or the 12 year old girl do to merit being raised from the dead. Nothing at all. This was all pure gift, and when someone receives an undeserved gift of extremely high value, the result is joy, symbolized by wine, which is produced in a vineyard. 

What all this points to is the utter generosity of divine grace. Christ’s death and resurrection is our redemption, our reconciliation with God the Father. Our debt has been cancelled. Why? Not on account of anything we did. The only requirement on our part is a trusting faith. Jesus said: “Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me, and whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness” (Jn 12, 44-46).

The good news of the gospel does not bring darkness; it brings light. Imagine committing a very serious felony, and you’ve been charged, and you are most certainly going to be convicted and sent to prison for the rest of your life, because you cannot by any means pay the debt that your crime has created. And you’ve been waiting a long time behind bars for your trial to begin. Then one day you receive a visit from the Prosecutor. All charges have been dropped. The prison bars are opened. You are free to go.  And somehow, in a way that you cannot yet understand, the harm your crime caused others has been transformed such that your victims come out victorious, fully restored and of radiant life. You don’t understand how that’s possible, but you are assured that is the case. Think of the joy that would be yours, after living in deep darkness caused by anxiety and dread. It would very much be comparable to opening a bottle of the best wine and drinking till your hearts content. 

But what about you, who committed the crime? Does your life go on without any transformation? Are you just the same person as before? No, you are changed, because you experience great joy, while those who refuse to work in the vineyard can be compared to a felon who refuses to believe the charges have been dropped and the prison bars have been opened, and so he stays put, sits right there in the prison cell and doesn’t move. He does not celebrate, because he doesn’t believe he’s free; he doesn’t believe he’s won the lottery, for that’s simply too good to be true. In his mind this is a fairytale.

But that’s our situation. To believe that, however, is one of the most difficult things for human beings. In my ministry as a Deacon to the sick, I’ve encountered people who were tormented by anxiety, dread, guilt and fear of judgment for things they did in the past, and it is very hard to convince them that their debt has been cancelled. And then, just when I think they’re beginning to get it, they begin to reveal things about themselves. They assure me with great pride that they will never forgive this person or that person in their past, as long as they live, for something he or she did years and years ago. When I discover this, it feels as if I’ve been punched in the face with a boxing glove. It’s the parable of the unforgiving debtor all over again. I just finished assuring you that this debt hanging over your head, that has been causing you dreadful worry and fear of judgment, has been cancelled, that the prison bars have been opened and that you just won the lottery, and yet you are now telling me that you are going to keep this relative of yours forever in his or her own prison of guilt and regret, without end, for something he did in a moment of weakness when he was was barely a teenager? Is that what I’m hearing? 

And that is precisely why they experience dread and worry in the first place, for they know subconsciously that the amount we measure out will be the amount we receive. How often has Jesus implied that unless we forgive, we won’t be forgiven? And to persist in such unforgiveness means that such a person doesn’t really believe in the good news of his own salvation.

Finally, consider the woman in Simon’s house.  Jesus says to Simon: 

Two people were in debt to a certain creditor; one owed five hundred days’ wages and the other owed fifty. Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both. Which of them will love him more?” 

Simon said in reply, “The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.” He said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she has bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment. So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The others at table said to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” But he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” 

Notice the order: her sins have been forgiven, hence, she has shown great love. It was not her good acts that saved her, but her faith in his forgiveness, which was followed by love. That is the good news of the gospel in a nutshell. We very often put the cart before the horse by thinking that forgiveness results from the decision to reform our lives, to get our act together. This is false. She loved much because she was forgiven much, and she believed it. The greatest winners in the end were the greatest losers to begin with. Some of us might remember as children getting ready to play baseball, or soccer, or football with neighborhood friends; the two captains would each take turns picking a player, one at a time, to form two teams in the end, and they’d always pick the best players first, leaving the worst players to be chosen last. The strange thing about Jesus is that he picks losers first, not winners, the least, the last, the lost, and it is those who have the privilege of playing on the side that will enjoy an eternal victory. 

 

Deacon Douglas McManaman

As a result of my encounter with the Salesians of Don Bosco very early on in my teaching career, I have been deeply inspired by the life and visions of St. John Bosco. However, I was never able to warm up to the image of Our Lady Help of Christians (Don Bosco’s Madonna), a heavy set woman wearing a gold jewelled crown and holding a royal scepter in her right hand, while cradling in her left arm a rather plump baby Jesus, who wears a similar gold, jewelled crown atop his rather large head. This image struck me as a cultural projection. In fact, it is typical of us to create our images of Jesus and Mary “in our own image”, as it were. Every Advent a local parish treats us to a very large display of international nativity scenes, which illustrate well the tendency to create the Holy Family in our own cultural image. The international nativity scenes are somewhat more exhilarating for me, because it is rather obvious in this context that no single culture is the paradigm instance of the nativity, and so it tends to inspire a more global theological perspective. 

That is why I believe it is important to take our own Western images of the Blessed Mother with a grain of salt; for they embody a perception that likely has more to say about us than it does about the historical Mary of Nazareth. Mary was an Israelite, a first century Palestinian Jew. Her skin would have been brown, and her character should be gleaned more from the data of Scripture than from projections rooted in a patriarchal Western European society, which for the most part lends the impression that Mary was a quiet, submissive, passive, and dependent woman, disposed to be subject exclusively to male guidance. If Mary was the pre-eminent Israelite woman, she would have had integrated within her all the characteristics of the great women of the Old Testament, such as the wisdom, courage, and leadership qualities of Deborah, the humility, work ethic, and initiative of Ruth, and the shrewdness and sacrificial spirit of Esther and Judith. 

In fact, there is much that we can infer from a consideration of the first chapter of Luke’s gospel. For example, at the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel says to her: 

“Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be ….” 

Mary was troubled at what was said because she did not see herself as highly favored by God. And if she is the exemplar of perfect humility, it is only because she did not consciously regard herself as better than anyone.

“During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, …”

Notice that she was not accompanied by Joseph or any other man, and so this would have been a particularly dangerous journey. Jesus sent the disciples out two by two for the sake of their own safety, but Mary set out in haste, motivated by the condition of her cousin, Elizabeth, with the intention of caring for her until the birth of John. And so, she is a woman of great courage and initiative who acted independently. 

In her Magnificat, she says: 

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness….”

Once again, Mary sees herself as lowly (tapeinos). She is not exalted in her own eyes, that is, she does not see herself as special. 

“The Mighty One has done great things for me, …”

She sees that it is God who has done great things for her, not the other way around, and there is no hint in these verses that she merited divine favor. She simply acknowledges the utter gratuity of divine grace or favor.   

“His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him….”

She knows this because He had mercy on her, and she knows from within her own fear of God.  

“He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty….”

She rejoices in justice and the divine mercy that serves justice, and this is true only because she had a longing for that justice. In other words, injustice moved her to anger and sadness, albeit a patient anger and sadness. The degree of that sadness can be inferred from the degree of her exuberance. And so she was not one to stand by meek, mild, and unmoved by human oppression; rather, she was someone who observed and was willing to name the arrogance of the ruling class. She is attuned to the suffering, to victims of injustice, the hungry, which causes her to be incensed at the arrogance of the oppressive rich. She is one who delights in the victory of the lowly. In short, this is a woman who burns with a desire for justice.  

“He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

She loves Israel as did the great Jewish women of the Old Testament; she has a definite sense that she belongs to a larger nation but is just one among many, 

“Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home…”

Again, she returns home on her own, without any mention of accompaniment, but only after staying for three months, doing ordinary tasks ordered to the support of her cousin. Menial and ordinary household tasks are not below her, and she stays for the last third of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, when she is needed the most. 

Another important point is that Mary tends to be amazed at what is said to her. We see this at the Presentation. She is amazed at the words of Simeon and Anna the Prophetess. In other words, she is one who can be impressed with others and can learn from them, that is, she allows herself to be enlarged by others. She has no pretensions nor airs of superiority. And she ponders. She thinks about what is happening around her. She does not have an immediate and comprehensive grasp of things, and so she patiently ponders on what things could possibly mean. And she spent three days looking for Jesus when they discovered he didn’t return home with them after a day’s journey. So she understands the pain of loss, the pain of intense anxiety.  

“When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety….”

It is not Joseph, the man, who speaks; rather, she takes the initiative and asks: “Why have you done this to us?” And yet, she puts Joseph first: “Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety”. She is not calm and collected with some ethereal trust in God; rather, she panics. Three days of anxiety at the possible loss of a child is terrible suffering, and this suffering enables her to sympathize with parents who have lost their own child. But she also very subtly calls out her son, challenging him, a twelve year old boy so focused on what interests him that he fails to consider his parents. She corrects this typical adolescent absent mindedness: “Why have you done this to us?”, and not: “It is we who are at fault….”. No, it was you, Jesus. You did this to us.  

After that, Jesus is obedient to them. Mary still did not completely understand all this, but kept all of it in her heart, to ponder, so as to eventually discover the meaning of it all. Thus, she is patient, and she clearly understands that understanding is going to take time and thought.