Pornography, Confession, and Amendment of Life

Recently I saw online a video of a priest preaching about folks who go to confession over and over with the same sin—in this case, pornography—and how they may be 'abusing' God's mercy.

Certainly pornography is a serious issue. Any priest who hears confessions knows that it has become a serious public health crisis. It has the potential to deform imaginations and consciences and to weaken and even destroy real relationships.

And it’s true enough, to go to confession without any contrition or willingness to ‘amend my life’ (as we say in a common version of the Act of Contrition), would be something sacrilegious and a sin of presumption on God’s mercy.

But is that what is going on when people come to confession over and over, especially in the case of this particular problem? In my estimation, no. Or at least it must be rare. I think what is usually the case is that someone wants to make a change, to find freedom from the emptiness and ennui of this problem, but doesn’t know how to begin to succeed.

They want to make amendment of life, but fail. Why?

Amoris laetitia: The Cultural Challenges

Freedom of choice makes it possible to plan our lives and to make the most of ourselves. Yet if this freedom lacks noble goals or personal discipline, it degenerates into an inability to give oneself generously to others. Indeed, in many countries where the number of marriages is decreasing, more and more people are choosing to live alone or simply to spend time together without cohabiting. We can also point to a praiseworthy concern for justice; but if misunderstood, this can turn citizens into clients interested solely in the provision of services. (33)

Freedom is highly valued in our world; freedom of choice, self-determination, etc. This is a good thing in itself. But the Holy Father points out rightly that if freedom is not accompanied by "noble goals or personal discipline, it degenerates." If in my 'freedom' to do what I want with myself I do what makes me miserable and makes those around me suffer, I am not free. I am a slave to sin. If I am 'free' in such a way as to compromise or ruin the gifts I have been given for my own flourishing and the good of others, what good is such 'freedom'?

As Pope St. John Paul II famously put it, "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought."

On Masturbation

I received a message via the contact form, and given that it touches upon an issue that arises with some frequency in confession, and which probably touches the consciences of many of the faithful who try to live chastely according to their state of life (whether in marriage or in the single or consecrated life), I thought I would answer in a post rather than privately.

Here's the message, with the personal details removed, of course:

I just have a serious question about our faith which needs a clear answer. I believe that you can help me reflect and understand what is really true. I am now...years old and I am still struggling with masturbation. I have tried many times to get rid of it. For the record, I was able to stop it for 8 months. However, there came a time that I can't resist it anymore. Honestly, it feels so natural but a voice in my head says its wrong. I am really confused if its a sin or not? This is a hard battle.

Laudato Si': Holy Poverty

I was fortunate today to have cleared my desk of work by noon, so as to start to read Laudato si' as it was published. I read it quickly and will have to go back and read it again. It's quite a marvelous document. I thought of making a post of my favorite quotes, but now I realize it will take more post than one.

Right at the beginning is the beautiful and clear intuition of St. Francis that is the root of Franciscan sine proprio and holy poverty:

The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled. (11) 

 That is Franciscanism. It is the admission that nothing, not a thing or a place or a person or even your own self belongs to you alone. It is a confession that you yourself are not god, are not the center of the universe, and that other persons and things have ends and purposes and joys that are apart from your use or enjoyment of them.

In human relationships, this holy poverty is called chastity. Pope Francis is helping us to see that we need to find together a new chastity toward our sister mother earth.

RIP: Fr. Benedict Groeschel

In  the quiet of the afternoon of the feast of St. Francis I got the news that Fr. Benedict Joseph Groeschel, CFR, had passed from this life.

I met Fr. Benedict a few times over the years: a couple of times at Capuchin events, once on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe at the CFR novitiate in Newark, and once at a celebration of Confirmation at The Children's Village in Dobbs Ferry, New York, at which Cardinal Dolan presided.

As I prayed for Fr. Benedict's eternal rest last night, a couple bits of gratefulness came to mind in particular. The first was for a television series he had on EWTN in the early 90s. If I remember rightly, it was called The Truths of Salvation. I don't remember if I was watching it while still a 'seeker' or if I was already baptized, but that show provided a lot of my early catechesis. The other thing I thought of was Fr. Benedict's book, The Courage to be Chaste, which was a great help to me at one time.

Requiescat in pace.

Naive and Pessimistic, All At Once

Probably a mistake, but yesterday I took a look at the newspaper. There was an article about the problem of rape in the military. Another piece spoke about a prelate recently accused to inappropriate behavior against his subjects.

The two things stuck together in my thoughts.

Sister Ash

Our Ash Wednesday Mass provided a charming instance of omnis traductor traditor.

One of the preacher's points included quoting St. Francis as he comes to us in the fifth chapter of the Legend of the Three Companions:

Whenever he would eat with seculars, and they would give him some delicious food, he would eat only a little of it, offering some excuse so that it would not seem he was refusing it because of fasting. When he ate with his brothers, he often sprinkled ashes on the food he was eating, telling a brother, as a cover for his abstinence, that "Brother Ash" was chaste. (FA: ED II, 77)

Toward Chastity

Last night I went to chapel early so I could pray my Franciscan Crown before Vespers. I thought to pray for the young Indian woman who has been in the news. Last night she was still alive. This morning I read that she had died.

While I was praying for her I found such a terrible sadness. It was, on the one hand, grief at the meaninglessness of her suffering and the loss of her life. It was clear yesterday that even if she were to have survived the injuries inflicted by her attackers, it would have been with a mutilated body. On the other hand, my sadness was for the knowledge that the roots of such violence and unchastity live also in my own heart, and every time I have been unwilling to suffer anything rather than indulge and nourish them, every time I have given in to the world's wish to co-opt and collude with them for its own vile purposes, I have made myself, spiritually, an accomplice of those miserable men.

It is not enough to be chaste, if by chastity we mean solely a personal project focused on the self. It might be the one of the most difficult things in the world to begin to mortify our own acquisitive gaze, our tendency to objectify and instrumentalize other persons, and our own lust for control and coercion, all in the name of achieving some degree of physical and affective chastity according to our state in life. But it's not enough. The world is so injured by the terrible, destructive power of sexualized violence that if our chastity is to mean something, it must also be a positive force directed outward into the situations and relationships of our lives.

I used to think about and pray on this back when I was working at the parish. At the beginning I was put in charge of the altar children. As I worked with the kids I used to wonder to myself what it should mean for me, given that some of my brother priests, doing this same ministry, had abused the children in their care, leaving their lives wounded forever. Of course it meant that I had to carefully observe and implement all of the plans and guidelines that had been put in place to make sure that we had a 'safe environment.' I knew that it meant keeping a calm but watchful eye on things, always being aware of where the kids were and who might be with them. But in my prayer I realized that it had to mean more than that. I realized that in how I worked with the kids, in how I spoke with them, in what I would say and how I would say it, I had to notice and take opportunities to recognize their human dignity, to build them up, to let them know, somehow, the great dignity of their very being. Over time I began to know that this was, in fact, my primary ministry with the children. All the practicalities were secondary. The most important thing was for me to actively and purposefully treat the kids as integral persons, as creatures seen as good by the Creator and as human beings infinitely dignified by the Incarnation of the Word. In my prayer I knew that I had to do this if I wanted to have any hope of being faithful to the children who had suffered such abuse from my brother priests.

In the same spirit I pray today for the eternal rest of that Indian girl and for the consolation of her family. I pray in thanksgiving that our society is still outraged by her suffering and death, and I pray that it might come to see more clearly how it accepts and even celebrates other forms of violence and unchastity continuous with them. Finally, I pray that God let me know how I may begin to do penance for what she has suffered, and for the loss of her life.

Med Time in Italy

I have asthma. I've had it forever. It hardly ever gives me any trouble, but I do need medication. So of course one of my 'things to do' at my landing here in Italy was to figure out how to get some asthma meds. When I came here to the curia, I saw that on the occasionally posted notices of upcoming community events it often said, dovrebbe venire il dottore. "The doctor should come." So, I said to myself, when he comes I'll talk to him. I'm not being chauvinist, presuming that the doctor was a man. In Italian, a doctor who is a lady is a dottoressa.

So I marked the day on my calendar. When it arrived, I asked the guardian at breakfast if the doctor was coming. He told me that he was already here and that I had better hurry or I would miss him. I was taken down a hall to a room and told to wait outside. Someone was in there, I was told. When the other brother emerged, I went in. The doctor was all business; not quite gruff but certainly without any pleasantries. I explained to him that I was new, that I was an American, that I had asthma, and that I needed medicine. I gave him empty packages of American Symbicort and generic albuterol.

"Symbicort. We have that here," he said, and filled out a prescription form. The word in Italian for 'prescription' is ricetta, which is also 'recipe.' That says a lot, believe me.

The albuterol, however, seemed to stump him a little. He took out an Italian drug reference handbook and gave it to me, saying the writing was too small for him to read.

"See if you can find it. It's probably 'albuterolo.'" Italian is funny that way.

It wasn't there. But he wrote the prescription anyway.

"Take this to the pharmacy. Maybe they know what it is, or what it's called here, or something else that's like it." O.k., sounds like a good plan, I guess. Here, try this drug, see what happens.

Then, with my two prescription forms, the doctor dismissed me.

When I next saw the guardian, I asked him if we had a pharmacy that we used. He explained to me where it was, and told me to ask someone to take me in the car when I wanted to go. But because I'm independent and enjoy these little solitary adventures (light side) and have a hard time asking for help (dark side) I decided to walk. On Google Maps it looked like it couldn't be more than three miles, and besides, I would certainly encounter some place where I could but a bus ticket if I wanted to come home that way. Plus, I would get to know the neighborhood a little bit.

The walk turned out to be a disappointment. The occasionally impassible sidewalk forced me to risk life and limb in the street. Then there was the awkward moment of passing the weary-looking prostitute sitting on her little chair by the side of the road. I should greet her, I thought, to recognize her humanity is a work of love and chastity. But what to say? Buongiorno? Seems wrong somehow. Ciao? No, no. Salve? No, no, too stilted. I couldn't decide. I just smiled a little.

After an hour's walk through almost nothing interesting, I arrived at the pharmacy. I was a little concerned when I looked inside. A lot of the customers were in there with their dogs. And I saw what looked like veterinary products. But I also saw toothbrushes and skin lotions. Could the dog pharmacy also be a people pharmacy? I was going to find out. So I took a number. In Italy you always take a number.

The pharmacist I got was very nice. Just like the doctor said, he gave me something else that he said should be the sort of thing that albuterol is. I haven't studied it well enough yet to make my own conclusion. Apparently, or so I'm guessing, the other prescription said that I was supposed to get two canisters of Symbicort, but the pharmacy only had one. So the pharmacist made me pay for two and told me to come back tomorrow for the other one. Big deal. Three or four euro for a month of medication? This is when socialized medicine feels good. But now I have to wonder what 'tomorrow' means in Italian. It probably doesn't mean the actual day after today. So now I have to decide when to back to try to get my other Symbicort.

Not wanting to repeat the bleak walk, I took the bus back. On the way back the chair where the prostitute had been was empty.

Cubicle

I appreciated St. Ambrose in the Office of Readings today, from his treatise on Cain and Abel, as he explicates the Lord's teaching on prayer from Matthew 6:6: "But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret."

Sed intellege non cubiculum conclusum parietibus, quo tua membra claudantur, sed cubiculum quod in te est, in quo includuntur cogitationes tuae, in quo versantur sensus tui. Hoc orationes tuae cubiculum ubique tecum est, et ubique secretum est, cuius arbiter nullus est nisi solus Deus.

"But [by this 'inner room'] do not understand a cubicle bounded by walls in which your body can be enclosed, but the cubicle which is inside you, in which your thoughts are kept and your feelings turn over. This is the cubicle of your prayer. It is with you everywhere, and everywhere it is a secret. In it there is no one to judge you but God."

It's a pity that 'cubicle' in English is such an impoverished word, conjuring up images of drudgery, claustrophobia, and conformity. Because of the way we use it, it's easy to think that it comes from the word 'cube.' In fact, 'cubicle' derives from the Latin verb 'cubo, cubare,' to lie down. The cubicle is the little room where you lie down, your bedroom.

The place of prayer is an inner place, a space in which our spirit can 'lie down' and relax, because no judge but God has any access. Prayer, and indeed any of our attempts to relate our person to another personality, whether divine or human, depend on our awareness and cultivation of this space, of our inner cubicle. If we have forgotten about it or neglected it, we will not experience ourselves as a being separate enough from others in order to relate to them as a distinct person ourselves. Our relationships, including our prayer, become fawning, aggressive, or unchaste because we have ceased to be a self in relationship but only a consciousness reacting to another as another object.

By cultivating our awareness of our own inner cubicle, and the life of relaxation in it we call prayer, we also practice our mindfulness that  the core of the other is also an inner cubicle. This is the root of genuine prayer on the one hand, and of charity and chastity in our human relationships on the other: the awareness of ourselves and each other person as rooted in an irreducible mystery to which only God has access.

Beginnings Useful, Pious, and Funny

Living in a foreign-language environment is a good school of humility. You don't know how to say what you might say, ask for what you might need, or tell the joke or story you feel inspired to tell. Certainly one could say that the protection of religious life softens or domesticates these challenges, but on the other hand perhaps the safety of the friary encourages one to bear the challenges fruitfully.

Today I was grateful for a few of my first practical uses of the very simple Italian I've picked up so far. First, at supper tonight a guest appeared at the friary. When the friars discovered that he was an American, he was given to me so we could speak with each other. It fell to me to discover who he was and what he was doing in Assisi, whether or not he was a friar and/or a priest, etc. If you're wondering why such things weren't known about a guest who must have been pre-approved in some way or other, then you have an idea of religious life as a much more organized enterprise than it actually is. I don't think I knew how to explain everything to the friars' satisfaction, but at least I managed the basics, and did enough to make the man feel comfortable and received.

Second, I was approached tonight by one of the authorities in the house and asked for what intention I have been offering the Mass on the two mornings I have been here now. I answered that I had offered those Masses for the intentions of the guardian of the house, proud to seem like a properly trained religious.

Third, as I was working through emails, a couple of the young friars appeared here in the "Sala Computer" and I could see that they were intrigued by my desktop wallpaper. It got to be very funny as I tried to explain Hans Memling's allegory of chastity.

The Glorious Cloudiness

I love the scene in the first reading today. Solomon presides over the dedication of the Temple, the Ark is brought into the Holy of Holies, and the glory of the Lord appears.

"When the priests left the holy place, the cloud filled the Temple of the Lord* so that the priests could no longer minister because of the cloud, since the Lord's glory had filled the temple of the Lord. Then Solomon said, "The Lord intends to dwell in a dark cloud." (1 Kings 8:10-12)

I imagine the priests unable to minister because of the cloud of God's glory. Perhaps some simply stopped and adored in wonder. Maybe others missed out on the glory of God all around them because they were fretting about the ritual tasks and 'rubrics' they found themselves unable to complete.

The scripture reminds us that there is a moment in prayer when there isn't anything left to do, not because we have done everything we could have, but because God, in his mercy toward us, draws us into the mystery of himself. We are drawn, even seduced, into the glory of God which we, in our limited and temporal state, can only experience as a cloudy darkness. But we know this cloudiness is the Glory addressed by all our doxology, this glorious Cloud the desire of our minds and hearts. At this point there is nothing left for the intellect to do. There is only our will in the sense of our desire for the One who has been conforming us to his own Beloved since our baptism. Religion, in the human sense, ends.


Sometimes folks think they can go straight to this sort of prayer and experiential contact with God without first making use of the ordinary means of prayer and sanctification which God has revealed. On the surface this attitude seems enlightened and progressive and a way to avoid the conflicts that obtain between religions and between religionists and so-called secular humanists. But really this idea is a symptom of the shallow and pornographic nature of our culture, in its belief  that personal intimacies can be acquired quickly, even instantly, and without ascetic struggle and work on the part of those willing to let go of selfishness in order to love another precisely as other. We want to be loved and accepted just as we are, as if we were God himself. We confuse love with the various and often very subtle lusts that only make others into players in our own dramas, immaturities, and confusions. We want to be instantly matched with our 'soul-mate' without letting go of ourselves for the sake of another, just as in the same way we want mystical experiences without ascetism.

The good news is that prayer is the best school for learning the chastity that can love another precisely as other rather than as a pathological extension of ourselves. This is because God, in all his cloudy Glory and glorious Cloudiness, refuses to be a commodity, cannot be manipulated, and, to be a little silly but right to the point, has the best boundaries of anyone in the community.



*I apologize both to God and to readers for the inadequate style. I don't know how to make small caps.

Chastity in Community

Many times in my life as a Christian a comment or conversation that didn't strike me much at the time will come back to me later as helpful and important. I believe this is one of the many ways the Holy Spirit tutors our thoughts. Lately a word from my academic adviser from over a year ago has been coming back into my reflection.

I was just beginning the doctoral program and discerning which courses to take. In my shallowness I was doing so by thinking about networking and allegiances and that sort of thing. My adviser cut through my false discernment with this comment: "Professors so-and-so and I have as our only concern your salvation." I had been thinking about developing relationships with my teachers in worldly terms, without realizing that they saw their care for me as Christian ministry.

I've been thinking lately about how good it is to adopt such a practice of trying to look upon others in terms of their salvation. Specifically, I've been thinking about how it could be a means to learning chastity in community. To arrive at bodily chastity according to one's state in life is nothing to be discounted; it can be very difficult and requires much prayer and concerted ascesis. Nevertheless, such is only the beginning of chastity as a positive virtue. Chastity is the virtue by which we are able to perceive and interact with other persons as the discrete, unique, and unrepeatable creations that they are, with all of the dignity thus implied. Chastity is the means by which we are able to let go of all possessiveness, manipulation, the over-investment of our own fears and frustrations in others, and all of the many ways, both subtle and glaring, that we treat others not as persons in their own right, but as the dramatis personae in the drama of our own interior issues, anxieties, and disordered preoccupations. Chastity frees us from the instrumentalizing and commodification of others that derives from our own fears and interior injuries.

By trying to consider the salvation of others as the end of our relationships with them, we can free ourselves for chaste relationships. Here is the place where chastity and charity coincide; by trying to conform my relating to another to the unique and unrepeatable grace built on nature that God wills for him or her, I come to be truly loving because I am willing only the best happiness for him or her.

39. For Chastity

Back in this post I remarked on my discovery of the Mass formulary ad postulandam continentiam in the 2002 Missale Romanum, and how it doesn't appear in the soon-to-be-replaced American English sacramentary. With a little more research I found that this set of prayers appears in older missals, and had been restored by the 2002 missal.

Now that we finally can have our hands on the new translation, I see that this Mass does indeed appear, under "Masses and Prayers for Various Needs and Occasions 39, "For Chastity." I like the Prayer after Communion the best:

Through the Sacraments we have received, O Lord,
may our heart and our body flourish anew
by a keen sense of modesty and renewed chastity,
so that what has passed our lips as food
we may posses in purity of heart.
Through Christ our Lord.

I appreciate these sense in which chastity and modesty are the flourishing of body and heart, and that the end of both is our appreciation of Holy Communion.

Given the world we live in and the state of the Church, why would someone have thought it a good idea to get rid of such a set of prayers?

Sanctity is Pretty

This morning I was so grateful that it was cool enough to walk to the Poor Clares for Mass. On the way I was thinking about Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, whose feast day we keep today here in the United States.

I was reflecting on the holy pictures and statues I've seen of her. She always appears as a young and pretty American Indian woman. This might seem odd. As I understand it, her face was scarred from the outbreak of smallpox that killed the rest of her family when she was a child. So why is she depicted as pretty and without scars? I suppose it's because holy cards and statues aim to reflect the beauty of a soul. (How some of our sense of sanctity might change as we begin to have more and more photographs of saints!)

So what's the connection between sanctity and prettiness?

In reflecting on this I was reminded of something from my job before I entered the Capuchins. I worked in human services, doing mostly direct care. Our days required a lot of teamwork. Most of my coworkers were women. In examining my conscience one day I realized that I was more helpful and attentive to the coworkers who seemed more attractive. I brought this insight up with my spiritual director, who saw in it an opportunity for a positive work of chastity. He advised me to make a spiritual practice out of trying to let go of seeing my coworkers through my senses of attractiveness or interest--which are largely arbitrary anyway--and try to see them as God sees them, as unique and unrepeatable creations beloved by Him. I should try to reinforce this interior practice by the exterior behavior of trying to treat all of them as if they were interesting and attractive, because that's how God saw them.

It's like the time I did practice confessions with a class of children back when I was a parish priest. I asked for a volunteer, and a bold little boy offered himself. I told him to make up a sin for the sake of the practice.

"I called my sister ugly," he confessed.

"Do you know why that's wrong?" I asked.

He thought for a moment, and then responded brilliantly:

"Because God made her beautiful."

True story. And full of truth too.

But here's the thing. By working to see others as God sees them, as creations passionately beloved for the beauty of their souls, we begin to bend our own sentiments and attractions to the divine will. We ourselves become more clearly the image and likeness of God which we were created to be, and thus become more affable, attractive, interesting, and lovable.

God, after all, is adorable and interesting. Indeed, He is supremely so. So if we want to be attractive and interesting, we should try to become more like Him. That's the sense, I think, in which sanctity is pretty.

Jesus, Pornography, and Beautiful Sunsets

St. John's scene of the woman caught in adultery comes up in the lectionary today. (John 8:1-11) As I said to the sisters this morning, it's so full of encouragement and beautiful teaching that one almost feels ashamed to say anything after it by way of homily.

As I was praying through the passage last night, I started to reflect on chastity. Who is it, really, who is unchaste in the story? The woman, of course, was guilty of some kind of unchastity to one degree or another. But as I prayed I began to realize that is the men in the story, the scribes and Pharisees, who are the most unchaste. Their heinous unchastity consists in how they instrumentalize this woman, using her even to the point of her fate of life or execution, just to try to impose an impossible dilemma on Jesus and thus have something with which to charge him.

Jesus, in contrast, cleverly refuses the dilemma and protects the woman. To him she isn't someone to be used for some purpose apart from her own salvation--we see this in how Jesus addresses her personally and then commands her to leave sin behind.

My reflection reminded me of a conversation I once had when I was in the parish. A young man asked me if I could think of any spiritual strategies or practices that could help in a struggle with the use of pornography. Without really thinking, I said, "When you see a pornographic image of a young woman, wonder if she has received her Confirmation, and then pray for her safety."

We both laughed, partly because the thing about Confirmation is so 'parish priest'; when you spend a lot of time dealing with marriage preparation and baptismal sponsorship, the confirmed/unconfirmed distinction is the principal way young adults are distinguished. But as time goes by, I've come to think that my spontaneous advice was inspired. It's a little way that someone could begin to develop a chaste attitude toward his neighbor, reminding himself that it is her salvation and happiness in God that really matter, rather than anything she might be for his selfish purposes. The ascesis of chastity consists in training our hearts and eyes to see other people as God sees them: as unique and unrepeatable creations whose flourishing, happiness, and salvation are desired for their own sake.

So, I continued to the young man once we were finished laughing, "Desire God for them, instead of desiring them for yourself. That's love against lust."

I remember once when I was young in religious life I went to a talk that some wise old priest was to give on the subject of chastity. When he got to dealing with the 'lust of the eyes,' he made this observation, which I wrote down: 'When you see a beautiful tree or a beautiful sunset, you just appreciate it for itself, and for God who has made the creation so full of delight. You don't immediately get distracted by any dumb idea that the beauty of the tree or the sunset is supposed to do anything for you or be some kind of possession that you can grab for greedily. You begin to see through the physical beauty to the perfect loveliness of God and so are drawn into an attitude of contemplation. And yet, this happens in such a way that you are not taken away from the particular, concrete moment and your full attention to what is before you. When you can be like that when you encounter some pretty woman to whom you are sexually attracted, that's chastity. But when you get to that point, it won't even matter to you whether or not someone is pretty, because everyone will be beautiful.'

Monica as Intercessor

In one of my early assignments we had a little shrine to St. Monica in the public chapel. It was enormously popular. One doesn't have to spend much time in ministry to realize that a large proportion of the prayers of this world come out of the anxiety of mothers for their sons in trouble. St. Monica is the perfect intercessor for these intentions.

Another area for which I have recommended Monica as an intercessor is in the area of sexual purity. St. Augustine had his troubles in this area, as he freely admits, and chastity was a stumbling for him in his discernment of Catholic Christianity. Therefore, if we take seriously what we pray in the collect today, that God received Monica's tears for the conversion of her son (the current English translation about God being moved misses the mark a little bit) we must conclude that her prayers helped Augustine accept the grace of chastity.

St. Monica, pray for us.

The Love of God and Pastoral Care

Thomas Aquinas's commentary on John appears in the Office of Readings today, for those who didn't take the option of celebrating Rose of Lima, or for us Capuchins who didn't take the option of celebrating Conrad of Offida.

This line caught me: "Nobody is a good shepherd (pastor) unless by charity he is made one with Christ and a member of the true Shepherd."

It is the love of God that makes pastors, and empowers someone to give pastoral care. To me, this has two senses. First, anyone who dares to be a minister of God has to first know himself as loved by God. Of course this is a spiritual ideal. Everyone has some admixture of nonsense and distraction in this. Our own self-hates and the wrong beliefs we have been taught about ourselves by others (passing on their own negativity to us) sometimes get projected onto God. Part of our prayer must be our ascetical effort against this sort of thing. It might be subtle or even a secret to us, but if we, even in small ways, believe that God disdains or even hates us, it will come out and get passed on in our pastoral care of others.

Second, we must strive to purify the encounter of our heart and mind with others. We might find someone to be interesting or tedious, enjoyable or annoying, but we have to learn to bracket such things interiorly if we want to be ministers of genuine pastoral care. In my job before I was in the Order most of my coworkers were young women. Moment to moment cooperation made a big difference in how smoothly we could get through a day. Once I was examining myself on my charity, on how freely I could be helpful to others. I realized that I was more attentive and helpful to the coworkers I found pretty. Realizing that I had uncovered a subtle unchastity, I asked my spiritual director about it. He said something like this, which was very helpful: 'Whether or not you find a particular person attractive is largely an accident of your own history and your arbitrary prejudices. It's all a dead end in the face of the truth: each person is a unique and unrepeatable creation, loved by God beyond what we can imagine. In other words, they are all beautiful and lovable to God, regardless of how you might feel. Get that into your mind and heart and eyes, learn to view others as God sees them, and let it free you from the narrowness of your own particularity.'

Mass for Continence

Today I have noticed something interesting in my 2002 Missale Romanum. Amid the formularies for missae et orationes pro variis necessitatibus vel ad diversa, called in English, "Mass for various needs and occasions," there is a Mass that seems to have been omitted in our current edition of the American English Sacramentary.

There it is, under section three, ad diversa: right in between the Mass pro remissione peccatorum and the Mass ad postulandam caritatem: number 39: ad postulandam continentiam. "For seeking continence." That's sexual continence, for sure

The American English Sacramentary seems to skip this one; it goes right from "For Forgiveness of Sins" to "For Charity."

So...a couple of questions arise...is this Mass formularly new in the 2002 Missale Romanum, or did it exist previously but was omitted in the English language editions? Will it be included in the new one when it appears? Or have we been denied the Mass for praying for continence all this time? Would it not have been a good idea for some priests to have had this Mass available to them?

Hiding with St. Felix

The Prayer After Communion for the feast of St. Felix of Cantalice today caught me especially:

Almighty God,
by the power of this sacrament and the example of St. Felix
help us always to live a hidden life with Christ,
who lives and reigns with you, for ever and ever.

From what I can tell, this prayer seems to be new in the 1974 Roman-Franciscan Sacramentary; I find no version of it in the postcommunion or any other of the prayers for St. Felix in the 1954 or 1962 editions of the Missale Romano-Seraphicum.
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The prayer strikes me because it was precisely in the public life that St. Felix came to be known for his sanctity, praying and working in the streets of Rome. He didn't live anything like what we usually think of as the 'hidden' sort of religious life. The prayer reminds us, however, that the life of Christian devotion, like all human intimacies, is always secret. The grace and goodness we see in each other are not our Christianity at its secret core, but the fruits of a Spousal life which is difficult or perhaps impossible to show to a third party. There can be no pornography of the spiritual life; it is an intimacy impossible to display to someone else. Indeed, both through my own personal experience and my work as confessor and spiritual director, I realize more and more that many times much of God's intimacy with us is hidden even from ourselves, and often this is good for us and an expression of his mercy.

Pray for us, St. Felix, that we may descend into our created hearts where our lives are now hidden with Christ in God.