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?

Kneeling Crucified

Today is the feast of St. Leopold Mandić, OFM Cap., (1866-1942), a Croatian who ended up as a noted confessor in Padua. I was reading Pope St. John Paul II's homily for his canonization, and came across this striking paragraph:

What remained for St. Leopold? Whom or for what did his life serve? He was for his brothers and sisters who had lost God, love, hope. Impoverished human beings, in need of God, who called out, imploring his forgiveness, his consolation, his peace and serenity. St. Leopold gave his life to these ‘poor’, offering his own sufferings and prayer for them, above all in celebrating the sacrament of Reconciliation. It was there that he lived his charism and there that his heroic virtues expressed themselves. He celebrated the sacrament of Reconciliation, carrying out his ministry as if in the shadow of Christ crucified. His gaze was set on the crucifix, hanging on the penitent’s kneeler. The Crucified was always the protagonist. ‘It is he who forgives, he who absolves!’ He who is the shepherd of the flock ...

Italian doesn't make a distinction between the noun crucifix and the adjective (or nominalized adjective, as in this case) crucified. I decided to translate both ways in different instances according to what seemed to me the simplest sense of the text. But I can't help but think that John Paul II meant to indicate a connection between a crucifix displayed in the confessional and the crucified humanity of Christ 'hanging' on the kneeler in the person of the penitent.

As a priest it's one of the things that strikes you with awe and your own unworthiness, becoming a witness to the suffering Christ in the penitents who come to you.

I had a wonderful spiritual director right before I entered the Capuchin Order. One time I asked him where God was when I was committing a sin. He looked at me like I didn't know anything.

"He's suffering with you on the Cross."

Full text of the homily (in Italian) here.

Deacon Ron

Deacon Ron baptized me:

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Quaker Hill, Connecticut. Summer 1992.

A few days ago I heard that Deacon Ron was nearing the end of his journey in this life, and since then the friars and I have been praying for him and his family. Today I see that he passed away on Thursday.

My initiation into the Catholic faith was rather irregular; I dare to say that I was born out of order like St. Paul. (cf. 1 Cor 15:8)

I was a dumb kid. I thought I was very smart, as young people often do after they have learned a little bit of this or that. But I was quite innocent, and, as the saying goes on the worst kind of ignorance, I didn't know what I didn't know.

But nevertheless, God was at work and I knew I wanted to become a Catholic, even though I had no idea what I was getting myself into -- and this is divine mercy; if it was all revealed to us, we might be overcome with fear. I have told my conversion story elsewhere -- light version here -- and how I came to be in the pastoral care of Deacon Ron.

He and his wife received me into their home with great kindness over that summer of 1992 when I stayed at school in New London and was employed by the reference department in the library. I must have seemed on odd figure to them, with my good old 8-hole ox blood Docs and I shudder to think what t-shirts ill-suited to the occasion, with a lot of book-learning about the faith (or so I thought) but quite short on any practical sense of such a Church being made up of actual people.

Nevertheless, Deacon Ron and his wife were extraordinarily gentle and welcoming, and from their example I learned more than I realized at the time. Deacon Ron was the first person I met who had a real personal devotion to a saint -- St. John Vianney -- and I observed how that fit into someone's ministry and prayer.

After Deacon Ron baptized me, while I was straightening up from leaning over the font, I heard him say, quietly but audibly,

"Beautiful."

It has always stayed with me; I think because I could understand, even somewhat at the time, that he wasn't exactly saying that it was beautiful that this random kid from up-at-the-college had been baptized, but that in this he was able to see through to divine beauty.

That is to say, in theological terms, that a sacrament had happened.

When Deacon Ron let out about the divine beauty he glimpsed in that moment, I learned something -- even if in such a way as to not be very aware of it at the time -- about the spirituality of the sacred ministry, the ministry which, some fifteen years later, the Order would assist me in discerning as my own path in religious life.

It was a very special joy for me when, still a very new priest, I had a chance to return to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, where Deacon Ron had baptized me, and celebrate the Sunday Mass with Deacon Ron's assistance. And not to forget the particular service of being the wife of a permanent deacon, Ron's wife helped me out with the particular 'volunteer from the audience' shtick that I used in my homily that day.

You have passed away from us for now, Deacon Ron, but the fruits of your ministry and your good example remain. May St. John Vianney welcome you to your service at the Heavenly Altar.

Requiescat in pace.

Obituary here.

The Penitent Who Hates The Pope

A pastoral issue came up during table talk among the friars recently: what to do for a penitent who comes to confession and says he hates Pope Francis.

For my part I don't think this has ever happened to me. Back when I was assigned to pastoral ministry, which was during the pontificate of Benedict XVI, I don't remember anyone ever confessing hatred for him either. Perhaps there was less overlap between the faithful afflicted with hatred for Pope Benedict XVI and the faithful who go to confession. But that question goes with another topic.

The question stuck with me and I gave it some thought.

Dom Chautard on Losing Youth

Recently I read some alarming thing about how people are abandoning the faith younger and younger. I was reminded of one of the times some poor bird got into the church in Yonkers and everyone was discussing how to help it escape. 

"Give it the sacrament of Confirmation," offered one sardonic soul.

Priestly Vocations Ramble/Rant

Me: Have any sons?
Angry lady: Yes
Me: Did you ever suggest priesthood?
AL: No!
Me: That's why there aren't more Mass intentions to schedule

— Charles, OFM Cap. (@FrCharles) November 17, 2016

That tweet is from the other day. Given responses, it seems to have hit some particular nail on the head. In thinking about it I decided it needed some follow-up for fairness sake.

Amoris laetitia

This post isn't really about Amoris laetitia, since I haven't read it yet. Yes, I've looked over it, and yes, of course, I've taken a look at the parts that touch on the 'hot button' issues. When my regular travels in the coming week take me by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana on the via di Propaganda, I'll pick up a nice, physical copy and start to give to the exhortation the careful reading it deserves.

io ti assolvo

Even in this age of smartphones and tablets, I still carry a little old-school notebook with me. In it are the most random of all notes: scribbles from meetings with formation, spiritual, and academic directors, rhetorical notes-to-self, directions to places, digests of bus schedules particular to the certain times of day when I would habitually need them. One of the best recent additions I have made is the absolution formula in Italian.

I don't know why, but it's happened several times that someone here has just come up to me and asked to confess. Maybe it's what they do in Italy. Maybe it's because they can see that I'm a foreigner, probably don't speak the language very well, and will therefore have to be quick about it. Maybe it's what the Holy Spirit arranges for my encouragement and for whatever graces he wills for these seemingly random penitents.

As this happens, it forces a duty on me. I myself have to start going to confession in Italian. It's not because I have to; here in Rome as it was in Assisi it's easy enough to find an English-confessing priest at one of the basilicas. But I realize that if I'm going to hear confessions in Italian I have to go to confession in Italian. I need to know the critical vocabulary of the encounter; the way the words work and flow according to the customs and scripts of that very particular moment, the terms and syntax that are recognized in the naming of grace.

It's like when we were in the novitiate in Honduras and were challenged to share vocation stories with the novices; the most critical term was inquietud; it was a way of talking about a motivating restlessness in the heart. I never would have happened on the word myself, but in that setting it was an indispensable term for speaking of an experience of God.

So, one of the current projects is to prepare for my first confession in Italian.

On The Way Rejoicing

I love the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch as it comes to us in the first reading for Mass today. (Acts 8:26-40) It's just such a mysterious story. Why was an Ethiopian making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem? If he was a eunuch in the physical sense, would he have been allowed to visit the Temple? (See Deuteronomy 23:2) Where did he get a copy of Isaiah? Was he reading in Hebrew or Greek?

We don't know these things for sure. For me this is a reminder that in any encounter with another person, and in a ministerial encounter especially, we come into the presence of an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, a creative work that was going on before we got there, and will continue when we are gone. Each person is a particular journey that the Holy Spirit is creating in the world, and to which we may become present for a shorter or longer time. Ministry, then, is just reverence for the operations of grace in another, and perhaps some assistance in naming them and taking the next steps that God reveals, if and only if we ourselves have been given the grace of such a ministry.

I also love how the Spirit disappears Philip after the eunuch's baptism. Letting go is so important in ministry. There's always the temptation to make disciples for ourselves rather than for the Lord. Some disciples cling to teachers because personalities are easier to follow than the living God, but this is a failure in courage. Some teachers cling to the work of grace in their disciples as if it were partly their own possession, but this is a failure in chastity. Whenever the economies of grace invite us into reverence and care for the work of the Holy Spirit in another, there will come a point when we are called to let go and thereby confess that the salvation we have served in another is God's work and not our own.

John Chrysostom on Haters

St. Vladimir's Seminary, one of my favorite day off destinations back when I lived in the City of Gracious Living, does the English-speaking Christian world a great service in publishing their Popular Patristics Series. Maybe it's because I'm somehow deranged, but I've often found more wisdom and support for Christian life and ministry in these books than I have in many contemporary things I've been asked to read.

For his feast day today I was looking through the volume of John Chrysostom's Six Books on the Priesthood, where I alighted on this passage on the criticism of preachers:

For the congregation does not sit in judgment on the sermon as much as on the reputation of the preacher, so that when someone excels everyone else at speaking, then he above all needs to take painstaking care. He is not allowed sometimes not to succeed--the common experience of all the rest of humanity. On the contrary, unless his sermons always the match the great expectations formed of him, he will leave the pulpit the victim of countless jeers and complaints. No one ever takes into consideration that a fit of depression, pain, anxiety, or in many cases anger, may cloud the clarity of his mind and prevent his productions from coming forth unalloyed; and that in short, being a man, he cannot invariably reach the same standard or always be successful, but will naturally make many mistakes and obviously fall below the standard of his real ability. People are unwilling to allow for any of these factors, as I said, but criticize him as if they were sitting in judgment on an angel. And anyhow men are so made that they overlook their neighbour's successes, however many or great; yet if a defect comes to light, however commonplace and however long since it last occurred, it is quickly noticed, fastened on at once, and never forgotten. (131)

Of course the passage is about preaching, but could be applied to many other things in ministry and life and general. The point: never mind the haters.

Motorcycle Blessing

This is a perfect example of the stuff I miss from being a parish priest. On my way to the provincial chapter last month I stayed a weekend with the friars at my old assignment. I asked the pastor if I could help out by taking one of the Sunday Masses. The Saturday was fairly busy--it's wedding season, after all--so he offered me the vigil Mass.

While we were in the back of the church getting ready for the procession, a couple came in and approached me. "After Mass, Father," they asked, "would you bless our new Harley?" Of course I would, I told them, and then instructed one of the altar girls to bring down the holy water bucket and aspergillum when we recessed out of the sanctuary at the end of Mass.

By the end of Mass it was pouring rain. But I said I would bless this motorcycle and I was going to do it. So I took off the chasuble and went out. I told the altar girl that she didn't have to come, but she seemed to want to. (She's dedicated, and always remind me that she served at my first Mass.) So there I was, standing the rain, vested in alb, cincture, and stole, accompanied by my acolyte and the two proud new Harley owners, praying over the new motorcycle. This was witnessed by a large number of parishioners who were waiting out the rain on the portico.

One always feels a little funny sprinkling holy water in the rain.

That's just the sort of prayerful adventure that I miss from being a parish priest. I don't think I even knew the couple, but somehow they found out who I am, because they managed to deliver to me this glass as a thank-you present.

On Bad Pastors

For reasons too obscure to rehearse, I was thinking yesterday of Pope Boniface VIII. Boniface usually makes it onto lists of worst popes both serious and humorous. He was said to enjoy dressing up as an emperor, and had so many statues of himself made that he was accused of idolatry. I think I once read that he even passed out statues of himself to his guests, kind of like a perpetual, papal bobblehead day. Therefore, if you ever find your pastor arrogant or full of himself, remember that it's all relative.

Thinking then of bad pastors, I was reminded of one of my favorite friar stories. Riffing on Jerry Seinfeld's accusation against his dentist Dr. Whatley, that he had converted to Judaism "just for the jokes," one of my classmates once accused me of entering religious life "just for the stories."

A friar went on a visit to a parish where he had once been pastor. He was having a pleasant and peaceful time until a lady approached him after Mass and began to talk to him about the current pastor.

"This man," she said, "is the worst pastor we've ever had."

"I'm very disappointed to hear that," began the former pastor. "When I was here, you told me that I was the worst pastor you had ever had."

"Well," she went on, not missing a beat, "up until then you were!"

Still Got It

I'm visiting the friary attached to the parish where I was assigned before being sent to my current assignment of full-time study. Looking at the parish schedule last night, I noticed that the pastor was to have both morning Masses today. So I volunteered to take the early Mass, which I had last celebrated back in the middle of July.

I'm so glad I did. So many things reminded me of graces and signs of graces I miss from being a parish priest: the lingering smell of incense in the corridor that goes to the church, reminding one of the great mysteries of God's mercy celebrated in funerals, the quiet solitude of entering the dark church early in the morning to open up and set up, the privilege of being witness to the deep and durable faith and devotion of ordinary people.

I thanked the early crowd for their prayers, and asked for more.

Brevity is a value for the typical early Mass-goer, so I was happy to hear that I still had it: "Thanks, Father. Good to see you. You're one of the good ones; you don't talk too much."

Theses on Charity

Isaac of Stella caught me in the Office of Readings today: Charity is the reason why anything should be done or left undone.

Charity is the only good reason to do anything, but it also sometimes demands that we not do something we might think we want to do. There are a lot of fine distinctions one has to make in this area to live spiritually in common life and ministry. For example:

• We are called to support one another, but not to enable maladaptive behaviors, debilitating addictions, and sins.
• We must bear with the burdens of others, and be willing to wash feet, but we should not take responsibility for the feelings of others.
• We must seek ways to invite both individuals and institutions to benefit from our strengths, and invite them into the success that derives from them, but--again--we should be careful not to take interior or exterior responsibility for situations that the Holy Spirit has not, or not yet, seen fit to put in our care.
• Sometimes the greatest charity--and often the most painful--is not giving someone what he thinks he wants.
• We must be good to ourselves, practicing good self-care, but that doesn't mean taking it easy and just 'being nice' to ourselves. On the one hand, we must not be so hard on ourselves that our whole spiritual life becomes a rehearsal of faults and sins, for this is one of the devil's tricks in making us fail to notice God, and on the other we must also be careful not be overly forgiving of ourselves so as to effectively give up struggling with certain selfishnesses and sins. We must practice the sort of self-charity that nourishes our gifts and virtues, and is ruthless in the unwillingness to put up with sin.
  

Ministry and Keeping the Blog

Thanks for all the responses, both in the public comments and in person, on my post about the possibility of quitting the blog in favor of another project. You have reminded me of something very important.

Ministry is the Lord's work, in which we are helpers, facilitators, and collaborators. Therefore, the idea of any particular ministry we might have is not the same thing as God's idea of it. Indeed, in any successful ministry, what God is up to is greater than either what we care to or even can imagine. Anyone who has ever preached has had a plain and amusing experience of this: after the service someone comes up to you and thanks you for having said some beautiful or insightful thing that you don't remember ever saying, or even meaning to say. The devout soul heard not what you thought you were saying, but what she needed to hear from God. Indeed, to pray for such graces is a humble and helpful way to pray before preaching.

In the same way, I must remember that this blog is a ministry greater than my idea of it. Because of the particularity of my own state in life and the questions and issues that preoccupy me in the current moment of my life, I may be more conscious of parts of the audience that share some of these characteristics. But that doesn't mean that the blog is only for them or even primarily for them. The blog is what God wants it to be. It's for whoever God inspires to visit. Any fruit that comes of my little rants and reflections is God's work, accomplished in the economies of grace so expansive and wonderful that they can even work through the meager and self-indulgent efforts of a lukewarm and distracted little religious priest like me.

So, enjoy the blog. Or better, appreciate and be grateful to the God who is so marvelously humble as to shine his gentle loving kindness through our little web-based communion.

Done

Classes are over for the semester. I have one more term paper to go through, fixing and editing, and then it will be time to return library books, recycle and straighten up. It's really one of the joys of the school-based life; that sense of being finished.

One never gets to enjoy that feeling in the parish ministry. A parish is always running. There are individual projects that arrive at completion, but most of the work is continuous and never-ending. It slows down at certain times of the year, like in the middle of the summer and in the last few days before Christmas, but the thing itself never really pauses. It's also true that one gets to feel a little sense of rest and doneness at the end of principal celebrations, but it doesn't last. After the Paschal Triduum there's a great sense of gratitude and relief, but there is almost always a funeral to do on Easter Monday, having been set aside from Saturday or Friday (or even Thursday, when funerals are permitted, but not funeral Masses.) Christmas is a similar thing; the afternoon of Christmas Day is a blessed quiet and relief, but as soon as the office opens on the next first weekday, the new wedding engagements start calling in. (I didn't know this before I was a parish priest, but a lot of people get engaged at Christmas.)

So right now I'm just appreciating the sensation of having finished the semester, and am enjoying all of the little rituals of recycling, filing, and clearing that go with it. Not that there won't be more work to do after another day or two: I've left several mundane projects and errands for the time of the semester break, I have a presentation to prepare for January and a directed reading course for next semester to plan in more detail. And off in the not-so-remote distance is my reading list for comprehensive examination, and (dare I say it) a dissertation proposal to be made.

What is Charity?

For the feast of St. Francis Xavier today, the Office of Readings offers us some a letter he wrote to St. Ignatius Loyola. St. Francis writes:

Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: "What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!"

Charity is when someone organizes his behavior according to the missionary desire for the salvation of his neighbor in Christ.

Everything else that charity might be, like the corporal works of mercy for example, or even simple kindness on the natural level, derives from this original definition and focus, and is subordinated to it.

Great Responses in Ministry

When I worked at the parish I was known for my one-liner responses to various inquiries. I was thinking about some of them today:

Caller: "How do I baptize my baby?"
Me: "You put some water on it and invoke the Blessed Trinity."

Caller: "Can I be buried in any cemetery I want?"
Me: "Not until you are deceased."

Caller: "What do you mean we can't have a funeral [Mass] on [Holy] Thursday? Which one of you down there made up that little rule?"
Me: "Pius XII."*

Man who came into the office alone: "I'd like to schedule a wedding."
Me: "Do you have a woman? We only supply the priest, organist, and cantor."**

Upset lady who said she wanted to hug the tabernacle: "Why are you telling me all these things?"
Me: "Because you asked."


*Any rubricians want to check me on this?
**In my experience as a parish priest, it was exceedingly rare for the male party to initiate wedding planning in the first place, much less come alone.

Some Things I Miss

I've been here in Boston for three months now, and I'm starting to feel adjusted into the assignment. Term papers are starting to take shape and I'm thinking about what to do next semester. Off in the distance of imagination are the first thoughts about my reading list for comprehensive exams, and--dare I say it--dreams for a dissertation proposal.

Settling down into this new kind of student life reminds me of some of the things I miss from parish life. I was just thinking about some of them this morning:

A regular and stable liturgical matrix. At the parish, liturgy had an intense regularity; every day the same chapel, the same church, the same altar. Liturgical time cycled through days, weeks, seasons, and years. The linear time imposed by the steps, grades, and goals of something like school or religious formation starts to fade away. Cycles replace time-lines. In the cycles of prayer, the Now of eternity starts to peek through. I miss that. Here in the student house, liturgical life is very different. I offer Mass at four or five different altars in the course of a week. Not that this isn't without its gifts; I'm really enjoying my weekly visit to the Poor Clare monastery, for example. But it can feel scattering. Here in the house, in the morning we sometimes have Morning Prayer in common and sometimes have Mass, a practice which feels choppy and scattering to me. I like to have a regular early-morning routine, but I can't really because sometimes I have to pray Morning Prayer in private and sometimes I don't. So I miss the regularity and stability of Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours in the parish.

Days off. The parish is always going. It's active seven days a week from early morning until the middle of the evening. For a priest, the only way to get a break is to leave, so that's what they do. They 'go on their day off.' I look over my posts labeled 'Day Off Adventures' and I see a certain lightheartedness and freedom from care that I no longer have. When you are a student the books are always there, and the papers always need to get composed. This isn't to say that I never take any time with friends or a day just to relax, but somehow there just isn't the same ability to leave the whole business behind and get away for a little while.

People. The parish priesthood is a personal service kind of job. From the parlor to the confessional, from running meetings to praying with folks at the funeral home, you are always with the people. It's one of the greatest blessings of the parish ministry; the people keep you sane and are very encouraging for the most part. The job is so social that you have to be careful about getting the solitude that you need; it becomes a treasure, really. Here I think of some of my 'Sunday Afternoon' posts. In the doctoral student life, the situation is quite different. It's a solitary life for the most part. Yes, I have new friends at school and I spend time with the brothers here at home, but most of my days are just me and text. I read text, I struggle over text, I try to make text about text. So here I must take the opposite care, of making sure I find some social time. Such is far harder for me than making sure I find time for solitude, so I miss being in the opposite situation in the parish.

Ramblings on Penances

Being a priest shifts one's relationship to the sacraments in ways that go way beyond simply coming into a new role or function in the sacramental encounter. (Some of those who talk about priests as "presiders" at Mass wish to flatten this sacramental reality by making the priesthood into a mere function or the priest into a facilitator.) Even though these graces have come to be revealed to me in mysterious and sometimes unexpected ways, I have found them to be consistently encouraging and confirming of my vocation.

One of the most practical set of shifts comes in confession. I have found that trying to be a thoughtful and thorough penitent is the best way to try to become a thoughtful and attentive confessor. Being a confessor, in turn, has helped me to become a better penitent.

I was thinking about this yesterday after I received a simple but challenging penance. The priest gave me a decade of the rosary. There's nothing unusual about that. But then he said that I should reflect on which of the mysteries of the rosary suited my spiritual condition, or which one best spoke to the graces I was seeking. I was then to offer that particular decade of the rosary as my penance.

I liked the idea, so now I will probably use it myself. Not that you can give every penitent a whole decade of the rosary, but some would really appreciate it. That's another of the funny things about imposing penances; sometimes people think that the "size" of the penance corresponds to the gravity of the confession. Therefore, when I say that the biggest penance I ever received was to 'say fifteen Our Fathers and then go home and say Evening Prayer with great devotion' those to whom I tell this story presume that my confession must have been pretty serious. But this is not always the case. I think that the most objectively grave confession I ever made got me a single Hail Mary.

For me, the amount of penance I give to a penitent depends on what I can guess about his or her spiritual condition. Sometimes I give the most religious people the smallest penances as an opportunity to combat spiritual pride or Pelagianism. Sometimes I give the least devout a larger penance so as to get them to sit still for a moment and perhaps listen to the Holy Spirit. I often ask penitents not just to say prayers, but to offer them for someone. Many times I ask them to pray for the victims of the sort of sin they have confessed, particularly in the cases of sins that are wrongly viewed by the world as victimless. In this, though, one has to be careful. For example, someone who confesses to having procured or performed an abortion may not be emotionally ready to pray for the dead child, particularly if the penitent is the mother. In other cases such an invitation may be exactly what the penitent needs to release emotion and hurt and begin to repair the relationship with the deceased. So you have to be careful. But as every penitent knows, the inspired confessor who gives us just the right penance is a great spiritual gift, so I pray for the graces I need to be that guy when I can.