Evangelii Gaudium: My Favorite Parts

I gave the weekend to reading Evangelii gaudium. Broad and unfailingly positive, it is exactly what it says it is, an 'Apostolic Exhortation.' It is a plea that the Church and all her members might become evangelical and missionary in everything. There is much that strikes; for example, the length of the section on homily preparation or how, when Francis speaks of the option for the poor, divine and ecclesial, he speaks first not of helping or even of justice, but of inclusion in society. I was especially grateful for sections that gave expression to certain concerns that have troubled me over the years, such as much of what Francis says about 'pastoral acedia.' (n. 81 ff.)

Given those things, as well as the important passages already reported in a widespread way, here are some of my favorite quotes:

Christmas Eve

The first entry in the Marytrology strikes me this morning:

Commemoratio omnium sanctorum avorum Iesu Christi, filii David, filii Abraham, filii Adam, patrum scilicet, qui Deo placuerunt et iusti inventi sunt et iuxta fidem defuncti, nullis acceptis promissionibus, sed longe eas aspicientes et salutantes, ex quibus natus est Christus secundum carnem, qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in saecula. 

The commemoration of all the holy ancestors of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, the son of Adam, namely those fathers who pleased God and were found just according to the faith of the deceased, who didn't receive the promises as fulfilled, but gazed on and hailed them from afar, from whom Christ was born according to the flesh, he who is the blessed God above all forever.

It's especially interesting as a kind of preparation for St. Matthew's genealogy in the gospel for the vigil Mass of Christmas and for the Christmas Proclamation, which is found in the Martyrology for tomorrow, but which ought to be proclaimed tonight ahead of the 'Mass during the night.'

On the morning of Christmas Eve, the Martyrology offers us a liturgical commemoration of all the ancestors of Jesus Christ, and reminds us that the Word became flesh not just in an abstract human nature, but as a historical human life in a particular place and culture with specific ancestors. To me it invites a reflection on the doctrine many of us have absorbed that culture is basically fungible, that the cultural elements of the time and place of the incarnation are ultimately accidental. More and more it seems to me that this set of assumptions impoverishes the doctrine of the incarnation.

We commemorate this morning the faith of all of those who looked forward to Jesus Christ come in the flesh, gazing on the great mystery in the obscurity of the night that preceded the first light of his birth and the full dawn of the Resurrection, the Resurrection that is the full meaning of the 'let there be light' by which the Word of God brings into being the first day of the new creation.

On Fanta and Modernism

I wouldn't presume to say that I have much in common with our holy father the Pope, Benedict XVI gloriously reigning. Nevertheless, we are both Catholic priests, foreigners living here in Italy, fans of St. Bonaventure, and native speakers of Germanic languages. And as I begin to live here in Italy, I am noticing ways in which I have come to understand Benedict a little better.

First, Fanta. There was some amusement when it was reported some years back in the secular press that Benedict likes Fanta. Fine. It is a little funny to imagine the dignified old professor-pope enjoying a sweet, bright orange soda. But here's the thing, at least for you Americans: here in Italy it's quite a different substance, this Fanta, and much superior to what we have at home. So I get it. Yum.

Second, the so-called 'Benedictine Altar Arrangement.' To some, the Pope's apparent preference for six candles and a crucifix arranged on the altar itself is a welcome symbol of his 'hermeneutic of continuity.' To others, it is further sign that Benedict is a crypto-traddy making every effort to roll back the reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council. Living here in Italy, as the Pope has for many years, has helped me to better understand his preference. You see, there seems to be a very common style for arranging altars here, and it goes like this: you take all the candles, whether these be one, two, or even four (that's the most I've seen, and at the lower basilica of St. Francis no less) and put them all the way on one side of the altar. On the other side, you put a flower or plant or even a whole floral arrangement.

In this practice I perceive the drive towards modernist unbalance that smolders away in the Churches, and the rotten and relativist fruit of which we all know so well. So as I see more and more of these unbalanced altars, I understand more and more why a thoughtful priest like Benedict XVI might want to restore some classical proportion to the setting of the Sacrifice.

Thinking Inside The Box

To have an integrity as a religious person, one must be engaged in a continual struggle against the tendency of religion to domesticate God. Part of giving oneself to a life in community is the willingness to take up the sacrifice and difficulty of doing this not just against the background of one's own distraction and sin, but the cocktail of the collective distraction and sin of a group of Christians.

As if that weren't enough metaphors for one day, in reflecting on this I've been playing with another one: the box.

Religion is like a box into which we are supposed to put ourselves. It is a set of boundaries and definitions, practices and behaviors revealed by the Holy Spirit and built up by sacred tradition. Placing ourselves in this box helps us to hold on to the salvation we have received by providing practices that keep us mindful of the economies of grace around us and of the ways God wills us to be useful for the salvation of others. The boundaries and limits of the box help us to avoid the errors and confusions that lead us back to our former way of life, that we may be daily delivered from the misery of the vain way of life bequeathed to us by the legacy of brutality that is original sin, the vana conversatione a patribus tradita. (1 Peter 1:18. I love that phrase; it's one my favorite Easter slogans.)

Things turn around all too easily, however. Religion becomes not the box into which we put ourselves for our safety and in order to remain attentive to God, but the box into which we put God in order to domesticate him and protect ourselves from him. We can  use religion to make God into a safe and intelligible commodity, perhaps a nice resource that we as religious people are privileged to possess and even share with others (aren't we nice!) or a bean-counting judge who is happy with us and unhappy with everyone else. Or perhaps he is unhappy with us too! That's something one notices a lot as a confessor; how easily an idea of God is instrumentalized by human self-hate. Or we think that because we are religious people, we know exactly what God wants and what is expected of us. Perhaps this makes us into Pharisees, but sometimes it also makes us domesticate God by making him the nice and 'pastoral' mascot of our relativism, protecting ourselves from the discomfort and political incorrectness of ever having to say that anybody else is wrong or that their behavior is unacceptable.

The world and the flesh, in their infantile arrogance, want a God who can be safely stored and who will not challenge their rule over our lives. Of course the world and the flesh are wily; they will help us to think that we are being 'stretched' and 'challenged' even when we are growing ever more safe and comfortable with ourselves and the 'God' we have put in a pretty box.

Let us put ourselves in the box instead, the box of true religion that is God's means of freeing us for the salvation of our brothers and sisters.

Passion for Salvation

Traveling last weekend I was caught in the snowstorm and took refuge at our friary in Middletown, Connecticut. It was good to see the friars, and to enjoy the peace of the empty, found time. One of the things I did while I was there was read some of a book on the lives of the North American martyrs.

One scene struck me especially. In the midst of torture, one of the priests wrung a few drops of water from his wet clothes in order to baptize another victim who was ready to accept Christianity. That's just one of many moments that illustrate how driven these missionaries were, how convinced they were that the eternal salvation of souls was at stake in their ministry.

How far we have come from such zeal! Yes, of course it's a good thing that we have removed superstition and magical thinking from the practice of the sacraments. But on the other hand, do we really believe them necessary? I once heard a homily at an infant baptism in which the priest said that the baptism was simply an outward celebration of the divine adoption that the child had already received. Is this what the Church teaches?

One of the friars I live with suggests that we should examine our consciences on whether or not we have a 'passion for salvation.' Perhaps that's something like what used to be called a 'zeal for souls.' Do we really believe, as ministers of the gospel and priests of Jesus Christ, that the eternal salvation God desires for every person has some dependence on our faithfulness to our own call, to our finding the energy and motivation to become the holy religious and priests we have promised to be?

Or have we accepted, either consciously or in subtle, uncritical ways, the creeping universalism of our time, in all of its power to absolve everyone from responsibility? How many funerals have you been to in which the immediate, beatific destiny of the deceased is beyond question, and there is no sense in which the Mass is an offering for his or her continuing salvation? If everyone (and their dogs and cats) automatically 'go to heaven,' then what zeal could there be for the baptism with which the Risen Lord sends forth his disciples to all nations?

Or how much have we accepted the comfortable, civil theology of 'many paths to one divine something-or-other' as we stick our 'Coexist' bumper stickers on our cars and congratulate ourselves on our enlightenment? Never mind the fact that this 'theology' implies that God is an incompetent self-revealer; many of us have let it into our heads so that we don't have to say that anybody else might be wrong, the cardinal sin of our relativistic world.

Let us cast off these glittering errors of the world and allow grace to cultivate within us the direct imitation of God which is a zeal for souls and a passion for salvation.

Fat Free Roman Missal Rant

So I notice today that LTP has started to ship the new missal. Our new adventure in English-language worship comes another step closer. Will folks get used to saying, 'and with your spirit'? Will it help them pray? Will saying 'consubstantial' assist folks into the mystery of the Father and the Son better than 'one in being'? How long will it take priests to get used to saying 'dewfall' in their beloved Eucharistic Prayer II? How many boring arguments will have to be had about 'the many'?

I was thinking about these things as I ate my cereal this morning. That's when I noticed something fascinating on the kitchen counter: a carton of something called 'fat free half & half.' One of the brothers was putting some of it in his coffee. Isn't the idea of 'half & half' that it is something not quite as rich as cream but more so than plain milk? So what could it possibly mean that there is something called 'fat free half & half'? But there it is, right on the counter. And, apparently, whatever the referent of the utterance, 'fat free half & half' is supposed to be, the term carried enough meaning for somebody to buy it.

My point is that our problem is not just what words mean, but recovering the idea that they should have certain meanings at all. Therefore, for example, in addition to the question of whether it's better to say 'consubstantial' or 'one in being,' we need to be about recovering the assertion that the words matter because they refer to something in a specific way.

As one of my best teachers once said, we always have to remind ourselves that, in trying to talk about God, we are up against a grave challenge in a society that can say, "'Coke is life' and infinity [sic] is a car."

What we need to be careful of is the thinning out of language to the point that saying 'God is one and three' or 'Jesus Christ is one person of two natures hypostatically united' is the same sort of thing as saying 'fat free half & half.' The latter is a contradiction (which doesn't bother us because we have ceased to believe in truth and have, sometimes implicitly, accepted the relativism we have been taught) while the former is the best attempt of faithful and thoughtful Christians, helped by the Holy Spirit, to indicate the mysteries of revelation and the experience of salvation in human language.

Without truth, the mysteries of the Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation are the same sort of thing as the mystery of 'fat free half & half.' Without truth the new translation doesn't matter either, and both its defenders and detractors become those who argue from the meaningless tediums of taste and power.

Remembering Charity in Conflict

This post is meant as a continuation of what I wrote yesterday, and a reminder to myself that we have to remember charity and mutual understanding even within our conflicts in the Church in general and religious life in particular.

Yesterday afternoon I went somewhere offer a memorial Mass for a small group of nice people. It was perfectly pleasant and I tried to do my best for them. In the front of the small assembly was a woman, not old but perhaps in later middle age, who made all the responses and prayers loudly and strongly, with all of the standard adjustments and changes for so-called 'inclusive language.'

It would be easy for me simply to rant about it. I don't want to live in a relativistic world in which everyone is their own pope, and each of us has the right to alter the Church's prayer to suit his or her own concerns.

But to just rant is a failure in charity. Yes, we must stand up against the errors and misunderstandings of our time. But we also have to try to appreciate each other, and to recognize that those who do wrong-headed things often do them with the best intentions and with genuine values at stake. The woman in front of me perhaps grew up in a world in which she was made to feel like less, as someone with fewer opportunities in life than her male counterparts. Perhaps she grew up in a world with a lot of 'rules' which didn't seem to have a function or make any sense. So maybe, just maybe, for her to use this so-called 'inclusive language' in her own prayer at Mass represents and symbolizes for her an intense experience of liberation she has had over the course of her life.

I think that this can be hard for many of us younger Catholics and religious to understand. We grew up not with oppressive systems of rules, but in the relativistic, post-modern vertigo. We grew up oppressed not by rules but by their absence. Our grandparents in religious life (our parents are mostly missing) found in their vocations a liberation from a previously ossified and oppressive culture, a liberation from the rules. We have found in our vocations a liberation from relativism and moral anarchy, a liberation to the rules.

This isn't anything new, and it has been better written by others. I just mean to say that as we work to recover our Catholic identity from the errors and wanderings of those who have gone before us, let us remember that they too were children of their time, and that the Spirit of God spoke to them in their liberation as well. No doubt I have own pet myopias, and errors that will need to be corrected by those who come after me. If I want to be treated like a thoughtful and charitable person when that day comes, I need to do it for others now.

Kitchen Rules

People are full of rules. Sometimes they are aware of it and sometimes not. No area has such intense rules as around food, and hence the kitchen. Thus, the kitchen is the location of a great many little cold wars and quiet but strenuous struggles in community life. For example:

One brother thinks that there always has to be a box of plain crackers on the counter. Crackers are akin to cookies, right? The cookie jar is on the counter, so the crackers should be there too. Another brother thinks that crackers belong in a cool dry place like the cupboard. So the crackers are constantly about this round trip from counter to cupboard.

A similar pattern emerges with the dish soap. One brother thinks that dish soap is like hand soap; it belongs next to the sink. Another thinks that dish soap is more at home with the other cleaning products, which everyone knows go under the sink. So the dish soap is always about an analogous cyclical journey.

One brother thinks that the butter belongs outside of the refrigerator, another one in.

One brother believes that the sink rag must be folded square and laid over the divider between the two sides of the sink. Another one is convinced that it must be left in a triangle shape draping over the front. Still another is convinced that it is gross to use a rag more than once, and so rejects both options and puts all wet rags into the laundry basket.

One brother thinks that the dish drain rack is where you put clean dishes to dry. Another brother thinks that it's where you put dirty dishes that can't be put immediately in the dishwasher. Still other brothers, when they get to be superiors, avoid this whole ugly debate by forbidding dish drain racks altogether.

Another question is the nature of kitchen counters. One brother imagines that light food preparation can be done on the counter without the mediation of any other surface, e.g. you can put the two pieces of bread that will anchor your sandwich right on the counter and proceed to dress them. Another brother believes that the counter is the place where you have to put another surface, like a cutting board or a plate, whereupon you may then prepare food. The latter sort of brother comes to be tempted to indulge disdain for the former, thinking him gross. The same issue goes, similarly, on the question of whether you can leave directly on a counter the spoon or fork you had used to put something into a bowl before putting it the microwave, retrieving it afterward for eating purposes.

Post-Christianity?

I got into a conversation the other day on the question of whether or not some of us Catholics, especially some religious and clergy, have absorbed (perhaps unwittingly) or even embraced a post-Christian theological mood.

It's a tough question, I think. I have written before about how I sometimes see religious relativism and indifferentism creeping into our Catholic life and discourse, especially in the form of the comfortable and civil theology of 'many paths to one (alleged) truth.' I have argued before that this must be resisted. For one thing, it doesn't stand up to sacred scripture. It also suggests that God is an incompetent revealer; what God reveals about himself cannot be understood on its own, because (for example) it is irreducibly bound into culture, patriarchy, language, etc. In the end then, because all "religions" (the problem of what counts as a religion is not asked) aim at some truth or transcendence which is imagined as a unity, God is ultimately unknowable. So we end up with a funny kind of relativistic, post-modern gnosticism which is so vague as to have almost no spiritual utility apart from helping us get along and avoid arguments while we strive to build up the kingdom of man.

But that's enough ranting. To get back to the original question raised by my friend, I think we have to be attentive to the language we use. Does our religious speech affirm the scandalous particularly of Christianity or does it slyly water it all down into generic terms? Do we say 'faith communities' instead of 'churches' so that we can hold up the political correctness of 'inclusivity?' When we say 'churches' are we saying what the Catholic Church means by this term, or are we also speaking (uncarefully) about Christian bodies that are properly not churches but 'ecclesial communities?' Do we use terms like 'minster' and 'ministry,' which have specific meanings in Catholic Christianity, in the generic sense of any religious service or work? Do we use generic spiritual language like 'growing in faith' and 'making meaning' rather than talk about holiness in Christ and proclaiming the Kingdom of God? Has Jesus Christ Himself begun to slip out of our speech, in favor of a generic 'god' or a 'spirit' which is whatever anybody wants him or her to be?

Let us discipline our speech, and resist the forces of relativism and indifferentism.

Rubrics and Beams

The other night I was having fun with one of the brothers as we remarked upon all of the little additions, subtractions, and quirks of different priests when they offer Mass.

The funny thing is that they often find these things annoying in each other!

If you yourself change the prayers in accord with what you imagine to be your theology, or leave things out because they don't suit you, or add things because it's your "presiding style," you don't get to criticize someone else who leaves out or changes other things because he thinks that they suit him!

Easter Preaching Rant

It's a joyful challenge to be preaching on the "Bread of Life Discourse" this week, all the while leading up to next Sunday when we will have the image of the Lamb in the reading from Revelation and the Good Shepherd in the gospel. Journeying through that particular conjunction, the Lord as Lamb and Shepherd, is the prayer of my homily preparation this week.

It reminds me of something I've heard from priests from time to time over the years, about how they dread preaching through the Easter season and don't know what to say. I have always found the sentiment both sad and disturbing, but perhaps now that I am a daily preacher I can at least sympathize. Easter is supposed to be the center of our faith, the preeminent moment of Christianity. So why should it be hard to preach? I think of two issues.

First, Easter suggests that the resurrection of Christ be preached. I say "suggests" because I have not always heard about the resurrection in Easter homilies. It's true, it's a hard thing to preach. Jesus rose, or 'was raised' (theological passive), 'in his human body' (as we say in the Roman Canon, "secundum carnem") to some sort of new, glorified, eschatological life. This new life is somehow continuous with his historical life, and includes, in some sense, the physical body that he, as Word, borrowed from us through the consent of Mary. He has breath, and can eat. Oddly, however, he is not immediately recognizable, despite being the same person. Perhaps even more strangely, the risen Jesus is not confined by the ordinary limitations of physical bodiliness, as he appears and vanishes, shows up in locked rooms, etc.

Even more, the Easter homilist must preach on how this resurrection of Christ has implications for us, how his passing over to new life is also ours, and how all of this is communicated through baptism and the other sacraments. Too often these are preached in a way that does not produce portable belief and practice for people. We throw our hands up and call it a "mystery." Not that I have anything against mystery, but we need to preach mystery so as to encourage mysticism rather than mystification.

All of this is just to illustrate that the Easter preacher has a delicate and difficult task, and if we are accustomed to preaching a vague morality or general, clever sayings about "spirituality" we, as a Church, will not be up to the task.


Second, I think Easter preaching is challenging because it forces Christian particularity on the preacher. It is about the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and there is no way around it. This particularity will be hard to preach and communicate if we have absorbed the comfortable and civil theology of 'many paths to one divine something-or-other.' Perhaps few of us would admit to adhering to this theology, but many have adopted it as an operative mode. Why not? It's comfortable, it helps us to fit into the relativism of the world, and it relieves us of the discomfort of having to say that anybody might be wrong about anything. Unfortunately, however, once we adopt this 'theology' as our comfy and unspoken over-arching paradigm (and I believe that many of us have) there is nothing left to preach but vague morality and general spirituality. The theological problem with this idea is that God becomes fundamentally unknowable, since all "faith traditions" are equally inadequate to the Mystery. God, apparently, is not actually capable of revelation. Therefore, when God is unknowable and not a reliable revealer of himself, worship cannot be anything but the worship of ourselves and our own ideas. More likely it will be worship of our own pride in how enlightened we are to have adopted such a magnanimous theology. Been there, done that. I can't think of anything more boring.


Via non est nisi per ardentissimum amorem crucifixi.

Surrexit Dominus Vere. Alleluia.

Relativism Rant

The parish ministry, on the natural level, is a customer service job. Sometimes, however, because it would be irresponsible (and sometimes even sacriligious) pastoral care, you can't always give people what they think they want. (Though many priests do anyway, because they can't stand not to be nice, as the Holy Father has alluded to in his recent comments to the courts of the Holy See regarding marriage cases.) In the comment box yesterday I was reminded of the quote from one of my pastors along the way: "This is not Burger King; you can't have it your way."

For me it brings up the question of relativism. We who are Catholic Christians are probably not afflicted with the "dictatorship of relativism," as Benedict has diagnosed the confusion of our time, but each of us late modern people have something of this demon within us, to one degree or another.

It reminds me of a house meeting we had in a friary I once lived in a long time ago. We were talking about the gestures made upon entering the chapel for common prayer. As it sometimes seemed that everyone was doing something different, it was asked whether or not we might try to 'get on the same page.' Each brother made an argument for his own practice. One explained that he bowed to the tabernacle because he wanted to reverence the Blessed Sacrament, but genuflecting--for him--had too much reference to "imperialism" and "patriarchy." Another said he bowed to the assembled brothers because it was in them that he "preferred" to try to contemplate the presence of Christ. Another bowed to the altar instead of reverencing the tabernacle because "the reserved host is not a devotion for me." Still another said that he made no gesture at all because this was his house and such "formalisms" are not required in the comfort of one's own home. Finally, one brother said he genuflected to the tabernacle because "that's what we do in the Roman rite."

An interesting discussion ensued, with each making theological and ecclesiological arguments for the practice that he had decided upon, some of which were quite good. Nevertheless, the very framework and nature of the discussion reveals the problem at hand: it was up to us--on our own and according to our own lights--to decide what kind of worship was 'right for us.' This is not a Catholic but Pentecostal approach; to be Catholic is to live in a community of reflection extended through time and space and to take one's cues from its Sacred Tradition and Magisterium rather than home brewing one's own practices and procedures.

Pelagius lived at Kardanoel
And taught a doctrine there
How, whether you went to heaven or hell
It was your own affair.
It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy,
But was your own affair.

(Hilaire Belloc, The Pelagian Drinking Song)

UPDATE: Ah, the synchronicity and providence of the blogosphere: I see on NLM today that a document is being prepared on liturgical formation for religious.

Appreciating Generational Differences

Much has been written about the generational conflicts we are going through in the Church and in religious life; it's the "70s priests" against the "neo-cons," the "John XXIII Catholics" against the "John Paul II Catholics," the so-called "spirit of Vatican II" against the so-called "reform of the reform," etc.

I was discussing these questions with an astute older priest yesterday, and he put it something like this: 'We grew up in a culture that valued conformity and was overly defined and regimented. So when the reforms of the Council came, we found our spiritual identity in our liberation. Guys your age, on the other hand, grew up after the Vietnam war and other events took away our moral clarity about our nation, after some of the darker sides of the sexual revolution began to appear. You attended educational institutions in the grip of the 'dictatorship of relativism,' as Benedict calls it, and just as we reacted against strictness and found our spirit in our liberation, you came to find your 'liberation' and spiritual identity in the struggle to have something solid and structured to stand on in the midst of the moral and cultural vertigo.'

Of course all this has been said before. I only rehearse it again because I thought that Father's articulation was particularly clear, and especially because I think we need to appreciate the source of each other's spirituality. We can argue about liturgy or canon law or whether to wear a religious habit until the end of time, but it won't help us at all unless we can appreciate and give thanks to God for the spiritual place in which someone else found their God.

Heresy

I have a theory that we lose some of our spiritual vigor and urgency--especially some of us who are clergy and/or religious--because we have (perhaps unreflectively) bought into a certain secular philosophy of religion. And what's worse, it's one that makes us into subtle agnostics and pelagians.

The theory goes like this: religion is a category of human life and expression, and each particular religion is a path, but all the paths are going to the same place. Call this goal of religion what you will: "God," "the transcendent," "spirituality," what have you.

This imagination has certain secular advantages: it precludes the idea of competing religious claims, relieving us from intolerant religious violence. It means that "people of faith" can work together toward common goals of compassion and justice without the nagging feeling that they are relativizing their particular beliefs.

But there is a dark side; a price to pay for this relativism.

First of all, the theory contains the assertion that there is genus called "religion" into which all kinds of different phenomena have to be stuffed. This sounds fine when you're filling out a form and have to fill in the blank that says 'religion,' but it breaks down quickly in the particulars. A Christian and a Jew are hardly two species of the one genus "religion." More accurately we have to say that the Christian is a particular kind of Jew, or that both are the fraternal twins born of the end of Second Temple Judaism. Problems increase even more when we try to go outside of the Abrahamic heritage.

Second, the theory suggests that nobody really knows God. We are all using these different cultural and linguistic constructs that we call "religions" to try to articulate something about God, but the very fact of their diversity demands that God is some kind of Kantian noumenon to which nobody has any kind of genuine access. This is why, if we make the relativistic philosophy of religions our framework, we have become agnostics, who don't really know how to say anything for sure about God. And agnostics don't die for their beliefs. And they don't live for others for God's sake either.

Third, this religious relativism makes us into pelagians, because religion is about our human expression of an experience, our human articulation of whatever it is the different faiths are aimed at. This is, in fact, the opposite of Christianity, which proclaims that the gap between the human and divine has been bridged, not by human effort or cultural or language, but by God himself in the humanity of Christ.

Cell Phones

So far I've been able to resist this cultural transformation, but I know the day is coming when I'll have to get a cell phone. Luckily for me, it's still considered slightly sketchy for a friar to have one.

It certainly seems convenient to be able to reach people and be reached on the go. On the other hand, it makes me sad when I constantly see people blabbing on the phone while ignoring the children they have in tow. I was on a shopping trip with another friar when he decided he needed to have a half-hour conversation on his cell phone, leaving me to communicate about possible purchases through gestures and facial expressions. On the subway, where people used to read or sleep, we are now introduced to everyone's private business.

It's definitely a transformation. You notice it in the movies, how people didn't always have cell phones.

When I was a chaplain in a psychiatric unit one of the head psychiatrists once remarked that he though the invention of the cell phone had done more than anything else to lessen the public stigma of schizophrenia. It used to be that someone walking down the street talking to themselves was odd and frightening. Now everybody's doing it.