From My Confessor

Riffing a little on spiritual advice from my confession in preparation for All Saints and All Souls:

When it comes to God's will in your life, think of four levels:

There are, I hate to say it, religious who don't even try to seek God's will. At best they have never learned the difference between self-centered pious dreams and the living God.

A lot of religious manage to conform themselves to God's will in their daily lives more or less, but they complain about it to each other or to whatever other victim they can find. These get self-satisfied because of the good they do, and thus compound their sin.

Some get beyond this point, and do God's will will without complaining in their speech. They are still complaining in their thoughts, however, revealing that they haven't actually accepted God's will.

The goal is to not only do God's will but to accept it internally. To do the former is the easy part; to accomplish the latter is the real work.

Parish Ministry

I've been slow about posting this week; it's just been really busy. This is a busy time of year in general. For me the joy and the challenge of my ministry as parish priest come from the same fact: the outrageous diversity of the work. In the course of one day there is celebrating Mass, preaching, and leading prayers. In addition there are appointments in which you are called to pray with people, to offer spiritual advice or to plan events. And then there are homilies and talks to draft. Often there is a wake to attend in the afternoon, and usually an appointment or a committee meeting in the evening. Finally, there are technological and physical projects around the place to do or supervise, runs to the bank to be made, poor boxes to empty, vigil candles to light, telephone menus and websites to maintain, and thermostats to adjust.

In a way it's a beautiful ministry and a privilege, to have the chance to see the original blessing of God shining through into the world in so many different ways and in the lives of people in so many different situations and moments in life. On the other hand, it's easy to get worn out and scattered in spirit.

It's also why it's so important to take some "sabbath" from time to time, for the threefold Biblical purpose of imitating the Creator, taking time to restore ourselves in prayer, and to acknowledge that even though we work hard and do so many things, the ministry does not depend on our work, but on God.

25:1

Yesterday was baptism day. We have baptisms on the last Sunday of the month. We take turns, which means each of us gets to preside four times a year.

I really enjoy it, even with all of its ritual chaos and the depressing presence of those who are only "cultural Catholics." It's a beautiful ritual with a theology that, to me, is almost overwhelming in its implications.

On the other hand, preaching on baptism day is always a little jarring for me because most of my baptismal preaching is at funerals and wakes. So I am very accustomed to preaching the doctrine, theology, and Scriptural foundations of baptism, but not in the actual context of someone being baptized. In fact, the ratio in my ministry is about 25:1. That is, for each time I can preach on the actual occasion of baptism, I have about 25 opportunities to preach on baptism in the context of Christian death. (You can ask what this might mean demographically for the future of our parish, but that's another question.)

In the end (literally) the point is the same; being buried with Christ, united with his humanity, and becoming subject to the new life of the Resurrection. The eternal life given at baptism is not something that will be enjoyed at some future point; eternity is not subject to now and then. Jesus says, "you have eternal life," not "you will have eternal life." So whether we're at the beginning and end of our pilgrimage on this earth, the eternal life we have through the passing over of Christ is the same.

How To Read The Bible

Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment. In his response he provides for us an answer to the persistent problem of how to understand the Sacred Scriptures. My homily for this weekend is posted here.

Why I Don't Mind Weddings

Over the years I've gathered that most priests regard marriage preparation and the execution of Nuptial Masses and ceremonies to be among their most dreaded chores. I think that this is because, for one thing, they take up a lot of time. With just over a year now in my career as parish priest, I have witnessed seven marriages and have sixteen more in production. Very few go by without any hitch at all; you almost always have to do something extra, like finding baptismal records from suppressed parishes, figuring out inter-ritual or inter-religious dispensations, obtaining decrees of nullity from previous marriages lacking canonical form, or asserting your rights and jurisdiction against the dreaded "wedding planner." All I can say is thank God one of my best friends in the Order is a canon lawyer.

Not that these things are always a terrible hassle, but in most cases you are doing them on behalf of young people with little more than a tangential relationship to their religion, much less to the parish. (There are shining exceptions.) Most, sadly, are "cultural Catholics" who probably won't be seen in church again until the next spiritual emergency, like when they have to baptize a baby. So I think that a lot of priests find it to be a sad situation and resent having to spend a lot of time on it.

I also find it sad, but I've also come to appreciate these young people. Even though they have not kept up with their faith--probably because it was never taught to them in a way that was relevant to their lives or portable into adulthood--I find them to be people of faith. It is an amazing act of faith to get married, after all; to bet that your own mutual love and regard is stronger than a future you can't even know. To me, that's almost the definition of faith.

In this world with its utter disregard for the creation and the gift of life within it, with its violence and morbid desire to see its own shipwreck, I find it very encouraging that people still insist on falling in love with each other. And they know at some level that love demands a complete commitment, even though we can't know what forever or complete is going to mean. But we do it anyway, because love is the way we touch Eternity and only eternity satisfies it.

Building The Tombs

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. John of Capistrano, one of the "pillars" of the Observant reform of the Franciscan Order. Yesterday we celebrated St. Peter of Alcántara, a colleague of St. Teresa of Avila, whom we celebrated earlier this month. I love these memorials of the saints who were the great reformers in the history of religious life; I find them inspiring.

But to celebrate these saints, to offer the beautiful prayers of their Masses and Offices frightens me a little too. For if I myself am doing nothing to reform and renew religious life, to shake it out of its obvious (to me) state of lassitude and decadence, then I am fulfilling Jesus' own condemnation of the hypocrites:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, "If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding their blood." Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out! (Matthew 23:29-32)

Sometimes I have an honest fear that mainstream religious life--as least as it is here in North America--is falling into this trap. We are very good at celebrating the courageous reformers of the past, but not so good at aiming their reforming vision at ourselves.

Getting A Beating

The conclusion of today's Gospel:

That servant who knew his master’s will but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will shall be beaten severely; and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating shall be beaten only lightly. Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” Luke 12:47-48

I remember how in studies we arrived at this passage during the Luke course and the professor said, "Congratulations. If you have been paying attention during this course, you are no longer eligible to receive the lighter beating."