By Father Richard Veras
One of the graces of living in a time in which so many people have doubts and misconceptions about Christianity is that it challenges Christians to be more aware of why they believe what they believe. In one of his sermons, Saint Augustine warns us against looking back at past ages as if things were easier then. Augustine himself had to guard his own flock and the entire Church against heresies which came from priests and preachers claiming to speak the truth.
The person of Jesus
In correcting the heresy of Pelagianism, which claims that human freedom is in no need of grace to follow God’s law, Augustine wrote, “This is the horrendous and hidden poison of your error: that you claim to make the grace of Christ consist in his example and not in the gift of his person.”
When I first read this quote many years ago it stuck with me because it was such a jarring correction. How many of us reduce Jesus to a good example? It seems to me that it’s quite commonplace; in fact it can even seem proper and pious. Augustine, however, warns that it is poisonous. Let us consider some of those who encountered Jesus in order to see the truth of Augustine’s warning.
Think of Mathew the tax collector who, like other tax collectors, probably cheated many of his own people while he worked for the Romans. His tax collecting must have put him in contact with many honest workers making an honest living. Matthew had these examples in front of him on a regular, perhaps even daily basis. Apparently this parade of examples never did much to sway Matthew.
Think of the woman caught in the act of adultery. Certainly she must have been acquainted with a great many women who, as far as she knew, had not committed adultery. These living examples of faithfulness and chastity were not enough to stop her from an act that could have led to her stoning.
What changed these sinners? It was the person of Jesus. He looked at Matthew and said, “Follow me.” He looked at the woman and said, “I don’t condemn you…” They were changed by the indefinable, irreducible, unimaginable person of Jesus Christ. The experience of their encounter could not be adequately put into words, but it is as if this is the person they had always been waiting for, perhaps without even knowing it. Yet when he came into their lives there was recognition, as if to say, “Yes, it’s you, something in me knew you were there, knew you would come!” He didn’t look at their sin, or their failings, or their potential, he looked at them in truth and love as they had never been looked at before. He took them much more seriously than they had ever taken themselves.
Wanting to be with Jesus
In front of the person of Jesus, their thought was probably not, “Now I can finally learn how to be good!” It was probably not even, “Now my sins can be forgiven.” What filled them was Jesus. There was simply the joy, fulfillment, happiness of him; the fact that he was with them, he desired to be with them, he overabundantly loved them without measure. A love that was truer than any sentimental idea or approximation of love they had ever had. Matthew didn’t follow to learn to be good, he followed because he wanted to be with Jesus.
When we reduce Jesus to an example, we forget about the core of our own person, which desires so much more than to be approved. We also ignore his love for us because we reduce God to a lawgiver, and forget that he is the Father. Jesus came to reveal to us God’s Fatherhood. Goodness is to live in the Father’s love, depending upon him for everything. I can’t live in that love without experiencing that love. For it is not a love I can create or imagine. I need Jesus. More than his example, or his words, or his miracles, I need him! Reducing Christ to an example is poisonous because it can keep me from humbly begging him to be with me; or it can make me think I have to postpone this begging until I somehow deserve it on my own, with nothing to help me but an abstract example.
Think finally of Our Lady. She is conceived without sin. Theoretically she has no need of good examples. Yet no one is more conscious of her need for Jesus than Mary. It was not the duty off a good mother that kept her with her Son right up to the cross; it was her love, her need, her awareness that she is made for God. That true happiness, i.e., blessedness, is possible only through him, with him, and in him. She is blessed not because she follows a good example; she is blessed because the Lord is with her. She is full of grace because the Lord is with her.
May the Lord be with you, not figuratively through example, but really through the gift of his person.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Quotes for the Day
Saint Jerome penned these lines: "If an offense comes out of the truth, it is better that the offense come than that the truth be concealed."
This is supposedly attributed to President Truman. "How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached if he had taken a poll in the land of Israel? What would have happened to the Reformation if Martin Luther had taken a poll? It isn't polls or public opinion of the moment that counts. It is right and wrong and leadership."
This is supposedly attributed to President Truman. "How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached if he had taken a poll in the land of Israel? What would have happened to the Reformation if Martin Luther had taken a poll? It isn't polls or public opinion of the moment that counts. It is right and wrong and leadership."
Friday, August 13, 2010
Prop 8 "Woe to you that call good, evil and evil, good."
“Woe to you that call good, evil and evil, good….”
The overturning of Prop 8 in California is an abomination. Because someone says something is so, based on an interpretation of law, does not make it so. Walker, the Federal judge in the case, used nothing but subjectivity and his own illicit lifestyle to support and define what “marriage” should be, that it makes no difference whether a man is “married” to a man, or a woman to a woman; or for that matter a human being to a donkey or whatever. What about a “marriage” for three people? Polygamy? Many wives?
I have been saying for years, to anyone who would listen—and particularly to my children, WHO really don’t listen—that the state should be completely out of the “marriage business”. Why do we have to take blood tests anymore? Register with the state at all? It’s none of the state’s business. Recently I was challenged on this in that this individual questioned, “….well, what happens if there’s a divorce? Who’s going to be the arbiter of such a thing? What about the children?” (Now the children are what kept Marilyn and me together all of these years. Neither one of us wanted custody. An old joke.) The same arbiter that would or could be delegated to any contract. My contract with Marilyn was that she would get everything. Since I didn’t get a dowry when we were married thirty-three years ago, people might say that I would receive the short end of the “marriage” stick. But then they haven’t had to live with me.
Marriage, especially in the traditional Judeo-Christian philosophy, has always been between one woman and one man. It is also part of the Natural Law. For one judge to determine the definition of marriage based on his personal beliefs, feelings, and total disregard for everything from tradition to culture, is arrogant at best and evil at worse. Do not call evil, good, nor good, evil.
Here’s what Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM, who is the preacher to the papal household, says about the Union of Marriage:
The analogy between human marriage and the union of Christ and the Church lies in the fact that both are based on love: “Christ loved the Church.” But what exactly did He love, we ask ourselves, since at the moment in which He gave up his life, the Church did not yet exist? The exegetes explain that He loved “the Church preexistent in God in virtue of His pre-temporal election and determination.” Christ loved the Church with the same love with which God loved humanity in creating it. Let us listen to how Catherine of Siena describes the love of something that does not yet exist:
“Eternal Father, how did you come to create this creature of yours?....(Your own) fire, then, compelled you. O ineffable love, though in your light you saw all the iniquities your creature was to commit against your infinite goodness, you pretended not to see, and set your eyes on the beauty of your creature with whom you fell in love like a fool or one drunk with love, and in love you gave it being in your image and likeness.”
Gabriel Marcel says that according to Christian metaphysics, “to be is to be loved.” The creature exists because it has been loved. This is especially true of the Church. She exists inasmuch as she is loved.
The overturning of Prop 8 in California is an abomination. Because someone says something is so, based on an interpretation of law, does not make it so. Walker, the Federal judge in the case, used nothing but subjectivity and his own illicit lifestyle to support and define what “marriage” should be, that it makes no difference whether a man is “married” to a man, or a woman to a woman; or for that matter a human being to a donkey or whatever. What about a “marriage” for three people? Polygamy? Many wives?
I have been saying for years, to anyone who would listen—and particularly to my children, WHO really don’t listen—that the state should be completely out of the “marriage business”. Why do we have to take blood tests anymore? Register with the state at all? It’s none of the state’s business. Recently I was challenged on this in that this individual questioned, “….well, what happens if there’s a divorce? Who’s going to be the arbiter of such a thing? What about the children?” (Now the children are what kept Marilyn and me together all of these years. Neither one of us wanted custody. An old joke.) The same arbiter that would or could be delegated to any contract. My contract with Marilyn was that she would get everything. Since I didn’t get a dowry when we were married thirty-three years ago, people might say that I would receive the short end of the “marriage” stick. But then they haven’t had to live with me.
Marriage, especially in the traditional Judeo-Christian philosophy, has always been between one woman and one man. It is also part of the Natural Law. For one judge to determine the definition of marriage based on his personal beliefs, feelings, and total disregard for everything from tradition to culture, is arrogant at best and evil at worse. Do not call evil, good, nor good, evil.
Here’s what Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM, who is the preacher to the papal household, says about the Union of Marriage:
The analogy between human marriage and the union of Christ and the Church lies in the fact that both are based on love: “Christ loved the Church.” But what exactly did He love, we ask ourselves, since at the moment in which He gave up his life, the Church did not yet exist? The exegetes explain that He loved “the Church preexistent in God in virtue of His pre-temporal election and determination.” Christ loved the Church with the same love with which God loved humanity in creating it. Let us listen to how Catherine of Siena describes the love of something that does not yet exist:
“Eternal Father, how did you come to create this creature of yours?....(Your own) fire, then, compelled you. O ineffable love, though in your light you saw all the iniquities your creature was to commit against your infinite goodness, you pretended not to see, and set your eyes on the beauty of your creature with whom you fell in love like a fool or one drunk with love, and in love you gave it being in your image and likeness.”
Gabriel Marcel says that according to Christian metaphysics, “to be is to be loved.” The creature exists because it has been loved. This is especially true of the Church. She exists inasmuch as she is loved.
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