Getting to the Point

I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog,

and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.

Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust,

who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie!

You have multiplied, O Lord my God,

your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;

none can compare with you!

I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.

In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear.

Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me:

I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation;

behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord.

I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;

I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;..

But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you;

may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the Lord!”

As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.

You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God.

Psalm 40

Reflection – The ‘30’ series in the psalms has been, I will admit, kind of a rough one—lots of psalms of distress and anguish and cries of lamentation. All of that is part of life, and so all of it enters into the psalms which capture the whole of human life. But… it has been a bit of a rough go.

Things are looking up here with Psalm 40! This is one of the most beautiful psalms in the psalter, full of many poetic images that resonate deeply in our spiritual lives. “He drew me from the pit… set my feet upon a rock… put a new song in my mouth’ And then, later on, ‘Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required… I delight to do your will, O my God, your law is in my heart.’

And so on and so forth—a truly lovely psalm of deliverance and praise expressed in obediential love. The Letter to the Hebrews explicitly puts these words into the mouth of the Son of God coming into the world (Heb 10:5-7). And because our life is in Christ and Christ is our life, these words are ours, then, in a very particular way.

Obedience—the word we shy away from, the word that in our post-modern world is so very anathema to us. We are supposed to be able to create our own reality now, to decide for ourselves just what is true, what is false, what is good, what is evil. That these things should, and in fact do, come to us from outside ourselves, and that our fundamental response in life is to obey, to submit, to bow down before realities we did not make, cannot change, cannot control, but to which we are called to make a response, to act in concert with this God who is the author of all that is—this is (we are told) deeply repugnant to many people today.

Well, reality may bend, but it doesn’t break. And we can only bend it so far before it lashes back at us. We can choose contraception and abortion over many decades, but then we cannot choose not to live in an aging and bankrupt society. We can choose euthanasia, then, to get rid of all the expensive old people (let’s be honest – that’s what the push for it is about now), but there will be unintended consequences arising from that as well.

Reality bends, but it doesn’t break, and when we choose to shape reality according to our devices and desires, it will eventually break us. Meanwhile, God awaits for patiently, too, to pull us from the pit of destruction and the miry bog and to make our lives secure on the rock.

The rock is Christ who is Truth, and the result of living in truth is to live in praise, gratitude, and a new song that never grows old. And out of that song, a great desire to tell all the assembly of the saving power of God. So let us pray for the grace and courage, first to obey God and know His power in our lives saving us, and then to be evangelizers proclaiming this power to all our post-modern brothers and sisters, who need to hear about this, don’t you think?

The People of God’s knowledge of conciliar and post-conciliar documents on the Magisterium of the family seems to be rather wanting, though a certain knowledge of them is clearly evident in those working in the field of theology. The documents, however, do not seem to have taken a foothold in the faithful’s mentality.

Some responses clearly state that the faithful have no knowledge of these documents, while others mention that they are viewed, especially by lay people with no prior preparation, as rather “exclusive” or “limited to a few” and require some effort to take them up and study them. Oftentimes, people without due preparation find difficulty reading these documents. Nevertheless, the responses see a need to show the essential character of the truth affirmed in these documents.

Some observations attribute the responsibility for this lack of knowledge to the clergy, who, in the judgment of some of the faithful, are not sufficiently familiar with the documentation on marriage and the family, nor do they seem to have the resources for development in these areas.

Some observations inferred that the clergy sometimes feel so unsuited and ill-prepared to treat issues regarding sexuality, fertility and procreation that they often choose to remain silent. Some responses also voice a certain dissatisfaction with some members of the clergy who appear indifferent to some moral teachings. Their divergence from Church doctrine leads to confusion among the People of God.

Consequently, some responses ask that the clergy be better prepared and exercise a sense of responsibility in explaining the Word of God and presenting the documents of the Church on marriage and the family.

Instrumentum Laboris for Synod on the Family, 11-12

Reflection – I am presenting bits and pieces of the preparatory document for the Synod over these next days, so we can unite our own minds and hearts to the work going on in Rome and keep the Synod fathers in our prayers.

The Instrumentum is a careful, sober document—a bit dry, really—as is fitting, since it is merely intended to raise the issues that need to be discussed and not answer them. The ‘responses’ mentioned frequently are in reference to the surveys many took part in over the past year.

I don’t need to be too dry and careful, fortunately (it would get a bit dull if I did). Paragraphs 11-12 are about the abysmal failure, on so many levels of the Church, to offer basic catechesis to its members. This, in my opinion, is one of if not the most serious problem in the Church, at least in North America.

We cannot talk about the sensus fidelium, the ability of the faithful in common to know the truth of the Church’s teachings, in a situation where the most basic and essential matters of doctrine and creed have not been presented, even, let alone explained in any kind of meaningful way. So the much touted rejection of the lay faithful of the Church’s teachings on marriage, sex, procreation, which to the more ‘liberal’ wing of the Church means that these ancient and biblical teachings should be jettisoned, is unpersuasive.

A large percentage of the lay faithful cannot name the seven sacraments. They don’t know the Bible. They cannot give an orthodox definition of the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Redemption, baptism, or Eucharist. They have no idea what the Marian dogmas are or what they mean.

I say this not to fault the lay faithful. Not at all. Whatever guilt there is here lies squarely at the doors of the clergy here, since it is our responsibility to teach the faith. But blame laying is pointless—we all have to come to grips with the widespread ignorance of basic Catholic doctrine and each of us do what we can to remedy it.

This of course directly impinges on the question of marriage and family life, human sexuality and the Church’s teachings on it. I would argue that it is impossible to understand, let alone accept, what the Church says on these matters without knowing their integration into the whole of Christian faith and life. The whole Gospel of sex, marriage, and the family is interwoven necessarily and utterly with the whole Gospel itself—sacrament and Spirit, communion and redemption, grace and mercy, human sin and brokenness met by the total gift of God in Christ, and everything the Church has received and passed on about all these matters from the apostles to now.

If all of that, or much of that, is simply words on a screen without any living resonance, or worse yet, words that have never been taught to a person at all because those who were charged to teach them refused to do so, then of course the call to chastity, the indissoluble nature of marriage, the essential link of sex and fertility, and the sacredness of human life from conception, will all be dead letters, heavy and dry laws without anything to recommend them.

Trusting another means taking one’s stand on someone else’s intelligence and embracing as true what one has not decided for one’s self… it implies a recognition by the mind of its own limits, an acceptance of dependence, a surrender of my absolute sovereignty…

The rejection of the truth comes down to the choice of self affirmation and rejection of affirmation of God… acknowledging what is, submitting to the real, means acknowledging something that I have not decided for myself and therefore already saying yes to God…

What we get now is instead of acknowledgment of a sovereign Law by which all will be judged, individuals and society, is the arbitrary decision of one particular will, which decrees good and evil, and against which there is no longer any appeal… here at the end of the line the perverse roots of the rejection of truth are stripped bare. The will to power appears in all its inexorableness.

Jean Danielou, The Scandal of Truth

Reflection – The theme of our summer program this week has been ‘Show Me God: Finding God in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness’. We have had a variety of presentations along these lines, many of them leaning rather heavily in the direction of the latter two of the transcendentals, beauty and goodness. We have had some good teachings on the nature of truth, as well, but I have noticed over the years, not particularly in Madonna House but in the world at large, a tendency to shy away from the word truth or the notion of truth.

Relativism of one sort or another seems to be the operative system for many today. It doesn’t make huge amounts of sense, of course. How can it be absolutely asserted as true that there is no such thing as truth? How can we say it is certainly true that we cannot know for certain what is true? The whole thing collapses under its weight before it gets off the ground.

No, it fails as an intellectual system, miserably and utterly. But it succeeds, or seems to succeed, as a sociological system, as a way of ensuring social harmony and peace. You have your truth and I have my truth and it’s OK because there is no actual truth or nobody knows what it is and so everybody dance! Clap along if you know that happiness is the truth! Whatever that means. Who cares – it has a good beat!

All of this put me in mind of this very fine book by Danielou published in the 1960s. It has lost none of its relevance today. Truth does scandalize us; that is, it is an obstacle we trip over (the original meaning of the word scandal), something awkward, in the way, something we would like to do away with so we can do as we please, go as we please.

The rage on the political left in the aftermath of the Hobby Lobby case in the US is instructive in this regard. For one thing, it puts a lie to the claim that relativism is the path to social peace and harmony, and lays bare the inherently totalitarian and dictatorial nature of relativism.

One group holds that it is true that there is an absolute right to free contraception (a strange claim, in my mind, one I have never seen really argued for, but assumed as a dogma, I guess). Some in society believe that contraception, or at least some forms of contraception, are morally evil, and while having no interest in coercing other people from committing those evil acts, do not want to actually be cooperating in them by paying the bill for them. 

Now in a genuinely tolerant society, it would be a no-brainer to work out some accommodation whereby if the government really believed that the first group was justified in its claim, it could meet their ‘right’ without violating the beliefs and conscience of the second group. And, to their credit, Congress in the 1992 RFRA, and the Supreme Court in its interpretation of that law and its present application to the current matter of Hobby Lobby, etc., came to that very conclusion.

And… all hell broke loose among the first group. Strange, that. Apparently it is not acceptable to work out some compromise that respects everyone’s beliefs and lets everyone alone. The second group—people who sincerely believe they would be doing a grave evil if they paid for these products—must be forced to capitulate, must have their consciences crushed, obliterated, wiped out.

And so the will to power shows itself. When there is no greater truth—even the simple truth that people should be allowed to follow their consciences so long as doing so does not harm the social fabric—then what is left is not freedom but rather a naked power struggle in which whoever has the upper hand can ruthlessly suppress those who are in a weaker position.

Well, all I can say to those who are fine with that is, watch out. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword, and today’s winners may not be tomorrow’s. If might is right is the only relevant principle, then nobody’s rights are secure, not in the least.

Now it is an outstanding manifestation of charity toward souls to omit nothing from the saving doctrine of Christ; but this must always be joined with tolerance and charity, as Christ Himself showed in His conversations and dealings with men. For when He came, not to judge, but to save the world, was He not bitterly severe toward sin, but patient and abounding in mercy toward sinners?

Husbands and wives, therefore, when deeply distressed by reason of the difficulties of their life, must find stamped in the heart and voice of their priest the likeness of the voice and the love of our Redeemer.

So speak with full confidence, beloved sons, convinced that while the Holy Spirit of God is present to the magisterium proclaiming sound doctrine, He also illumines from within the hearts of the faithful and invites their assent. Teach married couples the necessary way of prayer and prepare them to approach more often with great faith the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of Penance. Let them never lose heart because of their weakness.

Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae 29

Reflection – In the controversy and difficulties around the encyclical, and around the current discussions in the Church regarding the indissolubility of marriage, the word ‘pastoral’ is commonly used as a sort of contrary to ‘doctrinal’.

There are the doctrines of the Church and the call to teach them, but then there is the need to be pastoral, and these two things are seen as quite opposed to one another by some. And so in the face of people who genuinely do have difficult circumstances, even tragic circumstances, the pastoral response is to more or less discard the doctrine and let people do whatever they want. To be a loving and merciful pastor means either consciously or unconsciously choosing not to teach people what the Church’s doctrines are, or counseling them to ignore those doctrines in their lives, and this has been the model of much ‘pastoral’ care in the church of the past fifty years.

Well, it is deeply incoherent. It is either based on the conviction that the Church’s teachings are entirely untrue (in which case why bother being Catholic at all then?), or that ‘truth’ is somehow a bad thing, a heavy burdensome thing. And this attitude is profoundly unchristian in a way that cannot be exaggerated.

‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.’ The Lord Jesus says it, and this has to be the fundamental understanding of pastoral theology in the Church. We are always to be merciful, always kind, always to proclaim the ready forgiveness of God to all of us who are sinners, always entering into the real struggles and real burdens of people’s lives to do what we can to lift those burdens.

But never at the expense of truth. Never sacrificing our faith in what is true, good, and beautiful out of a misguided compassion. Never telling people, implicitly or explicitly, that there can ever be a set of circumstances so extreme, so difficult, that it justifies breaking even a single commandment of God. The Church is nourished by the blood of the martyrs, many of whom died over what seem like very small things—refusing to burn three grains of incense to Caesar, for example.

We are all of us called, frail sinners that we are, to that degree of heroic fidelity and obedience to God, at whatever cost. The ‘sheep’ of the pasture are called to be shepherds laying down their lives with great nobility of spirit and courage. And it is the true pastoral spirit of the Church, not to lead people into an easier and less heroic way of life, but to call people to the heights of sanctity and heroic charity.

And so with the issues of contraception, openness to life, chastity, and a true understanding of what marriage is and why it is indissoluble (namely, because Christ Himself declared it to be so, and we have not one bit of authority to negate His words), there is a great need to be merciful and kind, gentle and patient, deeply loving, not least because people have been so poorly taught by the pastors of the Church in the last fifty years and there is so little real understanding of the Church’s doctrine.

But all the kindness and mercy, patience and compassion and love, must be ordered towards calling people into the heroic path of faith, into a genuine discipleship of life where we follow the Crucified One so as to be crucified with Him, so as to rise with Him, so as to reign with Him. These are the ‘green pastures and still waters’ to which the Good Shepherd wants to lead his sheep.

And that, then, is the real pastoral love and pastoral care that bishops and priests especially are called to exercise in the Church, but all of us, really, according to our own gifts and station of life.