Catholic Faith and Reflections

I have been in Madison, Wisconsin since Monday morning.  I will be here for another day.  Accumulating continuing education credits for my licenses as a clinical social worker and a marriage and family therapist.

I dislike intensely hotel rooms. They are boring places.  They make me antsy.  Purgatory on earth.

But here I am. Listened all day to “The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics,” which actually is a fascinating new area of research and theory about the impact of neglect and abuse on developing human brain structure and function. Makes a lot of sense, given what I see clinically with people’s behaviors and abilities to regulate and modulate human affect and to establish and maintain relationships.

But after the lectures are over and I have about five hours to kill in the evening, antsy-ness sets in.  I can only read a certain amount before I turn to the ball game on the television.  Unfortunately, the Yankees seem to have the upper hand.

My conscience says, “Use the time to pray!” So I try, getting in my office and the rosary. 

Just so you know, I pray for all of you on a daily basis.  Yes, that includes all of you whom I do not know, but who are a part of the Body of Christ. I pray especially for my wife and family, and my brothers in the diaconate, and for the sick and the lost.

Just in case you may be of the opinion that health care is a commodity that should be bought and sold, and we should receive what we are able to pay for, either as individuals or as communities, take a look at the Holy See’s statement to the UN General Assembly a couple of days ago.

Here it is in part:

“For its part, the Catholic Church remains committed to providing access to health care for everyone.  Through its 5,000 hospitals, 18,000 health clinics, and 15,000 homes for elderly and disabled, as well as other healthcare programs throughout the world, Catholic based institutions are committed to providing the right to quality and effective and morally responsible health care for all.” — Holy See’s statement to the UN General Assembly, 10/17/09

There are many on the “right” theologically who seem to have trouble with this. Like it or not, the Church stands for the right to health care for all. 

The big question is how to do it. God help us get it right in this country.  The stakes are too high for us to get it wrong.

The conversation on all of this in the political and social realms is centered on money. It is the wrong place to begin. The fact of the matter is that the price tag is not really all that high when you take a look at what we have spent in the past ten years on war. Free health care for all is possible if we are willing to provide it and get our values and priorities in right order.

That is the truth.

The conversation about this issue must begin where the Church begins it: with the dignity of each human person and the right to life.  

When you start from a position of cost and money, you end up cultivating a culture of death. I know.  I work in a health care institution (not a Catholic one) and what they are talking about is cost and dying.  The elderly are reportedly the big “consumers” of health care. They “cost” a lot to treat, especially in the final years of life. So the polite conversation is on about how to limit their access to certain health care. 

God help us to not walk down that road.

The problem we have is one of greed and the love of technology; we have failed in loving life and in charity.

It has been almost two months since ordination. What is remarkable is not so much anything new I have done or will do in the near future; rather it is the change that has seemed to occur in me.

I should have anticipated this. Even in my aspirancy interview the committee alluded to it, and the retreat directors, my spiritual director and my bishop all spoke of it during formation.

With ordination comes a change of character and a change of relationships. What I now continue to do as I have in the past, both professionally and privately, is done with a consciousness of service in Jesus’ name, as deacon. 

What I am finding is that at least for now, my focus in ministry is relationship formation. Perhaps I should say “re-formation.” My relationship with my pastor, my fellow deacon in the parish, the parishioners, my colleagues at the clinic, and my relationships with family all are carried to a different plane, it would seem.

God is present. He changes those he touches. The Spirit is at work.

I am so amazed that I have been sent forth as an ordained man, a deacon, to proclaim the Gospel in every place and at every time!

“Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor disturbance.” — St. Francis of Assissi

Today’s memorial is of St. Teresa of Avila. She was a virgin and a doctor of the Church, noted for her writings in spiritual theology. Pope Paul VI gave her the title of “Doctor,” back in 1970.

In today’s Office of Readings, we read the following from her writings (my translation from the Italian):

“He who has  Jesus Christ as his friend and follows a captain so wonderful as is he is able to endure all things. In fact, Jesus never diminishes the help and strength he gives, for he sincerely loves us. I have always known and even now I see clearly that we are not able to please God and receive such great graces from him except through the hands of the most holy humanity of Christ……”

That is what I would call a succinct definition of contemplation: a relationship of friendship and love(“I no longer call you slaves, but friends…) with Jesus, whom we follow into prayer; a relationship of love flowing from God himself mediated by Jesus’ humanity and ours. Knowing and “seeing” God.

Even the most contemplative among us experience the rare graces of ecstasy via our human nature and the humanity of Jesus. That is why even the most active among us can be great contemplatives, e.g., Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, as well as St. Teresa of Avila.

“Put aside your garments, that is worldly riches, so that you may not fall victim to the adversary and that you may enter the kingdom of heaven by the rough road and narrow gate.” — St. Clare of Assissi

An apt quote following last Sunday’s Gospel.

I don’t know how many of my readers are from small rural parishes from the Midwest, but if you are then you know about parish dinners. They are multi-faceted affairs. Ostensibly, they are exist to raise some money for important parish or school activities and to provide for the social needs of the parish.

In reality, they make some money, and enhance the social cohesiveness of the parish, but they are much more than that.

They are opportunities for former pastors to come back for the meal. 

They are showcases for the “secret recipes” of the women of the parish.

They are not only Catholic affairs, but a setting for everyone in the town (and in all truth, from many towns in the surrounding area) to get together and talk about everything, especially family.

They are often crowded, warm events. People rub elbows. The priests and deacons become very available to anyone who wishes to approach them with whatever.

They are times when priest friends gather to talk about golfing or old parishioners or their recent pastoral successes.

They are one of the few times the people will get to hear a “Polka Mass.” (If you are not from the Midwest, especially from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, or one of the Dakotas, you will not comprehend this at all.)

They are feasts. You can get all you want for about eight bucks.

You can come as you are.  Anything from sport coats to blaze orange hunting gear all sitting at the same table with no problem and no surprise noted.

They are a lot of work. You are able to see quickly who the workers are in the parish, because they will be the ones peeling the potatoes, carrots or whatever, and spending the day before getting the roast beef prepared, the pies baked and everything in order.

They are parishes at their best.

“Love is a mutual self-giving that ends in self-recovery. You recover God, and He recovers you.” — Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

“Who does not get a taste of the Cross, one way or other?” — Venerable Solanus Casey, OFM Cap.

Have you ever considered that God loves you so much that he is calling you to excellence?

I am convinced that God calls all of us to excellence.

I am not getting on any theology of prosperity bandwagon.  The call of God always includes the cross, and if you haven’t experienced that, you haven’t walked the roads Jesus walked. If you haven’t experienced the cross, you haven’t been following Jesus.

Nonetheless, God calls all of us to excellence. He wants us in some way to put aside our possessions, our distractions, and focus on the only real excellence in this life, the love of God for us in Jesus his Son. To follow him by keeping our attention on Jesus, and not on the passing “goods” of this world.

The Freedom for Excellence,  which we receive as a gift from our loving God, is a freedom from attachments to accomplishments, possessions, competitiveness, and odious comparisons between ourselves. It is a freedom arising from gazing at God as he presents himself to us, and loving God intently. God gives us this freedom as a gift. He is the origin and the end of this excellence, to  which we are all called.

God made us and he calls us back to himself. This is excellence at its core. He asks only that we attend to him, with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our strength, and with all our minds. He wants us to look at him, and love him.

The universal call to Excellence!

If you haven’t read it yet, I would suggest you read with interest Deacon Ron Rojas’ article entitled, “On the Diakonia of Fatherhood,” in the November-December 2009 issue of Deacon Digest. 

He makes some interesting theological distinctions about fatherhood, especially in its relationship to Holy Orders and the Laity. He suggests that the fatherhood of priesthood — and its fullness in the episcopacy–  is animas paternitas (fatherhood of the soul) since the ministerial priesthood is concerned with the care of souls through specific sacraments (Reconciliation, Eucharist, Healing); the fatherhood of the diaconate is cor paternitas, (fatherhood of mercy or of the heart) since the diaconate is primarily concerned with mercy and charity; and the fatherhood of the laity is domestica paternitas, (fatherhood of the domestic church), the family.

What I find initially interesting here is a possible source for theological understanding of the relationship between the spirituality of the diaconate and marriage.

It also points to a direction for the development of a psychology of the diaconate from an individual and a systemic points of view.

I’ll have to think more about this…..

Have any of you thought about this?

“I have come to conclude that, even as a bishop, I am called to be a simple, humble servant for my people. I pray with and for them. I defend them and speak up for them; I confront their enemies; I search for those who have been dragged away at night; I listen to their worries and try to help them hope.” — Bishop Oscar Romero

Although a bishop uttered these words, they describe the leadership to which a deacon is called. We must be on the side of the poor and oppressed. The power of the love of God must be the driving force of our lives and our vocation.

“May the Father of all mercy, the Son by his holy passion, and the Holy Spirit, source of peace, sweetness and love, fill us with their consolation. Amen.” — St. Colette, OSC