“(OUR NEW AND WONDERFUL PAPA) HAS POWERFUL ENEMIES”

3/31/13, Easter Sunday




The Jesuit Pope Francis assumed the chair of St. Peter to the delight and enthusiasm of multitudes (See my 3/13/13 piece POPE FRANCIS: THIS IS STARTING TO LOOK LIKE A MIRACLE!) of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and the new pontiff continues to enthrall and surprise most…and unsettle, even frighten, many.



The Pope has tossed aside customs and set precedents on almost a daily basis:



--He has refused to live in the very comfortable, if not posh, Vatican apartments, choosing instead to live in two room quarters in the guest house he occupied during the conclave. When he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he refused to live in the archbishop’s palace, favoring a simple apartment, so this perhaps should not have come as a surprise.



--Francis refuses the gold cross, the ornate head gear, and the fancy designer shoes traditionally worn by the pope, the last of which were a special favorite of the Pope Emeritus.



--He included in the traditional Holy Thursday washing of the feet women and Muslims, making Francis the first pope to wash the feet of either Muslim or a woman. That he celebrated in a juvenile detention facility, rather than the Vatican, the Holy Thursday Mass at which this precedent was set itself broke precedent.



--Francis has called for priests to get out of the rectories and to get out among the people, to be true shepherds among the sheep.



--He has called for a “poorer Church.”

Even without making any changes in doctrine, and few think he will, the Pope has already sent shivers, with both connotations, down people’s spines. While most of us are delighted in what the Pope has done so far, many aren’t. As the Wall Street Journal reports this Easter weekend (March 30-31, page A8), a Father Joseph Kramer, a traditionalist in Rome who says Mass in Latin, says,



“We’re stretching tradition. Things are mutating.”



One suspects that Father Kramer is not overflowing with joy when making that statement; note the choice of the verb in the second sentence.



To go a step further, the a “traditionalist” Catholic website Rorate Caeli  Caeli (“drop down the dew, you heavens,” from Isaiah 45, 8, and used in the Divine Office during Advent) published its version of the Holy Thursday foot washing story with the headline “The Official End of the Reform of the Reform-by example.” The Reform of the Reform is the backlash against much of Vatican II by those who seem to wish it never happened.



Why the consternation in some quarters over Pope Francis? As we have been made painfully aware over the last thirty years or so, the Church is not composed entirely of good people, and ordination, or the desire for ordination, does not necessarily make one holy…or even good and decent. There are plenty of people, some powerful, some less so, in the Church who are in it primarily for its gaudier and showier aspects that the Pope eschews. These people like to dress up like priests and bishops, to lord it over people, to wear the expensive finery and the gold. They like the pomp and circumstance and crave the respect, the awe, that they feel their offices bequeath them. They have little desire to get out among the people; rather, they prefer to be placed above the people. They have even less desire for a “poorer Church;” the very notion offends their skewed sense of piety and reverence.



There are, to put it bluntly, sinister forces in the Church, and there always have been. The continuing existence of these forces in the Church is one of the conditions Jesus was addressing in His parable of the weeds among the wheat (Matthew 13, 24-31). These forces are doubtless displeased with the direction Pope Francis would like to take the Church. Most of these priests, bishops, and their lay henchmen are not, or at least not yet, expressing their displeasure in the open, but these are not courageous people; they prefer to work in the shadows, to talk behind people’s backs, and blindside their targets. But they didn’t take their jobs to work among the people or to be “poorer.” And many of them would just love to live in the luxurious Vatican apartments and wear fancy red designer shoes. These people will do all they can to make life difficult for Pope Francis. They simply cannot fathom even the possibility of another John XXIII (Again, see my 3/13/13 piece.); such a shake-up would spoil their very comfortable lives.



While there is much wisdom in the old expression that you’re not paranoid when they ARE out to get you, I’m not being paranoid here I am just counseling our good Papa to be very careful. To quote Michael Corleone in the much, and overly, derided Godfather Part III, “This Pope has powerful enemies.”



Blessed Easter to our new and wonderful Papa and to all of you.

FOLLOW THE RULES…OR SEEK WHAT’S REALLY IMPORTANT?

3/29/13, Good Friday




Something to think about as we read the accounts of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection on this Good Friday…



Luke tells us that, after Jesus was crucified



“The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.” (Emphasis mine) (Luke 23, 55-56)

Luke begins Chapter 24 with



“On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but, when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” (Luke 24, 1-2)



Note that the women had missed the resurrection. By the time they got there, Jesus was already risen and gone. Indeed, the resurrection itself is not recounted in any of the canonical gospels and, as far as we know, there were no witnesses to the actual resurrection.



This is a shame, but…



what if the women, instead of “rest(ing) on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment,” had instead gone right to the tomb as soon as they prepared the spices and perfumes? Did they miss the resurrection because they were being attentive to the commandment? Does therein lie one of the many “sub-lessons,” if you will, of the passion, death, and resurrection stories? How often do we miss what’s really important because we are too narrowly focused on following the rules, on adhering to what are construed as the commands of the church to which we belong?



Blessed Easter, all year, to all of you!

HOLY THURSDAY AND GOOD FRIDAY: THE APOSTLES STAMPEDE FOR THE EXITS

3/27/13




In my last post, 3/19/13’s WERE THE APOSTLES COWARDLY, AVARICIOUS, SLOW…OR ALL OF THE ABOVE?, I wrote about the weaknesses of two of the apostles, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. In an earlier post, 11/21/12’s WAS ST. PETER AN ALCOHOLIC?, I discussed the shortcomings of the most prominent of the Apostles. Holy Week, besides its obvious lessons and implications, gives us an opportunity to indict, and ultimately exonerate, just about all the apostles on similar lines.

We all know that one of the apostles, Judas Iscariot, betrayed Jesus. (Matthew, 26, 14-16, et. al.) The first among equals, if you will, of the apostles, Peter, denied Jesus three times when the chips were down. (Luke, 22, 54-62, et. al.) At His point of greatest danger, all of the apostles abandoned Jesus liked terrified children; one was in such a hurry that he left all his clothes behind and ran off into the night naked. (Mark 14, 50-52). This was a pretty sorry lot.

The only apostle who came off looking even remotely brave during the events of Holy Thursday night and Good Friday was John. John was not afraid to enter the high priest’s courtyard during Jesus’ first trial and even used his pull with the high priest to get Peter into the courtyard (John 18, 15), after which Peter denied even knowing Jesus when things got hot, literally and figuratively. John also was the only male disciple at the foot of the cross. (John 19, 26-27). Not to take anything away from John, but one could argue that he was able to be so brave, at least in a relative sense, and even to be at the foot of the cross, because he was so young that both the Roman and the local authorities were willing to cut him some slack. But, all in all, the Apostles look like a petrified, pathetic lot. The women disciples…Jesus’ mother, Mary, Mary Magdalene, the mother of the aforementioned James and John, Salome, and possibly others…look a lot stronger in the accounts of the passion and death of Jesus than do the men. Again, this may have been because the authorities were willing to be even more lenient with women than they were with young men like John but, nevertheless, the women look great here, the men look like abject cowards.

Even the appearance of the resurrected Jesus does not do much to man up the Apostles. If one reads the story of “doubting Thomas” (John 20, 24-29) carefully, there is an interesting sub-plot concerning the lack of transformation of the Apostles in the wake of the visit of their newly risen Lord and Savior. That is grist for another mill.

So what caused these lily-livered lilliputians to become the great, strong, and brave men who went on to suffer deprivation, torture, and, with one exception, martyrdom so that we might hear the Good News of Jesus Christ? Clearly, it was the visit of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost that got these guys out of the upper room in which they had been cowering and into the business of facing down fearsome opponents to spread the word of God. If one ever needs testimony to the power of the Holy Spirit, one need only compare the pathetic state of this band of very limited men before the Spirit’s arrival with their near superhuman strength and courage after the Spirit paid them a permanent visit. No wonder Jesus spent so much time at the Last Supper discussing the Advocate (i.e., the Holy Spirit) that the Father was about to send to the disciples (John 14, 15-31).

The Holy Spirit, far and away, and, sadly, the most underrated of the three Persons of the Trinity, has continued to work until this very day. An example of the work of the Spirit can be found in today’s headlines: in the midst of the financial troubles in Cyprus, it is the Cypriot Orthodox Church, doubtless inspired by the Spirit, that is handing out food and other essentials to those who are suffering and offering to put up its own assets to aid in that island nation’s financial recovery. (See my posts on the Cyprus situation in my political/financial blog, Mighty Quinn on Politics and Money. Today’s is entitled JEROEN DIJSSELBLOEM’S COMMENTS ON CYPRUS: “THE DUTCHMAN’S NOT THE KIND OF MAN WHO KEEPS HIS THUMB JAMMED IN THE DAM THE WHOLE DAY THROUGH”; it will direct you to the others.)

The Holy Spirit, despite being the Person of the Trinity that is hardest to comprehend, is not something abstract or far removed from us. The Spirit is alive and active in us on a day to day basis and is available to each of us. The Spirit is especially close, or at least would like to be especially close, when we most need the Spirit, when we are feeling weak in our faith…or just plain weak, ordinary, and uninspired.

The Pentecostal churches seem to have the firmest handle on the power of the Spirit and have the fewest qualms about invoking the Spirit and the aid, comfort, and power that Spirit provides. I am again reminded of the Blues Brothers (See my 3/9/13 post, THE PHARISEES TELL JESUS TO FIX THE CIGARET LIGHTER), specifically the scene in the Reverend Cleophas James’ church in which Jake Blues realizes he is getting a message from God, when I think of the power of the Spirit. While that most entertaining scene is over the top, and most of us, and certainly not yours truly, are going to be dancing and somersaulting around the church and tossing our colleagues to the rafters, the Spirit does manifest Itself in many different ways to many different people.



The Spirit made the apostles, a pack of rather slow weaklings, wise and strong. The Spirit can do the same for us, especially when we are feeling neither wise nor strong or especially inspired. We just have to ask and perhaps, and only perhaps, be patient. Miracles don’t have to happen quickly to be miracles.

WERE THE APOSTLES COWARDLY, AVARICIOUS, SLOW…OR ALL OF THE ABOVE?

3/19/13




It’s often said that Jesus chose very ordinary men for His apostles. Their ultimate greatness, manifested in their spreading the gospel and, with two exceptions, giving up their lives for the sake of their Lord and Savior, was therefore not attributable to any innate abilities of the men involved but, rather, to the grace of God. The message is clear: we can do little on our own. The type of greatness that Jesus demands can be achieved only through His grace and therefore is available to anyone, even the simplest of us. Legions of saints, in addition to the apostles, were very, er, ordinary people.

One might easily take the argument about the ordinariness of the apostles a step further and contend that, in almost all cases, to call these guys ordinary would be giving them too much credit. See my 11/21/12 post WAS ST. PETER AN ALCOHOLIC? for an expostulation on the weaknesses of perhaps the greatest of the apostles. Another example of the shortcomings of the apostles can be found in one of my favorite gospel stories, Matthew 20, 20-27. In this story, the mother of James and John comes to Jesus and asks



“Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.” Matthew 20, 21



Jesus goes on to pull the old switcheroo, and asks



“Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” Matthew 20, 22



James and John, of course, say that they can. Then Jesus tells them, effectively, okay



“My cup you will indeed drink…” Matthew 20, 23



and we all know what He meant by that…these guys were in for some major league trials and suffering. But then He turns around and says



“…but to sit at my right and at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” Matthew 20, 23



So He tells James and John that they’ll pay the cost but won’t get the reward. This would have either made them angry or bewildered them. If the latter, one can almost hear them saying to each other “Wait a minute; what did He just do there?” They probably wished they’d never asked the question, though, in all likelihood, they didn’t fully understand at that stage what “my cup” entailed.



But it is not this latest manifestation of the wisdom of the adage “Be careful what you wish for” that illustrates the shortcomings of James and John. Note who it was who asked Jesus that they get the best seats in the throne room…yes, it was their mother! This may have been just a case of a stereotypical Jewish mother working too hard for the best for her children. But one gets the impression this was a case of a couple of guys who were too timid, to put it nicely, to ask Jesus such an important, and potentially embarrassing, question and instead hid behind their mommy’s apron strings, or whatever the impression is, and had her ask the big question.



Not only does this indicate a shortfall in the manliness quotient for James and John, it shows a lack of faith and understanding of who Jesus was and what Jesus wanted. Yes, it was natural to fear a guy who had calmed the seas, walked on water, healed paralytics, expelled demons, been transfigured before their eyes, and told the religious leaders of the day to effectively stick it in their ears, if not somewhere else. But Jesus was the same guy who said



“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” Matthew 11, 28-30



and whose favorite admonition, if one goes by the number of times He is recorded saying it in the gospels, was



“Be not afraid.” (too many citations to list)



Yet James and John were so afraid of Jesus that they had to ask their mother to ask Him for the big prize. This would perhaps be attributable to their embarrassment at asking Jesus for such aggrandizement when He repeatedly preached the virtues of meekness. Either way, they were missing Jesus’ message.



Perhaps I’m being too hard on James and John; Mark’s account of the same incident (Mark 10, 35-45) has them, rather than their mother, asking Jesus to give him the most prominent places in the kingdom to come. But even if I am being too hard on James and John (I’m probably not; Matthew’s reason for including the mom in the story probably transcended the allusions to Bathsheba and Solomon, but I digress.), the story gets better.



After James and John ask and receive not what they had been asking for but, rather, the downside of what they had been asking for, Matthew tells us



“When the ten heard of this (request), they became indignant at the two brothers.” Matthew 20, 24



Maybe I’m slow on the uptake, but for years I thought the other guys were upset that James and John had made such an outrageous, self-serving request. Hadn’t they learned anything?



But then it hit me about fifteen months ago (My note in my Bible says 12/12/10) that the other apostles were not upset because James and John had been so vain. No, the other guys were upset because they wished they had asked first; James and John were asking for something the other apostles felt they deserved! It wasn’t that James and John had made a request that ran counter to everything Jesus was trying to teach them; what angered the others was that they wanted those coveted places for themselves. After all, who were James and John to request the really good seats? Those seats, in the eyes of probably each of the apostles, belonged to him, not to those two guys who were still hiding behind their mommy’s skirt, or whatever that expression is.



Ordinary guys? Ordinary would have been a big promotion for this crowd. These guys were not all that courageous or all that smart and, one suspects but can’t know, probably not all that charming or good looking at that. Yet they went on to do the work that Jesus had in mind for them, and, believe me, it wasn’t those guys who achieved the transformation. It was the strengthening, transforming power and love of the Holy Spirit, manifested most clearly, but not only, at Pentecost, that changed these guys from a pack of cowering, and not all that bright, cowards into heroes of our faith, men capable of holding up under torture and death to proclaim the very Good News that they formerly had such a hard time grasping.



More good news is that we will, in all likelihood, never be asked to endure torture, derision, and death for our faith. But better news is that, despite less being asked of us, that same Spirit that infused these ordinary, at best, apostles with the power and strength to accomplish their herculean missions is available to each of us…and all we have to do is ask.



Being a little more mentally agile than the apostles might seem to help, but won’t; this grace stuff doesn’t depend on the strength of our more human attributes…thank God!

POPE FRANCIS: THIS IS STARTING TO LOOK LIKE A MIRACLE!

3/13/13




That sure was a shocker.



The Cardinals have selected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, as our new pope. Cardinal Bergoglio is now Pope Francis.

At mass Monday morning, the pastor of one of the churches we attend in Naperville said in his homily that we can’t predict who will be pope. I agreed with that, though I took issue with the examples he used. He said that no one could have predicted that either the Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla nor the German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger would have been selected by the papal conclave. Wrong. Cardinal Ratzinger was the heavy favorite going into the 2005 conclave that selected him, a near shoo-in. Cardinal Wojtyla, though not known much outside Church circles in Europe, was one of the contenders at the 1978 conclave at which John Paul I was chosen. Wojtyla was a favorite, or near favorite, entering the conclave only weeks later that selected him to succeed John Paul I. Anyone could have predicted Ratzinger, and most people, at least inside the conclave, could have predicted Wojtyla.



But just about no one would have predicted Bergoglio, even though he was supposedly the runner-up eight years ago when Benedict XVI was chosen. He was considered, by 2013, too old and having had his chance. He was mentioned almost only in passing as being among the papabile. I was teaching when the announcement was made and, heading home and listening to CNN on satellite radio (Satellite radio is one of the world’s great inventions, but I digress.), I thought someone had made a mistake and meant Scherer of Brazil, not Bergoglio of Argentina, of whom I knew nearly nothing.

This is a terrific selection. A Jesuit (Ad majorem Dei gloriam, to be sure!) of any stripe would delight the Jesuit educated yours truly and ought to delight any Catholic; after being God’s paratroopers since the Reformation, the Jebs deserve to have one of their own in charge. A Latin American is only logical and long overdue. Someone from outside the Curia was necessary with the problems that permeate that organization; selecting someone on the inside would indicate that the Church would be trying to avoid a thorough housecleaning in favor of more sweeping of nastiness under the rug.



Beyond the demographics and relationship to the Curia, it is Francis’s personal traits that make him such a wonderful selection. He apparently eschews, to the extent he can, the pomp and circumstance (Some, including yours truly, would use the term “pompousness.”) that seems to permeate the mindset of elements of the clergy and hierarchy. One wonders what the reaction of the world, both Catholic and non-Catholic, was to the Cardinals’ parading around for the past week or so in expensive, elaborate, and ornate robes among the gold and glitter of the Vatican, being chauffeured around and generally kowtowed to. Such showiness and outright silliness stuck in this Catholic’s craw; it seemed as if they were parodying themselves, and the Church, and not being sharp enough to realize it.



It is utterly amazing that a Church that increasingly seems to thrive on its showier aspects has selected such a seemingly humble man to lead it. The signs are all there: He cooks his own meals and takes the bus to work. His crucifix was utterly simple. His bow to the people as he asked for their prayers as the new pope was extraordinary. His call for fraternity, charity, and simple kindness say much about the man. And his appeal to men AND WOMEN of goodwill? Wow!



At least as important, the new Pope seems to be nearly fixated on serving the poor and the sick. His work among AIDS patients is legendary in Argentina. His upbraiding of Argentinean priests for refusing to baptize the babies of single mothers for “turning away our own” is a great sign, if indeed that story is not apocryphal. Priests couldn’t deny baptism to babies of unwed mothers…can they? Maybe I’m being naïve here.



I, and many of you, would have liked someone less conservative, more likely to make some major changes in the Church regarding the role of women and married people in its structure and hierarchy. But, as I said in 2/12/13 post THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU, POPE BENEDICT, we weren’t going to get a progressive out of this conclave, in which every participant was selected by John Paul II or Benedict XVI. Yes, Francis is pretty much a down the line conservative in matters of doctrine, but his personal humility and sense of perspective and mission still make him stand out among his brother Cardinals who share his innate conservatism.



Like many observers, I am reminded, when I consider Francis, of no one more than John XXIII, the greatest pope of my lifetime. John was 77 when he was selected; Francis is 76. John was, and Francis is, expected to be a caretaker, to not make any waves and keep the seat warm for the next guy. It didn’t work that way for John; in his own words, he threw “open the windows of the Church and let the fresh air of the spirit blow through” by convening Vatican II and changing the Church forever. It seemed at times as if John’s successors were working to render Vatican II irrelevant, and it more than seems that of late many elements of the Church of consider Vatican II to be an obstacle that must be worked around or eradicated, like the mustard seed that sprouts, grows wild, and makes life problematical for those who must contend with its voracious growth. But, like that bothersome mustard seed, Vatican II lives on as a testimony to John XXIII who also was a humble man who came to the Chair of St. Peter with few expectations.



It looks as if, besides being a man of the poor and servant of Christ, Pope Francis is a reformer. That reform may not take the direction that more progressive elements of the Church might like. But, in many ways, there is nothing inconsistent with theological and doctrinal conservatism and a spirit of reform. And God knows our Church needs reform. Pope Francis may be the man to achieve it.



Please join me in saying a prayer for our new Papa and heeding his call for fraternity, charity, and kindness.

THE PHARISEES TELL JESUS TO FIX THE CIGARET LIGHTER

3/6/13




Tomorrow’s Gospel reading, from the 11th chapter of Luke’s account, presents, as do most gospel passages, a situation from the time of Jesus with distinct echoes into our time.



As Luke tells us,



“(Jesus) was driving out a demon that was mute, and when the demon had gone out, the mute person spoke and the crowds were amazed.” Luke 11, 14



We don’t see many exorcisms (or instantaneous cures for epilepsy, as many, but not all, of these reported exorcisms of Jesus were) nowadays. But bear with me.

What was the reaction of “some of them,” as Luke refers to a group of people probably comprised of Pharisees and/or Scribes?



“By the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Luke 11, 15



Jesus goes on to admonish those who contended that He was an agent of Satan. That admonition, in which He speaks of a “kingdom (in other gospels, a “house”) divided against itself,” was quoted, or paraphrased, by Abraham Lincoln in his speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for the Senate in 1858 has thus become part of the fabric of American history. But Jesus’ eloquent retort to His critics is not what I find most interesting about this passage.



Note that the “others” who ascribed Jesus’ power to the devil were the same people who had been constantly asking for a sign earlier in the gospel. And one can understand the demands for a sign; Jesus was expounding some radical ideas, ideas that would change Judaism and shake up the leadership in Jerusalem. When a guy speaks this big, he’d better have something to back up the big talk. So Jesus gives them the sign they seek, though clearly His motives were healing the possessed person, not satisfying the demands of the Pharisees.



What do the leaders of the day do in response to the sign? They dismiss it as the work of the devil. It was as if they were ancient versions of Jake Blues. Jake, as you will recall, was complaining that his brother Elwood had traded in the Bluesmobile (a Cadillac, no less) for a microphone and had replaced the Bluesmobile with a used Des Plaines (I think Des Plaines; it may have been Mt. Prospect.) cop car. When Elwood explains that the car’s



“…got a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch mill. It’s got cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks”



and demonstrates the new Bluesmobile’s prowess by leaping over an open 95th Street Bridge, Jake’s only response is



“Fix the cigaret lighter”



when he finds the lighter doesn’t work.



There was nothing Jesus was going to do to satisfy the authorities of the day, just as there was nothing Elwood could do to satisfy Jake.



To further illustrate the obstinacy of the Pharisees and “others,” Luke recounts, right after the Beelzebub comment



And still others to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven. Luke 11, 16



Wait; hadn’t Jesus just performed what certainly looked like a sign from heaven in driving out the demons? The demands just kept coming, and the demands could never be satisfied.



Many of us treat God the same way. Ascribing to the popular theory that God is some kind of cosmic Short Order Cook, we make demands on Him. “Give me this, this, this, and that. And throw in something for my Uncle Bruno and Aunt Bernice.” When He doesn’t give us what we want, we complain, feel cheated, and maybe even challenge His existence. And when He does give us what we want, we aren’t satisfied and ask for more.



Like the “others” in this Gospel, we don’t listen to Jesus’ message, or we do listen but don’t like its implications. So we demand that God “prove” His message by some miracle or gift. If the miracle doesn’t come through, we can continue to ignore the message. If it does come through, hey, our order has been filled and we can go ahead and order desert in the form of something else we think we need. There is indeed limited downside to such a practice of Christianity, or such an approach to God, and plenty of upside. We don’t have to do anything or heed any message, and there is plenty of potential for goodies to come our way.



Things don’t change much over the centuries.