Painful Pleasure

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JMJ

In the movie Toy Story 3, the tyrannical bear, Lotso, who rules the daycare facility, Sunnyside, tells the new toys that daycare is a dream come true because there are no owners, and therefore no heartbreak.  Here is a place where the fun never ends, and the heartbreak never begins.  The toys don't belong to anyone and therefore cannot be hurt by anyone.  Sounds like a familiar line of reasoning, no?


Birth control eradicated the need for commitment in a relationship before relations were had.  Free of commitment, intercourse (and subsequently what people thought was love) became conditional.  There is no ownership, no belonging, and so no heartbreak.  But then there is also no real love.  True love is unconditional, for Love Himself makes no conditions on His love for us.  True love demands a complete gift of self in a covenant where each belongs to the other.  True love expects faithfulness, and so does not fear heartbreak.


The theme of the sexual revolution was "pleasure without pain": get all the highs without any of the lows.  It was an easy sell, and so attracted many eager buyers.  Yet with it came a hefty price tag: "free love" meant an empty life.  The line of the sixties was "peace, love, joy".  Ironic, because a person may be able to experience pleasure without pain, but not peace, love, or joy.  Peace comes from living a life in conformity with God's will, in conformity with the natural law written into our hearts.  Rebellion against this law brings only violence and destruction to the peace of our souls.  To love is to give oneself totally and completely; to pervert our purpose, and to thwart God's design creates a civil war within ourselves.  The peace that resides in the humble soul, produces the joy that illuminates his life.  One who knows how to love is full of joy, full of peace.


Believing in a self-serving love, one allows himself only to love himself.  He never opens his heart to the purifying fires of a self-sacrificing love.  Those fires and trials that purify his heart, draw him closer to the source of Love itself.  People believe that there is pleasure without pain, but ironically pain is all they are left with.  Going from one relationship to another, never fully giving themselves means they never fully receive another, never fully feel the love of another.  One may choose to love; but he also is choosing not to be loved.  And so what happens?  People who have bought this lie are not full of hate, but full of callousness and indifference, the opposite of love.


It is a struggle to love, it is a daily and constant sacrifice to love completely.  But the joy and peace that emanate from this love are everlasting as opposed to the brief pleasure that is derived from a loveless life.  

St. George the Dragon Slayer

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JMJ

Today is the feast of St. George, the dragon-slayer.  Here is brief account of his life from the EWTN library:

"According to the account given us by Metaphrastes, he was born in Cappadocia, of noble Christian parents. After the death of his father he went with his mother into Palestine, she being a native of that country, and having there a considerable estate, which fell to her son George. He was strong and robust in body, and having embraced the profession of a soldier, was made a tribune, or colonel, in the army. By his courage and conduct he was soon preferred to higher stations by the Emperor Diocletian. When that prince waged war against the Christian religion, St. George laid aside the marks of his dignity, threw up his commission and posts, and complained to the emperor himself of his severities and bloody edicts. He was immediately cast into prison, and tried, first by promises, and afterwards put to the question and tortured with great cruelty; but nothing could shake his constancy. The next day he was led through the city and beheaded. Some think him to have been the same illustrious young man who tore down the edicts when they were first fixed up at Nicomedia, as Lactantius relates in his book, On the Death of the Persecutors, and Eusebius in his history. 

The reason why St. George has been regarded as the patron of military men is partly upon the score of his profession, and partly upon the credit of a relation of his appearing to the Christian army in the holy war, before the battle of Antioch. The success of this battle proving fortunate to the Christians, under Godfrey of Bouillon, made the name of St. George more famous in Europe and disposed the military men to implore more particularly his intercession. This devotion was confirmed, as it is said, by an apparition of St. George to our king, Richard I, in his expedition against the Saracens; which vision being declared to the troops, was to them a great encouragement, and they soon after defeated the enemy. 

St. George is usually painted on horseback and tilting at a dragon under his feet; but this representation is no more than an emblematical figure, purporting that by his faith and Christian fortitude he conquered the devil, called the dragon in the Apocalypse."

Considering St. George is the patron saint of England, Brad Birzer (a blogger at Catholicvote) reminded his readers of  a famous English poem written by William Blake and set to music by Hubert Parry, called Jerusalem:

AND did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
 
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
 
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
 
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

It is certain that there are still some in England that seek to build up the "New Jerusalem" (the Kingdom of God) on its land.  Though the Western world, and in particular Europe, is in spiritual and cultural decay, one should never despair because the presence of the good, the true, and the beautiful in our world will never cease and will always point to its Source.  Here is a wonderful example of beauty in England during last year's Royal Wedding when the whole congregation (and onlookers outside) sang this beautiful hymn together.   Hopefully (and probably) there were some that were drawn closer to Christ by the beauty of the words and music.  Here is the short video clip:

Happy Feast Day!

Good Friday Fast

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JMJ

". . . And those that passed by derided Him, wagging their heads, and saying, 'Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!'  So also the chief priests mocked Him to one another with the scribes, saying,' He saved others; He cannot save Himself.  Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.' Those who were crucified with Him also reviled Him.' (Mk. 15: 27-32)

Meditating on these scripture verses concerning the crowd that surrounded the Cross, one cannot help but also remember the words from the Presentation in the Temple:

". . . and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, His Mother,'Behold this child is set for the fall and the rise of many in Israel and for a sign that shall be contradicted. . ." (Lk. 2:34).

The Cross is the sign of our salvation and yet a sign of contradiction.  The people shout that they will believe if only Christ comes down from the Cross.  Fulton Sheen often said that people will believe in anything but the Cross, but suffering.  Even those that suffer (like the ones who were crucified with Him, and "reviled Him") refuse to believe in its merits.  Christ came to die so that we might have eternal life.  Yet, we must die to ourselves if we are to inherit the victory Christ has already won for us.

Easter Sunday is a beautiful feast, but a hollow one indeed if we do not first live through and experience the Passion and Cross of Good Friday.  The Crucifix must be a powerful reality in our lives; not just a symbol of our faith, but a constant call to a radical vocation.  Sacrificial love cannot be a high ideal, a romantic notion; it must be a way of life for us as Christians.  


The Cross and suffering are realities, whether we choose to embrace them or not.  But by ignoring the Cross, we also refuse the hope that it contains: the hope of salvation.  And the knowledge, and the peace that comes with it, that the Cross is the Way to Heaven, to Eternal Happiness!


Persevere in your fasting and sacrifices, and have a blessed and holy Easter!

"Let my People Go"

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JMJ

We should be especially mindful of the story of Exodus in our current struggle against religious persecution.  Modern theologians have a tendency to focus solely on the Promised Land and the subsequent end of their enslavement as the goal for the Israelites.  Yet, in his excellent book called Spirit of the Liturgy, Pope Benedict, then Cardinal Ratzinger, reminds us that the land was only a necessary part of the ultimate goal of the exodus: the freedom to worship God.  

"God's original command to Pharaoh runs as follows: 'Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.' (Ex. 7:16) These words- 'Let me people go, that they may serve me'- appear four times, with slight variations, in all the meetings of Pharaoh with Moses and Aaron." (Spirit of the Liturgy, Ratzinger, p.15) (emphasis mine)

Pharaoh, like many rulers to follow him, tries many compromises and accommodations with Moses (first telling him to worship God in Egypt, then allowing only the men to go, and finally allowing all to go except the cattle):

"But Moses cannot negotiate about the liturgy with a foreign potentate nor can he subject worship to any form of political compromise. . . the only goal of the Exodus is shown to be worship, which can only take place according to God's measure and therefore eludes the game of political compromise." (Spirit of the Liturgy, p.16)

This sounds all too familiar to us.  As it does to our brethren who live under cruel regimes in other parts of the world.  Just as Pharaoh could not decide for the Israelites how they were to worship God, so goes the same for any government today or in the future. The current administration has purposely changed the phrase "freedom of religion" to "freedom of worship" in public pronouncements.  But I, and many others, are certain that they do not mean the freedom to worship that was given to the Israelites by God in Exodus.  In essence, freedom of religion means that people are at liberty to live their religion in every aspect of their life without hindrance from the state.  In great contrast, freedom to worship means simply that people can say their whispered prayers in bed at night. 


But worshipping God is more than praying to Him in the quiet of our homes.  The Israelites were already worshipping God in their homes when Moses was sent to them by God; God released them from their bondage so they could worship Him with their liturgy and their lives.

"Cult, liturgy. . . is part of this worship, but so too is life according to the will of God; such a life is an indispensable part of true worship. . . Ultimately, it is the very life of man, man himself living righteously, that is the true worship of God, but life only becomes real life when it receives its form from looking toward God." (Spirit of the Liturgy, p.18)

Christ commanded the apostles: "Go out into the whole world and preach the Good News, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." (Mk. 16:15)  He did not say,"Stay in the Upper Room, say your prayers, and go back to being fishermen."  It is quite ironic that many of the same people who say Christians never act Christ-like, are the same ones who are forcing us against the commands of Christ.  Faith is not put on, on Sunday, and taken off during the week.  If it were, we would be like the Pharisees that Christ spoke of when he said:

"Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'" (Mk.7: 6-7)

To deprive men of the freedom of true worship, the freedom to practice their faith, is a grave injustice.  Again, our current pontiff eloquently elaborates:

"When morality and law do not originate in a God-ward perspective, they degrade man, because they rob him of his highest measure and his highest capability, deprive him of any vision of the infinite and eternal." (p.19)

When this, or any, government takes away man's freedom of religion, they take away his hope itself.  Man was made to live in happiness with God forever; without true freedom to worship, man is deprived of the hope that points to this beatitude, and so deprived of the moral code that would aid him in reaching this blessed goal.


During this Lent, please continue to fast and pray for an end to persecution, for courageous leaders to arise, and for our families to strengthen and preserve the Faith.

Rallies for Religious Freedom will be held across the nation next Friday, March 23rd.  I encourage you to stand with our fellow Christians in the fight for religious freedom.  Go to this website to find the nearest location:  http://standupforreligiousfreedom.com/locations/

March 2nd Fast

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JMJ

"Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife. " (Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, no. 17)

Though excoriated in his own time for statements such as this, Paul VI acted as no less than a prophet in his encyclical, Humanae Vitae.  Only eleven years after its promulgation China began its draconian one-child policy, enforcing it through forced abortions and sterilizations.  The availability and legality of contraception and abortion has decimated many countries' population growths.  And now it happens to the "freest" nation in the world that the government hands down a dictate forcing every person to pay for coverage of destructive care, thereby encouraging the further breakdown of the family.  It is evident that the desire of secular forces is to stamp out fertility, to stamp out life.  Why?  Because they cannot stand in the Light of Life itself.  The Light that shines brilliantly from each soul created is too much for the forces of evil to endure, and so they seek to eradicate it.


And yet, we know they cannot eradicate this Light, because its source is eternal.  And they cannot eradicate this Light because they cannot triumph over Him who is the "Way, the Truth, and the Life." What a beautiful time Lent is, as we meditate on Our Lord's Passion and Death and Triumph over Evil.  The war was won when Christ rose from the dead that first Easter morning.  Darkness may surround us but it cannot overcome the Light of the Truth.  We must be determined to let the Light of Christ shine forth in our lives, and in our homes.  During our fast today, let us especially focus on accomplishing our tasks, and offering up up any small or large sufferings with great joy.  The tediousness of this day and everyday can only be overcome by joy and patience.  If we wish to make it to Easter Sunday, we must first make the slow way to Calvary.  May God grant you patience and peace this day and during this holy season of Lent!