Re: Publican

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness

and despised everyone else.

"Two people went up to the temple area to pray;

one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.

The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,

'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity -

greedy, dishonest, adulterous - or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week,and I pay tithes on my whole income.'

But the tax collector stood off at a distance

and would not even raise his eyes to heaven

but beat his breast and prayed,

'O God, be merciful to me a sinner.'

I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;

for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,

and the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

In the midst of Lent, when the emphasis is on repentance and change, it strikes me that the parable is maddeningly silent about any change in the tax collector.  The Pharisee, Jesus is quick to point out, is externally a paragon of religious virtue, and we’re more than happy to pounce on the fact that he gets his comeuppance because he is—and this is at least one of the points of the tale—so convinced of his own righteousness.

But what about that tax collector?  No doubt he understands in his deepest self that he isn’t righteous at all—indeed, another point of the tale.  But it’s also probable that he went about his daily business in a very ordinary way, not wringing his hands about the sin he was committing—just doing his job.  It is not in his public life that the reality of the man and his anguish over his sins resides—it is in the private one, the one who sneaks into the back of the Temple and does not even raise his eyes to God.  Not only does he know what he ought to do, he’s painfully aware that he doesn’t do it.  Hence his mournful prayer: be merciful to me, a sinner.

When the two men go home, it’s the tax collector who is justified.  But the parable doesn’t say that all of a sudden, he repented of his evil ways, paid back all he had stolen and started to live an upright life. The parable is silent—and keeps us in the moment—the man went home that day justified and still a tax collector.  So is the extravagant, prodigal grace of our God.

It got me to thinking about the vilification that is heaped these days on public figures who have parted ways with the thinking of the Church, figures like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Kathleen Sibelius.  These are folks with a great deal of political power who call themselves Catholic but whose public lives and works are often visibly, stridently and agonizingly contrary to the teachings of Holy Mother Church.

It gets frustrating for the average, trying-to-be-faithful Catholic in the pew to see these figures misstate Church teaching again and again and again.  It has become almost physically painful to hear them dissemble on the beginnings of life and the virtues of contraception and abortion.  And get more than a few like-minded, pro-life folks of any stripe together and pretty soon, the conversation is going to turn to a discussion of how awful it is that these people are permitted to hold themselves out as Catholic and why, oh why haven’t the Bishops done anything about it? 

Fair enough.  Public scandal—and that’s what the witness of nominal Catholics who support abortion is—deserves public correction.  There probably is a place for a Bishop making a clear and public example of some of these thorns-in-the-side.

But I was struck in a recent conversation by a statement a friend made: These people are unrepentant in their sin.  They deserve to be publicly chastised and excommunicated, for the sake of the faithful.  I’ll leave that decision to the wisdom of the Bishops—but it strikes me that there’s a little bit of the Pharisee in that comment, a bit of equating sin with sinner. A bit of Thank you God that I am not as other men.

I think of some of the sins that I struggle with on a daily basis, ones that best me every time I encounter them, the ones I go back to the confessional again and again, saying I’m sorry, only to turn around and do them over and over yet again, returning again in defeat for another round of grace.  They are not so notorious as publicly opposing the Church in her teaching on life, nor perhaps so serious as the obstinate, post-baptismal refusal to accept church teaching—but sins they are, even so.  And they separate me from God, perhaps not as greatly but just as surely, as any other.

That tax collector may well have gone back to tax collecting the next day, a slave to that sin as I am a slave to mine, anguished in heart, knowing full well that what he did was wrong.   Maybe that tax collector knew full well that it was his weakness and sin—his attachment to favor? to wealth? to power?—that kept him where he was, and maybe he knew just how powerless he was to defeat those particular demons. Perhaps his prayer of humility was also one of despair: Have mercy on me, for I am not able to change myself!

And he may have come back to that temple again and again, days,weeks, months, years, in that anguish, asking for mercy, hoping for grace and strength.  How long did it take, how many prayers, before the private man, the man praying in such humility in the temple, became manifest in the public man who was such a notorious sinner?  Maybe it never happened; if it did, it’s certain that some never saw it.

It’s important to understand right and wrong, faithfulness and heresy.  It’s important to raise voices against injustice and correct error.  It is important to oppose sin, especially visible and pervasive sin passed off as government policy. It’s important to remember that correcting the sinner is a spiritual work of mercy.

But it’s also important to remember we never know who is standing unnoticed in the back of the church, eyes downcast, asking for mercy at the same time we are calling down judgment.  It’s  important to make sure we aren’t standing in the front of the Church loudly declaring Thank you God, that I am not like other men.

For indeed—sometimes we are.

Insult to Injury

For your penance, I want you to pray for the intentions of one person who has hurt you and one person you have hurt, and make your communion at mass with that in mind.

My morning Lenten devotion had suggested confession as penance that Friday morning.  Having been relatively recently, I quickly talked myself out of following through despite my personal promise of obedience to the program I had set out for myself.  Still, I found myself engaging in a reluctant but insistent examination of conscience in the down moments of that day, spent at a  meeting where I was literally surrounded by Roman collars.  I had determined not to ask a sacramental favor of any of the priests there out of utter shyness and fear of imposition, but God, having other plans, put a joking invitation in the mouth of one of them when I dropped by to talk about another matter.  One of these days I am going to learn  (1) that bringing the sacraments is never an imposition to a priest and (2) trying to outrun God doesn’t work very well.  If He has something to say, best stay put and listen.  And where does He speak more directly and personally than in the sacrament of penance?

As  I sat waiting for mass to begin the next morning, I cast my mind back over those two possibilities in my assigned penance  Someone who has injured me….no name came to mind.  For a brief and shining second I patted myself on the back.  For a woman of Irish-German heritage for whom the family sport is bearing grudges while nursing spite, the fact that no villain immediately surfaced seemed something of a minor conquest, gaining at least a little ground in the battle to loosen my death-grip on pride and self importance.  The slightest growth in learning the lessons of charity, perhaps? 

My confidence lasted only as long as it took for me to reflect on those I had hurt, for no names came to mind there either.  It’s true enough that I don’t go about seeking opportunity for gratuitous meanness, but the utter inability to name anyone whom I have injured bespeaks a pronounced inclination to bury my faults which probably meant I was burying my resentments as well.  I gave up for the moment and made my intentions for the ever popular Ida Know—on both sides of the penance.

Over the next few days I chewed on that uncomfortable fact in my quiet moments and kept coming back to two ridiculously minor annoyances, so trivial that to characterize them as personal hurts required the elasticity of an emotional Gumby: the first, a religious sister who complained that I misspelled her (difficult, foreign) name on a birthday card one year and the next, when I redoubled my efforts to be correct , wrote again to complain that the card had arrived a few days early.  (The expression in the South is she’d complain if they hung her with a new rope).  The second a man whom I see regularly in daily mass who visited injury on a friend of mine, made worse by the fact that this man brushed the whole matter off as nothing personal, you know, just business.

I have developed a rule that, if I encounter something three times in a short span of time, it’s probably worth paying attention to.  When this odd couple of folk overtook my mind for the third time in as many days, unbidden, I decided to dust off the half-done penance and do a little soul searching.   Imagine my surprise to finally realize that these were not just people who had injured me—they were people I had injured as well.  Ida Know on both sides of the penance, indeed.

Not more than a few days ago, I had stood, huddled in the privacy of a corner of a hotel meeting room, talking to Jesus, stuttering out an (always) imperfect confession and asking Him not to judge me on the basis of my lapses, seeking the assurance of His love in spite of them.  More than anything, I wanted Him to see me not as the sum total of my stupid, selfish mistakes but as the reflection of His love. 

Like the ungrateful and forgiven servant of the parable, I then found myself unwilling to extend the same grace to those who in my narrow vision had wronged me, and so failed to see that I had compounded injury with insult.  Desperate not to be defined by my worst moments, I still held others bound by theirs, long, long after the fact.  I went from not having a clear fix on those I have injured to not having enough fingers and toes to count them all. 

Those two.  The partner who refused to take call for me because his golf game was more important than visiting my father on Fathers’ Day.  The guy in the big, black truck who cut me off in traffic this morning.  The roommate who never cleaned up her messes.  The child I accused of “always” or “never” when the truth of the matter was “just now…”  The colleague whose fastidiousness drives the rest of us crazy.  The smelly, muttering man with dreadlocks who stands on the corner at the post office and shouts at passersby. It seems that part and parcel of being broken in a broken world is the great tendency to hold people fast in whatever limited dimensions in which I see them, forgetting that there is much more to them than either fault or virtue; there is the love of our mutual Father and that is the greatest commonality of all. 

To fail to recognize that reality is to deny a person his dignity in the moment.  To do it over and over again so that a moment becomes hardened into an opinion, or worse yet, a bias,  is to do real injury, not just to the other, but to myself.  For sin, I have begun to realize, is not about breaking rules so much as it is about breaking relationships.  If I cannot see God in His image and likeness before me, and respond accordingly, how can I hold Him in my heart?  How will I hear His voice if not through the mouths of others?  My priest, my neighbor...

Still considering the magnitude and pervasiveness of this newfound sin of mine, I happened to pay closer attention to a hymn by John Donne, which plays daily on my Lenten playlist.  Donne says it better than I—there need be no other commentary except that of thanksgiving for graces received, which far exceed my simple, awkward attempts to ask for them and far outweigh the frustrating and wonderful knowledge that I’ll always need them again, and again…and again.  And that grace will always be there and He who gives it will always be ready to make whole my broken relationships once again in His good way and in His good time.   Even when I have no clue what those broken pieces really are.

Wilt thou forgive the sin where I begun,

Which is my sin though it was done before?

Wilt thou forgive that sin, the sin through which I run

And do run still, though still I do deplore?

When Thou has done, Thou hast not done

For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I have won

Others to sin and made my sin their door?

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun

A year or two and wallowed in a score?

When thou hast done, Thou hast not done

For I have more.

I have a sin of fear that when I have spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore

But swear by Thyself that at my death Thy Son

Shall shine as He shines now and heretofore

And having done that, Thou hast done

I fear no more.

Mandates

I have followed the posture of the current administration toward the Catholic Church with some interest, ever since I first got wind of the suit against Belmont Abbey for refusing to provide insurance coverage that included sterilization.  This was in 2009—a short time into the current administration—and the complaint by the EEOC alleged that in failing to provide for contraceptives, Belmont Abbey was in violation of Title VII—designed to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex.  It was an early bellwether of the current crisis and went largely unremarked except for a few voices sounding the alarm.  Not only did it foreshadow the aggressiveness that the Obama Administration would have in coming after the Catholic Church in the public square, it gave a hint of the arguments that would be used.

It’s worth paying attention to those arguments, for they have great significance, not only in how this will play out in terms of national policy but also in terms of the way the Church sees itself.  The EEOC complaint against Belmont Abbey stemmed from its position as employer and took the posture that the Church when it pays people to work for it, is no different from any other employer in the marketplace.  In short—this administration draws a sharp line between employment—which it clearly considers simply a secular contractual arrangement—and exercise of religion.

Visit the comboxes on the blogs dealing with this and you’ll see the same thing.  Time after time, the argument put forth is this:  The Church is entitled to deference in its own sphere of worship, but when it enters the public arena and engages in secular pursuits, it should be treated just like any other employer.

Read that again, carefully.  In short, the argument is that the Christian life must be lived out only within the confines of the houses of worship—any activity outside the parochial world is automatically secular.  The public square is one in which the secular—not the religious—holds sway. 

If it were not such a desperate situation, this ignorant premise would be laughable.  The Church—the Catholic Church—is responsible for the establishment of schools, hospitals, orphanages, colleges and everything the modern world thinks of a “social service” agencies.  Read properly in the context of history, even our own brief national history, these institutions have, until only very recent times—been religious, not secular, in nature.  Until recently it was understood that religious people lived out their religious lives publicly, sometimes in providing schools, hospitals, and social services that other people needed.  That these were religious services—and that they were valuable and to be encouraged—was a given.

How is it that a good portion of the modern world thinks otherwise?  How is it that well-educated people can assert, with force and with some credibility, that the HHS mandate seeks only to regulate the Church when it seeks to act in a secular capacity?

Some of this, I think, is part of a well-calculated plan by what Father Barron terms liberal totalitarians to squeeze the Church out of the public square, making people dependent on the government instead of the Church.  In this regard, the clash we are witnessing is a clash of two religions: the Christian faith, most particularly as embodied in the Catholic Church, and the religion of Radical Secularism.  It’s no accident that this attack occurs in a time when radical, aggressive Atheism is also on the rise.

But we Christians—we Catholics—have to bear some of the blame.  When I came into the Catholic Church, I was astonished to find so many of my fellow Catholics so apathetic about the joys and riches of my newly-embraced faith.  I recall vividly that one woman friend, somewhat exasperated by my convert’s enthusiasm, told me:   You have to remember, we were taught that all we had to do was come to mass every week, and that was all we had to do.

Balderdash.  That may be what some of you cradle Catholics heard, but growing up in the same time and outside the faith, I knew the Catholic faith was much, much  more than Sunday worship. I was delivered by nursing sisters in a Catholic hospital—the only one in town.  I saw Catholic friends who saved their milk money to send it off to care for African orphans.  I saw priests and sisters put their lives on the line to help end segregation in the South and racism everywhere. Those of us who were stuck in the second-rate school system of my hometown wanted dearly to be able to go to the (integrated even before it was mandated)  Catholic schools.  I knew that being Catholic meant being very, very active in the world. And I admired it, even then.

Somehow, the world at large has gotten the idea that the Christian faith--Catholic faith-- is now a matter of mere intellect and freedom of thought and Sunday worship alone, of being free to go to mass and take Good Friday off and make the sign of the cross in public without getting attacked.

Balderdash again, and this time, shame on us for letting that happen. 

The Catholic faith is not just about being able to go to mass in peace.  It’s about being fed in the mass to take Christ out into the word where the worship of Him really begins.  The mass—source and summit of our faith-- calls us together as Act I of a great drama—the feeding and preparation of the faithful.  Act II is taking that faith into the world and making it—making Christ—present.  It’s important that the world understand that in operating hospitals and clinics and schools and social service agencies, the Church is not intruding on the secular world—we are simply continuing our worship.  We are—in the language of the constitution—exercising our faith.  Hospitals and schools and charities are not a handy sideline to the faith—they are the faith.

It is not the character of an at that determines worship—nor is it strictly the arena.  It is the intent, the purpose, the end to which it is directed. We simply cannot be Catholics without engaging in taking our faith into the world as we are commanded.  The constitution guarantees us freedom of exercise of religion—not mere freedom of worship.  It guarantees that the state—that would be HHS in this case—does not get to define what exercise of religion is.  That, after all, is what the Founding Fathers fled in England—the state dictating what religion could be.  And Catholics caught the hard edge of that sword as well—ask the recusant families in the time of Elizabeth I.

The same act can be completely different in quality, depending on who performs it. Feeding the poor can be a calculated act of political expediency or it can be a communion with Christ.  Caring for the sick can be a means to achieve great profits or it can be fulfilling the mandate of Christ to love one another.  A school can be a place of social indoctrination or a place of discovering one’s unique, precious and unrepeatable place in the world, according to God’s will.  Any program, any institution can be secular or religious—and the activities  each engages in can be very similar.  It is the actor, not the act, that makes the difference; the motive, not the activity.

Catholics have a long tradition (since Pentecost, in fact)  of worshiping God in the corporal acts of mercy: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving drink to the thirsty, giving shelter to the homeless, visiting the sick, ransoming the captive, burying the dead.  Roll in two of the spiritual works of mercy (instructing the ignorant and consoling the afflicted) and you have a pretty good description of the activities in the public square that the HHS mandate is designed to squelch. 

If this administration succeeds in forcing this mandate,  it will be because we Catholics have forgotten that worship isn’t just inside the four walls of our parishes and we’ve let others forget it as well.  It will be because we have forgotten to exercise our faith personally.  It will because we have forgotten that the dismissal of the mass is to send us as Catholics out do to those works of mercy that too few of us can even name any more.  It will be because we’ve bought into the idea that participation in public life means acquiescence with secular agenda.  It will be because we—like my friend—will have bought into the idea that all we have to do is go to mass every week and we are fine.

It will be because we’ve let the other side—even the other side that wishes to represent itself as Catholic when it is at variance with the teachings of the Church-- control the language and the argument. It will be because we lost sight of the real mandate--the mandate that we share the good news with all the world.  All of it.  Not just the part that HHS deems proper.

This isn’t about just about conscience—a word with little or no meaning in the public square.  It’s certainly not about women’s health.  It’s not about access to health care or discrimination. It’s not about a payment shell game that tries to trick inattentive Catholics into thinking that they have distanced themselves from participation in grave evil when they have not. And it matters not one bit whether a majority of Catholics or anyone else agrees that provision of contraception and sterilization and abortion services by employers is a good idea.

It’s about whether we Catholics are willing to stand up and demand that this administration honor constitutionally-given right to live out our faith as we see fit.  We are presented with two incompatible mandates, one from HHS and one from Christ.

It's up to us to choose which one we will support and act accordingly.

Fog

You are here because you love me.  And you are here because I love you.

So ended the brief address of a friend of mine on the occasion of his solemn profession of vows to the Order of Cistercians of Strict Observance—the Trappists—a few days ago.  The day had begun bleak and rainy, but as the opening words of the mass were spoken the light broke through the clouds, flooding the sanctuary with a play of golden light from the stained glass windows, patterns playing over the plain floor and making a carpet of light in the spot where my friend would prostrate himself  in the course of the liturgy. By the time we were in the refectory for the reception, it was clearing and becoming bright.

It was a fitting grace note for an artist who has come to understand the creative life within the monastery walls. There was mass, with a homily that intertwined the life of the Creator with the creativeness of his creation, a mass rich with both music and the silence that, in a Trappist monastery, is a living presence; a mass that did not feel the need to fill up every vacant space with notes and words, one that left time for contemplating the wondrous event that was taking place in front of us, the binding of this one man to his community until death would change—but not really end—the relationship.  For, as my friend pointed out, he knows where he will be buried, and it is still within the embrace of his brothers.  He knows his place in the world, and which of us would not wish the same?

I had arisen early, well before dawn, in time, had I been at the monastery already, to join the brothers in the night office, the watch in the night.  I left the mountain and drove the nearly three hours to the monastery in a driving rain.  By the time I left the Interstate for the road that would dwindle from six lanes to two in its course to the monastery, I was surrounded by fog. 

I headed into the darkness, all the light going in the other direction, the headlamps of cars heading into town as I headed away.  My world contracted to the confines of my car and the play of its own lights on the asphalt.  The thick, white mist covered everything to the left of the yellow line and to the right of the white one on the road.  I drove on, pulling up memories of this road I had driven so many times before, willing myself to recall how it felt, its curves and intersections, its very being. 

It worked.  I missed only one turn, and knew it immediately.  It took a while to find  a spot that permitted me to turn around, and a break in the long line of lights that allowed me to do so.  Even so, I arrived at the monastery in time for Lauds, and to hear the community pray for their brother on the feast day of their founders.  As I walked toward the church, sparely lit in the gathering dawn, the fog was lifting.  I slowed my steps and paused to drink in the silence, to watch a bare tree emerge from the mists and to see a bird hop from branch to branch.   To pause and to begin to bring my own rhythm into those of the measured and patient cadences of monastic life.  And to reflect on the gift of fog, which helped me make the transition.

Living where I do, I’ve had to come to terms with fog.  On our mountain, it is often so dense—as it was this particular morning—that the only way to navigate is from one reflector in the middle of the road, to the next, taking cues in the darkness from things I’ve experienced before: my off-rear tire drops into a small hole, I find the blue reflector that suddenly looms on the left and it means I  have arrived at the turn-off for my street , and I turn the car as much in faith as in assurance.  It’s a reality of my existence and a pretty good metaphor for my spiritual life.  And it appears that it suits me.

Some folks spend the bulk of their lives walking about in the spiritual sunlight, seeing clearly where they are and where they wish to be and getting there with remarkable directness—and that is a good thing.  But some of us, like a climber who ascends a mountain at exactly the same rate the fog lifts away, find ourselves never quite getting through the mists.  And after a while, the fog, that dampens the senses and blurs the light and softens the darkness like the quiet in a Trappist monastery, takes on a life of its own, a teaching of its own.

I’ve grown accustomed to the fog and its inherent darkness, and I’ve developed a fondness for it, for it is, after all, an integral part of my life.  Wishing it away would be as effective—and as silly—as wishing to be tall and blonde when it is clear that I simply am…not.  If  part of being me is the physical body I inhabit, then so is the spiritual place I have been given in the grand scheme of things.  And any artist will tell you that there is no great work of art that does not depend on the play of light with shadow.  I get to be part of the shadow.

Two years ago, on the day I first met the monks at Conyers,  this particular Brother led me to the balcony of the Church after vespers and I was stunned by the beauty of the silence and the shadows.  Since then, I have found my best place in darkened churches full of that same silence and shadows, places where the smallest details matter.  The shadow of a shadow that reminds me that this is the spot where the step is.  The reflection of the votives in the polished stone of the altar that reminds me to pray for the intentions of those who have been there before me.  The gradual change of the stained glass behind the crucifix as the sun rises and the dullness gives way, gently at first, them with a great rush, to colors, making clear both face and body on the crucifix and burnishing the brass of the tabernacle into warmth and brilliance, reminding me in Whose presence I find myself.  The silence of emptiness that amplifies every creak and shift as the church itself wakes up and talks to me like an old friend.  The silence and the darkness that pushes all other concern away so that, sometimes only for the briefest of moments, I can simply be there and simply be.

I can’t put it into better words, for how can words explain silence any more than light can explain shadow?  But I have learned that it is in that place that I find my center and it is in that way that I grow so that when the light and noise of day confound me as much as the fog on a country road, I can shut my interior eyes and remember—what it feels like to be in the presence of God--always closer to me than my own breath even when the noise and the light conspire to make me forget that.

In those darkened churches, in the shadows and the fog of my interior life, I meet God again.  In those shadows, which are no longer fearsome, but welcome, I recognize Him in the place and the way He has arranged for me, in the place where, after all, I live.  A place that is familiar and unspeakably intimate and in which I can let Him lead me in the confidence of faith.  One reflector at a time, because I understand that.

I am there, in that mist,  because He loves me.  And I am there because I love  Him.

Mass Rock

Mass Rock

I live on the side of a mountain in Tennessee, one characteristic of which is that nearly every yard is littered with large, exposed rocks.  Now that winter is here and I can see down the hill from my home to the expanse of my lot that stretches down a steep slope to the valley below, I am looking for a likely prospect for a mass rock. 

Mass rocks were the rocks in the fields and woods where the persecuted Irish Catholics met to celebrate the Eucharist when to do so in church was impossible and to do so at all was to risk imprisonment or death.  More than one priest met his end at a mass rock.  But the Irish were stubbornly committed to their faith, and even the fear of death and ruin—real and present—did not deter them from practicing it.

These days, we civilized Americans are not so frightened of losing our lives for our faith—that is for another place or another time.  The specter of red martyrdom isn’t very real in modern America. But the persecution of the Catholic Church is.    And persecutions necessarily bear martyrs of one kind or another.

It is from the ranks of us comfortable, established, protected folk that some unlikely martyrs will come.  And if we are serious about our faith, there ought to be a lot of us.

For the word martyr simply means witness.  And the call to witness is both simple and blunt, with little room for dissembling: He who is not for Me is against Me.  When the persecutions come, it’s time for the faithful to stand FOR something.  It is not enough merely not to be against.

The early history of the Church is awash in blood; indeed the blood of the martyrs is in every generation the seed of the Church.  We know this as historical fact; we’re about to know it as present reality.

Here the prospect of martyrdom is different.  Here instead of shedding blood, it looks like Catholics will be called on to shed economic security, social position and the prospect of “remaining at the table” for wider influence in social and political processes.  In short, we are being asked to compromise our beliefs in the interest of multicultural unity and the greater social good.  The Obama Administration’s hard line on requiring Catholic institutions to provide health care coverage of abortion, abortifacient drugs (birth control pills), and sterilization is the most immediate—but not the only—frontal assault on the Church.

There are lots of arguments to be made and a lot of discussion to be hashed out, but they tend to cloud the issue, which is really pretty simple:

Do we really believe what the Church teaches: that to assist in the procuring of abortion or sterilization or artificial contraception  is a grave  and inherent evil in which we may not participate?

And are we willing to stand by that belief, no matter what it costs?  Or will we try to shade the edges of that very clear truth and try to avoid for now what is inevitable: the clash of Catholic conscience and secular culture?

There is an almost irresistible temptation to try to find a way around the issue—to find a way to compromise, to make the problem go away and leave us in peace.  But it won’t, because the issue isn’t health insurance.  The issue is  witness, and God help us if Catholic witness ever fades from the scene.

Demanding that Catholic institutions cover abortions and abortifacient drugs and sterilizations is just one facet of a dark, dark diamond that threatens to cut through the very bonds of the faith if we permit it.  Already Christians (not just Catholics) of conscience who try to refuse to accept the abortion and homosexual agenda are pressed on every economic side. 

Already, wedding photographers with a sense of sacrament and conscience have been  sued for refusing to take the job of photographing a homosexual union. 

Already  pharmacists of conscience have faced fines and firing for refusing to fill prescriptions for the morning after pill. 

Already in other countries whose protections for free speech are weaker than ours, Christians can face fines and lawsuits simply for presenting the traditional teaching go the Church on the subject of sexual morality. 

This latest  attempt to force Catholic institutions to violate their consciences is another assault in the same battle: conform to the world’s views or be destroyed.

The time is coming, I am afraid, when every economic force will be brought to bear to force Christians of conscience, especially Catholics, to succumb to the secular agenda.  And in many cases, it will work because we love our comfort so very much.

If contributions to a Church that fails to recognize homosexual unions are no longer tax deductible, will we continue to make them—in fact increase them so that our churches can survive after they lose their tax-exempt status for the same reason?  Will we sacrifice our level of economic comfort to preserve our parishes?

If it becomes—in some ways it already is-- a requirement for admission to law, medical or business school to accept abortion, contraceptives and  homosexual behavior, will we go along to get along?  Or will we sadly turn away and find some other means—far less remunerative—to serve the King and the Kingdom with our intellects and our hands?

If those choices of conscience mean that we will lose our comfortable homes and our jobs and our 401K, what will we do?  Will we trust that the loss is worth it?  Or will we compromise our faith to keep our money?

There’s a temptation to look at these possibilities as ginning up ghosts in a graveyard—to terrible to contemplate, too impossible to happen, but they are not.  The history of the Church proves they are not.  The history of mankind proves that generation after generation is faced with just the sort of challenge that strikes at the very root of its own weakness—for the Adversary is clever and well versed in flanking maneuvers. 

We are faced with an all-out assault on the freedom of conscience in America.  I hope and pray for a compromise that will forestall the battles and change the shape of the battlefield.  And I am taking a cold, hard look inside myself and my ability to bear the white martyrdom—the enforced renouncing of material goods and status— that seems to be looming.

I’m not sure I have the perseverance,  I know I will be tempted to offer the pinch of incense to Caesar. 

I can only pray that I recognize that temptation for what it is and that, like the martyrs of so long ago, I can say to myself—and to others—I have served Christ these many years as my Lord.  Should I deny Him now?  And for today, the pinch of incense comes in the form of  accepting this violation of conscience in the supposed service of the “greater good” and “women’s health.”  St. Polycarp, pray for me, for us all.

In my mind and in my heart, I’m clearing a way to that mass rock, metaphorically speaking.  I hope I will never need it—but if I do, I want to be clear in my own mind that I know the path through the woods to find it. 

Giving Footprint

I’m always looking for ways to—borrowing a phrase from the environmentalists— improve my "giving footprint."  In austere times, there comes a limit to how much in dollars and cents one can give and there’s certainly a limit in terms of time—but if one is creative there are many ways to enhance our commitment to serving the body of Christ by our prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service.  Here’s a list of some of the more creative ways I’ve discovered.

(1)  MyPoints.com.  MyPoints is a website that—fair warning—sends solicitations for various goods and services available on the Internet.  It’s a marketing website, pure and simple. Signing up WILL clog your inbox with things you ultimately may not want.  BUT—and this is the important BUT—you rack up points just for visiting the advertised websites, and can get points for shopping online through the MyPoints portal.  Accrue enough points and you can exchange them for gift cards that can, in turn, be donated to local charities for use.  I’ve redeemed points for cards totaling over a thousand dollars over the past few years, and didn’t do anything online—except visit a few websites—that I would not do otherwise.  The cards for which I redeemed my points (good for gas, food, Wal-Mart, Target) have gone to the local homeless shelter, the Hispanic ministry outreach and to seminarians.  In my book, a few e-mails a day that can be quickly taken care of, then trashed, is a small price to pay for free cards worth real money that I can give to charities of my choice.  MyPoints also gives points for referrals; if you have a group of friends—or if a parish wanted to undertake this as a way to support a particular project—this would be a good way to amplify results.

(2)  GoodSearch.com  Good Search/GoodShop/GoodDining is a search engine and portal for shopping and dining out that directs a portion of each sale and a certain amount per search to your designated charity.  It’s now my search engine of choice.  The number of charities you can support is limited by those which have applied for the privilege—but there are a number of Catholic ones.  My money goes to the Priests of the Sacred Heart.  If you are on the board of a charity, this might be a good site to register with.  They’ve just announced a dining program—register your credit card with them and a portion of the money you spend at participating restaurants goes to your designated charity.

(3)  iGive.com.  Like GoodSearch, iGive donates a portion of sales to designated charities.  It requires you to download a toolbar button and $10 will go to your designated charity just for downloading the button and keeping it until April 14, 2012.  There are 1300  online retailers listed, and a good number of Catholic charities, so if you are an online shopper, this one might be a good choice.  iGive also gives money for referrals.

(4)  Downsize!  Like most affluent Americans, I am overrun with stuff.  Periodically I go through my closets, basement and garage and weed ruthlessly.  Some stuff just needs throwing out, but some of it is great for St. Vincent de Paul or the local parish rummage sale.

(5)  Corporate matching gifts.  My employer has a matching program that matches my donation 1:1 or sometimes 2:1.  Though they will not match donations to a purely religious institution, I’ve been able to multiply my donations to Catholic schools and colleges—and even to the Matthew Kelley Foundation. 

(6)  Gazelle.com  Gazelle buys used electronics and phones for surprisingly good prices.  If you aren’t in need of the money selling your old iphone/ipod/digital camera/electronic games liberates from Gazelle, give it to the charity of your choice.  Gazelle will also send the money directly to designated charities.

(7)  Donate services to a charity auction.  If you are an awesome baker, donate a tray of custom pastries.  If you’re better at main courses, offer to cater a dinner.  If you are talented with your hands, donate something you’ve made.  If you have a vacation home, offer a stay.  Over the years, we’ve raised quite a bit of money for various groups by doing just that.

(8)  Donate your time.  Most charitable groups can find a way to use even a few extra volunteer hours.  If you have more time than money or talent, call your favorite group and offer yourself.  No better gift!

And of course--support all these with prayers.  Lots and lots of prayers.  

If you have other ideas, please!  Let me know!

Addendum

Naturally today we sang another of them, one that underscores the avoidance of man for no particular reason:  God in Flesh Made Manifest.  Aside from the fact that it raises images in my mind of prime rib rather than humankind and utterly destroys the poetic rhythm of the refrain,  it reinforces the sense that the word man is the problem, not a real sense of exclusion.  Jesus is--I repeat--a man. In man, as man made manifest.