Chemotherapy for the Soul

When I first converted to Catholicism I carried with me much Lutheran baggage. I professed that the Catholic Church held the fullness of the truth, yet, like so many Catholics today believed that it was wrong on some very important points. I let my pride guide my mind as I set forth to prove where and why the Church was wrong.

My biggest beef was in the way the Church distributed communion. She freely shared the word of God with anyone who would listen but she reserved the body of God to a select few who met a certain criteria. The Church teaches that you have to be in a state of grace to receive communion. Aren’t sinners the ones who really needed the Lord the most? Didn’t Jesus himself say that the healthy are in no need of a doctor and he came to heal the sick?

My logic was sound. Sound logic is what made people like Luther and Calvin so popular during the reformation. As sound as my logic sounded to me at the time it was never the less still wrong. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Catholic faith. The Catholic faith begins with the Eucharist, is centered in it, and ends with it. To question the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist is to question the very foundation of the faith. Had I really converted or was I just another Catholic in name only?

If we liken mortal sin to a cancer that destroys a soul then we need a very powerful chemo to kill the cancer. The Eucharist is not that chemo. The Eucharist does not remove the stain of mortal sin from a person’s soul. The Church does possess the chemo that destroys the cancer. It is the most powerful type of chemo that can destroy even the most aggressive and deadly cancer. This chemo is called the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Jesus gave the Church the authority to forgive sin. Jesus gave the Church the medicine to heal those dying from the cancer that devours souls. Forgiveness is the strongest medicine known to man. It is the antidote to the poison we let into our lives.

So if the Eucharist is not a medicine what is it? The Eucharist is the ultimate super vitamin. It takes a healthy body to the next level. The Eucharist is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus. When we take the Eucharist into our bodies we are forming a very personal and intimate relationship with him. He lives in us and he dwells in us. If we release our will to his we become one. So why can’t a person receive the Lord at this level unless they are in a state of grace? Why does the Church keep Christ from those who do not believe this simple truth?

Sometimes people are so sick, their bodies so weak, that the cure would kill them. Before we can treat the cancer we have to treat the person to get them strong enough to survive the cure for the cancer. To a healthy body the Eucharist is a super vitamin that will bring the person to the closest state of perfection they can obtain on this side of heaven. To a sick person the Eucharist can be deadly. Saint Paul tells us very clearly that those to receive the Eucharist unworthily bring death upon themselves. When a sinner, who knows that they have committed grave sin, thumbs their nose at the Church and takes the Eucharist anyway they do so at the risk of serious peril.

The Church knows and understands this and that is why communion is restricted to those who hold this understanding of what the Eucharist is and who, to the best of their knowledge, are in a state of grace. The Church has the authority granted to her by Jesus to heal the disease with the Sacrament of Reconciliation and then strengthen body and soul with the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist. These “medicines” have to be administered in the correct order to be affective. One without the other or administered in the wrong order can be deadly.

There is one less bag I will be carrying through this life. Fortunately for me it was also the heaviest.

δοῦλος

This is the Greek word – doulos. It is most often translated in Holy Scripture as servant. This is the lesser of its two meanings. A better translation of doulos is slave. A slave is;

“one who gives himself up to another's will those whose service is used by Christ in extending and advancing his cause among men.”

Or

                “Devoted to another to the disregard of one's own interests.”

This word is translated as servant in scripture because the modern understanding of slave has been colored by the use of racial slavery in the beginning of this great nation. Racial slavery is a great evil we all should oppose. It has nothing to do with “giving up one’s self” or “devoting to another”. It is all about a stronger will devouring a weaker will. There is nothing good about devouring, even when it is about a plate of barbeque ribs. Nothing should ever be devoured.

But slavery in and of itself is not a bad thing. There are different kinds of slavery and they all have a place in this world.

When I was in the military I was an indentured servant. An indentured servant is one who signs a contract, also known as an indenture or covenant, in which they agree to work for a certain amount of time in exchange for something. I swore an oath to serve no less than eight years in exchange for the benefits I received. The collateral for this oath was my life, which I could be ordered to give up if it were required. I was no longer my own. I was G.I. – Government Issue. I could be punished for something as simple as getting a tattoo because it was considered defacing government property.

Indentured servants were common in the time of Jesus. It was a noble profession. Indentured servants were often well taken care of and some of them were paid enough that they could afford to have their own slaves. Another form of indentured servant are those who have sold themselves into slavery to pay off a debit they have incurred.

I am doulos, in the sense of both definitions above. My life is not my own but of the one who lives in me. At my baptism I invited Jesus into my life. God adopted me as his child. Each time I receive the Eucharist I recommit myself to Jesus. I take the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus into myself. I ask him to live and dwell within me and to make the light of his love push out all darkness within me. I give myself up to his will for his service in bringing him to those in darkness and to bring those in darkness closer to him. Your will, not mine, be done. Although I am imperfect and fail at this task it is what I desire and the goal I try to live to each and every day.

I am also doulos because I have devoted myself to another to the disregard of my own interest.  This should be obvious. I am a husband and a father. My life is not mine to live as I will because it was given up for the welfare of my wife. My main purpose in this life is to get her into heaven. When I became a father that extended to my children as well. Everything I do should be directed to this end, even if that means I do not make it with them. I often think of a scene from The Avengers. Ironman saves New York City by guiding a nuclear missile into space. He cannot go with it and ultimately falls back to earth, seemingly to his death. If my family were that missile and space were heaven I will have fulfilled my purpose if I guide them there, even if I don’t make it with them. One of my prayers before receiving the Eucharist is that God allow me to bare the punishment for the sins of my family so they can enter into his Kingdom at the end of their time on earth. If that means they make it to heaven and I don’t I am ok with that. What loving person wouldn’t take on to themselves the suffering of a spouse or child if they had the ability to do so? That is what it means to be devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests. It is what I would do for them and it is what Jesus did for me.

It is also what he did for you.

Are you doulos?

Time for a Real Solution

In the wake of yet another tragic act of violence there has been the usual knee jerk reaction calling for more laws and more restrictions, more bans and more loss of freedoms concerning guns. The gun is to blame for the killing in Las Vegas. If we only had one more law this could have been avoided.

Chicago has the strictest gun control in this nation. Some of their laws even have been ruled as being unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. The types of guns people use in these senseless acts are illegal altogether in Chicago. On paper, Chicago should be the safest place in this country. Yet, every year Chicago leads the nation in the numbers of murders and the numbers of people who are shot. Their crime is now spilling over to neighboring communities and they too are seeing a record number of murders. Obviously more legislation is not the answer to the problem.

Perhaps the solution is more incarceration. Maybe if we jail more criminals and keep them there longer these sorts of things wouldn’t happen. The United States also leads the world in the number of people we incarcerate. It does not appear that building more jails and filling them with the unruly is the solution either. So what is the solution? Where do we start?

Society is broken. We have lost sight of what is good and true. We hold lies and impossibilities in higher regard. For example, we have institutions full of people we have locked away simply because they believe themselves to be something they are not. Mr. Jones thinks he is Abraham Lincoln so we have to institutionalize him for his own good and for the protection of the population. Yet, Bruce Jenner is heralded as a hero, given his own TV show, and made woman of the year for becoming Caitlyn. Mr. Jones is a danger, Bruce is a hero. Both believe themselves to be something they can never truly be.

Our society has gone completely off the rails. We idolize decadence and debauchery. We kill our children and call it a choice. We extend rights to places they were never intended to exist and take the same rights away from those they are intended to protect. We live in an age where everything perverse is permissible and everything good is unfathomable. Nothing is forgiven.

If we want to rebuild this society to the greatness it once was we will have to begin by restoring our foundation. It makes no sense to fix a leaky roof when the crumbling foundation is about to bring the entire building crashing down. Contrary to popular belief, the foundation of every society is the family, not the individual. As goes the family so goes the society. It should come as no surprise to anyone that our society is in shambles. We have been chipping away at the family for over fifty years now.

The women’s liberation movement started the ball rolling by neutering the male. We have never had a feminist movement in this country. What we have had is an attempt to masculinize femininity. There has been a highly successful campaign to get women to believe that the only way they can be considered equal to a man is if they can say and do everything a man does. They try to shame women who embrace their maternal side to stay home and raise the next generation. We created the pill so women can have sex like men, without fear of getting pregnant, and then made abortion legal so they can kill the unwanted if they still did. These two things combined have done more to destroy our country than any enemy we have ever faced on the battlefield.

The “empowering” of women disenfranchised the men. There is no job a woman can’t do better than a man, including being a father. With the male’s role severely reduced in society his role as father was also reduced. Fathers took a far backseat in contributing to the upbringing of their children. God made us male and female and bestowed upon us different characteristics. Both father and mother are vital to raising a well balanced child.

The glue that holds a family together is the marriage of the father and mother. This too has been under merciless attack for decades. Marriage began as solely a religious institution but state governments quickly got involved because of the importance of marriage and the family in the structure of society. Government used to recognize this and support the traditional marriage. We no longer consider traditional marriage as being the primary building block that forms the cornerstone of society. Marriage is now viewed as an individual right, not important to society. Marriage has gone from a life-long covenant to a dissoluble contract. The family has paid a great price for it. Blended families are now the norm. Fatherless families are not that far behind. The statistics of what happens to the children of fatherless families are staggering. It is rare for good things to come from a family without a father as its head.

If we want to rebuild our society the first thing that has to happen is that fathers have to step up and do the job correctly. We have to restore the value of men and those men have to be the strong examples their children crave.

We have to realize that marriage isn’t about love or what two consenting adults want to do to each other. Marriage is about procreating the next generation and to provide stable unity for those children to grow, thrive, and be loved in. Marriage is a vocation. It is not a right. A vocation is a calling from God. Not everyone is called to be married and no one is called to be in a nontraditional marriage. That is the devil at work in our lives.

With fathers being fathers and mothers being mothers who are committed in a life-long traditional marriage we can raise a well adjusted next generation who can start to right the ship. Until we fix our broken foundation we will just continue the slide into moral decay. The pendulum can only swing so far before it starts swinging the other way. I hope that we are almost at full amplitude.

The Definition of Insanity

Jimmy’s high school was known throughout the state as having the best football team anywhere to be found. It was a rare year that they didn’t win the state championship. Recruiters from colleges across the country often made stops to watch his team play and every year three or four players were offered scholarships. What made his football team so good? Practice.

The team started practices the week after the fourth of July holiday and went six days a week. Twice-a-days started in August which often became three-a-days if the team did not perform up to expectation. The only two excuses the coach would accept for missing a practice was that you were in the hospital or dead. The football players could not have summer jobs or go away on vacation with their families. Football was life and it was serious stuff.

What was all this practice done for? Eight games. The high school football year consisted of eight games. The players would practice six days a week, eight to twelve hours a day, for months to play eight games.

What is more important – a football game or the state of your soul? Do you practice your faith constantly or do you just show up for the “game” on Sunday? Doing something over and over again and expecting different results is not the definition of insanity as it is so often said to be. It is the definition of practice. We practice in the hopes that our repeated action brings about a change, a different result. Showing up on Sunday solely because it is an obligation or because that is what we have always done does not make one a better Christian. What makes a better Christian is the same thing that makes Jimmy’s football team so good. Practice. We must constantly practice our faith.

Many mistakenly believe that our Sunday services, be that a Mass or other gathering, is our game day. But when we gather in community it is not for the game but in preparation for the game. Game day for the Christian is every day of our lives. We gather together in community to give thanks, become renewed, and to prepare ourselves for the week ahead.

We perform the way we practice. If we actively participate in Mass, offering ourselves fully to God, we will perform better than the person just phoning it in. It is the difference between the championship team and the one that seldom wins a game. It is the difference between a scholarship to an Ivy League university or attending a community college. Where we spend eternity is so much more important than winning eight games. How we practice our faith should be equally as important.

Holiness

God alone is holy. God too, is love. The two words are so closely related that they can be thought of as the same thing. Holiness is love and love is holiness.  Holiness in a thing, in an action, in a place, or in a person is nothing more than a reflection of the holiness of God back to him. The greater the reflection the more holy something is.

Jesus was the perfect human but he did not have a perfect reflection of God’s holiness. Jesus is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit and therefore his holiness is not a reflection but the source of holiness and love. On the mountain during the transfiguration the veil of Jesus’ divinity was drawn for an instant to allow Peter, James, and John to see him for who he truly is.

Mary was also a perfect human and was able, through divine grace, to perfectly reflect God’s holiness and love. She is the model for the entire human race of what is possible. If we wish to be like Jesus we only need to imitate his mother. Mary’s holiness was a perfect reflection of God’s because she emptied herself fully and, literally as well as figuratively, became a vessel for the divine. Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Mary too said not my will but yours be done. More importantly she lived that way until her last breath on this earth emptied from her lungs.

Therein lies the secret to holiness. If one wishes to be holy one only need empty himself completely and align his will perfectly with God’s. Therein also lies the reason why perfect holiness is not possible on this side of heaven. The original sin of the first humans stained the souls of all human kind. Mary was spared this stain so that she would be a pure vessel in which our Lord could be born into this world. That was her reward for her yes to counter Eve’s no.

For the rest of us humans the best we can do is to be imperfect reflections of the perfect God. This endeavor is not in vain. Every Saint in heaven is the perfect reflection of God’s holiness but no human Saint besides Mary approached heaven that way. Purgatory is the place of perfecting, the place where the dirt on our souls is washed away so that we can be the perfect reflection. The closer we are to perfection when we go to purgatory the sooner we will be able to live with God in heaven.

If our lives on earth is like a marathon to heaven it makes sense that the more in shape we are in the easier that marathon will be to run. If I am a glutton who never exercises, a marathon would be agonizing and torturous to run. It would be so painful and difficult in fact that I would probably give up altogether and gladly accept my fate in hell. If however, my goal is to run the marathon well I will do things to make running the marathon as easy as it possibly can be. I will choose to eat right and exercise, to be in the best shape I can be in.

Likewise, if my goal for this life is to become the Saint I was created to be I will do what I can to better reflect God’s holiness and love here on earth. I must actively and constantly resolve to align my will with that of God. I must look past the person to see Jesus dwelling within that person. I must strive to love that person Jesus is dwelling within with the same perfect sacrificial love God has for me. I must recognize the dignity each and every person has regardless of their lot in life because they were created in the image and likeness of God and intended to live in heaven with him forever.

The better I can do these things the better I can reflect God’s holiness in my life and the closer I will become to being the person I was created to be.

Love Thy Neighbor

While driving through the countryside I came upon a house where someone had transformed various objects into planters. There was an old boot with a bright yellow flower growing up from it. There was a claw-footed bathtub and the rusting body of an old truck with different plants growing in them. The thing that caught my eye the most was an old console TV that had a fish tank where the TV tube used to be.

How often do we use an object for something other than its intended purpose? I am always grabbing a large screwdriver when I need to pry something open. The back of a wrench often doubles as a hammer. My teeth show the damage from using them to strip far too many wires.

We do this to people as well. We use people to get ahead in life. We use them to take the blame for something we have done. We use them as places to direct our anger or hatred. We use them for sexual pleasure. We use them for forced labor. We use them.

People were not created to be used. People were created to be loved and to live with God forever in heaven. We commit a grave sin when we use people as objects. God gave us the Ten Commandments so we could know how to live in a right relationship with him and each other. Jesus condensed these commandments down to just two: Love your God with your entire being and love your neighbor as yourself.

Loving your neighbor starts with seeing your neighbor as a person. Take the time to get to know those around you. You cannot get to know someone and love them if you don’t listen to them.

On a recent journey I rode in many taxis throughout the week. I met many interesting people, each with a story to tell. There was Cho the Okinawan. He started driving cabs when the need for Japanese tour bus drivers waned. There was Timmy from Vietnam who came here as a refugee fleeing persecution. There was Chu from South Korea who had three daughters and was greatly worried about what is currently happening in the north. My last driver was Peter, whose given name was Duk. He was a Catholic, also from Vietnam. He had two sons and a daughter.

Each taxi ride began with a person typically viewed as nothing more than a servant. Each ended with a smile and a handshake and a person happy to be treated like a person. I came away with new friends and a wealth of new experiences. I would have never met these treasures if I had sat in the back and simply used them as lowly taxi drivers.

This world is in a sad state of affairs because the devil has convinced us that what the other has to say is of little importance. We have lost the skill of listening and replaced it with the art of screaming. He who yells the loudest is the winner. We seldom extend the hand of friendship but are quick to pump a fist in anger.

On the doorpost of the home of every observant Jew hangs a mezuzah containing the great commandment from Deuteronomy. The great commandment does not begin “Love your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your strength…”  The great commandment starts with the words, “Hear O Israel,” Love begins with the ears before it reaches the heart.

People are not boots we use for vases. They are not screwdrivers used for prying. They are not just the things driving our taxis, cleaning our hotel rooms, or ringing our orders in at the fast food joint. They are people created in the image and likeness of God and they were made to be loved. When objects are loved and people are used a great tragedy occurs. Reverse that and great treasures are found.

Love your neighbor as God has loved you.

This is not a drill!

It was 7:45 on a lazy Sunday afternoon in Hawaii. Sailors were either sleeping or quietly going about their daily routines. Ten minutes later the air raid siren would begin to sound and the General Quarters alarm would blare throughout the ship, causing all to wonder why. This never happened in port, especially on a Sunday. Then came the words no one wanted to hear. “This is not a drill.”

9800 feet above a squadron of ten Nakajima B5N “Kate” torpedo bombers readied to release their specially modified 406mm armor piercing artillery rounds, made into bombs. Out of the ten bombs that rained down, only four hit Arizona. One of those penetrated the armored deck between the main gun batteries of turrets one and two. The round exploded amidst one million pounds of black powder the ship was carrying. The explosion nearly tore off the bow of the dreadnaught. The fireball it created instantly incinerated men where they stood. The ship sank in nine minutes trapping more men below decks. At the end of that fateful day the USS Arizona lay at the bottom of Pearl Harbor with 1177 of her 1511 crew dead.

Why is it important that we try to stay in a state of grace? Like the crew of the USS Arizona you never know when you will take your last breath. Some that morning never even made it out of their racks. Mortal sin is like a cancer that kills the soul. It separates us from God. We are left with only the hope of God’s great mercy if we die outside of his friendship.

God does not want this for his children. He wants every one of his creation to live forever with him in heaven. Jesus gave us the cure for mortal sin. It is one of the seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church, one of two Sacraments of healing. It is the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Jesus gave the Twelve the authority to forgive or retain sin. There are some faith traditions that believe Jesus’ sacrifice alone forgives all sins no matter the disposition of the sinner. Jesus does not forgive sins. He forgives sinners. His sacrifice covers the debit the sin incurred. We all have been given free will and that free will extends to our sins as well. What is the only sin that cannot be forgiven? The only sin that will not be forgiven is the sin we refuse to let go of. Jesus will allow us to keep our sins if we wish to do so. For a sin to be forgiven a repentant sinner has to seek forgiveness. All you have to do is to have a humble heart, be truly repentant, and ask Jesus, through the proper authority he established in his Church, and you can be forgiven.

Why would God condemn someone to hell? The simple answer is that he doesn’t. God doesn’t send us to hell, he finds us there. Every person, angelic or human, is in hell because they have chosen, through their free will, to be there. They are in hell because they have been separated from the friendship of God through mortal sin that they will not seek forgiveness for. They want something more than they want the love of God.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the greatest thing the Catholic Church has to offer, second only to the body, blood, humanity, and divinity of Jesus in the form of the Eucharist. The Sacrament of Reconciliation cures the cancer. It forgives the sinner and restores him to full communion, full friendship with God. Those who die in a state of grace do not have to hope for the great mercy of God. They have already received it.

So why do so many look at the Sacrament of Reconciliation the same way they look at going to the dentist? Why do so many wait until their teeth are painfully rotting out of their head before they seek help? For most of us that is because of shame. We are so filled with shame over what we have done that we do not want to admit it out loud to another person. It is so much easier just to give it to Jesus in the private of our heart than to say it aloud to a priest in a confessional. What would the priest think of me if he knew I wasn’t perfect? News flash – the priest knows regardless. Another news flash – the priest himself is not perfect and also receives the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The devil will make good use of your shame, amplifying it, to keep you from going to reconciliation. Your mortal sin is his lifeblood. Those who die outside of the friendship with God are his to consume. He will do whatever he can to keep you from restoring that friendship. He will use your unconfessed sins against you to increase your guilt and shame and to keep you as his possession.

If you were dying of cancer you would do whatever it takes to beat it and to live. The state of your soul is much more important. Do not spend eternity as food for the devil. Receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation often. Death finds most of us like a thief in the night, or in the case of the poor men on the USS Arizona, like a well-placed bomb on a Sunday morning.

Driving Blind

Atheists often accuse Christians of having blind faith, in believing in something they can’t possibly see, hear, or feel. In reality it is the atheist himself who is blind. They only believe in things that can be proven through empirical evidence. They believe in only the natural, not the supernatural, and therefore limit themselves to only half of existence.

Life is like driving a car in the darkest of nights. We can only see for the short distance that our headlights illuminate. Beyond that is the black void of the unknown. We can look in the rearview mirror and see for even a shorter distance. Things past are quickly out of sight and easily forgotten. We all, at times, overdrive our headlights making it impossible to react quickly enough to changes in the road or dangers that suddenly appear in front of us.

The difference between the Christian and the Atheist is in who is driving the car. Through faith, a Christian allows God to do the driving, knowing that no matter what the road ahead may contain, God will never fail to see us through. An atheist, through lack of faith, refuses to let go of the wheel. They are in control wherever that control may lead. The atheist lives in only that small part of the world that can be seen in the dim headlights. They use the car’s “brights” or science to try to see just a little bit more. Christians living their faith can see just as much as the atheists but live in confidence that the One who is driving can see everything, present, future, and past, as clearly as on the brightest day. That gives a Christian a certain confidence an atheist simply cannot have. For an atheist the end could be around the next bend. A Christian knows that Jesus has conquered death and that the road ahead, although maybe rough at times, always goes on.

Faith is synonymous with trust. A Christian who refuses to let go of the wheel and trust in God is no better than the atheist who trusts his own hand to drive the car. Both are only as good as what their headlights allow them to see. Empirically speaking, blind faith has the advantage over dim headlights even in the darkest of nights.