A few weeks ago I posted about my friend Stacy Molai who is currently engaged in a lawsuit against the US government regarding the HHS mandate that all health insurance plans, by law, must provide coverage for abortifacient contraceptives, abortion and sterilization procedures, all three of which go against the teachings and beliefs of the Catholic Church. This is coupled with the upcoming Health Care reform that will require all US citizens, by law, to have health insurance. So for those US citizens who conscientiously object to what the government has done to health insurance and would, under normal circumstances, simply op-out of having health insurance (in spite of the financial hardship of such a choice), will instead be breaking the law. In other words, there’s no way out. Unless you are, for example, Amish; they believe that any insurance whatsoever contradicts faith in God and so the government has granted them a religious exemption, and has granted similar exemptions to other religious groups based on moral or religious objections. Not so for Catholics.

There are several larger entities and a few private citizens–including my friend–who are suing the US government over the matter not, as is often reported, because of contraception, abortion, etc. but rather, in fact, because they believe their First Amendment rights are being denied outright. The law, as it currently stands and will go into effect, will make it impossible for a Catholic–or any other person who morally objects to their tax dollars supporting abortifacients, abortion, sterilization, etc.–to have a health care without violating their own conscience. Currently, for example, there are Catholic health insurance companies who offer plans that are in harmony with Catholic teaching and belief; Catholics have perfectly viable health insurance options. If the laws stand, even these companies will be forced to begin covering procedures and things against their own moral and religious beliefs, or they will have to be shut down. Likewise all Catholic hospitals will have to provide abortifacient contraceptives, permit abortion procedures and perform sterilizations for those who want them, in addition to including coverage for those procedures in the health insurance they provide their employees. Similarly, Catholic schools and other institutions who do not serve Catholics exclusively (I can’t think of any that do!) will have to provide for these things in the insurance they provide those who work for them. Again, this isn’t about contraception or abortion; this is about the government telling religious organizations and religious citizens what they MUST pay for, regardless of their beliefs. This is absolutely against the First Amendment and directly contradicts our freedom of religion. Freedom of worship is all well and good; even China has freedom of worship. But freedom of worship only guarantees your right to do whatever you want inside the doors of your church and your home; you cannot live or practice that religion in the public sphere. That’s the beauty of the freedom of religion; we can be Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, Protestant, Mormon, Native, New Age, whatever, wherever, whenever. Want to put up a Nativity scene in your front yard during Advent? By all means. A menorah in your window? Please do! Would you like a saying written in Arabic painted on the wall of your house? Wonderful! We have the guaranteed right to do such things in our Constitution.

Do you want to wear a yarmulke, hijab or a plastic badge saying, “Elder So-and-So?” Go for it! Are you a priest and want to wear a cassock or a Roman collar, a monk and want to wear your habit, or a nun and want to wear a veil? Do it; our country is more beautiful for all of these things. Do you want to preach on what your faith believes? You have the right to do it in church, synagogue, mosque, tipi, lodge, home, streetcorner, public park. Do you want to eat kosher or halaal? Does your faith teach against vaccinations? Insurance? Certain cultural practices common throughout the United States? 

I think I’ve made my point. We have a beautiful freedom here and Catholics in particular–but not just Catholics–are being forced by the government to go against their religious beliefs.

 

 

So now I would like to turn to some very challenging and thought-provoking comments made on my post  regarding my friend Stacy that were made by @lovegrove. I am sincerely grateful for his thoughts; he is one of the more intelligent and engaging people I’ve been in touch with on Xanga and I always find myself giving extra consideration not only to what he says but also to how I respond. I will do the best I can to try and explain why my friend is choosing the path that she is since I don’t want to make her take more time out of her busy ministry to blog for me! She and I, though I’ve only known her for a month or so (since I posted the original pulse back in March!), are very much alike in heart and mind on many matters so I feel comfortable speaking on her behalf on many of the basic issues addressed (here is his blog response to my original post: http://lovegrove.xanga.com/760881500/how-not-to-die-for-christ/)

 

I would like to begin my apology (used in the traditional, philosophical sense and not in the “I’m sorry” sense) by addressing the beginning of his post, where he charges me with “publicly encouraging a deluded woman to die if need be in protest of the government mandate” I tried to lay out the details of above. I wanted to state right at the beginning that Stacy had made up her heart and mind on the matter far in advance of my ever having contacted her; in my initial message to her I only encouraged her to love Christ and to be faithful to Him in whatever way she felt called by Him to be. She didn’t need anyone else’s encouragement on the matter; certainly not mine. 

Next was quoted one of the better known lines of the Gospel, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” along with my friend @lovegrove‘s interpretation of this teaching of Jesus. He is absolutely right: taken alone, as it’s own teaching, this saying would mean exactly what he has interpreted. Rome demanded tax and tribute and used it all to fund some amazing and beneficial things–aqueducts, sewage systems, drainage systems, urban beautification, etc. These same taxes also funded some abhorrent things; the sack and total annihilation of Jerusalem in 70AD for example. But my fellow Xangan, at least as I can tell by his post, did not take into account the second part of the teaching, to “render unto God what belongs to God.” Jesus added this precisely because the matter of the temple tax was not merely about money, but about who had authority over how we live our lives. He teaches us that legitimate authority–such as Caesar in His day and the US government in ours–does have a certain amount of authority over us here on earth, and we ought to obey it insofar as obeying that government does not infringe on matters that God rightly has jurisdiction over, which would include faith and morals. For example, Jews were exempt from having to worship Caesar as a god and burn incense to him. Jesus was exempt from this as well, being Jewish Himself, and would likely have taught–even were there no exemption–that His followers were under no obligation whatsoever to worship Caesar, lest they break the First Commandment. But paying taxes to Caesar breaks no part of the Law, so there isn’t an issue. Granted, our Lord surely knew that even His own tax money was going to pay for some awful things, but He also knew that the hearts of men were too hard at that point to receive a teaching to the contrary; it would not be until His death, resurrection and ascension, followed by the Gift of the Holy Spirit when His followers would have the grace necessary to stand against even the might of Rome, preferring death in this world for life in the next, fidelity to the True Caesar, Jesus Christ, to the “Little Caesar” in Rome (pun in tended).

Here in the United States, however, things do not have to be the way the government is currently attempting to make it; religious people should not have to violate their own conscience and beliefs in order to be law-abiding citizens. We have Constitutional rights and a democratic government in order to protect ourselves from such a reality. Christ taught “render unto Caesar” when the world He lived in was controlled by a tyrant who demanded worship and tribute, who ruled by force and fear. We have an elected government that, ideally, is quite the opposite. Just as religious exemptions and exceptions have been made in the past and are currently being made for other religious groups, the government should permit, for reasons of religion or conscience, American citizens to either choose not to have health insurance or should permit religious insurance agencies to offer plans that would allow such citizens to have health insurance but to opt-out of paying for services they find morally objectionable. Currently, the government is refusing. Thus, in order to be faithful to the very same teaching @lovegrove quoted, people like my friend Stacy find themselves at an impasse, having to choose which Caesar they must render the matter unto. The matter is not simply taxation but rather the Caesar of Washington, D.C. forcing her to obey him in a matter in which he has no rightful jurisdiction; to obey Caesar, D.C. means to disobey Christ the true Caesar, the Caesar from which, ultimately, the Caesar in D.C. receives whatever authority he has (John 19:11). In other words, my friend Stacy and others like her aren’t deluded, but rather they are rendering unto God what belongs to God, even though that may mean, because of the actions of a lesser Caesar, forfeiting their lives. Many will and do think that such people are ridiculous for throwing their lives away over such a small matter; did those early Christians who refused to burn incense to images of the emperor suffer any differently? The emperors themselves told them, “Look, it’s not a big deal; burn just a pinch of incense and you may go free.” But they refused, and were often killed for civil disobedience, since worshiping Caesar was civil law. Here again we have a “small” matter but, nevertheless, an earthly Caesar is overreaching his authority according to Christian belief; here again we have Christians who do not see the matter as small and are choosing to obey the Caesar who has Authority in the matter, regardless of the consequences that may come here below. No government has the right nor the authority to force its citizens to cooperate in something a citizen believes to be a moral evil, hence, some of us cannot render unto Caesar what Caesar says we must.

 

@lovegrove continues on by saying that if the authorities of the Catholic Church have any influence over my friend and others like her, they should do all they can to dissuade them, that not only “does the world see [them] as [crazy fanatics] and [their actions] as a waste of life,” but if those same authorities do nothing then they themselves are committing an immoral act by letting their own simply throw their lives away for nothing. Hopefully my above thoughts have helped to clarify this matter a little bit, though I certainly don’t expect them to persuade everyone; I only hope to help everyone to understand that if given “X” beliefs, “Y” would be the logical and faithful result of said belief. You may not agree with it, but hopefully you can see the consistency with the belief; Gandhi, for example, taught non-violent resistance, and so that is what he practiced, even if his life-threatening hunger strikes seemed to some as being crazy or a waste of life. Some super-extreme Muslims believe that strapping a bomb to their body is the best way to serve God; I absolutely refuse to believe that is true, however, knowing to a degree what they believe and how they believe it, I can understand why they would do what they do. 

When it comes to foregoing health insurance for moral or religious reasons, my friend and many others are making their own choice; even the authorities of the Church, while they indeed have a great deal of authority on many matters, cannot order even the very least Catholic to violate their conscience; in other words not even the Pope could use his considerable authority to command someone to sin. Given what the Church has taught for two thousand years, given what we find in Scripture, Stacy and others like her aren’t doing anything contrary or disobedient regarding the Church and the Caesar she serves. Does the Church want my friend to die? No! But in order to save her life would the Church encourage her to sin, saying, “Well, Stacy, in your case the Church gives you permission to violate your conscience and the teachings of Christ; you are an exception.” No; sin is not worth saving your life here, forsaking the life to come. You see, in potentially forsaking this life, my friend and all my brothers and sisters like her are embracing the life to come, the life that this life is really all about. Her life is a scandal to many, but a witness (the true meaning of the word “martyr”) and a sign of hope to many more. She’s not stupid, crazy or deluded; she’s very intelligent and knows exactly what she’s doing. If someone like her is making this decision, then either insanity is much more subtle than we ever thought or she may be onto something that a lot of people are just too afraid to admit even the possibility of: that there may be something more than just this life here on Earth.

That Catholic Church is not and never has been a death cult; if anything, we are a resurrection cult! We do not glorify death but rather are not afraid of it, not any more. Death is no longer an end but merely a painful but real part of life, a life that only comes into its fullness after death. Our continued life beyond death is entirely dependent upon our preparation for it here on earth; the path we run in this life determines the ultimate trajectory our eternal life will take once all our ability to choose for or against Heaven is lost. We aren’t paralyzed by our fear of death; we give it the fear we ought to out of respect, but we do not let it dissuade us and become slaves to the dirt we walk on. What joy would there be in such a life? Even the Church, even the whole congregated assembly of the bishops across the world, with the Pope speaking for them all, and every priest and religious on the planet could not, were their voices all in one great chorus, order anyone to sin in order to save their life; to do that would be to contradict the whole mission of the Church in the first place.

As mighty as the Church truly is really, in this situation, the Church has no authority. The Church is about condemning sin and leading the faithful away from and out of sin; Stacy Molai and others like her are in no such danger here and if they were, you’d better believe their bishops would be speaking very publicly against their actions. 

 

Now, all this so far has been primarily addressed to my friend so I have, as aforementioned, been speaking on her behalf. Next @lovegrove addressed me directly, so I’ll be speaking for myself.

 

@lovegrove, I am ashamed of myself, but only because I have done so little compared to my sister Stacy’s example. Perhaps I’ll have a chance to be such a witness to the faith, but so far I have not.

You asked: If you are so convinced that she is obeying God’s will in this, why aren’t you doing the same?

I am prepared to, believe me. If the law stands and no religious exemption is made, I will not have health insurance. Praise God I do not have any health issues to speak of yet, so not having health insurance will likely not be the serious threat that it will be to Stacy and others. Not having health insurance, though, would mean that I would be breaking the law so I could face fines. Given that, having taken a vow of poverty, I only receive $150 a month for personal expenses, I would likely be sent to jail in pretty short order which, if that is where God desires me to be, I will go and “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” since being in jail in itself is not a sin.

“Or do the clergy leave it to the pews to set the Christian example?” Some do, sad to say, but I hope and pray that should it come to me to be the witness I will be able to follow in the footsteps of my Jesuit brothers like Blessed Miguel Pro, Blessed Rupert Meyer, Alfred Delp, St. Edmund Campion and others, along with other non-Jesuit saints who were persecuted and/or killed because they would not cooperate and obey unjust laws.

“You’ll be safe, the Superior General will order you to stop and so you’ll be thought a great Catholic without the pain.” As I mentioned before, the Church cannot command someone to sin; neither can my Superior General. Given the fact that the Superior General of our Order did not cease the activities of the above mentioned Jesuit saints and martyrs, I would hope that should the health care laws stand in the United States and make it morally impossible for Jesuits to have health insurance, he would follow the historic precedent. And if he did seek to use his authority to force Jesuits to get health insurance, please do not be mistaken; such Jesuits would not be seen as being good Catholics. They would be seen as cowards and turncoats for sure, and by many, and though they might not suffer the pains of undertreated medical conditions or death in this life, they would suffer the emotional anguish of being publicly despised and, worse, would suffer even worse in the life to come. I would take death in this life over death in the next any day of the week. 

“Anyways, I’m sure the Church covers your medical needs and that of the rest of the clergy, unlike that of the laity.” I do not know how diocesan clergy are covered, whether their diocese provides its own plan or if individual priests are responsible/have the option of seeking their own provider using the funds made available to them by the parish or the diocese. As a Jesuit, my health insurance is provided by the Order which pays a Catholic insurance company for it. That company would be shut down if the law stands, and thousands of Jesuits–a majority of which are retired or close enough to it–would be without health insurance. The forty retired men I currently help care for, some of which are diabetic and have other serious chronic issues, almost all of which are here for serious medical reasons that are mild when constantly cared for but would quickly become life-threatening without treatment, would not have the thousands of dollars it costs every year for the care they need. Not to mention their housing in an assisted living or full-care facility. Given our vows of poverty, too, we would be just as bad off, if not worse, than our lay contemporaries who would choose to forfeit health insurance. The Jesuits are blessed with having many generous benefactors who finance our many apostolates and make our life of service possible, but even they could not pay the health costs of so many men for an indefinite period of time.

 

We don’t want to die, friend; we aren’t committing suicide and the clergy are in just as much hot water as the laity. We aren’t trying to glorify my friend Stacy to show the world how holy American Catholics are (considering 6 of the 9 judges on the Supreme Court are Catholic and yet these laws may stand would be proof enough that we are sinners like the rest of the country!) and, unlike a cult, we have no Supreme Leader ordering us to our deaths. Each Catholic who chooses to oppose this law does so by their own free choice; the Church cannot coerce them one way or another. We aren’t encouraging people to die, but we aren’t going to encourage them to sin, either, even to save their lives. Catholics faced the same reality in Germany under Nazism, Mexico in the late 1910s and early 1920s, France during its revolution, England under Henry VIII and Elizabeth, and so on. When the government seeks to impose its authority on matters it has no right, no Catholic is obligated to obey if that means consenting to sin.

“All who encourage her without joining her, including her parish clergy if they are doing so, should be exposed publicly as the blatant hypocrites they are.” Friend, the mere fact that I am posting this implicates me in whatever comes of her lawsuit against the US government. If by some nightmare Catholics come under persecution some day for all of this, a Xanga username isn’t going to hide me! I have a friend in St. Louis, too, who recently attended a small event at which the archbishop was present. She spoke with him and asked him, “What happens if the HHS mandate stands?” She wrote to me about it in a letter, and do you know what she said?

“The archbishop told me, ‘Well, then a lot of bishops are going to be put in jail.’” He isn’t the only Church authority in the US who has said such things, either.

The case of Stacy Molai and this whole controversy is not about enhancing the reputation of the Church or sending the lambs to the slaughter while the goats enjoy the extra helping of fodder; she isn’t seeking freedom from her suffering related to her Crohn’s disease or looking for an honorable way out of what life has in store for her because of her condition. She isn’t committing suicide either; she isn’t intending to die, though she is fully aware that death may be the result of her decision. That is no more suicide than it is in the case of the firefighter that runs into a burning house to save someone, fully knowing that he is likely to die. In both cases the choice to risk death is made for the sake of life, but Stacy is choosing a life beyond the one trapped in the burning house. This isn’t a simple hunger strike to protest abortion; this is about freedom of religion.

 

Finally, @lovegrove, I wanted to close by addressing momentarily your closing comment about yourself, “…but then, the Churches are not interested so much what the “unsaved” think. They don’t contribute to the coffers.”

I hope that my lengthy post, if anything, proves quite the contrary. Who is to say that you are “unsaved?” My friend Stacy, myself, and hundreds of thousands of others here “in the toilet beyond Nantucket” will potentially choose to endure a great deal of suffering not to demonstrate our own holiness (God no) but because we believe in a Caesar that is just and loving, who would not force His citizens to go against their conscience, who blesses even those who haven’t dropped a penny in the coffers of the Church their whole lives. We are willing to die because He died for us, so that everyone–including you–could truly, truly live. 

“Has no one condemned you? Then neither do I condemn you…” (John 8:10-11)

 

God bless all of you, and please pray for our government.

The Xanga front page “slot machine” as I call it featured a post on Datingish called “How Long Was Your Longest Drought?” in which the post asks readers what is the longest time they have gone without having sex. Rather than enter that contest with a whopping 28 years (and counting!) I thought that, similar to another post a while back which spiritually asked the same question as another front page post, I thought I would ask my readers:

How long was your longest spiritual drought?

St. John of the Cross is famous for his experience of “the dark night of the soul,” this notion that a person can feel a profound absence of God in their life. They know He’s there, they know He exists but, try as they might, they cannot find or feel Him. He experienced this while in prison. Mother Theresa, as has been revealed by her published spiritual diaries, had a “dark night of the soul” that lasted pretty much the last forty years of her life.

Forty.

Years.

Basically a spiritual Exodus before she reached the promised land of Heaven. Can you even imagine this? And some Xangans, and this is not to ridicule, lament going a few months without an intimate, sexual encounter with someone. But there is a loneliness one can experience that is even deeper than the cold half of a queen-sized bed, the empty dance card, the dateless Friday night and the aching swell in your heart when you remember the comfort of another person’s arms around your body.

Imagine what it is like for the soul to feel abandoned or estranged, even for an hour, from the One Who knows it and loves it perfectly, Who fashioned it from nothing out of perfect love? Imagine, or perhaps you’ve known it or are experiencing it right now, having a gaping loneliness in the very pit of your heart that no amount of sex, no drug, no intellectual stimulation, no rationalizing, no computer game, no amount of food, self-injury or self-pleasure, nothing in this world can satisfy? 

Now that, my beloved friends, is a drought. For those who have experienced a drought in nature, you ever pour water onto the ground? It hardly remains a moment before it is absorbed straight into the ground or falls into the cracks of the dirt; perhaps the ground is so dry, so hard that even a huge amount of water just runs across it like it was pavement. The soul in desolation can be the very same way; even the little graces of every day life, the small joys and consolations, can seem so insignificant that they impact the heart and are soaked in without hardly a notice, or slip into the cracks and are gone, or just run across the surface and flow away as though they were never there at all. Such a soul yearns for a monsoon, a downpour.

I’ve found that whenever I experience drought in my spiritual life it is because God is not only breaking me of some old way of being–it could be a good thing or a bad thing–but preparing me for a new way of being with Him. For example, my longest drought lasted a year and a half: from mid-college all through novitiate and about half-way through my philosophy years in St. Louis, my relationship with Christ was knight to king, soldier-to-soldier. I served, He commanded. My relationship to God the Father was similar; He was my good master and I was His servant. As my priestly vocation continued to mature I began to learn more about the spiritual fatherhood that is inherent in and so crucial to being a priest. During my second year at SLU I was entrusted with ministering to a group of young women on campus called The Daughters of Isabella and it was there that I began to experience the reality of spiritual fatherhood, and this led to my beginning to pray for the grace of being taught how to be a good father. 

One fateful evening while praying for this grace and considering the matter I realized that it was by being a good son that a man learns best how to be a father; he learns by receiving his own father’s love and care. When that son comes to have his own children he draws upon the way his own father loved him and tries to show that same love to his own children. This is how, I felt, the Son loves us; He even says, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you” (John 15:9). That is when it struck me that the grace I ought to ask for is not for God to teach me to be a good father but rather how to be a good son, first, to be more like Christ and to let the Father love me as He desires to, to relate to me as Father to son. I was so happy to realize this and I gladly accepted this invitation.

So began my long drought; you see, all my whole prayer life was built upon those  formal though very intimate, loving and meaningful relationships of servant to master. To relate to Christ as my elder brother who would teach me how to be a good son by His own example? To relate, ever more so, to God as my Father, truly? I had so little idea how any of that worked, but it didn’t matter; my whole prayer life crumbled and left me with very little save for daily Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, Eucharistic Adoration and spiritual conversation with my fellow Jesuits and friends on campus, the Rosary, etc. It wasn’t until an 8-day silent retreat last summer that the downpour finally came, but it was only by the plow of personal events in my family life that broke the hard soil enough for all that rain to soak in. Since that retreat I’ve been out of the drought and things have been much more temperate, thank God.

 

I share that story not to boast, but as an example of how spiritual drought often works; sometimes, in order to draw us into a deeper relationship with Him, God must withdraw. Or sometimes our suffering in this world wounds us so profoundly that God cannot approach us or touch us as He once did but must do so very slowly, even imperceptibly, over a long period of time. For some others (including many saints) He intentionally hides not to punish us but in the hope that we will chase after Him, to seek Him wherever He might be, teasing us like a playful lover; it all depends on the person and how God loves them and knows their heart. The most important thing to remember that as with any true drought, it always comes to an end. I’ve had shorter droughts, but I always know that they are temporary, that it is God’s doing and not in order to punish me but rather for my benefit and so He can better prove His love for me.

What can help us during these times of drought? The most helpful tip I would give and the most important bit of “survival” advice would be gratitude. During times of drought our heart can become dry and hard and, as mentioned, all the sweet things in our daily life can seem bland or even invisible. When you are in the spiritual desert take some time to reflect on things from your past life for which you are grateful, recall those graces that you have received from God in prayer, in meditation, in Sacrament, remember moments of joy in your life, of love, of deep and beautiful emotion, whatever you once thanked God for. Collect these things in what I call a “spiritual camel hump” (corny I know but it works!) so that when your journey toward the heart of God encounters a desert you have spiritual reserves to carry you to the next oasis or even to the desert’s end. Gratitude keeps the heart pliable and able to recognize good things even in the midst of desolate circumstances. I cannot stress enough the importance of gratitude and reflecting daily upon those things for which you are grateful; do this and even if your spiritual life is as desolate as the surface of the moon you can still give thanks to God and, though you might not feel His presence, you will be calling to mind times when you know He was there and showing His love.

The second thing is to persevere in simple things. I mentioned Daily Mass and other traditional devotions. So many people–myself included–run into spiritual drought and panic, running to some kind of super-prayer or huge devotion that will defib back to life the life they enjoyed before with God. This I think just confuses us; if we stick with simple things during times of drought we remain open to what God is leading us to. In desert survival you try to limit your exertion, right? Spiritual drought can be approached similarly. Stick with simple things that comfort you and help you, that nourish you well enough, but above all keep yourself open and thirsty for the water God wants to give you. Mother Theresa prayed the Rosary, read Scripture, attended daily Mass, did Liturgy of the Hours and prayed as she was accustomed to, remaining steadfast and faithful all the way to the end in her prayer. She didn’t try drilling a well, seeding rain clouds or crafting a divining rod; she waited for God to provide the rain she yearned for. Imagine her surprise when the whole Heaven opened up for her! Imagine how open and thirsting her heart was after four decades of thirst and how much of God’s love she was able to drink in after her death! I can’t wait to ask her some day, God-willing.

Take heart, brothers and sisters, if you find yourself in the desert; there is life even here, and God is yet with you, even if He seems completely absent. Cling gratefully to past blessing and offer thanks for them time and again to remind God that your heart desires Him still and that you have not forgotten Him. Be simple, patient and trust that every drought has its end.

Have you experienced spiritual drought before? For how long? How did you get through it, or, how are you getting through it now? What advice would you give to others who are in the desert?

Today is Holy Thursday, the day when the universal Church commemorates and celebrates three key events: The Last Supper at which Christ celebrated the Passover with His Apostles, and the institution of two Sacraments: Eucharist and Holy Orders.

So why have as the title of this post a sly and evasive statement that conjures up memories of scandal? Because of that crucial word “is.” The Last Supper, as it is described to us in the Gospels, is unique among Passover meals in that no lamb–a crucial ingredient for the ritual meal–is mentioned. We Christians realize that this is because Jesus Himself is the lamb, the innocent offering upon whom the sins of the household or, in Christ’s case, the entire world, are placed. Yet even this is not so strange as what Jesus does when He deviates from the normal discourse, prayers and ritual of the Passover.

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, “Take and eat; this is my body. Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, from now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father.” (Matthew 26:26-29)

One might think that this would bother the apostles; to be enjoying this yearly tradition with their beloved friend and suddenly He starts talking like this? But they had been forewarned and had made their choice to accept what He taught, even if they did not understand it.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that came down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my flood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who are and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever…”

Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”

As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”

Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:47-58, 60-69)

What I see here is a hinge upon which the faith of Jesus’ followers swings: on one hand we see the number of followers who hear that word “is” and think, “My God, he’s gone mad; he wants us to eat his flesh?” They ask, in the entirety of the Bread of Life discourse, three times for Jesus to clarify, hoping that He’s just telling another of His parables and, upon being asked about it, will explain the meaning. But He doesn’t, not one time. In John 6:42 they ask, basically, “Who are you? Aren’t you the son of Joseph?” to which Jesus replies, “Stop your murmuring; no one can know my Father unless they go through me first.” 

This hardly addresses their concern; if anything it likely deepens it.

Later in verse 52 they say, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?” To which He responds, “Do not fear, for I tell you a parable; my teachings are like flesh which you must eat and drink if you are to live forever.” No! Rather, Jesus says, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life within you.”

Now they realize that He is not telling a parable; He is saying what He means and meaning what He says. Finally they submit their last plea, hoping that He’ll explain what He means by eating His flesh and drinking His blood.

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Verse 60 is almost pitiable, the last cry of one whose faith has run dry, who cannot bring themselves to accept what God is asking of them. Here they beg Christ, “Please, PLEASE tell us, clearly, what you are talking about!” He has time and again spoken, telling them everything He meant to tell them in as clear language as possible, yet they are not satisfied; the Truth has been laid out right before them but they cannot bring themselves to accept it.

Jesus then calls them out, “Does this shock you?” Is the Truth, standing here before you, so repulsive that you reject me? If you think this is incredible and impossible to believe, what if I showed you where I have come from? What if I revealed to you my divinity and showed you the Kingdom of Heaven? If you cannot accept what I am saying, you will reject even these greater things.

And so, unwilling to trust Jesus and to accept what He was teaching, in John 6:66 we are told that many of His followers left Him and returned to their former way of life. Yet the Twelve remained, Peter speaking on their behalf and acknowledging that Jesus is the Son of God, and His words give life. Truly, as Christ said the flesh is of no avail–the other disciples relied too heavily on only what their eyes saw and their minds could comprehend—but the Spirit gives life. Peter and the Twelve, by choosing to trust Jesus and accepting what He was teaching even though they could not grasp it intellectually nor see with their eyes how it could be, made the correct choice; the love of these Twelve men prevailed over the paralyzing intellect of the others. 

Thus, some time later, these same Twelve sat around the table and were reminded of that day when so many of their companions abandoned the Way, the Truth and the Life, unknowingly turning down an invitation to what would be the most memorable Passover in all of history. So when He held up the bread and the wine and said, “This is my Body…this is my blood,” they were not scandalized, confused or tempted in the least to run away. Rather, they ate and drank, and He charged them–those Twelve men, including the one who would betray Him–to “Do this in remembrance of me.” Since that day 2000 years ago the Church has celebrated the Thursday before Easter Sunday as the Feast of the Last Supper, the Passover at which Jesus entrusted the Sacrament of His Body and Blood–the Eucharist–to His new priesthood, charging them with the task to celebrate this new Passover which, as we read in the beginning of the Book of Acts and in St. Paul’s letter (1 Corinthians 11, for example), the first Christians were doing and have been continuing throughout the ages, in spite of persecution under Rome or any other ancient oppressor, Japan in the 1600s, Mexico in the 1920s, Nazi Germany and present day China and many Middle Eastern countries. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands throughout that history, have died a martyr’s death because their definition of “is” was that the Bread truly is what Jesus said it is, and so too the Wine. 

For they recalled the words of St. John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race…” (John 1:1-4) In Genesis we read about the creation of the earth and all else, where God merely speaks a word and things exist. “Let there be light.” The Son of God is that Word, through Whom all things were made, as Christians have professed in the Creeds for ages, as John has written; if that Word once said, “Let there be light” and there was, how ought we to understand Him when He holds up a piece of bread and says, “This is my Body?” The martyrs I have mentioned, as well as those who remained and handed on the faith from the apostles to their successors and all those they taught, who passed on the teaching to their children and so on through the centuries…those who brought the Christian faith to western Germany over a thousand years ago and first taught the faith to my ancestors–teaching them that the Bread and Wine aren’t merely symbols or even vessels containing anything, but truly are the living Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ–who generation by generation passed that faith down to their children, to my great-great-great grandfather John, his son (also) Joseph, his son Joseph, his son Donald, my father Daniel and then myself…this is the powerful and timeless testimony of a whole people who, echoing the testimony of St. Peter, have said, “You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” They did not turn away from Him, did not deny the Eucharist, even when threatened with death, even when preached to by those who turned away completely or sought to alter the original teaching in such a way that it was, literally, easier to swallow. But, my brothers and sisters, if this is the New Passover, if Jesus is the Lamb of God, if this bread and wine is His Body and Blood, then we must remember what was taught to the people of God about the Passover in Exodus 12; you must eat the Lamb if you are to be saved. Hence why the Lamb of God said those words that caused so many to leave Him, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life within you…”

An interesting feature about the Sacrament of the Eucharist is that it appears under two appearances or “species.” Baptism, for example, appears under the sign of water; Confirmation under chrism, etc. To receive only the Host or only the Cup does not mean you’ve only receive “part” of the Eucharist, only one “portion” of Christ’s being; rather the Church has always taught that receiving one, the other or both is to receive the Sacrament of Christ in His entirety. Why, then, would Christ institute this Sacrament in this way? I don’t claim to have the answer, but here are some thoughts that have helped me to better understand this Sacrament and love Christ even more (we cannot ever love Him enough or too much).

Christ said at the Last Supper, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me…this cup is my blood, which will be shed for you.” (Luke 22:19-20) Already He foreshadows the painful reality: the Jesus they see before them will be slain. His body and His blood will be separated. It is fitting, then, that the Eucharist should be given to us in such a way, to remind us of His death.

One of the greatest criticisms Catholics receive from non-Catholic Christians–and they do so rarely out of hate for the Church but rather out of a passionate love and zeal for Christ–is that the Mass is blasphemous because in it Catholics crucify or sacrifice Christ again. And again. And again. Hundreds of thousands of times a day, all throughout the world. The Mass is a re-presentation (notice that all-important hyphen) of Christ’s sacrifice, but there is something being forgotten here. A sacrifice, in the traditional Jewish sense that we Christians have inherited from our Jewish ancestors, is a two-stage event.

First there is the sacrificial slaying where the blood of the animal is separated from the body. This is known as a sacrifice. The blood is usually collected and serves some later purpose, whether it is sprinkled, poured out, burned, etc. The flesh of the animal, or certain parts of the animal, likewise has its certain purposes. Whatever the purpose, however, the flesh, the blood, or both are offered as a sacrifice, oftentimes consumed by fire on the altar. What we see are two “sacrifices:” a sacrificial slaying and a sacrificial offering.

Christ died once and for all; we cannot sacrificially kill Him again. We see this in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, so different from the other six Sacraments in that there are two species. We see already that the Body and Blood are separate. The Sacrifice of the Mass, it seems to me, is the sacrificial offering, by the priest, of Jesus Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity to God in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. What offering could we possibly make in atonement for our sins that would grant us the reconciliation with God that we desire, that reconciliation which even hundreds of thousands of lambs every Passover for centuries could not obtain? Only the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ who, out of love for us, established this Sacrament of His Body and Blood so that His people, His Church, would have the perfect Lamb to offer God each and every day. 

Consider, too, the fact that, again just as in the ancient Passover, we must eat the Lamb in order to have a share in the promise of the Sacrament. If the separation of the Body and the Blood signifies the death of Christ, what does the reunion of the Body and Blood inside our own bodies signify? RESURRECTION. Do not mistake me; the Body of Christ under the appearance of bread is not His dead flesh. Rather, it is the living flesh of His glorified Body; to eat His dead flesh would be cannibalism (the definition of which is the consuming of human flesh; there is no companion world for the consuming of whatever kind of flesh the risen, glorified Christ gives us!). Likewise the Blood of Christ under the appearance of wine is not His dead blood but is alive and contains life; His life. Remember the prohibition against drinking blood or eating meat with the blood still in it? 

Leviticus 17:10-11–”As for anyone…who consumes any blood, I will set myself against that individual and will cut off that person from among the people, since the life of the flesh is in the blood…”

Yet Jesus, in John 6, said, “Unless you…drink my blood, you have no life within you. Whoever…drinks my blood will have eternal life.”

What an act of mercy, then, that just as God for our sake deigned to take on human flesh and come to us as one of us (rather than come as He Is and utterly terrify us!), Jesus deigns to give us His living Body and Blood not as bits of flesh and cups of blood but under the appearance–according to all five sense even–of innocent, normal food. It was hard enough for those disciples in John 6:66 to swallow Christ’s teachings; how much more difficult would it have been for the Twelve and for us today to swallow His flesh and drink His blood were it not veiled in mystery? Praise Jesus for His great love, mercy and patience! Christ gives us His promise in Baptism that in this new life with Him, we would be one; we become members of the Church, His Bride. Did He not teach us that “the two become on flesh?” In the Sacrament of the Eucharist that Baptismal promise–the Word He has given us–becomes flesh. When we receive this Sacrament of the Word-become-Flesh into our very bodies the Bridegroom and the Bride become one; Christ unites Himself to us in a profound, life-giving way. It is the Eucharist that makes us, literally, the Body of Christ; it is the very heart of the Church and not merely the sign or symbol of communion, but is Communion itself. “Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis mysterium…” indeed!

Today we have the Sacrament of the Eucharist, ministered to us by the priests of the Church, those priests whose authority to minister this most precious Sacrament came to them by the bishop who ordained them, whose own authority came from the bishops who consecrated him, and so on all the way back to the Apostles, those first men entrusted with the Eucharistic ministry. As those Eleven (Judas did not remain, as we know) began their mission in the world, they chose as a successor to Judas Matthias, and as they went from city to city they would appoint other successors and invest in them all their own authority as well. The bishops of today are the successors of the Apostles of ages past; the priests of today are a part of that Apostolic succession. When you go to Mass, you are receiving the same Eucharistic Christ as the Twelve received at the Last Supper; when you receive communion from your priest–or someone appointed by him as an extraordinary minister–you are receiving from one whose ministry descends directly from the same men to whom Christ commanded, “Do this in memory of me.”

As we go and celebrate Holy Thursday and the Feast of the Last Supper, the Feast of the Institution of the Eucharist and the Feast of the Institution of the Priesthood, be joyful! Jesus, out of His love for the world, has left the Church with a gift more precious than we will ever fully understand. But faith is not about understanding; faith is about love.

 

God bless all of you this Triduum and above all this glorious Easter.

A few weeks ago I posted a pulse with a link to a news article: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholic-woman-would-rather-risk-life-than-follow-hhs-mandate/

 

The article is about a young woman named Stacy Molai who, in spite of serious health issues of her own, is one of two people suing the U.S. Government on the grounds that the recent HHS mandate requiring all insurance companies to cover abortifacients, sterilization procedures and abortions violates the right to religious freedom. What made this story so remarkable to me is that this young woman is prepared not to have health insurance if the mandate stands or there is no religious exemption for Catholics, meaning that she could die.

As you can imagine I received a good number of comments to that pulse, some of which were fairly interesting. I was getting all geared up to make a post trying to answer some of them but then I thought, “Hey, I’ll bet I could actually get in touch with Stacy; maybe she would be willing to respond to them instead?”

Sure enough I was able to get in touch with her and in spite of her super-busy schedule (she works in campus ministry so, yeah! BUSY!) she took the time to offer a response to the comments stemming from the pulse I posted. I hope that all of you, but especially those who commented on the post, find her response to be interesting and enlightening!

 

And a huge thanks to Stacy for taking the time!

Hello everyone!  I would like to introduce myself, I am Stacy Molai.  Jacob contacted me after he posted the article about my story and asked if I might be willing to answer some of your questions myself.  I’m sorry it has taken me some time to respond, but here is what I have to say …

First, I would like to say that your usernames are very creative and made me smile to read them!  J  Second, I would like to thank each of you for your comments, especially those of you who disagree with my stance.  Hopefully I can shed a little light to help you to understand further.  I would also like to thank you for speaking your mind in a way that is honest but not malicious.  I laughed as I read through the comments and read the *facepalm* from @the_rocking_of_socks.  I felt gladdened by comments from @ZombieMom_Speaks – thank you for explaining about Crohn’s disease and for caring about what would happen to my children if I did indeed die (just so you know, I do not have children).  I did feel badly about @Lucylwrites … I was saddened that she would read my story and feel turned away from religion because she didn’t understand why I would risk my health and quite possibly my life … So here goes … I’ll try to answer each question from top to bottom …

@ZombieMom_Speaks – First of all, this issue is *not* about birth control, abortion causing drugs, sterilization procedures or who can have access to these things.  This issue is about forcing people to pay for things (such as these) that goes against their conscience.  And just so you know, birth control used for medical purposes does not go against my conscience or the teachings of the Catholic Church. 

Second, as @the_rocking_of_socks said, I wouldn’t have to use birth control.  If that is really what I thought, the facepalm comment would be appropriate … however, again, this is not the issue.  The issue would be that I would have to *pay* for the contraceptives, etc … this use of my money goes against my moral conscience and the teachings of my Church.  The HHS Mandate forces me to choose between following the law of the United States or the Law of my God and my Church.  I should never be forced to choose between these two things, as outlined in the First Amendment, which gives me the Freedom of Religion.  The article was simply telling my story, that if forced to choose, I would choose to follow God.  After all, my health, and my life for that matter, have always been in His Hands anyway.  I do not stand alone; I am united with FOCUS; the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, the United States Bishops and countless clergy and faithful lay Catholics as well as Protestants, Jews, other religions, and even those who don’t consider themselves to be religious but who do value their First Amendment Rights.  Let me be clear, I do not *want* to give up my Healthcare, because as @ZombieMom_Speaks said, my Crohn’s can kill me if left untreated.  But even more important than that, I will NOT offend my conscience or my God or my Church by participating in paying for things that I find morally offensive.   And here’s why …

When God created us, He made us to be in a personal relationship with Him.  We, as humans, are wired for relationship – with God and with one another.  Why do you think the worst punishment in prison is solitary confinement?  Because we’re made to be in community!  It’s painful to be alone!  The bad part is, that through original sin (when Adam & Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – which God commanded them not to do) and through our own personal sin (any time we ourselves turn away from the love of God and what He has told us to do – I like to call it fulfilling a legitimate need in an illegitimate way) we have broken our relationship with God.  And there is nothing we can do to repair this relationship.  I like to use this example … if you and I were hanging out and you slapped me, what would you need to do to repair our friendship?  Well, first you’d probably need to tell me why you hit me (haha!) and then apologize.  But, what happens if you slap a Police Officer?  You’d be facing a fine at the minimum.  What happens if you slap the President of the United States?  You might get shot by the Secret Service for assaulting our President … you’d get tackled at the very least and serve some jail time … as you can see, as you go higher in authority, the penalty for the same action gets more and more severe.  When we sin against God, as the Ultimate Authority, the penalty is so great, we cannot hope to ever repay or repair the damage done.  This is why, in an act of True Love, God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the debt for us.  God the Father loved us so much, He couldn’t bear to be separated from us, so He sent Jesus, Who died on the Cross to pay a debt He didn’t owe, because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay.  He restored our relationship with God the Father … Jesus came so that we could have life, and have it to the fullest.  How many people just “survive” from day to day?  That would be like a bird that once soared in the skies, and then was caught and had its wings clipped and never flew again.  Would that bird be alive?  Well, yes.  But would it be living life to the fullest!?  Absolutely not!  Friends, we were made to fly!  Jesus came and restored our wings!  And it doesn’t end there – three days later, He was raised from the dead … Jesus is ALIVE TODAY … and He sent us the Holy Spirit!  We have received an invitation to accept this gift from Jesus, the gift of a restored relationship with God the Father, through God the Son.  But what do I possibly have that could show my thanks for such a gift?  I have nothing that would be adequate thanks, so I give what I have … I give all of me … my life, my money, my plans, my will, my heart, my love … I give my fidelity to God’s laws and I trust Him with my health.  He can choose to rescue me or He can choose to let me die, either way, I will not forsake Him (see Daniel chapter 3, especially verses 17-18). 

I hope that helps you to understand and I welcome any additional comments or questions!

Peace and love (and hugs! – I’m a huggy person! J) to each of you!

Stacy Molai

 

 

Hello all; here are days 9 and 10 of the Home Challenge! I was entertaining a guest all weekend and haven’t had a moment to update. AND after the pics there is a bonus sonnet for you all to (hopefully) enjoy!)

 

My favorite spot where I live would be the chapel that I detailed in a past post. My least favorite spot would be…well I can’t really think of a least favorite spot, frankly. Boring, I know! But just so that you aren’t TOTALLY bored I’ll post some pics of one of my favorite spots that is at least in the AREA where I live.

These are some pics of the Holy Hill Shrine of Our Lady, Help of Christians, about half an hour north of where I live. It is out in the middle of nowhere atop a hill and it is run by the Carmelite Monks.

This is a very, very special place; numerous miracles (primarily healings) have occurred right here in this church. I don’t have a picture but there is a wall just outside the shrine chapel where a few dozen crutches and canes are on display; the people who brought them in didn’t need them when they went home! Here is a picture of the statue of Our Lady and Jesus. I wish I had a closer shot because the statue is so beautiful.

 

 

 

And here’s my bathroom, squeaky clean! It’s pretty bare and basic. And yes; there are handlebars on the toilet. I do live in an assisted living center after all, and the guy whose room I am in now was in his 80′s and I’m sure the guy who will have this room after me will need those bars, too.

On the inside of my bathroom door is a pair of hooks and then I posted a set of prayers that I like to pray at the beginning of the day.

And here is a sonnet to kick off Holy Week! Have a blessed one!

 

 

“The April Fool”

 

“Tear down this temple,” the April Fool cried,

“and on the third day shalt I raise it up.”

On an ass did he come, crowd-hailed, then hied

to a quiet place with his friends to sup.

“This bread is my Flesh; this wine is my Blood,”

yet to all ‘twas no change in look or taste.

Though claimed he divine, heeded not ill-brood

of one there, silver-swayed, who’d lay him waste.

The Fool who dared to trust, abandoned was

to mock and spit, blood and bone, agony,

then though innocent bore he his own cross

‘fore enthroned a sad lord on Calvary.

“The jester king!” laughed they, those people cruel;

but on day three proved they the April fools.