Norms of justice

In today's Office of Readings, we find this passage from Wisdom (expressing the rejection of God by the unrepentant):

But let our strength be our norm of justice;
for weakness proves itself useless.
Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;
he sets himself against our doings,
reproaches us for transgressions of the law
and charges us with violations of our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God
and styles himself a child of the Lord.
To us he is the censure of our thoughts;
merely to see him is a hardship for us,
because his life is not like other men's,
and different are his ways.

The just one in this passage is of course Jesus Christ; but since we belong to Him, what is said about Him should also be said in some sense about us. Our lives should be different enough from the lives of those who don't belong to Him to be noticed, to be a reproach - a positive witness to His love and truth, and an implicit invitation to conversion. If strength is the norm of justice for those who don't belong to Christ, how can it be the norm of justice for those of us who do? Of course, it isn't supposed to be. The whole paradox of the Cross, of the truth that "when I am weak, then I am strong," is supposed to be our norm.

I think this applies to our witness as families in a special way. To be weak as a family doesn't mean to be a doormat; it means to be humble in our submission to the demands of that vocation. As husbands, in particular, those of us who are or hope to become deacons are called to subordinate our own needs to those of our wife and children; and to the extent that is reasonably and prudently compatible with that priority, to subordinate our needs to those of our neighbor, also. In other words, we are to choose to love, to "prefer the good of the other, even to our own good." This is how we show that Christ is indeed our Lord; and that marriage is indeed a very special and fundamental form of service, not something that feeds and strengthens our baser appetites in "socially acceptable" ways.

When Joe asked us this past Saturday to consider the point of view of those who support the legality of SSM, I jumped on that idea -- the idea, I say, not the people who hold it -- as hard and as strong as I could. I hope it was clear from the discussion and what followed, that I did this, not because I don't want to consider the idea, but because I have considered it, and I know and believe that this idea requires precisely that rejection of God expounded in this passage of Wisdom. I grant that many, perhaps even most or all, of the people who support the legality of SSM do not see this implication, that they don't intend to reject God, and that their desire for justice is real. But nevertheless these ideas are incompatible with each other.

So, simply in respect of our vocation as husbands and fathers, not to mention our vocation as deacons, we cannot afford the confusion -- clear to the eyes of faith, if not to worldly eyes -- of mistaking our strength, our own idolatrous norm of justice, for God's will. It is always a mistake to believe that weakness proves itself useless, for this is fundamentally a rejection of the Cross. And our weakness here needs to be a daily, joyful commitment, in prayer and action, that "not my will, but Yours, be done."

The utility of Philosophy

Ignatius Insight interviews Stanley Grove, a Catholic Neo-Scholastic physicist at Wyoming Catholic College, about philosophy in general, and Hawkings' most recent book in particular. Two LOL quotes:

If medieval man was wrong to anchor his ontological significance to his perception of being at the center of the world, how much more foolish are the moderns who base their claims of human insignificance on our being nowhere in particular?

And,

Professor Hawking’s recent effusions are so wanting in insight that one suspects a mind coming undone.

The whole thing is worth a read.

Inquiry Night Schedule (updated)

Here is the schedule for Inquiry Nights this year:

Tuesday, Oct 12, 7:00 pm, St. Joseph's, Milford
Thursday, Oct 14, 7:00 pm, Cathedral, Sioux City
Tuesday, Oct 19, 6:30 pm, Holy Trinity, Fort Dodge (Corpus Christi center)
Tuesday, Oct 26, 7:00 pm, St. Lawrence, Carroll

Update: Holy Spirit parish's "family room" on the 26th, not at St. Lawrence.

My thanks to all the pastors who have agreed to host these inquiry meetings. Any of our current deacons, candidates, or aspirants, including wives, are also welcome to come to one or more of these meetings and help answer questions, talk about their own experience in formation and as a deacon (or wife), and so forth.

Most importantly, if you know good men who have expressed some interest in the diaconate, or who you think may be called to a diaconal vocation by God, give them the information and encourage them to attend one of these meetings. And as always, they can contact me at any time.

Homily - Respect Life Sunday

Here's the homily I preached at the Cathedral this weekend:

On this Respect Life Sunday, I invite you to consider how many ways the devil tempts us to devalue human life. We probably think first of truly grave evils, like abortion and euthanasia; and rightly so. These are diabolical things. The devil certainly uses fear or anger or despair as weapons to keep a mother from loving the new life in her womb. He uses greed or even misplaced compassion to prevent the terminally ill, and their families, from choosing to love the suffering Christ shares with them.

But the devil also works in more subtle ways. Every day, he tries to convince us that other goods, other divine gifts, are more valuable than a human life. If we think like this, that the ends justify the means, we won’t easily recognize some of our own sins. We will be unprofitable servants, unable to ask God to forgive our much smaller attacks on the dignity of life, such as taking God’s name in vain, cursing at the driver who cuts us off, or taking our loved ones for granted.

Since this is Respect Life Sunday, let’s think about this more deeply. First of all, let’s hold firmly to the truth that the divine gift of life is a fundamental good. Consider that God cannot give us any other good, even the greatest possible good of final salvation, unless He’s already given us life in this world. This is why we say that each human life is sacred. From the moment of conception, each person is unique and irreplaceable in God’s love, and in His plan of salvation.

But, if life itself were not a great gift, then it would be right to sacrifice precious lives for these other goods, both literally and metaphorically. Not only would the appalling crimes of abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research be justified. But also, in the same way, to justify the means is to justify many other crimes against human dignity. Respect for the sanctity of human life is slowly eroded, until eventually, it has no value at all. In the end, this diabolical lie always leads, not only to murder and slavery, but also to every kind of callous and hard-hearted contempt for others every day.

In our first reading, the prophet Habakkuk denounces these consequences – both the great and the small – as intolerable violence. This denunciation is God’s own word, which God gives to Habakkuk for Israel, and for the whole world. From the beginning, God wills life and hope together. Violence against human dignity therefore attacks not only life, but also hope.

But without hope, what becomes of our faith? If other gifts were more valuable than life, would God become man for us? If our lives were such paltry and contemptible things, would God be willing to die for us? The more we believe this lie, the less we can believe in the Incarnation or the Cross or the Resurrection. If we disregard the sanctity of life, we reject both hope and faith.

We heard the echo of this confusion in our responsorial psalm. Psalm 95 says, “Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness, when at Meriba and Massah they challenged me and provoked me, although they had seen all of my works.” The greatest of all God’s works in the Old Testament – namely, the Passover in Egypt, and the parting of the Red Sea – happened only three days before the Israelites reached Meriba. Only three days!! And already they were grumbling about what they had left behind.

But God responds to His people’s sins with generous grace. At Meriba, He gave Moses the miracle of using a piece of wood to freshen the salt water for them to drink. This foreshadows the Cross. At Massah, He first provided quail and manna. This foreshadows the Eucharist. He also brought forth water from solid rock. This foreshadows baptism. Every time we turn against God, He calls us back to hope and faith.

In the light of faith, no lie can hide. We know that life is good, even given the reality of sin and suffering. We know that life is a divine gift, and that we must treasure this gift by treating every human being with the same respect, regardless of their age, their productivity, or the functioning of their mind. From natural conception to natural death, God wills only our good, and provides all the good things of His creation to strengthen and nourish us. And spiritually, we know that God wills not the death of the sinner, and provides us in His Church every means of grace, and every opportunity to repent of our sins, so that we may receive the eternal life He wants to give us.

To have strong faith, then, means both to know and love Jesus Christ, and to live publicly according to His promises. We are still imperfect, still sinners in this life, but we come to this Holy Mass to become more perfect, to receive His healing. We want to give ourselves more fully to Christ, and to help satisfy His thirst for souls. We hope and believe in the power of grace to overcome our sins. We trust that following Jesus with living faith will make our lives, and the lives of others, more joyful. We believe enough to act for that longed-for perfection.

Acting for that perfection means respecting the dignity and sanctity of every human life – not only on the most grievous and urgent issues of our day, but also on the daily sins of anger, spite, and contempt. When we succumb to temptation in little things, we make ourselves less trustworthy in great things. Therefore we seek forgiveness and conversion. We strive to respect life even in little ways, so that we can change the world’s more fundamental disrespect for life.

In the second reading, St. Paul tells us not to believe like cowards. He says, “Do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord…; but bear your share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God.” Our Lord Jesus Christ entrusted His testimony to sinners and tax collectors. We don’t have to be perfect in order to stand with Him in defense of life and dignity. He takes us as we are, and He heals us with His grace.

But we do have to have courage. It takes courage, for example, to join 40 Days for Life, or Right to Life, or even in private to pray the Rosary for an end to abortion. It takes courage to refuse that extra dose of morphine, which might end a loved one’s suffering a few days before God wills it. It takes courage to unite our suffering with the suffering of Christ crucified. But it also takes courage to ask our neighbor for forgiveness when we’ve wronged them. It takes great courage to go to Confession, and ask God to forgive us.

Fidelity to the Gospel will cost us in this life. But listen to Moses and Habakkuk and Paul, and to all the saints, who say: “Christ has already paid that cost for us!” This is the strength of our faith. This is why we can hope, despite suffering and death, and even despite our own sins. This is why we have the courage to imagine a world without the intolerable violence of abortion or euthanasia; and the still greater courage to imagine ourselves without sin. “For what is seen is still distant, it will appear in the end and will not lie. If it delays, hope for it. What is coming is coming, and it will not be late.”