9/11 anniversary reflections

Fr. Robert Barron had an excellent reflection a year ago, on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, on righteous anger, charity, forgiveness, and redemption:



He strongly makes the point here that the main difference between righteous anger and sinful anger is its connection with charity.  Anger at injustice, that compels more strongly the willing of the good of the other, is righteous anger, of the sort (as he points out) that the Bible ascribes to God.  But anger at injustice that clings to the harm done leads rather to some sort of vengeance, than to forgiveness.

One of the further things this distinction entails is a purification of memory.  As we know from our experience, we retain the memory of sin, both as sinner and as sinned-against, even after sacramental confession.  These memories can be powerful, and can affect our charity, often for ill.  It's very easy, in fact, to cling to the memory of the harm done, and to allow that memory to tempt us back into sin.  Often, when the sin is our own, we move from the memory back into the same sin, seeking even despite our (struggling) will and (incomplete) desire for God the fleeting sweetness of sin's illicit pleasure. 

But it's also too often true, when we have been harmed by sin, that, as we remember the harm done, we are tempted against charity to desire a comparable harm to the one who harmed us (or, perhaps, to a substitute "them").  In short, as Fr. Barron says, we desire vengeance, not justice.  Vengeance is so much easier than justice, both because vengeance doesn't require me also to change, the way justice does; and also because vengeance contains that same illicit sweetness of sin. 

I believe this is in fact extremely common.  Most of the time, it leads us to petty and instant vengeance, like yelling at a child who's disobeyed or dropped their dinner on the floor, or like cursing the driver who's just cut us off.  Most of the time, we recognize both that further acts of vengeance would be themselves a completely unjust escalation of the original harm, and that we don't truly desire that kind of harm to the other.  Clearly, this is good, in the sense that we are resisting the temptation to greater sin, even if we are giving in to the temptation to the lesser sin.

But that's precisely the issue, for those who belong to Jesus Christ.  If we thus justify at a personal level the lesser sin of "verbal vengeance," we cultivate the habit of anger separated from justice and charity, and we put ourselves in a very poor spiritual position.  We reflect very poorly the beatitude of meekness (the absence of anger, if not from our reaction to injustice, as we've seen, then at least from our motive in responding).  Socially, we slowly escalate the level of "verbal vengeance" that is acceptable, and therefore that is necessary to portray.  The more socially necessary it is to speak violently, the more abused and dominated are those who cannot do so (convincingly).  At some point, this tips from verbal to physical actions, and the cycle of domination continues apace.  This aptly describes our culture, in fact, and represents a key measure of the marginalization of our Christian heritage.

Thus, as followers of Christ, we need to practice a purification of our memory.  This can be part of our regular examination of conscience.  If we cultivate in the memory of the daily, petty harms inflicted on us the habit of letting righteous anger move to charity, rather than to self-serving vengeance, then we might be capable of the same in remember the more significant harms.  Likewise, when we are the ones harming, if we cultivate a desire to seek forgiveness and redemption in the memory of the little things, we might be able to do so in the more significant.

An excellent example of what martyrdom really means, here and now - Updated 5/24

I saw this both on Facebook and on Fr. Z's WDTPRS.  The original is here. Quite apart from the specific issue of defending traditional marriage, which is of course crucial to a healthy society, this video shows what martyrdom in the United States today really looks like.  Christians who are willing to speak up in public for traditional social values and mores (i.e., in favor of the sanctity and dignity and necessity of life, marriage, children, virtue, and so forth) are being targeted with significant forms of moral violence ("haters," "bigots," etc., and the consequences in loss of friends, loss of jobs or opportunities, etc.), and even physical (as below) violence.  So far, the moral violence far outweighs the physical, but for how long?



This kind of public attitude in favor of forcibly silencing one view, merely because that view is deemed unacceptable by a self-appointed cultural elite, is of one piece with the more formal and deliberate (attempted) attacks on the rights of conscience and the free exercise of religion we're also currently seeing.  Popular intolerance of divergent views justifies and strengthens political attacks on religion; these in turn feed popular resentments, especially by trying to make people committed to God seem intransigent and unreasonable merely for their fidelity.  This kind of cultural/political "feedback loop" is obviously very dangerous, the more so as it becomes more impervious to reason.

For us as clergy (or as future clergy), the challenge is two-fold.  First, we need to cultivate and practice a fidelity to the Church and her teachings, and a courage for the proclamation of the Gospel, that will allow us to be God's true servants even in the face of such a cost.  We do no one a favor by changing or silencing the truths of salvation in Jesus Christ, even when others don't want to hear them.  Second, we need to proclaim the Gospel and defend its truth, without demonizing those who demonize us.  If we engage in similar moral violence, we appear hypocritical and undermine the apostolic mission we are trying to carry out.  Both of these challenges require that we seek deeper prayer, interior life, and union with Christ as our foundation.

Update (5/24) - Another, related, kind of martyrdom: a prohibition on being able to celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass with prison inmates.  The story makes it sound like the priest is the primary victim, but in fact, those who are deprived of his priestly service are even more "martyred."

St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr

"[T]he wicked persecutor’s wrath was vented on Laurentius the deacon, who was pre-eminent not only in the performance of the sacred rites, but also in the management of the church’s property, promising himself double spoil from one man’s capture: for if he forced him to surrender the sacred treasures, he would also drive him out of the pale of true religion. And so this man, so greedy of money and such a foe to the truth, arms himself with double weapon: with avarice to plunder the gold; with impiety to carry off Christ. He demands of the guileless guardian of the sanctuary that the church wealth on which his greedy mind was set should be brought to him. But the holy deacon showed him where he had them stored, by pointing to the many troops of poor saints, in the feeding and clothing of whom he had a store of riches which he could not lose, and which were the more entirely safe that the money had been spent on so holy a cause. The baffled plunderer, therefore, frets, and blazing out into hatred of a religion, which had put riches to such a use… "(Pope St. Leo the Great, Sermon 85, 2-3).

St. Lawrence witnessed with his death what he lived with his life: that boundless love for our Lord Jesus Christ which chooses the good of others above one's own good. St. Leo instructs us with the antithesis between the prefect, "so greedy of money and such a foe of the truth," and St. Lawrence, "pre-eminent in the sacred rites and in managing the Church's property," -- managed not by conserving material goods, but by transforming material goods into imperishable heavenly goods.

Last Sunday we heard the Gospel, "Where your treasure is, there is your heart." St. Lawrence makes the choice for Christ, for the Church, for virtue in serving "in the diaconia of liturgy, word, and charity." We make the same choice in thousands of little ways. How we make those choices, though they seem unimportant, shapes how we can make the Big Choice, when push comes to shove. That "Big Choice" we may have to face only once or twice in a lifetime. But if we're not practicing for it with the daily choices, we won't make it well.

May God give us the grace to grow daily in serving Him and His little ones.