Seasons of Grace

“I don’t need to go to confession!” said the elderly woman. “I never even leave the house! How could I ever commit any sins?”

Those who knew her best and who loved her anyway glanced skyward, sighed audibly, then checked just to see whether everyone was catching this hubris. Sure enough, half a dozen eyerolls confirmed what we all knew only too well: that this declaration of sanctity was coming from someone who was too quick to criticize, to manipulate, to judge.

Most seniors—in fact, most of us, regardless of our station in life—would never think of murdering or stealing. We go to church; we probably don’t commit adultery; we don’t deliberately lie; we don’t swear TOO much…. In short, compared to some people (eyeroll again), we’ve really got those ten commandments down pat.

Too often for the chronically ill, the aged and the infirm, home or hospital seems a lonely prison. But while the younger generations are challenged by the sheer “busyness” of their lives to find time for God, those in their golden years—especially the homebound—have a unique opportunity to grow in prayer and in godliness, and to devote more time to that which is truly important, their relationship with their Creator. The failure to take advantage of this opportunity, focusing instead on one’s plight and personal problems, is in itself a sin against God.

We are only human—and that means that we face a constant battle against pride, against greed, against selfishness. If you find yourself forced by health or circumstances to remain indoors; if you are, or if someone you love is confined to a hospital or rehabilitation center or nursing home; even if the confinement is temporary—take time to grow in your faith. Choose your reading material carefully, and be sure to include the Scriptures and some inspirational reading or music. Use this valuable time to reconnect with God in prayer—pray for your family, pray for the reparation of sins, pray for the conversion of a loved one, for our leaders, for world peace. Pray for the grace to acknowledge your shortcomings, and for the will to overcome them.

For those who, like the elderly woman I mentioned, think they can do no wrong—may I suggest a different focus for your Examination of Conscience? Set aside those familiar commandments, and instead dust off a list of the seven capital sins, and the seven cardinal virtues. Your personal reflection might look something like this:

Have I practiced the virtue of Chastity? For example:
• Have I permitted myself to watch movies or daytime television shows which are not edifying, which depict sexual scenarios or which advocate for cohabitation or homosexual relationships?

Have I practiced the virtue of Temperance? For example:
• Have I indulged my love of sweets or snack foods, to the detriment of my health?
• Have I continued to smoke heavily, or to consume alcoholic beverages excessively?
• Have I been immoderate in any activity, such as watching too much TV?

Have I practiced the virtue of Charity? For example:
• Have I been a “busybody,” unkind to a neighbor either by my thoughts or by my actions?
• Have I had a smile for a family member or loved one, or was I critical, hurting someone’s feelings?

Have I practiced the virtue of Diligence? For example:
• Have I used my physical limitations as an excuse for laziness?
• Have I neglected prayer, ignored my friend’s birthday, sat around the house when I might have helped with the dishes?
• Have I exercised my responsibility to become familiar with the issues, and to vote (by absentee ballot, if necessary) for the candidates who will best protect the values I hold dear?

Have I practiced the virtue of Patience? For example:
• Was I unkind (or downright rude) to a telephone caller, impatient with a visitor, crabby when things didn’t go just the way I wanted?
• Did I complain if someone took me to a restaurant or public place, because we had to wait for service?
• Did I criticize my doctor, my caretaker, my child, for not serving me better?

Have I practiced the virtue of Kindness? For example:
• Was I jealous of the attention paid to someone else, wanting everyone to notice me instead?
• Did I feel angry because someone else had more money, or better health, or because my grown children did not have enough time to spend with me?
• Did I compliment someone who looked good, or did I only have harsh words to say?

Have I practiced the virtue of Humility? For example:
• Did I accept a compliment graciously but then move on, refusing to keep the attention turned toward myself?
• Was I willing to let someone else be the center of attention?
• Did I feel grateful for the kindness of my family and others, and appreciative of my caregiver’s efforts?
• Did I believe that I had no need of confession, because I never even leave the house?

Lord, help us to recognize the times that we have failed to live a virtuous life—and grant us the grace of true contrition and a resolve to do Your will. Amen.

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Do you remember the silly children’s song about the old lady who swallowed the fly?  The poor, misguided woman tried again and again to rid herself of her problem, by swallowing bigger and bigger things—a spider, a bird, a cat, a dog, a goat, a cow, and finally a horse—and she’s dead, of course!

The law of unintended consequences, popularized in the 20^th century by American sociologist Robert Merton, is like that.  Someone does something, no doubt with the best of intentions, but the plan blows up in his face because he fails to imagine all the things that could go wrong.

THE KUDZU LESSON – In the Southeastern United States, kudzu is a case in point.  Kudzu (genus Pueraria lobata)was brought to the U.S. from Japan in 1876 as an ornamental plant and later used to prevent soil erosion; but without its natural enemies, it has grown like the man-eating plant in the 1960 cult film “Little Shop of Horrors.”  Growing as much as a foot a day, kudzu was declared a weed in 1971 when officials recognized the vines’ propensity for overtaking parklands, climbing telephone poles, all but obliterating fences, and smothering all in their range.

DIGITAL BILLBOARDS - Another, more recent threat to the American landscape would seem to be that newest example of technological highway blight, the digital billboard.  You’d think we’d have learned back in the ‘60s, when the Highway Beautification Act was signed into law.  By the mid-60s, when the government belatedly realized that we had a problem, unregulated billboards had usurped the view along most of America’s roads, vying for drivers’ attention, both a safety hazard and a blight.

But regulation is most frequently done after the fact—Who would have guessed, for example, that road warriors with pulsating boom boxes in the rear would also install custom purple fluorescent lights beneath their vans, shining downward onto the road, wreaking havoc for the other drivers?

The newfangled digital billboards seem to me to be destined for after-the-fact regulation.  The primary objective of the flashing, pulsing, gyrating signs, of course, is to cause drivers to look away from the road; and it’s only a matter of time until the incidence of accidents near these neon hazards brings about increased regulation.  Problem is, the billboards are so darned expensive, and banning them will mean major financial hardship for sign companies and advertisers alike.

THE BIRTH CONTROL PILL – The last example of technology-run-amok for today is that bulwark of American social freedom, the oral contraceptive.  Approved by the FDA in the early 1960s, “the Pill” was far more effective than most previous methods of birth control.  With its use, women had unprecedented control over their fertility.  Soon after the birth control pill was legalized, there was a sharp increase in college attendance and graduation rates for women.  The ability to control fertility without sacrificing sexual relationships allowed women to make long term educational and career plans.

But not all news was good news.  The Pill had an enormous impact on the individual and on society as a whole:

• Moral Consequences – Pre-marital Sex and Promiscuity. Never before had sexual activity been so divorced from reproduction. For a couple using the Pill, intercourse became purely an expression of love, or a means of physical pleasure, or both; but it was no longer a means of reproduction.  “If it feels good, do it” became the mantra of the tumultous sexual revolution.  The spread of oral contraceptive use thus led many religious figures and institutions to debate the proper role of sexuality and its relationship to procreation. The Roman Catholic Church in particular, after studying the phenomenon of oral contraceptives, re-emphasized the stated teaching on birth control in the 1968 papal encyclical “Humanae Vitae” (On the Regulation of Birth).    The encyclical reiterated the established Catholic teaching that artificial contraception distorts the nature and purpose of sex.
• Ethical Consequences – The Pill as Abortifacient – If you’re pro-life, as I am, you believe that deliberately killing a child in the womb is a grave wrong.  But one of the ways that the birth control pill works is just that:  If a woman happens to conceive while taking contraceptive pills, the uterine wall will not soften sufficiently to enable the embryo to implant; and the fertilized ovum, or embryo, is simply passed off in the woman’s menstrual cycle.  In effect, an early-term abortion has taken place.
• Health Consequences – Link to Breast Cancer. As the Pill was increasingly the method of choice for women choosing to delay or avoid pregnancy, researchers began to identify a problem:  women who used chemical contraceptives began to show higher than average rates of breast cancer, and possibly increases in other cancers, as well.  Whereas feminists had originally hailed the Pill as an “equalizer” that had given them the same sexual freedom as men had traditionally enjoyed, this new development caused many of them to denounce oral contraceptives as a male invention designed to facilitate male sexual freedom with women at the cost of health risk to women.
• Environmental Consequences – Where Are the Macho Fish? In our environmentally-conscious society, it is perhaps this last complex of problems that will have the greatest impact on consumer attitudes toward the Pill.  That tiny little pill ingested by a contracepting woman (or the hormones absorbed from a contraceptive patch), won’t just “disappear”—of course, if you think about it, What Goes In Must Come Out.  The woman excretes estrogen and other hormones in her urine and feces. These hormones, flushed down the toilet, can pass through water treatment plants and into rivers, where they are ingested by fish and wildlife.  The frightening result is more female fish than male, and congenital abnormalities and sterility among male fish and other animals.  Like the canary in the mine, these genetically impacted fish in contaminated waters sound an alarm to environmentalists.

• Social Consequences – Do You Love Me? In the days before the oral contraceptive, a couple understood their fertility to be an integral part of their identity.  Reaching that depth of love in which the man and woman choose to devote their lives to one another, they decide to marry.  With confidence in the spouse’s life-long love and commitment, the woman freely enters into one-flesh union with her beloved; and should God choose, this physical symbol of love and unity may result in the ultimate gift of self:  the embodiment of love in the creation of another person.  Lacking this depth of commitment, a woman may engage in sex just to “hold onto” the man, or simply for physical pleasure (we call that type of coupling “lust”).  But we are created for love; and always there will be that nagging hope:  Does he love me?

For further reading:  A Study Guide to Humanae Vitae.   http://www.priestsforlife.org/contraception/humanae-vitae-study-guide.htm

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Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours…

–Gordon Lightfoot, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

It was circa July 1973, and my husband and I—young, free-wheeling and in love, with more dreams than experience—embarked on a driving trip through upper Michigan.  We’d never been much farther north than Lansing at that point.  We pitched a tent along the way, getting to know Grayling and Mio, the Au Sable River and the Traverse City wine country, finally turning back when we reached Lake of the Clouds in Michigan’s Porcupine Mountains.

Along the way, we stopped at Sault Ste. Marie, on the St. Mary’s River.  Originally called “Sault du Gastogne” by early French fur traders, it was renamed by Jesuit missionary Pere Jacques Marquette in 1633, to honor the Virgin Mary. 

The St. Mary’s River is the only water connection between Lake Superior and the Great Lakes; but there is a section of the river known as the St. Mary’s Rapids, where the water falls about 21 feet from the level of Lake Superior to the level of the lower lakes.  With ingenuity and persistence, the settlers built a series of locks, called the “Soo Locks,” to bypass the dangerous waters of the river—and in 1855, the steamer Illinois passed through the locks in less than an hour.  The four locks in use today permit shipping through the Great Lakes into the waters of Lake Michigan, connecting the American Midwest to the Atlantic Ocean.

Standing there at the Locks in 1973, Jerry and I watched as a freighter passed through the locks, the ship’s crew “manning the rails,” a tradition which showed that they had no evil intent.  We snapped 35 mm photos which were later developed into slides.  

Only years later did we review the slides and realize that the ship we’d seen that day was the mighty and legendary Edmund Fitzgerald, destined for immortality as a “ghost ship.” 

On November 10, 1975, just two years after we captured the ship and its crew on film, the Edmund Fitzgerald—en route from Wisconsin to Detroit’s Zug Island—sank in the waters of Lake Superior during a storm.  The ship broke in two, its crew of 29 were lost, and Gordon Lightfoot wrote his ode to the ship and its brave crew.  Today, 35 years after the loss, Old Mariner’s Church in Detroit still sounds its bells 29 times each day in honor of the sailors who lost their lives in this most famous of Michigan’s many shipwrecks. 

Looking at the photographs today, I remember that these men—most in their 40s or 50s, and some as young as 21—were not planning to die that day.  They left loving wives, children, parents, and friends, drawn to the depths of the sea and the arms of their Creator.  Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.

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A few days ago, a Connecticut jury voted to invoke the death penalty for convicted “home invasion” murderer Steven Hayes.  Within minutes of the announcement, on news and commentary sites across the liberal/ conservative spectrum, Americans celebrated the verdict.  I watched as 200, then 300 and more “likes” popped up on Fox News’ Facebook report.

But why?  What satisfaction can be gained by the taking of yet another life?

Granted, Hayes’ crimes were heinous.  In the deadly home invasion, Hayes had brutalized Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela—sexually assaulting them, then dousing their wounded bodies with gasoline before setting their house ablaze.   A comment heard frequently during the trial phase was that if ever a crime was deserving of death, this was it.

In the face of such abject evil, public rage catapulted toward revenge, fostering an “eye for an eye” retributive hatred. 

Such vengeance, while understandable, does nothing to restore the victims to life; but it does potentially impede the action of God in the heart of the offender.   As Jesus asks that we turn the other cheek; likewise, the Catechism of the Catholic Church insists that capital punishment not be used unless there is no other recourse. 

In a nutshell, the Church asserts that:

• The State has a right and responsibility to protect the human rights of its citizens, and to preserve the common good.
• Legitimate public authority (a police force) may inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime.  This penalty serves the purpose of redressing the disorder, and—as much as possible—should help in restoring the offender.
• In certain situations (such as during wartime), when capital punishment is the only practical way to defend human lives against the aggressor, it is not wrong to employ the death penalty. 
• However—and this is most important—if bloodless means are available to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means.
• In contemporary American society, when the option of secure imprisonment is available, cases of absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

The Church hopes with Christ that the sinner—even the very great sinner—will freely repent and be reconciled with Christ.  To forcibly take the life of a criminal, thereby taking from him the opportunity for repentance, would be wrong.

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For a tourist in Rome, there is wonder around every corner.  Priceless antiquities are everywhere—the Colosseum rises beside the freeway, obelisks jut skyward in shopping malls, and ancient relics sit amid the Vespas in crowded parking garages.  Pop into a church along your walk, and you’re likely to see the remains of St. Agnes or a painting by Caravaggio.   Even the local McDonald’s is constructed of precious marble.

The largest and most famous of Rome’s great basilicas is St. Peter’s, which is constructed over the bones of the apostle to whom Jesus gave the Keys of the Kingdom.  But St. Peter’s is not the oldest and is not the primary basilica in Rome; that honor is accorded to the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the pope’s own church, the dedication of which is celebrated in the liturgical calendar on November 9.  Dating back to the fourth century, St. John Lateran carries the title of “ecumenical mother church,” the mother church of the whole inhabited world.

It’s rare that a liturgical feast turns our eyes to a building, rather than to a holy person.  But that’s missing the point:  We are challenged to look within the four marbled walls to see what’s really important:  the “chair of Peter.”  In Exodus 18:13, Moses sat upon his chair, and the Israelites understood that from that honored throne, he ruled in judgment of his people.  In the Scriptures, the authority of the chair was passed on to Joshua.  Jesus recognized the authority of the chair, and so conferred upon Peter both His own authority, and the authority of Moses.  In St. John Lateran, the locus of the Catholic Faith, the Church proclaims itself to be truly one (that is, united in faith), holy, catholic (or universal), and apostolic (continuing unceasing from the time of the apostles).

The second scripture reading in the liturgy for the feast is drawn from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians.  It’s about a building—but then again, it’s not.  As we celebrate the great feast of the great basilica, we are reminded that like the great basilica, we are temples of God.  We are holy, for we are made in the image and likeness of God.  Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Paul cautions that God will destroy anyone—hear this, ANYONE—who destroys His temple.

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