offer one compliment

Do you ever get tired of coworkers that can't seem to do anything but point out every time you make the slightest mistake?

I think we should all make an effort to (in hope) tell someone that they are doing a good job. That's the way we build people up and build up the kingdom of God

weird day in Iowa

The dream that I remember from last night was so bizarre that I can't help but mention it. I was the real son of Hulk Hogan and his wife. No explanation but I felt like I was imposing on them the whole time. They would throw dinner parties and introduce me around but my age kept shifting from being in my teens to being in my thirties. I was glad when I woke up. Too weird.

So, then I went to work and, a rumor has started to spread that I'm leaving my current assignment to go to Waterloo. The rumor mills are usually wrong but it cracks me up that they think the archbishop would move me again after just one year in an assignment. I'm probably staying put.

Then, Today, on March 7th in Iowa, there was a thunderstorm with hail! Not snow or freezing rain but the stuff we don't expect for another month, those April showers that bring May flowers.

I'm trying not to see ominous sings in all this but the archbishop is coming to town tonight...

Bishops and immigration

See, the church is not the religious right.

The Desert

I found myself reflecting on the desert and the covenant yesterday.

I remembered five years ago when we stopped somewhere in the Sainai Peninsula and spent a couple of hours in the desert. I was in my third year of seminary with my class from St. Paul Seminary needing a little time alone. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life spiritually.

Abortion and Depression

A couple of good articles on www.zenit.org on the above topic.

fasting...when all you can thing about are meatballs

Fridays during Lent are times of fasting from meat for Catholics. I hear varying reports as to the history of this practice. One person said that a certain pope, while walking "undercover" by the ports of Rome, discovered that the fisher people were the poorest and decided to implement something to help them. Others said that this is actually a theological statement about the earlierst believers being fishermen...and fishers of men. I don't know.

I find that the majority of time during the early stages of Lent, I preach about how this is not supposed to be a time to lose weight or remind yourself of how good fish is supposed to be. Lent is supposed to be a time of sharing in the cross of Christ. I think it's funny that we have exchanged the cross of Christ for Richard Simmons.

New motto: Don't just lose weight. Lose Hell.

What do you think?

Russia tried to kill John Paul the Great

And so it goes.

The Soviet Union is dead.

The Church is still alive and growing...and not killing people who try to kill her leader.

As Muslims murder, rage, and hate because of cartoons, Christians will continue to do the work of God...the work of peace.

And liberals will claim the real problem in the world is religion.

Ashes and Fire

If you are from Ryan or Manchester and this kind of sounds familiar, it's because it's a slightly reworked homily that I did when I was with you all. All that work wasn't for naught.

The most difficult thing that we Catholics have to deal with on this day is the fact that we read the gospel and then seem to do exactly the opposite of what it tells us to do. In case you didn't catch it, it said, "When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your father, who sees what is hidden, will repay you." So the point is that, as far as the world is concerned, there would be no change in the followers of Christ when they fast. We aren't supposed to draw attention to ourselves like the hypocrites, which, biblically, refers to actors on stage. Actors seek to get people's sympathy and attention through their actions. We seek only to love and worship our God.

So why do we spread ashes on our forehead as we begin this season of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, an act that is very visible, especially in our clean obsessed society? Is it just another case of the Catholic Church being hypocritical? Hardly! And I'll tell you why I think this fits entirely into the Spirit of this gospel. I'd like to suggest that the ashes that are spread on our foreheads are more personal than they are for show. We spread ashes on our foreheads to remind ourselves of just how important this season of Lent is for our own salvation.

Nonetheless, why use ashes? Why not just go to the inner room of our house and make a firm committment? In pondering that I asked myself one question: What are ashes? Aren't they the remnants of a fire, what's left over? In that context, then, there is a multiplicity of symbolic messages that are connected to this practice. First of all, it connects us to our forbearers in prayer, the saints. Many of them were subjected to fire as a part of their torture and even more went through the fire of temptation to leave the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church in order to save their lives. These martyrs suffered much pain for the cross of Christ to have the reward of eternal life, sometimes to the point of shedding blood. These witnesses to the faith were willing to give all they could in service to Christ. We, in turn, must reach out to the least among us by giving of ourselves just as Christ gave himself to us on the Cross. This season, after all, culminates in the Triduum, those sacred three days when we remember the central mystery of our faith, the death and resurrection of the messiah.

Yet, fire also connects us to the Holy Spirit, whose tongues of fire came to rest on the apostles at Pentecost, the celebration that brings an end to Easter. It was at Pentecost that God made the church the only vehicle of salvation for the world. We see, therefore, the beginning of a giant circle in this celebration. We both begin and end in fire, the refining fire of the Holy Spirit that first drew us from the darkness of sin to the light of Baptismal grace and then, each year, pulls us deeper and deeper into the mystery that is the church. Our only responsibility, our only way of participating in this divine sacrament, then, is to pray, to fast, and to give alms. Yet, in doing these three actions, we are really saying to God that we are giving over our entire life to him. We truly aren't hypocritically telling the world anything by the ashes on our forehead. We are telling our God and ourselves that we are ready to go through fire to be with him. We are telling our God of our willingness to turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.

Being sick

I have the flu and should be at home. I don't really have anything to contribute other than the fact that this sickness allowed me to complete Weigel's book on John Paul II.

I'm done.

I've been reading it slowly since last July...since I got to Ames.

It's a fascinating book and I learned a lot about the great pope but there was one or two things that disturbed me a little.

Toward the end, the papal biographer seemed to be speaking as though he were already dead. He was listing the things that were left undone. But, unless if I'm wrong, he was writing five full years before John Paul's death. And, at points, the author seemed to allow his political biases (with regard to global warming, for instance) interfere with his reporting on his subject.

But, in terms of a book that clarifies this man's fascinating life, it takes pains to ensure that the more thorough answer is offered.

fasting and feasting with the bridegroom

There is a persistent Biblical inaccuracy that I like to dispel. It says that the God of the Old Testament is a mean, vengeful, God of wrath while the God of the New Testament is kind benevolent, and nice. I like to dispel this inaccuracy for three reasons. First, the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. There is but one God. Secondly, it can lead to a kind of anti-Semitism or anti-Judaism in which the Jews had a mean God and then Jesus came to show us God’s love. But, another just as important thing is that it ignores those times when Jesus gets angry at people, like when he went into the Temple and turned over the money changers tables. It disregards the times Jesus got frustrated with Pharisees, lawyers, or even his own disciples, at one point saying to the prince of Apostles, Peter, “get behind me Satan”. It also ignores the number of times the Old Testament talks about the tender relationship that God has with his people, Israel.

One such instance of the tenderness of God in the Old Testament is from our first reading from the book of Hosea. This three-movement reading shows the compassion God has for his people using some very shocking phrases. First, it says that God will take his people back into the desert. The desert is a place of fasting – of removing the complications of life that tend to interfere with our relationship to God. Yet, the desert is also a place of feasting, feasting on the unique relationship God has with his chosen ones. It was through the desert that God led his people from slavery in Egypt to a new life in their Holy Land. In taking his people to the desert, God wants to renew the relationship he first made with them there.

The second movement in this reading says that Israel must respond. God is not like the false gods of the nations that surrounded his people. He isn’t going to interfere in their lives and take away their free will. He is neither Baal nor Zeus. Israel will respond like she did when she was young.

Which leads us to the third movement, that God will espouse her, she will become his spouse. In the second chapter of Genesis, it says that marriage involves a partnership. This engagement, then, is surprising because it acknowledges a partnership on the part of God to his people. This means that the Israelites are expected to live by the statutes and decrees God has given to them and that God will always care for them. In a sense, it is an exclusive relationship that God had between himself and our elder brothers and sisters in the faith, the Jewish people.

Thank goodness, therefore, that the gospel widens things. In a debate on fasting and feasting, Jesus identifies himself as the bridegroom, thus revealing his divine person to those who were paying attention, and he acknowledges that something new is happening. The new movement, his followers, will still have times of feasting and times of fasting but they will be different than the Pharisees and the disciples of John. Something new is happening here. You can’t just expect that these new followers, new faithful, will do the old practices. The new movement, the church involves an inclusive partnership with God for all people created in God’s image and likeness. As members of this new faithful, we must feast on those things that draw us closer to God – prayer, almsgiving, Eucharist. And we must fast what whatever draws us away from God whatever that may be, maybe Internet, television, alcohol. Above all, we must be honest to decide what it is we need to feast upon and what we need to fast from in order to be partners with God.

As we move closer to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the season of Lent, we the call of the bridegroom who takes us into the desert to fast and feast. We must respond by deciding when we need to fast from something and when we need to feast on something in order to remain faithful to the God who calls the church to be his bride.

Da Vinci Deception

An blogger that I have a good deal of respect for named Mark Shea has an interview about a book that he wrote by the above title. The article is on www.zenit.org.

Here's an excerpt that explains my concerns about this book exceedingly well and why I call Dan Brown evil.

...tens of millions of people have read "The Da Vinci Code" and many have had their faith in Christ and the Catholic Church shaken. This blasphemous book has become a major cultural phenomenon, largely by attacking the very person and mission of Jesus Christ. It must be addressed... "The Da Vinci Code" has become the source for what I call "pseudo-knowledge" about the Christian faith. Pseudo-knowledge is that stuff "everybody knows," such as the "fact" that Humphrey Bogart said "Play it again, Sam" -- except he didn't. Pseudo-knowledge doesn't matter much when the issue is the script of "Casablanca." It matters greatly when it adversely affects the most sacred beliefs of a billion people, and when it levels the charge that the Catholic Church is essentially a vast "Murder Incorporated" network founded on maintaining the lie of Jesus' divinity and resurrection.

retreat reflections

As I said Monday, I focused on John Paul II (and Benedict) when I went on retreat. I'll (hopefully) have a longer post about Benedict by Tuesday.

I used the document on priests, I will give you shepherds (Pastores Dabo Vobis) as the voice of John Paul II. I was really struck by some of the connection JPII made between celibacy/priesthood/image of Christ. Here's what I mean in paragraph 29...

"For an adequate priestly spiritual life, celibacy ought not to be considered and lived as an isolated or purely negative element, but as one aspect of the positive, specific and characteristic approach to being a priest. Leaving father and mother, the priest follows Jesus the good shepherd in an apostolic communion, in the service of the People of God. Celibacy, then, is to be welcomed and continually renewed with a free and loving decision as a priceless gift from God, as an "incentive to pastoral charity " as a singular sharing in God's fatherhood and in the fruitfulness of the Church, and as a witness to the world of the eschatological kingdom. To put into practice all the moral, pastoral and spiritual demands of priestly celibacy it is absolutely necessary that the priest pray humbly and trustingly, as the Council points out: "In the world today, many people call perfect continence impossible. The more they do so, the more humbly and perseveringly priests should join with the Church in praying for the grace of fidelity. It is never denied to those who ask. At the same time let priests make use of all the supernatural and natural helps which are now available to all." Once again it is prayer, together with the Church's sacraments and ascetical practice, which will provide hope in difficulties, forgiveness in failings, and confidence and courage in resuming the journey."

The noble picture of the noble saint from whom the humble servant is named

St. Denis (from newadvent.org)

Bishop of Paris, and martyr. Born in Italy, nothing is definitely known of the time or place, or of his early life. His feast is kept on 9 October. He is usually represented with his head in his hands because, according to the legend, after his execution the corpse rose again and carried the head for some distance. That, however, while still very young he was distinguished for his virtuous life, knowledge of sacred things, and firm faith, is proved by the fact that Pope Fabian (236-250) sent him with some other missionary bishops to Gaul on a difficult mission. The Church of Gaul had suffered terribly under the persecution of the Emperor Decius and the new messengers of Faith were to endeavour to restore it to its former flourishing condition. Denis with his inseparable companions, the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius, arrived in the neighbourhood of the present city of Paris and settled on the island in the Seine. The earliest document giving an account of his labours and of his martyrdom (Passio SS. Dionsyii, Rustici et Eleutherii), dating from the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century and wrongly attributed to the poet Venantius Fortunatus, is interwoven with much legend, from which, however, the following facts can be gleaned.
On the island in the Seine Denis built a church and provided for a regular solemnization of the Divine service. His fearless and indefatigable preaching of the Gospel led to countless conversions. This aroused the envy, anger and hatred of the heathen priests. They incited the populace against the strangers and importuned the governor Fescenninus Sisinnius to put a stop by force to the new teaching. Denis with his two companions were seized and as they persevered in their faith were beheaded (about 275) after many tortures. Later accounts give a detailed description of the confessors' sufferings. They were scourged, imprisoned, racked, thrown to wild beasts, burnt at the stake, and finally beheaded. Gregory of Tours simply states: "Beatus Dionysius Parisiorum episcopus diversis pro Christi nomine adfectus poenis praesentem vitam gladio immente finivit" (Hist. Franc. I, 30). The bodies of the three holy martyrs received an honourable burial through the efforts of a pious matron named Catulla and a small shrine was erected over their graves. This was later on replaced by a beautiful basilica (egregium templum) which Venantius celebrated in verse (Carm. I, ii).
From the reign of King Dagobert (622-638) the church and the Benedictine monastery attached to it were more and more beautifully adorned; the veneration of St. Denis became by degrees a national devotion, rulers and princes vying with one another to promote it. This development is due in no small degree to an error prevailing throughout the Middle Ages, which identified St. Denis of Paris with St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and with the Pseudo-Dionysius, the composer of the Areopagitic writings. The combining of these three persons in one was doubtless effected as early as the eighth or perhaps the seventh century, but it was only through the "Areopagitica" written in 836 by Hilduin, Abbot of Saint-Denis, at the request of Louis the Pious, that this serious error took deep root. The investigations of Launoy first threw doubt on the story and the Bollandist de Bye entirely rejected it. Hilduin was probably deceived by the same apocryphal Latin and Greek fictions. The possession of the Areopagitic writings (since 827 in Saint-Denis) strengthened his conviction of this truth. Historiographers of the present day do not dispute this point. All attempts of Darras, Vidieu, C. Schneider, and others to throw some light on the subject have proved fruitless.

Mark Twain's caution against the next few days of my blog

I am still working on putting together a few thoughts from my retreat but, in the mean time, here's a great quote from the free reading I got in Hawaii, "Mark Twain's letters from Hawaii". Twain was trying to convince people in the states to invest in Hawaii before France and the UK get their hands on it. In his letters, he often makes referance to a fictitious character named "Mr. Brown" who is the comic relief. Twain is still finding his writer's legs, if you will, so they aren't quite as humorous as other of his writings. But it made me laugh and will guide me as to what I write in the next few days.


In Central Kona there is but little idle (sugar) cane land now, but there is a good deal in North and South Kona. There are thousands of acres of cane land unoccupied on the island of Hawaii, and the prices asked for it range from one dollar to a hundred and fifty an acre. It is owned by common natives, and is lying "out of doors." They make no use of it whatever, and yet, here lately, they seem disinclined to either lease or sell it. I was frequently told this. In this connection it may not be out of place to insert an extract from a book of Hawaiian travels recently published by a visiting minister of the gospel:
"Well, now, I wouldn't, if I was you."
"Brown, I wish you wouldn't look over my shoulder when I am writing; and I wish you would indulge yourself in some little respite from my affairs and interest yourself in your own business sometimes."
"Well, I don't care. I'm disgusted with these mush-and-milk preacher travels, and I wouldn't make an extract from one of them. Father Damon has got stacks of books shoemakered up by them pious bushwhackers from America, and they're the flattest reading—they are sicker than the smart things children say in the newspapers. Every preacher that gets lazy comes to the Sandwich Islands to 'recruit his health,' and then he goes back home and writes a book. And he puts in a lot of history, and some legends, and some manners and customs, and dead loads of praise of the missionaries for civilizing and Christianizing the natives, and says in considerable chapters how grateful the savage ought to be; and when there is a chapter to be filled out, and they haven't got anything to fill it out with, they shovel in a lot of Scripture—now don't they? You just look at Rev. Cheever's book and Andersen's—and when they come to the volcano, or any sort of heavy scenery, and it is too much bother to describe it, they shovel in another lot of Scripture, and wind up with 'Lo! what God hath wrought!' Confound their lazy melts! (sic) Now, I wouldn't make extracts out of no such bosh."
"Mr. Brown, I brought you with me on this voyage merely because a newspaper correspondent should travel in some degree of state, and so command the respect of strangers; I did not expect you to assist me in my literary labors with your crude ideas. You may desist from further straining your intellect for the present, Mr. Brown, and proceed to the nearest depot and replenish the correspondent fountain of inspiration."
"Fountain dry now, of course. Confound me if I ever chance an opinion but I've got to trot down to the soda factory and fill up that cursed jug again. It seems to me that you need more inspiration—"
"Good afternoon, Brown."

pray for the church in Australia

I don't know the argument, let alone the circumstances of the argument but here's an interesting article.

I think the bishops statement is telling. It makes me suspicious that he's dealing with the corruption of Vatican II that has happened in the last few years. The author's referance to a "reforming council" made me laugh. Wasn't it an ecumenical council? There were reforms that came about from it but was that the real intent of this (non-dogmatic) council?

I could get into the bastardization of Vatican II for a million years. But, I find it interesting that these people demean their own argument by comparing moral statements about abortion, contraception etc. with the moral statments of a man that killed six million jews (and six million others).

Is the propoganda surrounding Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII) so pervasive that we automatically connect strong stands by church leadership with the Nazis? What biases might the signers bring that would make the vatican suspicious?

Sister Veronia Brady - partisan democrat speaker

Professor Max Charleston - "Overwhelmingly the view of people applying for IVF (in vitro fertilization) was we just want to have a child you know. We don't want to you know do all those terrible things that people are accusing us of, you know we want to buy a child. They'd never think in that way. And so just leave us be and lets make up our own minds about this. Now that gradually led me to become much more libertarian in the field that we're talking about." (ecclesioogy: Come be part of our community until you don't want us around.)

Historian Paul Collins - "Dr Collins acknowledged an implicit criticism of John Paul II in his desire for a more modest pope. Later in the interview, he was less subtle. “I like Benedict because he’s not John Paul. John Paul so dominated the church that we all became altar servers. This man exhausted the church; he took it over and became the church. That’s the danger for young people. They think the pope is the church.” (Historically: Be more like those popes that stayed in Rome and had no effect on the day-to-day lives of people. Then we can accuse you of being removed and out of touch with modern civilization!)

NSV judge Chris Geraghty - "Chris Geraghty is a judge of the NSW Compensation Court. He was a Catholic priest for 14 years but left the priesthood in 1976...'But, if you want to know, what I would like to see - I'd like to see actions. I'd like to see a whole change of the way priests are trained, how they're assessed, how they're selected. I'd like to see lay people involved in the appointment of bishops. I'd like to see another Vatican council. But not in Rome. I'd like to see it Dunedin or in Sydney or in Jerusalem. Maybe that's the solution to the Palestinian problem. Geraldine Doogue I don't think they need that added...
Judge Chris Geraghty And they've got to stay in for as long as they can to solve these problems. I want actions. I want to see fruits.'"
(transllation...I want it done my way!!!)

Now, I know that these thoughts don't encompass all the thoughts of these folks. I actually agreed with part of the article from Paul Collins. But my question is: Can these people honestly say they're surprised that a hierarchy that they have probably tried to undermine for forty years isn't rushing the first minute they cry wolf?

Real Hope

This past Friday, I awoke at 8:00 and walked out on our porch in shorts and T-shirt. The morning was a little cool, 65 degrees but the sun quickly warmed it up to closer to the mid seventies. I was in Hawaii on retreat, not in the midwest where you were enjoying temperatures closer to the freezing point. It really was a beautiful experience of seeing mountains, rainbows and flowing plants. Part of the time, I was on retreat in prayer, which is always so rewarding. Yet, I must admit that there's something nice coming back, even if I did go from 72 degree weather in Hilo to 18 below in the Twin Cities. There's just something good about the familiarity of home!

In this way, I think I can sympatize with the gospel for this weekend. In it, Jesus goes home. But, it's not the home that we might expect. It's not Bethlehem of Judea, where he was born. No, he was forced to leave from there as a baby by Herod. And it wasn't Nazareth, the place his mother and father brought him to be raised. A town, by the way, that, in another passage of scripture, nearly throws him off the top of a cliff. Jesus' home in the gospel if a town called Capernaum.

Now, you may wonder why Jesus called Capernaum a home. Some say that it may have been the place Jesus and Mary went after the death of Joseph. That sort of makes sense since it was another growing city at that time and it was just up river from the Jordan. Jesus could have easily heard about John the Baptist in this town much easier than in Nazareth.

Yet, I think there is a larger theological significance to the referance to home. I think the gospel writer is using code. Jesus finds himself in the ideal preaching scenario. He's literally surrounded with people listening to him, even people standing in the doorway. Yet, the reason he's attracted the attention of so many people is not because he's such a good story teller or because he's so funny. They come because he is preaching the word. This is the environment where Jesus is at home...when people listen to the word and seek to draw closer to him. It's, basically, what the first reading calls "something new." We all need something new to maintain our hope.

Yet, something new is different than something novel. Let me clarify the distinction that I'm making with an example. When I was in Dubuque last year, I was approached by a teacher who wanted the students in the catholic grade school to have a particular prayer experience. We approached the principal who thought it was a good idea. The students took turns coming over to church on Friday morning and experiencing. Yet, the prayer experience was adoration of the blessed sacrament, something that we do at the end of mass on Holy Thursday and that probably harkens memories of forty hours for the majority of you. It's an ancient prayer form in which we remind ourselves of the value of the eucharist, not something novel. The kids walked away with a deep respect for the eucharist and a respect for silence, as well. The newness was more interior than exterior.

Too many times when we seek for hope in the church, we think we have to reinvent the wheel. We put on new programs and try something novel. Maybe we use a new eucharistic prayer or walk into church in a different way. That's okay, I suppose. But, in truth, what gives us the hope is when God does something new to our spritual life and draws us closer. Maybe it's when we hear something new in church, not because it's not been there before but because we made a connection or really listened when it was taking place.

This is why the church feels like a home to us, because it is a place of hope for us, a place to experience the newness of Christ. In it, we are called to be open to God making this church our house, making us anew, and giving us hope in his powerful spirit.

long absence

Sorry for being gone for so long. I went on retreat. The good thing is that I've come home with a ton of great quotes from my two retreat masters...John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Let me wet your whistle...

"The (Last) Supper without the Cross, the Cross without the Supper, would be void, but the two without the Resurrection would be the wreck of hope..." Benedict "Journey to Easter"

More to come when I can explain what it was like to be in such a holy place as Hawaii and drink from the wisdom of two spiritual greats. Right now, I need to pause and reflect.

only sexually active once a week...good enough to be celibate?

My homily will be late once again this week. Instead, here's something I found posted on a different blog that speaks volumes as to why the church speaks out against the homosexual subculture.

QIn your last column, you said it wasn't necessary to list hobbies (especially unpopular ones) on a resumé. I'm a 26-year-old, gay male thinking seriously about entering the Catholic priesthood. I'm sexually active, but only once a week, at a Saturday night club with a small group of friends. I think of that as my hobby.
Given the Catholic Church's stance on gays in seminary, do I have to tell them about this? After all, even if I kept this up after ordination, I'd still be as celibate as most other priests.

ACelibacy is like pregnancy: either you are, or you aren't. You aren't, and more to the point aren't prepared to be.
The Catholic Church does not consider its priests "employees;" the relationship, according to doctrine which you'd have to affirm, is more like marriage between the priest and the Church. So, yes, tell them. Whether other priests are celibate is not your concern; "everybody's doing it" is a poor basis for ethical decisions. The fact that the Church's stance on gays in the priesthood is morally wrong is also irrelevant. They've taken their position, you know what it is, so 'fess up and let the pieces fall where they may.
I have another concern, though. Frankly, if you think of sexuality as a "hobby", you're not likely priest material anyway. All the world's major faiths consider sexual intimacy to be an expression of deep, long-lasting commitment and love. Many priests who violate vows of celibacy do so not simply because they are horny, but because they are deeply in love with another person, and consider that love a gift from God. Sex is not a game, and cannot be treated on a resumé or in life, as akin to playing crokinole or raising geraniums.

come and follow me and I will make you fishers of men

When I was in the Holy Land, I noticed how eclectic that the people there dressed. I can still remember walking down a narrow Jerusalem street with a Muslim cleric in robes on one side and a Orthodox Jew in black suit on the other, while I was wearing Jeans and a T-shirt, thinking that I looked rather slovenly. I began to take solace in seeing the Franciscan friars who are in charge of the holy sites around Jerusalem. One day, I noticed something particular to Franciscans friars. They wore a simple brown habit with a white rope around their waste, called a cincture. Even the instructor that accompanied us overseas who was a branch of the Franciscans called “Third Order Religious” or TOR sometimes wore a black habit with the same white rope cincture around his waste. I noticed one day that my instructor and all the friars had three knots tied in the their cincture. However, they weren’t where you’d expect them to be, being used to hold the rope on the Franciscan’s body, or making sure it wouldn’t blow in the wind, or connecting the two ends of the cincture. Instead, the knots were tied on one side with, seemingly, no purpose whatsoever. One night while sitting around the supper table, I worked up the courage to ask the instructor what they meant and received the answer that probably should have been somewhat obvious, “these stand for the vows I made when I became a friar, poverty, chastity, and obedience.

That made me start to think about those three things: poverty, chastity, and obedience. Poverty made sense to me. I mean I didn’t become a priest because I wanted to make money. And, I understood that whole idea of not wanting to have stuff sitting around that would interfere with prayer or my service to the people of God and willingness to pull up and go wherever ministry might take me.
And then there was chastity, which I also understood. I mean, who could think of becoming a priest nowadays and not think of celibacy. And, all of us are called to be chaste and faithful to the state of life God has called us to.

Then there was obedience. Ugh! I was glad the Franciscans were called to this life and not me. You can imagine how surprised I was when I discovered that part of the ordination ritual to become a deacon meant that I would place my hands in the prayer position between the Archbishop’s of Dubuque and swear obedience to him and his successors. What did I know about obedience? What did it mean? And, priests aren’t the only ones that are scared of being obedient. I’ve met a good number of couples that need to make sure that the words, “love, honor, and obey” aren’t a part of the vows to a catholic wedding. I think part of this might come down to the fact that many people remember the fifties as a time when women were forced to be subservient and “obedient” to their husbands.

It is no surprise that obedience is such a confusing term since it is that way in the readings too, though you wouldn’t necessarily see it if you just read the readings for today. That first reading, in particular, is a bit deceptive because it isn’t the first chapter in this book. In reality, it is the third chapter of a four-chapter book. We are right in the middle of the story. Before this, Jonah is called to go to this terrible, horrible town to call the people in Iowa City…I mean Nineveh…to repent. But Jonah has no intention of going to this awful city to get them to repent. Jonah is afraid that if he does go and preach repentance, they will repent and God will not destroy their city. Now, you may be asking what Jonah is thinking since that should be his goal but he’s too selfish for that. He’s afraid that the Ninevites will repent, his prediction will not come true and he will be made to look the fool. So, he goes as far away from Nineveh as he can go. But, God sends a storm to batter the boat that he’s on and the sailors throw him off the side where he is swallowed by a large fish. He spends three days and three nights in the belly of the fish and ends up being tossed up on the shore of a lake. Finally, at this point, Jonah figures out that God’s call is not easy to avoid. He goes back and God starts at the beginning with his assignment to convert Nineveh.

This is in stark contrast with the gospel. Jesus, while beginning his public ministry, goes along the Sea of Galilee and sees, from among hundreds of boats, two brothers named Simon and Andrew. Using a beautiful turn-of-phrase, he calls these fishermen to fishers-of-men to leave their livelihood and follow him. They aren’t like I, who would likely have told the Lord to wait while I gather the net. They leave it all and follow Jesus. They walk a little further and see James and John with their Father and his hired hands. When Jesus calls them, they leave their family behind and follow him, another prospect that I find quite impossible to do. You may say that Peter and Andrew obediently followed Jesus into poverty and James and John with chastity.

So, it seems to me, obedience is a central part of the Christian vocation. We learn this obedience in the context of the human family, beginning when two spouses pledge mutual obedience, husband to wife and wife to husband, since both are obedient to the Lord. They, in turn, teach this obedience to their children. Yet this doesn’t stop at the level of the nuclear family because children must learn to obey each other and aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents; all in an obedience of love to God the father.

All of this is meant to foster the kind of obedience that drove the first disciples and is at the heart of the members of the church. That’s why I find it so troubling when certain priests and even some bishops immediately denounce controversial stands that the Vatican takes. Sometimes even before reading the document, the priests air their “grievances” in public and create a culture of disobedience.

If we are to be faithful followers of Jesus, we must be obedient to his word. That means we listen to the leaders that he has set to lead the church, the bishops along with their head the Pope, and be open that, sometimes, church teaching is slow in changing because the church is very cautious. And sometimes the church is not going to go the way we’d like them to go. We must be like the first disciples and obediently follow the voice of Christ and his successors, the bishops.

There's Hope! When CNN can't even find a way to spin the movement of America to respecting human life in the womb, it's a good day!