Help my unbelief

To counsel the doubtful is a Spiritual Work of Mercy, exemplified in the work of Jesus, who when confronted with the lack of belief on the part of Doubting Thomas said to him: “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving but believe“ (Jn 20:27). We are told that if one has the faith the size of a mustard seed, a remarkably little thing, one can move mountains.  And yet, so many mountains remain.  Often we find ourselves to be like the man looking to the power of Jesus saying: “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mk 9:24).

To counsel someone who struggles with doubt requires the counsellor to have faith to give.  How can one witness what one does not see through the eyes of faith?

A classic account of a man of faith consoling a doubtful person comes from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, in the chapter titled “A Lady of Little Faith”. In it, Fr. Zosima counsels a wealthy landowner, Madame Khokhlakov, who is stricken with religious doubt, finding it difficult to believe in the immortality of the soul and struggling against her imperfect charity, frustrated with herself for always looking for admiration and praise as a payoff.  His advice to her, in her disgust at her imperfect love and her doubts, is profound.  He says:

I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it — at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you.

The deepening of our faith, our witnessing to it, and the highest consolation for the doubtful (not excluding our own selves), calls for active love.  

Welcome the stranger

Of the Corporal Work of Mercy, to Welcome the Stranger is one broadly defined.  It can mean many things such that it has also been called Sheltering the Homeless.  Any soul with a longing for the perfection and plenitude of the heavenly homeland is in some sense a homeless pilgrim.  Jesus assures us by telling his disciples, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you” (Jn 14:2)?  If God is so hospitable, then our response ought to be similar.

Abraham’s welcoming of the three strangers is the classic image of hospitality.

Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them; and bowing to the ground, he said: “Sir, if it please you, do not go on past your servant.  Let some water be brought, that you may bathe your feet, and then rest under the tree.  Now that you have come to your servant, let me bring you a little food, that you may refresh yourselves; and afterward you may go on your way.” “Very well,” they replied, “do as you have said” (Gen 18:2-5).

In many icons, Abraham is shown with three angels, and the scriptures tell us, “Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels” (Heb 12:2).  One might go further to note that God has identified so thoroughly with human beings that he became one and he stands exposed as a stranger waiting to be welcomed.

The initiative of welcome is first to us, we strangers to God.  “…to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matt 7:8).  Where Abraham offers water for the strangers to bathe their feet, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples (Jn 13:4-15).  Abraham refers to himself as ‘servant’ and Jesus notes that the greatest of his disciples will be a servant (Matt 23:11) and that he himself came not to be served but to serve (Matt 20:28).  Abraham gives his guests food for refreshment and offers that they recline under a tree, but Jesus gives his own body for food (Jn 6:55), and gives us the tree of the cross to rest under (Gal 3:13).

He awaits a response of love and hospitality. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).

Do we see in the immigrant, the refugee, the homeless, God with us knocking at the door?  Are we a servant as he was?  Hospitality is more than being a good host but it is a necessary response of love.

Clothe the naked

We are told that in the beginning, man and woman were naked and yet not ashamed (Genesis 2:26).  After the fall from original innocence, it became necessary for Adam and Eve to cover themselves for shame and fear, to the point that they even hid from God.  “The LORD God then called to the man and asked him: Where are you?  He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid’” (Genesis 3:9-10).

Commentators note that there is a spiritual reason to cover oneself in a world in which human nature is in a fallen state.  We are all too familiar with the dangers of exposed skin and the fact that ‘sex sells.’    There is another reason as well.  In a fallen world, the elements themselves are a danger to the body.  In the Garden of Eden, a person could be safe without clothing because the climate was conducive to human nature, but after the first sin the merciful God clothes naked humanity.  “The LORD God made for the man and his wife garments of skin, with which he clothed them” (Genesis 3:21).  God is with the first man and woman so soon after they betray his trust.

In Jesus, God is with us.  He enters the fallen world and while being crucified for sinful human beings “they divided his garments by casting lots” (Matthew 27:35).  St. John Chrysostom said:

Do you want to honor Christ’s body? Then do not scorn him in his nakedness, nor honor him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside where he is cold and naked.  For he who said: This is my body, and made it so by his words, also said: ‘You saw me hungry and did not feed me and inasmuch as you did not do it for one of these, the least of my brothers, you did not do it for me’ (Matthew 25:34).  What we do here in the church requires a pure heart, not special garments; what we do outside requires great dedication.

The sinful man was clothed by God after eating of the fruit of the tree, but when God takes as his own human nature, he allows himself to be clothed by sinful man.  We clothe Christ in the love we have for our neighbor.  The first man hid his nakedness from God, but God does not hide his from man.

How will you respond?  Will you cast lots for his garments?  Does your wealth require the poverty of the poor?  With what do you clothe the God who has become your brother?

Comforting the Sorrowful

In the Gospel of John, just prior to raising Lazarus from the dead, we are told that “Jesus wept” (Jn 11:35).  As if to highlight the importance of the phrase, it is the only sentence of the verse.  Though Jesus is God, he is also fully a human being.  The God-man, truly God and truly man, is a perfect expression of God’s ultimate and complete compassion for fallen humankind.  We are bound to the grave, and God not only follows us there in the passion and death of Jesus, but he even mourns with us.  After all, the word compassion means to “suffer with”.

Jesus’ preaching does not shrink from addressing the subject of mourning.  “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Mt 5:4).  Though much of the mournful facts of human suffering trace their causes to human sinfulness, it is often a mystery why God allows suffering nonetheless.  We can be assured that in facing the mystery of suffering, God is so very near, suffering alongside us.  We are not alone.

United with Christ’s own passion, human suffering takes on a cosmic significance (Col 1:24).  What can be more comforting?  So we can say with Paul:  “Praised be God, the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation!  He comforts us in all our affliction and thus enables us to comfort those who are in trouble, with the same consolation we have received from him” (2 Cor 1:3-4).

Among the spiritual works of mercy, comforting the sorrowful has a special connection to the Cross of Christ.  God, who comforts us in his compassion, undergoes the passion and redeems our suffering.  There is an interplay of “passion” and “compassion” between God and man by virtue of the Cross.  The compassion of God towards our neighbor in some mysterious way allows us to express our own compassion for God who takes our suffering as his own.  In comforting our neighbor, we console Christ himself.

Unless someone instructs me…

As one of the Spiritual Works of Mercy, educating the ignorant is a hallmark of human relating.  Animals might teach their young, but not in the same way that human beings can.  Not only are we capable of instructing another human being in practical matters, but we are able to touch on moral and religious truths.  The moral values by which we make our individual decisions are what move entire nations.  How are we to act rightly toward the immigrant, for example, if we have not educated our hearts and minds as to the nature of the problems that face those who await full recognition as fellow citizens?

The Church sees the plight of our immigrant population every day and the need to reform a broken immigration system.  Catholic Charities of Dallas has processed more DACA applications than any other institution in the nation.  In 2013, we had over 15,000 client consultations.  The same year, we opened 300 new cases and saw 366 immigration applications submitted.  Nonetheless, so many are unaware of the great obstacles that our clients face.

Bishop Kevin Farrell, in his recent blog, noted how campaign commercials for the primary election had demeaning references to immigrants seeking a better life.  “Promises to ‘defend our borders’, ‘oppose amnesty’ make it sound like our nation must be defended from an invasion by a mob of hardened criminals determined to undermine our way of life, instead of men and women desperate to find a way to support a family and provide a better future.”   He goes on to say that, “These commercials do not address the important issues facing our state and country.  …they show no compassion or respect for human dignity.”  The title of the blog: Have we no heart?

The Catholic Church in America is a Pilgrim People in a land of immigrants.  We have to perceive in the immigrant and the refugee our brother and our sister if we care to think of ourselves as having hearts that see.  How many ignorant hearts need educating?

I conclude with words from Pope Francis:

“A change of attitude towards migrants and refugees is needed on the part of everyone, moving away from attitudes of defensiveness and fear, indifference and marginalization – all typical of a throwaway culture – towards attitudes based on a culture of encounter, the only culture capable of building a better, more just and fraternal world.”

ACTION ALERT: Send a message to your Representative right now, to give drink to the thirsty

Send a message to your Representative right now, to give drink to the thirsty!

This week, as part of our Lenten Challenge, Catholic Charities of Dallas looks to Give Drink to the Thirsty, and we are teaming up with our Catholic partners to make sure that it happens.

There are many ways to do provide drink for those that thirst, from addressing the deep desires of the soul for goodness, truth, and beauty, as well as literally giving drink to someone who thirsts.  As a Corporal Work of Mercy, the latter is stressed, but here in the U.S. we have difficulty imagining a world without sufficient and sanitary water to drink.  Nonetheless, millions of our brothers and sisters go without safe drinking water and proper sanitation every day across the world, and you can change this in a real and tangible way by calling on your Representative to support the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2013, H.R. 2901.

This bill will help to ensure that U.S. Government investments in safe drinking water, hygiene, and sanitation have the greatest benefits by improving sustainability, transparency, targeting, and focus, so that the most vulnerable will be reached for the long-term.  It accomplishes all of this without requesting additional funding.

Your voice makes a difference. Please take action by sending your Representative an email. You can also call your Representative’s office by calling 1-866-596-7030.  Get talking points here.

CCD Lenten Challenge: Give drink to the thirsty

Give drink to the thirsty

As one of the Corporal Works of Mercy, giving drink to the thirsty is referenced first and foremost to the body.  Understanding the body to be a sign of the spiritual reality of the human person, physical thirst can be a rich symbol for the deeper spiritual thirst of the soul for God.  Jesus knows both kinds of thirst, and says to us all: “Give me a drink” (John 4:7).

To the woman at the well, he says: “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. …Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:10, 13-14). Of what does he speak?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that:

The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being.

It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us.

Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him (CCC, 2560).

With this in mind, Jesus’ words, “I thirst” (John 19:28), hits at two levels, having to do with both his physical and his spiritual thirst.  Mother Teresa of Calcutta had an especially deep meditation on these words of Christ.  Her life of caring for the poor and most vulnerable was an effort at responding to the thirst of Christ on the cross.

CCD Lenten Challenge: Feed the Hungry

There are different kinds of hunger.  “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied” (Matt 5:6).  When his disciples urged him to eat, Jesus said that he had a food of which they did not know, namely to do the will of the one who had sent him (Jn 4:31-34).  During his temptations in the desert, he rebuffs the devil’s urgings with the remark: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4).

However, just because there is a spiritual food that satisfies the soul, doing the will of the Father in heaven, this does not make human beings into disembodied angels.  The human person is both body and soul, and so man does not live by bread alone, but he does not live without it either (Gen 3:19).  When he was in a deserted place, Jesus was tempted to make stones into bread to feed himself, but when those who had pursued him in order to hear the word of God, he miraculously feeds them on just a few loaves.  The scene is especially beautiful:

When Jesus heard of it, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns.  When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.  When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.”

[Jesus] said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.”

But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me,” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.  They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over—twelve wicker baskets full.  Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children (Matt 14:13-21).

What Jesus tells his disciples—the same applies to us today.  They are to feed the crowd themselves, and yet it is impossible for them to do so since they have so little.  It must have felt like such a loss to give up what little food they had for themselves, but trusting in Jesus, they hand it over to him and by means of his care they are able to complete the extraordinary mandate that he had issued.  In the feeding of the multitude, we see in action the teaching of Jesus:  “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides” (Matt 6:33).  So, “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it’” (Jam 2:15-16)?  “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matt 25:40).

Dying for love…

Today is Valentine’s Day, or rather, Saint Valentine’s.  The morphing of this holiday from the celebration of a martyr to merely a day of love seems natural enough in a secular society, but it is high time that we remember who St. Valentine was, or at the very least, what it means to celebrate such a man.

Personally, it is a day that I wanted to look into a bit more because this is a Valentine’s Day during my engagement year.  This little foray into the love holiday is dedicated to my future spouse whose name means: Princess.

In rummaging through the information online about this saint, I came across the legend from the High Middle Ages which places Valentine’s martyrdom during the reign of Emperor Claudius, whose order he defied by secretly marrying couples and saving the husbands from going to war.  Prior to his execution, he healed the jailer’s daughter of her blindness and left a note signed: “Your Valentine.”  Those who mourn Valentine’s Day as Single’s Awareness Day should take heart in realizing that Valentine was a celibate priest who defied the unjust laws of the land for the sake of marriage, other people’s marriages.  St. Thomas More is similar in this regard. 

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is calling attention to marriage this week, and on this special day, we have a martyr for marriage.  The reflective question arises: “Am I willing to go to the death for my own marriage, much less that of another?”  There are “daily deaths” for love’s sake in every vocation, whether the person is married or celibate.  We are called, each in a special way, to take up our cross daily and follow Christ who dies on behalf of his Bride, the Church.  I conclude with the beautiful verses of Ephesians 5:25-33:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church– for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery–but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

May God bless marriage and every true “lover” as each in his own way shows forth the image of that marriage between Christ and his Church.

–   Joshua Clemmons

Mission and Social Awareness

And Life said: I’m not dead!

This year we mark the 41^st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in the United States.  The death toll: roughly 55 million.  According to the numbers that Operation Rescue presents, there are 1.21 million abortions in America every year.  Compare this number with those of other leading causes of death, like the 597,689 lost to heart disease in 2011 and the 574,743 persons lost to cancer; it is quite clear that abortion is the number one cause of death in the United States.

That’s heavy stuff.

What is the worse tragedy: is it the unnecessary loss of innocent life, or the fact that our society and our legal system has allowed for it, condoned it, and even applauded it?  This is a rhetorical question.  Not everyone in the United States stands idle in facing a culture of death.  Hundreds of thousands descend on Washington D.C. every year for the annual March for Life, and here in Dallas, ground zero of Roe v. Wade, pro-lifers marched to the courthouse to witness for life this last Saturday.

This is an annual march as well, the biggest ever, following big pro-life wins in the Texas legislature.  On Saturday, more than 10,000 people pulled together to witness to the value and dignity of every human life, but on Sunday the Dallas Morning News published the newsworthy item in none other than the obituaries!

G.K. Chesterton, one of my favorite authors once said that “He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.” In looking at the tragedy of legalized abortion, there is something almost comical in the reaction of the media.  As the voice for the culture of life is emboldened, a culture of death will insist that the movement is dead. “See? Look, you are in the obituaries!”

No, the pro-life movement is alive and well.  It is at moments like these, in the face of such blatant bias, I cannot help but chuckle.  My father has always remarked that “denial” is more than just a river in Egypt.  Surely, this display from the local media is a sign of psychosis.  Ironically, one might recall baby Moses slipping past enemy lines, escaping infanticide, floating down the Nile.  Perhaps many more babies will escape certain death by means of a kind of cultural “denial.”

I do not mean to make light of the debate.  When we speak of Roe v. Wade, “floating” is not an option.  In my heart, there is a heaviness because of the tragedy of abortion and the cult of choice that has proselytized so many in our society, but a hopeful and rather sane comedy can be found in my head as I observe the ironic efforts of the other side of the debate.  I look to Jesus, whose words comfort me: “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.  Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12).

There are none more poor and vulnerable than the child in the womb, and this is the person with whom God first showed His divine compassion, to the point of actually becoming a child, and a fugitive child at that! Surely, every person in the pro-life movement, whether a believer or not, explicitly or implicitly, fights for the unborn for His sake, as He tells us: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

To my fellow pro-lifers, we march on because only if we were dead would we float on, and dead we are not.

–Joshua Clemmons
Mission and Social Awareness
Catholic Charities of Dallas