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.

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.

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

The Bark of St. Peter Has “Fair Winds” from Latin America

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, a Jesuit by formation, has honored St. Francis of Assisi today, and is now the first Pope to have the regnal name of this patron of Italy and champion of the poor.  Or is it the Jesuit, Francis Xavier, patron of missionaries?  In any case, it was widely speculated that we would soon have a Pope from Italy once again, but in so many sectors there was a strong hope for a “Papa” from Latin America.  With places like Brazil (120 million Catholics), the Church in Latin America represents roughly forty percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.  So, it is an historic hour, that not only do we have both a new pope alongside Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, but that Pope Francis is the first pope to have been born in the Americas.

There is a kind of poetry one might read into the moment.  Prior to now, Pope Francis was Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, a city that was first established as Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre, or “City of Our Lady Saint Mary of the Fair Winds”.  In this, the Year of Faith, reflecting on Vatican II, Catholics have perhaps been reminded of Blessed John XXIII’s optimism and hope as he opened the council, and “opened the windows to let the fresh air in.” What an opportune time that a man hailing from the “Fair Winds” has been let in, in a most spectacular fashion!

But, what can one really say about where a man is from, or where he is going?  Let us pray that Pope Francis is truly Spirit led.  In the words of Jesus, “The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear the sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).  A fair wind has blown into the sails of the Bark of St. Peter, and in that sweet company, even if Jesus seems to be sleeping from time to time, and the storms of this world rage on with ever increasing ferocity, we can trust that the Spirit is truly guiding us to our Heavenly Homeland.

At the helm of the Church, Pope Francis is a man of mission.  It is often noted that the Church is missionary by nature, and that it is as appropriate to say that the mission has a Church as the Church has a mission, as a bride can have a bridegroom and vice versa.  There is a deep reflection here, as Jesus identified with His mission so that one wouldn’t be wrong in saying that Jesus is the mission.  By word and work, Jesus communicated his very self to the world, giving himself to his Bride, the Church.  We share in that same mission of the Trinity in Jesus, and Jesus in the Church, and now the Church in the world.  Being, “in the world and not of it,” Pope Francis is known to advocate for “shoe-leather evangelization”.

This “in the trenches” attitude of mission is supported by the now Pope’s lifestyle prior to today.  It is reported that instead of living in a palace-like bishop’s residence and the pomp of chauffeured limousines, this man has taken for himself a small apartment and public transportation.  Some note that he prepares his own meals.   It is doubtful that he can continue on in this fashion as Pope, but we do have a glimpse of his heart already.

The missionary thrust has all the hallmarks of a man taking the name of Francis: obedience, simplicity, and humility.  Doctrinally conservative, the Successor of Peter has a view to social justice, and is sure to speak out on behalf of the poor and vulnerable.  As Cardinal, he has a history of applying the principles and themes of Catholic Social Teaching to controversial topics like euthanasia, abortion, and homosexual unions, with a clear Catholic voice and conservative record.

I will end off, taking the words of Father Andrew Small, OMI, National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States, saying:

“We pledge our allegiance and our fidelity to Pope Francis and encourage our entire mission family to gather around Him as around the Lord. We are renewed again in our faith in the bark of Peter, the Church. In unity with Pope Francis, we pledge our commitment to bring God’s liberating message of salvation to the ends of the earth, preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ to the poor and the lonely, the lost and frightened.”

May God bless Pope Francis!

For an apologetic on the Papacy from Dr. Scott Hahn see:  Why a Pope?

SAVE THE DATE: Advocacy Day — Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Support the Bishops of Texas this legislative session by taking part in the Texas Catholic Conference’s Annual ADVOCACY DAY 2013, scheduled for April 9, 2013. This year’s goal includes leading a trip of 300+ volunteer advocates to the State Capitol in Austin, in order to meet with fellow advocates from across the state from other Diocese in Texas to deliver a unified Catholic voice in public policy.

Trainings will be held in February and March – dates to be announced soon! So, check our website to find out more once posted at http://www.ccdallas.org. We encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to act in the public square as a faithful citizen and an ambassador of Christ.

Interested in participating in Advocacy Day 2013? To be notified of training dates once they are finalized or to find out more information, email Joshua Clemmons in the Mission and Social Awareness office at jclemmons@ccdallas.org.