The week is here. The week that we call Holy. The week in which we are asked to walk in the footsteps of Jesus day-by-day from the time of his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the Passion and suffering of Thursday and Friday, and finally, Resurrection. The dead body of Jesus is resurrected by God’s power to stand among us on Sunday and to stand before us for all eternity. Let us enter into the events of this week thoughtfully, carefully and with profound faith.
Holy Week begins and ends with triumph. First the early triumph of being led into the holy city of Jerusalem with thousands cheering remembering the many miracles that they had seen, holding firmly to the wonder and beauty of His teachings, celebrating His arrival without knowing the importance of the days to follow.
Knowing that His enemies are more determined than ever to silence him, Jesus retreats to Bethany for several days of quiet meditation and prayer. On Thursday evening He will return to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover with his disciples, to suffer spiritual agony in the garden and then to be arrested by Roman soldiers. Thursday night Jesus will be tried in two different courts; first, the religious court of the Jews where He is accused of blasphemy and the second, the Roman court where he is accused of insurrection before Pilate the governor. Then follows the journey to Calvary and execution so aptly described in John’s prologue with the statement, “He came into His own and His own received him not.”
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It is April of 2011 and several weeks ago Newsweek had on its cover the exclamation, “Apocalypse Now!!” It didn’t take much imagination to know what would be handled inside the magazine; nuclear disaster in Japan, the U.S. involvement with a third war with a Muslim country, bitter labor disputes and demonstrations in the Midwest, the threat of economic disaster in Europe, continued war and violence in the Near East, fear of continuing earthquakes in the Pacific, etc., etc. There is no doubt about it. Things are grim for much of the planet and what is required to move forward with confidence in the virtue of hope.
About two weeks ago, I talked about the theological virtues – the three virtues that tie us directly to Almighty God, the virtues that make it possible for us to begin to share God’s life even on this planet. I talked about faith, the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe that all he has said and revealed to us. The next one is the virtue of hope, the theological virtue by which we desire the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises. We need this theological virtue in order to hold firmly to our faith and optimism about the ultimate outcome of life on this planet and life hereafter. We do need to try to develop this virtue at the supernatural level but, at the same time, we are aware that there is the natural virtue of hope too – hope which gives us the courage to face extraordinary difficulties – the optimism to make us realize that if we utilize the natural gifts that God has given us we can move forward easing our pain, alleviating our suffering, solving the problems, etc., etc.
Newsweek magazine didn’t say very much about hope in discussing “Apocalypse Now” but the Gospels provide enough documentation to encourage us to move forward with confidence and joy and hope at the supernatural level and at the natural as well. We must be people of hope.
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After touching briefly on the theological virtues of faith and hope, we now need to turn for a moment to the most important of the three. Theological virtues, let me remind you, are virtues that exist within our inner being and draw us directly to Almighty God. God is the object of the actions flowing from these three virtues. Faith enables us to believe in God with all our hearts and minds. Hope gives us confidence that we will achieve the infinite blessings that have been promised to us. Now comes charity – love.
Charity is that theological virtue by which we love God above everything and we love him for his own sake. We love our neighbors because of our love for God. It is an awesome challenge distracted as we are day-by-day with so many temptations and pulls in this direction and that direction. However, Lent is a good time for us to pull back a little and look into our souls and endeavor to measure the depth of our love for this Infinite Being who has brought us into existence, sustains us in existence and invites us to share his life forever and ever.
This would be a good time to open your bible to I Corinthians 13 and read that text slowly. It is probably the most magnificent description of love ever written, certainly from the point of view of a Christian, and the last sentence of that section is all important. “So faith, hope and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
If we can develop all of the three theological virtues and be drawn ever closer to the Infinite God that we worship, there will be a trickle down effect to the natural virtues. Loving God intensely will make it easier for us to love the imperfect human beings with whom we share life. Hoping in God’s promises for eternal life will give us optimism to handle the pain and struggles on a day-by-day basis. Having absolute faith in God’s promises will give us the courage to go forward.
Love…for God will give us the capacity to love other aspects of life on this planet evermore profoundly, evermore honestly, evermore joyfully.
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We have all heard countless times in our lives the old cliché that the “rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.” My friends, it is not just a cliché.
The Economic Policy Institute, which is a non-partisan think tank working to broaden the public debate and strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy, has just reported to us that the most recent extended period of economic expansion, 2000 to 2007, 100% of the average income growth in those years were received by the richest 10% of American citizens – 100%! In 2009, the richest 5% of us claimed 63.5% of the nation’s wealth. To an overwhelming majority, the bottom 80% collectively held just 12.8%.
This sad situation existed at the end of the 19th century and happily was corrected by the policies of the New Deal, the Second World War and Post-war expansion which enabled an enormous middle-class to develop in our country. That ideal is slipping away from us!
General Electric is one of the nation’s largest corporations. It’s Chief Executive, Jeffrey Immelt, was the leader in the extraordinary success that GE has achieved in avoiding the payment of taxes, although its profits were enormous. The New York Times reported that GE’s profits were $14 billion and $5 billion of that was generated in the United States. Yet, General Electric did not have to pay any U.S. taxes last year? That is sad enough but I was shocked to see that Mr. Immelt has been appointed by President Obama as the chair of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
Desperate as we are for jobs, if a good hunk of that $14 billion had been paid in taxes, it would have created many more jobs in this country.
Are we as a nation adrift?
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Many of us may never have heard of Leslie-Anne Knight but she is a wonderful lady who has accomplished great things for the poor and suffering across the world. She is of English descent but was born in Zimbabwe. For several years, Leslie-Anne Knight has been president of Caritas International, the association for the national Caritas’ organizations around the world. This is the strongest response of the Catholic Church in the face of natural disasters, wars, general poverty, etc., etc.
Ms. Knight was re-elected by her constituents to a new term as president of Caritas International but the Vatican intervened and forbid that she take office. Understandably, this has produced considerable consternation and even rage in some segments of Caritas. Rome did not give an explanation for blocking this effective leader but some reliable sources state that it is because Caritas has not been forceful enough in tying its charitable work in with evangelization activities. Caritas, of course, must work with secular government agencies, other world religions and a whole raft of wonderful organizations that also work on behalf of lessening human suffering but those organizations don’t want to be tied in to direct advancement of the Roman Catholic faith.
It may very well be that the Vatican has a valid position on joining charity with evangelization but this particular move does not help the Church’s already battered image in the area of public relations.
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We are moving steadily through the holy season of Lent, and the Gospel texts place great challenges before us. Last week, we were urged to strip away our spiritual blindness and see the power of God in our lives. Today, we are asked to see in the person of Jesus the source of our redemption and eternal life. Lazarus really stands in the place of all of us. Because of our imperfections, because of our occasional sinfulness, each of us finds himself within a cave, the cave of our own limitations. As we enter deeper into the spirit of Lent, let’s endeavor to hear the voice of Jesus calling to us individually.
“Lazarus- John, Margaret, Bill, Julie- come forth.”
Jesus calls us out of our cave and into the bright light of redemption. It is a beautiful story but it is more than a story. It is a challenge of how our lives are to be lived.
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When I was a little kid, it seemed to me that the Stations of the Cross lasted two hours. Today, however, I find it a beautiful, meaningful devotion but I have to admit that sometimes I am distracted by the third or fourth station. Do you want to see a different set of circumstances?
I have a close friend in prison work up in the Northeast and he sent me a copy of a prayer that one of the prisoners with whom he works had composed. It says a great deal about the prisoner and about life in a cell.
Third letter to Some Forgotten god
Dear Forgotten god,
It is I, George, Prisoner George from near and far away.
It is night as I stand alone in my cell. A very hard room at the very end of
many…
Standing, I have paper before me and an old pen. Why I stand is nothing new. You see, I’ve written so long sitting; at times I’m upright before a steel shelf so high. It is one of my Stations of the Cross…
I’ll explain,
For anyone believes after an eternity immured, he will not kneel in prayer,
is trust of a fool.
I’ve been through so many lockdowns, welted in my cell, that I created
Fourteen Stations of the Cross; places I kneel and pray at…
they are;
the steel door, chair, steel table, steel shelf, steel locker, another steel locker,
barred window, steel bunk, sink, toilet, north wall, south wall
east and west wall.
So, there you have. During lockdown, praying before these hard things;
Yes, a softing-of-time. Maybe just maybe, friend, forgotten one, You shall try
where you are lonely.
For loneliness is an evil jail…
George Martorano
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From time to time in this little bit of space, I mention the importance of empathy. We need it as individuals and it seems to me that we need it in a desperate way right now for ourselves as a nation. There is tremendous pain and suffering going on in this country. That pain and suffering is affecting millions of people and yet as a nation, we are coming very close to completely ignoring it.
One-sixth of America’s workers are either unemployed or stuck with a part-time job. What is the national response? No jobs bills have been introduced in Congress, no job creation plans have been advanced by the White House and all we hear being discussed is SPENDING CUTS. Try and get your imagination around that every tenth person who wants to work is unable to find work…is unemployed! Put some meat on those bones and see that fear and panic facing millions of Americans as they gradually go through their financial reserves and the public support of unemployment is slowly coming to a close. The highways are crowded, the restaurants are jammed, the theaters have sell-out productions and on the surface America looks just as prosperous as it was in 2005. It is not.
Thanks be to God, we have put an end to the rapid decline in jobs but those who have lost their jobs now have little hope of being restored to them. This calls for a massive national response the same way that it did in the Great Depression. Percentage-wise, our present employment crisis is not nearly as difficult as it was in 1931 and 1932, but if you have lost your job, it is just as severe, just as painful. Regretfully, unlike 1933 and 1934, hope on the horizon is not all that obvious.
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The United States of America has been a functioning democracy since late in the 18th century. Being a democracy, its people (utilizing our complex governmental structures) ultimately make the decision on how our limited resources will be utilized. Currently, the various forces in Congress are struggling over the national budget. Those who have the most votes will win on various individual issues and the total budget itself.
In my opinion, the House, which is naturally vitally concerned about the size of budget deficits, has just made a very sad decision, a mistaken decision! The United States is involved in two wars simultaneously and the threats of conflagration in other parts of the world are all too obvious. The House Finance Committee has voted to suppress the small budget of the U.S. Institute for Peace. The Institute’s budget was roughly equivalent to what we spend each morning to wage war in Afghanistan.
Something is certainly wrong with our priorities. We don’t bat an eye spending billions and even trillions of dollars to wage war but this small structure, which is aimed at making peace in various conflicted situations around the world, was cut to zero. For me, the Institute for Peace was more symbolic. It represented the fact that the United States, although it has been at war for most of the last 30 years, is really interested in peace and is willing to hire peacemakers and place them in conflicted situations around the world. That has been our position since the mid-1980’s when the Institute was set up at the height of the Cold War. It is now closing down! What a pity. How sad.
Onward through the fog.
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Several weeks ago, the Governor of Illinois, Pat Quinn, commuted the death sentences of 15 prisoners who faced execution in that state. In so doing, Illinois joined 15 other states and the District of Columbia which have abandoned the use of the death penalty. The argument over the use of the death penalty has now been going on for thirty or more years and it is a very divisive issue in some states.
From the perspective of Roman Catholic moral theology, the case is almost closed. The Church has long taught that civil authority has the right to use whatever methods necessary to protect itself from evil people and through the centuries, this has included the death penalty. However, in modern times with the ability to keep people incarcerated indefinitely, the Church has first gently backed away from the use of the death penalty and now condemns its use in modern societies.
When I was the director of the state Catholic Conference, I would frequently get calls from the Papal Nuncio in Washington telling me that he had already attempted to reach the Governor of Texas to not use the death penalty in a pending case and to commute the punishment to life in prison. Regretfully, I always had to tell the Nuncio that Texas was solidly committed to the use of the death penalty and we use it more than most of the other states combined.
It pains me to think that the State of Illinois is far ahead of Texas.
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