World War III

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Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where rust and moth consume, and thieves break in and steal.  But lay up treasures in heaven, where neither rust nor moth consumes, and where thieves do not break in, nor steal.

That’s part of our Lord’s Sermon on the…  Mount.  Which helps us understand the parable we hear in our gospel reading at Sunday Mass, traditionally known as the Parable of the Rich Fool.

St. Basil

When St. Basil preached on this parable, he pointed out that earthly prosperity can serve as a trial of faith, just like difficulties and tribulations can.  We usually think of a ‘trial’ as a deprivation or an occasion of suffering, like:  “Her husband just got a cancer diagnosis.  What a trial for her!”  But easygoing prosperity poses a spiritual challenge of its own.  Godless worldliness can overtake the comfortable.   The prosperous can succumb to: total secularization.

Growing rich is no sin, in and of itself.  The man in the parable did no outright injustices to his fellow man.  Good weather and fruitful soil gave him a superabundant harvest.  But the rich man in the parable showed himself a fool by thinking neither of God nor of others.  He thought only of his personal comfort.  St. Basil put it like this:

Think, o man, think of the Giver!  From Whom have you received your wealth?  You are the servant of the good God, a steward for your fellow servants.

A servant of God and a steward for your fellow servants.

Now, I think many of us were shaken this past week by the cold-blooded murder of a priest, near Rouen, France.  Father Hamel’s murder shakes us especially because it occurred at the holy altar, as he ministered in the person of Christ, at Mass.  French president Hollande called the murder a “profanation.”  The profanation of something sacred.

We need to focus hard on what the sacred thing is, that this murder profaned.  The sacred thing is:  Religion, our relationship with God, the meaning of life, the eternal mystery of undying love, the foundation of peace among men.

In the rich fool’s life, comfort—or wealth, or something—something secular—crowded God out.  God gave the man good things in abundance, but the rich fool did not humbly thank Him.  And the fool did not understand his duty to share his wealth.

Why?  Because he thought too much of himself?  No.  The rich man’s foolishness involved selling himself short.  He thought of himself merely as a consumer of material goods, capable of nothing more beautiful or noble than catching a buzz and then filling his belly.

“You fool!” said the Lord.  Did I make you to rut around the earth like a worm?  No.  I made you to be My friend.  I made you to share in the great work of love that I bring about, by My almighty power.

The holy, sacred beauty of God, the triune God Who revealed His infinite love on the cross:  the altars of our churches stand firmly consecrated to our on-going relationship with Him, with this transcendent Love.

Pope Francis has said that a “piecemeal” World War III has long since begun.  This war costs us a lot—not just dollars, but pain and anxiety.  It assaults us with blow after blow of horrifying violence.  And a dark specter rises behind the barrage of killings:  the idea that life itself is brutal and meaningless.  The rich man in the parable went to his death a fool, because he had not prepared himself to meet God.  He had no altar.  He had no relationship with the Almighty.

Let me quote a few sentences of Pope Francis’ letter to us about the New Evangelization:

In the prevailing culture, priority is given to the outward, the immediate, the visible, the quick, the superficial and the provisional. What is real gives way to appearances. In many countries, globalization has meant a hastened deterioration of their own cultural roots and the invasion of ways of thinking and acting proper to other cultures which are economically advanced but ethically debilitated.

The process of secularization, by completely rejecting the transcendent, has produced a growing deterioration of ethics…a general sense of disorientation… a remarkable superficiality in the area of moral discernment. (paragraphs 62 and 64)

We talked about this back on Fourth of July weekend:  the beautiful idea that can stabilize and unite us human beings in an enduring peace is the very treasure of our holy altars:  The idea of true human dignity.  The great God invites us to be His friends.  We are not expendable.  We are not worms.  We are children of the Most High.

Our adversaries make war against: the sacred truth of human dignity.  They make war against human culture’s greatest accomplishment:  the doctrine of human dignity, taught by Christ.  The great mystery of our beautiful, eternal destiny.  With which we commune at the altar.  May God have mercy on them, for making war on the heart and soul of human peace.

How do we fight back?  By kneeling down and praying.  Praying with Christian faith and Christian love, at Christ’s holy altar, for deliverance from this unholy war.

Paris Posts

Rue de Bac

Be My Speed (St. Denis), St. Denis, Beheaded

Light on the Rue de Bac

When I visited Paris in 2002, most of the churches seemed like museums. But not all of them. 1. At Rue de Bac, cheerful hymns and devout prayers. 2. At Basilique Sacre Coeur, all-night adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the largest monstrance I have ever seen, continuous since August 1, 1885.

Andrea Mitchell reminded viewers that France is the United States’ oldest and dearest ally. We would never have won the Revolutionary War without French aid.

But more than that: France is the Church’s eldest daughter. Let’s put our hearts in front of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacre Coeur, or in the Miraculous-Medal chapel on Rue de Bac. That’s where mine is.

Montmartre, from the Eiffel Tower, with the Basilica of the Sacred Heart

Terrorism Against the Unborn

The king summoned the invited guests. But they refused to come.

God invites us to a kingdom of peace, fraternity, communion, and love. In God’s kingdom, the innocent have the right to live, to grow, and to thrive, according to the divine plan. Who refuses to come to such a beautiful banquet? Well, those who commit acts of unjustifiable violence against the innocent. Killing the innocent means saying a big, fat, rude, ‘No, thank you!’ to God’s invitation to the Kingdom.

The evil acts of terrorism committed in the Middle East have stunned us all. A couple weeks ago, President Obama lectured the United Nations’ General Assembly about this. He concluded, “At this crossroads, I can promise you that the United States of America will not be distracted or deterred from what must be done.”

I stayed up late to watch the re-play of the speech on CSPAN. The camera panned across the joyless faces of the representatives of the countries of the world. I could not help but think to myself: One of these ambassadors could reasonably raise his or her hand and ask our president, “Yes, Mr. President Obama, yes. We condemn terrorism just like you do. But are you Americans so innocent?”

Now, maybe this ambassador would be referring to the bombs we drop from the sky, which regularly kill innocent bystanders. And we do not, as a nation, seem to give that a second thought. But there’s more.

The Really Rich King

[Click HERE to read the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.]

In the ancient Near East, monarchs and potentates employed provincial officials to manage government revenues. A free-handed king might allow one of his collection officers to borrow from the treasury. The official could use royal funds to build up a lavish household of his own and carry on like a little potentate himself.

But the royal accountants kept track of the money.

If someone in the imperial bureaucracy began to suspect that a particular official had borrowed more than he should from the king’s coffers, then a day of reckoning would come.

Our translation of the gospel parable refers to the debtor owing “a huge amount.” The Greek reads “ten thousand talents.”

The current U.S. dollar equivalent would be: $225,000,000.

In the royal throne room, the indebted official groveled pathetically before his master. Again, to translate literally from the Greek: he did the king homage by kissing the royal hands and then prostrating himself on the floor.

Now, this king possessed stunning power and largesse. The extent of his resources made this particular IOU seem small. He knew this poor little spendthrift would never be able to pay him back.

‘Come on, get up, old boy! What’s $225 million among friends? Go home, and give your wife and kids a kiss for me.’

Here’s the question: What kind of king is this? How did he manage to amass so much wherewithal that he could wave off a quarter-billion-dollar debt with an indulgent smile? Who has the power, the confidence, and the resources to act with such otherworldly magnificence?

Architecture Day

I was always against the Twin Towers, architecturally speaking.

I thought they looked like the effluvia of an intergalactic spaceship the size of Iowa that had stopped over lower Manhattan to deposit its waste in two briquettes, pinched out squarely from its enormous wrought-iron rectum.

I didn’t like the idea of the Death Star going to the bathroom in the middle of one of our grandest cities of Earth.

That said, when I visited my brother in New York in 2002, and I laid eyes on the lower Manhattan skyline, I was mad as hell. The ugly towers–fixtures of life, my old friends–were gone. The enemy had attacked our home, knocked down our buildings, and killed our people.

I still miss the hideous buildings. Isn’t it strange that, after eight years, justice has yet to be done? The perpetrators of the attack went to judgment in the course of their murderous rage, of course. But what about the mastermind? I do not wish him damned; I do not want revenge. But he must face justice.

…I have had the opportunity to kneel and pray a few times in the abbey church of New Melleray, outside Dubuque, Iowa. It is the most peaceful place I have ever been. When I get to heaven, please God, I hope the Lord will let me spend it in this church.

It is simply the most perfect church on earth. But I knew from the first moment I spent there that there was something about the location of its windows that was in fact too perfect to be the result of human design.

It turns out that the walls of this perfect church were originally built to house a dormitory. It used to be a two-story residence for the monks. Then, when they built other buildings, and completed their cloister, they removed the floor separating the first and the second storeys of this part, and turned it into their church. Amazing.

(N.B. The tabernacle is within the wooden structure behind the altar. This aspect of the church is odd, I grant. I also wish the altar were wider. And of course if the Lord let me spend eternity there, he would also let me say Mass facing east. But the walls and windows are perfect as is.)