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Two monks lived together in the desert for most of 40 years. Every day, they would work together and pray together. For four decades they had grown in faith and holiness, tending to each other’s needs and living in peace and harmony.

One day one of the monks said to the other that in all their years together, they had never really experienced the ultimate test of friendship.

“What do you mean?” asked the second monk.

“We have never had a fight,” the first monk said, “so we have never had to forgive each other.”

“You know, you’re right,” said the second monk. “But what can we do about it?”

“I think we need to have a fight,” the first monk said.

“Well, how can we do that?” asked the second monk.

“Look. Here’s a rock,” said the first monk. “I’ll say the rock is mine. You say the rock is yours. We can fight over the rock, and then we can forgive each other.”

“Okay,” said the second monk. “I suppose that will work. Go ahead – you start it off.”

The first monk stretched himself up to his full height, put his hands on his hips, and loudly declared: “This is MY rock.”

The second monk looked him right in the eyes and said, “well, if it’s your rock, go ahead and take it.”

For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; he who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. – Romans 14:7-19

Upon encountering this reading today in Morning Prayer, I could not help but reflect upon Paul’s statement and its implication for social justice and how it makes so clear that actively working for social justice is not only proper to the service of God, but is in fact necessary if we are to consider ourselves to be a friend of God.

That Paul discusses a kingdom at all makes clear that he has in mind a society. A society is made up of people, and a kingdom is a society ruled by a king – in this case, God Himself, the one King fit to bear the title. Therefore, since Paul is speaking of God’s Kingdom and is speaking of it not in terms of the Kingdom of Heaven – the Kingdom that is to come – but of God’s Kingdom before us here on earth – the Kingdom in which we live today – it is clear that Paul is writing of a society. He does not have in mind our heavenly reward but is in fact speaking of attitudes and actions that we are to adopt today.

God’s kingdom is “righteousness and peace and joy,” Paul tells us. Certainly, righteousness, peace and joy are all central to the mission of social justice. In fact, without righteousness there can be no justice. Without peace there can be no justice. In a state of justice, all can attain the joy that advances both peace and righteousness. Thus when we say that the Kingdom of God here on earth is righteousness and peace and joy, we are talking in terms of social justice and should do so with the understanding that if we are not actively working for social justice then we are working against the Kingdom of God.

To feed the hungry is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to the starving. To give water to the thirsty is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to the parched. To clothe the naked is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to the freezing. To shelter the harborless is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to the homeless. To visit the sick is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to the dying. To ransom the captive is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to the slave. To bury the dead is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to those who mourn.

To instruct the ignorant is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to those who are in darkness. To counsel the doubtful is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to those who are in despair. To admonish sinners is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to those who are redeemed. To comfort the afflicted is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to those who are suffering. To bear wrongs patiently is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to ourselves and advances the cause of peace and righteousness. To forgive wrongs willingly is a work of peace and righteousness; it brings joy to ourselves and advances the cause of peace and righteousness.

To pray for the living and the dead is a work of peace and righteousness; it reminds us of our dependence on each other, but most of all on God, from whom all blessings flow. It puts us in the presence of God, without Whom there can be no real or lasting joy.

Paul instructs that these things we should do in the Holy Spirit – we should do them because we are called to do them. There is no greater reason than this. Further, in doing these things and in all tasks that are at the service of social justice, we are acting in a way that serves Christ and is acceptable to God.

Let us then pursue what leads to peace and mutual upbuilding. Let us work for social justice.

For me, the stages of hunger are:

1. I could eat.
2. I need to eat.
3. Taco Bell sounds GOOD.
4. Stay away. I’m grumpy.

Of course, at any given time I’ve got a pretty good idea of where my next meal is coming from and I know how I am going to pay for it. Not all of God’s children are that fortunate.

In America in the best of time, there are almost 40 million people in this country who are undernourished.  That number only rises when times get harder and unemployment grows. More people in the unemployment lines – people who want to work but simply cannot find employment – means more people come to rely on government assistance programs, charity and other such means to put food on the table.

Add to this group of Americans who are unemployed or underemployed those individuals who through no fault of their own simply cannot work and the total number of potential American victims of this hunger epidemic is staggering. The entire population of the state of Missouri is only one-eighth the size of the population of America living in a state of hunger.

Food stamps are not enough. It is a widely-known fact that many of the poorest Americans make food purchasing decisions that are not the healthiest when using food stamps. However, the reason for this is not as widely know. It is not a matter of ignorance so much as it is a matter of desperation. If you have only two dollars to spend on food, the simple fact is that you can buy more calories worth of cookies for two bucks than you can get calories in carrots for the same amount.

The Society of St. Andrew provides more than 60 million servings of fresh fruits and vegetables to America’s hungry every year. This fine organization distributes food to more than 2,000 agencies nationwide that get the food to those in need at no cost to the recipient. Every fresh potato, every ear of corn, every single apple delivered to a hungry American represents not one but many people answering Christ’s call to feed the hungry.

Feeding the hungry is one of the corporal works of mercy. We are all called to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy by both natural and Divine law. Nowhere is this call made more explicit than in Christ’s teaching in Matthew 25:31-46:

“When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.

“Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’

“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

“Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’

“Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Find out more about the Society of St. Andrew and how you can answer the Lord’s call to feed the hungry by participating in the work of this fine organization by visiting www.endhunger.org.

I get a daily email from a very conservative Protestant group that features news releases, blog links, and – perhaps most interestingly – a daily poll. I’m not quite sure how I ended up on this email list, since I am neither Protestant nor extremely conservative, but there it is every day.

This group seems to be very oriented toward politics, and no doubt there will be more and more political polls as we move closer to November. Today’s was very interesting to me: “What party ‘affiliation’ will you find most attractive in a congressional candidate this fall?”

The results of 483 responses were as follows:

Democratic Party, 1.24%
Republican Party, 37.68%
Constitution Party, 9.11%
Tea Party, 48.65%
Other, 3.31%

As I said, their target audience is conservatives and, especially, the conservative voter. It’s interesting not because 95.44% of the respondents answered with one or another “conservative” response (even being liberal and giving all 3.31% of “other” to non-conservative options, and I think that is exactly opposite of what it should have been); this is to be expected. It interests me because they were so split among the options.

I, frankly, was not even aware there was a “Tea Party” voting option; I thought it was more of a movement than an actual political party – but what do I know? Honestly, I think this might be the first time I’ve ever even heard of the “Constitution Party.” Sure, things will change (and probably dramatically) before the election, but if the conservative vote is split one thing is certain: the Democrats will maintain their congressional majority after the coming election and Republicans will be left wondering what happened.

My prediction is this: we are about to witness the ugliest, nastiest, most hate-filled, mud-slinging campaign America has ever seen. And that’s saying something.

This is a story about crime, punishment, and vengeance. It is autobiographical. Maybe these are not the topics that might be expected from someone who claims to write about “theology, Christian living, and liturgical art,” but bear with me for a moment.

At the time and place where I went to junior high school, corporal punishment was still in use. It consisted of a teacher – usually the principal or a coach – hitting you with a wooden board about three feet long. You would receive one to three “licks,” depending on the severity of your crime. I received this punishment twice; once it was very much deserved and the second time it was not.

The first time, I received one “lick” for leaving the school without permission. I didn’t actually leave the school grounds; just the building itself. See, a fight broke out at lunch one day and the combatants managed to push each other out the front door of the school and into the parking lot. About 50 other students, myself among them, followed the fracas watching in the amazement that always accompanied a fight on school grounds.

The fight was broken up and the brawlers were taken off to the principal’s office; those of us who had left the cafeteria and gone into the parking lot were each given one “lick” for our infraction of the rules. I deserved that one, and in hindsight do not think it in the least unjust. I should not have left the cafeteria; I certainly should not have followed the mob; I should not have taken pleasure in watching two people brawl.

The second time I received corporal punishment in junior high school was very different; it was entirely unjust – I knew that at the time and I know it now. You see, the second time I received three “licks” because I didn’t like football.

I know that sounds far-fetched and just about impossible to believe, but that is the case. That’s not the reason the teacher gave for inflicting this punishment, of course, but the fact remains. That’s why I got it. Let me back up and introduce the cast of villains.

In addition to myself, there was a good friend of mine who received the same punishment and under the same pretext. And for the same reason. I suppose I should change the names to protect the guilty, and so we’ll call him Comrade. But for no other reason than because we were friends. There’s no deeper meaning there; there might be a deeper meaning behind what I’ve selected for the teacher’s name. There was also the teacher, though I use the term loosely. We’ll call him Coach Jackass. Because, well, that’s what people called him. Or just Jackass; that was fine, too. He was the assistant football coach and he earned his nickname by knocking one kid on his butt while demonstrating to the football team how to block. This caused one of the players (not the one recently knocked on his butt) to remark: “Wow, Coach. When you played you must have been a Jackass!” [One of the benefits of changing the names to protect the guilty is the one telling the story gets to pick the new names.]

The circumstance was this: Jackass, in addition to coaching, also had to make a pretext of teaching in order to keep his job. So they gave him Social Studies, which is where I ran into him. I did not keep secret my distaste for football, nor would I agree to play it even when repeatedly asked if I would like to “go out” for it. I was pretty good size in junior high school, which made me the kind of kid they wanted on the team. I wanted no part of it. I was perfectly happy being one of those weird, nerdy kids that the other kids don’t like very much because he prides himself on marching to the beat of a different drum machine.

I don’t know whether Comrade was ever asked to play football or not. If so, he must have given the same answer I did because he didn’t play. He didn’t seem to think much of it, either. We were quite close, then, and I’m afraid he might have been punished on this particular occasion for the high crime (and misdemeanor) of being my friend.

This social studies class, which put Jackass, Comrade and myself in the same room, took place right before lunch. Jackass would always run out of wind and desire a good five to ten minutes before class ended, so all of the students would end up watching the clock in silence for the last minutes of class, waiting for the bell to ring so we could be first to the cafeteria. The bell would ring and off we would dart.

One day, Jackass asked me again in the hallways why I wouldn’t go out for football. Having already made my lack of desire clear on more than one occasion, I gave a particularly smart-mouthed answer. I don’t remember exactly what it was; I do remember it included the phrase “bread and circuses.” The next day, class played out like always, the bell rang, everyone jumped up to run to lunch. On this day, however, Jackass called Comrade and me back.

He accused us of standing up before the bell rang. For this transgression, we were to receive three “licks.” The whole class was poised like sprinters to be off the instant the bell rang; this was the drill every day. It had been for months. How he could have possibly spotted Comrade and me jumping the gun (although I dispute that it even happened) in the midst of that chaos – chaos created by his own action, or more exactly, lack thereof – is impossible to even imagine. Nevertheless, that was the official accusation. However, had it even happened, how such a transgression could possibly have merited corporal punishment – much less the dreaded “three licks,” and without even a warning – is a question that cannot be answered.

Comrade and I received our punishment. I think we took it bravely. Though certainly I can’t speak for both of us, for myself I think that as bad as the pain of the act was, the humiliation of having it known among the student body that I had gotten the dreaded “three licks” was equal, if not worse.

It bothered me for a long time after that, as anyone who is punished unjustly or who is bullied is bothered by that fact. After a time, the memory faded, of course, and I didn’t think of it often. But from time to time I would remember it and think once again how unjust the whole act was.

I took a number of writing classes in college; in one particular short fiction class, I wrote a story, largely autobiographical in its beginning, about a boy who was punished unjustly by a teacher; who suffered pain and humiliation, and then ten years later, as a man, ran into the teacher who had wronged him. The assignment for the story was to write about bullying.

In the story, the boy – now a man – met up with the teacher by chance one day. Now fully grown and of good size, he invited the teacher to take another swing at him. He backed his former teacher into a corner. He basically humiliated the teacher, showing to all present the cowardice of the teacher. In the end, though, he turned out to have learned his lesson well in that he became a bully just as bad as the teacher.

I got an ‘A’ on the paper and life imitates art.

By chance, I ran into Jackass in the grocery store one day. I wanted so bad to take my revenge. I wanted to insult the man, and challenge him to hit me. I wanted to remind him that he got away with the first one, but he would have to pay for the next one and invite him to screw his courage to the sticking place and take that shot.

However, I said nothing. I was in the best shape of my life then. I could do a 40 mph sprint on my bicycle and could leg-press six reps at 1500 pounds. In short, I could have cracked him open like a walnut. But I said nothing, and he did not recognize me. There was no reason he should have; it hadn’t been ten years since the incident… it had been much longer than that, and I wasn’t the only one who had aged.

I wish now that I could say I didn’t call him out that day because I had forgiven him. It would be far better if I could say that; I cannot. The simple fact was that it just seemed sort of pathetic to try to pick a fight with an old man. It just didn’t seem worth it to bother holding a grudge anymore. I don’t know whether or not I ever learned to be a bully, but maybe I did at least learn to let things go.

Christ teaches that we are to forgive our enemies and to bless those who curse us. This incident brought home to me the reality of there being a time factor involved in the forgiving of our enemies. If you wait too long to forgive, you’ll find yourself robbed of any merit in forgiving them. Time is the great equalizer; there may be those who will read this today and recognize the people involved. Maybe. In a hundred years should anyone bother to read it, certainly they will not recognize the people involved. In time, all wrongs are – if not forgiven – at least forgotten.

However, the truly Christian man forgives before time erases all memory of past wrongs and robs him of the merit of the act of forgiving. The truly Christian man forgives because he cooperates with grace and allows it to work in his life instead of holding onto past wrongs until he himself is made the bully… or the jackass.

In life, we have many teachers. Some of my teachers have been excellent… some of them have been jackasses. The task of the student is not to absorb every lesson with which he is presented; the task of the student is to filter through what he is presented and decide what he shall embrace. This is what makes the students into the master, this ability to recognize true teaching from the braying of a jackass.

Maundy Thursday, 2010 – Zenga’s Farmville game on Facebook allows the player to engage in the role of a farmer; you plant and grow crops, and in so doing earn coins and experience that can be used to advance your farm and to buy bigger and better crops. Unlike so many video games, it is entirely nonviolent and has a positive message. I enjoyed playing it for several months, from the time I signed up for a Facebook account until Holy Week of 2010.

I quit playing it not because I grew tired of it or because I began to invest my time and attention elsewhere, but rather because of a philosophical issue with the game itself.

One of the features of the game is that around various holidays, the game offers special crops and activities that celebrate the season. At Easter, they introduced colored eggs to collect and baskets in which to put them. The more eggs that a player collects the better is the reward for which those eggs can be traded. The problem is this: Easter Baskets were called Spring Baskets and Easter Eggs were called Spring Eggs.

This upset me. At first, I tried to reason it away by telling myself that there is nothing inherently Christian in colored eggs or baskets of candy. It isn’t like the game was calling the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord the “Spring Happening.” They were simply selecting ‘inclusive’ language for the act of hunting for candy and eggs.

Still, as a faithful Christian, I somehow felt very much excluded by their inclusive language.

I decided I was being oversensitive and went on with the game, until last night I saw a story on the news that made me change my position. It seems that in a town in Iowa, there was a decision made by a bureaucrat to announce that city offices would be closed for “Spring Holiday” tomorrow instead of “Good Friday.”

This decision was made by one individual and came as a surprise to the elected officials who took the heat for this poor decision; further, it was made without anyone ever actually complaining that they got the day off for “Good Friday” or that it is called “Good Friday.” It was an arbitrary decision made by a single person; it was a decision that many people found offensive, even though no one ever found the prior label for the holiday offensive.

As I watched the story, I found myself thinking this: the day is a holiday not because it is Spring, but because it is Easter and because of the Christian significance of the day. The spiritual roots of this country are and remain Christian; to deny that now or to attempt to change it is offensive to the many people who are Christian and who live a Christian life, even though that life sometimes means sacrifice.

Sacrifice. That really is the key. I don’t intend to form a protest or create a movement. I don’t intend to write a nasty letter to Zenga. I simply mean to stop playing a game that I enjoy because the names given by the game’s creators to objects inside the game are offensive to me because they deny our Christian tradition and heritage… a tradition and heritage I still, along with many other Americans, proudly claim.

This has nothing to do with colored eggs, baskets, bunnies or candy. It has everything to do with the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross in atonement for our sins. It has everything to do with the memory of that event and the observation of it today. If ‘inclusive’ means that the word ‘Easter’ is now offensive and must be replaced with the label ‘Spring,’ then I do not ask to be included anymore because to me the word ‘Easter’ and everything it represents can never be offensive. To me, it is central to my life and core to my beliefs; it defines who I am as a person and my devotion to it is far deeper than any pleasure received from playing a video game.

I’ve been a little under the weather here lately, and I really needed to get a good night sleep Tuesday so I took some Nyquil before going to bed. Wednesday, I was teaching from a Gospel passage at RCIA, and I wanted to be rested and as ready as possible.

Anyway, I dreamed about the Biblical passage on which I would be teaching – it’s a very famous passage, and I’m sure everyone knows it; it’s the one where the Apostles James and Bartholomew are trying to load the Bengal tiger into the back seat of an old, beat-up, beige-on-brown Honda (because as everyone knows the Apostles shared one Accord) so that they could use the tiger to preach the Gospel. This must have been the laziest Bengal tiger in the Holy Land, because it was just dead weight and purring as the Apostles struggled to get it into the car. (It did whack Bartholomew with its tail once, but that was about it as far as effort on the tiger’s part.)

I woke up in a panic, absolutely convinced that this was really in the Bible and that I had to unpack the deep, theological meaning from it for a room full of people. It took me a few minutes of Nyquil-induced stupor to realize that, no, this was just a cold-medicine dream and that I was actually talking about the themes of spiritual blindness, the sin of pride, and seeing all that Jesus offers in the context of the Blind Man presented in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John. (Whew!)

I guess the moral of this story is watch out for Nyquil. I’m still not sure how James and Bartholomew planned on preaching the Gospel with a Bengal tiger, but I’m sure they had a plan.

I had to make a trip to one of the roughest neighborhoods in Kansas City today. It’s a good place to go if you haven’t been shot in awhile and you’re starting to forget what it feels like. Everywhere you look there’s desperation and poverty. Theft is rampant. Violent crime is a daily fact. Forget high school graduation; if one in ten makes it through it’s a miracle.  No one really wants to be there; there are only folks like me who are just visiting and are well gone before sundown and the folks who have no other choice but to be there.

The gas station down there had a sign out front that said: “God has blessed you. Now YOU help Haiti. Pray and Pay.”

Good advice. Amazing, really. The truth always is.

Our poorest are still rich in comparison to those in Haiti before the earthquake. But even those who don’t have two coins to rub together can still say a prayer for the good people of Haiti.

Remember the parable of the poor widow who put her last two copper coins into Temple treasury? The Master teaches that truly she gave more than all of those rich people who put in more than she did because they gave from their surplus while she, in poverty, gave the last money that she had. That is the one of the finest examples of faith and love that a person can show; you may find its equal, but you would be hard pressed to find one better.

There is a lesson for all of us in the actions of the poor widow from Luke’s Gospel, just as there is a lesson in the evangelization of a gas station in the roughest part of Kansas City. God has blessed me abundantly, and He has blessed you. Because we are abundantly blessed, we have a Christian duty to help those in need. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see Thee hungry and feed Thee, or thirsty and give Thee drink? And when did we see Thee a stranger and welcome Thee, or naked and clothe Thee? And when did we see Thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’

Say a prayer for the people of Haiti and all of God’s poor and suffering around the world, and let us all work for a more equitable distribution of the Earth’s abundant bounty. It’s the right thing to do.

15 January 2010 – Today’s first reading at Mass is a good reminder to all of us about the dangers of politics; it comes from First Samuel.

All the elders of Israel came in a body to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, “Now that you are old, and your sons do not follow your example, appoint a king over us, as other nations have, to judge us.”

Samuel was displeased when they asked for a king to judge them. He prayed to the LORD, however, who said in answer: “Grant the people’s every request. It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king.”

Samuel delivered the message of the LORD in full to those who were asking him for a king. He told them: “The rights of the king who will rule you will be as follows: He will take your sons and assign them to his chariots and horses, and they will run before his chariot. He will also appoint from among them his commanders of groups of a thousand and of a hundred soldiers. He will set them to do his plowing and his harvesting, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will use your daughters as ointment makers, as cooks, and as bakers. He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive groves, and give them to his officials. He will tithe your crops and your vineyards, and give the revenue to his eunuchs and his slaves. He will take your male and female servants, as well as your best oxen and your asses, and use them to do his work. He will tithe your flocks and you yourselves will become his slaves. When this takes place, you will complain against the king whom you have chosen,
but on that day the LORD will not answer you.”

The people, however, refused to listen to Samuel’s warning and said, “Not so!  There must be a king over us. We too must be like other nations, with a king to rule us and to lead us in warfare and fight our battles.”

When Samuel had listened to all the people had to say, he repeated it to the LORD, who then said to him, “Grant their request and appoint a king to rule them.”

The problem here, of course, is that Israel had a king – God – and yet they somehow thought that they would do better with a human king. Instead of rejoicing in having the only king truly fit for the job, the elders of Israel demanded a human king. Instead of living in the freedom God offers and with the virtue and responsibility that God demands, Israel instead sought a human king to rule them and to lead them and to fight their battles.

Even in the face of the warnings of what such a king would bring, still the elders of Israel put their faith in man instead of in God. We know, of course, that the warnings, dire though they were, became fact; all that of which Samuel warned Israel would happen came to pass. History teaches that it always works out that way; empires are motivated by human desires, and so empires rise and empires fall. The Golden Age of Man is myth; since the Fall of our first parents, there has been no Golden Age, nor can there ever be.

Samuel’s words should be a warning today just as surely as they were a warning when he spoke them. We should all remember – regardless of political affiliation – that no government is perfect. We should all constantly demand better from the governments that rule us; we should hold them to the highest of standards not because we think they can achieve those standards, but we know that they can do better than they are doing right now. We should hold ourselves to this same standard of growth and constantly demand better from ourselves, too; otherwise, we will become hypocrites – our demands will be empty and our criticisms hollow.

It has been famously remarked that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those others that have been tried. Churchill was almost right about this; instead, perhaps he should have remarked that democracy is the worst form of human government, except for all those others that have been tried. Still, in this country, democracy, or at least a representative republic has taken us far. It should take us farther; it must take us farther.

Regardless of political affiliation, there is no sin in not being satisfied with your government… unless, perhaps, you were one of the elders of Israel demanding a human king in place of the Divine King. Every person should be vocal when he is displeased with the government – especially when he is displeased with those elected officials for whom he voted. We should all heed the warning of Samuel and remember that no human government can possibly be perfect, nor is it sacred; government will only grow in the order of perfection when such is demanded of it by its citizens.

It has also been famously remarked that in democracy people get the government that they deserve. This should serve as a warning just as clearly as Samuel’s words do; if a government will only grow in the order of perfection when such is demanded of it by its citizens, then certainly the citizens can only be in a position to demand such when they themselves are growing in the order of perfection. Without virtue, democracy will fail.

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

– Luke 6:32-38

Last night, I taught a class that dealt, in part, with serious sins that have become rooted in modern culture. I reminded my listeners that there is no sin so grave that it cannot be forgiven save one: to refuse to be forgiven. This caused one of my students to ask if, in fact, suicide isn’t a sin that cannot be forgiven because it is a sin from which it is impossible to repent.

I assured her that this is not necessarily the case, and Holy Church does not teach that it is. I pointed out that to be mortal, the sin has to involve grave matter, free will, and full knowledge. I explained that in the case of suicide, certainly there is grave matter involved. However, it is not at all clear that a person who commits or attempts suicide is acting with free will, since they are acting under extreme emotional duress. Furthermore – as was pointed out by another of my listeners, who is a therapist and as such is in a position to be up-to-date on recent clinical studies – study after study shows that the overwhelming majority of people who attempt suicide and fail were, in the process of dying, regretting their action and clinging to life.

I further reminded that judgment is reserved to God’s perfect justice and His perfect mercy, and that we as human beings are not qualified to condemn another human soul. Judgment is proper to God alone; however, for human beings what is proper in all things is first mercy. This, of course, led me to the point that we can judge a given action as wrong; we can look at the act of suicide and know that it is wrong because among other things, it offends against human dignity and violates the sanctity of life. We can know that we should not do certain things; however, the judgment of those people who do them is proper to God.

This led one person to wonder how a person who is a notorious public sinner can properly be given a Christian funeral, since such a funeral would celebrate that life of sin. She put forward as an example a funeral to which she had recently been for a young woman who had been a prostitute. My response was that a person is not defined by her sin; that it would be clearly improper at such a funeral to say that the person was a great prostitute, but rather one “could say, for example, that she was full of love.”

The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I realized that what I had just said and what I had meant were just about completely different and the room exploded in laughter. I suppose, perhaps, the mood needed a little lightening and I think it was clear from my obvious embarrassment that I had not meant to make little of the topic we were discussing.

It bears repeating, though, that a human being, made to the image and likeness of God, endowed with an inalienable human dignity, cannot be defined by his or her sin alone. After all, we are all sinners. If a prostitute deserves condemnation for her sin, do I not also deserve condemnation for mine? She, almost certainly, is driven by desperation or addiction into a life of prostitution; I cannot claim such an excuse for my sins, so am I not more guilty in the sins I commit?

As the Master teaches, one cannot remove the speck from a neighbor’s eye when one’s own vision is clouded by the plank in one’s own eye. In all things, first mercy; this is central to what it means to be human. Our lives must be driven by charity if we aspire to live truly Christian lives. We may live surrounded by sin; we may see sins become so commonplace in our own culture that we are tempted to despair; we may ourselves be enslaved to sin. But, we are not defined solely by sin, and we do not have to define the world according solely to its sin.

As Christians and as Catholics, we can always aspire to something higher. We can aspire to the heights to which Christ calls us, and in that we can come to live truly free. Through our constant movement to the heights to which we must attain if we are to be true to our call, we can become fully human; we can know that sin is a dire blight bringing ugliness and falsehood, but the God offers us truth and beauty. We can choose the good, the true and the beautiful and abandon sin and death.

Charity and mercy are central to answering our call. Charity must be and the center of our being if we are to have God at the center of our being; mercy must be our response in our dealings with our fellow beings, for as the Master promises, the measure that we give will be the measure that we get back.