Archive for January, 2010
A King to Rule Us
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.
In All Things, First Mercy
“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.
Music Pirates
There was a very interesting op-ed article that ran the other day by an executive in the music recording industry who was writing about the theft of music online, and the impact that has on the music industry. He thought that “piracy” was too benign of a word; he wrote of the billions of dollars lost each year through illegal copying of music and of the toll this has in terms of jobs lost, which, according to him, was more than 70,000 jobs.
It cannot be overstated that theft is wrong. Within a Christian context, there are only extremely limited instances in which theft can be either justified or excused; stealing music, music piracy, online “sharing,” or any other form of illegal music copying is never justified. A person who engages in such activities is engaging in a sinful activity, and what follows should in no way be taken as a justification of such activities; two wrongs do not make a right. That having been said, there is another side to the music executive’s argument that I believe deserves pointing out.
It borders on laughable that someone who represents an industry that has been peddling sex, drugs and rock-and-roll (largely to minors) would seek the moral high-ground when he feels himself aggrieved and his industry cheated. The music industry’s stock-in-trade for fifty years has been moral corruption and rebellion against every form of authority, and now they have the audacity to complain of being themselves slighted when what they have preached for so long is put into practice in such a way that it negatively impacts their bottom line.
Certainly, it would be wrong to condone theft of any sort, be it the theft practiced when music is downloaded illegally online or the theft of decency that has so long been practiced by many record labels in their pursuit of absurd profits and in their pandering to the basest of prurient concepts and the glorification of all forms of immodest behavior. Theft is theft and is by its nature wrong, but the master thief has no right to claim grievous injury when the apprentice whom he trained steals from him.
That the music industry considers “piracy” too benign a word to describe the act of stealing music is, in my opinion, absurd. But, I do have a different word to offer them for their use: sin. It is a word with which they should reacquaint themselves. For far too long, they have ignored its meaning while glorifying its pursuit, and now the only possible outcome of such recklessness has become a reality: sin destroys always; that is its nature. It is hardly a surprise that the music industry now suffers the effects of what it has so long promoted.
Queen of Peace
Queen of Peace, Gainesville, Florida
This window by the J. Piercey Studio, Inc., is installed at Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Gainesville, Florida. The window includes the names of all parishioners active at the time the window was made etched into the glass surrounding the central Holy Spirit figure.
Windows by the J. Piercey Studio
"Fishers of Men"
The Apostles
Rose Window
These windows were designed by Jim Piercey and fabricated by the J. Piercey Studio, Inc., of Orlando, Florida, and are installed in churches in the Orlando area.
Open Wide the Doors
St. John's Episcopal Cathedral, Denver, Colorado
St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral
Denver, Colorado
Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Occulus Window