Spiritual Paralysis 

Paralysis

In today’s Gospel, the man was paralyzed, helpless. He could not move. He was completely dependent on others. Have you ever been laid up, and had to gratefully depend on the care of your friends? We learn to love each other so much more deeply when we surrender ourselves to another’s care, or surrender ourselves to caring for another. Illness can be a beautiful means of receiving divine love.

The man was paralyzed, and his friends brought him to Jesus. They couldn’t get through crowds around the door, so they climbed up on the roof, broke a hole in it, and lowered him down with ropes. “When Jesus saw their faith”—not only “his” faith, but the faith of the man’s friends, he said to the paralytic: “My child, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus goes straight to the root problem: the man’s sins. His real problem was not physical paralysis, but the spiritual paralysis that binds all men and women.

Last night the musician Tony Melendez gave a concert here in Modesto. He was born without arms, but he plays the guitar with his toes and sings so beautifully. Tony radiates joy, despite or even perhaps because of his disability. A man does not need perfect physical health to be happy. That is a lie of the “supermodel culture.” In fact, physical gifts can lead to great sadness—poor Whitney Houston, for example. She began singing Gospel music in her church choir, but the world twisted her gifts, seduced her, and led her to a bitter end. A growing spiritual paralysis eventually killed her.

Jesus reconciled the man
Jesus goes straight to the heart of the matter. “My Child, your sins are forgiven.” This is the only word we need to hear to be truly happy: that whatever we’ve done or not done in our lives, God is greater than our failures. He will reconcile us if we trust him. This is the “word” that Jesus was preaching—“many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them, and he preached the word to them.” This is the word that draws out the human heart, and draws immense crowds. This is real healthcare.

True Health Care
A word about the healthcare debate between the Church and the current presidential administration. (Please take a bulletin home, because it includes an important insert from our Bishops on this issue.) The most vital healthcare Americans need is not contraception or access to all sorts of pharmaceuticals. The real healthcare we need is for our souls, because America is sick at its soul.

A secular government is promising all sorts of Band-Aids for our national paralysis—limitless access to sexual intercourse, countless free drugs and pharmaceuticals, and a towering debt to pay for it all. But only Jesus addresses the real problem: we lack God’s grace. We must turn to a power higher than the government.

The HHS mandate in question is not really about contraception, although the administration wants to frame it in those terms. The Mandate is really about an executive branch of government that seeks utter control even over our consciences. It cannot tolerate a power higher than itself. It wants to erase any faith-based activity from the public square; it wants to restrict the people’s faith to private churches. The Mandate would drive Catholic hospitals and universities—indeed, any conscience-based activity—out of business. It is an old problem, but we are facing it anew.

Our national paralysis is becoming obvious. A stubborn economic paralysis depresses America; political gridlock frustrates collaboration among rival parties. The battle is not about healthcare or about the economy or about politics. The battle is over America’s soul. We have turned our backs on God. Are we willing to turn back to a power higher than the government, or do we somehow hope that the congress, the presidential administration, and the courts can solve our conflicts? We are truly a conflicted nation at this time, and it is causing a persistent paralysis of our national energies.

Lent Begins
Lent begins this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. The word “Lent” means springtime in Old English, and every springtime is a new beginning. We enter into Lent with true hope: that God will help us conquer our addictions and overcome our paralysis. The first reading from Isaiah speaks this hope: “Remember not the things of the past—see, I am doing something new!” God gives us another day, another chance, another Lent. We can regain our innocence; we can recover the joy of our youth. Make a plan for Lent now: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Give yourself to Jesus this Lent through resolute acts of love and sacrifice. And put it all into the immaculate hands of our Blessed Mother.

Jesus healed people, and only the Church can heal and protect the dignity of every human person in our nation. We cannot look to the Government to heal our cultural ills. Our nation needs the Church as much or more than it needs the government. After all, America was founded by pilgrims feeling government oppression, to establish a country where citizens could practice their faith free of government control. They made this the very first amendment of our bill of rights.

   I was an English Major in College, and so the misuse of words is particularly irritating. Take, for example, the overuse of the word “awesome.” Thanks be to God this word is fading from popular usage, but five years ago absolutely everything was described as “awesome.” But of course only One is Awesome — only God and the things of God inspire “awe.” To describe her new shoes or the way he washed the dishes as “awesome”  reduces the sense of authentic awe, and Him who inspires true awe.

   As I say, the misuse of “awesome” is fading, but the misuse of another word is on the ascendant. That word is “incredible.” This adjective is used to describe anything that impresses the speaker. For example, “the performance last night was incredible,” or “she has assembled this incredible staff.” The 2004 animated movie about superheroes with attitude (The Incredibles) didn’t help matters. But what does “incredible” actually mean? It means non-credible — unbelievable. If someone says that my homily was “incredible,” they are saying that it is not believable — they don’t buy a word of it — hardly a compliment!

   I think the overuse of the word “incredible” tells us something. It tells us that “credibility,” belief, is on the wane. People are saying that just about everything is “incredible,” and not by accident. People find many more things “non-credible” today than they did 40 years ago. We don’t believe in our members of Congress, our President, our heads of respected corporations, even our priests and bishops.

  To all this “unbelief,” we Catholics say, Credo. “I believe.” Our faith is not in man or things human, but in God. This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. I believe in the Passion, Death, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that God lives, and lives in each of us. Let’s keep a good Lent, insisting that there is still room for belief in the world.

The Mission of Healing

Bishop’s Ministry Appeal
This Sunday we are invited to make a gift to the Bishop for his work and to support the work of our Diocese. It is Bishop’s Ministry Appeal Sunday.

Leprosy
The Scriptures today speak mainly about leprosy. Leviticus is very clear: anyone with the highly contagious and incurable disease of leprosy had to “dwell apart” and could not touch or be touched by anyone. To be separated, abandoned, by every other human person—to be utterly deprived of the warmth of human touch—is the worst kind of poverty. So in the Gospel, Jesus touches the man you’re not supposed to touch. “Moved with compassion” (Jesus felt the pain this man felt) “Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.” He restored the man’s dignity by touching him, by showing him understanding love.

The Mission of Healing
Why will many of us make financial gifts to the Bishop’s Appeal this Sunday? It is so that Jesus can touch the untouchables through the work of the Church. The BMA provides for things like the sisters, who bring the human touch of compassion to nearby migrant labor camps; it subsidizes poorer Catholic schools like St. George’s in South Stockton for children who could never afford a quality education; it funds the training of new priests who otherwise would not be able to afford the eight years of seminary. It provides for sisters and priests who will lay a healing hand on a modern-day leper, such as a poor immigrant family, or a forgotten grandmother in a nursing home, or a young man in one of our prisons.

Help the Church do her mission of healing
Jesus healed people. Only the Church can heal our national ills. Only the Church can fully safeguard the dignity of every human person in America. We cannot look to the Government to do this. A few years ago, someone asked President Obama when he thought human life began. He famously quipped that it was “above his pay grade.” He was absolutely right: it is not the government’s role or competency to address issues of theology, philosophy, or the deeper questions of the human person. This is the role and competency of the churches, those who train their minds on broader horizons than the government. A healthy America needs her churches, and needs a government that guarantees those churches the freedom to do what they do best. The government cannot possibly “touch” individuals with the warmth of a Mother Teresa; it cannot provide the human care that small faith-based groups regularly provide to the homeless, the incarcerated, the elderly.

Your annual gift to the BMA, like your weekly gift to the parish, provides for this good work. 25 years ago, folks like you and I gave to the Bishop’s Ministry Appeal, and that’s how I was able to become a priest. I give to the BMA every year if for nothing else than to give something back for my seminary education, and to help pay for another young man’s seminary training. Let’s all give something, simply because our Bishop has asked us for help, for the good of our Church, for the good of our country.

There is an accelerating “climate change” in our country. In particular, Religious Freedom in America is eroding faster than the glaciers in Greenland. The founders of our nation saw the need to immediately strengthen our Constitution with the “Bill of Rights.” The first of those Bill of Rights is the free exercise of religion. This First Amendment guarantees citizens the free practice of the faith of their choice, without the interference of the U.S. Government.

   Two weeks ago the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandated that all employers will purchase insurance that provides sterilization and contraception, including abortion-causing drugs. That means that our parish, for example, will have to pay for the chemical abortions of our employees, should they request it. Catholic hospitals will have to provide for abortions. In a meeting with pastors last week, Bishop Blaire stated forcefully that the Obama Administration’s decision is “an egregious—an egregious—violation of the Constitution and the First Amendment.” Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference, wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “Coercing religious ministries and citizens to pay directly for actions that violate their teaching is an unprecedented incursion into freedom of conscience…. This latest erosion of our first freedom should make all Americans pause. When the government tampers with a freedom so fundamental to the life of our nation, one shudders to think what lies ahead.” As of this writing (February 1), 125 bishops and many other public figures of our nation have joined him in strong objection.

  Which way America? What freedoms of conscience will the government still permit us in the years to come? How much more will the Church be singled out for persecution? In 2010, Cardinal George of Chicago spoke these prophetic words: "I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square." Which way, America?

I have come to serve

When I was ordained to the diaconate in December 1990, the Bishop called us each by name. “Why have you come to this place?” Each of us stood up in turn and said: “I have come to serve.” [In fact, the word “Deacon” in Greek means “one who serves.”] I have to remember those words, uttered in New York 22 years ago, when I’m tired of people and just want to be left alone in my room. All of us are happiest when we help others; we are hard wired for the stewardship of service.

In today’s gospel, Jesus is weary of the crowds and just wanted to get away by himself. The previous day the “whole town was gathered at his door.” Everyone wanted a free cure, he must’ve been exhausted. You have had days like that, perhaps, when everyone needs you to do something for them. So the next day Jesus gets up very early and goes alone to a deserted place to pray. But soon enough Peter and the others found him, and said “everyone is looking for you.” Jesus simply says, “let us go…for this purpose I have come.” He had taken his time for prayer, and now it was time to get back to work. “Prayer and work,” the rhythm of any Christian life. Mother Teresa expressed this beautifully on the little cards she would give out: “Prayer is the fruit of silence; faith is the fruit of prayer; love is the fruit of faith; service is the fruit of love.” Prayer leads us to serve others. A Christian who prays but does not serve is kind of a dud, a “failure to launch.”

Jesus cures Peter’s mother in law, and immediately she “waited on them.” And St. Paul in the second reading: “I have been entrusted with a stewardship.” Yes, each of us has been entrusted with a stewardship. In the first reading, Job complains that he cannot sleep at night, that his life is a misery. He is suffering from a long-term situational depression. Many of us go through dark periods when just getting out of bed is the greatest struggle. We’ve lost any reason to get up. That’s when we’ve got to recall those words: “I have come to serve.” Jesus calls me out of bed, even after a sleepless night, to serve the world with Him. Get up, the sun is rising, and Jesus is with us!

400,000 (mostly young) people marched through Washington a few weeks ago. 40,000 (mostly young) people marched through San Francisco a few weeks ago, again to witness to the sanctity of every human life. A young lady who had been at World Youth Day in Madrid last year told me that the Walk for Life had that same joyful, hopeful spirit. These massive gatherings of the world’s youth are not at all like the angry, destructive “Occupy” crowds. Pro-life youth seek to build, not tear down. Young people, especially Catholic young people, beautifully testify to the joy of living the virtue of hope. And so the Prolife Movement is characterized by youthful hope and joy.
   The Culture of Death, driven by “old” men and women who have turned from God and so lost their hope, seeks to strangle youthful joy. It seeks to convince young people, especially, that life is essentially irrational and random, and we cannot hope to ever reach the truth about anything. The Pope has called this the “Dictatorship of Relativism,” which proclaims that there is no such thing as truth.

   Death’s Culture forces its darkness into our children’s lives through the media, university and school curricula, and even through state law. For example, did you know that California law prohibits a 12-year-old girl’s parents from knowing that she is pregnant and seeking an abortion? The law, in other words, does not support a parent’s right to protect his or her own daughter from sexual abuse and the trauma of abortion. But a girl’s parents are her best hope to protect her youthful freedom and joy in a culture that encourages predators. It is simply irrational to deny a girl this fundamental right to her parents’ support.

   A grassroots campaign to change that law, called the Parental Notification Initiative, is in the works. On a Sunday to come, you will have a chance to sign a petition to get this initiative on the November ballot.

Our Hearts Are Restless Until They Rest In Thee
 
Restless Spirits
“Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.” A bishop in North Africa wrote those words 1600 years ago. He was born a pagan and lived like a pagan, living with his girlfriend and partying with friends for the first half of his life. Finally he got tired of the constant drama in his life, and he decided to submit his life to Jesus Christ. He grew up at that point, and history knows him as “St. Augustine.”

“Our hearts are restless, until they rest in thee.” What makes you restless? What do you worry about? Some stress over school—bad grades, or bad friends, or no friends. Some have continual drama with their parents or older siblings. Some worry about the future—what’s going to happen to me in twenty years? Will I have a decent job? Will I be in a miserable marriage like my parents? Will I be a meth addict and an old woman with no teeth by the time I’m forty?

I grew up in the late 60s, when drugs first exploded over America. My older brothers where all on drugs, and I remember crying inconsolably when I was seven years old because I knew I was going to be a drug addict in a few years. But you know what? It never happened. God saved me from drugs, maybe through the horrible experiences of my own brothers. Jesus saved me.

Free of Anxiety
“Brothers, I would like you to be free of anxiety,” writes St. Paul. How can we do that? By “being anxious” about the things of God, he says—keeping our eyes fixed on Christ. Make him your Number One, and you have nothing to fear. And when you do worry (as we all will), call on him. Pray. And your worries will become manageable. You won’t need drugs. You won’t need sex and drama. You won’t even need your iPhone. Your life will be peaceful, ordered, joyful.

Authority
So they brought this man to Jesus who was convulsed with an “unclean spirit.” This demon got right in Jesus’ face, shouting at him: “what do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?!? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are! The Holy one of God!!” Jesus kept his cool—didn’t shout back. He commanded the impure spirit with divine self-composure: “Quiet! Come out of him.” The demon shook the man and screamed, but came out. And all was quiet, all was calm.

If someone is screaming at you, don’t scream back. If someone is causing drama, don’t add your own drama. Respond with quiet strength. You can choose to maintain self-possession. You don’t have to get stressed, because you call upon an Authority that calms anxieties with a simple word. “Quiet.” Jesus speaks with authority, through his Church, through the Scriptures, through you.

Noise and Silence
The devil shouts a constant stream of noise into our face. We need to silence him, in the name of Jesus Christ. I can’t even pump my own gas in peace anymore—a screen and a speaker shouting some ad at me. Why is there so much infantile cussing and shouting and hitting and smashing on TV and movies? Cussing, especially, is demonic language, noisy. It’s what the demon did to Jesus—basically cussed him out. But Jesus spoke calmly to him, with quiet authority. Pope Benedict, for example, just wrote a letter about the need for more thoughtful and respectful silence in our culture.

You and I have that same authority as disciples of Christ. Don’t let anxiety get to you. Get some quiet time each day—our chapel is a splendid place of stillness. Kneel before the authority that moves the sun and the stars. Don’t let the noise of the world shake you up. You are cool, you are self-possessed, you are calm, because you know Jesus Christ, the source of peace and order. 

The War in Iraq officially ended on December 15, thanks be to God, and everyone heaved a great sigh of relief. Nine years ago we watched the first bombings of Baghdad, the “Shock and Awe” that we thought would bring a quick solution to Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. It was an agonizing nine years, and no one knew in 2002, when the nation was debating whether to invade or not, what war with Iraq would bring. When the war ended last month, I heard many voices playing Monday Morning Quarterback. “We should’ve never gone into Iraq. It was all Bush’s fault. It was patently illegal. It scarred a generation and ruined a nation. I would’ve never gone to war with Iraq.” But the fact is, most of America, in 2002, supported the war with Iraq. The Congress voted almost three to one to invade. Senator John Kerry, for example, who would later express outrage at the war, voted to invade, as did 81 other Democrats, and 215 Republicans.

   But one person stated unequivocally in 2002 that invading Iraq would certainly be disastrous. That man was Pope John Paul II. He didn’t need to wait to see what happened. He knew already, because he had the advantage of Catholic theological and social science. He said on January 13, 2003, that war must be "the very last option," even when motivated by legitimate concerns. “War is not always inevitable,” he said. “It is always a defeat for humanity … what are we to say of the threat of a war which could strike the people of Iraq, ... already sorely tried by more than 12 years of embargo?” And he said that international law reminds us that “war cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military options."

   His words strike us as prophetic. These are the points made by many others, but only after we saw how useless and devastating the war had become. Pope Benedict has said that the Church and the State, while distinct, must work together. The Church can provide a broader view, a wisdom of which the State, driven by politics, can never attain. The Iraq War is a good example of how the State, ignoring the Church’s wisdom, did so to its own destruction. Even now, few politicians admit the cost of ignoring the Church’s wisdom. “I would’ve never voted to invade Iraq,” officials will say. Only one man seemed to have that wisdom in 2003, however: the Pope.

Today, 39 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the direct killing of innocent human persons. The infamous Roe v. Wade decision was a turning point for this nation. We lost our innocence that year. Not only had we given ourselves over to the fornications of the sexual revolution, but in 1973 we declared ourselves willing to destroy any children accidentally conceived by our infidelities. Unlawful sex — any intercourse outside of the marriage covenant — is always violent, and it leads to greater violence. The decay of our social fabric began with the contraceptive pill in the 1940s, but it jolted violently forward with the legalization of abortion in 1973.
  Roe v. Wade seemed to catch us off-guard in 1973; but America, who has championed the “culture of death” to all the world, also had led the world in prolife activism. I can remember marching down Pennsylvania Avenue as a kid, in January’s bitter cold.  We gathered in the snow at the Ellipse near the White House, and then made our way slowly toward the U.S. Capitol. We waved to legislators along the way who peered from their congressional office building windows. Washington’s March for Life has grown every year since 1974. Now hundreds of thousands march from the White House to the Capitol. And now there are marches in all the major cities, most notably in our own beloved San Francisco, where 40,000 walked yesterday. Five busloads came from St. Joseph’s, and another 20 busses from around our Diocese. Now there are pro-life marches in Paris, London and Madrid. Over these 40 years, the sheer numbers and tenacity of this civil rights movement dwarfs past civil rights movements. Because, indeed, the Pro-life Movement is the civil rights movement of our time. The unborn person is a distinct individual (“if it’s not a baby, she’s not pregnant”) and has rights. We will not stop marching until these rights are recognized in law. We are well on our way.

“Speak, O Lord…”
Twenty-one years ago, I had to come up with a scripture verse for my ordination card, and I chose the verse from today’s first reading: “Speak, O Lord, for your servant is listening.” The young man, Samuel, has heard the Lord calling, “Samuel, Samuel,” and he speaks back to God. Samuel, for the first time in his life, realizes that God is a real person. He commands the Lord, using the imperative voice, “Speak.” And yet he acknowledges that it is the “Lord” that he is speaking with, that he is the Lord’s servant, and that servant is listening. It beautifully describes his personal relationship with God. And so I put it on my ordination cards, hoping it would also describe my relationship with God as a priest.

Friendships transform us
Until I was about 13, God was not real for me, and I had no personal relationship with him. Let’s look more closely at the story from 1st Samuel: “at that time Samuel was not familiar with the Lord.” Samuel was not friends with God yet—didn’t talk with Him. Samuel needs a father figure, a mentor, to help him develop a relationship with God. So he goes to the priest Eli, three times, actually, and finally Eli “realizes it was the Lord calling the youth.” So Eli gives him the words with which anyone can initiate a personal relationship with God: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” And from that moment, Samuel and the Lord become fast friends. We often do not know how to recognize God in our lives. We need a friend, perhaps a father or mother, to help us—that’s why reading the lives of the saints, or going to confession to a priest, or speaking about your spiritual life to your parents, can be so helpful. I can remember one friendship in particular that opened my eyes to God’s presence when I was just 10 years old.

What does a personal friendship do for you? It changes you. If it is a good friendship, you begin to take on the goodness of your friend. You begin to love the things he or she loves, to adopt the good habits of that friend. You begin to look at the world through his or her beautiful eyes.

Jesus makes friends with Simon
In the Gospel, Jesus looks at a man named Simon (his brother Andrew had brought him to meet Jesus). Christ looks at Simon, I mean, looks him straight in the eyes, and says, “You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Kephas” (which means Peter, or Rocky). Jesus says, in other words, I know you Simon. I know you, and I like you. I want to be your friend, and good friends change each other for the better. So I am going to change you—going to change your name for starters. I’m going to call you Rocky, because on this rock I will build my Church. Jesus Christ wants to be your friend. He wants to be with you, and when he does, you will change. His friendship will transform you. But we must seek that friendship, that transformation. We must seek a relationship with Christ, both through prayer and a real effort to follow his teachings.

Glorify God in your body
Let me say a few words about our powerful second reading, from 1st Corinthians. It addresses one of Christ’s teachings that we find hardest to follow: sexual purity. Brothers, says Saint Paul, your bodies are not your own—they belong to God, so glorify God in your bodies. We live in the aftermath of the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s. One of the most important books justifying that revolution was called “Our Bodies Ourselves,” published in 1971. The book claimed that since we own our own bodies, we can do whatever we want with them. Along with this kind of sexual immaturity came unplanned pregnancies, and so we had to legalize abortion to take care of those pregnancies, which we did in 1973. The mantra used to justify the killing of unborn children was usually “it is my body and I’ll do what I want with it.”

Realize that this claim is absolutely contrary to Jesus’ teaching. Even if the unborn child were just a part of the mother’s body (which it isn’t), all our bodies belong to God, not to us. We are stewards, not owners, of our bodies. They are sacred, and they are temples of God’s Holy Spirit. That’s why 40,000 of us will be marching in San Francisco this coming Saturday, to speak truth and reason to the irrational culture of death spawned by the so-called Sexual Revolution. Everybody’s body is a gift of God. It is not for immorality, but for God’s glory. “So glorify God in your bodies.”