Go and Be Hypocrites....

...Or Something Like That.

Go ahead and read the comments on, say, any article you could find defending orthodox Christianity on Huffington Post. Well, on second though, maybe don't. All you're going to find is a lot of anger and hatred and resentment towards Christianity, or more precisely, as Fulton Sheen put it, what people think Christianity is. 

One of the choruses that you'll hear repeated over and over again by people who don't like Christianity is that Christians are a bunch of hypocrites. You preach a big game, they'll say, but then you don't back it up. You talk about all this morality and about love and about being perfect and living for Christ, and then you go and mess up. You're hypocrites!

As if we didn't know. 

I mean, it's not like this is something new. "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want to do." (that's Saint Paul, in Romans 7:19, back in the 1st Century). 

You see, I think this is just part of signing up for Christianity. Christ tells us to be perfect, and yet we are all well aware that we aren't. We want to be better, we want to get rid of that sin, we want to be over it; and yet all too often we find ourselves in that same pit, that same despair, that same sin. 

The question, though, is what do we do about it? Do we let the com-box atheists win and stop defending the faith because we're not worthy of it? Do we grow weary, let fear win, and hide?

I, for one, certainly hope not. 

We're going to be hypocrites at times. Is that good? Of course not. We need to fight back from that, we need to pick ourselves up and return to the Father always, but we also cannot stop standing up for truth. Truth, we know, is not something we make up; it's not based on how well we live it, but it is based on the One outside of ourselves in whom we have life. 

So, you realize you're a hypocrite. St. Paul did the same-but he never stopped standing up for truth. Don't let your insecurities and faults stop you from standing up for what you believe in. In fact, if you and I stand up for Truth with courage despite our own faults, I think we'll all find that we become a little less hypocritical in the process. 

The Everlasting Man

For any of you that have ever read anything by this man to the left, you know that it is a wonderful (as well as, at times, challenging) experience. The man, for those of you who don't know, is G.K. Chesterton, one of the very greatest authors in the 20th Century, if not in all of history. The book which I want to comment on a bit here today, called The Everlasting Man, is one of his most influential works. Many (if not all) of you will have heard of C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia, Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, etc.)--what you may not know is that Lewis largely attributes his conversion process to this book from Chesterton. Knowing that, I knew that this book would be something special-and probably especially difficult. While it was, at times, difficult to process, it was worth every second of the struggle.

I will not try to give an overview of this entire book, because Chesterton himself took ten very dense pages to summarize the book in conclusion, and I won't pretend to have the ability that he himself had. Rather, I want to give an explanation of the overall point he tries to make briefly, and then spend the majority of this post commenting on one particular idea he presented.

The Point

As Chesterton himself explains in the book, The Everlasting Man is primarily a historical look at man. Chesterton, a Catholic, says that this is not about defending Catholicism against Protestantism, but against the various Pagan religions which can tend to be the light through which we view history. Rather than seeing Christianity as the next step in the development of man, as some people in his time wanted to say, Chesterton spends this volume of work explaining that Christianity, and specifically the person of Christ, are unique and new. The first half of the book is on "The Creature Called Man," and the second half is on "The Man Called Christ." I cannot summarize this book in any way better than this, and so I present what Chesterton himself says is the goal: the book's "thesis is that those who say Christ stands side by side with similar myths, and his religion side by side with similar religions, are only repeating a very stale formula contradicted by a very striking fact." The book, then, takes this as its basis; weaving through the process of the development of the various myths, stories, and religions of world history, Chesterton shows the way that Christianity cannot simply be another myth. I will not attempt to sketch his argument; for that, you must dive into this book headfirst, allowing yourself plenty of time to think through the points he makes. I will, though, assure you that it is worth the effort. 

The Uniqueness of Christ

Here, from the third chapter of the second part of The Everlasting Man, is a passage which lays out a point I would like to reflect on a bit: 

For in that second cavern [the tomb of Christ] the whole of that great and glorious humanity which we call antiquity was gathered up and covered over; and in that place it was buried. It was the end of a very great thing called human history; the history that was merely human. The mythologies and philosophies were buried there, the gods and the heroes and the sages. In the great Roman phase, they had lived. But as they could only live, so they could only die; and they were dead. 

On the third day, the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn.

Go ahead and read that 2, 3, 17, 12938 times if you'd like; it's still going to be beautiful. What Chesterton is getting at in this point of the book is something so incredible that even this beautiful prose can't possible capture it. The person of Christ is not simply another god in another myth or religion. He is, in so many varied ways, totally new and unique. The uniqueness of this person is captured in the boldness of the claim He made: He was a man who was killed, and yet rose again from the dead because He was not just a man, but He was also God. And when the God-man died, He died not to stay dead, but to bring about a new creation. This new creation is lived out here and now in the Church of Christ which has endured 2,000 years and is still here today.

One of the most beautiful parts of what Chesterton shows of this is his reflection on the endurance of the Church, but I will let you read the book for that. For now, I will leave it with that passage above, reflecting on the fact that God, who created everything, came as man into that creation, ushering in a new creation by His death and Resurrection so that we didn't have to live in brokenness but could have new life.

In modern times, the arguments of this book will be even more offensive than they were 100 years ago. In a day and age when the popular view of world religions is a bunch of different ways to be a 'good' person, Chesterton's assertion that Jesus Christ and the religion which bears His name are utterly unique would offend many people, and yet that seems to be the point. Chesterton is not trying to offend, and yet the boldness of the claim, a claim for which countless men and women have died and are still dying every day, is by its very nature offensive. Christ came and ushered in a new creation, offending our human sensibilities because no one but Him would dare claim that God became man. No other religion has nor will claum this, because it is such a bold claim that it is nothing short of ridiculous and offensive if it is not true. And yet, Christianity has endured 2,000 on a Truth which is so crazy that it can only be true to have survived.

With Chesterton, then, we can have confidence in this Church by the virtue of its ability to withstand all manner of trial and difficulty for these years. We can stand in confidence on the Church which Christ established that lives on in the world today.

"Had Christianity merely appeared and disappeared, it might possibly have been remembered or explained as the last leap of the rage of illusion, the ultimate myth of the ultimate moo, in which the mind struck the sky and broke. But the mind did not break. It is the one mind that remains unbroken in the break-up of the world." 

If you are looking to pick up a copy of The Everlasting Man, here is a link to get it on Amazon! The Everlasting Man

You can see other book reviews that I have done by going to this link: My Library . 

A Glass Half Full

There has been a recent confusion and dare I say uproar about certain comments made by our Holy Father about the fact that God cares about and died for all people, not just good and Holy Christians. You can find a translation of the Pope's comments here at the Vatican Radio website, and you can read an opinion about what he said from Scott Hahn here: The Sacred Page. In response to this, words have been written and opinions have been thrown around, basically asserting that either the Pope is a heretic or all people go to heaven now. The most recent article I've read about these comments came on the Huffington Post from an atheist named Staks Rosch in an article called Dear Pope, Atheists Don't Need Redemption.

Here is some of what he says:

"I'm not interested in being "redeemed" by Jesus. Contrary to the Catholic and even the broader Christian belief, I don't believe humans are evil sinners in need of redemption. I don't see the glass as half empty. The way I see it, the glass is full. Half the glass is filled with water and the other half filled with air. In other words, I don't think people are inherently evil; I think people are more nuanced than that. We do good things and we do bad things....Everything Christianity is about hinges on the belief that we are all wretched human beings and that no one is righteous, not one."

There are a lot of things that I would disagree with in his writing, but specifically this is the part he is totally wrong about: Christianity, and not Atheism, is the worldview which has the glass half full.

You see here's what he doesn't understand about Christian teaching: it is not about our wretchedness, it's about God's love. Christianity is ALL about God's love. As my dear priest-friend always told us: "It's all about love, baby."

You see Rosch operates under this worldview which says that Atheism is happy because it lets us be free and Christianity restricts us. While this is fun and good to say, the reality is that it could not be more wrong. Christianity allows us to have freedom, the sort of freedom which allows us to realize who we are in the depths of our being and to live in freedom out of that knowledge--that is to say, true freedom. You see the teaching of Christianity is that we have sinned, yes, and we have in fact fallen away from God, but our story doesn't end there; if it did, then there would be no point to it.

Thank God (because He's real and He lives and loves us and is worth thanking) that our story doesn't end in our wretchedness, but ends in God. The God who created the world in an ordered and beautiful way and created each person to be unique and in His image doesn't let us live in our wretchedness, nor does He ask us to dwell on it, nor does He even see us as wretched. And that, I think, is where this article goes wrong; it sees our sinfulness as we see it, as wretched, instead of how God sees it, as His children needing to return to Him.  When Rosch says that he is not interested in being redeemed by Jesus, he is simply pointing out what Pope Francis was saying in his comments: people want to find goodness, and no matter how far off they are, this is still a search for God's truth, even if it denies His very existence.

When the Pope stated that redemption is possible for atheists he wasn't attacking atheists, but instead pointing out this truth: we are inherently good. People are not wretched, people are not evil, but people do need redemption; we are all created in the image and likeness of a God who died to give new life to all of His children, and the Pope wants to remind us that whether we realize it or not we are seeking him.

And so while Rosch might be mistaken in his understanding of morality, he is close to the truth when he seeks the glass half-full approach to life, since this is what Christianity is about. Christianity is about seeing truth, beauty and goodness in the face of suffering; Christianity is about the fact that no matter how down you might feel on yourself, no matter how much you might struggle, no matter what mistakes you might make, there is ALWAYS redemption. There is a man named Jesus Christ, and He died for the sins of humanity, so wretchedness and sin never need to be a worry anymore.

So yeah, maybe Christians believe that we're sinners and need redemption, Rosch was right about that. What he was wrong about, though, was how that feels for the Christian. For the Christian, sin is not a downer, glass half empty kind of thing; our sin is a reminder that in Christ redemption is always near to us, and we never have a reason to lose hope.

Doves and Fire

As I write this, we are on the verge of it being one of the most important days of the year. Pentecost, celebrated 50 days after Easter, is the Birthday of the Church, the day that the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles and they began to live out Christ's command to go out and baptize all nations.

My life at this point has me working at and living next door to a Church. As anyone who works for a Church or has spent any significant time around a Church can tell you, I witness a lot of different things. Today, what I witnessed was the life of the Church captured in a way so fitting for the day before Pentecost: in a span of 6 hours, the Church was host to daily Mass, a funeral, and a wedding.

For a priest like my Pastor and priests all over the world, this day was nothing new or different in its schedule. In the course of a day, one man is asked to walk people through the various stages of life all in one day: daily devotions, sorrow at the loss of a loved one, extreme joy at the celebration of Marriage or Baptism, and whatever else may come up. The Church, in Her wisdom and love for Her people, becomes within a matter of hours a place of seeking hope in the midst of despair as well as a place for celebration and great joy.

This is what Pentecost was about. The Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles and Mary who were hiding in the upper room waiting for the promise that Jesus had given them before they went out and fulfilled their calling (read Acts 1-2 again, it's worth it). God, as He always does, came through for them; also as He usually does, He surprised them.

Gathered in the upper room, none of the apostles could have ever imagined the way that the Spirit would come; they wouldn't have thought of fire, and wouldn't have assumed that they'd be able to speak random languages that they'd never learned. Gathered in the upper room, they wouldn't have pictured us, 2,000 years later, having great joy at Baptisms and Weddings and great sorrow at funerals all in the same day here in the United States. Gathered in the upper room, they almost certainly wouldn't have been able to lay out the image of the Magisterium and the way the Church functions in the modern world (I mean come on, the Pope tweets).

And yet they listened, and then they acted. This is what we celebrate on Pentecost. This is what it's all about. The Church is about daily listening to the call of the Lord, taking His commands and His gifts, and giving them back to all people in love and in service. The Church is about being able to mourn with those who mourn and celebrate with those who celebrate (cf. Romans 12:15). The Church is about taking the powerful gift of the Holy Spirit and living in it, never giving in to doubt or despair but rather trusting in all that God calls His people to do, and doing it all with great joy.

May God bless each one of us with His Spirit in a new and profound way this Pentecost.

"Continue to walk in the faith and, faithful to the mandate that has been entrusted to you, go out with solicitude and joy toward all creatures and pass on to them the gifts of salvation...Let yourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit to be the leaven of new life, salt of the earth and light of the world."  -Pope Benedict XVI