If you've never encountered these rules, please read them. Memorize any that are not intuitive to you. I recently read a suggestion that Christians brainstorm a set of rules for internet-based discourse, rules like, "Assume the best intention and good faith of those with whom you are corresponding." A noble idea.
Those paying close attention will have noted that the subtitle of this blog recently changed from "Meanderings in Faith From One Hoping To Grow In Charity" to "A Pilgrimage Of Faith For Those Hoping To Grow In Charity." Why, you might ask.
Well there is an anterior reason and a proximal reason. Lol.
The anterior (earlier) reason is that I have had a growing desire to somehow draw this blog into my Christian apostolate. Huh? Every Christian is called to have an apostolate, a way or ways of presenting Christ to the world. Some apostolates are really the task of every Christian: virtuous living, for example. Other apostolates, like teaching religion, need a bit of specialized training. Some apostolates are apostolates-by-example: working in a soup kitchen, for example. Other apostolates are more apostolates-by-proclamation: writing books about the Faith, etc. One's personal apostolate is the way or collection of ways in which one presents the love of Jesus Christ to the world. Clearly, different seasons of our life will include different sorts of apostolate.
Changing the subtitle from "from one hoping to grow in charity," to "for those hoping to grow in charity," is intended to indicate the shift I am getting at here: this blog started as my personal ramblings that might or might not have been interesting to others. Now, I would like this blog to shift focus to be ramblings (perhaps from a variety of source) that may help people to understand the holy Catholic religion, and the way we think and see the world.
Dear Reader,
It is with great excitement that I would like to announce to you the first major news about this blog, well, in forever. A friend of mine, the Rev. Mr. David Wells, is a deacon-seminarian of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. He will hopefully be ordained a priest in just a few months, and has agreed to join me as a contributor to this blog. Mostly, he will be posting his homilies. He may also post papers or links to papers he's writing at seminary. He's a sharp one, so they should be interesting to read. One hopes that Deacon Wells will also splash random thoughts from time to time, because his random thoughts are pretty good too.
I am not immensely intrigued by Protestants who want the Eucharist, because their desire makes sense to me. I want the Eucharist, too. It is interesting to note that most mainline denominations in the U.S. celebrated "the Lord's Supper" regularly until about a hundred years ago, when fear of seeming "too Catholic" caused their ministers to reduce the frequency of communion services dramatically, from weekly to monthly, or even yearly. A friend of mine, a conservative Presbyterian, recently shared his frustration with me at hearing from his minister on Holy Thursday how the Eucharist is spiritual food. He summarized his frustration thus: "Then why doesn't [that minister] feed us more often than once a year?!"
What does impress me is how many Protestants seem to take it personally that we (Catholics) will not share Communion with them. They seem to take it as a sort of snootiness or arrogance on our part, as if we feel we are better than them. Feelings haven't anything to do with any of it, though. Nor does the status of their communion celebrations, or their beliefs and feelings regarding communion. While few Protestants have beliefs about the Eucharist the same as ours, most that I know do believe that is Jesus is somehow manifest in the Eucharist. That's great. It's a start. It also has nothing to do with why we will not share Communion with them. What is forming our stance is a matter of fact: in very substantial ways Protestants are not in communion with us and to share the Holy Communion with them would be to falsify communion.
When a Protestant is submits in matters of faith and morals to the authority of Church, who teaches on behalf of Christ, then the Protestant will have moral unity with the Church, and may share in our sacramental communion. Sharing sacramental communion before there is moral unity is like sharing sexual relations before there is sacramental marriage: it puts the cart before the horse, falsifies the nature of the relationship, and thereby cheapens the sacrament.
And the thing is that this teaching isn't personal. It's not like the Church has it out for Protestants or think we are better than them (although, sadly, there are many arrogant asses like myself among us). In fact, Catholics living in sin (I don't just mean sexually) aren't to go to communion either. Nor are Catholics who have eaten too recently. Of course, when the pews empty at communion time, a number of Catholics are going to communion who probably should not be - either for committing some sin, dissenting from some teaching, or from casually eating Cheetos before going to Mass. This careless communion gives cause for scandal to our Protestant brethren. "If all those flaky Catholics can go to Catholic communion, then why can't I?" The question is pretty legitimate. It would be easier to explain our doctrine about reception of the Eucharist if we as a community lived it out better ourselves.
If, at communion time, a significant number of Catholics-in-the-pew refrained from communion, as used to be the case, guests in our community would probably not feel so left out in the cold. For now, a good second best is probably to encourage friends that come with us to Mass to go up to receive a blessing - arms folded across chest, head bowed, mouth closed. And of course, there is the old multiknife of solutions - prayer.
I think there really is a reason, though, that they want our Eucharist. As previously noted, they have been starved by their own denominations from the spiritual blessing of reenacting the Lord's Supper. But there's more. Because we have priests successively ordained from generation to generation back to the apostles and our Lord himself, we offer the sacrifice that He taught us, and in that we sacrifice have Him for Whom we were made, in what merely appears to be bread and wine. We haven't just got mere symbols, or memorials, or spiritual presences. We have Him. He's attracted such a magnetic relationship upon the world for two thousand years so that one must, after reflection, either love Him or hate Him. Our hearts were made for Him, and as He predicted, the more Holy Church lifts Him up, the more He draws all men to himself (Jn 12:32).
This woman is amazing. Listen to her speak at the provincial parliament of Victoria, Australia, on 10 September 2008, the night before that body convened to decriminalize abortion in its jurisdiction.
On 11 September 2008, the provincial parliament voted 47-35 to decriminalize abortion in the state.
I just picked up on this awesome article in Zenit's newsfeed from last week. Thanks to Dara for posting it herself.
I've heard the AIDS worker from Meeting Point Kampala speak. Her name is Rose Busingye and she is a part of the Communion and Liberation movement. She is amazing, and so is the work of Meeting Point. These people know what they are talking about. It is a little reported fact that of all African countries, Uganda, with its Christianity-friendly government, has led the way in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS. In fact, in Uganda, the disease has been brought almost to a standstill, not by condoms or other prophylactic measures, but by chastity-related education.
A friend of mine just sent me a link to the webpage of an adoption agency that specializes on children with Down Syndrome. Check it out.
I very much would like to write about today's readings, but am not sure that I will have time. But I do have time to copy and paste these letters to the editors of Zenit that were pointed out to me. They move me, I think, especially in light of my youngest sister's handicap. Enjoy!
"The Hard Case of Down Syndrome
A response to: Discovery of Down Chromosome Called a Victory
The routine abortion of 90% of children with Down syndrome is one of the most tragic manifestations of the culture of death.
Focus on this issue is, I think, one of the best ways to advocate for the right to life. Pro-choice groups often raise the issue of "hard cases." But certainly the routine abortion of children with this syndrome is a "hard case" that the Pro-life movement can use (sex selection is another), because the same progressives (I will not quibble over labels) who support reproductive choice also often fight for the rights of the disabled.
Perhaps an international campaign focusing on this issue would be in order, perhaps focusing, in particular, on the adoption of children with Down syndrome.
Perhaps this is a project that some Catholic dioceses might consider taking on -- creating a registry of Catholics in their region who would welcome a baby with Down syndrome. The registry could then be publicized, asking couples considering abortion to consider adoption instead.
Perhaps another way is for companies that make pro-life clothing to produce shirts with the message "I want to adopt a child with Down syndrome."
Michael Trolly, Ottawa"
and
"Seeking Children With Down
A response to: The Hard Case of Down Syndrome
My husband and I have been on a national registry to adopt a baby or child with Down Syndrome for three and a half years. Hopefully our wait will soon be over! We think it is important to put our hearts on the line for these children and these birth mothers. We have had two birth mothers choose us and then keep their babies in the end. This is a great result! It is hard emotional work to be there for birth mothers who are confused about whether or not they will accept their babies. We really want to adopt a baby with Down Syndrome so each time an adoption falls through it is bittersweet.
We feel so strongly that more Catholics need to be willing to adopt babies and children with disabilities whether they have their own children or not. If we claim to be pro-life then we need to live it to the best of our ability. Of course not everyone is cut out for raising a child with a disability, but we believe that if you found out that your biological child had a disability and you would still choose to raise him, then you are a good candidate to do a home study and let the adoption agency make the final decision.
God loves all the little children, and Catholics need to do their best to love and accept all God's children also! (even when they are adults!)
Linda Melsa"
What an excellent idea. Of all the people to abort, children with Down Syndrome seem the most senselessly destroyed. Of all the people in the world, given even a moderately loving home, they are the happiest. Their almost insensate simplicity and joyfulness are almost contagious. I have met dozens of people with Down Syndrome, and never once heard even a hint of regret from their families. Doctors who urge parents to abort their unborn children tested positive for Down Syndrome are morally reprehensible. More than that, they have got to ideologically eugenicist to the point of actual psychosis, to be so out of touch with the reality of these children.
I think Mr. Trolly and Ms. Melsa are on to something.
A friend of mine just shared this story with me. A twelve year old girl in Canada decides that for her persuasive speaking topic, she will speak against abortion.
Take two or three minutes to read the full story about what this kid had to deal with just to speak her mind (in the enlightened and free West).
Today's readings at Mass (Lv 13:1-2, 44-46, Ps 32:1-2, 5, 11, 1 Cor 10:31-11:1, Mk 1:40-45) have a very simple theme in common: outcasts and how we treat them. The first reading prescribes the ritual treatment of leprosy during a time in which a connection between disease and sin was presumed. 
For fear of disease and sin, the leper is to remain outside the wandering Israelites' camp, outside the oasis of civilization in a harsh world, until such time as their leprosy is cleared up. While the connection is not certain, it is not stupid, either. As evidence consider that many, but not all, who have cirrhosis of the liver have it from drinking too much. And just as some diseases are catching, so we can learn sins from each other as well. In the Gospel reading, St. Mark recounts our Lord's own trouble with leprosy. He did not catch the disease, but because he healed people with it, he came into such demand that he could not go into towns but had to stay outside in the wilderness. In an unexpected way, he took the consequences of the lepers' disease upon himself. This acceptance of their disease prefigures his acceptance of the sins of all humanity. It specifically prefigures his crucifixion on a barren hill outside Jerusalem.
"There are a lot of people in our world who are hurting," we were reminded by the recorded voice of the Archbishop this morning at every parish in the archdiocese. Some of these people are hurting because of sin, theirs or others'. Some of them are hurting because of dumb bad luck, as much as such a thing exists. Most people are hurting at least a little from both, and some people are hurting tremendously from both. And where there is one, especially the dumb-bad-luck, leprosy kind, we still instinctively assume that the other kind exists as well - that the person has sinned and brought it upon themselves. Homeless people must be either lazy or crazy, we assume - and oh, how our tightening economic straits might soon prove us wrong on this point! We don't want to "judge" HIV/AIDS patients, sure, but we don't want to touch them either, do we? How must that feel, to be looked at ten thousand times in a day, always with a frown, or a smirk, or with averted eyes - and never to be touched, or held, or kissed?
Jesus made no such assumptions, though. He simply went among them and did what He could (which was a lot!) to heal them when they came to Him. And He still does. We in the Church, incorporated by holy baptism into His mystical body and nourished on His Body and Blood, ought to do likewise. 
It takes some practice, to be sure, because our base instinct is to spend our time and energy on ourselves and to shrink from marred skin and open sores, both physical and spiritual. But remember our Lord's instructions to the fishermen who had thus far caught nothing: "Cast into the deep," (Lk 5:4). Those fishing instructions were nonsensical by the world's standards, but pulled in a catch that could only be seen as a manifestation of the power of God. Generosity of spirit, together with a gift of time and energy, both grounded in prayer and the sacraments, can do amazing, amazing things. If you'd like to see an example of this power of love, I recommend a visit with the Missionaries of Charity. In there houses people presumed about to die have been healed more by love than by medicine. The order founded by Mother Teresa to cast out into the deep, among the poorest of the poor, to those who are avoided by "civilized" folk. The Missionaries have a some houses here in DC: a hospice for poor people on Otis St NE and a soup kitchen and women's shelter on Wheeler Rd SE; and over 500 homes in 133 countries around the world.
The Church will continue to wake up and reclaim Her proper place in the world - priest, prophet, and king - only as much as we, Her children, do so. But what does it mean for the baptized person to be a priest, prophet, and king? I think I'll make that the subject of my next three posts.
Today, for the 36th annual time, a LOT of people turned out in DC to march from the White House to the Supreme Court of the United States to tell our rulers what we think about their murderous policy regarding unborn children.
The media, of course, made it sound as if a few dozen hooligans had turned out to vandalize the Cannon Congressional Office Building. In reality, what you will find if you turn out for it next year, is the largest annual demonstration in the nation's capital, and one in which virtually everybody is singing, smiling, and praying. It's a good time to meet old friends. Even if, like me, other commitments and callings keep you from being as fully involved in the day-to-day of this spiritual struggle as you'd like, you will find the March a good way to get in on Jesus' head-count for who cared about his little brothers and sisters in the womb. Notable especially is the large number of young people present at the March. Seeing things like this always re-energizes my hope for America.
(The picture is actually two years old, because I didn't bring my camera this time. We had blue skies and 40* this year. Nice.)
We shouldn't think that any of the graces given to the Blessed Virgin Mary are weird, or out of place, even if they are singular and just for her. Everything that God has done for the Blessed Virgin in a particular way, He wants to do for us in a general way; everything for her in a miraculous way, for us in a progressive, natural way.
The Immaculate Conception is a perfect example of a grace that we shouldn't find odd. He spared her from the curse of Original Sin and all its effects from the moment of her (immaculate) conception in the womb of her mother, St. Anne. By our baptism he cleanses us of all sin, including original sin, the sin we inherit from our origins, and its effects upon us are loosened for now, and eventually, at the resurrection, obliterated entirely. Mary was granted the particular grace of the Immaculate Conception so that she would be a fitting mother to bear God into the world. We are baptized so to receive God when He comes to us, and by virtue of our baptism, are able to bear Him to others in the world. God gave Mary the grace never to go near death. He gives us daily the grace to walk away from it.
Because of her Immaculate Conception she never needed, nor ever did, taste death. She was a living challenge to sin and death, just by her manner of living and being. As the culmination to a sinless life, she was brought bodily into the realms of light before death yet scarred her. We who, unlike the Virgin of Virgins, are born into the sinfulness of the human family, taste death in our daily life - anger, hatred, mockery, violence, malice, sickness, suffering, warfare - and will finally taste death in its fullness; but not in its finality. By living a life structured by the sacraments and soaked in the Sacred Scriptures, in unity with our Christian brethren, and in as nearly constant prayerful union as we can manage, we ourselves will push back the domain of sin wherever we go, undoing hatred, suffering, and even death. Since the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have a hope that the world just doesn't get, doesn't understand - the hope of resurrection for ourselves. Because of this great hope, we can even freely embrace life's sufferings and so will not be cowed by them into sinning. Death, which does us in, is undone by Christ. This process begins for each human in baptism; it begins for humanity in the Immaculate Conception.
Don't forget that today is a Holy Day of Obligation. Yes, you just went to Mass yesterday. Sweet! We all get to go again, and praise and worship God at the Sacrifice of His Son, today for the great gift He has given us in His Mother.
Today is the Second Sunday of Advent. We're getting closer. Last week, as a Church we cried out to God, "To Thee I have lifted up my soul," and this week God gives us His reply: "Populus Sion, ecce Dominus veniet ad salvandas gentes." People of Zion, He says through His prophet, Behold the Lord comes to save the nations.
We call out to God and He responds. His entrance into the world is, of course, the fullness of this response. The Lord came to the world to save the nations. That's you and me, our neighbors, our families, our towns, our country, the whole world. The work of God in this respect has clearly not yet been brought to its fullest fulfillment. He will return to finish the job, though. In the meantime, when He returns, He expects to find us busy helping to get things ready. Let's pray and get to work.
Today's Mass readings (1 Cor 9:16-19, 22b-27; Ps 84:3, 4, 5-6, 12; Lk 6:39-42) speak of two themes. The Gospel speaks about the importance of removing sin from our own lives before we address it in those around us. At the very least, if we do not completely eradicate sin in ourselves first, chronologically, we should put that process first in importance and priority. The epistle speaks about the importance of diligence in the Christian life - and the seriousness of our goal. Sin is bad. In the life of a Christian, it is very bad. Sin hardens our hearts against God, weakens our wills in the face of further sin, dims our mind's ability to know truth from falsehood. It damages our ability to convey God's love to the world. To show Christ to our neighbor and to the world, we must get rid of sin in our own life as thoroughly as we can. It's that simple. If we do a lousy job showing Jesus to our neighbors, if none or few of our coworkers and friends have asked us about Him (who we say is the center of our life), you can bet that it's because of all the sin in our lives. If we can't see the sin in our life, we probably need new glasses.
The Roman Calendar lists as an optional memorial for today the Holy Name of Mary. Mary, conceived without sin and sinless her whole life, brought into the world Him who changed everything - who, simply by existing, challenges every the encrustations of sin. Because we have crusty buildups of sin inside of our heart, Jesus challenges us. Everyone that comes into contact with Him will, when push comes to shove, either despise Him or fall at His feet. No person, place, or thing that comes into contact with Jesus can remain indifferent - the heart hardens or breaks, but it does not sit untouched.
Mary was capable of bringing Him into the world because she was so open to God's will, because her heart is so soft to Him, so supple, so pliable, so moldable, so flexible, so free for service to Him. If we want to be softened by our contact with Jesus, rather than hardened into our sins, we should call on her and ask her to show us the way.
Feast of St. John Vianney
Priest (Aug 4)
Ok, so St. John Vianney (1786-1859) didn't actually beat up Hananiah (oh, let's say 650 BC to 588 BC, give or take). But his spirit sure did; or rather, we should say that Jeremiah, who outdid Hananiah, lived on in spirit in the person of St. John Vianney.
The Babylonians had attacked Jerusalem and taken some of her leadership into captivity. They replaced the king of Judah with their own man, who took the name Zedekiah. Zedekiah turned out to be not so much a puppet as they had hoped, and decided to rebel against the Babylonians; to do so, he would recruit the help of the Egyptians. Hananiah and some of the other court "prophets" were happy to be yes-men and encouraged Zedekiah. Jeremiah, on the other hand, told them all flat out that it was the will of God that they should be humbled a while longer, that they should not ally with the Egyptians because the Egyptians' help never turned out well. He repeated until he was blue in the face that Judah's new found national pride was opposed by the will of God. To make his point, he strapped onto himself a wooden yoke, like a farmer would use to harness a pair of oxen. Sure enough, the Babylonians come back with a vengeance and lay seige to the Holy City.
Today's first Mass reading (Jer 28:1-17; Ps 119:29, 43, 79, 80, 95, 102; Mt 14:22-36) picks up at this point. Hananiah, the mealy-mouthed so-called prophet smashes the yoke from Jeremiah and proclaims that in like manner God Himself will lift the seige and save the city. Jeremiah goes and fetches an iron yoke and straps it to himself: Judah, you are on the wrong course! Repent! Trust God, not the Egyptians! He turns his wrath on Hananiah and tell him that because he has falsely spoken on behalf of the Lord, he will not live to see the year's end. Sure enough, Hananiah died within a few months. Within a few more months, in the year 587 BC, Jerusalem is taken by the Babylonians, her entire leadership deported, Zedekiah's eyes were put out and his sons murdered by the Babylonian general, and the city was laid waste and her population dispersed.
About 2400 years separate St. John Vianney from the time of the holy prophet Jeremiah and the false prophet Hananiah, but the same perennial battle was underway and is underway still. On one hand, the sunny optimists of progress continually tell us that all is well, that by our own efforts and on our own terms, we can make the world a better place. They call opponents pessimistic, unpatriotic, narrowminded, backwards, and worse. The only problems they see are in their opponents' unwillingness to trust them.
St. John Vianney spoke out against the merry laxity of his day, in which religious observance was mechanical and infrequent. He spoke out against the immorality that lax observance protected. He spoke out even against people, when they encouraged that immorality. His homilies were not nice, and people did not like to hear what he had to say. "So gloomy, this new priest," one can almost here people saying as they left church after Sunday Mass. Importantly, St. John Vianney did not merely speak out against these evils, but he lived out against them. His whole life was a testimony to goodness, virtue, prayer, devotion, service, and joy.
But then something began to happen. People began to respond. By the time he died, Ars, the little village where he was pastor, had been transformed into a thriving spiritual center, laden with apostolic works and saturated in the prayer of its few hundred residents and tens of thousands of visitors.
In our time, there are numerous false prophets leading our people down paths of evil, insisting that all would be well if only Christians would shut up. Whenever anyone is hurt along these roads of evil, these false prophets insist that all is really well, and getting better. We must show them wrong by speaking truth lovingly, and by living love truthfully.
St. John Vianney and Holy Jeremiah, pray for us.
So, Pentecost done, we resume of Ordinary Time. Ordinary sounds so, well, ordinary, plain, drab, boring. Why would the Church call it "ordinary." That's hardly inspiring.
I want to propose an alternate understanding for this time of year. At Pentecost the Church received the wind its sails that it needs to live out the comission it received from our Lord at the Ascension: to set out into the vast horizons of the world, preaching the Good News and baptizing the whole world. The Church has just re-presented that initial descent of the Holy Spirit in the Pentecost liturgies. Now it is time for us to turn our minds back to the task of evangelizing the world. We are like Jesus' army, or navy perhaps, and we have grown into quite a massive fleet. As St. Paul notes in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 12) we cannot all just do whatever we like, but we must each find our role in the broader Body of Christ. Having found our role, we need our marching instructions for how to conduct ourselves. If we were all feet, who would think? If we were all eyeballs, who would walk? Likewise, if we were all teachers, who would pray? If we were all contemplatives, who would defend the teachings and reputation of Holy Church? Our leaders, the successors to the Apostles, have over time developed a set of methods, or procedures, or "ordinances" for figuring out who does what. Some are very exact: Everyone goes to Mass every Sunday and on other obligatory observances, unless grave circumstances intervene. Some ordinances are more vague: "Teach all nations," and we are left a great deal of discretion in determining how to work them out in our day-to-day lives. These ordinances are where we get the name Ordinary Time, I suspect. It is the time when the ordinary Ordinances, without special fasts or feasts, disciplines or dispensations, apply. It is these ordinances that structure our day-to-day life as Christians.
But the work of the apostolate is hardly boring - at least, not if we are putting our hearts and minds into it. Every apostolate has dimensions of prayer, service, and evangelization, although each apostolate will have varying proportions of each, and some dimension may be mostly implicit. Work at a soup kitchen is primarily about feeding the poor, though our love for them should draw them to Christ, and we should saturate all our work with prayer. Printing apologetic tracts is primarily about evangelization, but will be of great service to teachers of the Faith, and should be saturated from beginning to end in prayer. The apostolate is the outward mission of the Church, and is to be conducted primarily by the laity, in cooperation and guided by their pastors.
The apostolate is to be grounded in the spiritual life of each Christian, and every Christian is called to participate. Our spiritual lives, infused with the Faith, Hope, and Love of Jesus by the sacraments, are to be nurtured by solid time spent in prayer, healthy Christian community, and immersion in the Sacred Scriptures. Out of this soil grows a solid plant of apostolate: intercessory prayer, service, evangelization. There is a world out there in dire need of Christ, and only Christians can bring Him to it.
To aid us in our task, the Vatican II Council produced a document Apostolicam Actuositatem, on the apostolate of the laity. I highly recommend reading the medium-sized but easy document. Some people feel awkward about looking for ways to share their love of Jesus with others. Fair enough, and I don't want to judge them because I used to feel that way too. They might even rationalize it by saying that all religions are equal or that they don't want to force their beliefs on someone else yet. They might consider this point, though. If you don't want to share it, you probably don't get it, either.
Those of you who know me personally know that www.godspy.com is without a doubt my favorite website. I haven't commented on it much of late because it's been a long time since anything new has been posted on the webzine. But it is back up, with a new format, and lots of new, very interesting-looking articles. It is a website run by members of Communion and Liberation and is dedicated to engaging contemporary issues (but not just "news") from a Catholic perspective: fearlessly looking for truth wherever it lie. If you are looking for a saccharine catechism from the 1940s, filled with pat answers, well, Godspy is not it. But if you are looking for sound ideas rooted in orthodox Catholic faith engaging the (post-)modern world in a constructive way, search no further.
I am going to put a link to it in under my banner head above, but it might take a couple days to get it up.
Today's Mass readings (Monday of the 4th Wk of Ord Time; 2 Sm 15:13-14, 30; 16:5-13; Ps 3; Mk 5:1-20) include one of my very favorite passages of the Bible. I first heard the Gospel reading preached very well some four years ago at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, at a daily Mass. First, I'll recap the priest's brief but brilliant homily, and then I'll write a bit about why I feel the reading has been so powerful in my life.
The priest first pointed out that Gerasa, the town afflicted by the possessed man, was either a town of Jews or of Gentiles, but it was in the Gentile regions just outside the Holy Land. The town's location isolated it. Whether Jews or Gentiles, their economy had notably incorporated swineherding - an activity forbad among the Jews. Even to touch a pig rendered a man unclean and outcast. The town's economic activities isolated it. Moreover, the road into the town from the water was blocked by the man possessed by the legion of demons. His terrifying activity had rendered the town further isolated. Supernatural forces isolated it.
Jesus comes into town and, as an act of mercy, exorcises the man, whose many demons who ask to be sent into the pigs rather than Hell. Jesus grants their request, and the maddened pigs stampede into the sea, drowning themselves. Their terrified swineherd tells the whole town what had happened. The locals then meet Jesus, and ask Him to leave. They were happy to have the road into their town opened again, but not at the cost of parting with their sinful occupations, not at the cost of overturning their way of life. They wanted to get the blessing without their lives being changed.
The priest then preached that God will not bless us with whatever blessing unless we are willing to change our lives to accomodate it. A prayer like, "Lord, help me with my finances," must be accompanied by a willingness to give up frivolous and selfish spending, and probably even a willingness to tithe, to render to God what is God's. If we want to receive God's blessing, it is only fair that we should be willing to part ways with whatever separates us from him, with whatever sin. God will bless us, and the blessing entails removing our swine from us. God will not bless the pigs.
In my own life the passage has been particularly meaningful because of my desire to be a priest. The man possessed by the legion of Jesus desired to join the ranks of Jesus' apostles and traveling disciples, and in a rare refusal, Jesus told the man the he should rather stay among his own people and tell them what the Lord had done for him. These people who wanted to forget God, and who would be tempted just to get new swine and pretend the whole thing had never happened, needed a living reminder. While I was in the seminary, Jesus began, or continued, to work a good deal of healing and conversion in my life - chasing out demons and swine. When leaving the seminary, confident only that I was doing what Jesus wanted me to do, this passage came to be important for me personally. It is the hope of every Christian that we will, by God's grace, be able to discern and exercise our share in the apostolate, in works of mercy, in reconciliation of divisions, in proclaiming the Gospel. It requires a great deal of humility to set aside the manner in which we would like to do it, and to trust Jesus that he has in store a role more valuable, more meaningful, more important for us. We must obey Him as a father, in an act of loving self-sacrifice, loving death-to-self, and hoping that He who makes the seed fall, will grant it an increase.
Holy Man of Gerasa, pray for us.
Ryan Matthew Haber
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