Alleluia, Christ is risen! Happy Easter! I always love the fact that the church is SO crowded on Easter Sunday! How wonderful to see so many people attending, and I always hope we make it such a good experience people want to come back. A non-church going friend once complained that he hated to go into a church and see all of those people acting so pious who had committed so many sins. He could not stand the hypocrisy! I told him that that is why we go to church! We don't go to church because we are so holy, we go to church because we recognize that we desperately need God in our lives. The fact is, church should be a place where we welcome sinners with open arms, while at the same time acknowledging our own sinfulness and need for forgiveness. Jesus said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners (Lk. 2:17).” The Gospel is all about revealing God’s mercy and forgiveness. Jesus Christ is the love and mercy of God in the flesh.

As a community, it is our job to make everyone feel welcome, including those society has marginalized. In doing so, we reflect the Kingdom of God. The Jewish traditions and law of Jesus’ time held quite strict purity laws. There were certain types of people with whom contact would make you ritually ‘unclean’ and thus unable to participate in the religious practices of the community. There were also certain professions that were looked at as being contrary to a faithful Jewish life. One example is a tax collector, who not only worked for the Roman system that was oppressing the Jewish people, but also earned his living by what he collected from people above and beyond the amount required by Rome. Jesus breaks down all of these boundaries between people. He commands that we love God and our neighbor. When asked who is to be considered our neighbor, Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan. Samaritans were not ‘neighbors’ to most Jewish people! The Jewish people and the Samaritan people had had centuries of conflicts. Jesus broadens the concept of neighbor to include, not just members of one’s own family and community, but even one’s enemies. As we reflect on the all-embracing love of God in our own time of uncertainty and conflict, it is good to ask ourselves today: Who is our neighbor?

The early Christian community worshipped in the temple and then gathered in one another's homes for the breaking of bread. We hear in this Sunday's reading from the Acts of the Apostles that the Christians held all things in common and that their resources were divided equally among them, to each according to his or her need. Of course we also know that problems quickly arose, given the story of the two disciples who sell their property, but try to hold back some of the proceeds of the sale for their own use. Likewise Paul admonishes the Corinthians because those who had plenty to eat were eating in front of those who did not have enough to eat and were not sharing what they had. Paul tells the Corinthians that if they cannot recognize the body of Christ in their brothers and sisters, then they are not going to be able to properly discern the body of Christ in the Eucharist. We may not always practice hospitality and community to the extent we are called, but it is important to always strive toward that ideal nonetheless. Who are those in need among us? Do we see them? Do we reach out to them? Do we as community incarnate Christ? All those who joined us for the liturgy last Sunday, will they be back this Sunday? If not, what could we have done to have made them want to come back?

We stand between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, so I want to talk about the passion narratives that we hear this week. A few weeks ago, I went to an amazing talk by Donald Senior, C.P. (appropriately enough a priest of the Passionist community), a Scripture scholar and the president of Chicago Theological Union. While Senior talked about all four passion narratives, I want to share with you a little of what he said about Matthew, which we heard on Sunday, and John, which we will hear on Good Friday.

Matthew, following Mark, focuses on Jesus' humanness and solidarity with human suffering in the passion. Matthew focuses on Jesus as the obedient Son of God, paralleling the understanding of Israel as the Son of God in the Hebrew Scriptures (cf. Exodus 4:22). The idea of Jesus' sonship focus on his obedience and his trust. This relationship is shaken, but not broken, in Jesus' encounter with death. Senior points out that his death entails not only physical death, but the seeming loss of his mission, the shattering of his community and of his dreams for Israel. He prays in the garden that this cup might pass, but ultimately prays as he taught his disciples, "Your will be done."

On the cross, the religious leaders mock Jesus in the fashion of Psalm 22:

He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, 'I am the Son of God.' - Matthew 27:43

All who see me mock me; they curl their lips and jeer; they shake their heads at me: "You relied on the LORD--let him deliver you; if he loves you, let him rescue you." - Ps. 22:9

The crowds mock the very relationship with God that has grounded Jesus throughout his life and his ministry, and Jesus cries out in response with the words of Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" In a lament psalm the first half of the psalm pours out all of the psalmist's frustration and anger, but psalmist does not stay in the place of despair. Rather he moves in the second half of the psalm to a place once again of trust in God and praise of God.

For God has not spurned or disdained the misery of this poor wretch, Did not turn away from me, but heard me when I cried out. - Psalm 22:25

Jesus cries out, but does so trusting that God hears him. He cries out again at the moment of his death, and gives up his spirit, literally his breath. Senior pointed out that Matthew changes the verb from Mark's more raw "loud scream" (toned down in our translations as "a loud cry") to "cried out again" to bring to mind that reassurance of the Psalm that God hears those who cry out. Jesus does not "expire" or "breath out" as in Mark, but hands over his spirit in a final act of trusting obedience to God. Senior pointed out that for the Israelites, our breath was given to us by God and belongs to God. Jesus gives his breath back to God in a act of loving surrender, and the result is cataclysmic for the entire world - the veil in the sanctuary is torn in two, the earth quakes, rocks are split, tombs open, and the dead are raised. All that seemed hopeless is given new life - Jesus' trust in God is vindicated. Senior sums up: God is faithful even in the midst of our anger and doubt.

John's gospel tells a very different story of the passion. Jesus in John's gospel is the Word of God, the revelation of God to the world. And what does God say to the world? "For God so loved the world . . . " (Jn. 3:16) Senior points out that the most powerful sign/symbol/word of God's love is the death of Jesus.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. - John 15:13

In John's gospel love and life triumph over death. Jesus walks to his death in supreme confidence - the hour of his glory has come. The soldiers fall down before him. Senior points out that in John, Pilate brings Jesus out before the crowd's and seats him "on the judge's bench." Jesus is the true judge. Pilate fears Jesus.

Death in John is the completion of Jesus' mission. Jesus' crucifixion, his being "lifted up," is his exaltation, his ascension to the Father. He returns to the Father to prepare a place for those he loves. For John's gospel, death is communion with God. Senior sums up: death is the portal into communion with God, with the love of God.

As we stand between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, between the anguish of death and the confidence of God's love and faithfulness in the midst of our human turmoil, we also stand on the anniversary of the war in Iraq, a war that has now lasted five years. It seems somehow appropriate that a day that so aptly illustrates part of the sinful and anguished human condition falls between these two readings of the passion. So once again I ask you to pray for peace in Iraq and the world and wisdom for the leaders of our country and Iraq. Let us turn to God with all of our doubt and anger and somehow trust that God stands by us even in our darkest moments. Let us trust that all those who have tragically died in this ongoing cycle of violence have been taken up into the love of God. Let us move through Palm Sunday and Good Friday to celebrate the resurrection of Easter.


To read more of Donald Senior, see his books:
The Passion Series, 4 Volumes, Liturgical Press, 1985-1991.
You can also access some of his commentary on the passion narratives at:
http://www.cptryon.org/xpipassio/passio/index.html

Last week I spoke of sin, so this week I want to talk about freedom! The Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner had an axiom that can be summed as “God and humans don’t compete.” In other words, we do not lose our freedom when we surrender to the love of God, but rather we become fully free precisely in that surrender. Another way Rahner puts it is to say that dependence on God and human freedom are in direct proportion to one another, i.e. when one increases, the other also increases. They are not in a relationship of inverse proportion (in which if one increases, the other decreases).

From the time of St. Augustine, the Catholic tradition has made a distinction between freedom and freedom of choice. Freedom is our ability to love God above all things. It is our ability to be the people God created us to be. It is this freedom that we lost in the fall. To put it another way, not having this freedom is part of what we mean when we talk about having original sin. We are born incapable of actually loving God above all else. We can only love God in such a way because of God’s grace.

So if we have some understanding of freedom, what is freedom of choice? Freedom of choice is exactly what it sounds like, the ability to make choices, to decide or choose between this and that. Without God’s grace, human choice tends toward the things of this world. It is God’s grace that gives us the ability to love God, allowing good choices to flow from that love.

According to St. Augustine, who quotes St. Paul, grace is primarily “the love of God . . . poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Rom. 5:5).” Scripture tells us that “we love because God first loved us (1 Jn. 4:19).” God reaches out to us, but we must accept God’s offer. Of course, we are only capable of accepting the offer because of God’s grace; but nonetheless, as one of my teachers used to say, God won’t save us without our ‘yes’. God wants to share his love with all people, but at the same time, God allows us to choose whether or not to accept that love. God liberates us by giving us grace which frees us from sin and empowers us to do what is good. Yet even with God’s grace we are subject to the temptations of sin. We still have freedom of choice and can choose to do good or evil. However, in surrendering to God’s love and in choosing the good, our freedom, that is our ability to love God above all else, increases; and we continue to choose what is good because it is part of who we are and who we were created to be.

In each and every moment of our lives, we get to choose who we are, who we are going to be. Are we going to live up to all of the potential, all of the gifts with which God created us? Are we going to choose to close ourselves off from God, from love, from all that we could be? We don't always make the right choices, but we also have the incredible gift of God's mercy, love, and forgiveness that picks us up when we fall and empowers us to start again. Each day, each moment, can be a moment of new life, of better choices, of resurrection.

Lent is a time when we reflect on our own sinfulness and shortcomings in preparation to renew our baptismal vows at Easter. We have all been created in the image and likeness of God; but we have also experienced the reality of original sin in our world. Original sin is the brokenness within us that is a part of being human and the fact that every single one of us is in need of the love, mercy, and forgiveness offered to us in and through Christ, i.e., salvation. Beyond the human condition, we have all experienced personal sin. If most of us are honest, we can probably acknowledge with St. Paul that there are times when,

“What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. (Rom. 7:15).”

He refers to those times when we do the things we know are wrong and then wonder why we did them in the first place. All of us are sinful at times; it is part of being human. The good news is that Christ has liberated us from sin and death. Christ is our physician who heals what is broken within us and restores our relationships with God, other people and ourselves. Our human reality is always a mixture of sin and grace. Despite the bad choices we make, God is always there loving us and forgiving us through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is that presence of God in our lives that stirs our hearts to do what is right and to overcome our weaknesses.

Sin is not just personal; it is also communal or social. All you have to do is turn on the TV or radio to experience the reality that we live in a sinful world. As we hear the stories of more deaths in Baghdad and Jerusalem, as we watch the tension unfolding in Columbia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, it is clear that humanity has still not reached a point where we can solve conflict without violence. Each of us is indirectly responsible for the violence in the world. The Church calls this condition social sin. It involves sins that we do not directly commit, but are all implicated in by being members of the global human community. This social sin is often built right into the structures of our world.

In the midst of a world of social sin, when we look around and at times feel despair, it is important to remember that Christ has already won the victory over sin and death. In the midst of the darkness of war and violence, we must remember that Christ is the light that has come into the darkness, the light that the darkness cannot overcome. We must remember that after death comes resurrection. Maybe we can’t solve the problems of the world, but each of us can walk a path of continual conversion, allowing Christ to be our guide and allowing the Spirit into our hearts. We see God at work in the world when we as individuals, with the gift of freedom, allow God to work in and through us. Paul VI says, “If you want peace, work for justice.” Each of us can be peacemakers in our own lives, both in our actions and through our prayers.

I would like to ask all of you to continue praying for peace throughout the whole world, for all of the people who are serving our country in the military and their families, as well as for the people of Iraq who are also our brothers and sisters in Christ. I also ask that you pray for the leaders of our nation and the nations of the world, that they may be open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As we move through these final weeks of Lent toward Easter, let us find hope in the resurrection and in our God who brings life from death.

"I was blind and now I see." This is not only a line from the famous hymn, "Amazing Grace"; these words are spoken by the blind man in the passage from John's gospel that we will hear this Sunday. Blindness in the gospels is always a metaphor for coming to faith. The man in John's gospel is healed and becomes able to physically see, but much more important is the fact that he comes to believe in Jesus. Interestingly enough, this man does not come to Jesus and ask to be healed; Jesus takes the initiative in response to the disciples' question about whether the man or his parents had sinned. The man does respond to Jesus by doing what he is told - going to wash in the Pool of Siloam, but as a result, he does not see Jesus face to face. By the time he is healed and able to see, he is no longer in Jesus' presence. Consequently when he is questioned by the authorities about who Jesus is, he cannot tell them. He does maintain his belief that Jesus must be a man of God. Furthermore, when Jesus approaches him at the end of the story to ask him if he believes in the Son of Man, he does not seem to realize that Jesus is the one who healed him until he is told. When he asks who the Son of Man is that he might believe in him, Jesus responds, "You have seen him." In other words, the blind man recognized Jesus, who he was and that the source of his power was God, without ever having physically seen him. He has "seen" him without being able to see him. His response to Jesus' statement is to believe and to worship. The Pharisees are the foil to the blind man. They have no problem with their physical sight, but are unable to see Jesus, unable to recognize who he is and that the source of his power is God. It is precisely in their claim to have clear sight that Jesus faults them for being sinful.

Interestingly enough, I watched the movie Amazing Grace this past weekend, the true story about William Wilberforce, the man who fought tirelessly to end the slave trade in England, to get the people of his time to overcome their blindness to the evil that was being done in their midst and to see the truth. He was greatly influenced by his minister, John Newton, the former slave ship captain turned minister who wrote the hymn, "Amazing Grace," about his conversion experience. At the end of his movie, the minister has gone physically blind, but is finally willing to share his own story of being involved with the slave trade in order to open the eyes of others, to heal their spiritual and moral blindness.

Where are our own spiritual and moral blindspots? Individually and collectively? How are we participating in the healing ministry of Jesus, healing our own and others' blindness? Here at the parish on Tuesday night, we watched Dead Man Walking, and while no one is physically blind in the movie, Sr. Helen Prejean's eyes are certainly opened through her encounter with a man on death row. She in turn has done much to open other people's eyes on the issue of the death penalty in our country. Both movies also brought home the realization that individuals can change the world. We have each been created with great potential, and God's grace, each of us can see the world in a new way and help others to do so as well!

Last Sunday we read about the transfiguration. The transfiguration is one of the most important stories in the gospels because it tells us who Jesus is and who we are called to be in Christ. In the transfiguration, Jesus' face shines like the sun and his clothes are as white as light. The language describing Jesus echoes the language describing Moses on Sinai in Exodus 33-34 indicating the manifestation of the divine, the appearance of God to Israel. Similar language is used of the tent of the tabernacle in Exod. 40, where the cloud covers the tent and the glory of the Lord enters the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God. For Christians, Jesus is the dwelling place of God, the temple of God, the very presence of God. Jesus manifests the glory of God.

Mark puts the transfiguration right at the center of his gospel, and connects it to two other moments, the baptism of the Lord and the crucifixion. Mark's gospel opens with the baptism of the Lord, in which God says to Jesus, "You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased." In the transfiguration we hear God say to the disciples, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him." Finally, on the cross Jesus breathes his last, the veil of the sanctuary is torn in two, and the centurion (the Roman soldier) says, "Truly this man was the Son of God." The same one who is crucified is the transfigured one. God's glory is manifest not just in the transfigured Christ, but in the crucified Christ.

The transfiguration, however, is not just about Christ. It is also about us. The veil in the sanctuary of the temple is what separated the Jewish people from the tabernacle of God, the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, and he only did so once a year. At Jesus' death, the veil is torn in two; that which separated God and humanity is rendered asunder. No more is there a barrier between us - we are united in the person of Christ crucified and risen. In and through our union to Christ, we too are transfigured. We become tabernacles, dwelling places, of the presence of God. We are to manifest the glory of God in the world. The same Spirit that transforms the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ transforms/transfigures US into the body of Christ. We are divinized. Christ became human so that we might become divine. We do not become God, but we become more and more God-like, more and more the image and likeness of God we were created to be.

Today is Valentine's Day, and appropriately I have been reading reflections on love from Thomas Merton's book, No Man is an Island, which I got as a gift from a friend this past Christmas. I have often thought it unfortunate that our concept of love on Valentine's Day tends to be a bit self-centered. Too often it is either about a couple in love focusing on their own relationship (not that that is in any way a bad thing) or a single person mourning the lack of a romantic relationship in his/her life. I would love to see a Valentine's Day when everyone focuses on loving as God loves - a day when we love those who are poor and most vulnerable in society, those who are downtrodden or the outcasts in our community, and yes, even our enemies. Of course, I guess that is supposed to be our focus every day!! Even the celebration of the love between a couple in a relationship should always be the celebration of a love that ultimately manifests itself in loving others. The concrete expression of this is when a couple has children, but it should not in anyway be limited to having children, but should extend out into the wider community. Love should ultimately make more of us, make us go outside of ourselves. A love that only turns us inward is a love that is lacking in maturity.

Thomas Merton reflects that

a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy. . . . True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit.

My challenge to those who are in relationships this Valentine's Day would be to reflect on how your love enables you to go out toward others. How do you share your love with others? My challenge to those of us who are single is to reflect on what it truly means to love and be loved, and then let the love God has for us pour through us and touch all of the people we encounter in our lives.

Lent is one of my favorite seasons of the Church year. I know that may sound strange, as Lent is often seen as a time of penance, but I have a different vision of Lent. For me, Lent is a time of conversion. In Greek the word for conversion is metanoia, literally a turning around. It is a time when we consciously focus on turning our hearts back to God. We try to spend a little more time with God in prayer. We make an extra effort to give to the poor and those in need, whether that need be physical, emotional or spiritual. We also fast, keeping ourselves in solidarity with those who do not have a ready supply of food as so many of us do.

Traditionally people ‘give something up’ in Lent. Such a practice can be a good way to be more mindful of all of the blessings we often take for granted on a day to day basis. I often add something to my life in Lent instead of or in addition to giving something up. Usually I add a way in which I will spend more time with God. It may be 10 minutes set aside to pray each day or it may be going to mass on a weekday each week. Whatever it is, adding something or giving something up, there is a certain discipline involved in our spiritual practices at Lent. We all maintain a measure of discipline around those things that are important in our lives. Most, if not all, of us are disciplined about getting up in the morning and going to work, because we know we would be fired if we didn’t have that discipline. Often we have a certain discipline to achieve a certain goal – we diet to lose weight, we practice to become a better pianist or basketball player, we study to get a certain degree. The word ‘discipline’ has such negative connotations because we think of it as punishment, something that happens to a child who misbehaves. That idea of discipline is not what I am talking about here. I am talking about the kind of discipline that we enjoy. It is a discipline that focuses our lives in the direction we want to go. It is the discipline that ‘turns us around’.

As good as such discipline is, it is not the goal of Lent. It is the means, not the end. The goal of Lent is to enter into a deeper relationship with God, the God who is the source of our salvation and who alone can fulfill all of our deepest longings and desires. The reading that we hear on Ash Wednesday is one of my favorites. In the reading, the prophet Joel tells the people what God desires. “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart (Joel 2:12).” God tells us to “rend our hearts, not our garments (Joel 2:13).” It is not so much our outward actions that are important as our inward dispositions.

Lent can be a special time of retreat that prepares one to enter into the joy of the resurrection at Easter. In this time of conflict in our world, when it is so easy to turn to despair, we are called to remember that we are an Easter people. As such, we believe that the victory over sin and death has already been won. As we watch new members come into our community at the Easter Vigil, each of us can renew our own membership in the Body of Christ. We take these weeks of Lent to prepare for that moment, so that we can once again affirm who we are and what we believe. We take these weeks of preparation to place our hopes and our dreams for the future of the world in the hands of the God who loved us into life.

I was so inspired yesterday listening to a talk by Elizabeth Johnson (very well known contemporary theologian) on "Friends of God and Prophets: Toward an Inclusive Community" (click here to read the talk yourself!) that I wanted to share a couple of the points she made. (By the way, she also has a book titled Friends of God and Prophets.)

The first point that really struck me was the idea that the Church has been gifted with both office and charism. Office is what ensures right order within the Church, offering stability through the three-fold ministry of leading, teaching, and sanctifying, a participation in Christ's own ministry as priest, prophet, and king. While we talk about office in reference to those holding positions in the institutional Church, do not forget that each of us were also anointed priest, prophet, and king at our baptisms, marking our own vocation and participation in Christ's ministry. In terms of charism, Johnson explains that

the role of charism, freely given in unpredictable ways by the Spirit, is to break through routine, apathy, and even corruption with a renewed sense of the gospel for different times and places. This impulse has historically led to the rise of religious orders, new forms of spirituality, and movements for reform, among other events. To use Hildegard of Bingen's image, these help to keep the sap flowing strong and green in the branches, refreshing the institutional church grown gray with bureaucracy, meanness, or fear.

Johnson reminds us that both of these, office and charism, are gifts in the Church, but that they also exist in a certain tension with each other. I would like to suggest that this dynamic plays out not only on a global level in the Church, but also on a local level in our own parishes. Certain individuals in the parish are gifted with the ability to bring a sense of stability and continuity to the parish. Certainly the parish staff is typically focused more on the leading, teaching, and sanctyifying ministries within the parish in the day to day life of the parish. There is also a need and a place, however, for charism in the parish. Hopefully the staff is open to this gift as well as the gift of office, but ultimately I believe this gift must come from the community itself. We need individuals in the parish who are open to the Spirit and renew us in our sense of mission and inspire us as a community to breathe new life into our ministries. We need individuals who, in Johnson's words, break us out of our apathy and call us to read the gospel in a new way. Each of us has that potential, if we are open to the calling of the spirit.

The second point Johnson makes in her talk is her definition of what it means to be a friend of God and a prophet--in short, a saint! She reminds us that we are all saints (literally holy ones) and that the word was initially used in Christianity to describe the living community, not those who have died. She also reminds us that to be a saint is not a matter of being a good and moral person, but is simply a statment of the fact that we participate in God's holiness. She emphasizes this fact, stating

let me underscore a key point: this holiness is not primarily an ethical matter, being holy as being innocent of sin or morally perfect or engaged in pious practices or something earned by one's own merits. Rather, it is a consecration of the very being of this people due to God's free initiative. They participate in God's own holiness, a deep identity that flows out into responsibility to bear witness in the world, in accord with the loving kindness and faithfulness of God that now marks their own being.

The fact that we ARE holy hopefully leads us to be better people, to be a friend of God and a prophet through the grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling within each of us. Johnson explains that

to be a friend means to be freely joined in a mutual relationship marked by deep affection, joy, trust, and support in adversity; knowing and letting oneself be known in an intimacy that flows into common activities; as in Abraham, "friend of God"(Jas 2:23); as in Jesus' pledge, "No longer do I call you servants, but ... friends" (Jn 15:15).

What an incredible image of our relationship with God! She goes on to add that

to be a prophet means to be called to comfort and to criticize in God's name because, being a friend, your heart loves what God loves, namely this world, and you want it to flourish. When harm comes to what you love, prophets speak truth to power about injustice, thus creating possibilities of resistance and resurrection.

The line that actually caught my attention and my imagination was the idea that being a prophet means being called to comfort. I am very familiar with the idea of being a prophetic voice in the sense of speaking for those who have no voice or being called to challenge the systems of oppression in the world in which we live. I have never given any thought to the idea that to be a prophet is also to be called to comfort. Yet isn't one of the most famous lines (thanks to Handel) in Isaiah, "Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God" (Is. 40:1)? Certainly there is a tradition of the prophets railing against all that is wrong in the world and in their communities, but there is an equally strong tradition of the prophets offering the people reassurance of God's love, mercy, and faithfulness and reassurance that the community would survive and ultimately prevail against adversity. How do we fulfil our prophetic role in the world in terms of being a voice of hope?

The headlines on the webpage of The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel once again delve into the issues of sexual abuse and lawsuits in the archdiocese. Immediately below that story is a story on the rather grim financial future of the archdiocese. We are in a time in our Church and our world where we need prophets who will criticize, but who will also comfort. We need the gift of charism, calling us to "break through routine, apathy, and even corruption with a renewed sense of the gospel" so that we can "help to keep the sap flowing strong and green in the branches, refreshing the institutional church grown gray with bureaucracy, meanness, or fear." More than ever it seems we are being called to be the community of saints right now, our hearts loving what God loves, fulfilling our vocation as friends of God and prophets.

I met with one of our prayer groups recently because questions had arisen in their group about heaven, purgatory, and hell. Since this topic has come up many times in various conversations I have had with people, I decided it might be a good topic to address here!

One of the things that I love about being Catholic is our understanding of the communion of saints. In the very simplest terms, the communion of saints is our understanding that we are in relationship with all of those who have gone before us and all of those who will come after us. We believe that in death life is not ended, it is only changed. Likewise our relationships with those who have died do not end, they change. All of God's people are saints, those living and those dead. A canonized saint is simply someone the Catholic Church has definitively proclaimed to be with God in heaven. It is very important to note that the Church has never definitively proclaimed anyone to be in hell.

One of the immediate difficulties in talking about what happens after death (besides the obvious fact that we have not yet died) is that our existence after death is no longer one of time and space. Due to the fact that our existence here is in time and space, it is absolutely impossible for us to think without thinking in terms of time and space. Hence the end of my last paragraph talked about being "in heaven" or "in hell" as if they were places to which we go. They are not places so much as states of existence. Heaven implies an existence in union with God and hell implies a lack of union with God.

So much of what we say about heaven and hell is speculative. Some say hell is the absence of God. I have a hard time accepting that because I believe God is always present to us and loving us no matter what. I do believe that hell might be our own inability to recognize and accept God's presence and love. I have also speculated that if there is some need in death to recognize the ways in which we have hurt people (see the section on purgatory below), there are people for whom that process might last an eternity because the painful impact of their actions goes on for generations. Hitler comes to mind, as the Holocaust still causes us a great deal of pain to this day, and I believe that it always will. Of course with that speculation, I have fallen into the trap of conceiving of hell in terms of time. Hans Urs von Balthasar is one of my favorite theologians on this subject. In his book, Dare We Hope That All Men Are Saved?, he suggests that perhaps no one will ultimately end up in hell because of God's universal salvific will. If God wills the salvation of all people (1 Tim. 2:3-4), can God's will really be ultimately frustrated? Nonetheless von Balthasar accepts hell as a reality, but he very wisely cautions that it is a reality each of us must hold up before ourselves as we judge our own way of living and being in the world. It is not a reality for us to hold up before others, placing ourselves in the position of God to judge the possibility of another's eternal damnation (another trap I fell into with my speculation about Hitler!).

Many people ask me if we still believe in purgatory (a funny question, since I cannot actually tell you what you believe!). Yes, the Church does still teach the concept of purgatory. We do not (and technically the official teaching of the Church never did) teach the concept of limbo. Babies who die are with God. What kind of God would we believe in, if we did not credit God with having at least as much compassion and mercy as we ourselves have? God's compassion and mercy far outweighs our own abilities in that regard! Purgatory is part of our doctrine. It is not, however, a time and space concept as we so often have heard it talked about, as if we get 10 years in purgatory (which for some reason seems to be some sort of mini-hell with flames and torments in many people's imaginations), but might get out in 7 with good behavior and a lot of prayers from those still living. Purgatory simply refers to the process of purgation, the purifying that occurs in death that allows us to stand face to face with our God. The process that "burns away" all that still holds us back from complete and total union with God. In that regard, it still makes a lot of sense to pray for those in purgatory in that we are praying for those who are going through that process. In a conversation with our youth minister not to long ago, she told me that for her the concept of purgatory involved letting go of the things that were still holding us back from God, the attachments, desires, and addictions that we choose over God in our day to day lives. The continuity between the life we live now and the concept of purgatory is that we can do much of that "letting go" in this life, but that which we are unable to let go of in this life still must be released in order for us to be in union with God after death.

The theologian Karl Rahner talks about standing before God and having the love of God burn through us like fire (cf. TI 1:311-312). The analogy I always like to give is to think of a time when you did something you knew was very wrong and your parents found out, but instead of yelling at you or punishing you, they just reacted by loving you. The self-realization of both your own short-coming and the love that forgives that short-coming is very humbling and purifying, and it can burn like fire. I think that purgatory involves a coming to terms with and accepting God's absolutely unconditional love for us. The purification process is a recognizing and accepting who we were in our lives, with all of the failings and short-comings that life involved and all of the ways in which we hurt others, and then accepting that God sees all of that about us and still loves us beyond our wildest imaginings. To me the concept of purgatory is not a frightening concept, but a concept that embodies God's love and mercy.

There is a buzz in the air about the new exhibit coming to the Milwaukee Public Museum, the Body Worlds Exhibit. I was initially surprised to hear the question asked on NPR of whether the museum expected there to be protesters, as apparently there have been when the exhibit has been in other places. It never occurred to me that such an exhibit would be controversial. The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has put out a reflection paper that lays out some of the issues and concerns that have arisen, such as are the bodies being treated with respect, was proper consent given for the use of the bodies, etc. (Note that the Archdiocesan statement is not "pro" or "con" attending the exhibit; it seems to be meant in a more reflective manner.)

Having read the statement, I can understand why some people have concerns, but I also think it gives those of us not in medical fields an incredible opportunity to reflect on the wonder of the way we have been created. Our bodies are truly phenomenal, and learning more about them should only make us reflect more deeply upon and be more in awe of the God who created us. One of the stated intentions of the exhibit is to make people realize how important their bodies are and how important it is to treat them well. This theme fits in well with our understanding that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and part of the Body of Christ. Our bodies are holy and sacramental, and as such, we should be extraordinarily aware of them.

There was a time in Christianity when the body was somewhat denigrated and separated from the spiritual life. Today there has been a turn away from a dualistic worldview that separates the material and the spiritual toward a new understanding that we are embodied spirits. We experience what it means to be spiritual in and through these bodies that are our means of expressing who we are in the world and in relationship to one another. That is what it means for a body to be sacramental; your body is a sacrament of yourself, the tangible presence of you. We have been given an incredible gift in being embodied that is too often simply taken for granted. Having only read about the exhibit, I am already more aware of the complexity and beauty of every movement I make, being able to breathe or to eat, feeling my heart beat, the way our senses work together to allow us to experience the world around us, etc. Regardless of whether one attends the exhibit or not, it should be a powerful reminder to us to be very thankful for the fact that we are embodied.

I want to draw your attention to one of the links I have put on this blog, and that is The Vicar's Corner. The Vicar's Corner is a blog where my friend Matt posts his homilies each week. Some of you may remember Matt from when he and Fr. Ed came and did a parish mission for us here. I would strongly encourage you all to click on that link and enjoy some of Matt's homilies.

I was profoundly struck by a passage in Matt's Christmas homily:

Love closes distances. It breaks down barriers and separations because the lover seeks the beloved and strives to make contact in any way possible. This is what we celebrate at Christmas. Our creating God, our divine lover is so intent on getting our attention, so focused on winning us over that he is willing to take on our humanity. Matthew T. Allman, C.Ss.R., The Vicar's Corner

Enough said - read the homily!

Merry Christmas and Happy Epiphany! This Sunday we will celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, a celebration of the revelation of God to the world in and through Jesus Christ. The Greek word epiphaneia literally means "to show forth." Sunday we celebrate God showing or manifesting Godself in and to the world. As the Body of Christ, we are called to continue to show forth God's presence in our world.

I have been reflecting a lot on what image of what it means to be Catholic Christians we project to the world, and I admit, I am a bit disturbed by what I see. The image I often see is too often one of harsh judgment and vitriolic outrage. Sometimes it is compounded by ignorance and a total lack of compassion for others who might think differently from us or come from circumstances with which we have never had to struggle. Too often I see people who seem to be very angry rather than loving and hospitable. Suddenly there is a mentality of "defending our faith" in the "culture wars" that is militant and seems to breed hostility, bitterness, and resentment. It seems to me that we live in a very angry culture. If you ever saw the movie Crash, it did an excellent job of portraying the way in which people seem to be so angry today, and it takes so little for that anger to brim over into the world. I fall into the trap myself where I find myself suddenly boiling mad about the littlest thing, until I stop and ask myself, exactly what am I so angry about? As Christians we should ideally be a counter witness to this anger and hostility. As St. Paul tells us,

Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good. Rom. 12:21

Whatever happened to witnessing to the love of Christ? Whatever happened to the focus on feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and sheltering the homeless? Why is Christmas suddenly about whether or not a Nativity is set up in the town square instead of being about those of us who are Christian incarnating the love of God for ALL people? Whatever happened to the season of peace on earth and goodwill to all humankind, not just those who think like us and believe like us? The Epiphany is not the celebration of God's revelation to believers; the Epiphany is the celebration of the revelation of God's love to all of humanity. If only we could put as much energy into loving our neighbors (and remember in the story of the Good Samaritan, the neighbor is defined precisely as those we don't agree with) as we do into the so-called fight to defend Christianity, maybe we wouldn't have to work so hard at defense. Maybe we would engender an openness in people to the force in our lives that enables us to be loving and good and open to all people. I was listening to a song by Steve Camp this morning, and I think his refrain sums it up perfectly,

Don't tell them Jesus loves them till your ready to love them too;
Till your heart breaks from the sorrow and the pain they're going through.
With a life full of compassion, may we do what we must do;
Don't tell them Jesus loves them till your read to love them too.

Christmas is the feast of the incarnation. In Christmas we do celebrate the nativity or birth of Christ, but what we are celebrating is not simply Jesus "birthday," the way we celebrate our own birthdays. We are celebrating the mystery of Emmanuel, God-with-us, God revealed in time and space. Each week in the creed we say "by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man," and the instructions say we are supposed to bow at those words, but on Christmas, the instructions say to genuflect. Why? Because those words proclaim the incarnation, that God became human. So what is the incarnation all about?

St. Athanasius, one of the great fathers and theologians of the Church, tells us:

The Son of God became human so that we might become God.

Obviously we do not become God in the way that God is God, but we become God-like, we are divinized. The eastern Christian tradition has done a much better job of reminding people of this fact than our western tradtion has done, as the west has tended to focus much more on the incarnation as a remedy for sin (it is both). The eastern tradition has a beautiful Greek word, theopoesis or theosis, literally to make divine, to describe this process. The word is usually translated as divinization or deification. We partake in the divine nature. St. Irenaeus puts it another way:

For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.

In the liturgy itself, when the priest pours a bit of water into the wine, he says:

By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbeled himself to share in our humanity.

We do not usually here him say this because he says it in a low voice to himself, but it proclaims the meaning of the incarnation - that God and humanity are united in and through the person of Christ.

Another axiom of our faith tells us that what Christ is by nature, we are by adoption. We cannot understand who Jesus is as Son of God without understanding our own identity and calling as children of God. "Son of God" does not appear in the Bible for the first time in reference to Jesus. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Israel is the Son of God (e.g., see Exodus 4:22-23). Likewise King David is referred to as a Son of God, as are other leaders and prophets. The phrase indicates both intimacy with God and the desire/need for obedience to God, a willingness to do God's will. Jesus is perfectly the Son of God in this way because he is both human and divine, and through our union with him and our sharing in his divinity, we are brought into that relationship with God as well. What he is by nature, we are by adoption. We become children of God, divinized and empowered to do the will of God by that intimate, loving relationship. Christmas is not simply a celebration of who Jesus is; it is a celebration of who we are.

Hope is a lost virtue in our world. The world has become such a cynical place. All too often it seems people have very little hope that the world's biggest problems can actually be solved - war, poverty, illness, etc. A lack of hope then seems to translate itself into apathy and inaction. After all, if we don't really believe things will get better, why expend much effort trying to make things better? And yet, I can't imagine a world more in need of hope, and so I was delighted to see that Pope Benedict's second encyclical of his papacy, Spe Salvi, is on hope. His first encyclical, by the way, was on love (Deus Caritas Est). What better time of year to talk about hope then in Advent, a time of hopeful waiting for the coming of Christ? Pope Benedict notes that hope is supposed to be the mark of a Christian! We should be people of hope in such a way that actually makes people notice that fact about us!

Pope Benedict reminds us that our greatest hope, the hope which enables all others, is our hope of salvation. As Catholics we do not believe that our salvation is "simply a given," but rather

that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present.

We believe and hope in the promise of salvation that comes to us through our union with God in the incarnation, in the person of Jesus Christ. However, as Pope Benedict points out, the encounter with God that engenders our hope cannot simply be "informative" but must also be "performative," in other words, it must change our lives. As one of my professors was fond of saying, God will not save us without our yes. God values our freedom that much. Our yes is not simply a verbal or intellectual yes, but it is an embodied yes, a living out of our faith, and that yes is not complete until the moment of our death. At the same time, that yes is always empowered by God's grace, so we don't have to rely on ourselves, but rather, so long as we are open to God (even unconsciously as in those people who are open to Love, Truth, Goodness, Beauty, etc.), God can effect that yes within us. So while salvation is not a given, we have a hope in salvation that St. Paul assures us will not disappoint (Rom 5:5). The Psalms continuously repeat that our hope is in the Lord. The word hope appears in the Psalms 32 times. St. Paul uses the word 13 times in the Letter to the Romans alone! Pope Benedict points out that frequently in Scripture hope is used interchangeably with faith. In order to have hope, one must believe, one must have faith. Through our faith in God, we will find ourselves being signs of hope in our cynical world. And so in this Advent season:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom 15:3).

Very rarely do we see realistic painting or statue of Mary in which she is obviously pregnant. One of the few that I have seen in my life, a painting of Mary as a poor, young, pregnant Jewish woman moved me so profoundly that I began searching for a similar image. While I have found several now, my favorite is one that a good friend of mine, who knew of my search, painted for me. That image hangs in my bedroom and is my favorite image of Mary, especially during Advent. Advent is a time when we should focus on the image of Mary as a model for our own faith, and for me, that image is exemplified by her pregnancy.

If you have children, think back to what it was like to be waiting for your first child to be born, or if you do not have children, imagine what it would be like to wait for the birth of your child. I would like to highlight four elements of Mary's experience that give us a model of what it means to be faithful disciples during Advent, because like Mary we are all called to conceive and bear Christ in our lives and in the world.

1. Expectation, anticipation, impatience

Waiting for a child to be born involves expectation and anticipation. There is a certain excitement in the air about this miracle that is about to take place. Do we await Christmas with that same sense of expectation and excitement? Children can teach us a lot about this attitude towards Christmas as well! Having known many relatives and friends who have been pregnant, there is also a certain impatience in that last month of pregnancy. Do we experience that same sense of urgency, of desire for the coming of Christ in the world? We should be a little impatient for the coming of Christmas and for the coming of Christ in our lives and in the world. Children can also teach us a lot about this element of Advent!

2. Preparation – making a space

When a baby is expected, space must be prepared. The woman carrying the child literally makes space in her own body, but space is also made in the home. A nursery is usually prepared. Diapers, bottles, pacifiers, clothes, any number of safety devices, etc., are purchased and set up in preparation for the child's arrival. Advent is a time when we make a space for Christ in our lives, in our hearts, and in our homes.

3. Joy and hope

The birth of a child should bring joy and hope. Have you ever noticed that when people see a baby, they tend to smile? We tend to be filled with joy at seeing a baby. Joy should fill our hearts at the thought of God's love for us made incarnate in Christ. Are we a sign of that joy to others in our lives? When we encounter strangers during the Advent season, do we exude that joyfulness? A baby also represents hope in both the absolute innocence of an infant and the wide open possibilities for the future that lie before that child. Parents immediately have hopes and dreams for their children, often from the very moment they know they are expecting. Advent is a time to think about our hopes and dreams for the world, seeing all of the possibilities the future holds. Advent is a time when we hope and pray for peace on earth.

4. Awe

In addition to smiling at a baby, have you ever noticed how adults will just stand around and watch a baby, absolutely fascinated by this tiny child who is usually just lying there? Have you ever noticed how parents can spend countless minutes just gazing at their sleeping baby? Pregnancy and the birth of a baby are awe inspiring events. Babies inspire a sense of awe within us. The presence of the divine breaking into this world in a tiny baby should literally bring us to our knees. There is a song we sing every Christmas called, "Who Would Send a Baby?" by Mary Kay Beall that always brings tears to my eyes at the way in which God blessed us to give us this experience of Christ as a baby. The words of the song ask,

Who would send a baby to heal a world in pain?
Who would send a baby, a tiny child?
When the world is crying for the promised one, who would send his only son?

Who would send a baby to light the world with love?
Who would send a baby, a tiny child?
When the world is hoping for the promised one, who would send his only son?

Who would choose a manger to cradle a king?
Who would send angels to sing?
Who would make a star in the sky above to shine on the gift of his infinite love?

Who would send a baby to bless the world with peace?
Who would send a baby, a tiny child?
When the world is yearning for the promised one, who would send a baby, who would send his only begotten son?

Do we experience the same sense of expectation, preparation, joy, hope and awe in Advent? Do we carry Christ within in such a way that allows us to be moved and overwhelmed by the mystery of God’s love for us, a love that has us anticipating what happens next in our lives, a love that we make a space for in the busy-ness of our lives, a love that has us flooded by joy and hope, a love that brings us to our knees in awe?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote on the November Bishops' General Assembly and referred to the expected publication of the Faithful Citizenship document. I was deeply disappointed (though unfortunately not surprised) by the way this document was portrayed in the media and have heard people summarize it based on those reports as saying those who vote democrat are putting their salvation in jeopardy (i.e., are going to you know where!). I would strongly urge Catholics to read the statement itself rather than news reports about the statement! If you find that statement too long (43pp.), at least read the summary version, which is only ten pages long! Not only did the document not say any such thing, it actually says the opposite:

In this statement, we bishops do not intend to tell Catholics for whom or against whom to vote.

The statement does add that

as Catholics, we should be guided more by our moral convictions than by our attachment to a political party or interest group. When necessary, our participation should help transform the party to which we belong; we should not let the party transform us in such a way that we neglect or deny fundamental moral truths.

What the statement does do is raise concerns that all Catholics should be concerned about when they consider the candidates who are running. The statement reminds us that

responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation.

The bishops recognize that no candidate or party fully shares the Church's viewpoint, but emphasize that rather than being discouraged by that fact, we should be motivated to work within our parties, contact our elected officials, and even run for office ourselves! Nonetheless, the statement makes it clear that we must always oppose direct assaults on human life and dignity, including (but not limited to) abortion, euthanasia, genocide, torture, racism, cloning, etc. (all of which are examples the bishops give in the statement). The bishops maintain that as Catholics

we revere the lives of children in the womb, the lives of persons dying in war and from starvation, and indeed the lives of all human beings as children of God.

The bishops point out two temptations that distort the Church's teaching on the defense of life: first to make "no ethical distinction between the kinds of issues involving human life and dignity," and second "the misuse of these necessary moral distinctions as a way of dismissing or ignoring other serious threats to human life and dignity." The bishops clarify that while

a Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter's intent is to support that position. . . . There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate's unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons.

They go on to add

as Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate's position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter's support. Yet a candidate's position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.

The statement concludes by looking specifically at the issues that are involved in the seven key themes of Catholic social teaching: the right to life and the dignity of the human person; the call to family, community, and participation; our rights and responsibilities; the option for the poor and vulnerable; the dignity of work and the rights of workers; solidarity; and care for God's creation. They state that

these themes from Catholic social teaching provide a moral framework that does not easily fit ideologies of "right" or "left," "liberal" or "conservative," or the platform of any political party. They are not partisan or sectarian, but reflect fundamental ethical principles that are common to all people.

The bishops recognize that voting in our culture presents us with some very complex dilemmas, and for that reason they offer this statement to help Catholics inform their conscience so that they can ultimately vote in accordance with that conscience. (By the way, just because I quoted extensively from the statement does NOT mean that you should not read the statement yourself!!)

PRAY FOR PEACE!!! Tomorrow is the beginning of an international peace conference in Annapolis, MD to work towards peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. Cardinal George, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is asking all Catholics to pray for peace in the Holy Land. In his letter, the Cardinal eloquently states:

This call to prayer has a special timeliness this week, but the path to a just peace will be long and will stretch beyond the peace conference itself. In the weeks and months ahead may we persevere in prayer for a just peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the whole region.

This past weekend, I watched the movie Schindler's List. Now I realize that I am about 14 years behind everyone else in seeing this movie, but that did not lessen the profound impact it made on me. I had not seen it because I knew that I would be deeply disturbed and saddened by watching it, and so everytime I was in the video store and considered renting it, I would put it off. Now in the days of renting online, I had it on my online list of movies so that it would eventually just be mailed to me, and I knew once it was that I would in fact watch it. Needless to say, I was deeply disturbed and saddened by watching the film. The weight of carrying around the renewed knowledge of the evil of which humanity is capable throughout the weekend was horrible. And yet I believe in the importance of being reminded of that fact from time to time. It is dangerous to forget what we are capable of perpetrating or simply ignoring when we do not want to face evil being done in our midst.

A couple of things struck me in the movie. One was the hatred of the general population for the Jewish people - yelling names at them, throwing dirt at them or spitting on them, things that are violent without necessarily doing actual physical harm. I was struck by the way that the general population cooperated in dehumanizing a group of people. Even those who did not actively persecute them simpley ignored their suffering and did not protest their treatment. Obviously there were exceptions who did protest, many at the cost of their own lives. But it made me wonder, who do we dehumanize and demonize in our society? The immigrants? The Muslims? The poor who live in our inner cities? To what extent do we ignore their suffering? To what extent are we culpable for the conditions in which we live?

Oskar Schindler was not an extraordinary person, which is actually what makes the movie so profound. He was a person like you and me, living his life, not wanting any strife or conflict, trying to get along and even enjoy life besides, trying to get ahead. He doesn't start out with the idea that he is going to save Jewish people from the concentration camps. He actually starts out using them as cheap labor so that he can make a bigger profit. He is almost forced to do the good thing, the right thing because he is more and more confronted with an evil that he cannot ignore. He cannot simply stand by and do nothing and be able to live with himself. One of the most moving scenes in the movie, with one of the most important insights for me, is the scene at the end when he realizes that he could have saved more, he could have done more. This scene speaks to all of us - we can always do more. Short of actually sacrificing our lives, we have never gotten to the point where we have done all we can do to fight injustice, violence, racism, poverty, and all of the other forms evil takes in our world. We can always do more. On the flip side of that sentiment is the fact that we have to begin by doing something. If all of the people living in the Nazi occupied countries had done something to help, to protest, how much of a difference might it have made? We can start with something small, but we must start. That is the moral imperative of our religious belief, of being disciples of Jesus Christ. I want to leave you with a quote from theologian Elizabeth Johnson in her book Consider Jesus:

There is a traditional axiom which claims that to live a good ethical life one must "do good and avoid evil." The emphasis shifts today, slightly but very dramatically, to make us realize that this is not enough. In fact, it can end up being a shirking of responsibility. For in the light of the compassion of God revealed in Jesus, we must "do good and resist evil." There is a call to the Christian conscience here not to hide our face from evil, not to walk around it, or pretend it is not there; but to face its massiveness in spite of our feelings of powerlessness or insignificance and to become involved in transforming it.

I have a special prayer request this week, that all of you prayer for the United States bishops as they hold annual Fall General Assembly from Nov. 12th-15th. The bishops' agenda this year is varied discussing everything from the curriculum for high school students to the Faithful Citizenship document that is published every presidential election year, from the most recent reports on the abuse scandal in the Church to the revision of the guidelines for music at mass.

One of the unique items on the agenda is that the bishops will vote on a stewardship brochure directed toward teens. This brochure invites the teens to share their time, talent, and treasure with the Church. How wonderful it is to see the Church specifically reaching out to our incredibly talented teenagers and working to incorporate their gifts into the life of the community. It is also important for teens to understand that being Christian involves more than just showing up on Sundays (a point all of us can probably be reminded of from time to time). In their press release, the USCCB states that

The text encourages teens to pray, especially with Scripture, to make an inventory of their gifts and to rejoice in the ways they are already using their talents, adding that “even the smallest act of kindness can bring joy and relief to another.” It also thanks them for the gifts of energy, idealism and zeal that they already share with the Church, and tells them to not be afraid of asking the Church to “do more.” “Stewardship” the document says, “is the call for all of us to do more, to be more and to love more!”

I especially like the call for teens not to just do for the Church, but to challenge the Church to do more!

A difficult topic under discussion this year is the draft for the Faithful Citizenship document this election year. The bishops consider this topic so important that for the first time they are bringing the document for a discussion and vote by the entire assembly, whereas in the past the document has been written and approved by a committee. The specific focus of the document this year will be the formation of conscience, a factor that will be included in the title itself, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility." The document will again emphasize that our political responsibility goes beyond casting our votes on election day. The document has to walk the fine line between political partisanship in a day and age where none of the candidates represent a consistently "Catholic" position. While upholding the preeminence of issues that involve the direct ending of human life, such as abortion, active euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research, the bishops also emphasize that those issues do not excuse us from being concerned about issues such as war, torture, and economic justice. The press release from the USCCB on the draft document states that

the draft affirms the importance of participation in political life. It explains the necessity of opposing actions that are intrinsically wrong, such as abortion and euthanasia, and affirms the obligation to promote the common good by combating such threats to human life and dignity as hunger, poverty, racism, unjust immigration policies, and unjust war.

As "faithful citizens" who are democrats, republicans, and independents, it is our job to call the candidates in these upcoming elections to a higher standard and challenge some of the presuppositions of our respective parties. Only in this way will we stand a chance of really having an impact on the political landscape of our country.