On the Conduct of Christians

I've been thinking a lot recently about the relationship between the Church and the world, especially in regards to its relationship with the current culture. The main question that has been on my mind and in my heart has been this: How do we, as sinners, interact with and correct a sinful world? We know there must be correction of those outside the Church. Out of a true desire to see them know the love of Christ we become convinced that we must tell people what they are doing will leave them unhappy.

However, Jesus himself challenges us on this point. He says, "How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." (Mt. 7: 4-5) As sinners ourselves our own vision is skewed. Sin is a distortion of vision, and thus the sinner loses sight of the good. In turn, it becomes more difficult to turn and preach to a world even further lost in sin.

This problem of sinful Catholics in a sinful world is well documented by the Church's enemies. In today's world, it is often the hypocrisy of Catholics, not their love, that makes the national headlines. Of course, part of this is due to the modern news cycle which is mostly focused on the spreading of scandal. Today, most people know the Catholic Church from the news stations, and not from interaction with their local parish. This cultural loss of the local, a strategic move by the Culture of Death to cut man off from reality, has resulted in the faults of some Catholics being emphasized more than the charity of others

So, in today's world, Catholics must overcome both their own personal sinfulness and the sinfulness of other Catholics in preaching to a world that does not know its own sins. Quite the task, to be sure. Where do we begin? Can we still effectively preach Christ's love with sin so prevalent?

To begin with, my Dad always likes to point out that Christ doesn't say, "Never take the speck from your brothers eye" but only "take the beam out of your own first." The first step to spreading the Gospel, then, is to draw close to the Word Himself. If we are going to show the world God's mercy, we must first know it for ourselves. To know God's mercy, though, we must be weak. It is not necessary to sin to know God's mercy. Mary knew His mercy well; she experienced it in the fact that she was saved from all sin. For ourselves, though, we can experience His mercy in our sins. St. Therese of Lisieux used to enjoy telling her sins to Our Lord because she recognized that sins were an opportunity for Him to pour out His mercy, His love, on her. Of course, this does not mean sin freely, since the act of sinning is a rejection of God's Love! Rather, when we do sin, we must recognize it as an opportunity to allow Christ further into our hearts.

It is in our acceptance of His mercy, then, that the beam is removed. He wipes away our sins with His Love, and He restores our sight. By immersing ourselves in His mercy we're able in turn to reach out to those outside the Church in the hope they will accept the same mercy. We must show them mercy, not prejudice. We must show them love, not harshness. We must remain small, while helping those who are also small. Most of all, we have to trust in Christ, for when we are small we can be easily injured.

The reason I mention all of this, and the reason I have been thinking of it, is because I have often noticed many instances of Christians acting uncharitably on the internet, both Catholics and non-Catholics. Anger is expressed against bishops, politicians, enemies of the Faith. Christians (myself included) so often forget that we are told to love our enemies, and yet there are so many examples on the internet of Christians telling others they are going to Hell. They make a judgement that is not theirs to make, for only God judges the final resting place of a soul!

Such arguments, such anger and bitterness, only further alienates those who are outside the Church. And if we are responsible for such alienation, it will be something we must answer for in front of God. "You can't use the Devil's tools to do God's work." We cannot be prideful, we cannot threaten violence, we cannot shout, we cannot offer harsh judgement when we come in contact with those outside the Church. These tools are not available to the Christian. Instead, we are offered the weapons of humility, peace, silence, mercy and love to fight our battles with. It is a lie of this world that these are not effective weapons, for they are the weapons the Son took up when He walked this earth, died, and was raised three days later.

Course Correction

Every once and a while, God sends us something that is meant to redirect us towards Himself. Sometimes, this comes in the form of great changes such as a new baby, a job loss, or a serious illness. Other times, though, God sends us small things to correct our course. He sees when we are beginning to veer off, and before we can get too far He brings us back to Himself. It is up to us, though, to respond to this direction.

Yesterday was one of those "off" days for me. Some would say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. For some reason, all day I was overly concerned with myself. I was stressed about work, stressed about finances, and just generally stressed about getting everything done that needed to get done. As a result, I was impatient with those around me, with my co-workers, with Liz. I was convinced that I was God's greatest contribution to society, and I couldn't understand why people wouldn't just let me do what I needed to do. (Well, that might be an exaggeration of what I was thinking, but you get the drift). In short, I was a grump.

But then, last night, Liz and I sat down to watch the movie "Of Gods and Men". It had been highly recommended to us from a number of people, and after watching it, I can also highly recommend it to all those who haven't seen it. It is the story of seven French Trappist monks in Algeria facing persecution from Muslim fundamentalists and is based on actual events that occurred in 1995-96. As time goes on for these monks, it becomes clearer and clearer to them that if they stay where they are the radical Muslims will kill them. The movie shows the process each monk goes through in making his decision and frames the story within the daily rhythm of monastic life. It is a beautiful portrayal of the decision to offer oneself up to Christ, a decision that is ultimately a response to His love for us.

Watching the movie, God gave me a gentle course correction. The movie presented me with a number of beautiful lessons in silence, humility, love, devotion, and ultimately, self-sacrifice. I knew that throughout the day, I had been so focused on WHAT I had to do, and not WHOM I had to do it for. My soul was "loud;" it had strayed from the desert of God into the city of Babel . The movie was a reminder of the silence and humility that form such an integral part of the Christian life. These two gifts from God are always available to us, but we must accept them. For the larger part of the day, I had not been accepting them.

This tiny course correction was just another way in which God shows His love. The greatest challenge of this correction is to absorb it and make it my own. It's so easy to slip back, to return to the way I was acting before. But the beautiful thing about these course corrections is that they teach us to always return to God. Why would I need one of these corrections if I were not weak? And if God gives me a correction, shouldn't I trust Him all the more afterwards? One of the most beautiful lines in the movie came very early on. It was in a hymn the monks were singing, and unfortunately I may butcher it here. However, it summed up what God corrected in me: "Recognizing weakness is not a virtue, for weakness is a fact. The virtue comes from the response of Faith, Hope, and Love."

Good Wholesome Entertainment

It's amazing how easy it is to get sucked into watching TV. Case in point: Liz and I recently finished the two mini-series "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance." Not a big deal, right? Well, a quick IMDB search reveals that this is almost 2,453 minutes of footage. For the mathematically challenged, that's 40.9 hours, or a little over 1.5 days of TV watching. This isn't the first time we've gotten sucked into a series like this, either. Since we've gotten married, we've watched three seasons of "Alias," "Brideshead Revisited," "Jeeves and Wooster," and now "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance."

Now, I'm not saying watching all of these is necessarily a bad thing. Liz and I have enjoyed all of these series, and many of them have been intellectually stimulating. However, it does strike me exactly how much TV this is when I list it all out. Further, we have a tendency to go through these series very quickly. Usually, once we get into a series, all we want to do during an evening is sit back, pop in the next episode and relax. Interestingly, though, we find that the longer a series goes on, the less actual relaxing we're doing. In fact, there is normally a point in a series where we look forward to getting it over with simply so we aren't watching TV any more!

It's this phenomenon, this "TV exhaustion," that really strikes me as interesting. Growing up, we always had a TV in the household, and as a kid growing up in the 90's I was pretty much always glued to it. It wasn't until I got to Christendom that I stopped watching TV for hours every day. Life became just too busy, and since TVs weren't allowed in the dorms, I wasn't going to go out of my way to watch it. Instead, I spent my time studying, reading, hanging out with friends, praying in the chapel (less than I ought to have), and taking part in various campus events. During this time, I began to see what a life without TV was like. I learned how to truly relax, and how to enjoy life outside the screen.

A couple of nights ago, instead of watching TV, I read aloud to Liz some of the stories of James Herriot. If you haven't read them, I would definitely say you have to check them out. They are a set of stories about a veterinarian in the English country side. They are stories of dogs, pigs, cows, sheep, cats, farms, gardens, men, women and creation. Sitting there, reading aloud to my wife and son, I became more relaxed than I had been in a long time. I wasn't completely inactive like when I was watching TV, but that's what made it so relaxing.

Josef Pieper used to talk about how true leisure involves action, while the modern world tries to sell inaction as leisure. Good, wholesome activities such as reading books, playing music, and going for walks constitute true leisure. The difficulty is that we have become accustomed, as a culture, to complete inactivity. In some sense, inactivity is easier than active leisure, but it's not nearly as restful. At the end of a long work day, I don't really feel like practicing the banjo or reading out loud - that is, until I do it anyways. Then, I find that I am more refreshed then when I am simply inactive in front of the TV.

Don't get me wrong - I don't know if there is necessarily anything wrong with relaxing by watching TV. I simply aim to propose an alternative. Rather than watching TV, I think more people should try to find activities to cultivate for leisure. If they did, I wonder if our society would start moving towards a more creative and intellectual society, rather than one that gets most of its views while "vegging" out.

New York, Modernity, and Christian Citizenship

So, the state of New York has opened up marriage to homosexual couples, and I'm left thinking "How should a Christian respond to this?" Disgust should certainly be there. We should be disgusted when the state sanctions and glorifies an intrinsically disordered act. We should weep that the state is teaching people that sexuality is purely about themselves, about the couple, when in fact this is a cheapening of sexuality. We should be upset that the nature of sexuality as procreative love is so derided and debased in our culture.

However, I find it really easy to be disgusted. What I mean is, it seems like it's very easy for us Catholics to simply be upset about the current state of affairs. When I hear of losses in the culture wars, I can become down and depressed and just stay there. While repugnance of sin is certainly necessary for the spiritual life, its not enough.

This decision to allow gay marriage in New York is a chance to turn back once again to Christ. It's a chance for us, His followers, to ask the important questions "Why do we want the culture to be Catholic? Why is the acceptance and glorification of homosexuality against this?"

We are living in a post-Christian culture. The moral traditions of thousands of years have already crumbled, so it should come as no surprise when this culture glorifies something disordered. As Catholics, as Christians, we are living in a culture that is not really our own. I feel like this is something I tend to forget. Sometimes I lose sight of Our Lord and hope for a Catholic culture just so that I can be in the majority again. It's very easy to look around at all the entertainment and material goods our culture can give and forget that Our Lord has said we are not of this world. But when something like this happens, something that wasn't inevitable but was a logical conclusion of so much that came before, we are reminded of our citizenship in another world and another order.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we definitely all strive to spread his gospel. Like St. Andrew in John's Gospel, we are called to meet Christ in a personal relationship and then introduce others to this relationship. The real reason we hope to restore a Catholic culture to the world is not simply so we'll be in the majority again, but so that the culture of the future will be more conducive to a relationship with Christ. I find that to be the real tragedy of a state accepting gay marriage: it teaches people falsehoods about themselves that inhibit a relationship with the Truth. It teaches people that their sexuality is purely about themselves, rather than the truth that it is about others. It teaches people to turn inwards and enjoy what they have now, rather than to put themselves aside. If people are constantly turned in on themselves, they do not turn their eyes outward to gaze on Christ.

If our hope is for a culture conducive to loving Christ, we must first love Him and speak to Him ourselves. We need to speak with Him, trust Him, and confidently ask Him to pour forth His love into the hearts of our fellow countrymen. In short, we must all pray. Christ is the one that provides the victory, not us. The evil of the homosexual agenda is too strong to be defeated by any other means. It is like the demon that threw the boy in Matthew's Gospel into fire and water, "this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting." Mt. 17:21.