God's Authority and Human freedom. Do These Contradict Each Other?

Authority, freedom, grace, prayer.

All of these are essential for a properly and fully human life.

How is it that authority and freedom, especially, are both essential? They would seem at first to be incompatible. They are, in fact, very compatible. Authority is necessary for us to be able to live our freedom most fully.

Think of the family. It is so important as we try to understand Christian discipleship to think of the family--that is, the family as it should be, not as it sadly sometimes exists in a deformed and unhealthy reality.

In a healthy family where the mom and dad both love their children dearly and would do anything for them, there is a lot to give us clues as to how authority and freedom need each other in human life.

When children are very young, parental authority is absolutely necessary to keep children from harm. It helps children learn about the world and how to live safely in it without coming to harm. A toddler does not know that an electrical outlet can harm him if he sticks an object into it. Now, does a good parent sit back waiting for his child to stick something into an electrical outlet so he can learn from experience and let the pain and trauma be a lesson for the future? Or, does a good parent stop the child before he sticks that object in?

Of course, a good parent stops the child before he gets hurt. Here is the key question: Does this make the child less free--of more free???

In fact, it makes the child more free. Free, meaning, free to continue on in life and to become what a human person is meant to be. Preventing the child from being badly hurt gives the child the freedom to continue to live life without having experienced that particular pain.

But this is a very easy example. Think of parental authority in the context of moral issues and relating to other people.

A child wants to kick and yell at another child because he wants to steal a certain toy for himself to play with. A good parent would, in an authoritative way, tell his child not to kick other people. Would this exercise of parental authority make the child more or less free? More free.

How? A person can become a more fully alive and flourishing human being in this life only if he respects the life and basic rights of other people. If I become the sort of person who kicks another person to get what I think I want at that moment, I am less free because I do not have the ability to relate to other people in a way that would foster the healthy relationships that are so important to human flourishing and happiness. I need mutual respect, I need friendship and companionship and love. These things are less likely to be real in my life if I am in the habit of harming others for selfish reasons.

Parents know this. And they use their natural authority as parents to instill this in their children. When a child develops the virtues of respect and justice toward others with the necessary help of his parents' guidance (sometimes firm), he becomes a free man. Free to be all that he can be.

So, without parental authority when we are younger in life, we cannot develop properly as human persons--we cannot develop the many virtues that are irreplaceable for a healthy, sane, joyful human life.

It is exactly like this with God and us. He is our father. He exercises authority through the Catholic Church so that we can know what our father wants to teach us about life in a way that is clear and unambiguous.
And in turn, when we have the clear teaching and guidance of our father, following it makes us truly more free--free to grow into fully alive, vibrant, flourishing human persons. God has authority and speaks with authority through the Church because He loves us and wants to guide us in life. When we listen to Him and embrace this guidance, we can experience life to its fullest potential. And this makes us more free.

Unfailingly Soothing Presentations of Christianity: What's Missing Therein?

There is a certain approach taken by some Catholics who are engaged in the work of evangelization that is very puzzling. And this can apply to priests or laymen. I've seen it in regard to both.

It's puzzling not so much for it's content--what it says--but for what it doesn't say, what it leaves out.

What is left out in such an approach as I have in mind? Simply, the cross.

There are good people, both lay and clergy, engaged in Catholic evangelization of a sort that focuses without exception always on the nice things, the warm-and-fuzzy aspects of Christian discipleship. In this approach, Jesus is always the tender one who soothes us and says soothing things to our heats. We are always the good ones, trying our best, messing up at times, but nonetheless basically striving in most respects to be like Jesus.

What's wrong with this? After all, Jesus, indeed, is full of mercy and compassion. He loves every one of us with a power and intensity we can't imagine. He is tender and merciful. It's true. But, if this is the only aspect ever mentioned about our Lord's relationship to us as we navigate life trying to serve Him, something huge is missing. The cross.

There is suffering in human life. It's a reality we cannot escape. The question I am concerned with here, is whether we will invite grace to inform and transform all aspects of our life--including our sufferings--or if we only see being a Christian as something unrelated, detached, set apart, from the deepest sorrows of life.

Jesus does indeed look tenderly upon us in our sorrows. But we forget from where He is gazing--He sees us (or, saw, in one great event both time-bound and eternal in the shock wave it sent through creation) from the cross. His passion--His free embrace of undeserved suffering for the sake of loving us so demonstrably, of pouring Himself out for us, of opening His heart for our benefit in a way that we cannot take lightly--was not a closed event meant only for Him to know in secret. Jesus' loving gaze upon the world from the wood of the cross was an open event. From that one place in time, He looked out upon the entire world, gazing into all human history past, present, and future, and invited us in to His open heart. He tenderly shares with us the grace to permit our hearts as well to join Him in giving ourselves in love for the sake of others.

It is a great absence and a great deficiency to share an enthusiasm for a relationship with Jesus Christ without also consciously seeking to help people freely accept Jesus' invitation to unite our sufferings to His Passion. In this way, our sorrows and pains become folded in to the greatest spiritual event in the history of the cosmos--the Redemption of mankind.

When we accept the grace to unite our trials big and small to the cross of our Savior, our pains take on a powerful meaning. They become little points of heat that help us to play a real role in welding the souls of those we love more strongly to the heart of Jesus. Our self-giving perhaps, with grace may become more meaningful and free when chosen in the midst of pain. It's not the suffering here that is good, but the personal act of welcoming the invitation to make it an offering of love for others.

The cross changes everything. Every single moment of pain, sorrow, trial, suffering, is potentially through grace a gathering point of spiritual power bringing our souls into Christ's salvation of the world.

Now, in heaven, Jesus no longer suffers. He is risen from the dead! But that monumental event of His suffering on the cross still looks out to us from that point; this spiritual lightening bolt began a re-creation of mankind that continues to reach out from the cross through all of time to today, tomorrow, and every day until Christ comes in glory.

It's a re-creation that He, because He loves us, wants us to freely participate in with Him. He has made available the grace we need to be able to join with Him in the greatest act (the salvation and sanctification of souls) that has ever happened.

When well-meaning evangelists speak to other Christian souls only about soothing things, they are missing an essential aspect of Christian life. They fail to invite us to allow Jesus to bring us into His heart poured out for the world on the cross. Such an overly safe approach runs the danger of reducing followers of Christ to mere passive recipients of salvation, rather than calling us to live according to the immense and unbelievable dignity of being welcomed to take a place in Christ's heart even as this great Heart suffered in love for the world.

Human Relationships, Love, Not Fully Embraceable Without Jesus' Grace

One of the tragic things about the life and death of Amy Winehouse is that in some ways she was probably closer to the deepest meaning of human life than many people who appear less troubled on the surface.

How so? By way of contrast, there are some (hopefully a small number) whose self-absorption permits them to be so occupied with themselves and so impressed with themselves that they are not attentive to, even seem to become unaware of, the fact that the real space within which human life becomes fully alive is in the midst of relationships with other people. And when I say relationships, I mean those that involve love, friendship, and self-sacrifice.

It seems to me, for all her self-destructiveness and troubles, Amy Winehouse and other artists like her, did not have this sort of ignorance. In part, I think her sufferings and harmful behavior were possible because she knew--very powerfully--that relationships of love and friendship are the arena in which human persons can really experience and live life to its greatest and most beautiful potential.

But, this awareness--remaining in touch with this passion in one's soul for the irreplaceability of meaningful relationships--inevitably must produce great suffering in this fallen world. Why? Sin--the fallenness and prideful selfishness--that has damaged (though not destroyed) every human soul makes the arena of love and friendship a place in which our hearts are guaranteed to be hurt. So, suffer we do, if we don't turn our backs on relationships altogether as a place of irreplaceable meaning in life.

But, the more we sense keenly the importance of love and friendship to life, the more we will suffer as a result of the sin in ourselves and in others. The broken heart, the disappointed expectation, is more painful to one who wants to love most deeply. To the Amy Winehouses of the world, this pain can become unbearable. And yet, the option of giving up altogether on love and friendship to try to reduce this suffering is an option more awful than death itself. What does one do in such a situation? (Please note that I am speculating here in regard to Amy Winehouse since I only know what the general public knows and did not have the opportunity to know her personally.)

The only way--truly--to fully and most humanly embrace the dangerous seas of love and friendship without sentencing oneself to hopelessness and despair because of the hurt one will suffer is to know and love Jesus Christ. He makes everything possible in love and friendship--everything good--healing, forgiveness, friendship and love even in the midst of sin and imperfection become realities when transformed by the precious grace of Jesus. He strengthens and heals and renews our hearts to live human lives of profoundly meaningful relationships of friendship and love, even though this also means pain. First of all, He heals and makes whole what before was broken in our relationships. Love and friendship are much better under the loving guidance of Christ. But these things, though better, nonetheless are still fallen and are sources of pain even with Christ's grace. But even the pain that we still must endure because of love and friendship becomes bearable because it can be woven into the astonishing meaning and power of Jesus' self-sacrificial suffering and death on the cross, in love, for the salvation and sanctification of the world.

If we turn to Jesus on the cross, draw near to the wound in His side, we have no need to turn away from love and friendship out of fear and to protect our hearts. And when we do experience the suffering that inevitably comes our way because we choose to embrace our humanity with gusto and thus to pursue love and friendship, we need not be wholly crushed. Jesus is here to bear our hurts with us and to transform even these most interior, close-to-ourselves sufferings into something spiritually powerful for ourselves and those we love.

But if all the above be true, this indeed has a great consequence: Relationships of love and friendship are not possible for us to embrace and live at their most powerful, most meaningful human depths without the grace of Jesus Christ in our souls. Only with Him can we be confidently and most vibrantly alive and passionate in love and friendship without going off the rails into despair or self-destruction.

Merry Christmas! The Bringing of Jesus' Human Body into the Trinity is Forever!

It is truly awesome to think of the endless blessings for mankind of the Incarnation--the Word becoming flesh to dwell among us.

I tend to emphasize in my thoughts, when recalling the reality of Jesus' humanity, that God became one of us and was born into our human condition (but for sin) on that blessed day in Bethlehem. But, it blows me away to think about this as well, that ever since the Ascension, a living, glorified human body has entered into the very life of the Divine Trinity itself--forever.

God has so dignified and lifted up our human nature that He has even brought this nature into the very heart and center of the blazingly glorious life and love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all eternity. Out of the entirety of His wondrous and beautiful creation He has only chosen one nature to enfold into His very divine self--human flesh. When the child Jesus was born, who could have imagined this destiny? Praise God for this ineffable and incredible mystery!




I want to extend heartfelt wishes to you, dear readers, and your families, and all whom you love for a most blessed, peace-filled, and joyous Christmas!

Anyone who reads this blog and is so disposed let us keep each other in prayer, that we might always eagerly embrace the superabundant grace of God which is poured into the world through the life of that precious babe born in Bethlehem in a manger on that blessed day.

"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us." (Jn 1:14)

In the joy and peace of the infant Jesus,
Scott

[Ascension Icon from http://www.flickr.com/photos/78575519@N00/3568423719]

The Legionaries of Christ: How is it That Good Priests Can Come From a Poisoned Seed?

Dawn Eden, over at Headline Bistro, wrote an interesting article, "The Holy Ghost in the Machine: Amidst the Legion Crisis, A Sign of Providence."

I plunged into making a comment after the article, only to find there is a 1500 character limit. My comment was considerably longer. So, I am publishing it here on my blog. The issue I wanted to comment about was, how is it that good priests were indeed able to be formed in the midst of a system that we have now learned had serious flaws, that was established by a man who can now be considered a manipulative, narcissistic sociopath?

I don't claim to have anything near to a full explanation of this. But here are a few thoughts that may at least shed a little light on this enigma. . .

I spent a few years (five) in the Navy. One of the things that is apparent during the experience of boot camp is that some young men are simply not constitutionally able to handle military life. Some of them leave or are weeded out during boot camp. But, there are also some young men who not only can handle military life, but thrive on it. Such men blossom in a disciplined environment of daily physical and mental rigor. The typical military man of this sort is not likely to be very interested in what is going on with the upper echelon leaders. He is simply eager to attack the challenges of the day and glad to be able to go to bed with the knowledge of a job well done, the day's obstacles overcome. Such a man loves the sense of camaraderie and esprit de corps that comes with living and working alongside other men who are eager to go into battle against great obstacles and overcome them--stronger, harder, tougher men in the end. There is something of this, I think, in every man. But some more than others seem made to embrace the masculine call to a life of self-sacrificing hardship in the form of military life. And it's not merely an eagerness for hardship and to do battle against evil--it's about entering a brotherhood, a brotherhood forged and toughened by a kind of shared adversity (and this must include physical adversity) that I'm not sure women quite understand (perhaps they do, though perhaps in a different way than men).

Why do I speak of men who thrive in the military brotherhood in the context of Dawn's article? In my opinion, there is a lot of explanatory light here.

The Legionary formation process was (still is?) presented in a way that calls very strongly to the sort of young man who would thrive under the hardships of military life. If a young man was pious, loved the Catholic faith, loved the Church, and would also be the sort to yearn for that kind of brotherhood forged between men doing battle side-by-side, he would probably find Legionary formation highly attractive.

I went on a Legion vocations weekend myself back in the 90's. And I have to say, I recall thinking to myself that it was very much like boot camp. But, boot camp forming men to fight in the army of Jesus Christ--to do battle, side-by-side, against Satan and his minions. There was a very military-like discipline and the sort of mental and physical rigor that the best American soldiers would love--strict silence, getting up promptly at the same time, showering and getting ready for the day in mere minutes, etc. The strict schedule of prayer, study, physical work, meals, physical play (often soccer) had a very military feel.

Also, consider this against the background of what I understand was a more typical American Catholic seminary life of the 60's, 70's, and into the 80's. Seminarians during that era, at least many of them, lived a rather less-disciplined life than the Legionaries. Physical hardships were not many. It was, as I understand it, in many cases a rather soft, cushy existence. I'm not speaking so much of the rigors of study and prayer, but in other ways (such as general discipline, physical labor, sports, and just a certain masculine vigor and energy of life) seminary life, at least from what I have learned of that era (and I'm sure there were exceptions), would not have been particularly attractive to an energetic, vigorous man of the sort who might have thrived in military life.

Now, what I am speaking of here is a natural attraction many pious young Catholic men would have had to the Legionary life (and I refer here mostly to their formation years because this is what seemed to be emphasized to prospective vocation candidates) simply because of its external form and its apparent camaraderie-forged-in-shared-hardship character. But, a natural attraction and a supernatural calling are not the same. They may overlap and complement each other, but they are not the same.

And, also recalling my military days, it is amazing what a merely natural disposition for military life can do to prepare for bringing forth certain natural virtues in those who become professional military men. I have had the privilege of witnessing men who had developed incredible abilities of leadership, courage, and physical and mental toughness through their military training and experience.

Place the same sort of man, who also loves Christ and His Church, in the Legionary formation of the past, and regardless of the bad seed at the top echelons, he might similarly succeed in developing at least some of the same kinds of natural virtues as a good soldier. Now, if this be a man of real and genuine faith, and eager to pray, you still have the potential for producing a priest of many fine and admirable virtues. After all, there is no lack of examples of Saints who had far less than ideal formative circumstances. The daily reception of the Eucharist, a deep prayer life, and frequent reading of Scripture, can shield a person from a lot. And I think for a man, that very yearning for a special brotherhood that can only be forged in shared struggle might have played a role in his not noticing the serious problems in regard to individual freedom of will and liberty of conscience that have since come to light as serious issues in Legionary formation.

Grace transforms nature. If there is a lot there on the level of at least some natural virtues (even though seriously lacking in important ways), there is much there to be transformed by grace, even as there still remain serious holes.

Growth in Supernatural Virtue Involves a Close Harmony Between Nature and Grace

[Update: for a related post, see here]

Here is another topic on which I commented over at The Linde (see this post). It pertains to the big and very significant issue of the relationship between nature and grace. And this issue is a very important backbone to any discussion of how we should understand the virtues, natural and supernatural.

From the point of view of a Catholic understanding of the world, natural and supernatural virtue are closely related and yet very different. Natural virtues can be developed with merely ordinary natural human powers and abilities (e.g. courage, patience, generosity, friendliness). Supernatural virtues have a supernatural goal and can only be developed with the assistance of divine grace (e.g. charity, fortitude, chastity).

* * *

There is a close relationship between natural and supernatural virtues and between the growth of natural and supernatural virtues.

As I studied virtue (natural and supernatural) at the Dominican House in moral theology classes, one of the things that was very intriguing and clarifying to me was learning something about how St. Thomas understands the relationship between these two basic categories of virtue.

An overly simplistic view (and not correct according to St. Thomas)—one that I think is often a default sort of understanding for many Catholics—is that natural virtue gets you to a certain point. Then, supernatural virtue takes over and from that point on it is supernature “building” upon nature (i.e. “grace building upon nature”). Sort of like laying bricks to construct a wall. The first ten rows, say, are brown, and represent natural virtue. Then, rows 11 and higher are red, and represent supernatural virtue. The latter continues building upward, taking up where the other left off. Or, like a relay race where one racer (natural virtue) hands off the baton to the next racer (supernatural virtue). The transition from one to the other is such that there is a clean demarcation line in between—a nice, neat borderline between them. One shifts to the other in a way that you can point to it and say, “there is where one ended and the other began.”

Wrong—according to Aquinas. This is not how it really works. Grace comes in and infuses, permeates, transforms, what is already there in natural virtue. They continue on together, intertwined and enmeshed one into the other. One Dominican professor liked to use the analogy of food coloring. You have a container of water. Then you add a single drop of coloring (i.e. grace). The water does not become something else. Yet, it is permeated throughout by the color as it spreads through all the water in the container. However, when you look at it, you cannot observe a clean demarcation or break between the water (i.e. nature) and the coloring (i.e. grace). They are completely intermingled once the grace has been introduced and just a little bit of stirring taken place. Now, the grace might be a little or a lot (or gradually more over time). But the point is that the nature and the grace are very closely allied to each other and ought not be thought of in a compartmentalized way.

The amount of water might be analogous to the amount of natural virtue. The natural and supernatural virtue are closely related, while still being of a totally different nature—yet not clearly distinguishable once they have been brought together.

An example. Let’s take courage (as the natural virtue) and fortitude (as its supernatural complement). Using the water image, say a person has built up one gallon’s worth of courage. Then, he converts, is baptized and becomes a practicing Christian. He now has one gallon of an intimately close mix of courage but now infused with a new color it did not have before—the color of fortitude. The amount of natural virtue effects the operation of the supernatural. The supernatural is not caused by the natural, but it is enabled to work upon a broader field by the larger presence of the natural. If there were one-half gallon of natural courage to start, there would be one-half gallon of fortitude-infused courage after grace came in. Likewise, if there were two gallons at first, and so forth.

The water cannot make itself red. That must be supplied into it from without. But, the more water there is in the pot, the more of it there is to become the new color red when the color is added. And similarly as virtue is increased. A person in grace grows in natural and supernatural virtue in a such a way that they both grow in an intertwined fashion, each being like a stepping stone for the other (but without the natural ever being the origin of the supernatural).

So, it is not accurate to say grace “builds” on nature as though one stops at a certain point and then the other begins. Rather, grace infuses (transforms) nature thoroughly without destroying it or covering it over. (You can still see through colored water; but you see through it in a new way). The nature persists and the amount and character of it remain essential to the way in which the infused, new supernature can be enacted.