Lead me not into temptation...

I remember when I suggested that this whole faith thing would be a lot easier if God could remove the temptation to sin in my life.  I heard a homily where the priest said, “Without battle, there cannot be victory.  So don’t pray for the battle to end.  It will never end.  Pray for the strength to do what is right in every situation, and thus enjoy the fruits of victory.”

So I guess it’s naive of me to hope that sin will somehow leave me alone. I should focus on what I do, not if, but when temptation comes.

I’m reminded of the story of Ulysses.  The sirens from the sea were these horrible monsters.  They would sing this beautiful song and entrance men to drive their boats into the rocks and eventually death.  Evil disguised as beauty, luring men to death.  Ok, this sounds like sin to me.  What is interesting is looking at three different approaches to dealing with this temptation.

1.  Avoidance – Ulysses had his men put beeswax in their ears so they couldn’t hear anything.  Boom, no siren song, no temptation, no death.  Seems like a pretty effective approach.
2.  Control – Ulysses was curious of the beauty, so he had his men strap him to the mast of the ship.  As he heard the sirens, he screamed and begged for his men to untie him so he could jump in the water.  Of course the men didn’t since they couldn’t hear him, and could clearly see the creatures over by those rocks were hideous and should be avoided. I understand Ulysses' game plan here.  He gets to experience the sensation of the act, even if it’s just a taste, without crossing the line.  This is an extremely dangerous way to handle temptation.  If an alcoholic asks to smell your drink, does that seem like a good idea?  You are still feeding the brokenness inside you, even if you use control to limit your response.  I never want to flirt with the illusion and seduction of sin.  That’s a recipe for trouble.
3. True beauty – So there is a third choice here.  Jason and the Argonauts were also on a ship passing these sirens. He was traveling with Orpheus. Orpheus was an incredible singer and musician.   When the sirens started their enticing call as the ship was passing by, what Jason did was had Orpheus sing.  He played as loud and beautifully as he could, filling the boat and the men’s ears with his music.  It overpowered the calls of the sirens.  True beauty flooded that boat so much that the illusion of beauty never had a chance.

Another example of this third approach happened in Antioch many years ago.  Bishop Nonnus of Edessa was speaking to a group of bishops outside the basilica. While he was talking, Pelagia passed by, a prostitute scantily dressed with jewels.  She was stunning.  Bishop Nonnus stopped speaking and watched her intently as she passed by.  He noticed the others had all turned away and hid their eyes.  “Brothers, were you not pleased at her beauty?”  Nonnus insisted that her appearance had delighted him, but still, he wept for her. He was saddened that she was being used for lust, rather than revealing the image and likeness of God.  When Pelagia saw how the bishop looked at her she was caught of guard.  No man had ever looked at her with such purity.  She later pointed to that simply act of purity as the beginning of her conversion to Christ.  She is now a recognized saint in the church.

Sometimes we are called to simply avoid temptation.  Sometimes we know ourselves well enough that we need to put limits and controls on our behavior to keep from falling.  But each of us also has the third choice.  To seek out and fill ourselves up with what we are longing for in the first place.  The truly beautiful and good.  The genuine article.  No imitations.  And when we successfully do that, the battle’s victory shall be ours.

The Comforts of Cultural Christianity

Happy St. Januarius day! Yes, you read that right. September 19 (and April 21) is the feast day of St. Januarius, a Saint we know little about. Legend states that he was thrown into an amphitheater full of bears who refused to mess with the incredible St. Januarius. So, instead he was beheaded and martyred for his faith. He chose a death in Christ rather than a life of comfort. Why this Saint’s day isn’t celebrated in January is beyond me.

Cultural Christianity sure has its comforts. The thoughts in my mind are being spun around the comforts of cultural Christianity and how many of my own experiences, situations, and events were lived out as a cultural Christian rather than one who was willing and ready to be challenged, criticized and made uncomfortable. I remember many times in my life where I heard others talk about my faith in a way that was grossly misleading and false. There have been times where my Faith, recently, has been attacked because of the failures of a few leaders in my Church. I know there have been times when I’ve chosen the comfort of silence in any situation rather than to speak up and suffer from ridicule or even the loss of friendships. I’d bet most of us can take a moment to think about pivotal moments we’ve chosen comfort over conflict. Or perhaps, we can spend a moment to pause and think of a time we chose to be challenged rather than seeking comfort?

“You are the Christ,” were words we recently heard at Mass. These words struck me like a clapper strikes a bowl. Peter was a man no different than you and me, reading this blog trying our best every day to follow Christ. We have our moments of denial, even two or three denials before we realize it. We have our moments of abandoning Christ at the cross to suffer for us while we seek comfort and safety. However, this specific moment in the Gospel, Peter caught a glimpse of true discipleship.

Discipleship 2,000 years ago had real dangers. To become a follower, one had to fulfill two conditions: give up all claims and be ready to die. Jesus meant releasing claims on conflicting personal relationships and be ready to undergo persecution. In other words, to become a Christian meant leaving one’s non-believing clan for the Christian community. Giving up family brought group ostracization and backlash, both on the family level and the neighborhood level. Depending upon the poor and lowly Christian community alone had its own dangers. Consider Acts 8:1-3:

¹Now Saul was consenting to his execution. Persecution of the Church. On that day, there broke out a severe persecution of the church in Jerusalem, and all were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. ²Devout men buried Stephen and made a loud lament over him. ³Saul, meanwhile, was trying to destroy the church; entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment.

I walked out of church on Sunday realizing that living out my Christian faith should have its challenges. I looked at my children and wondered what I was teaching them with my actions. When have I been criticized for my virtue, prayer life or faith practices? I shouldn’t live an outward faith life seeking this criticism, but one that proclaims “You are the Christ!” How can you and I proclaim this realization that Peter had this week, in spite of the dangers?

What I realize, for sure, is that this endeavor in faith will never be finished until I draw my last breath. This first quote, attributed to Joseph Ratzinger, starts the summary, while the second quote from  Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger ends it:

“The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness!"

“Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched…”

Our Church Has Cancer

Earlier this summer my brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  Surgery was invasive and scary as you would expect when dealing with the brain.  Following surgery, the healing process has involved all different kinds of therapy, drug regimens, rehab, and will continue for some time.  A month after the initial surgery, a serious infection had developed.  They tried medications and IV treatments, but to no avail.  They had to make a quick decision to go back in, identify the infection, and cut it out.  There may be more, they may have gotten it all, or perhaps there will be a reoccurrence.  The final outcome is not known for certain.

When there is an elephant in the room, it’s usually best to acknowledge the beast.  There is no hiding the fact that our church has a disease.  There was a cancer inside at some of the highest levels.  It appeared to have come to the forefront with the scandal of a few years ago.  At that time the disease was apparently identified and treated.  There was more underlying infection, however.  After a while, it came to light and we are in the midst of treatment for the currently diagnosed problem.  Where will things go from here?  The outcome is not known for certain.

Before my brother’s diagnosis, there were clues that things weren’t right.  Occasional confusion.  Sometimes statements that didn’t make sense.  Aggression and denial when confronted about the issues.  Different family members disagreed about what to do.  Some were in denial about any problems.  Others pushed to explore the issue extensively until we could get to the bottom of it.  Even after diagnosis and surgery, there were disagreements about how open to be with others.  My brother would obviously take quite some time to recover.  In the meantime, he wouldn’t be able to do the things that we might expect as normal.

It is obvious that something has been awry in our church for quite some time.  Some of the explanations haven’t seemed to make sense.  Different levels of leadership have taken different approaches in their dealings with the problems.  Even now, with most of the issues apparently out in the open, it still seems like there isn’t a consensus, and potentially even an attempt to not be as open as possible.

As my brother begins his road to recovery, we wonder when he will ever be back to 100%.  When he returns to ‘normal’, what will that normal be?  Will he ever be as he was? We question how long the tumor may have been impacting his thinking, words, or actions.  Was his previous normal, not even as it should have been?  No matter how long it takes, or what the final results are, isn’t he still my family?  No matter if any of his negative words or actions during his illness were caused by the tumor, or were truly his own will, does that make him any less my brother?  It is often difficult to be around him at this point.  Right after surgery, after the tumor was cut out, his brain obviously experienced trauma.  The simple fact of going to visit him, being a loyal family member, and showing my support, set me up for difficult conversations, stress, and long hours.  I suppose I could have easily avoided it all by simply walking away.

I don’t know if we are in the stage of recovery yet, or still trying to identify and work through various infections, but our church is in a rough state.  We can look back in recent or past history and probably note some instances where we were hurt.  We can look at the facts now, and realize that the recovery is going to be a large burden on us, even though we had no involvement in causing the disease.  In the end, the church is still THE church.  It is still truth.  It is still our path to salvation.  The Eucharist is still the Body of Jesus even if the consecration is performed by sinful hands.  In fact, I will guarantee the sacrifice of the mass is presented by unworthy, sinful men.  Does that make Jesus any less real?  When we get through this will we ever go back to ‘normal’?  What is that normal and do we even want to go back?  All I know for sure is that things are going to be difficult for the faithful, but I’m not going anywhere.

Pray for the church, and if you have a chance, pray for my brother.

Written by: Matt Buehrig             Inspired by: Greg