Reaching for the heart

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By Brad Torline.

The Gospel reading a few Fridays ago asked us to contemplate one of Jesus’ most challenging teachings: “You have heard that it was said … You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment …, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.” (Matt 5:21-22)

Gehenna — the valley of Hannon — was the stuff of nightmares. It was a “cursed” place where the ancients offered human sacrifice. In Jesus’ time it was a place of disposal, where large heaps of garbage, refuse and even the remains of the poor were set ablaze, ceaselessly smoldering and burning.

This is the image Christ used to describe Hell. This is the punishment he says we risk when we say to someone, “You fool!” I don’t know about you, but this makes me nervous. In my day, I have said a number of things, to a number of people that were far worse than the phrase, “you fool!”

There’s some comfort in remembering that Jesus uses exaggeration from time to time. Even so, it’s usually to ensure that we are paying close attention and taking him very seriously. So what is he trying to tell us?

There is a common misconception that Christ came to abolish and replace the old laws. I have even heard of a young person saying, “Isn’t that why Jesus came? So that we can chill, have fun and not have to worry about the rules?” This is a fairly egregious misunderstanding, and it remains unfortunately prevalent today.

Jesus makes it clear that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, a Scripture scholar and Trappist monk, puts it this way: “Christ does not reject the law but rather, intensifies it. In some sense he makes it more demanding, because he imposes conditions, not only on the externals of our lives but above all on the abiding attitude of our hearts.”

External laws and external punishments are not bad. The point is that they are not enough. It’s good to not murder. It’s good to punish and judge those who do. But it’s not enough!

Christ, the Lord, the God-Man, the Word of God who, from all eternity, descended into the depths of man’s condition, taking on the form of man and slave and suffering victim IS NOT SATISFIED with the merely external. He is after the heart.

The Greek Fathers called Him “The Knower of Hearts,” for he sees our hearts and he will not be satisfied until, not only our external lives and actions are cleansed from sin, but also when our very hearts and beings are cleansed from any taint, from any of the sources of sin.

How does murder happen? It begins with anger. And anger begins with contempt. Jesus, the “Knower of Hearts” tells us that it is not good enough just to refrain from external violence. We must also cleanse ourselves of the internal violence of anger and contempt.

When I reflected on this and looked inwards a few weeks ago, I realized just how much anger and contempt I have inside. It’s difficult to not view everything in relation to the unbelievable events that occurred last year. But if you’re anything like me, 2020 has left its mark inside me — vestiges of anger and contempt, which may not always be on the surface but, like the fires of Gehenna, continuously smolder and burn in the background of my mind.

Even for those of us who refrained from getting into heated arguments in grocery stores or raging political battles on social media, how many of us escaped last year unscathed with no anger or contempt left in our hearts? I have realized that I have plenty of anger and contempt inside of me and that Jesus won’t be satisfied until I get rid of it.

Contempt for ideas, movements, ideologies and actions that threaten the Good are one thing. But contempt for human beings — any human being — is forbidden. In fact, if we harbor any, we make ourselves liable to Gehenna.

On the one hand this seems overwhelming. How, Lord, can you possibly expect us to eradicate any and all traces of contempt for other persons from our hearts? It is too enormous a task, too against our nature — it is impossible.

On the other hand we remember that, with grace nothing is impossible and that Lent is the perfect time to work on this. Let us turn to the sacraments — to confession, to the Eucharist, and to prayer and beg Jesus to clean us of contempt.

He will leave our zeal for truth, goodness and beauty and won’t alleviate righteous anger which seeks to defend such things from any actions or movements that attack them. But he will burn out all our contempt for people, including, perhaps, any contempt we have for ourselves. It is not ours to hold on to it. We are not permitted. We are commanded to let it go — to love even our enemies.

And when we finally do let go of all contempt — can you imagine the freedom?

Brad Torline is associate director for the Office of Catechesis and Evangelization, Diocese of Covington, Ky.

Is it time for the ‘Benedict Option’?

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By David Cooley.

St. Benedict of Nursia was born around 480 AD; those were not easy times. Twenty-five years earlier Rome was sacked a third time, this time by the Vandals. And just four years before Benedict was born the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed. The whole center of gravity shifted from Rome to Constantinople and Italy was abandoned to the barbarians.

In the midst of this collapse comes a man who doesn’t, as some believe, leave the world behind, but realizes that in the midst of all this chaos he must find a way to stay focused on what truly matters. That was Benedict. Out of that humble beginning formed a community of people living together seeking God and helping anyone that needed them. That community was a social experiment that welcomed barbarians, soldiers and sons of senators all in the same place, and it changed the course of Western civilization.

I think it’s fair to say that we also live in a time of turmoil. But as Catholics, as Christians, this is nothing new for us. Still, somedays, life can be overwhelming. We all have our list of reasons, or excuses, to not be optimistic about the way things are going. But we have to examine that list of reasons and remove anything that puts us in a frame of mind that drags us down into the muck of the world instead of pushing us to live the way God intended us to live.

I don’t always practice what I preach. Some things, just to name a few, that I let get me down and discouraged are the condition of our culture, too much technology and the hostile political climate. I often feel that we rely too much on the powers-that-be to fix issues that aren’t just social-political but moral as well.

This leads me to another thing that gets me down — the state of the Catholic Church. I worry about the fact that a large percentage of people keep drifting away from the sacraments with very few of us knowing what to do about it. And those leaving the Church almost certainly have no idea what they are leaving behind.

One of the blessings in my life is that I always seem to find the right book to read at the right time. As 2020 turned to 2021, I found myself reading a book called “The Benedict Option” by Rod Dreher. The subtitle is “A strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.” In the book, Mr. Dreher laments that the Church ought to be a powerful counterforce to the radical individualism and secularism of modernity and yet it is often finds itself ineffective in combating the forces of cultural decline. The main argument of the book is that serious Christians need to do the same thing that St. Benedict did in the sixth century. No, not to go live in a monastery — at least not exactly.

Think about it this way, Benedict lived in unprecedented dark times but he was focused, organized and creative. He wasn’t scared to live out the mission of Church, without compromise, no matter what it costed. He read the signs of the times, stayed focused on the Lord and converted people by the way he lived. Everything came down to prayer, work and community.

Mr. Dreher writes: “We have to develop creative, communal solutions to help us hold onto our faith and our values in a world growing ever more hostile to them. We have to choose to make a decisive leap into a truly counter-cultural way of living Christianity, or we will doom our children and our children’s children to assimilation.” What he is talking about is no easy task, and it does require a type of withdrawal from the world. The Benedict Option is a strategic spiritual withdrawal, not necessarily a physical one.

So, where do we start? Luckily, we already have small Catholic communities established — we call them parishes. Parishes are all part of Local Church (or diocese) but strategically placed throughout the neighborhoods of Northern Kentucky. If we can convert the neighborhoods then we can convert the city. If we reach the city then we could win over the state. If we transform the state then, maybe, we can’t save the culture. Then again maybe we can’t, but we are still supposed to try.

How we do all this is where the creativity and innovation come in. We can start small, in our own homes, in our families and in small groups of families. We must preserve our history and traditional Christian values. As disciples of Christ we are called to work together, keep building each other up, and challenge the world to seek the good, the true and the beautiful.

“At the root of the collapse of the West, there is a cultural identity crisis,” said Cardinal Robert Sarah. “The West no longer knows who it is, because it no longer knows and does not want to know who made it, who established it, as it was and as it is. Many countries today ignore their own history. This self-suffocation naturally leads to a decadence that opens the path to new, barbaric civilizations.”

Perhaps the West is doomed to fall again, but, we know that God is always in charge and that we are never completely helpless. If you feel overly concerned, I recommend reading “The Benedict Option.” The book offers a critique of modern culture but also tells stories of Christians today who are pioneering creative ways to live out the faith joyfully and counter-culturally. It is both humbling and inspiring at the same time.

St. Benedict responded to the collapse of Roman civilization by founding a monastic order. The question before us now is: how will we face the vast and unique challenges of our times?

David Cooley is co-director and office manager of the Office of Catechesis and Evangelization.

A reflection for Catholic Schools Week 2021

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By David Cooley.

When focused on educating and exercising the minds, bodies and souls of today’s youth, Catholic schools shine as beacons of light in a dark and confusing world. When they rise up to the challenges of society and culture they bring hope and joy to countless Christian families and others who are trying to do their best to serve the Lord in trying times. It is no small feat that Catholic schools have stood strong through the tests of time in America, but there is no reason to think that things are going to get any easier in the near future. While we live in a world where medical and technological advances have, generally, made life more convenient and easier, having a sacramental vision has become way more difficult. As Mankind seems to wander further and further away from God, there is no doubt that keeping the faith while growing up is getting harder.

It is only right to take a moment each year and celebrate Catholic Schools Week (CSW). Catholic schools have a specific purpose to form students in love of God and love of neighbor; to be good citizens of the world and to enrich society with the leaven of the Gospel and by example of faith. They are a benefit to our cities and towns — believers and non-believers alike — but that is not what makes them so special.

The CSW theme this year is “Catholic Schools: Faith. Excellence. Service.” Faith, excellence and service are pillars of the Christian life. These pillars stand upon a solid foundation and direct people’s attention away from earthly distractions and up to the heavens. It is that solid foundation that makes Catholic schools so special.

What does it mean to have faith? It means that you believe in more than what this world has to offer. It means that you have come to know and trust the Lord more than you trust your own eyes. It is an understanding that the realities we meet with our senses are simply passing us by and that eternity, which is beyond, is even more real. As communities of faith, Catholic schools instill in students their destiny to become future saints.

What is excellence, if not holiness? Every Catholic, from a Benedictine monk in Norcia to the lawyer or teacher down the street in Northern Kentucky, is called to take their mission from Christ and spiritual formation seriously. The Christian life, like everything else, requires constant education, training and attention. We know that habits are developed at a young age. While it’s true that academic excellence is a hallmark of Catholic education, it is intentionally directed to the growth of the whole person — mind, body and soul —with an extra emphasis on the soul. A Catholic school teaches its students about the will of God, in contrast to our culture’s tendency to promote the worship of the self and other false idols. By the time a Catholic is confirmed they should realize what is being asked of them — they are being asked to lead a true and holy life; to follow Christ, even when it leads to the Cross.

And, finally, we have the pillar of service. The Letter of James in Scripture tells us that “… faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:17) St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662 AD) takes the idea a step further, he said, “Theology without practice is the theology of demons.” We are called to live a life of service. Social learning through service is a fundamental part of Catholic education. It is not enough to just say we love God, we need to show it. Service in our Catholic schools is intended to help form youth to not only witnesses to Catholic social teaching, but to also be active participants in social change for the common good.

In a day and age when many seem to have lost their way, it is important to remember that the Catholic Church is not just a building or an institution, but the people of God working together to bring about the Kingdom of God today. The role of Catholic schools, an apostolate of the Church, is to raise up the next generation to continue this mission begun by Christ. Yes, these are hard times; yes, it is often a dark and confusing world, but at the center of the storm the light of Christ shines the brightest. Like everything else Catholic schools are in the midst of the fray, but Christ is the center of the school. Christ is that solid foundation upon which they are built, and that makes all the difference.

David Cooley is co-director and office manager of the Office of Catechesis and Evangelization in the Diocese of Covington.