Push back

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give to you.
Let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

Knowing it was coming, I postponed it until this week, but since I offered the Mass for the feast of Saint John Paul II, I have been a little…turbulent.  The Italian word commosso, which could be rendered ‘moved’ or ‘sentimental,’ is actually a little stronger.  I am flooded with memories of the man I knew and loved, whose life and words changed for the better my life and the course of the Church and the world.  The grief is not that he died, for he rejoices in the radiance of the Beatific Vision with all the saints in heaven; but rather that so much of what he said, taught, and did has been removed from the conversation of the same Church and world that so benefitted from it.  

One of his great exhortations, from the day he began his Petrine ministry, is Be not afraid.  This is the fruit of intimacy with the risen Jesus.  This is what everyone who looked at him at any moment in his long and difficult life saw: freedom from fear.  This is the freedom he spent his life to share with every person on earth. 

The opposite message, the reverse goal, is the work of the opponent of human thriving.  The accuser.  The devil.  Be afraid; be very afraid is what he whispers.

Which rings in my ears now whenever I listen to the rhetoric that floods our homes and our lives in these months and final days before our national election.  The shouted instruction to Be afraid is the form and content of many a message, and the fruit is fear and trembling in many an otherwise sane and competent citizen.  

But an article I read somewhere recounted the toll all this fear of the end of the nation, the end of our freedom, the end of all right order and good citizenship, is taking on children.  Witnessing the histrionics of media personalities and the agitation of their parents and other adults on whom they rely for stability, destabilizes them into anxiety and incapacity.  

A few years ago, the experts and leaders prescribed fear as the right disposition and guide during the pandemic.  This caused grave and lasting harm especially to children.  Now again, our kids find fear being thrust upon them by the very people they should have confidence will provide them protection.  Parents give themselves over to the fear pushed on them by the influencers and spread that fear one to another over this or that rumor, threat, or accusation.  The kids see and hear this, absorb it, and make it their own.  They are anxious and afraid.

This election will not be the beginning of some temporal apocalypse.  It is almost funny that the panic is so wild-eyed, because each of the contending parties held power for half of the past eight years and none of the threatened calamities occurred.  Yet even this concrete evidence in the lives and experiences of us all does not prevent the fear from taking hold.

Cast your vote and cast your fears aside.  We have a great nation with a great government, the Constitution, and a population that is largely good and generous.   But even if this crumble, we have a Lord and God who died for us and cares for us and knows every hair on our heads.  All things work to the good of those who love God, as Saint Paul reminds the Romans (Rm 8:28), so the work of the moment for us is to love God. 

Remind your children – Sometimes I get too excited about elections.  However this one goes we will be fine; you will be fine.   Let’s say a prayer together right now for people who are afraid.  God wants them not to be afraid.

Speaking of prayer and casting fear at the foot of Christ’s cross, I have Father Swink’s permission and encouragement to ask you all for prayers for him as he undergoes spinal surgery on Monday.  He has for several years now endured great pain, and everything the doctors have done has failed to relieve it.  This surgery is difficult and will bring pain of its own, but promises to relieve the chronic pain.   He will be out of the parish for six weeks for convalescence and recovery, which will itself be difficult for him who is accustomed to vigorous activity.  If all go according to plan, he should be back with us by mid-Advent and Christmas.  Please, add your prayers that God’s healing touch be on him.

Fear deprives us of the freedom won for us by Christ Jesus.  There is so much that is difficult, so many things we must endure that are genuinely fearsome, it is ridiculous to let ourselves be manipulated by selfish souls toward their own ends.  Christ purchased our freedom at great price and wants us to enjoy this great and glorious gift.  Listen to Him.  Remember the example and exhortation of Saint John Paul II:  Be not afraid!  Then, you can tell this – and show it – to your children.   

Monsignor Smith

The gate is wide and the way is easy

The twentieth century stands out in human history for many reasons, not least an extraordinary leap in technology that enabled human thriving on a scale previously unimaginable. But a sober evaluation cannot evade acknowledging the astronomical human toll wrought by ideologically motivated totalitarian governments.   This bipolar combination of fostering human life and destroying it is revealed in the grim reality that the cumulative total number of human lives on planet Earth lived over all history prior to 1900 was exceeded during the twentieth century by the total number of human beings who were murdered by their own governments.

The history of our nation and our allies over that same century is marked by a willingness, even a commitment to liberating people of other nations from these murderous ideologies and the tyrants who wield them.  This has meant the twentieth was a century characterized by wars.

Looking back on the devastation and horror left by these wars, it is easy to imagine that an absence of war would have been preferable.  However, that false and facile assertion would overlook the virtue of justice, which is rooted and revealed in human dignity, and ordered toward human thriving.  A person, program, or practice that degrades or destroys human life is vicious, and people are bound to oppose it by the moral purpose that undergirds their dignity and ratifies their freedom.  This opposition can take the form of war. 

This is not to go so far as to embrace unqualified the nostalgic distinction applied to World War II as “the (last) good war.”  Everybody can agree National Socialism was evil, though we lack a similar catchphrase to explain the fight against Japan.  But the United States and her allies in that mortal struggle were fighting a true just war.  Sadly,  even this did not excuse the men and women who served and sacrificed from the moral peril of all who fight even, and especially, for a good and just cause.

Some of the best literature of the second half of the century deals with the moral damage done to good people who did horrible things to other people for very good reasons.  In fact, their very goodness, that is, their strong moral character, made it harder for them to accept not only what they did that hurt or killed other people, but also what they intended or even desired while they did it.

To oversimplify the conundrum, we can use a handier, domestic scenario.  A young man with a gun prepares to kill a person in the store he is robbing; a responding police officer shoots and kills the young man to prevent the murder.  The officer’s goal was to save the life of the bystander; the consequence, not the goal, was the death of the robber.  That intention justifies the act, and makes the officer’s action not merely excusable, but in fact laudable – that is necessary, and good.  Despite this, it takes a toll on the officer, who does not desire death for any other living being. 

The danger of war, indeed greater in a war for a just cause, is that those prosecuting the fight be moved not only by the desire to prevent evil – murderous, aggrandizing tyranny – but by desire for the death of the enemy and individual people in its service.  To desire the death of another person is more than a step beyond desiring to stop an evil action; it is a grave sin.  While in wartime it is understandable how a good man give in to such bad intentions, nonetheless the grave sin damages the soul of that man to lasting effect.  That moral damage is a common, even social phenomenon in post-war America.

The gravest danger of righteous combat, a danger greater than injury or even death, is that it can lead a virtuous person to desire the elimination of another person.   

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)

Look at a photo of Nagasaki or Hiroshima after the bomb, and realize the damage was more grievous in the soul of a plumber from Pittsburgh, devoted husband and father, who desired the annihilation of not even all, but any of those Japanese people.   It is hard to picture, isn’t it, that with all those corpses, all those destroyed homes and cities, all the wounded and widowed and orphaned, all those resources poured into death and destruction rather than life and prosperity, the greatest devastation can occur invisibly in the conscience and soul of a human being?  

That war, and those events, are eighty long years ago, and precious few who were engaged in it walk among us this day.  Yet the selfsame danger remains and stalks every citizen of this prosperous nation. 

Possibly because of our prosperity, perhaps because our enemies are so distant as to be abstract, we are vulnerable to the grave danger of the sin that can kill our souls: to persuade ourselves, or be persuaded, that things would be better, our lives would be better, the world would be better, if another person would cease to exist. 

The language of our public discourse and the terminology of our political speech has veered dangerously and almost entirely into these categories and characterizations.  Words from the mouths of persons we once looked to for insight, sobriety, and sense – newscasters, legislators, leaders, and candidates – has degenerated into vitriol and accusation, and not merely suggestion but assertion that the very existence of a person or group is a mortal threat. 

Casual conversation among people who consider themselves responsible and reasonable has degraded to include expressing desire for the death of a detested person as blithely as the desire for another glass of water.  That desire itself, for the elimination of an inconvenient or interfering human life, brings the hand of death to the soul of the one who freely holds it.  

Rallies and jingoism, shouting and salutes are not the only stimulants of this willing embrace of death as a solution. Doctors and scientists, professors and pundits can make it seem as reasonable to desire the destruction of another person or group as if they were invaders or attackers.

Beware, my people, what attitudes you allow yourself to embrace and make your own from voices speaking calmly and invoking sweet reason.  They are the most deadly poison.

Today war is neither concept nor abstraction in several places and many human lives, and in those places, the combatants cause death and destruction while risking it and incurring it for themselves and their dear ones, in the pursuit of causes that can be sternly and correctly judged for rightness and justice.   In our land, there is a different kind of combat among ideas and identities, waged with words and assertions that will have real consequences in the material reality of our nation.   The enthusiasms we embrace, the desires we form, and the actions that follow from them, also will be sternly and correctly judged for rightness and justice, and their consequences will be just as real, and more lasting.  

The demands, the offers, the expectations, and the actions thrust upon us or demanded of us in our country in these very days are drastic and divisive.   They divide us not only from one another, but also from our own human dignity.  In how you and I respond and act, the twenty-first century’s defining dynamic will be revealed, along with the course of our immortal souls.  Lord have mercy.

Monsignor Smith

Days, weeks, ever

First of all, let me thank everybody who worked to make our Fall Festival happen last Sunday, from every person who called bingo or baked a cake with six kinds of candy, through our vendors, the bridge-building Scouts, and the Rosensteel Knights who did get the tap working, all the way up through the aptly-named Genius Committee to the “Queen” who worked really, really hard, Elizabeth Narsavage.  The weather was passing perfect, so if you were on the prayer brigade for that, thank you too.  

It was great fun for everybody there, and I discerned that several guests had never been with us before.  You all made a great first impression!  We had one accident, too, the one thing we pray and work to avoid; so there’s new work for the prayer brigade.  There is always work for the prayer brigade.

This past Sunday, John Henderson, our music director, explained to me that for October, the 11:00 Mass would begin with a choral prelude instead of an organ prelude,.  Not just any choral work, either: every week we will hear a different setting of the Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen).   We started with Guerrero, a personal favorite composer, because John spoils me sometimes.  October is a month especially associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary, not least because of the feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary on October 7, also known as Our Lady of Victory.

We sing the Salve Regina at Mass every Sunday in the simple chant version.  It is one of the four seasonal Marian antiphons that are Catholic Classics, or even Basics.   We sing the Salve from Trinity Sunday through Christ the King.  Then, on First Advent, we switch to the Alma Redemptoris Mater (Dear Mother of the Redeemer), which we sing through Christmas until the Presentation of the Lord.  Thence we take up the Ave Regina Caelorum (Hail Queen of Heaven) which gets us through Lent, then Easter brings the Regina Caeli (Rejoice Heavenly Queen), until the Salve kicks in again after Pentecost.  Possibly because the Salve has the longest season, and possibly because that familiar prayer is more deeply woven into popular devotion, it has been set to marvelous compositions many times over the centuries by the greatest composers.  So, come a little early to Mass and enjoy.  Other parishes don’t get this!

Today I spent two hours at the bank helping our scout troop open its new checking account.  It was more arduous than any of us expected, largely for the same reason that we even needed the new account: fraud.  Our scouts were hit hard by some fraudulent check writers last year, and they have been working without a functional checking account since then.  Their assets were restored, after some anxious months, but they needed the new account separate from the parish accounts, with which we assist as their chartering organization.  The bank’s processes have become more careful and complex, and therefore more time consuming.

We are being more careful, as well, and have switched our parish checking to a new system called “Positive Pay” that means that we notify the bank of every check before we issue it, and the bank will honor only those checks.  Yes, it is arduous, inconvenient, and time consuming, and it limits what we can do with our checks.  But we have already nabbed TWO fraudulent checks people tried to write on our accounts in just the last few months, so we are sticking with it.

And speaking of fraudsters, neither I nor any staffer at the rectory or school will email you and ask you to buy and send gift cards.  Even if the message insists “I am in a prayer meeting” (!!! Really?  Who emails about gift cards from a prayer meeting??) do not respond at all, but rather, if you are uncertain, contact us through our published email or telephone numbers.  It creeps me out more than a little that anybody would be sitting at a computer somewhere in the world pretending to be me for any reason, but especially in hopes of extricating a few hundred dollars from some unsuspecting, faithful person.  Now that I have learned about the remote hives of abducted, entrapped, and enslaved people who are forced to perpetrate fraud under threat of grave harm, I realize that not all of these perpetrators merit our wrath and contempt, but rather our prayers. 

There is something particularly blasphemous when these practitioners of “phishing” try to present themselves as if they were fishers of men.  That is not at all what our Lord intended by that term!  And, as St Paul said to the elders of the church at Ephesus before his departure for Jerusalem, I (K)now that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert.  (Acts 20: 29 – 31a)

Threats (fierce wolves) from without, and dangers (men speaking perverse things) within.  Be alert, indeed.  

Monsignor Smith

For the battle

Defend us

We speak of nine choirs of Angels, because we know, by the testimony of Holy Scripture, that there are the following: Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Dominations, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. Nearly every page of Scripture witnesses to the fact that there are Angels and Archangels.  The prophetic books, as has been noted often, speak of Cherubim and Seraphim.  Four more orders are enumerated by Paul the Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, when he says, "Above every Principality and Power and Virtue and Domination."  And again, writing to the Colossians, he says, "Whether Thrones, or Powers, or Principalities, or Dominations."  When, then, we add the Thrones to those he mentions in Ephesians, there are five orders, to which are to be added Angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, certainly making nine orders of Angels in all.  Saint Gregory the Great, Pope from AD 590 to 603.    

For a while there a few years back, angels were wildly popular.  Posters and notecards, t-shirts and television shows, all featured angels, or someone purporting to be an angel.  This enthusiasm seems to have faded, and now the public fancy has turned to AI or zombies or something.  But we members of the Body of the Lord remain aware of the angels, even though they have no bodies, for together we serve the Eternal Almighty.   And we have just finished the week in which fall our annual liturgical observance of their importance.

Last Sunday, 29 September, was the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels, though suppressed because, you know, Sunday.  We know these Archangels from their missions recorded in Scripture.  Gabriel brought the message of the Incarnation of Our Lord to the virgin of Nazareth, whose name was Mary.  Raphael assisted Tobiah on his pilgrimage and identified the healing balm for Tobit.  Michael is in charge of, shall we say, less delicate matters.  He wields a flaming sword, and in addition to the several combats in which he intervenes in the Old Testament, we see this in the last book of the New:

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world -- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.  Rev 12:7-9

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he must be loosed for a little while.  Rev 20:1-3

This Michael is decidedly somebody we want to have on our side in our combats, and someone with whom we want to have clear and quick communication.  The ancient Prayer to Saint Michael is indispensable, and we should know it by heart and pray it readily and often.   We teach it to the students by praying it at the conclusion of our weekly school Masses. 

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!  Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.  May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.  Amen.

Michael is clearly one of “the big guns” for our fight against sin and death, as we might regard all the Archangels.  (Can you name the fourth Archangel?)  But that august group does not exhaust the assembly of angels we celebrate in these days.  Wednesday, October 2, was the Feast of the Guardian Angels, when we recall that God has assigned an angel to each one of us, to protect us (from sin) and help us safely on our way (to heaven): 

For he will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Psalm 91:11-12

Angels are in Scripture, angels are amazing; angels bear messages and always say first, Fear not!   Where do you and I come close to these same Angels?  How can we share their company?  One of my favorite antiphons in The Divine Office, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours or the breviary, points the way:

An angel stood by the altar, holding a golden censer; a large quantity of incense was given to him, and clouds of incense rose from the hand of the angel in the presence of the Lord.

Thousands upon thousands waited on him, and myriads upon myriads stood before him.  And clouds of incense rose from the hand of the angel in the presence of the Lord.

We are closest to the Angels, in our location and in our action, when we are at the Holy Altar of God during the saving sacrifice of the Mass, worshipping God, adoring Him and praising Him.  We announce our plea and our plan to be joined in our acclamation not only to the angels and archangels, but also to the virtues, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, and to the cherubim and seraphim too.   At the approach of the Lord Himself we cry out together Holy! Holy! Holy!

That is better, longer lasting, and more approachable than posters and notecards, t-shirts and television shows ever will be.

Monsignor Smith