The Deadlies: Sloth

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down 

and thrown into the fire.

                 Matthew 7:19 

 

This one took considerable thought, especially in my current situation. Images of sloth often show a man on a hammock ostensibly doing nothing. That man, however, might well be deep in prayer, busy working out a problem, or giving his system much needed rest in order to carry out his responsibilities. On the other hand his super busy neighbor might use work to avoid doing the spiritual or temporal good he is called to do.

In my current situation resting is what I need to do. The trauma of a double grief requires healing and rest, but that doesn't mean I'm neglecting prayer—at least I'm trying not to. Nor is it an excuse to neglect kindness when I have an opportunity to do it.

Aquinas wrote that sloth destroys the spiritual life because it stands in opposition to love--to charity. It is a sin of neglect, causing us to fail to do the good we're called to do. 

Sloth could be defined as wasting time that could be given to God. As some writers have indicated it is a sin of omission, the failure whether through laziness or fear to do good. 

 Neglect can take many forms—failure to pray, failure to take part in sacrament, failure to do domestic responsibilities, failure to care for others. Lying under it is a failure to rely on God's strength and grace, to be trapped in your own "woe is me." The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that spiritual sloth can go so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God!

In that sense, it sounds more related to depression, or more accurately, to refuse God's help when in the throes of clinical depression. I've been there too.

In the end I think it is "deadly" because of the good it causes us to neglect. Matthew 25 tells us quite clearly that at the last judgement we will be accountable for the good we do, and what we fail to do. The failure is sloth.

 

 

The Deadlies: Greed

 Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Matthew 5:3

This one is both obvious and subtle. I scanned various writers for ideas and found a sea of things:

1. Hands full of gold cannot reach for God. In other words, filling ourselves with wealth as our aim and goal leaves no room for God in our hearts and souls. Greed is a form of idolatry. 
2. Overabundance, while others go hungry, is a sin against charity.
3. If you have two shirts in your closet, one belongs to you and the other to the man who has no shirt. (That gem is from Saint Ambrose)
4. Wealth isn't in and of itself evil, it is the heart of man that is the problem.

Greed is the great American sin. I refer to the CEOs who take multi-million dollar bonuses while laying off workers.  I refer to those who refuse to tax the rich and call attempts to help the poor "socialism." But I also believe it infests us all on every economic level-the striving, the focus on "security," the striving for promotions, and the need to accumulate savings for a future that may or may not arrive.

We all work to live. The key problem words are focus and goal. When wealth takes up our deepest striving we are in trouble.

When generosity is weakened, we are in trouble. Even a cursory reading of the Gospels makes it clear that God has a preference for the poor and values generosity. Yet, our culture has a dozen ways to discourage charity. Don't give to panhandlers, they are fake or they will use it for drugs. How do you know that charity is legitimate? Don't enable that nephew, he'll fail again. You name it.

When anything takes our focus off God, we're in trouble. The great commandments are "Love the Lord your God with your whole heart" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." Greed is a sin against both of those.

Last but not least I cycle back to the poor in spirit. It doesn't mean going to the extreme and selling all you have as Jesus advised the rich young man (though that could be a heroic good, provided God led you to it). It does mean treating your wealth as on loan from God for his purposes, and being indifferent to it as it applies to your own sake. 

Notre Dame Burns

I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.

                                Mathew 12:6

I watched in horror, my stomach churning, holding back tears while the great cathedral in Paris burned. I wept when pictures surfaced of people kneeling, praying, singing in the street.

The outpouring of grief for that holy site, that great cultural artifact, "the heart of France," has been genuine and understandable. My own sense of loss is deep. Very quickly, however, we began to hear people struggling to make sense of the event, Worse, some folks began to fold it into their own disparate belief system in awful ways. Some of the things I heard:

1. It can't have been an accident, it had to be "them" (Muslims, anarchists, whoever you define as "them")
2. Our Lady is alerting France to mend their ways and return to faith.
3. The cathedral had been corrupted into a tourist attraction and didn't deserve God's protection.
4. Let it burn, it housed/tolerated/covered up pedophilia.

What struck me as the evening wore on is no one died. The destruction, heart rending though it was, didn't rise to the level of even one mass shooting: Parkland, Columbine, ChristChurch. I wept for a building, and I ought to week for the lost,

Heroic efforts went into rescuing dozens of artifacts, some quite ancient, some recent, some quite valuable, some priceless, and all with great religious significance. The media's emphasis on the crown of thorns relic troubled me, mostly because I am all to aware the the provenance of such relics is shaky at best. I found myself thinking I would sidestep that one and go right for Saint Louis IX's tunic. I am generally put off by relics that are body parts (the tongue of Anthony, the head of the Bapist—or that of Catherine of Siena) and attracted to objects like Francis's little brown robe or Katherine Drexel's desk. The ones reputed to be associated with Christ and the earliest church tend to be questionable. There was a not trade in relics during the middle ages. The crown of thorns itself was once used as security on a loan. That's how Louis IX acquired it.

We were reminded later in the week that three historic black churches in Louisiana were torched in the previous month or so. As billionaires pledged millions to rebuild Notre Dame, less affluent folks began send their mite to the fund to rebuild those churches. I plan to do the same.  We were also reminded that people are starving, and some asked "Where are the billionaires when people need food?" Good question.

How then should I respond to this? I pray that the cathedral will rise and the faith of France— and indeed the whole world—will rise with it, resurrection out of ashes being an appropriate thought for Holy Week.  I will probably send my bit to the cathedral fund. I will most definitely send some to the fund for the churches. Food causes are always dear to my heart and in my budget. 

What came to me was this: love what God loves. And what is that? Us. God loves every one of us, and, as I read the Gospels, his special preference is for the poor and marginalized. Does he care about buildings, relics, art? Only insofar as they enrich us. I'm glad they rescued the relics, but I'd trade them in a second to rescue one hungry child. I'm glad they are rebuilding the cathedral because the hearts of people are elevated by it.  I just hope France finds peace, unity, and faith in the process. 

Free Will

God is love.

                     1 John 4:8

Free will is one of life's great mysteries. We look at the violence, greed, and destruction men choose to do as an exercise of their freedom to choose, and it is tempting to ask What was God thinking when he gave us free will? We could start with the cross, evil doing its level best to suppress supreme Good, and scratch our heads. What is it Jesus meant when he said, "Be it done according to Your will..." What did the Father demand? That He not interfere with the free will of men, and look at the result. Couldn't he have come up with a better plan?

No. the reason is, that God is love. Let me explain.

God by his very nature, we are taught, is love. In Deus Carita Est Benedict XVI beautifully expounds on Eros as it applies to God — the fundamental drive to be united with the other. God loves us. He longs for us. He desires to be united to us. Here's the catch: unity that is forced is not love. It may be submissive correctness. It may involve rule keeping and orthodoxy, but it is not love. Love requires choice. He doesn't want us as poor submissive creatures. He desires union through love. He wants US to choose HIM. Faith is a personal choice, a relationship with another.

Historically, the Church has gotten into trouble when it lost the simple fact that our faith is about relationship, about love, and about choice, and it has allowed itself to be seduced by the methods of this world. That is to say it has chosen power, force, and the hammer of law over love. The obvious examples are the Spanish Inquisition and the crusades, but there are thousands of others in the lives of each of us.

We find ourselves at yet another historical crisis, with the secular world moving farther and farther from God and his call for sacrificial love and the Church slipping into a crisis rooted in the abuse of power at the same time. The tragic stories of sexual abuse by those with power perpetrated on those without it, primarily children, is devastating. The behavior of bishops who've placed the church's perks, privileges, revenue, and prestige above care for victims is far more destructive, undermining as it does the faith of thousands and eroding the moral authority of the clergy to an all-time low. These acts are possible only when presbyters forget that faith is about our relationship with God, not about the exercise of office.

George Bernanos wrote that those who would reform the church must turn aside from solutions learned from politics or business—the things of this world—and look to Saint Francis, who responded to God's call to rebuild his church with humility and poverty, with love. We would do well to think about that when we're tempted to argue about Liberal and Conservative, about celibacy and homosexuality, about putting our will ahead of the Beloved.

Souls

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
                                                              John 13:34

I resolve to love souls for the sake of Jesus Christ.
                                                            Elizabeth Leseur

Ok. So I got to Leseur's fifth month and this time her language feels truly awkward. Love souls? Not people? One another?  Puzzlement.

She goes on to talk about resolving to know souls and to go out and seek them. She speaks of welcoming everyone who comes her way.  She seems to mean that she will try to see all people with God's eyes, loving them, and with knowing them as they are to him. By loving she means looking to their greater good in God's eyes.

To pray, "let me see everyone I meet today as you see them and love them as you love them," is terrifying if I pray it like I mean it.

A week ago I visited Times Square. A seething mass of thousands of diverse people are there night and day. Some are downright peculiar. Some are attractive. Many are not. With Leseur's fifth resolution in the back of my mind it occurred to me that God had made every one of them and loves every one of them. I can choose to pray for them all and offer such general care, but I can't relate to them. I suspect she is talking about rising above our limitations in this regard.

If we try to relate to each person as beloved of God it would alter our relationships with those that come our way, enable us to do the good in front of us, and help us look past conflicts, even the ones that hurt the most, the ones with our near and dear.

Dear God, I can't do this without your grace. I ask for it.