The Fruits: Gentleness

 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

Gentleness of manner or disposition--this quality is very close to kindness, but it has more to do with mild temper or sweet disposition than anything else. It is how we approach the people we have in our life.

God presents each of us with people every day, passing acquaintances as well as family, friends, and coworkers. In every category, some are more likable than others but we're called to love them all. "Gentleness" is how someone who lives in the spirit approaches the people we are given, particularly those we find hard to get along with.

I recently had a conversation with a friend about relationships with people whose political or religious views and values differ sharply from ours. Worse is when those we're given to love are opinionated, judgmental, and harsh with anyone who differs from them. We're living in an age where political tribalism, religious dogmatism, and so on have us so divided into camps that conversations have ceased to be about ideas and often deteriorate into name-calling and labels. The problems in families over these differences have made holiday dinners with those we ought to feel close to tense and sometimes miserable. It has become such a widespread problem, jokes and self-help solutions proliferate.

Here's a solution: pray for the Holy Spirit to so fill us that we bear fruit in gentleness especially when the people we encounter are difficult and prickly. We can't and shouldn't agree with everyone, but we can treat them with gentleness.  Need a model? The portrayal of Jesus on The Chosen is an example that combines strength and firmness of purpose with gentleness beautifully.

The Fruits: Faithfulness

 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

If the Holy Spirit manifests her fruits in my life at all, this one is probably it. Fifty-two years of marriage is one manifestation. Of course, there are kinds and degrees of fidelity in marriage. The absence of adultery is only one. True single-hearted love in the face of illnesses, family stress, career stress, is harder, as is the distraction of other shiny things. Still, we persist.

I'm a tough friend to lose. Close friendships stay with me decade after decade, some of them for 60, 50, 40 years. 

I could not stay steady in all these things without an enormous flood of grace. That I've been able to do so is nothing but a gift from God who does all. He is he who is God. I am she who is not.

The greatest gift of all and the foundational faithfulness, however, is that I have never wavered in my belief since the day I understood that God existed, and because of that nothing else --NOTHING--matters. I may have struggled with the institutional church but never with that foundational faith. For that grace I am grateful.

The Fruits: Goodness

 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

What is goodness? It is the nature of humans to choose what is good. Of course what an individual perceives as good generally is "good for me."

To give a petty example, I may choose pie for breakfast and ice cream for lunch. I crave them and perceive them as very good. In the context of my health and overall well-being, however, they are not so good for me. It is a matter of judgment and perception. On a much greater scale, Hitler did what he thought of as good for himself and even good for Germany. We think of him as a madman, but even madmen choose their perceived good. 

To bear fruit in true goodness, we have to have the wisdom—and selflessness—that only comes from the Holy Spirit.

What then is goodness? The etymological dictionary on historic principles says:

Old English gōd (with a long "o") "excellent, fine; valuable; desirable, favorable, beneficial; full, entire, complete;" of abstractions, actions, etc., "beneficial, effective; righteous, pious;" of persons or souls, "righteous, pious, virtuous;" probably originally "having the right or desirable quality,"

It is tempting to think that good and God have the same English root but the etymological dictionary argues otherwise. It doesn't matter. Goodness is closest to the scriptural idea of righteousness.

As a fruit of the Spirit and life under the guidance of the Spirit, goodness means displaying in my life that string of qualities in definition, things that are fine and valuable, and my particular favorite, "beneficial." I believe it means that the way I live makes the lives of those around me, the life of the church and the community, the natural world as I find it, all better--or at least as fine as God made them. Goodness is to build up, to give life. 

The Fruits: Kindness

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

Surely kindness ought to be abundant fruit in the life of the spirit, if only because every day of our lives presents us with opportunities to practice it.

The worm in the apple, er, orange is the hidden desire that our kindness be seen, be dramatic, bring us admiration. Little kindnesses, especially those in our own households, especially those that go unnoticed have no appeal. It isn't my turn to do dishes. Do I do them? Do I do them and make sure my beloved knows that I did, so he can be suitably grateful? Worse, do I do them and complain loudly? The lurking sin of pride is never of God. Kindness, especially unsung hidden kindness, is always of God and to our benefit.

Do it and to God alone be the glory. Soli Deo gloria!

The Fruits: Patience

 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

Patience! So many opportunities to practice it! Modern life is hurried and frenzied, and we are surrounded with the opposite.

The kind of patience that its the fruit of the Spirit, however, wells up at key times. The fruit of patience pays huge dividends in relationships too. Small children with learn slowly. Husbands who can't seem to handle emotions clearly. Co-workers who ignore our requests. Family members who just don't see things my way. Patience buys me room for healing, bonding, communicating—whatever it takes to love them as we are commanded. Easy? No. Source of grace? You bet. Do I do it well? Ah....

There are other impacts of spiritual patience. Waiting in traffic or in line become opportunities for prayer and praise.

A deeper more profound aspect of patience deals with the advent that is our life in this world. We are always, always waiting for the coming of Jesus. He comes to us in prayer. He comes to us in the Eucharist. He'll come for us at the end of our lives. He'll come at the end of time. Sometimes I want to stomp my foot and say "COME lord Jesus." He smiles and the Spirit says, "Patience."

The Fruits: Peace

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

Today  is Ascension Thursday.  The first, original, most meaningful novena of them all commences. It seems expedient for me to complete this series over the next nine days. 

As I write about peace my city had more shootings overnight. They come daily now. Jerusalem is burning, Gaza is being flattened, and civil war has erupted in some Israeli towns. Afghanistan has erupted as troops withdraw, the latest atrocity, the bombing of a girls' school with many deaths, hints at what may come. Cyber attacks on various power grids feel like the opening shots in a new form of warfare. Political polarization, anger, and yes, hatred continues to seethe. Attacks on Asian Americans are climbing, anti-semitism rises, and bigotry, the legacy of slavery, continues to manifest itself in violence and echoing hatred. Where is this peace?

My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. (John 14:27)

Jesus gives us His peace! If you search the gospels you'll find Him wishing/offering peace over and over. You'll find Him urging his followers to be peacemakers, to offer peace, to bring peace. He does not promise that the world, ever the opposite of God, will have peace. In fact, he goes on to say:

In this world you will have trouble. (John 16:33)

Period. Full stop. You will. He continues:

But take heart! I have overcome the world. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

(John 16:33)

So what is this peace that his followers ought to manifest, that will blossom from the seeds the Holy Spirit sows in our souls? Is it merely  a calm, untroubled manner in the face of all this violence and hatred, or is it something more? I won't pretend I can even do that. When faced with violence and anger I cringe.

Here's what I do know: forgiveness, acceptance and patience with the people in our lives feel good and they are good. Anger, resentment, and vengence do not and are not. In the face of injustice we ought to speak up, but we can still forgive and offer the world His love. To forgive, accept and offer everyone we encounter love we have to dig deep because conflict abounds. Our Lord wants us to be overflowing with peace in this troubled world and he sends the Holy Spirit to help us do it. Once again He demands we do the good that He presents in front of us, the peace that we and only we can make. Imbedded in the life of the Holy Spirit, we can bear the fruit that is peace in our own sphere of life.

The Fruits: Joy

 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

This fruit of life lived in the Spirit can feel illusive. As the scripture reminds us in Psalm 30, "Weeping may endure for a night." The Good Lord knows our lives frequently give us cause to weep: illness and financial upheaval, not to mention pandemic, unemployment, and the ominous drumbeat of division and anger that seems to afflict our politics, our families, and even our church in recent years. Worst of all is conflict in family.

Still the psalm goes on, "… joy cometh in the morning."

It took me a long time to realize that the joy in question wasn't some sort of surface happiness dependent on external realities of life. Joy comes from the depths, the river of grace running through the souls of those who live in the union with the Holy Spirit. It is the result of allowing the Gifts of the Spirit to take root and grow. 

I have come to believe that joy is the most obvious sign of a Christian who walks in grace with God. You see it in their faces, you hear it in their voices, and you find it even when life is knocking them around. They radiate joy. In those times of anger and conflict, this joy is closely linked to peace which is closely linked to forgiveness, loving God's children as he loves them. Some people can manage it.

I'm struggling to learn to look for it in myself, and to note when it does not appear, so I can remind myself to pray and tap into the Spirit who just waits to be asked.

The Fruits: Love

 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

When we measure our spiritual life agains the fruits we are meant to produce, there is nothing more important than the first one: Love. Saint Paul tells us, all things pass away but love never ends. (1Cor 13:8)

God is by nature love, entirely love, flowing out over all of us. As we give ourselves over to him entirely and become more like him, our very nature shifts to become, like His, love. 

The catechism of my childhood taught that entire meaning of life is that God made us. Why? God made us to love and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next. In other words, He wishes to be united to us utterly. So love of God implies service and that love drives us, as all love does, toward union, with the Beloved.

But how is it fruit? As we empty ourselves in order to let God in, our capacity for love grows. We begin to see the world and the people in it as God sees them, to love them as God does.

Imperfect person that I am, people irritate. People anger. People make demands that are inconvenient, imposing, and annoying. Imperfect person that I am I prefer my own will, and yet I get up every morning and tell Him I will do His will. When his love bears fruit, I forgive, I give of time and treasure, I build bridges to those who different, difficult, and demanding. When it doesn't, I crawl back into my cave.

In a recent speech Pope Francis called love of neighbor "a daily gymnasium in which we train love for God."

What of marriage? Marriage is the great school of love; done well it burns off selfishness year after year. At a profoundly spiritual moment once He told me I would never learn to love Him until I learned to love in marriage. My vocation has always been clear.

So the mechanism of love goes both directions. Insofar as I learn selfless love and practice it, however imperfectly, I make room for God to pour his love in me. Insofar as I let God pour His love in me, it overflows, bearing fruit in the world. Allow the Holy Spirit full rein, and love takes root to bear fruit.

Fruits

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

 

How can the world recognize a Christian? By the words they quote? The symbols they wear? The laws they uphold? No. Not even by their virtues, per se, but by their fruits, 

You will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:16)

In a time when the Church calls us to the New Evangelization, it seems like we ought to start with the fruits our lives bear. If we aren't producing good fruit, no amount of speechifying, apologetics or (saints preserve us) argumentation will attract people to Christ.

And the scriptures give us a clue by listing the fruits of some one in union with the Holy Spirit. What what we to make of that? How shall each of us judge ourselves? Perhaps a good examination of conscience might start with examining my life for signs of:

• Love
• Joy
• Peace
• Patience
• Kindness
• Goodness
• Faithfulness
• Gentleness
• Self-control

I stumble right out the gate on that second one if not the first. In the next few posts, I think I'll examine those one by one.

Hope

 Hope is faith in things unseen, the promise of things to come. Without we hide under the bed of our soul and never let God make us what we can be.

As 2020 turned over into 2021 and the New Year begins with yet more ugliness—deaths from Covid are up, Virtual Mass proves a poor substitute for the relating, hunger is rising and homocide rates with it, and a coup attempt that is probably just an opening sally has occurred—hope has never been a more vital component of our spiritual lives.

Samantha Powers told U.S. Catholic recently that, while the size of if the  world's ills is massive, there are always things that can be done right in front of our noses. No one of us is called to save the world. (The work of Redemption has been done, I believe), but we are all called to remember that the kingdom is at hand--right in front of us. We're called to live in the kingdom, loving God with our whole hearts and our neighbor--whoever that is and a whoever comes our way each day--as ourselves. 

We can't let darkness win. We'll know we walk there if we see His fruit. More on that another time.

Emptiness

 Last week I found a little book I had forgotten, shoved back on my bookshelf behind heavier things. It was The Reed of God, one once dear to my heart. I've been reading it every night and so it is again.

She begins with emptiness, the necessity if we are to be filled with Christ, We must be empty; we must be filled; and then—only then—and can we be the hands, the feet, and the beating heart that carries Christ where He wishes to go.

She speaks of three kinds of emptiness. The reed is the delicate emptiness through which the music of God can flow. The chalice is the solid emptiness in which sacrifice, necessary, and needed, can occur. A next is a soft emptiness in which life can be nurtured. We are, she says, all called to our own specific emptiness in order to be what He wishes.

My first image of God was of as the hub of the wheel that is my life. In that vision, a world of people, things, issues, worries, activity flowed in a chaotic circle held in place and given meaning by that hub.  She suggests a different image, one in which we enter into the emptiness at the center, by freeing our minds and souls of the chatter and the noise. It is harder than it sounds. I'm reminded of a mantra He gave me long ago: Listen; don't talk.

Advent is a good time to let the quiet seep in.

Black Lives Matter

 Black Lives Matter. 

God created man in His own image,

Genesis 1:27

Black Lives Matter

If it is on the tip of your tongue to respond “but all lives matter,” stop right there. 

Don’t say it. You’re missing the point. Life is God’s precious gift to be valued always. But for hundreds of years black lives specifically—precious and beloved of God—have been held cheaply in our culture. For 250 years, black lives were used, abused, bought, sold, and snuffed out with impunity in the United States. For the next hundred they were over-policed, underserved, and, yes, still snuffed out with impunity too often. It didn’t end with MLK making a speech as his death makes clear. 

The cry of the streets, what we must understand, is that precious lives continue to die as a result of hunger, the worst of the income gap, poor access to health care, and the actions of bad apples of law enforcement the structure can’t seem to control. Those things are only able to go on because our culture as a whole DOESN’T value all lives as it claims. Our young people are demanding that we stop looking the other way.

Black Lives Matter.

Say it to yourself. Say it over and over until it seeps into your marrow and becomes part of you. Say it out loud until it seeps into our culture and begins to transform it at last.

Black Lives Matter

This I Believe

This I believe:

1. God is. Nothing else really matters.
2. God is love. He is the trinity of Lover, Love, Beloved in neverending exchange.
3. The logic of love is creation~the sharing of love.
4. The gap between humanity and God demanded redemption. The continued gap calls out for salvation.
5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it...  And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

 I accept the formulation of the Nicene creed, and I choose to be a submissive daughter of the Roman Catholic church, never blind to its greed, sins, and administrative blunders, but joyful in its life in the Spirit, the beauty of its traditions, and the communion of its saints.

Word on Fire

...for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit

                    1 Thessalonians  1:5

In the middle of the angst, divisions, and failures of the Catholic Church this decade, I've looked for a spiritual home.

My parish, as luck would have it, is lovely; bible study there keeps me going. But it is shrinking. Between the flight of believers, aging out and changing demographics, it teeters toward disappearing. In my heart of hearts, I have my doubts about the old structure of parish/diocese/archdiocese/conference... It doesn't seem to be working. I have total faith that we as a community of faith can march on no matter what, but the structure? It may be time to let it fall.

I considered one of the traditional religious orders, some, including the one that raised me, take affiliate members. I've looked at various lay movements without finding much satisfaction. I spent some time perusing Formed and some of the online groups. None spoke to me.

So I've settled on Word on Fire. I admire the way in which the institute engages the culture. Wherever I go on social media (and I confess to being out there a lot) WoF is there, not cringing before the culture, not attacking the culture, but engaging the culture in a dialogue rooted and grounded in our faith. As a layperson called to be in the world but not of it and as a writer who prays for ways to make sure my work is soaked in my faith, and a person who uses technology, it feels like a good fit. I'm particularly fond of the magazine and podcast Evangelization and Culture. I'm happy to have my monthly subscription contribute.

I recommend their work—I hope one day to confidently call it our work. Look for us wherever you go. Start here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/wordonfirevideo

or here

https://wordonfire.institute

My Creed

As I set out on my walk today, rosary in hand, I rattled through the Apostles Creed. We always begin with the fundamental statement of faith. It occurred to me though, that my personal fundamental statement of faith, my personal creed is much simpler.

God is and nothing else matters.

It is the first faith commitment I ever made and the foundation of my life.

An Open Letter to the Church in the Face of Abuse Scandals

To: Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo and bishops collectively as the USCCB

Denying sin is self-deception.

If we say, “We are without sin,” we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing. If we say, “We have not sinned," we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1John: 1:8-10)

This passage slapped me in the face this morning during morning prayer, when struggling, as I have been lately with faith in the governance of my church. Please note I do not struggle with faith in the mystical body, real presence, or the Nicene creed. I certainly do not struggle with faith in our all loving and merciful God. I only struggle with, well, you. 

I write in the face of scandals, plural. In spite of revelation after revelation of crime and cover-up, I, like many of the faithful who sit in your pews, have very little evidence of any real change. Neither slick statements written by image experts and lawyers nor half-baked apologies from the bishops sitting on their thrones at the altar have shown any real repentence. Real repentence requires acknowledgement of guilt.

Our church no longer requires public penance. Perhaps we should. For clergy who abuse children or adults over who they have authority, public penance consists of facing the police and the courts and—pray God—admission of guilt.

You however—every one of you who have in any way covered up, brushed aside, hidden, or mismanaged cases of abuse—have yet to face adequate consequences. The financial consquences will be paid by the faithful, not by you. Bring them on! Personally, i think that if we're forced to sell every asset we have and go back to meeting in homes and public places, so be it. Perhaps the energy of the early church may come back.

Sins so public require public penance. Everyone of you who has abused church power in this way should strip off your robes and badges of office, go down on your knees in front of your cathedrals—and maybe the churches of every parish in your diocese—and beg God's forgiveness and ours.

My faith tells me I have to forgive. I'm working on that. It also teaches me that if you wish to have God's forgiveness you have to admit the sin. Pleased do,

Carol Roddy

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.

The Sacred Heart

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

John 1:18

Perhaps it is a distaste for the iconography, but when I was younger I was at best unimpressed with devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Some of the more anatomical renderings or prayers were big time turn offs.

I've opened myself a bit more to it, realizing the devotion has its roots in the need to pull God close, to remember that Jesus, while fully God and in majesty at the right had of the Father, is fully human. As such his heart knows sadness, disappointment, grief but above all love and yearning, the very human manifestation of the fundamental nature of God. The Sacred Heart is one way of portraying the aspect of Jesus who is always knocking, always calling, always thirsting for our love.

I found a litany in a copy of June's Magificat this morning in the chapel that spelled that out beautifully with none of the treacly Victorian sentamentality that turned me off in the past. With those ideas in my heart and mind I rode home in the car, and I had a odd thought. Janis Joplin was blaring from my speakers and it occurred to me I could put her cry of the heart in His mouth addressing it to me, calling me to Himself.

You're out on the streets looking good

And baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it ain't right

Never, never, never, never, never, never hear me when I cry at night

But each time I tell myself that I, well I can't stand the pain

But when you hold me in your arms, I'll sing it once again

I'll say come on, come on, come on, come on and take it

Take another little piece of my heart now, baby

Oh, oh, break it

Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah

Oh, oh, have a

Have another little piece of my heart now, baby

Well you know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good

That image probably won't be many people's cup of tea, but I could hear it. Art is in the ear of the listener sometimes.

The State

Render to Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God's.
                                                                               Mark 12:17


When this is quoted, people often leave off the question and give it as an example of Jesus's wisdom—sometimes it is simply cited as an example of cleverness.

The question before it is interesting: Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Romans or not? By "lawful" they meant under Jewish law of course. The question is an example of religious scrupulosity and legalism being wielded as a weapon against the Lord who spoke over the top of the details of law most of his earthly life. Standing against that was the state, Roman law and the hammer of Roman power to enforce it.

I was thinking about that moment this morning when I read about the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Masterpiece cakes vs a gay couple who wanted a custom cake. Do all Americans have the right to buy cake? Arguably they do. Does a baker have the right to refuse the bake one with an explicit message contrary to his beliefs? Arguably he does. This particular case resolved very little, aside from the courts demand that both sets of rights be respected and weighed fairly in lower court rulings.

It begs the question, what would Jesus have said? The Caesar side of this equation is the equal civil rights of all Americans under civil law. All citizens should have equal access to tax breaks, provision of health benefits and other benefits historically offered only to married couples. They have the right under civil law to form relationships as they see fit and to obtain those benefits. In a democratic state we must all be treated equally—and yes, I know, many groups struggle to make that a reality.

The God side of this equation is the Church's teaching on sex and marriage and how believers live their lives. The church has the right to define marriage, especially sacramental marriage, and to teach its members how to live their lives. It should not be forced to perform ceremonies in violation of its teaching or to place children for adoption/foster care in homes that don't reflect its own values.

The courts will need the wisdom of Solomon—or of Jesus—as they sort through this tangle, and sort it they will eventually.  In reviewing Mark 12 I noticed something else interesting. A few verses below this one Jesus quotes Leviticus giving us the two great commandments. Both have been under siege in public discourse in recent years. I pray we as people of faith remember them.