Hi. This is the quotation Father Hugh read in his homily Sunday evening August 23, 2009. Lots of people were interested in getting a copy of it.
David Foster Wallace, Except from Commencement Speech at Kenyon
College, 2005 (He committed suicide in mid-August, 2009).
“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship … is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never
feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up- front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.
“Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to
be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside
world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.”
Welcome to another school year.
Chuck
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Homosexuality and Catholic Teaching
In thinking about homosexuality and Catholic teaching it is critical to make the distinction between a person’s sexual orientation and a set of activities that two persons of the same sex might engage in.
Sexual orientation refers to which sex one is most strongly sexually attracted to. To the extent that sexual orientation is beyond someone’s control, sexual orientation by itself cannot be sinful. A person can be powerfully attracted to others of the same sex, and still be a good Christian, a thoroughly holy human being.
With respect to activities, marriage is the only context in which any kind of genital sexual relations between individuals can be morally appropriate. To engage in such relations outside of marriage is to commit a grave sin. As such, it endangers one’s relationship with other human beings and with God.
It amazes me how many people resist making the distinction between orientation and activities, but I have been in several conversations in which people have fought hard to ignore or blur it. They insist that to judge acts wrong is to judge other people or even that to call acts sinful is to engage in hate speech. To say that excessive drinking is wrong is not hate speech against alcoholics. To say that speeding through school zones is wrong is not hate speech against distracted people in a hurry. To uphold biblical and traditional Catholic teaching on sexual morality is not judging anyone or hate speech against anyone.
A person who has a homosexual orientation, has a particular kind of temptation toward a particular kind of sin. A part of their Christian walk is to deal with that temptation among the many others that everyone faces. We all pray for God’s help in dealing with temptation, and we all beg for God’s forgiveness should we succumb. We are all called to carry our particular crosses and to unite our sacrifices with that of Jesus.
Under no circumstances is it right to discriminate against someone with a homosexual orientation. Nor does it help to hang labels on people. You could label me "male," "overweight," workaholic," or many other things, but I hope you don’t. I don’t want to be a category. I want to be a person. Everybody has a right to be treated as a person, not a category, not a thing.
I know a number of Catholic people who have a homosexual orientation. Each of the people I know works hard to be a good Christian, struggles with issues of right and wrong, has a life filled with happiness and sorrow, pain and joy. Each deserves to be treated like every other Catholic.
Sexual orientation refers to which sex one is most strongly sexually attracted to. To the extent that sexual orientation is beyond someone’s control, sexual orientation by itself cannot be sinful. A person can be powerfully attracted to others of the same sex, and still be a good Christian, a thoroughly holy human being.
With respect to activities, marriage is the only context in which any kind of genital sexual relations between individuals can be morally appropriate. To engage in such relations outside of marriage is to commit a grave sin. As such, it endangers one’s relationship with other human beings and with God.
It amazes me how many people resist making the distinction between orientation and activities, but I have been in several conversations in which people have fought hard to ignore or blur it. They insist that to judge acts wrong is to judge other people or even that to call acts sinful is to engage in hate speech. To say that excessive drinking is wrong is not hate speech against alcoholics. To say that speeding through school zones is wrong is not hate speech against distracted people in a hurry. To uphold biblical and traditional Catholic teaching on sexual morality is not judging anyone or hate speech against anyone.
A person who has a homosexual orientation, has a particular kind of temptation toward a particular kind of sin. A part of their Christian walk is to deal with that temptation among the many others that everyone faces. We all pray for God’s help in dealing with temptation, and we all beg for God’s forgiveness should we succumb. We are all called to carry our particular crosses and to unite our sacrifices with that of Jesus.
Under no circumstances is it right to discriminate against someone with a homosexual orientation. Nor does it help to hang labels on people. You could label me "male," "overweight," workaholic," or many other things, but I hope you don’t. I don’t want to be a category. I want to be a person. Everybody has a right to be treated as a person, not a category, not a thing.
I know a number of Catholic people who have a homosexual orientation. Each of the people I know works hard to be a good Christian, struggles with issues of right and wrong, has a life filled with happiness and sorrow, pain and joy. Each deserves to be treated like every other Catholic.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
A Priest's "Powers"
A week or two ago I received an e-mail from someone seeking to debunk the idea that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist. It started out by explaining that Catholics believe priests have the "power" to turn bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus.
Such a statement hints at a quite basic misunderstanding of sacraments and of the role of the priest in the Catholic faith. But it's a misunderstanding that some Catholics may share, so it's really worth thinking about carefully.
In Matthew 18:20 Jesus is quoted as saying, "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Does that mean that any two or three of us has the power to force Jesus to be present in a particular place at a particular time? Well, in a sense it does, but that doesn't mean we have power over Jesus. It means that Jesus is faithful, and we can depend on him to do what he has promised. In the sense that we serve a powerful God and have been sent a powerful savior, it might be useful at times to think of ourselves as powerful. Our love can be powerful. Even our suffering can be powerful when we join it with Jesus’ suffering. But it would be a terrible misconception to think of priests or any Christians as having occult powers – powers to do magic, to direct God, etc.
When a priest speaks for us the words of consecration, "This is my body" and "This is my blood," Jesus, who asked us to "do this in memory of me," (Luke 22:19) makes the priest's words true. It is the priest speaking the words, but it is Jesus acting. It is the faithfulness of Jesus, even the power of Jesus, not any "power" the priest has that changes the bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord.
The ordination of a priest makes him special more in the sense of being given special responsibilities – for example, it is the priest and only the priest who will serve the community by celebrating the Mass and by extending God’s forgiveness for sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation – than in the sense of being given "powers."
Faith that Jesus is really present in the consecrated bread and wine is one of the oldest and most fundamental of Christian beliefs. It is amazing that Jesus gives himself so completely for us and gives himself so completely to us. It is amazing that Jesus gives to the Church, with all our imperfections, the "power" to make him present in the world, but he does just that. In that sense, we are incredibly powerful, but only because we have a God who is so faithful and so wonderful.
Such a statement hints at a quite basic misunderstanding of sacraments and of the role of the priest in the Catholic faith. But it's a misunderstanding that some Catholics may share, so it's really worth thinking about carefully.
In Matthew 18:20 Jesus is quoted as saying, "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Does that mean that any two or three of us has the power to force Jesus to be present in a particular place at a particular time? Well, in a sense it does, but that doesn't mean we have power over Jesus. It means that Jesus is faithful, and we can depend on him to do what he has promised. In the sense that we serve a powerful God and have been sent a powerful savior, it might be useful at times to think of ourselves as powerful. Our love can be powerful. Even our suffering can be powerful when we join it with Jesus’ suffering. But it would be a terrible misconception to think of priests or any Christians as having occult powers – powers to do magic, to direct God, etc.
When a priest speaks for us the words of consecration, "This is my body" and "This is my blood," Jesus, who asked us to "do this in memory of me," (Luke 22:19) makes the priest's words true. It is the priest speaking the words, but it is Jesus acting. It is the faithfulness of Jesus, even the power of Jesus, not any "power" the priest has that changes the bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord.
The ordination of a priest makes him special more in the sense of being given special responsibilities – for example, it is the priest and only the priest who will serve the community by celebrating the Mass and by extending God’s forgiveness for sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation – than in the sense of being given "powers."
Faith that Jesus is really present in the consecrated bread and wine is one of the oldest and most fundamental of Christian beliefs. It is amazing that Jesus gives himself so completely for us and gives himself so completely to us. It is amazing that Jesus gives to the Church, with all our imperfections, the "power" to make him present in the world, but he does just that. In that sense, we are incredibly powerful, but only because we have a God who is so faithful and so wonderful.
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