Sundry

J.G. Ballard, 1977

Well that doesn't happen every day. We were on the brunt end of a helluva thunderstorm. “It looks like a war zone,” said neighbor Bud, looking at all the trash and downed trees. We weren't entirely spared - we lost the top fifteen feet from our evergreen out front, some of the maple beside it, and gobs and gobs of the maple out back – it now has a gaping whole in the middle of it. The neighbor lady on the corner lost her 40-year old apple tree, the biggest I'd ever seen. The giant rootball was hanging eerily in the air.

We apparently lost electricity because one of neighbor Bud's tree tops snapped off and is sagging the line. Thousands are without power and I'm thinking it's really going to be awhile before we're restored since our particular outage is so localized - all the neighbors on the other side of our street have power. So there's not much incentive to come out to fix the line given that maybe four or five houses are in play. It's slightly discombobulating to be without power even though on paper it shouldn't be problematical at all. I brought home chicken salad, so no microwaving necessary for dinner. Beer's still cold. Ipad and Kindle still work.  Temperatures not too hot so a/c not particularly missed yet. We're really roughing it…not!

 

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The work day passed reasonably speedily. Before work read savorously of the new encyclical, which certainly reads like Benedict. Very, very interesting to see addressed what for many may be taken as THE question: why God doesn't appear to us individually? In other words, for example, why have Moses relay the message? The answer seems to be that shared knowledge is the “knowledge proper to love” and is not appreciated by those with an “individualistic conception of conscience”.

Also liked how Isaac's birth was referred to as “Abraham's Christmas”, a sort of incarnation event.

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Interesting to hear Fr. Rob on Lino Rulli's radio show concerning the Francis tapping of John XXIII. The sainthood thing is something all the last three popes have just gone crazy about. All of them seem to be upping the ante: John Paul II, besides canonizing the most folks ever, waived the first miracle for Juan Diego, Benedict waived the five-year waiting period for Mother Teresa, and now Francis says, “Second miracle, second schmiracle! The guy's a saint! Let's not stand on ceremony here.” What's next, canonization of the still living? Haha.

With Blessed John XXIII, you might be tempted to take the fact that his body is said to be incorrupted as a sign, a second miracle, although I've always kind of wondered if that was due to special embalming.

The secular media is all saying it's because Francis wants a “liberal” and a “conservative” pope together at one ceremony, but I just learned that this month is the 50th anniversary of John XXIII's death, and the Church loves anniversaries. Just loves to mark them. Maybe also some of the Vaticanistas who love John XXIII are getting nervous about his canonization chances given that he's fading from memory now that most of the people who remember Vatican II are getting older. Got to strike while the iron's hot sort of thing.
Anyway, it's fun being Catholic. You get papal encyclicals and a “Hall of Fame” for the all-time Christian greats.

Saints & Sinners

It's funny how a single word can throw me. Thousands of times I've recited my favorite prayer after Communion, "Soul of Christ, sanctify me / Body of Christ save me....". But this time when I got to "Passion of Christ/ Strengthen me" I thought of passion not as the crucifixion as I normally do (while focusing on self, in terms of praying that some of His strength rub off on me), but His passion in the sense of love, as in his passion for us. Afterwards I thumbed through the Jerusalem Bible and came across an incident in Luke 7, an illustration of how Jesus, Master of the Universe, wants our love. Which is a strange and humbling thing on the face of it. The account was of a sinner and a Pharisee and how the sinner loved Christ because more was forgiven her. It's a telling reminder that Jesus doesn't want our rote acts of fealty but our love, our passion. And He linked that to forgiveness. What makes God most lovable? Not His power or even His perfection - what God has is forgiveness. That is the coin of the heavenly realm. Is it a chicken and egg kind of thing, in that he who has forgiven much, loves much, or is it he who loves much is forgiven much? The gospels express it both ways. And in the end Jesus says it was the woman's faith that saved her. Faith in His forgiveness, it would seem.

Still, I'm left with a paradox, the woman had sins, "many sins", and yet great love. Aren't the two mutually exclusive? How does purport to love God and yet be a big sinner? A lack of sin doesn't necessarily make you a great lover, but the contrary seems true: being a sinner means you aren't a great lover since to sin against someone is to say, in some way, you don't love them (or God). Perhaps it's as simple as seeing her sins in the past. She *was* a sinner who didn't love much, then she became, in that moment with Christ, a lover who didn't sin much.

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I've long been fascinated by the stories of saints whose bodies remain incorruptible after death. It's strange of me to think of this as a "reward", since it hardly matters whether someone's body is molding in the grave or is in great condition because in either case they are dead and their spirit is elsewhere, concerned with bigger things. But it seems to me a touching, an imprimatur from God, a little act the Creator bestows on the created, a little sign of love that may or may not ever be discovered by the masses. This incorruptibility seems like a tangible reward, an honor God bestows on the few, the pious, the Marines of the spiritual world. But even this is not a surefire way of identifying the saintly. Many saints did become corruptible and some incorruptibles may not be holy. Too often I also superstitiously note the lack of saints who died in accidents (have there been?) and think Thomas Merton may not be one due to his unnatural end. All of this can "misunderestimate" how passionately God loves us, whether or not our bodies corrupt or what sort of death we experience. We look for little droplets of kindness unaware we live in a sea of Love.

Disturbed loner? Salem witch judge?  No, it's an actor portraying St. John Vianney!