Recently, I had a meeting with a mid-aged lady – a mother and a wife. For privacy reasons, I will call her Lucy here. Lucy is a practicing Catholic. She is a convert to the Catholic faith and a woman of high moral values. But Lucy has lived for more than half a century in this world deeply embittered by a painful experience of what transpired between her and her dad when she was about nine years old. I am sure you can imagine what this could be! Lucy said she was sexually abused.

While this abuse happened, Lucy’s dad was a loving, caring, and generous man who provided lavishly for his family. So, she grew up having all she wanted in life – not just what she needed. But amid this affluence, Lucy grew up with a deep emotional wound that affected her tremendously. Her marriage and family life, including her social life and work experiences, have suffered unprecedented damage. She attributes all these to the sad experience she had with the man that God entrusted her life unto.

Lucy’s dad is advanced in years and currently lives in a nursing home with multiple health problems. Lucy abandoned him there for several years now and has refused to forgive her father for the abuse. It is not clear if her dad knows why her daughter has abandoned him for such a long time.

As I talked to Lucy, I realized that she lives in heavy grudges against her dad. She believes that that ugly experience with her dad at the age of nine is responsible for all the problems she has suffered all these years. Truly, I could tell that Lucy has known no peace of mind for a long time. But then I asked if she prefers to live in these grudges for the rest of her life, knowing very well that unforgiveness cannot right the evil that took place. Lucy explained that she did not want to see her dad anymore. She felt so terrible and wondered what she could do to be made whole again. I looked at her intently as the words of Martin Luther King Jr. flashed through my mind – Lucy, ONLY LOVE CAN DO THAT! You must forgive your dad and learn to love him again.

Many of us live in similar situations today. Some of the peoples and institutions we loved and trusted have caused us many of the brokenness we face. These people and institutions cause us this brokenness by emotional, physical, or sexual abuses, betrayals, calumnies, gossips, bullies, chastisements, denials, rejections, and refusals.

Unfortunately, darkness cannot drive out darkness. We cannot repay evil with evil. Only light can drive out darkness. Only goodness can destroy evil. Lucy cannot continue to live in grudges. For the sake of Jesus who is LOVE, Lucy must forgive her father, visit him, and try to build a good relationship with him as much as possible before his father lives this world. That is the surest and most effective means of healing for Lucy.

Feast Day: February 14^th

ⰵⰲⰰⰳⰳ[ⰵ]ⰾⰻⰵ ⱁⱅⱏ ⰿⰰⱃⱏⰽⰰ

Got that?  If not, fear not, it is simply the familiar phrase: “The Gospel according to St. Matthew.”  On the scanned page below you can see these letters, as they were written by a scholar or monk in the 10^th century!  (This amazing parchment manuscript contains all four Gospels and was discovered in the Zograf (a Bulgarian) Monastery on Mt. Athos, on an island off the Northeast coast of Greece.  There are dozens of ancient Orthodox monasteries on the island, in 1843, this page was discovered after centuries of being protected and treasured. It now resides in the National Library of Russia, in St. Petersburg, and remains one of the oldest extant texts we have in Glagolitic. 

You haven’t heard of Glagolitic? Well, I hadn’t either until I began to study our saints this week: Sts. Cyril and Methodius.  You have probably heard of Cyrillic, which is an alphabet still used throughout Eastern and Southern Slavic territories (this means it is used in many different languages: including  Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries from Eastern Europe all the way through parts of Eastern Asia).  There are dozens of languages, from Russian and Macedonian, to Azerbaijani and Tatar, to Mongolian and Aleut (yes, that’d be people living on the Aleutian islands!) that use this alphabet.  All those different groups read a write in a script developed from Glagolitic, which was invented by Sts. Cyril and Methodius.

Cyril and Methodius were actually baptized Constantine and Michael in Thessalonika, to a family who were movers and shakers in realms of politics and governance (to describe this a bit: their father, Leon was in charge of the military, and their uncle, Theoctistos, was in charge of international diplomacy … and the postal service).  The boys would have learned Slavic and Greek growing up in the 820s and 830s, and Constantine would have learned Arabic and Hebrew during his university studies in Constantinople.  With that background, these young men found themselves, almost without trying, at the intersection of politics and philosophy, diplomacy and theology.  And this should be emphasized: they were not gunning for worldly influence, their dream was definitively in the spiritual realm, and yet they took the tremendous skills that they did have in the political and intellectual realm, and put it to use for the Gospel.

In 860 the brothers head to Khagan, at the behest of the Emperor (Michael III) and Patriarch of Constantinople (Photius) to offer Christianity to the Khazars.  They would be asked to do the same two years later in Great Moravia, at the request of Prince Rastislav, because his people were wanting to receive the Gospel for themselves, not depending on the Germanic neighbors to the north, who would only teach and catechize in Latin.  I am imagining receiving an email along these lines from one of our parishes: “Fr. Dominic, could you come and preach a parish mission for us next year?  Oh, you should know, we speak a language you have never heard, and for which there is no alphabet for reading, or writing.  Grateful for your yes, Prince Rastislav.”  Can you imagine?!  Yet that is the situation faced by Constantine and Methodius (and, I should mention, many missionaries from (Methodius, by this time, had received tonsure and his religious name.  Constantine would receive his a few years later after making a trip back to Rome before his death in 869.  It should also be mentioned that it was during that final trip to Rome that the brothers received official permission from Pope Adrian II to continue to celebrate the Mass and Sacraments in Slavic, with the Glagolitic alphabet.)

And so it happened: the two brothers said yes, went to Moravia, invented a new alphabet, translated the Gospels, the Liturgical texts, and canon law into the new language, converted many souls to following Jesus, received the usual share of persecution from within and without of the Church, and died after a few years of tremendous work, leaving behind thousands of Christian people, who would pass their faith, and language, onto millions that would descend from them in the thousand years hence.  In those peoples, these brothers are often given the title “Equal to the Apostles” for the efforts they made in the proclamation of the Gospel, and Pope St. John Paul II named them co-patrons of Europe (alongside of Sts. Benedict of Nursia, Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Sienna, the Teresa Benedict of the Cross).

– Fr. Dominic Rankin was continuously humbled to merely study the faith in a foreign language (Italian).  He has not tried to invent his own language since he was about two years old, and will not do so again until the Holy Spirit either gives him the gift of tongues, or asks him to do so with his own efforts …  Then again maybe it is a perennial challenge of all Christians to translate, so to speak, the Gospel into the language of our neighbors.  Hasn’t Jesus always stretched our limited means of communication and argumentation?  Hasn’t it always been difficult to pass onto another person a real encounter with Jesus, Whom we know and love?

Two weeks ago, we looked at the 4^th Commandment, “honor your father and your mother,” and how it invites us to consider our roles and responsibilities as citizens, obeying just laws which promote the common good, and speaking and acting against laws “contrary to the dignity of persons and the natural law.” (CCC 2235) Another important point to consider in our observance of this commandment is the obedience we owe to our mother, the Church, and the role that she plays in our being good citizens of society.

The final three paragraphs of the Catechism (CCC 2244-2246) on this commandment address this relationship.  I draw out attention in particular to the following words:

It is a part of the Church’s mission “to pass moral judgments even in matters related to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it.” (CCC 2246)

This was on my mind as I read a story about something that happened recently in Washington, D.C.  On the night before the March for Life, it has become customary to have a large Mass celebrated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.  That evening, a group called Catholics for Choice projected various messages on the façade of the basilica advancing their position that one can in good conscience be Catholic and Pro Choice.  That evening, the group tweeted the following message:

FACT: 68% of Catholics want #RoeVWade to remain the law of the land. The #MarchForLife & @usccb want folks to think they speak for Catholics, but nothing could be further from the truth.

This statement highlights a common error with regards to the Church.  There is the conclusion that the majority opinion has to rule the day and that the Church has no grounding to oppose what “most people want.”  As the Catechism states, it is part of the Church’s mission to proclaim and safeguard the truth, regardless of its popularity or level of acceptance.  For it is by knowing the truth and following it that we have the greatest assurance of salvation.  And this is the primary concern of the Church – the eternal salvation of her people.

In this regard, I am reminded of a powerful scene in the movie Paul VI: The Pope in the Tempest.  A fair amount of attention in the movie is given to debate that was going on during Pope St. Paul VI’s pontificate on the topic of artificial contraception.  As with the argument for keeping Roe vs. Wade legal, the pressure was being put on the Holy Father to change the Church’s teaching on the immorality of artificial contraception because the majority of Catholics supported its use.  Having heard the arguments and having thought and prayed about it, the Holy Father says the following succinct but powerful words: “The Pope cannot say something is right if it is not.”  This summarizes, I believe, the role of the Church in proclaiming the truth “in season and out of season.” (2 Tim 4:2) As members of society, but first members of the Church, our obedience must always belong to the truth, of which the Church is “the pillar and bulwark” (1 Tim 3:15), regardless of whether it is the majority opinion or not.  May we also never forget the promise that Jesus Himself gives to us about the truth: “the truth will make you free.” (John 8:32)

Father Alford     

Every child’s least favorite response from there mom or dad is “because I said so.” Parents tell their kids what to do (or not do) all the time – get out of bed, stop hitting your sister, clean up the dishes. And parents have every right to tell their kids what to do. Unless a parent’s commandment contradicts the law of God, children are bound to obey their parents. Sometimes a parent’s motive for a commandment cannot be understood by a child, so “because I said so” is actually the easiest way to get a point across! 

All human beings should have a natural love and respect for their parents. A parent’s love and devotion is repaid over the years by the affection of their children, and eventually by being cared for by their children. St. Thomas Aquinas points out that there are three people that we owe an eternal debt to: God, our mother, and our father. This is because no matter what we do, we can never “pay back” the love that they have shown us, like we could with a friend or even a spouse. God and our parents chose to give us the gift of life itself, and we owe our very existence to them. In the Ten Commandments, the fourth commandment of honoring father and mother serves as a sort of bridge between respect for God and respect for others, because the honor we show our parents is similar to the love we show God, although in a lesser degree. 

As St. Paul points out in his letter to the Ephesians, the fourth commandment is the first one to contain a promise: “Honor your father and mother, that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth” (Deuteronomy 5:16). I don’t take this to literally mean that every person who honors their parents will leave to be old. Rather, I see it as a spiritually reality, that those who honor their parents truly have the gift of wisdom and charity, which is a great sign of spiritual maturity. In heaven, our love and devotion for our parents will “live long” as we worship God alongside our parents. 

Honoring our parents is a constant theme throughout the scriptures and seems to be a sign of the true faith. The book of Sirach commands us, “with all your heart honor your father, and do not forget the birth pangs of your mother. Remember that through your parents you were born; what can you give back to them that equals their gift to you?” (Sirach 7:27-28). At a certain point, the parent-child relationship changes, and adults no longer owe their parents strict obedience as they did when they were children. In fact, as some children mature, they see their own parents’ flaws more clearly, and do not desire to imitate those flaws in their own life. In some tragic cases of abusive parents, it may even be healthy to set firm boundaries in the relationship for a period of time or for life. However, even when we see that our parents aren’t perfect, we still must honor them and not disrespect them through gossip, slander, or harboring ill will. A child’s love for his or her parents can shine forth most clearly towards the end of the parent’s life. Many people struggle mightily at the end of their lives with physical or mental deficiencies, and it is always inspiring to me to see them being cared for by their children in their hardest times. There isn’t a perfect blueprint for caring for aging parents. Some families function fine by caring for elderly parents at their home, while others have no other option than to utilize a nursing facility. Whatever path is chosen, we should always make it a priority to make sure our parents’ needs are taken care of. 

Honor for our parents does not even end in death. After the death of a parent, we should do our best to honor their final wishes in terms of their estate and property. Even more important is caring for our parents spiritually in death. We should pray for the repose of the soul of our parents when they have passed on, and we could ask a priest to offer a Mass for them every once in a while. The Mass is a powerful form of prayer, and if you haven’t had a Mass offered for your decease parents, I encourage you to do so. You can call the parish office and ask to have their names added to the Mass intention calendar. A ten-dollar donation is typical but not required if you are not able to afford it. In any case, let us always remember to pray for our parents and ancestors in our daily prayers. By doing so, we will truly be honoring our mother and our father. 

Feast Day: February 5^th 

Why do pizza’s come in boxes?  

I ask not only because I am looking forward to some leftover deep-dish that is currently ensconced in its cardboard container in our fridge, but to open the wider question of why we place anything in a container?  No trick question here: we do so to protect the object held within.  We put pizzas in boxes to keep them hot, and intact.  We put artwork in frames, and behind glass or lasers, to safeguard it and to appreciate its value and beauty.  We put our heads in helmets while riding a bike so that our brains will not be damaged, and cycling can be both enjoyable and safe. 

That is also why we have the commandments.  These ten, fundamental, divine commands are not arbitrary rules, rather they are the boundaries that protect our dignity and our relationships, with God, and with each other.  Few things are as important as the bonds we have to other people, and the union we have to God, but if we throw out this divine rulebook as too limiting, too confining, we will lose the greatest treasures of our humanity along the way.  (Just as surely as if I drove home with the pizza sitting unprotected on my car seat: both the pizza and the car would be damaged.)

What has this to do with Agatha?  We know so little about her life: fragments of tradition passed down in the Martyrology of St. Jerome (an early list of the martyrs) and the Calendar of Carthage (an early liturgical calendar), that mention her nobility, beauty, consecrated virginity and martyrdom at the hands of Decius (the Roman prefect in Sicily in the 250s) who brutalized the young Agatha when she steadfastly scorned his advances, and maintained her Christian faith.  We do not know much more than this, certainly few of Agatha’s words to the lustful, vicious, godless persecutor as he degraded, tortured, and abused her, and yet, we know one word that she did speak to him: “no.”

We, like Agatha, live in a world where the commandments are often ignored.  Go down the list: worshipping the one, true, God; holding His name in veneration; keeping sacred His day; true love for parents and family; respect of human life; of spousal love; of another’s possessions; upholding truthful language; and never coveting…  I think we can look in our own hearts, and in our current culture, and find more idolatry, more violence, and more contempt, than even was brutally in evidence in Decius.  What must be our response?  Of course, we turn in contrition to God for the times we ourselves have fallen short of the life that He calls us to live – we say “no” to ourselves, to our own idolatry, vice, and using one another – but what about when we are confronted by the brutality of our society or those in authority over us?  Here too, we must stand alongside of Agatha, and say “no” to our world’s idolatry, cruelty, and contempt for human dignity. 

This “no” will not win us any brownie points!  Certainly, it did not save Agatha from the ravages of Decius.  Once God’s commands are disregarded, we should not expect to stem the tide of evil easily and without cost.  However, no matter the pain and degradation and hatred Decius inflicted on Agatha, he could not take away her relationship with God, her freedom, or her virtue, and no one can take those things from any of us either.  Let us learn, with her, to say “no” to ourselves now, so that if ever we have to say a more difficult “no”, we will be willing to do so: for our own integrity, and for love of others, and God.

– Fr. Dominic Rankin is currently on the hunt for a new bicycle helmet.  His previous one did exactly what it needed to when it took a beating, and not his scalp, but before things warm up and he gets back on the bike, it seems that an outing to Scheels is in order.

When I was in college, I always looked forward to the weekends (as pretty much every college student does).  Since I only worked during the week at the university library, I was free to do a variety of things that I could not do during the rest of the week.  Two things in particular stand out as I think back on those weekends:  1) Since I lived at home with my parents, I would often help my dad with some project around the house or in the yard; 2) On Sundays in the Fall and Winter, there was always a Green Bay Packers game to watch.  At that point in my life, unfortunately, I was not practicing my faith regularly, so I am sad to admit that I failed in observing the Third Commandment to keep the Lord’s Day holy.

Now that I am a priest, I obviously practice my faith every day, especially on Sundays.  I can be tempted to try to forget those years when I was lax in observing this commandment, but something stands out as I consider those times now at a distance of many years.  The word that comes to mind when I look back to my time in college is that the weekend was different.  The flow of the days was different, how I spent my time was different, and how I felt was often different.  Several years later, having returned to the regular practice of the faith, I tried to be very intentional about making Sunday different from every other day.  I was still tempted to let the different of the weekend extend over the two days of Saturday and Sunday, but as I thought and prayed about it, I knew that was not what the Lord was asking from me with this commandment.  Although it fell during the weekend, I knew Sunday needed to be different from Saturday, and that different needed to focus much more intentionally on the Lord, not myself.

This is the fundamental outlook that we need to start with when it comes to our observance of this commandment to keep Sunday holy.  The Lord’s Day is about Him and we are invited to be particularly intentional about keeping our attention on Him and strengthening our relationship with Him.  First and foremost, this means going to Mass.  At the Last Supper, He instituted the celebration of the Eucharist, telling His Apostles to do this in memory of Him until He comes again in glory.  This is a necessity when it comes to keeping the Lord’s Day holy.  But what about the rest of the day?  How are you making it different?  Perhaps you can make a list of things that need to get done, things like chores, errands, homework, etc.  and really focus on getting them accomplished apart from Sunday.  There is nothing sacred about grocery shopping on Sunday, so why not pick another day?  I personally do my very best to avoid going to any store or restaurant on Sundays, reinforcing my intention to keep Sunday as different as possible.  I recently heard a priest share that he does not look at his e-mail after Saturday afternoon until Monday morning to protect his keeping the Lord’s Day holy.  That would be hard for me, but perhaps I need to give it a shot!  You can also make a list of things that unite you more closely with the Lord that you can choose for Sunday, such as extra time with the Scriptures, watching a religious movie, reading a spiritual book, or praying the Rosary.  Since the Lord is a communion of persons, you can work on being more intentional about attending to the relationships with which God has blessed you, such as connecting with family and friends in person or via a phone call.  Personally, I find Sunday to be a good day to call my parents.

Let me therefore invite you this week to consider how you can make the Lord’s Day different than every other day of the week, obviously prioritizing going to Mass over everything else.  Then, chose the activities that will most promote deepening your relationship with the Lord and those whom you love.  And since God rested on the Sabbath, Sunday can be a good day to take a nice nap!

Father Alford     

This past week on Tuesday, our daily readings addressed the question of the Sabbath and what role in plays in the life of faith. The passage that we read is Mark 2:23-28. The Gospels depict Jesus and his disciples walking through a field of grain (maybe wheat or barley) on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. As they walked, they picked some of the grain from the stalks, and I assume that they ate it too. The Pharisees criticized Jesus and said that what his disciples were doing was unlawful. They were referring to the Third Commandment in which God commanded his people to keep holy the Lord’s Day. The Lord’s Day was a day of rest, but the question was how far that rest should extend. Some like the Pharisees took a very strict interpretation, and these people criticized Jesus for picking grain or even offering healing on the Sabbath. 

This Gospel scene is a good one for us to focus on as we discuss the role of the Lord’s Day in our life as Christians. In response to the criticisms of the Pharisees, Jesus called them to reflect on the meaning of the Lord’s Day and why it exists in the first place. Profoundly and succinctly, he said, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” As Jesus often does, he calls us to think about how God made things “from the beginning.” This was his strategy when it came to teaching on marriage, as he points us to Genesis for the true meaning of marriage. In the same way, we can look to Genesis for the meaning of the Sabbath. 

The creation story in Genesis says that on the seventh day, God rested. The number seven is always significant in scripture, symbolizing completion or harmony. Seven is also the number of a covenant. To make a covenant official, the word used in Hebrew is similar to the number seven (so I’m told). So, giving the seventh day of each week to God was a sign of their covenant with him. This covenant was renewed every Sabbath by prayer and rest. 

The Sabbath was made for man. The Jewish people, and later the Church, have always recognized the importance of keeping holy the Lord’s Day. With the beginning of the New Covenant, the covenant day has been transferred from Saturday to Sunday. This is to honor the resurrection of Jesus, and in keeping with the traditions of the earliest Christians. The primary way that Catholics can keep the Lord’s Day holy is by attending Mass. To voluntarily not attend Mass is a way of breaking the covenant that we have with God. We need to go to Mass each Sunday (or Saturday evening) to renew that covenant relationship and be sustained with the Body and Blood of Jesus. For those in our parish who cannot attend Mass because of being homebound or quarantined, it is good to watch Mass if possible (although not required), or at least set some time apart during the day to pray with the Sunday readings. 

However, attending Mass is not the only way that we should keep Sunday holy. The Lord’s Day should still be a day of rest for us as Christians. This does not necessarily mean physically resting (although that is good too), but it is primarily a sort of spiritual rest. The day should be marked and set apart from the other six days in the week by some family prayer time or visits to the homebound. Sunday is a good day to study a spiritual book or renew connections with family and friends. Keeping Sunday as a day of rest is a reminder to us that we are made for more than work. In heaven, there will be no more work to do, and we will be able to enter into the rest that is eternal with our heavenly Father. The Sabbath was made for man, because we need rest and renewal in God’s merciful love. 

Feast Day: January 27^th 

Sometimes the Lord’s call comes amidst a constellation of positive elements – talents, affinities, capacities, charisms – that come together in one particular person.  Think of the boldness combined with theological acumen of St. Paul, or the fervor and energy and love for the Gospel of St. Ignatius Loyola, or the patient and merciful character of Mother Teresa.  This is not simply “following your heart”, for we all know how far our instincts and character can carry us far from the Lord and living out of His love, yet at the same time, God’s call often does fit with some of our own inclinations and proclivities.  

Other times, our vocation, our call, grows from a place of pain and loss.  Here still, God does not call us to something that is disingenuous from who we are, but He can often surprise and transform us by His graces of conversion, conviction, or consolation.  Notice that this fits as well with the examples above: St. Paul – who’s life was turned upside down on the way to Damascus; St. Ignatius Loyola, who was moved to turn aside from the glorious life of the battlefield; and St. Mother Teresa, who lost much in leaving her family and religious community to serve the poorest of the poor.

This second means seems to be the one that we see especially operative in the life of St. Angela Merici.  Born of Italian farmers in 1474, she lost both her parents by the age of ten, after which she and her older sister Giana we raised by an uncle, but sadly, she lost that older sister a few years later, and by the time Angela was 20, she also lost her uncle.  Of course, we only have a sketch of her story – we don’t know the waves of grief and struggles with responsibility that may have swept over this young woman – and yet by this time in her life she had already grown to a deep level of intimacy with the Lord.  From Him she received the consolation that her sister had entered heaven (she died without receiving the Last Rites, and so had no chance to prepare to meet her Judge) as well as the first urgings to devote her life to the Lord, choosing to become a third-order Franciscan.  

She was a beautiful young lady and worked hard to dislodge from her heart any of the many temptations towards vanity that were offered to her.  She felt no call towards the contemplative life and ended moving back to her hometown where her brothers still worked the land.  How did she feel walking through her childhood home again?  Did the weight of those losses crash down on her anew?   What was happening in her heart as she contemplated her future?  We fruitfully ask these questions because they are the same questions that we confront in our own lives sometimes. 

Perhaps she could not see the Lord at work right then, but we can because it was there, back home, that she came to know many young girls poor, stuck without education, not knowing Jesus, and she began to invite them into that home, to care, and teach, and love them.  And it was there, over the years to come, that other women joined her in that mission of helping to raise and restore those hurting girls.  They dedicated themselves to prayer and penance and charity in their homes, and entrusted themselves to the patroness of St. Ursula.  Eventually Angela would more formally establish the group with a rule, working towards becoming a religious order, the Ursuline Nuns, in the decades to come.  Her mission stemmed from her own early suffering: “disorder in society is the result of disorder in the family”, she would say.  The Ursulines would be the first nuns to set foot in our country in 1719, and came to our diocese in 1857 at the request of Bp. Juncker, where they would establish multiple different schools and educate many thousands of young-people over a century and a half.  

– Fr. Dominic Rankin visited the Holy Land during Christmas break 2015-2016. It was moving to see all the actual places where so much of the Bible happened.  St. Angela Merici also was able to go on pilgrimage to the land of Jesus (in 1524).  She did not get to see any of it though because she was struck with a fluke episode of blindness during the entire trip (being spontaneously healed on her journey back).  Like so much of her life, she astonishingly took it as another cross to carry with Jesus, and came back with greater faith and love than when she left. 

As we continue to consider the Ten Commandments, the road map given to us by God to help us to get to Heaven, Jesus teaches that these commandments can be understood as two expressions of love – for God and our neighbor.  In Matthew’s Gospel, He teaches the following:

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul,
and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.
(Mt 22:37-40)

The first three commandments are directed toward the love of God and the following seven commandments are directed toward the love of neighbor.  I would like to focus on the Fourth Commandment in particular this week.  In beginning to address this commandment, the Catechism says the following:

The fourth commandment opens the second table of the Decalogue. It shows us the order of charity. God has willed that, after him, we should honor our parents to whom we owe life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God. We are obliged to honor and respect all those whom God, for our good, has vested with his authority. (CCC 2197)

The Catechism explains how observance of this commandment extends beyond honoring and respecting our physical parents, but touches on the many and various types of relationships that exist in society and how they should be lived out according to our faith.  One such relationship is that of “citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it.” (CCC 2199) In that regard, the Church reminds us of the obligation that exists on both sides.  On the part of the government, care must always be taken so that no laws are established which are “contrary to the dignity of persons and the natural law.” (CCC 2235) Assuming that is the case, then citizens have the obligation to obey and collaborate with the government in securing the common good.  However, the Catechism also makes it clear that as citizens, our “loyal collaboration includes the right, and at times the duty, to voice [our] just criticisms of that which seems harmful to the dignity of persons and to the good of the community.”  (CCC 2238) Furthermore, the Catechism teaches us that “the citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospels.” (CCC 2242)

There is a lot to ponder here, and it is well worth our prayerful consideration of this important teaching.  On the one hand, our general posture should be one of submission to authority, not always assuming that it is contrary to the common good.  But we must not be naïve either, for there are indeed many laws which do threaten the fundamental rights of the human person, which then require our response, not simply to oppose those in authority as an end in itself, but to work for securing the common good and the respect of humanity.

This coming Saturday marks the 49^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade which cleared the way to easier access to abortion in our country.  The Catholic Church continues to remind us of our right and duty to decry this violation against human dignity of our most vulnerable, the children in the womb.  Our efforts to address this sad situation is more than just changing laws, which is necessary.  More fundamentally, it is about changing hearts so that our love of neighbor is shown in concrete ways to those who struggle with a pregnancy for which they do not feel prepared.  When these women can experience a society that shows genuine love for them, they will have the courage to choose the great gift of life that has been given to them by God.  In comparison, changing laws is much easier than changing the hearts in a society that has, in many ways, grown cold toward one another.  Either way, much is asked of us as Catholics to ensure that our love of neighbor is something we actually live, not just simply profess.

Father Alford    

Parents are often shocked to hear their kids say their first “cuss word.” While it may be funny to hear a child give voice to a word that they do not know the meaning of, it is also a cause of embarrassment and shame for their parents at the same time. This is because the parents know exactly who taught them how and when to say this word! It is an important lesson in using our words only for building others up and praising God.

The Second Commandment reads, “You shall not use the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.” By extension, this commandment means that we should also not use vulgar or suggestive speech. At certain points in our lives, I am sure we have all struggled to keep purity of speech. Young people often tend toward making lewd or suggestive jokes with their friends, and it can be hard to not fall into peer pressure to join in on what is thought to be fun. Some workplaces, especially with workers who do manual labor, are so full of foul language that it just becomes a regular part of one’s vocabulary. And many people have the habit of saying, “O my God” for no good reason.

As Christians, our speech is very important. Even if we do not say bad words in front of our kids or friends, God still hears our speech and our own ears hear our speech. It can be easy to write off using cuss words as not being a big deal, and in some cases, this may be true. However, we should not underestimate the power of the words we say. Imagine if “O my God” were replaced with a racial slur. The people around you would be shocked and ask you why you said that. If you said you didn’t really mean it, so it is no big deal, the people around you would say that it is still a big deal. Jesus talked about how our speech expresses the depths of our hearts when he said, “Do you not realize that everything that enters the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile” (Matthew 15:17-18). What comes out of our mouth first comes from our heart (and our brain).

One of my favorite scripture passages on this topic is found in the letter of St. James. James is one of the most practical books in the bible, and if you think your faith needs to be more practical, turn to this book. He writes at length about the power of speech in chapter 3: “If anyone does not fall short in speech, he is a perfect man, able to bridle his whole body also. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we also guide their whole bodies. It is the same with ships: even though they are so large and driven by fierce winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot’s inclination wishes. In the same way the tongue is a small member and yet has great pretentions. Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna” (James 3:2-6). Our tongue is like a bridle in a horse’s mouth or a rudder on a ship. We can usually tell by someone’s speech if they are happy or sad, angry or content, Christian or not. May we all use our speech to build others up and give honor to our God. If we struggle with profanity or saying God’s name in vain, the Hail Mary can be a good remedy. The best way to overcome a struggle is with a counterattack. The Hail Mary is centered on the name of Jesus. When you find yourself struggling with speech, say a few Hail Mary’s and focus on giving honor to the name of Jesus.