Struggles, worries, fears - human beings face to face with God - managing our time, talent, & treasure

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Struggles, Worries, Fears, and God

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 Called to be good stewards of the Earth for the common good

Struggles? Yes, I have them… doesn’t everyone? Worries? Life would be better without them, but unfortunately they are there. Fears? Oh yes…. These three, among others, describe much about our human condition. Struggles every day, worries touching on the future, and fears about many things – these three – add much burden to our lives and make it more difficult for us to be happy.

God loves us and doesn’t want us to be unhappy. That is why He has given us his solutions to these weak points in our humanity. The three most sensitive points in our lives are probably the same for all of us: time, energy, and money. Rare are the days when time is not an issue, or we don’t run out of energy, or we aren’t haunted by fear. God feels sorry for us when He sees us suffering and unhappy; so this is why He told his Chosen People about his solutions and taught them how to put them into practice. Jesus also practiced these solutions and showed us by his example how important and practical God’s solutions are.

TIME

Time is how we experience our life as a gift from God. He began to give us life through our parents. Even the most terrible of parents deserve at the very least respect and gratitude from their children if, for no other reason, because God used them to begin giving us life. The reality is that we receive life from God moment by moment, which makes time a key way that makes us aware of being alive.

Why then is time so often difficult or painful for us? We have to get somewhere and get upset when we think we not arrive in time. We are doing something and find ourselves running out of time. We enjoy a good experience and time seems to go by too quickly. A situation makes us suffer and time seems to slow down to a crawl. We become concerned that there is more time behind us than there is ahead of us.

As we grow older and wiser we realize that we have little or no power over time or over the thoughts and feelings that time generates in us in the course of our lives. We feel helpless to change our relationship with time despite our best resolutions and efforts to make changes.

God announced a simple solution to our problem with time. Our trouble with time was originally caused by the breakdown in humanity’s relationship with God. Time can only become a blessing again by allowing God to restore us to an intimate relationship with Him. Here is what the Lord told his people.

Exodus 20:8-11   “⁸Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labour and do all your work. ¹⁰ But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. ¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.” (NRSV)

For us to be restored to an intimate relationship with God we need to allow God to be God in our lives. This means we need to make room for God’s way of looking at us and our lives. God knows that we need time to rest and so He gave his own example in the account of how He created the universe and us. When you think about it, resting is attractive and makes sense. Even machines need to be turned off so they can cool down and be maintained.

So God’s solution is that of the seven days He gives us each week, we give Him back the day that He has marked for us to spend with Him. We keep holy the Lord’s Day, the “Sabbath” or seventh day, by giving Him worship and then spending the whole day with family and friends, relaxing, celebrating, playing, and putting aside all work and worry. We will have the next six days to work all we want. 

ENERGY and its twin TALENT

(Energy well spent makes the best use of our talents and abilities.)

One way we know we are alive is by generating and spending energy. We do that in ways that are pleasant or unpleasant. We can spend our energy in ways that replenishes our energy at the same time or we can spend our energy in ways that depletes our energy reserves even faster. When we stubbornly push against obstacles that won’t move or throw ourselves at those walls in anger and other tough emotions we deplete our energy twice as fast. On the other hand, when we take a moment to stop and figure out what is happening and how best to apply our energy we can experience better results, feel greater satisfaction, and find that instead of depleting our energy reserves we are building them up at the same time that we are spending them. Even great effort can be rewarding when we direct our energies well.

Another way we rapidly deplete our energy reserves is when we struggle with tasks because in ways that are not effective or without the necessary skills. Clumsy efforts tend to use up more energy than efforts that employ skills to guide and precisely direct our energy to the desired objectives. We probably all know a person who is always angry and miserable in the course of their tasks and another person who is always glad and cheerful. The angry person will tend to be exhausted more often than the cheerful person.

God sees how we use our energy and is sad when we struggle under heavy burdens and are unhappy because He loves us and wants us, like any good parent, to succeed and experience the satisfaction of tasks well done. That is why each human being has a unique personality and set of talents and abilities. Some of these function well from the first time we use them and just get better with use, while others require more practice or learning and development. There is much satisfaction to be had from well directed efforts.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Luke 10:25-37    ²⁵ Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.^[j] “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶ He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” ²⁷ He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.” ²⁸ And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” ²⁹ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” ³⁰ Jesus (then told him about the good Samaritan who cared for a stranger who had been mugged and left on the ground to die. Then Jesus asked the lawyer:) ³⁶ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” ³⁷ He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (NRSV)

The purest or holiest use of our energy and talent is when we do so entirely for the good of others, out of charity or perfect love. Within the family this happens when spouses care for one another, parents care for their children, children care for their parents, the young care for the elderly, the healthy care for the sick, and so on. It also happens outside the family and out in the world when we care for our neighbour, or forgive enemies, or for strangers or the poor, sick, lame, wounded, prisoners, or other suffering persons.

It also happens when we serve others through the Church, Church institutions, non-governmental organizations, or other groups or agencies. The most inspiring work we can find is that done by parents and grandparents, people who proclaim the Gospel by their lives and by their words, and all those who serve the People of God in response to Jesus’ call to serve as priests, religious, other consecrated persons, or other dedicated lay people. When what motivates us is pure love even considerable effort and expenditure of our energy brings both satisfaction and the restoration of our energy reserves because our love for others puts us into sync or communion with the Holy Trinity and opens us to receive even more of their life and love. 

TREASURE

(All material goods in this world are intended by God to be enjoyed equitably by all of humanity.)

Our experience of time can indeed cause us considerable stress and suffering. In addition, so many factors can cause us to suffer from the constant depletion of our vital energy, particularly when we struggle in difficult situations or at tasks for which we are ill suited or trained or prepared. Perhaps what causes us the greatest suffering in life is our relationship to material things, to what could be called treasure. Jesus was quite clear in his teaching and example regarding earthly treasure and material goods.

Matthew 6:19-21    “¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”   Mark 14:3-9    “³ While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. ⁴ But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? ⁵ For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii,^[c] and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. ⁶ But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. ⁷ For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. ⁸ She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. ⁹ Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” (NRSV)
 

Jesus taught by example that material goods have value by the use we make of them with other human beings and with God. Material goods and money can strangle us with greed and fear or they can give great joy to others and increase our own joy. We cannot be free of greed, fear, or anxiety about material goods on our own. For this reason God gave his Chosen People a guideline. He inspired Abraham and others to give to the service of God a tithe or ten percent. This seems to be an ideal that symbolizes and expresses in a practical way the detachment we need to put our trust in God rather than in ourselves or in riches.

Jesus offers us the freedom of the children of God when we “give back to God” the holy portion, the tithe or ten percent, which is sufficient to allow God to set us free from greed and fear. This includes what we give to God’s work in his Church as well as what we give and share with the poor and all those whom we help in our families. It is amazing to realize that God will never be outdone by us in generosity.

JESUS HAS GIVEN US HIS EXAMPLE TO FOLLOW

When we hear or read about Jesus in the Gospels we see in Him a human like us in all things but sin, a man who always has plenty of time for everyone who comes to Him. He never seems in a hurry or worried about time. Jesus is eager to make the best use of his talents and to put Himself at the service of everyone without worrying about running out of energy. 

When He was tired, He rested or slept, like the time He sat down at Jacob’s well and asked the Samaritan woman for a drink because He was tired and thirsty. Jesus was never concerned about shelter, clothing, food, or money, and He taught his apostles and disciples to adopt the same attitudes of absolute and practical trust in the providence of his heavenly Father. 

Saint Francis of Assisi is probably the saint who imitated Jesus most literally in these attitudes. What Jesus invites us to do is truly possible and the most direct route to peace, satisfaction, joy, and the happiness of perfect love. When we dare to imitate Jesus we are surprised to find ourselves already enjoying a taste of the life that will be unending in the radiant presence of the Holy Trinity with all the angels and saints in heaven.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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Laudato Si - How do we dialogue with Muslims?

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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In "Laudato Si" Pope Francis invites all Catholics, Christians, and indeed all of humanity to consider that much of our distress in the world today is caused by human beings valuing many things more than the human person, family, and the common good. Pope Francis calls us to hear anew Jesus' teaching and example in the Gospel and to embrace the Holy Spirit who wants to realign our beliefs, thoughts, priorities, decisions, and behavior in such a way as to be in accord with the will of God for all of humanity and for the common good of all human beings.

Due to the unceasing acts of terrorism in our world today, especially those acts of violence claimed by people who identify themselves as Muslims acting for the glory of Allah and Islam, people not only in the western nations but also people in Muslim nations are increasingly subject to fear. It is not only Christians who are targeted for violence and murder but people of other religions and no religion and even Muslims of other Islamic sects and views.

Against these fears the quintessential Catholic and Christian response is what Saint Francis said and did, that is, a literal and complete trust in God expressed in prayer and loving outreach to even those violent extremists. We believe as Jesus taught that the Good News of abundant life offered by God is for everyone who will listen, hear, and accept it. This is manifestly the attitude and approach of Pope Francis as spelled out in his "Laudato Si", and so it is a very Christian way of looking at the world, at life, at religion and society.

For Muslims the views are radically different and not unlike what our views were in the Middle Ages. During those centuries all of society at all levels was permeated by religion. In that context, as people saw things, the Spanish Inquisition seemed to make perfect sense. It made sense to them not to spare the physical body in the process of trying to convince people to repent of their errors and in this way return to true faith in God and allow Him to save their immortal soul.

The most deadly danger was understood to be those beliefs that were erroneously in contradiction with the divine revelation of God as expressed in Christian faith and morals. They understood that errors in belief gave rise to thoughts, words, and behaviors inconsistent with the Sacred Scriptures or with the teachings of the Church and put one at risk of walking away from God.

In such world views that we could call "medieval" there are no distinctions between religion and government, between the church and society, because it is all one reality. Until today westerners look at Islamic states and expect their leaders to be like those in our own societies where religious and civic leaders are independent of one another. Under Islam religious leaders are in sync with the government which operates according to religious principles to the point that there are no longer any distinctions between "church" and "state". An Islamic state is under Sharia Law and all laws and civil judgements and punishments are in accord with the Qur'an and other Muslim writings and traditions.

Since the 1928 foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt a wave of renewal or revivalism, to use a Christian term, has been sweeping the Muslim world in a very deliberate and unrelenting effort to bring successive generations of Muslims to return to their roots in Islam and the Islamic impulse to bring the whole world into the subjection of Islam, that is, into "submission" to Allah and his prophet Mohammad and to make the whole world governed by Islam.

What Christians point to as the "peaceful" verses in the Qur'an are considered by Islam to be "early" verses before Mohammad was called to become a militant warrior. The "violent" or "later" verses are seen as the final call of Allah to subjugate the world under Islam for Allah. In this widespread view Jews and Christians are the first who must be subjected because they are considered to have lost the original truths revealed by Allah and to have corrupted the "Book" of Scripture. Tim Staples is a Catholic evangelist who made an exhaustive examination of Islam through the lens of the Christian faith in talks available on CD entitled "Islam Exposed - The Crescent in Light of the Cross".

The Muslim societies that aspire to conquer the world for Allah under Islam are not interested in dialogue with the Christian faith which they consider inferior and surpassed and perfected by Islam. The conviction of being superior generally held by Muslims makes authentic dialogue with Christians very unlikely. Nevertheless, dialogue and the willingness to dialogue is intrinsic to the Christian faith as shown in the Gospels witnessing to Jesus' eagerness to dialogue with everyone.

Christians aspire to a world united in peace and love under Christ and in the Holy Trinity; whereas Muslims aspire to a world united in submission to Allah and the principles of Islam. These are fundamentally irreconcilable views. Muslims who show true and authentic understanding, sympathy, and agreement with our Christian view are at times called "moderate" Muslims but in the eyes of the fervent Muslim world they are heretics or traitors and hence considered irrelevant.

This is why our world is in God's hands and all we can do is continue to walk with our Lord Jesus Christ, remain faithful to Him, live our faith and bond of charity with others and the world, proclaim the Good News, accept to endure persecution for the glory of God, and pray for our enemies or those who make themselves our enemies.

I welcome your views, either to agree or disagree, and only ask that you substantiate your claims. 

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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Why do we feel close to God and then feel like it's all gone?

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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In our lives our days are full of experiences at one level and on another level there is what we think and feel about those experiences and about ourselves within those experiences and what is left after we leave those experiences behind. 

Whatever we live, think, feel, do, say or experience... our true motives are often concealed from our own conscience when we are flooded with emotions. Simple example, when I care for a family member or neighbor and receive back from them love and gratitude, perhaps even remuneration, then it is more difficult to know how pure my motivation is. 

I may truly be doing it out of selfless and perfect love, but even then, my earthly reward at the very least clouds or shadows my perfect love. I would then need to be accepting the rewards simply out of consideration for the other, glad to provide the other with an opportunity to experience and to show gratitude. However, when to do or say a thing motivated out of love for others is difficult to do, tiring, stressful, or painful, and I still do it and persevere over time in doing it, those difficulties and absence of pleasure purify my motives and clarify my heart, mind, and soul, and the Holy Trinity can more easily bring me into sync with them, into perfect love and communion. 

It is for this reason that various saints came to know this and to value times of pain and suffering and actually went out of their way to embrace such difficulties in the exercise of loving service of those most in need of experiencing the selfless love of another in order to come to really believe in the love of God for them. 

I believe what our Church teaches as Jesus did that God in Jesus is a Good Shepherd who knows his sheep and gently leads us in the way we most need to be led and cared for. We do well to grow in trust of Him regardless of what may be happening in our thoughts and feelings, which tell us something about what is going on but they cannot tell us everything. We can perceive much more in our soul deep down beneath the sensations of our flesh and where the Holy Trinity dwells with us and infuses us with their divine life. This is how St Paul came to say "It is no longer I who live, but Jesus who lives in me."

Our life in the "flesh" - what the Sacred Scriptures understand as our human life with all its facets as mortal and weakened by the original sin - serves as a wonderful image or icon of our spirit or soul, our life as immortal that will live on after the death of our mortal flesh and will then await the resurrection of the dead and entry into eternal life. 

 

From this point of view we can understand how it is that in the course of our life journey we go through stages, just as we do in the flesh. We began in the womb, were born through birth pains into this world through this great act of love of our parents - especially our mom - then were coddled at the breast, wanted to go down on the floor where we crawled around exploring, then got up and walked like everyone else, got into everything, began to learn not to touch certain things which hurt us, learned how to go potty and how "we do things in this family", how to use our hands, tell colors and count and read and write, make friends and learn how to deal with aggressive angry kids, went out of home for the first time on our own to go to school, how to follow discipline, how to learn in a group and on our own, how to study and do homework, and we progressed rapidly through many stages, got to become very skillful at play and many things, then came crashing down to some degree through the upheavals of puberty, with or without skillful or kind or wise guidance from our elders, and somehow found our way, and on and on through all the stages and seasons of life we have the great privilege of experiencing and receiving as a gift from our Creator.... 

 

Through all these and all the other stages and landscapes of our lives God was there, hovering over us like a loving parent, at times touching, cajoling, disciplining, but mostly leaving us free to go about our lives. As we may have gotten attached to our parents and their comfort, so too we can get attached to God and his consolations or certain forms of his consolations. 

 

We can only grow in love as we accept to put aside these desires of ours in order to give all our attention to the other, to the beloved, in order to grow in selfless love, in complete and undivided attention and devotion to the other. We can only do this by free choice renewed countless times each day and day after day... and we do well to grow in trust and eager obedience of the three wonderful Persons of the Holy Trinity, who have planned for all of us to enjoy their company and the company of each other for all eternity, which is no trifling thing.... 　

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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Human freedom is not about sex but the nature of love - God calls us to live in the truth while at the same time practicing mercy.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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There is worldwide interest in the Synod of Bishops taking place at the Vatican in Rome. News outlets seem rather obsessed with the issue of the admission to Holy Communion of the faithful who are civilly divorced and remarried without having first been declared free to remarry by Church authorities. The vexing principle at work is Jesus' clearly reported teaching on marriage and divorce in the Gospels. The Church's challenge is how to apply Jesus' teaching in the lives of the faithful. However the bishops in Synod are studying together the much bigger picture of the call and challenge of the family to follow Jesus and live and proclaim the Gospel with our lives in our world today.

For many the issue is about a claim to unrestricted freedom to engage in sex and cut loose from historic and cultural definitions and taboos to the point even of redefining marriage and family. I believe that the true issue at work here is not so much sex but rather the true nature of love. Jews and Christians believe there is only one God, the Creator, who revealed to his Chosen People something of his nature and of his purpose in creating us human beings. He loves his creation and He loves us and simultaneously offers us and expects of us a genuine and reciprocal relationship of authentic love, which manifests itself in a paramount desire for and dedication to the good of the other. God's good is to be known and loved widely as He is and our good as human beings is to live in harmony with God and with each other. This is the heart of the Jewish faith and their specific vocation is to give witness to God in the world.

Jesus fine tuned the understanding of this revelation in his person, teaching, and example to the point of laying down his life for the glory of God and for the salvation and sanctification of sinners. Jesus has given to all of humanity a clearer and more readily understandable teaching and example of authentic love, both divine love and human love. Authentic human love is a living and true reflection of divine love, a love which pours itself out, gives itself completely to the other, holding nothing back and yet losing nothing of itself in the giving. Actually, it is only in giving oneself wholeheartedly to the other that one attains the fullness of authentic love and in a true sense fully becomes a person. In contrast, it is in the self seeking, the obsessive grasping for one's own pleasure and satisfaction, that love is distorted and reduced to a destructive counterfeit that destroys life, people, families, and society itself and that a human being shrinks and shrivels as a person.

After listening to several reports on the Synod and interviews with several bishops and Pope Francis himself, it seems increasingly clear that no one at the Synod is showing any desire to change what God has revealed as this is transmitted in Church teaching or for that matter to compromise the Gospel. A primary factor at play is that the bishops under the influence and example of Pope Francis are becoming more aware and hence also more preoccupied that for quite some time the Church has in many places and at various times been more likely to wield the truth as a club rather than show compassion and pastoral concern for the state and suffering of the faithful. This is the kind of failure of authority to truly serve for which Jesus reproached the religious leaders of his day.

The focus then is not so much on dogma but rather on the attitude and behavior of pastors - bishops and priests - towards the faithful. What comes to mind is Jesus' reproach to the religious leaders of his day that they did not keep the law in their heart, and what is worse, they did not lift a finger to ease the burden they as religious leaders imposed so harshly on the faithful in all that had to do with the observance of religious laws. "You do not enter the kingdom yourself and also prevent others from doing so." They were not faithfully representing God to the people but were in effect only serving themselves. They did not love the faithful as God does.They were obsessed with external observance of religious law but not with the restoration of the people to an obedient and loving worship of God and service of the neighbor.

The principles at work in reviewing the Church's pastoral care of the faithful are several.

1.  God alone is the judge. Jesus made it clear we have no right or authority to judge because we are incapable of acting out of both divine justice and divine mercy simultaneously. Moreover, only God knows truly the condition of souls and He alone is qualified to judge. He alone truly loves each soul and perfectly desires its good.

2.  When Jesus gave authority to the Church to bind and to loose, He did so in order to extend and widen in time and space the exercise of divine mercy which He had inaugurated, not to restrict access to the blessings and new life of the kingdom. The binding is for dealing with sinners' unwillingness to turn away from sin and with hypocrisy and hardheartedness as when Jesus dealt with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes.

3.  The bishops are considering how they and all the pastors of the Church are to exercise the pastoral ministry more faithfully to Jesus and his example. They desire as successors to the Apostles to remain faithful to the truth given to us in the person of Jesus and at the same time to the divine revelation contained in Jesus' person, teaching, and example. The Pope and the bishops are to help us learn and follow the ways of the Lord.

Reactions to the work of the Synod come from at least two extreme positions or views.

As the whole Church, all Christian churches and faithful, and people in the world at large observe the Synod fathers in their collective study and deliberation, there are people who are disturbed and react out of fear perhaps because they need the security of "black and white" answers. Not unlike the religious leaders in Jesus' day, such people try to find their security in setting themselves apart from all those whom they judge to be sinners or guilty of breaking some law. At the other end of the spectrum there are those who look for freedom from any law, from any restriction on their thought, speech, and behavior. They claim to love and to defend the truth, but they are not open to the whole truth, nor do they have any love, true love, for others.

Some of these people go so far as to qualify the RC Church as oppressive, not realizing that they misinterpret the Church's stance as some kind of fascism or dictatorship. Through the centuries the Church has always been composed of people of their own time. When society was such that authority was imposed by force, the Church tended to do likewise. The Spanish Inquisition was a reflection of medieval society in which the rule of law coincided with the rule of force, but today the Church has changed as has the society in which it is embedded. In our world today there are still societies that rely primarily on the rule of force but most western societies rely on responsibility and compliance from their citizens. Similarly, the RC Church no longer imposes or enforces its teaching by physical force or punishment. Even centuries ago when Church authorities did use the harsh methods of the times they were ostensibly seeking the good and eternal salvation of those souls, those people they deemed to be in error and in sin.

Currently, the bishops are remembering that the Church's only authority is that of Jesus in his person, his teaching, and his example to the point of laying down his life. They realize and remind us that our Church, in its ways and practices, comes from the historical process of its development. The laity, such as married couples and families, are witnessing that in many situations pastors treat them harshly rather than with the compassion and kindness with which Jesus treated people. There has been too much insistence on the law and too little on the patience and mercy of God. Church authorities have not only been teaching the truth but at times they have been employing ways of imposing the teaching on people to the point of dictating their behavior and applying punitive sanctions and social pressure. The bishops are trying to recover Jesus' approach, which in any age is a difficult challenge but possible with the help and the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Not unlike today then, in Gospel times the Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees were constantly trying to pin Jesus down to clear and unequivocal answers that would clearly condemn sinners and cast them out while establishing themselves as "the pure ones", but Jesus consistently resisted this approach and attitude, saying He came for mercy not sacrifice. Those Jesus called hypocrites live their lives on the basis of appearance whereas God looks at the heart, mind, and intentions of the soul.

Jesus was killed for his merciful attitude toward sinners, which threatened all those who sought their security in the letter of the law, and the more the bishops try to approach Jesus' own attitude and pastoral care today and at any time the more they too will be resisted, judged, and rejected. It remains an incredible challenge for pastors to care for souls, to receive them and guide them through the mercy of God, while at the same time striving to increase and perfect the formation of their conscience, to care for the truth while also loving the sinner.

The temptation is great to "take over" the sovereignty of the individual conscience and "dictate" to others their behavior, but that was not Jesus' way. He spoke the truth as clearly and eloquently as He could but left people free to govern themselves, knowing that God alone could judge rightly. When anyone came to Jesus with a request He responded to them, often granting their request, but also warned them to sin no more. We are frightened and severely challenged by the patience and respect God shows each person and expects us to show one another and we continue to seek our security in the letter of the law rather than in a true and living relationship with God.

Only the tyrant refuses to respect others, to grant others the right to make mistakes. It was only with the hardhearted, hypocritical, and tyrannical that Jesus took the tough approach. Our purpose in life is to walk towards the light and none of us accomplishes the journey overnight. If it took me thirty years to come to a point of true conversion, who am I to demand that others make that jump on demand? It is not my concern. Even then, I have not arrived once and for all in safe harbor and must continue to struggle for perfection to my final breath.

God is ever just but simultaneously merciful, kind, and patient. He suffers not the shepherds who lead the sheep astray by letting them do whatever they want without warning them of the dangers they face and ignore at their peril. Shepherds must constantly teach the truth and warn the faithful of the dangers of misusing God's many gifts to us and then in their dealings with the faithful they must present to them the kind, patient, and merciful face of God in Jesus. Not only shepherds but all of us believers must be ever vigilant to confess our own sins and failure to love truly, and only by daily confessing our own sinfulness can we avoid sitting in judgement on others. Those who taste the goodness of the mercy of God can in their turn be empowered by God to show mercy to others. Those who refuse mercy and the humility of self confession and seek to justify and rationalize living in sin are at risk to harden their hearts, which was the overriding condition of many if not most of the religious leaders in Jesus' day. Hardened hearts ever need to justify themselves at the expense of others by accusing others and finding fault in them.

Perhaps what contributes to the intensity of contemporary concern about our Church's approach to moral issues and pastoral care is the nature of our culture and society in this age of instant communication and social media. This setting may be abused by those who harbor a hypocritical attitude and seek to exploit the situation in order to justify themselves in their hardheartedness. I remember a class in high school religion when the teaching brother, Bro. French, was giving a class by having us read the text book out loud. The topic was human sexuality and the desirability of chastity. A student stopped reading and questioned the teaching and, finding the brother's responses unsatisfying, asked "But Brother, how far can we go?" This is an adolescent attitude focused solely on pursuing pleasure with no preoccupation whatsoever about true love. The selfish pleasure seeking attitude does not desire true good both for oneself and for the other, but shows total disregard for the will of God and God's intention in our regard. Rather than accept to allow God to lead us to true and complete happiness, we prefer to grasp for caricatures of happiness as the world promotes them.

It is the role of the Church to bring light to such consciences and to insist on the truth, all the while striving to allow Jesus as the Divine Mercy to continue to speak to souls today. Morality is a drama that plays itself out between the individual soul and its Creator, and we cannot avoid suffering the consequences of our collective choices and behaviors. We all share in the collective responsibility to serve the common good and our common need for order. The tension between individual freedom and the common good is a balancing act which requires ongoing discernment on the part of pastors and unrelenting patience, the patience of the loving parent who knows how to be firm with kindness.

That high school adolescent was a sort of Pharisee, an immature one, but a Pharisee nonetheless. Jesus did not hate them but loved them and the love they needed from Him was a firm hand and this is what Jesus showed them. He won some of them over but the others were not yet ready to welcome the light, but perhaps they would later.

Today, with the social media, people from differing points of view are quick to pounce on every word that comes out of the Synod, from the Pope or from bishops. The bishops need resolve and trust in God to be firm and resolute in attending to and following the guidance the Holy Spirit is giving them. They must continue to deepen their study of this complex situation of the Church as mother and shepherd as well as the condition of souls living in our time because we are all called to develop and deepen our humanity. The bishops and pastors are very much in need our prayers.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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True dialogue on moral issues for developing public policy in a democracy like Canada

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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There are many issues and considerations driving election campaigns. May I put a suggestion for more open and respectful dialogue among citizens and politicians, among political parties and in government, and also for a more effective development of policies for the common good?

Over the years on several occasions I would have liked to vote for one party or another but at times I didn't because on certain ethical issues I could not find in that party's platform sufficient distinction between policy and ideology. Whenever I tried to communicate with party representatives it turned out that significant dialogue was not to be had. Perhaps everyone was too busy. I am referring to various elements of life in society that touch on moral issues. Please allow me to be specific.

I grant that in a democracy each citizen, each person has the right to their own view on moral issues and both social and personal matters, but for the sake of democracy and effective dialogue in view of striving together for the common good, we need to be able to get beyond ideology to a level of policy, where dialogue and even compromise are more possible than with ideology alone. Ideology has value because without clarity about what we think and believe true dialogue becomes impossible. However, when we are driven by ideology alone it is difficult when not impossible to remain open to different points of view. At worst, we end up with dictatorships, fascism, marxism, communism, and other forms of totalitarianism where only the authorized view is permitted.

I and most Roman Catholics today readily admit that even our own Church went through periods when ideology so dominated public order that there resulted a form of totalitarianism wherein lives were snuffed out in the interest of defending the truth, without realizing at the time that the greatest damage was being done to freedom of conscience. As difficult as it is for us moderns to understand such a divergent point of view, the expressed motivation of the Church at the height of repression known today as the Spanish Inquisition, the institutional motivation was the salvation of souls. 

Yes, that's right. There was such a fear of eternal damnation that when someone was discovered to hold a belief or manifest a behavior that was perceived to be evil or a perversion of all that is good and held to be true, all means were deemed acceptable to try to persuade that person to reform their beliefs and behavior and embrace the truth as it was to be found in Sacred Scripture and Church commandments.

Tragically, what was lacking to officials of the Church at that time, as in other times and in other public institutions, was a deeper understanding of God and the "ways of the Lord". In God is to be found perfect justice, that is true, but also perfect mercy. Christians believe that in God we find both divine justice and divine mercy and a perfect balance in their application. Another biblical principle is that judgement belongs to God alone and that Jesus is given God's authority to judge.

God is the judge: "There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you - who are you to judge your neighbor?" James 4:12. Jesus shows He has God's authority to judge: “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me." Matthew 5:28-30. See other references in Deuteronomy 32:39; Psalm 75:7; and Hebrews 10:30. 

Jesus commanded us not to judge, for we are incompetent to judge. Unlike God, we are necessarily biased and lack the full knowledge and wisdom which God alone possesses. Jesus gave a teaching about how we are to avoid judging one another in Matthew 7:1-6. In 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 Paul advised the Corinthians "not to associate with immoral people" which requires a form of judgement or at least observation of behavior. He declares that "outsiders" come under God's judgement but that the faith community must "put outside" the evil doer from within their midst. In other words, those who believe in Jesus and try to be his disciples must love and support one another and, regarding those who insist on doing what is declared evil by God, those who are unrepentant are to be put out of the assembly of believers and not to be associated with.

This is a form of judgement oriented to preservation of self and of the common good; yet it actually respects the choices of those who disagree or want to behave in ways that are unacceptable. This is a form of respect for the freedom of conscience. When the bishops of the universal Roman Catholic Church met in Rome from 1962-65 four years in a row for a month or so in October at the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, they robustly declared the universal right to freedom of conscience with the obligation to inform and form well one's conscience (sections 1776-1802) as well as the freedom and responsibility to hold, practice, and live in accord with one's own faith or beliefs (1730-1748).

The extreme measures of the Spanish Inquisition are no longer possible in the contemporary Church given that those practices arose in the context of a medieval society where they understood public order to include all that could impinge on the eternal destiny of individuals and they believed they were under the obligation to impose right order and right belief by force. Throughout the world there remain cultures, civilizations, peoples, and nations where the rule of force is still employed. We have only to watch the evening news to verify how true this is.In a sense, many societies and pockets of societies are still locked into medieval outlooks by which rule can only be maintained by force.

In contrast to those individuals and societies that mistakenly think that it is up to them to impose public order and belief, when the followers of Jesus as individuals and as institutions are well aligned with Jesus' teaching and example, they fearlessly proclaim Him and the truth He taught and conduct themselves as Jesus did. They do so fearlessly even to the point of laying down their lives as so many countless thousands and millions have done throughout the centuries down to our own day. Christ and his followers are bold to give witness to the truth but leave those who hear them free to embrace that truth or not; they don't impose anything.

As a Roman Catholic Christian it is true that I am committed to promoting by my words and actions the value of human life, from conception to natural death. However, I can still respect the right of others to hold different views. I also entertain the hope that through open and respectful dialogue we can progress together in our understanding of the issues and develop ever better policies that truly serve the common good as well as allowing for individual differences. The irritating thing about freedom of conscience is that life lived under this principle is not monolithic, with whole populations walking in locked steps.

The human conscience is ever in a process of being formed as it considers ever more widely and deeply the various elements that need to enter into any moral consideration. The human person needs to have access to ever more complete information as well as to ever better understand itself and to discern what importance to give to various considerations. The links between facts and views need to be ever updated so that our views remain firmly anchored in the facts.

In addition, there are other sources of truth beside the visible and manifest facts. The human sciences may not be able to measure interior or spiritual human experience; yet that experience remains no less real and its impact on human life and society is undeniable and great. All who acknowledge the existence of God, the Creator of the universe, come to understand more about reality through the truths revealed by God to people who have received such communication and recorded it for general distribution. One truth held by adherents to the Judeo-Christian religious traditions relates to the inalienable value of a human life. Because God is the giver of life, only He has authority over it, as it is set down in the "ten commandments" in the Torah or first five books of the Jewish Scriptures.

It is evident to everyone that belief in God contributes to the differences of view on moral issues, given that those who don't believe in God would tend to dismiss God as a viable and legitimate source of knowledge about the full truth regarding human life and all life in general. In the absence of God, any given human being can then lay claim to superiority of view and policy on moral matters, with the result that policy is set in such a godless universe by courts, legislatures, and any other authority with the conviction it has the power to impose its view on the general population. We are not strangers to such dictations of moral policy from above throughout human history, including from church authorities. The difference today is that church authorities appeal to consciences rather than attempt to impose by any show of whatever force.

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For example, on the issue of abortion and the right of people, women in particular, to exercise freedom of choice, I support those people admittedly pro-life who try to offer thoughts in favor of life to the prospective clients of abortion clinics simply in the hope that their presence there might open up more options for those who, in going to an abortion clinic, often are oppressed by the fatalistic impression that they "have no other choice".

It is ironic that many who claim to be PRO CHOICE actually seem not to want to allow people in such desperate straights to even know about all their practical options, to truly be able to make a well-informed choice. In addition, many women who have abortions suffer all manner of painful consequences that either manifest themselves immediately or only later in various forms of guilt. For that reason alone it makes perfect sense that those contemplating an abortion should take the possible consequences into consideration. Alas, all too often the abortion procedure is promoted quite intensively as a "consequence-free procedure" through such statements as "the abortion will solve your problems" and "you'll be able to go back to the way you were before getting pregnant".

Those who identify themselves as PRO-CHOICE tend to believe that there is no guilt associated with the abortion procedure but that, if there is any guilt following the abortion, that feeling of guilt is entirely and exclusively caused by the repressive and dictatorial declarations of people whom they consider against choice and against abortion. In this view, all those who identify themselves as PRO-LIFE are actually ANTI-CHOICE. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pro-lifers recognize from personal experience that far too many women who get an abortion are under duress and pressure from their entourage and actually feel like they have no choice, that there are no other options.

Not all guilty feelings are artificially provoked by other people and ideologies. An abortion actually does kill an unborn infant human being and when guilt feelings manifest themselves, these feelings follow directly upon the action that has been taken independently of whatever others may say about it.

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Dear fellow citizen, there are other moral issues - such as palliative care and euthanasia - that similarly touch on complex human life situations that require on our part and certainly on the part of government to remain open to dialogue, to the complete findings from scientific and medical research, and that seek above all in the interests of the common good to promote open and honest dialogue and that also allow elected members of Parliament to vote in accord with their own conscience as well as in dialogue with their own constituents.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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Husbands are the best people to share secrets with. They'll never tell anyone, because they aren't even listening. OR Further insight into how we are different.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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The above title may very well reflect the feelings of many married women or women in non marriage partnerships with a man. It would be most unfortunate should the sentiment expressed in these two short sentences become a judgement which would then harden the stance and attitude of women towards their men with the inevitable reactions and results in these men. We men may be different but we are neither stupid nor insensitive and it would be contemptuous for women or other men to draw such a conclusion when a man is reluctant to "let it all hang out" all the time. 

As we age and accumulate experiences, observations, and feelings from both our own life and also the lives of others, we cannot avoid realizing that it is our mortal human condition to interpret all we observe, sense, feel, and think about the world around us through the very narrow lens of our own self. We cannot avoid this in a sense because due to the original sin this is now our mortal human condition for all of us. However, we can be more aware of this automatic inclination within us to see things "my way" and decide to deliberately not limit ourselves to approaching in such a narrow way life, others, the world, and even to God - through only our own eyes, mind, heart and experience.

God has given us sufficiently fine faculties that we have the capacity and ability to allow ourselves to imagine the perspective of others and attempt to view situations through their eyes, mind, heart, and soul, through all that we know of them, as well as through our own. We can also actually take genuine interest in the other and show the other that we are interested in hearing more about how they perceive any given situation. Of course, this requires at the very least a willingness to accept in others their differences of thought, feeling, experience, and views, and also, what is far more difficult on our part, a willingness to consider the possibility of changing our own views.

For the sake of true dialogue, we can "tailor" our approach to others to try to ensure better reception. Jesus said something about how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God... it is like a merchant trying to pass his heavily laden camel through the eye of a needle, an expression used to designate a little gate in city walls no bigger than a tall man. A camel could be squeezed through but first it would have to be unloaded. A rich man can enter the Kingdom of God, but he must first unload himself of all his riches and all the attachments those riches have on his mind, heart, and soul. This principle also applies in the human experience of dialogue. 

For true dialogue to take place, for an authentic exchange of thoughts and feelings to take place, people need to be willing to lay aside as it were the "full load" of their own thoughts, feelings, boundaries of experience, beliefs, convictions, motivations, and all that makes them who they are at this moment in time. To put it differently, to engage in truly open dialogue, we need to be willing to listen, to hear the other "as other", and to try to understand the other through her or his own views and experience. It is like being willing to have sympathy or compassion. 

When I accept to "enter into" the views and experience of another human being, it may feel like going into a foreign land and I may find it unsettling and be tempted to hold onto the security of all that is familiar in my own thoughts, feelings, and experience. However, as I "visit" in the landscape of the other, I don't become the other nor do I lose my own thoughts, feelings, and experience. I lose nothing but gain all that is to be learned and acquired during such visits. During such visits and at the end of each visit I become more familiar with the other and then I can go back on my own ground and be in a far better position to appreciate the other and give careful consideration to what is to be done in this relationship about the difference as well as the convergence of our views.

As we try to sincerely improve our communication with others, especially that between women and men, it is good to keep in mind that women and men are physiologically different. In our brains we have a little organ called the "corpus callosum" which is like a hub handling different kinds of traffic in the brain: data coming in, observations being made, tasks in the process of being done, thoughts about what is coming next, emotions, and so on. There's a lot of traffic all the time. In men it is the size of a dime and in women the size of a quarter. 

As a result when women "think out loud" all the processes going on in them men can only perceive all of that as information overload. It has nothing to do with our attentiveness or caring. It comes quite naturally for a woman to process what is happening within her as the day goes on and women's natural inclination is to "think out loud" with others. This is a good fit with other women who in general also share this inclination and are at home with it. However, it is not such a good fit with men. Men also like to connect with others but they are much more particular about doing it and may only feel comfortable connecting in this way with a coworker or long time friend or other men with whom they don't experience the "information overload" reaction. 

It seems natural for a married woman to expect to think out loud with her husband, but it may not be so natural for him to do so with her. This would be particularly true when the woman consciously or unconsciously embeds in her chatting one or more of her expectations. The chatting may at times also contain hidden but undeniable emotional content non-verbally communicating such things as "I expect you to do such and such" or "you must do this within such and such time frame" or "I am very disappointed in you" or any number of such issues. 

What happened at the dawn of time is that the first humans turned away from the plan for their life and happiness that God had shared with them. They began to disbelieve God - having been fooled by the stranger, the devil - and they stopped putting their trust in God and decided to do things "my way" - including "I will decide for myself what is right and wrong, good or evil". The consequences were nothing short of disastrous. Now separated from God they also found themselves separated from each other, refusing to take responsibility for their own decisions and actions, blaming others instead. 

The original sin or what we could call our mortal human condition gives us a "natural" inclination, which is not natural at all but a dysfunction because God didn't create us like this, and it makes us insecure. If we turn to God for guidance constantly He leads us safely through the labyrinth or our human condition. When we try to handle things on our own we inevitably try to exert control over others, nature, and life. We even try to control God. 

This is the primary source of irritation among human beings, not only between wives and husbands, but also in the family generally, at work, at school, in the marketplace, in any group or movement, in government and other public institutions, and among nations. The only solution possible is to adopt a stance that is humble - acknowledging my own insecurity and neediness - and respectful of others - accepting them for who they are and as they are without any inclination to change them. Of course, only divine love can motivate us to live humbly and respectfully, because only divine love is fully preoccupied with the good of the other, with no fear or concern about oneself.

When we want to really connect with another being we need to connect in a way that can allow for a real exchange to take place. For this we need to take into consideration the nature of the one with whom we want to connect and communicate. For women in their relationship with their husband or other men, this is a real drag I realize, but we cannot change or reverse engineer biology. We men also have our challenges and can be equally dismissive and contemptuous of women. 

God must have a good intention in designing us so differently. Our Roman Catholic Christian faith informs us that part of God's design is that our differences can beneficially provoke us to go beyond our own natural inclination to want to control and transform the other into a mirror image of our own self so that we deliberately embark on the great adventure - which at times may feel perilous - of a never ending discovery of the other, who will forever remain somewhat elusive and mysterious. When we discover that this other actually loves us and shows it in concrete ways, there is no greater joy.

You can check the following Google search page.... for links on the biological information regarding the corpus callosum. Peace to you.... 

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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