Henneberger’s cri de coeur is a scorching rebuke to Catholic bishops

After the Vatican ordered US Bishops to refrain from voting on episcopal correctives to their failures on the sex abuse front (a February bishop’s gathering in Rome will now address it), American bishops left their bi-annual conference with little to show for their time beyond approving a the promotion of the excellent Sister Thea Bowman’s cause for sainthood.

The do-little gathering left plenty of American Catholics feeling short-changed and fed-up, and precipitated Melinda Henneburger’s scorching rebuke to the bishops as she declared herself “done” with the Church. Her piece is a stunningly naked and raw howl of authentic anguish from a woman who feels betrayed beyond endurance.

[USCCB President Cardinal Daniel] DiNardo recounted that it happened this way: “In our weakness,’’ he said in Baltimore, “we fell asleep.” Not so much like Peter in the garden, though. More like Rip Van Winkle, and for a century instead of 20 years.

When and if the bishops do fully rouse themselves, I won’t be in the pews to hear about it.

Read all of it.

Henneberger says she has not been able to bring herself to attend Mass since last June, when revelations concerning former-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick came to light. Having covered the Vatican for the New York Times, Henneberger thought she had a good sense of McCarrick, and so she felt particularly and personally crushed by his sins, and the evidence they gave of the man’s deep betrayal of everything he professed and preached:

After “credible and substantiated” allegations that the now former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had taken advantage of seminarians, assaulted an altar boy in 1971 and even, because evil knows no shame, abused the first child he had ever baptized, the accused was shipped off to the quiet of a Kansas friary — thanks so much for thinking of us out here on the prairie! — to pray, repent and, so far, stick to his story that he has done nothing wrong.

Far from alone
Yes, that’s one angry woman, and she is far from alone. My email is a daily font of fury being expressed by friends and Catholic media colleagues who declare their faith shaken enough to impact their prayer lives, their attendance at Mass, and even their foundational belief in the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Amid so many lies, cover-ups and assists to evil, they catch themselves wondering, is any of true?

The behavior of our hierarchs and churchmen — our “shepherds” — and their sometimes wholly out-of-touch responses our expressions of pain have driven more sheep than they realize to the point of questioning not just some of their faith, but all of it.

It leaves me praying for many, but wanting to say this: My friends, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we need not lose our faith over men who have proved more feckless than faithful.

If regard for our bishops has been deflated, that may not be a bad thing. We were always better off keeping our eyes on Jesus, who is ever steadfast, than in imbuing a character of holiness upon human beings who, with a few exceptions, are destined to disappoint and fail and to shake our trust in our own abilities to discern who is worthy of admiration, and who is not — possibly something that plays a small part in Henneberger’s own despair.

There are many good bishops working earnestly to serve the Gospel and the Church with forthright conviction and servant’s hearts, and they are worth admiring. Others, admittedly seem less so. Before they are anything else (including “princes”) all of them are men in need of salvation, same as the rest of us.

We need to see them as such, and let them know that we do.

I pray that Melinda and the many Catholics who are staying away from Mass will be able to pray it out, and come to realize that, as the psalmist warns, we ought never place our trust in princes (Psalm 146:3).

Because here’s the thing about princes:

  • They are usually so insulated they become out-of-touch to common human realities
  • They are so shielded from accountability as to become thoughtless, selfish, and benumbed
  • They are treated with such deference as to become slavish fools to their privilege
  • The people permit all of that.

It should be different for “Princes of the Church” but it is not, because they are only men and therefore as eager to be liked, as susceptible to the soul-threatening charms of being praised, feted and indulged as anyone else. If some of them strike us as being closer to hell than heaven, it is good to recall that very few bishops, or priests (or monks or nuns for that matter) are “naturally holy”. Some, indeed are good and righteous, but whatever holiness they possess comes not from the office — it is no residual product of their pectoral crosses — but from the working of grace in their souls, unearned yet invited in through prayer, humility, self-effacement, and a shepherd’s instinct to sacrifice for the sake of the sheep.

How we got here, and how to move on
Today we are nauseated and roiled by this never-ending ache of discovery and disgust for three reasons:

    Primo: For decades the bishops shunted aside the Gospels and looked to the world, and to the so-called “experts,” to tell them how to deal with pedophile priests, predator priests, and power-abusing bishops, recidivism be damned.

    You live by the world, you die in the world, the carrions picking away at your bones. Secular advise should never again take precedence over the wisdom of the Gospels. Because we are a freaking church, first, or we are nothing.

    Secondo: For even longer, the laity permitted a deferential clericalism to color what they saw, and heard and accepted as true — even within their own families. Too respectful to challenge, or too fearful of precipitating scandal within the church, we helped things remain hidden.

    We will now have to step up and share in the penance, and then insist on meaningful inclusion in the structuring of reforms as we go forward.

    Terzo: With great humanity of mind and language, we must admit that yes, there is a homosexual element to some of what has been revealed in these awful disclosures, and address it openly, while keeping in mind the number of hard-working priests, faithful and devout, who live with same sex attraction and remain chaste.

    At the very least, that discussion would reinforce the notion that chastity is actually meant for everyone not called to the marriage vocation, including those espoused to Christ and his Bride the Church.

    I hope every bishop in the United States, most particularly those with open lines to the Vatican, read Henneberger’s piece and understand that this is not a single, isolated voice. The number of Catholics who feel as disgusted, betrayed and fed up as she is growing daily as new investigations open up, state-by-state, as new norms and practices are discussed but not acted-upon, as months slip by and Rome continues to crank slowly in an era that demands fast resolutions.

    Advent and the Nativity of Christ are before us, and then all-too quickly Lent will follow. The sacramental and sacred work of credibly communicating God’s consolation and salvation cannot go on if the pews are empty.

    UPDATE: Deacon Greg Kandra shares a story about how the Church is currently seen

    Read more: Vatican, US Bishops face class-action lawsuit from victims of clergy sex abuse

    Image: Public Domain

C’mon, Catholic Laity, remember who you are. If you don’t know, LEARN!

A few friends have expressed surprise to me at some social media reactions to my latest piece at Word on Fire, in which I once again adjure the Catholic laity to tap into the force and power they possess by virtue of their baptisms, the power of priestly and prophetic penance and prayer.

My first response to the stories about former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and then to the Grand Jury report out of Pennsylvania, has been to go more deeply inward with prayer, fasting, and acts of repentance for the sake of the Whole and Mystical Body of Christ, the Church. This we must all do if we desire her healing.

Recently on Twitter a friend questioned why layfolk should be charged to take up any bit of the work of penance when the great sins that have roiled us originated with priests and bishops. I could only answer that the white blood cells cannot refuse to do their job against an infected heart and still expect the Body to heal.

As I share in my piece, seriously pursuing prayer and penance has had an effect of gentling my heart in surprising and positive ways, even as I remain infuriated by the actions (or lack thereof) of too many of our priests and bishops, and — if I am being honest — by the Pope’s seeming reluctance to admit that yes, there is a ‘scandal’ here worth talking about, or his apparent refusal to help us get to the truth of things.

We are right to be angry

It is entirely possible to be righteously angry, but not to permit our anger to own us, or to subjugate our spiritual power to our rage.

That does appear to be what some people want to do, though. They bristle at the idea of doing penance for the sins of the church because those sins are not specifically theirs. That is not the way of our faith though. Christ himself — all innocence — took the sins of others onto himself, carried them and died for them. Our great saints, too, have modeled for us the efficacy of generous spiritual action undertaken in reparation for the sins of others. Good heavens, why do you think monastic men and women pray in their cloisters, not just in supplication, but in reparation as well, for those of us who cannot or will not do it themselves?

It depresses me to hear lay Catholics declare — almost with a sense of pride — that they’ll have no part of reparative prayer, that they’ll do no penances for the sins of her Churchmen. Perhaps they fear that in doing so our priests and bishops will escape Justice. Particularly as we watch investigatory actions stall out of Rome, we know some may. Some very bad men might never be held accountable, it’s true. But Justice is God’s to see to. Even if someone “seems” to be getting away with bringing a terrible sickness upon the Body of Christ, we know that they will answer to Eternity. In the meantime, what will happen when we face our own accounts — when Jesus asks us what we did to restore and repair his Body? Will we say, “Well, I was so angry for your sake, Lord, that I refused to pray; I refused to offer reparations, or make any sacrifices for the sake of your Body, because of the insult to you!”

Anger is understandable. Who or what is ultimately served by our anger must be asked, though. Do we serve our ego with our righteous refusal to be humbled for the sins of others? Do we serve Christ, or anti-Christ?

One very nice lady wondered how she — a victim of priestly abuse — could possibly be expected to offer anything up but her pain? Well yes, offer up the pain, that’s spot-on. When I wrote of the White Blood Cells that must cleanse the infected heart of the Body, I thought of “those in white robes” in heaven, “who have lived through the tribulation” all those seared through, martyrs or victims.

We have more power than we know

When the Grand Jury report first broke, Fr. Mark Horak, S.J. was blunt:“There isn’t a whole lot you can do because lay people are not in positions of power in the church,” he said.

In one sense he is perfectly right: Rome ultimately holds all the earthly power connected to what we will or will not learn about Theodore McCarrick or the culture that grew and nourished him and others like him. In another sense, though, Horak is wrong. We Catholics may not wield much “earthly” power beyond our time and our checkbooks, but in terms of action and faith, we have the supernatural power of heaven that is tapped into through precisely those practices of prayer and penance some would avoid.

Today’s feastday honoring the Korean martyrs speaks exactly to the power of the laity, as Sr. Catherine Wybourne, OSB relates here:

The history of Christianity in Korea is largely the history of a lay initiative. …As Pope St John Paul II remarked when he canonised the Korean Martyrs in 1984,”The Korean Church is unique because it was founded entirely by laypeople. This fledgling Church, so young and yet so strong in faith, withstood wave after wave of fierce persecution. Thus, in less than a century, it could boast of 10,000 martyrs. The death of these many martyrs became the leaven of the Church and led to today’s splendid flowering of the Church in Korea.”

Sr. Catherine adds:

At present, when many Catholics are expressing anger and disappointment at the way in which bishops and clergy have often failed to get to grips with the evil of abuse, the history of the Korean Church is a stark reminder of the role of the laity and the responsibility we all have for the Church’s growth in number and holiness. We do not abandon the Church because she is not all we should like her to be. We stay and work to ensure that she becomes what the Lord desires she should be — and that applies to all of us, whether we be bishops, priests, laity or religious. We all have a part to play, and though our roles differ, none can be regarded as ‘secondary’ or ‘unimportant’. The feast of the Korean Martyrs is a reminder to laypeople of the greatness of the lay vocation, a gentle warning to bishops and clergy that the power of ruling is not the only one to be valued in the Church, and an encouragement to us all that grace will be given in time of need. Thank God for that.

Amen. Last year the Vatican Museum hosted an exhibit from the history of the church in Korea. There is so much beauty from this lay-begun community. If layfolk can found a church, they can fix a church, too, but never by withholding our prayers, or refusing to tap into the force of heaven.

Image: Pixabay-cc

Catholic Moral Authority: Smothered by the Seeping Smoke of Satan

GUEST POST: Russell Shaw is the author of over twenty books touching on Catholicism, Politics and sometimes both at once. In this guest post, he ponders how with the co-operation of too many within the Church, so much has been lost to evil.

On the Seeping Smoke of Satan

by Russell Shaw

The speaker was a highly sophisticated layman, possessor of a doctorate and professor of theology at a major Catholic university. We had been discussing the metastasizing scandals plaguing the Church—scandals concerning ex-Cardinal McCarrick, the Pennsylvania grand jury, what the Pope knew and when he knew it, and on and on. Then, unexpectedly, my companion said this:

“There is something truly demonic about all this. The Catholic Church was virtually the last voice being raised against the sexual revolution. And that voice has been silenced.”

I glumly agreed. “Who would listen to anything the Church had to say about sex now?”

Although it didn’t occur to me to make the point, it hardly needs saying that sexual morality is far from being the only matter on which the Church’s voice has been effectively silenced. Don’t expect the Church to get much of a hearing for a while on immigration policy, race and racism, or other urgent matters about which Catholic social doctrine has something important to say.

Still, the credibility of Catholic teaching calling for self-discipline and respect for the other in what pertains to sex has unquestionably taken the biggest hit, and it’s no mystery why. Repeated transgressions by people with a grave obligation to live by the rule of chaste celibacy have given the Church’s opponents a giant opening to accuse it of hypocrisy.

It’s a tragedy that this has happened at a time when—at least in the United States — Church leaders for the most part seem to have learned the lesson of their predecessors’ errors and to be enforcing the tough policy on clergy sex abuse that they adopted in 2002. True as that is, the bitter consequences of sins of coverup in the past are now coming home with a vengeance.

There is painful irony, too, in the fact that this is happening on the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical condemning contraception. Near its end, Pope Paul, who will be canonized next month, warned that the rejection of its teaching would help pave the way to a “general lowering of morality.”

What Paul VI didn’t say, perhaps because it seemed too obvious to require saying, was that a parallel dereliction of duty by people who were sworn to uphold and practice chaste celibacy would contribute powerfully—indeed, was even then contributing—to the same catastrophic result.

And although I don’t expect critics of Humanae Vitae to admit it, or perhaps even recognize it, the roar of dissent that greeted the encyclical has also been a factor in the process of silencing the Church’s voice as a teacher of morality. Now the scandal of sex abuse and coverup has finished the job.

And that may be the most important lesson Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, can impart to the extraordinary meeting of himself and his peers that Pope Francis has summoned to convene in Rome next February to discuss responses to the sex abuse crisis.

The bishops of the United States have wrestled collectively with the sex abuse problem since the 1980s, but along the way they neglected an elementary axiom of good public relations: when something bad happens, get all the bad stuff on the record quickly. As a result, they and the Church have paid a terrible price as embarrassing disclosures have dribbled out over the years. At this perilous moment, Pope Paul VI’s famous dictum that the “smoke of Satan” had seeped into the Church again seems painfully pertinent.

Image: Pixabay-cc

Will Cupich’s terrible answer help Francis to focus on sex abuse, coverups?

So, earlier today I happened to see an interview with Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich with the headline, ‘The Pope Has a Bigger Agenda’: Cardinal Cupich. You can watch the very brief interview here.

I found it a bit staggering, and tweeted out a response. I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but…

Cupich’s remarks were so surprising that even Twitchy, a secular site monitoring Twitter, took notice, and pointed out that the Babylon Bee, a satire site, had (in a manner of speaking) anticipated such a response by a few weeks.

Because I am forever a daughter of St. Philip Neri, who said, “All of God’s purposes are to the good, and although we may not always understand this we can trust in it,” (the lesson of the crucifix), I am hopeful that something good will come from this iffy interview.

The reactions to Cupich’s remark have been hot; people hate it. I’ve only seen a few attempts by folks to defend it by saying some variation of “I suspect he only meant the rabbit hole of the Vigano letter…” (See Update – ES)

Well, if that’s what he meant, he might have tried: The pope has a bigger agenda; he wants to pull out the systemic root of corruption, so we’re not going to go down the Vigano rabbithole. Because we want to deliver justice to victims, an investigation will be launched…

Something like that? Better? I think so. Deflecting, playing the race card is neither helpful nor pastoral. On social media I’ve been pretty outspoken about glaring weakness in the Viganò release, but this answer stinks.

There should be nothing on the pope’s agenda that is bigger than the crisis that affects the church in America, in Australia, in Chile, in Honduras, in France, and probably elsewhere. If we do not address and repair the arterial bleed that is the Church’s systemic corruption, worldwide, we will not be a healthy enough church — or a Church with enough moral authority — to speak effectively on the environment or anything else.

Although my warmth is growing chillier, I’m no “Francis hater”, and I know there are ideological factors at play here that complicate things and may even have the pope’s back up a little — perhaps he doesn’t want to feel manipulated, or be seen as bending to a crowd he doesn’t much care for. That’s a human response, and we can all identify with it, but the Holy Father will have to get past it, because he is not only Jorge Maria Bergoglio he is Peter. His absolute first priority needs to be tending a wounded flock and leading the church into wholeness through the pursuit of both Mercy and Justice.

I don’t think I am alone in feeling like he is failing on the defining issue of our time.

A friend has said, “I don’t think one man, or one papacy can fix this.” I agree. But it is absolutely incumbent on Peter, in every iteration, to preserve the health of the flock, to work toward fixing what is broken within the pastures, so they are safe and to feed them with food of Jesus Christ. This must be his first priority or all else fails.

It must be his first priority, because Jesus charged him to it:

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

He then said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.”

He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” [Jesus] said to him, “Feed my sheep. (John 21:15-17)

I dont believe this bleed-out can’t be staunched, but regaining the trust of wounded Catholics, and the world, is going to take decades, and the effort must begin immediately.

I talk to people every day whose hearts are broken, who — if they are not already staying away from worship and the Eucharist — are thinking about leaving. How can Peter feed the sheep if they are too ill, or too disgusted, to come and eat?

Catholics are beginning to see no point in following untrustworthy shepherds. They wonder why they should when the shepherds are corrupt and not looking out for them. Some are beginning to wonder if the shepherds even believe, anymore, in the pasture, or in the food. “If these shepherds truly were in love with Jesus, and wished to serve him,” they think, “they would never do what they have done, or they would make right what they made wrong.”

The Catholic people want Jesus, in spirit and in the Flesh. They want the consolation of the Eucharist, and the fellowship of the rest of the sheep. They can certainly get that at Mass, but — stupid sheep — they also want the awesome experience of falling into the hands of the living God. They want real-time models of faith who challenge them to live better, love better, pursue heaven with vigor. They cannot get that at this moment, with the shepherds and the pasture, in such a state.

You shepherds of the Church, don’t deflect from the most crucial issue facing the Church at this time. Rise above the culture wars. Serve Christ first. Pursue justice for the victims. Root out evil.

Otherwise, may God help you, because the weight you will be carrying into eternity, as Christ asks you “Did you feed my sheep; were any lost while under your watch?” is going to be heavy beyond comprehension. As I wrote elsewhere, do the right things, and we’ll have your backs. We’ll pray for you.

I have no idea whether the Cupich interview inspired this, but the editors at the Jesuit publication, America, just put this up: Pope Francis must lead on the sexual abuse crisis.

Yes. Amen.

UPDATE:For the sake of fairness, here is the full interview with Archbishop Cupich, so you can see his remarks in context. He says some good things, some meh things, some odd things, and went out of his way to emphasize the environment, etc (all unbidden) twice, which suggests a talking point/priority to me. I’m not sure it’s improved in context, but your mileage may vary.

In any event, I don’t think it makes my sentiments here any less valid. What we face is urgent, and the culture war stuff is hurting us. I know there are destructive ideologues all about. The shepherds must rise above it.

UPDATE II: Bishop Cupich’s statement on the video.

Images:
Cupich, via Goat_Girl-cc
Francis, via Zeba48bo-cc

Bishop Robert Reed invites company during public penitential act

My friend Leah Libresco spotted a Church bulletin from Wayland, MA, where we read these encouragingly penitential words by Boston Auxiliary Bishop Robert Reed:

 

 

That’s no small thing, but a pretty grueling penitential effort. His full statement reads:

 
A couple years ago, on a Monday morning, I was informed that I had been named a bishop. When I accepted, I was conscious of the fact that, I also would have to accept whatever the future held with a complete openness to God’s will; much like in a marriage, or when I was ordained a priest.

These days, I find myself deeply disturbed by what is happening in the Church. I know the bishops must act decisively and that the action needs to be thorough, transparent, professional and in cooperation with competent laypeople. But still, I ask the question: what can I do?

All I know is that I can pray and do penance. To that end, and as your pastor, I commit myself to a full day and night of public penance.

On Monday, September 24, 2018, I will celebrate the 9 o’clock Mass in Saint Ann Church as I usually do. Following that Mass I will expose the Blessed Sacrament and remain there in prayer and fasting until the next morning, concluding this period of prayer and penance with the celebration of the 9:00 am Mass on
Tuesday.

All throughout this period, the church will remain open. You are most welcome to join me in prayer for a few minutes or for a full hour. In fact, I would welcome your presence as I do the only things I know to do in the face of evil; prayer and penance.

Most sincerely,
Bishop Reed

Acts of public penitence by bishops and pastors are absolutely needed. I’ll repeat myself and say a Holy Hour of Reparation, involving the bishops and simultaneously observed by the whole US Church would be a very good thing, indeed. But absent that, why not ask our own pastors and bishops to join Bishop Reed’s efforts — and invite the people of their diocese and parishes — to participate in at least part of this 12-hour public penance?

This is not terribly difficult to set up, and there is plenty of advance notice, here. I’m going to send this to my bishop, and to others around this area, asking them to follow Reed’s example, either on September 24, or another date, within the month.

Image: Ebutlerctv-cc

The Church’s “Summer of Shame” Promises a Fall of Shame. LOTH Helps.

GUEST POST: Daria Sockey is the author of The Everyday Catholic’s Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours. (LOTH) She is also a frequent contributor to Catholic Digest. She lives in Northwest Pennsylvania. Here she reflect on how the psalms and readings of the LOTH (also called the Divine Office) are instructing her through this most extraordinary and difficult time for the Church. I am pleased Daria permits its publication here, as a guest. – ES.

On the Office of Readings, August 26, 2018 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

by Daria Sockey

It’s the “Summer of Shame”, which promises to become a Fall of Shame. (And Winter? Year? Decade?)

We’re living with the pain of the sexual abuse scandals at every level in the church. For me, it began in May, when a former pastor of my parish church (whom I’d once thought of as the ideal priest) went to jail for the usual reasons that priests go to jail.

Then in June came the revelations about (the former) Cardinal McCarrick.

In August, the Pennsylvania grand jury report on decades of abuse across my state. Horrifying as it all was, I could only pray that more of the rot would be revealed in other states and other nations, in the hope that only through the horror and shame of such revelations would come the possibility of cleansing and healing.

As the saying goes, be careful what you pray for. Less than two weeks after I began doing penance that God might grant courage to more clerics to speak out about who-knew-what-and when, Cardinal Vigano made his explosive statement about corruption and coverup at the highest levels in the church. Once more, that tumult of anger, sadness, confusion, betrayal. Though the story is still shaking out, and all is not known, as I read Vigano’s letter the only small comfort was to remember that “I” meant “we”: the many comments of many friends and acquaintances on social media all conveyed the same tumultuous emotions along with the conviction that this newest bombshell was necessary.

This morning, I went out on the front porch with my breviary and a cup of coffee. My custom — when time permits — is to say the Office of Readings, immediately followed by Lauds. What I read there fit perfectly with my own mood and with the state of the Church. It wasn’t so much comforting as bracing.

Most of us, being nice people, are a tad uncomfortable with those psalms that heap abuse on the wicked while fervently hoping for their downfall. In prayer we usually apply those verses to the enemies we can safely detest without being judgmental: Satan, and our own sinful inclinations become the foes whose faces we wish to strike and whose teeth we want to break. (Psalm 3:8) And that is fine.

But another object of our Psalmic scorn can be institutionalized sin. And today’s Psalter (Psalms 1, 2 and 3) certainly helped me decry that with God’s own inspired word. “For they, like winnowed chaff, shall be driven away by the wind. When the wicked are judged they shall not rise.”(Psalm 1:4-5) “His rage will strike them with terror.” (Psalm 2:5) And of course, the bit about dental issues already cited.

How much do we dare — we who are all sinners — to apply such verses to individuals, to wish for the downfall of clerics who have victimized young people (from children to seminarians) or who have been complicit or timid in the face of these crimes? I think to the extent that by “downfall”, we want them to “fall down.” Fall down from positions of authority they did not deserve. Fall down in repentance so that their souls may be saved. If we can wish for that without savoring their pain (if and when that occurs), then I think we are on solid ground.

Let’s move on. The first reading was from Zephaniah. It’s even more bracing, and more sobering, than the psalms, which at least leave us righteous folk in a position to criticize. But chapter 1 verses 1 thru 7, then 14 thru 18 suggest an apocalypse that will leave none of us untouched. “I will completely sweep away all things from the face of the earth, says the Lord…I will sweep away man and beast…I will overthrow the wicked; I will destroy mankind from the face of the earth, says the Lord….I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem…A day of wrath is that day, a day of anguish and distress, A day of destruction and desolation…

As I read that on this particular day, I somehow can’t bring myself to say, “Wait Lord! Destroy them but don’t hurt us! It’s not our fault! Fix things so that the church is purified quickly and we can become comfortable once more!” Because, A) It’s a fact of history that the good and the evil both suffer when plagues, wars and purges wrack the earth and B) How “good” am I, anyway? Sometimes my kids protested their innocence when I punished them. I’d reply, if that’s the case, then this is for the times you did wrong and didn’t get caught, and 3. I haven’t read the final chapter that God has already written in this drama.

The reading concludes with a few verses of chapter 2, which suggest that maybe, just maybe, we will be spared the worst of it: “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth who have observed his law; Seek justice, seek humility; perhaps you may be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.

Justice AND humility. It’s a fine line to walk, but it all makes sense. Walk that line, in fear and trembling.

Finally, the concluding prayer (which is also Sunday’s collect at Mass) pointed me towards ongoing attitude adjustment:

“…Grant…that amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place were true gladness is to be found.”

I invite everyone to take up the Liturgy of the Hours, in whole or in part, during this turbulent time. It will give you the words — God’s word — for praying and thinking about this crisis.

Image: Anthony Easton/flickr/PinkMoose

See also: The Spiritual Alimentary System of the Church is Polluted

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