Thursday, April 17, 2008

Reptititous

I hear alot about the “vain repititions” of Catholic prayers.  Whenever I hear this I’m always reminded of a story about my friend Joy.

 Joy was at the end of a very difficult pregnancy.  After a long and arduous labor her son was finally born, the doctors weren’t sure he was going to survive, but he had been born.  Very soon the little boy began to thrive and the immediate threat was somewhat diminished.  But Joy was not doing so well, she had begun to hemorrage and nothing seemed to stop it.  Now Joy was a good little Baptist girl and she believed all the nonsense that she had been told about Catholics and their repititous prayers.  She always prayed the “right way”, you know, spontaneously.  No canned words for her.  But as she lay on the operating table she felt quite certain that she was going to die.  This was not a panicked fear, but a heartfelt certainty - she was going to die on that operating table.  She was never going to see her new son, or her other two children ever again, she was going to have to trust that her husband was going to take care of these little ones.  She wanted desparately to talk to God, she wanted to put them in His hands, she wanted to cry out to Him, but the pain was too much.  The hurt was so intense that coherent thought was not possible.  But what would and did come out was the Our Father.  This prayer was memorized and could be said without gathering words.  It expressed everything that she needed to say.  It expresses everything that any of us ever need to say:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Evil

What else is there?

Joy prayed this prayer, out loud, over and over and over and over.  All the while that the doctors and nurses were frantically prepping her for surgery she kept up her prayer.  Over and over and over and over.  She wasn’t really aware that she was saying it out loud, but she was.  After the ordeal was over, and she did not die, but lived to to see her precious little ones again, one of the nurses came to see her.  She commented on how serene Joy had been in the midst of the turmoil, and how much she had been affected by Joy’s prayers. 

So what is the verdict?  Did God despise my friend Joy’s prayers?  Were they merely vain and repititous words, devoid of meaning? 

Joy certainly didn’t think they were devoid of meaning, for her they were full of meaning.  They were the evidence of God’s presence on the gourney with her, they were the rock she clung to in her most deparate hour. 

So whenever I am told by others that my Rosary or my Divine Mercy Chaplet are vain and repititous words, I think of Joy, and I cling to my Rock.

Posted by at 18:26:11 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Should They Stay or Should They Go

The other day I visited a friend who asked if living in Texas had given me an opinion on illegal immigration.  She told me a story about a brother in law who employs quite a few fellows of Mexican origin.  They all have their papers (whatever that means!) that must be filed in order to work in the US.  Or at least he had what covered him, because he has no way of knowing if any of these papers are false.  Apparently some of them WERE false and several of these fellows were taken away in some kind of “raid”.  Well the rest of his crew walked off too – in solidarity.  He was in the middle of a big project that had to get finished, so of course he had to hire whoever else was available.  He wasn’t very happy with the quality of work that these new guys did and lamented the fact that these fellows he had before had been taken away.  He wished the government would leave them alone, or declare them all legal, whatever the proposals have been.  

My friend wondered if I agreed with her brother in law (they live in Mississippi), or if living in Texas (where illegal immigration is more apparent) had given me other thoughts.

I have never had a firm opinion on what “ought” to be done, because I could see both sides of the issue – at least politically speaking.  But lately I’ve been looking at this issue in a new light, thinking about it in different terms.  Becoming Catholic has changed my thinking in lots of ways, but I didn’t expect illegal immigration to be one of them!

I tried to explain to my friend what was going ‘round my brain.  How I was trying to reconcile mercy and compassion with our nation’s laws.  How I was trying to understand the Old Testament admonition to the Nation of Israel to treat the foreigner and the alien with kindness because Israel knew what it was to be the alien, while also following Paul’s advice to obey those in authority over me, namely my government.

This subject came up again in an email group that I’m a part of, so when I turned on a DVRed Sunday Night Live with Father Groeschel and he was answering questions about his view of immigration, I decided it was kismet – I was blogging about it!

I can’t do better than just summarize what Father said, because he voiced what I was thinking, but unable to vocalize, and explained where the ideas come from.  So here’s what he had to say (a little caveat – I know this is a “hot topic”, I know that not everyone will agree with me, that’s okay, I have no intention of swaying them):

People are first human beings before they are a nationality and they should be treated as such.  As human beings they mirror the image of God and we should treat them as that, not as “Americans” or “Mexicans”.  Thomas Aquinas says that the earth belongs to the human race it doesn’t belong to any nation.  This is natural law, and natural law precedes national law.
Why do people come?  Why do they leave their homes and sometimes their families to come to America?  It’s because they are desperate.  They are poor.  Here they have a chance to support their families in a way that they can’t back home.  We in America are rich because of the poverty of other countries.  We suck up their natural resources and their money.  We use their people and their land for cheap labor and then we deny them our borders!  We deny them an escape of what we helped create (it bothers me to have to citation for this).
According to Father Groeschel (who based his knowledge on the testimony of many immigrants he has spoken to) illegal immigrants buy phony green cards.  So when they work they send in all their taxes and Social Security (and their employers match it).  After a few months they receive a letter from the government saying they sent in the wrong green card number, so they send in another phony one.  The government never responds again!  So the US government is implicitly involved!  These people pay in taxes and SS, but they can’t ever get those benefits!  That means that millions of people are paying into SS that will never see a dime of that money!  
There are 4 sins in the Old Testament that are said to “cry to heaven”:
1.    murder
2.    adultery
3.    profanation of the Holy
4.    denying workers their wages
It seems to me that denying SS benefits to those who pay in is denying the worker his wages!  This is a grave injustice.
He goes on to say that America is not just guilty of abortion and slavery, but the way we treat those inside of our borders (however they came to be here) also cries to heaven.  They are here because they are poor.  They want to give their children a chance!  Just like us…

Posted by at 01:46:28 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

The True King

This morning ds and I were reading about Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin and Pilate.  When we got to the part where Pilate hands Jesus over to the soldiers for scourging (where they beat him, strip his clothes, give him a crown of thorns and then make fun of him, mocking his “kingship”) I couldn’t help myself, I had to point out the similarities to Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings.  I’ve never studied Tolkien, so I have no idea what he had in mind while he was writing this particular scene, so what follows is only my own personal thoughts.

My absolute favorite scene in the whole trilogy is when Aragorn is standing before the Black Gate of Mordor.  He has just announced himself King and is asking to meet with Sauron.  Up until this point he has kept his identity secret from all but a few.  His most intimate companions know who he is, and Sauron has been allowed to guess that he is about, but now he makes the pronouncement public.  He stands before his enemies and uncloaks himself, so to speak.  Sauron, of course, won’t (and indeed can’t) come out to meet with him, but he sends another - a man who Sauron has twisted to his own will so completely that he can’t remember his own name- the Mouth of Sauron.  The Mouth of Sauron rides up and laughs at the gathered crowd.

          “Is there anyone in this rout with authority to treat with me?  Or indeed with wit to understand me?  Not thou at least!”, he mocked, turning to Aragorn with scorn.  “It needs more to make a king than a piece of elvish glass, or a rabble such as this.”
          Aragorn said naught in answer, but he took the other’s eye and held it, and for a moment they strove thus; but soon, though Aragorn did not stir nor move hand to weapon, the other quailed and gave back as if menanced with a blow.

Aragorn, the true king, does not argue or seek to defend himself, either with words or with his sword.  He knows who he is and insults from his enemies can’t change that reality.  He knows that nothing will be gained by violence at this point in the story (that will come soon, as Sauron unleashes his forces against them), but I love how when the Mouth of Sauron is forced to look into Aragorn’s eyes, into the true king’s eyes, he cannot stand.  Aragorn does not return evil for evil, his hope is to overcome evil with good.  When the Mouth of Sauron, the emissary of the false king, looks into the eyes of the true king, he is afraid, he sees his own defeat (no matter that the forces of evil greatly outnumber the forces of good, that does not seem to give him courage).  The true king does not need to conquer his enemies by force (Aragorn knows that it makes no difference who wins the physical battle at hand, the war will be decided by Frodo and the Ring), it is by being humble that Aragorn seeks his victory (after all this is merely a ploy to keep Sauron’s eye on the outskirts of Mordor and away from Frodo and Sam in the interior). 

But enter in Peter Jackson and his film adaptation of this book, and this scene in particular.  He has Aragorn react to the taunts of the Mouth of Sauron with violence!  He cuts off his head!  He ruins the picture of the true hero, the true king (and the True King he can be seen to imitate).  Instead of strength of character, he has only strength of arms. 

I can’t help but make this comparison…  Tolkein’s Aragorn is like Jesus - he doesn’t stoop to defend himself from the taunts of his enemies.  He is humble and patient, waiting for the right moment.  While Jackson’s Aragorn is like Peter - he acts without thought for the consequenses (specifically he reacts with violence when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus).

Posted by at 18:58:01 | Permalink | Comments (2)