It’s a massive task – a massive responsibility… and I must say, I don’t think we’re doing a very good job of it. The reasons why are many, but the fact remains – as Keith Green said, years ago, “This generation of believers is responsible for this generation of souls.” We need to wake up and do our job – because we will be held acountable for it, on the Day of Judgment.

So – what is this Gospel we’re supposed to be carrying into the world? It’s neatly summed up in the Credo – “I believe in One God….” and one doesn’t have to have a doctorate in Systematic Theology to get the gist of the Creed. It’s simple, basic, practical. It’s Theology For Beginners in a nutshell. It gives us a clear idea of Who God Is and what our relationship to Him is.

Furthermore, we ought not to be reluctant to speak of Him – particularly when we hear people who have a misguided sense of Who God Is. After all, instructing the ignorant is one of the Spiritual Works of Mercy.

What may be a bit trickier is this business of infusing the world with gospel values. Just what does that mean? And what difference does it make?

Well, because of Who God Is – the basic truths laid out in the Creed – there are things we are obligated to do. There are values and morals we are supposed to live. Yes, it really matters what we do in this world. While it is true that God wants us to be happy, it is not true that means we can pursue “happiness” without regard to His commands. In order to be God’s kind of happy – eternally happy with Him in the Beatific Vision – we have to live according to His blueprint.

Looking at the Old Testament, particularly in the Books of Exodus and Leviticus, we see a strange thing. Again and again, we see Commandments being introduced with words like these: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt….”  and then a rule or command follows. It is as if God is laying out for us a basic cause-and-effect proposition: Because of Who I am, you will behave in thus-and-such manner to reflect that you belong to ME, and not to some other god.”

Let’s face it – those other gods were not nice. We got a glimpse of this in our basic mythology lessons, back in our school days. Those Greek myths we were subjected to actually reflected the whole of the ancient pagan world. The gods were licentious, murderous, vindictive, manipulative, calculating, deceitful… utterly selfish. Self-serving. And the cultures that considered themselves governed by these gods were governed by the same self-serving qualities of the deities they had invented for themselves.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, on the other hand, was a very different character. He demanded a certain ethos from his people – an ethos very different from the pagan cultures that dominated the world – because He was a very different God.

Those values were obedience, honesty, kindness, hospitality, respect for life, due reverence to Him, sexual morality, respect for others’ self and property. The Ten Commandments is the same in-a-nutshell blueprint of the morality required of the people of God – but what we don’t often think of is that those Commandments stand in stark contrast to the rest of the world’s values.

The world we now live in has been infused – saturated! – with what are actually pagan values: sexual license, the treatment of people as utilitarian objects, acquisitiveness, and so on.

To infuse the world with gospel values requires two things of us – First, we must become familiar with what gospel values are. NO, GOSPEL VALUES DO NOT EQUAL WHAT THE WORLD CALLS “SOCIAL JUSTICE!” Often gospel values require us to stand up and say, “No, this thing you are doing is immoral and dangerous to society,” and we must say this even while the world insists we are wrong for saying it.

And that leads to the second thing – we must be willing to have God re-arrange us, to be, truly, our Lord. When Paul wrote to the Romans, “Be transformed… by the renewing of your minds,” he was speaking to a people who had converted to Christ out of one of the wildest, most depraved pagan cultures recorded in history. Paul realized that these people, in order to be truly converted to Christ, had to undergo a total paradigm shift. Their minds – their attitudes, their sensibilities – had to be transformed from their old pagan identity (what! did you think the gentiles were “Protestant Jews”?) to a completely different identity, an identity that reflected the integrity of this One they had given themselves to in Conversion.

And so must we. I believe we are obligated, as Christians, to hold each of our opinions and attitudes up to God and to ask Him, “does this please You?” – We have to embrace Gospel Values in order to be able to bring those into the world we inhabit.

But I didn’t like the debates, the negative tactics, and so on. I couldn’t keep up with issues; I was more inclined to parrot what I heard other people saying.

In the past four years, however, I have begun to be very interested in politics. Having some idea what is happening in our dear Nation, knowing how my elected representatives are representing ME, and having an idea of their intentions while they’re campaigning – it’s all part of good citizenship.

It’s also part of being a good Christian. In the Second Vatican Council, the role of the Christian laity was laid out:

First, to carry the Gospel into the world, into the marketplace, into the highways and byways of society where priests and religious do not frequent, or may not have access at all.

Second, to infuse this world with Gospel values.

Taking a basic interest in politics is very much a part of the latter.

But what are Gospel values? – (to be continued)

She made what I think was an astute observation, which is the point of this post. We both agree that we MUST have a solid and assertive set of candidates to choose from in the primary, next year. President Obama has already begun campaigning for his second term – and God knows, we cannot survive another four years of this incompetence.

She said, and I agree, that the nation could be heading toward another civil war if things aren’t turned around. BUT – she stressed the spiritual nature of the combat at hand.

And she’s right. The coming battles are those of character and principle and not of personality cults or even agendas. The current political arena is an exclusive old-boys’ club where too often the people with the concerns and the intelligence to DO something about them are locked out. Nepotism abounds – and that’s bad for the nation and for our communities.

We must prepare. We must begin with prayer, with regular, disciplined prayer that transforms us and leads us where we need to go – not the sort of prayer that attempts to dictate to God what we will and won’t have from Him, thank you very much.

And we must understand. Our public schools have been depriving us of understanding for more than forty years, now; we must educate OURSELVES to understand what the principles are, what they mean, how they affect us.

We have a tremendous responsibility. Privileges carry with them responsibility; I believe our rights carry even greater responsibilities. We are, we will be accountable for how we have lived as citizens and sojourners in this world.

After all – it is our mandate as Christians to bring true Gospel values into the world. True ones, not the politically correct ones that ignorant people have been persuaded they have to embrace – ones that even a rudimentary understanding of the Scriptures would show are soul-damaging. To take the Gospel into the world, to infuse the world with gospel values…

We have to begin with prayer.

(to be continued)

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him as many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” – Mt. 18:21-22 (RSV)

We’ve got two things going on in this brief passage that I want to look at.

First of all there is the idea of our brother continually sinning against us. There are grave sins – like physical violence, theft, marital infidelity – and I don’t think the Lord is talking about these. I think He’s addressing the ordinary offenses and grievances that people commit against one another, that rub up against one’s ego and pride.

There’s an example – we all have seen this, I expect – of the woman whose husband is sometimes thoughtless or selfish or perhaps a bit coarse or impatient… and she tells all her friends that she just can’t stand any more of it. Sometimes she uses these things as an excuse to run home to Mama.

Somewhere this woman has been told – erroneously – that she has these “rights” not to have her feelings hurt, to have all her needs met by one person.

She needs to learn to forgive these disappointments no matter how often they come. Seventy times seven, if need be. Fact is, we don’t have any inalienable rights to have our precious feelings protected from all hurts – or else we also must face up to the fact that we are prohibited from hurting others’.

On the other hand (and this is the second point) – I don’t think the Lord requires of us that we subject ourselves to dangerous behaviors again and again and again. In the point of history when He was on the earth, women had no choices – but we do. We have a lot of choices. And sometimes for the sake – not only of our own safety but also of our abuser’s immortal soul! – we must put our foot down and say “No more!” – and do whatever is necessary to put an end to the abuse -

whether that abuse is physical abuse, or marital infidelity (which includes the infidelity of pornography), or alcohol or drug addiction that renders the addict wholly irresponsible and hurtful, or any other gravely immoral behavior.

In such cases, a single violation of trust can be so severe that it requires multiple forgiveness – each one as if it were the first – for the whole of one’s life. Seventy times seven for one terrible offense.

We can think we have an issue taken care of – but something will cause it to return to us as fresh and as bitter as if it had just been committed, or discovered. Perhaps a dream, perhaps a comment from someone else – sometimes things just come to our minds when we don’t expect them – a temptation to trip us up from our Enemy?

And this is when we have to dig deep and forgive all over again, sometimes working out our anger and hurt as if it were a brand new violation.

It’s not easy – it sure as heck ain’t pleasant. But it’s necessary. And it’s do-able.

I mentioned in my reflection on Nora’s death how people were changed by the caring for her. I am seeing in Uncle Theo a similar change – and from people who never heard of him until last week, and who never laid eyes on him in this world.

News of Uncle Theo’s situation spread through the internet rapidly. Several bloggers picked up the cry, and I myself shared the need for prayer with the 150 or so people on my email prayer group, some of whom also posted on their blogs, on Facebook, on other venues. The outpouring of prayer was immense.

Several of us have found renewed vigor in standing firm for the sanctity of human life as consequence of this.

But one of the most beautiful things I found – I’ve got to share this with you.

I’m a member of the Catholic Writers Guild,  This past week was our very exciting Writers Conference Online – begun each morning at 8:30, half an hour before the first chat conference, with Morning Prayer, led by… yours truly.

I mentioned the need for Uncle Theo on the very first morning after I found out his plight. It is the only time during the conference I initiated any mention of him – because thereafter, conference participants were intitiating the queries – “What’s the word from Uncle Theo?” – “Have you heard anything?” -

Chats were interrupted when I would sign in late – “Laura, have you heard anything?” followed by an explanation to the Presenter and those participants who had missed prior word. Others initiated prayer for Uncle Theo before I could have time to mention him, myself.

Even after his death, Friday, by legal euthanasia (he was in Holland, remember), the Guild members continued to hold his soul – and the souls of family and the medical personnel responsible for promoting this heinous act – in prayer.

We ended the conference last night with a “party,” of sorts – an open chat room. And one of our leaders said, “We need to take a moment to pray…” and it began with prayer for Uncle Theo.

The Communion of Saints – and saints-in-the-making – is a mighty powerful force.

In life we are in death… and in our unity of prayer, then we are very strong.

Amen.

I think about the nature of death – I’m not so much afraid of death as I am of dying (how it could happen, that is). My maternal grandmother had a deep dread of becoming incapacitated and winding up in a nursing home, where she had seen so many family members wind up – “I just hope it’s quick,” she said. And when the time came, it was. She sent my grandfather out to the garden to get an eggplant for lunch, and while he was out there she suffered a massive event of some description; she died moments after Papa found her lying on the hallway floor.

The fact is, we take what we’re given. God hasn’t spoiled us yet by sending us emails and polls asking us how we prefer to go – He determines the time and the method, and that is it.

What we have to do between now and then is to prepare. And one of the ways we prepare is by visiting the sick and dying, which is a Work of Mercy. It’s an obscenity that any of our family members should approach death alone, untended and unsupported by our love.

“I want to remember Granny as she was,” is just a flimsy cover for abject selfishness. We owe our parents, our siblings, our extended families and our friends – even strangers, if we happen to have them placed in our paths – with the very tenderness and compassion that we, ourselves, would have extended to us as we approach the hour of meeting God face to face.

Death is a part of life – it’s the end of the finite and the beginning of Eternity. We experienced its parallel in being born – dying the security and familiarity of the womb to be born into our life as independent creatures. This is only the prep school for Eternity, after all.

No need to be squeamish. No need to recoil. Comfort the afflicted – visit the sick and dying.

I haven’t worked on it in a while. I’d reached a point where I was not only at a brick wall, I was paralyzed with fear from the impact with that brick wall. It didn’t help – in fact, it may have reached a critical point – when the university professor I wrote to for research recommendations wrote back: you’ve got a corner on the market.

This is not a responsibility I want to own. I don’t care of Dr. M. did call it “a quandry to be grateful for.” What if I’m wrong? What if I misunderstand? What if I misrepresent…????? and so on, and on, and on…

But it helps that my editor friend writes back and says, “I want to see more! Finish this!”

So – back to work on my book.

Euthanasia sounds like such a compassionate act – take the elderly, the infirm, the incapacitated, the suffering, and just go ahead and ease them out of their misery.  “I don’t want to suffer like so-and-so,” someone will say. “I’d like to just be put out of my misery.” But we don’t really expect to be taken literally, do we?

After all, our hours and our minutes belong to the Author of Life, to God Himself, not to us. We didn’t ask to be born, and we don’t get to determine when or how we die. It’s His call.

We don’t always get to see the point. There lay my dear friend Nora, incoherent so far as we could tell, unable to eat for months because of the cancer that had ravaged her body for the past four years. But her vital signs remained strong, and when her husband tried to help her take her meds, or to perform some other service for her, she fought back.

Pain was compounded by fear.  Severe depression, depression that had required electroshock therapy more than once, had left her bereft of hope. “I’m scared,” she grabbed my arm on one of my visits. “I’m so scared.”

Father had pointed to a statue of an angel and told her to remember her Guardian Angel. “You are not alone,” he promised her. “God loves you.” But she had become unable to hold on to that hope for more than the time it took to sing the refrain of “Be Not Afraid.”

“There’s no point to this!” her husband protested during one of my visits. The lingering, with the impossibility of providing true comfort, or to see how long the ordeal would last, took a toll on everyone. It always does.

But there is a point. And I saw it in the family – in Nora’s husband as he persisted in getting pain meds down her throat for as long a time as she could swallow, in her children as they came and kept vigil with their mother. Love was perfecting them – they might not see it right away; it might take years before they can point to this time in their lives and say, as I now can after my mother’s horrific death from lung cancer, twenty years ago: “We were all made better people because of this.”

Nora died a week ago – at home in her own bed, quietly, gently, naturally. Yes, she was momentarily alone as her husband had to leave the room briefly. But she was not really alone, because her family had waited for God’s hand, for His time, to choose the moment of Homegoing.

That last afternoon, I went to visit. We didn’t know it was the last afternoon, of course. I just went, because it was a day when I could. And after I’d been there a few minutes, another of her friends arrived, and a few minutes after that, still another – and each time a new friend walked in the room, Nora’s breathing quickened and deepened: she was aware that we were there.

Sally and I prayed the Divine Mercy chaplet, sitting by the bed, and Nora became still and quiet, her breathing regular and steady. When Carole came back in, and the conversation shifted to mundane things, her breathing altered with the flow of the conversation.

Nora – who could not actively communicate, was still in our conversation. I’m chuckling to recall how a couple of times she seemed to interject her own responses into my mind. She had a low opinion of one of the people being spoken of, and I could hear her calling him by a not-very-nice word.

But we had to go home, not knowing that it was the last visit, expecting to return the next day – and that evening, while herchildren were en route from their own families and jobs, and while her husband stepped out of the room ever so briefly, she died.

Nora’s death was a victory of human spirit and the Love of God over suffering – seemingly pointless suffering that had the point of perfecting Nora and refining the hearts and characters of those of us who loved her.

What beauty of redemption was circumvented because some Dutch doctors were too impatient to let death come in God’s time? Two doctors told Theo’s daughter that euthanasia was “the only option left.” What obscenity!

And what a stark contrast between these two deaths.

And those gifts are our sharing with Christ His identity as Prophet, Priest and King. These gifts are given to us at the time of our Baptism and Chrismation, whether we’re infants or adults.

Now, the thing is, we don’t hear an awful lot about these gifts except in the context of the Baptismal Rite, but we need to give them some thought -

They’re not just a nice idea, or some other-worldly notion. They’re our mandate.

This is what is holding me up on my work on Pray, Study, Work: doing research on what this identity means, and how we’re supposed to live out these roles in the living of our common priesthood.

Quite the challenge, yes?