At this point in my narrative, I would like to tell a story– a story about two boys. They started out like most young children. They loved playing ball. They liked cartoons, especially those filled with lots of super-heroes and villains. Ice-cream was their favorite food, for both main course and dessert. They both had that most peculiar attraction all boys seem to have toward dirt and bruises. And, both wanted a dog. The first boy, Arnold, came from a house which the second boy, Zachary, could only experience in his wildest dreams. Arnold was given everything. He got away with all kinds of poor behavior. His room looked like a bomb hit it. Arnold ate only what he wanted and when he wanted. He had toys piled up in the garage and outside– toys with which he easily tired. He wanted a dog and his parents bought him several purebreds, but he mistreated one of them and it had to be put to sleep. He was a brat. He would cry and yell if he did not get what he wanted, and he would get it. As he got older, he would stay out late, hit all the parties, and even got messed up with a pretty tough crowd. His parents thought, well he’s just a boy having fun. To say he was spoiled would have been an understatement. It is a little sad really. When he grew up into a man, things did not get much better. He stayed a self-centered child. Unfortunately, his parents could not live forever, and when they died, he found himself alone, unable to cope or to be happy in the world. He could not satisfy his desires, and they were unbridled– lawless. He was unhappy.
The second boy, Zachary, wanted a lot of things too, but from day one his parents set down the law. If he spoke out of turn or showed any kind of disobedience or disrespect, he was punished, maybe even spanked. His mother was a stickler on cleanliness and so he had to always make his bed and keep his room clean. He had a curfew time and could only play or watch TV after his homework. He did not have everything he wanted; and his father made sure he knew that some of the things he wanted, he would have to earn. Not being merely preoccupied by things, he had time to read and create worlds inside of himself. He even liked to pray, although sometimes his prayers were more in line with petition than anything else, especially in reference to a dog. Goodness! How much he wanted one! But his mother was allergic, so he never did, that is until he was a man. He resented some of the things his parents had made him do, but he was not quite so empty as Arnold. Indeed, some of the rules he experienced as a child helped to make him into a more responsible adult. He would delay gratification, seek the truth of things, and organize his life. When his parents were dying, he helped them cope. He did not have to lean on them any longer; he could stand on his own two feet and help others to do the same. I won’t say his parents were perfect. Sometimes they might have been too harsh.
The story of these two boys represents two extremes– one of law and one of lawlessness. Now, it is sometimes difficult to keep these poles in tension; however, we need to try. We need both freedom and law. Indeed, law itself can promote freedom. It prevents one from abusing the rights of another, reminding us of our responsibilities to one another and to God.
Zachary, like Israel of old was given a code of conduct, the law. This made him responsible. However, the law sometimes seemed too strict. This also happened in the life of Israel; the little laws attached to the commandments multiplied so incredibly that only a Pharisee it seemed could keep the whole of it. People felt condemned before they even tried to be faithful. Jesus came to fulfill the law, not to destroy it. He came to rid his people of the oppressive weight which had grown up around the law of God.
The parents of Zachary might have done well to hear this, too. He knew that his parents set down rules because they loved him– that is what made it possible for him to follow them. But, sometimes there might have been too many expectations. We all have to be careful that the rules we expect ourselves and others to live by are neither too cumbersome nor too weak. Israel would not have held together as a nation had it not been for the law. And neither would a lot of families today survive without rules and reasonable expectations. So too the Church, in the laws she sets to govern her members, must always be just and fair. The same goes for governments.
Look at Sirach 15:15-20. We find the verse, “If you choose you can keep the commandments; it is loyalty to do his will.” God does not ask of us the impossible. Sin is not inevitable in our lives. Filled with the Spirit which makes us New Christs, we can indeed follow the Father in his will for us. He will give us the strength to follow his commands. It may happen that we will not be perfectly open at first, and thus will stumble from time to time, but we need not fear if we love Jesus– in Christ is our victory.
In Matthew 5:17-37, Jesus tears away the outer trappings of the law of God to reach its heart. He recalls the commandments and extends them. Thou shall not kill. But anyone angry with his brother or sister may be judged as a murderer. Thou shall worship the Lord thy God. But anyone who is unreconciled to another is told to stay away from the altar. Why? Because such a person is unreconciled with God, too. Thou shall not commit adultery. But, as if this might not be hard enough for some, he reminds us of adultery in the heart, hidden to all but ourselves and God. The Gospel of Matthew attaches an assortment of other sayings. None of them are easy. Jesus prohibits divorce and remarriage. He reminds them to be a people of truth in keeping their oaths and not a people of lies. He tells them to be clear and decisive in their discipleship.
All these things were not hammered down upon us because God likes to see us suffer. It is just that there is no other way. The commands of God, both in revelation and in our nature, are to wean us away from weakness, sin, selfishness, and the evil one. God, like a good parent, offers us guidance as to how we can be truly happy and fulfilled. That does not mean it will always be easy. It won’t always be hard either. And for some, let us face it, it will be more difficult than for others. We have to believe in God’s wisdom and that of his Church even when we in ourselves are struggling or uncertain.
Jesus came not so much to destroy the law as to fulfill it. When St. Paul speaks of the eradication of the law, he speaks as one already conscious of being redeemed by Christ– of being a recipient of the law fulfilled. As for St. John, the experience of love is the sole motivation for fulfilling any law or commandment– divine or ecclesial. We know the divine laws; hopefully, we also know the precepts of the Church– such things as Sunday attendance at Mass, marriage inside the Church, going to confession, supporting the Church, etc. But the motivation for all these things should be not so much the law, which is given out of love to guide us, but on account of our own love for God and one another.
That kind of belief and trust in God today is being challenged from many quarters. And I am not so sure that it is an entirely bad thing. If we can be faithful servants while in the midst of the storm, how easy we should find it when the weather calms.
I would like to return to my story of the two young men, Arnold and Zachary. Who are we most like, Arnold who needed more discipline in his life, or Zachary, who maybe, though he was happy, needed a little more freedom? I think Christ offers the way here. We need to see law in a positive light, as a sign of love, as a means to true freedom. If Christ could be obedient to the Father, even unto embracing the Cross– how could obedience fail to be anything but a blessing and joy for us? Like the Psalmist, we can also share in his cry of joy: “Happy are they whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Happy are they who observe his decrees, who seek him with all their heart” (Psalm 119:1-3).
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Traditional Catholics and Homeschooling parents are always lamenting the fact that they cannot find modest swimsuits for the young women in the family. Everything is designed these days to show ballooning cleavage and legs extended past the waistline, or so it seems. It is all a very scary business, especially if there are young men and teenage boys on the beaches too. Remember, the most dangerous thing for a teenage girl is a teenage boy! Many of us have not visited beaches in years so as to preserve the custody of the eyes. Well, if you are tired of parading your young daughters to the ravenous beach wolves, there is hope in sight. It comes from a highly unlikely place, the Muslims.
SPLASHGEAR MODEST SWIMWEAR has been designed with loose-fitting swim shirts (yes, even that pretty neck is covered!), swim pants (legs, what legs?) and hair covers (which she can use at Mass, too!). Why these girls look almost like boys they are covered so effectively. Fathers will no longer have to worry, indeed, they can get modest swim-gear for their wives too (they come even in jumbo sizes!).
The Church should start its own line, and we could sell to “good” Catholics and Muslims alike. But until then, the Muslims have online and mail-order catalogues! If our kids are afraid that others might make fun of them, we can start groups that will go to pools and beaches together. Catholic homeschoolers and Muslim girls can swim together and urge authorities to force those nasty boys to go somewhere else! With strength of numbers, our families and girls can admonish the other so-called Catholic females on the beach: “Have you no shame for exposing yourselves in underwear? Protestants, I mean Prostitutes wear more clothes than you! Why don’t you save money and just wear a couple pieces of cotton thread instead of that $500 string-bikini! Your butt is fat! My newborn baby sees you and all he wants to do is nurse!” You’ll have those immodest sirens running from the beaches in tears.
The Lord appears to Mary Magdalene, consoles her, and sends her off with the news, “I have seen the Lord!” (see John 20:11-18). The insistence upon the witness of women in the Scriptures reveals to us just how much both men and women were called to be Christ’s disciples. Mary Magdalene proclaims the Good News to Jesus’ other followers, the men with whom he had entrusted his apostolic authority and power. Notice his words to her. She is so thrilled to see him that he must immediately tell her not to cling to him. He exclaims that he is “ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God!” This is one of the clearest statements by Christ that his particular Easter event will also be ours. The words also echo the time when he taught his friends to call God, “Our Father,” in the Lord’s Prayer. We, who belong to Christ, belong also to the one who sent and raised him up. We who are now identified with Christ can appropriately call God our adopted Father. He keeps us in existence and in baptism refashions us into the likeness of his Son.
The title chosen for this subheading might make one imagine a romantic setting where some daring spy has an affair with a deadly enemy agent. Such is how our minds and imaginations work these days. The arachnologist might fantasize in some poor anthropomorphic way about the love of two black widow spiders. The male was under her spell. Did he know that her embrace guaranteed new life and the end of his own? Snap! She bites off his head — oblivion, the end of a relationship — now he is merely fodder for a patricidal cannibalistic brood. Sweet and deceptive is the kiss of death. Perhaps the maiden being drained of her blood by a vampire in a late-night B-movie would think so? I digress enough. While these might make interesting if not sick asides; what I want to mention briefly is a far more realistic kiss, a kiss which has touched the lives of each and every one of us.
A few years ago, I recall watching a re-run episode of the old series, The Twilight Zone, which I think might help us to appreciate God’s Word. In it, three robbers made an incredible heist of gold bars. It was worth a fortune. However, the gold was too hot to handle. So, one of the men, being a scientist, devised a way for them to go into suspended animation or sleep, to wake up healthy and rich a hundred years hence. They bet their lives on this proposition for wealth. A hundred years later, they awaken from their slumber. Sometime during their stasis, a rock had fallen and had broken a glass cylinder containing one of their friends. He was dead. There were only two left; so much the better. They would be richer for it — they thought. The remaining two men exited their cave in the desert with their loot. The sun was hot. Civilization was no longer where it used to be. The truck they had counted upon broke down. They fought with each other. Greed set in. The water became scarce. A tussle broke out and suddenly, there was only one man left. He laughed. He was rich beyond avarice. He carried the heavy bars in the hot desert sun. Just when he thought he was finished, he met a couple of people in some kind of futuristic hot-rod. He fell to the ground. “Water, water,” he begged, “Give me some water and I’ll make you rich beyond your dreams!” He held out the gold. One of the people whom he met pitied the dying man but found him very curious. For everyone knew that in the latter twenty-first century, gold was easily accessible and virtually worthless.
The message which emerges from our Gospel is sometimes quite unsettling. Take for instance Mark 7:1-8;14-15;21-23. Preachers might even be afraid to bring further attention to it because of the possible angry reactions it might evoke. None of us, myself included, like to be reminded of how imperfect, weak, and sinful we are. We create all kinds of barriers in our lives to protect ourselves from this realization. We try earnestly to project images of wholesomeness and sanctity, even when we realize that we have a long way to go.
Many parishes celebrate “Come Home for Christmas” and “Come Home for Easter” reconciliation services. Of course, Confession is available all year long. Priests delight in being ministers of reconciliation. The Christian regularly needs to examine his conscience and behavior.
Jesus appears to his friends and wishes them peace (Luke 24:35-48). I want to speak briefly about this appearance and a connection we can make with it in our lives. When his friends doubt it is him, or fear that it might be a ghost, he tells them to look, to see, and to touch. He shows them his wounds and says, “…a ghost does not have flesh and bones as I do.” Then he accepts and eats a piece of fish with them. St. Luke is adamant in having us understand that he is really in this scene and no mere ghostly apparition or simply an internal feeling that he is present, as we sometimes sense at prayer. He is much more here.
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