D'Jesus Uncrossed vs Jesus Crossed: The Ultimate Revenge

In my  life-long quest to be like St. Mary Magdalene’s “Constant Woman” and imitate her love for Christ, I feel impelled to weigh in on the D’Jesus Uncrossed debate regarding the Saturday Night Live skit which aired a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, it was sick and offensive, but the reason it hit so many nerves was because it was just so wrong!  The talking heads on the news channels argue the double standard of offending Christians with ease but hesitating to do the same to Muslims and Jews but I am sure members of both those religions can find many examples of the same type of persecution.

Perhaps the reason it strikes more harshly with Jesus is because the message of this skit flies in the face of Truth. It is precisely in being “crossed” that our Lord wreaks His revenge.

The Passion Cross, called so aptly a sign of contradiction, conquered violence by accepting violence. All of humanity's sinfulness past, present and future was heaped onto our Lord's body during His Passion as the price for our souls.  Instead of dishing it out, He simply took it . . . . for us.

Jesus Christ came down from His lofty throne at the right hand of God, the Father where He was glorified and worshiped 24/7. He willingly out of love for His Father and for us put Himself into the hands of His creatures for one simple reason: we had gotten it all wrong and needed to know that God desires charity not vengeance, even if waged in His name.  God wants us to know He loves us and as His creation we are also to love.

That is why this skit was just so wrong because though Jesus is fully man, He is also fully God and therefore incapable of the actions portrayed.  Our souls cry out in the face of such offense against God.

So instead of engaging in the same offense, let us Christians seek revenge by praising God for giving us His Son for our salvation. Let us forgive those ignorant SNL writers and actors because it is obvious they know not what they do. Let us admonish them in charity, pray for them in community and humbly draw them to God’s Mercy.  

And let us always boast of Christ Crucified and the reason for our hope.

How to Cure a Sick Society with St. Mary Magdalene

The FIRST station of the cross: Jesus is Condemned to Death

Mary Magdalene’s heart must have felt it had broken in two when she heard these words. Her Lord who had scooped her up from the dirt both literally and figuratively was going to be killed. He was the one man who she learned to trust completely and who she knew deeply loved her and now He was being forcefully taken from her.  What is her response?

The response of any of us is a sum of what we have been taught and what we have learned. At the feet of Jesus, Mary Magdalene was able to discard the lies of the seven demons because these lies were no match to the Truth that pierced her heart. She could now see the lies for what they are. How did she respond?  A true character of a person is how he or she responds to the information given. Are we quiet in the face of persecution or do we speak out? Do we act in anger or forgiveness for the wrongs done to us?

For the individual and for the society this is a life-long process and can only be done if we are informed of the best practices that yield the most good. We modern people think that we are smarter than our ancestors but I propose we are stupider than ever. Why? Because though we are inundated with 24/7 information; it is all opinions and agendas.  We have no arsenal from our collective education to know either how to discern fact from propaganda or how to properly respond to the information that is provided.

I read today in an article by George Weigel that democracy as a way of self-government depends on the character of a people. If the collective character has no virtue, has not learned how to think but only what to think, is distracted from what really matters to what only excites the senses, than so goes the society.  We spend more money on education than ever before and yet are more ignorant  than ever before.

The missing ingredients from the debates on gun control, violence, drug abuse, immigration, economic solutions, etc. is a people steeped in a liberal education that teaches “how” to think and children raised in the art and science of the virtues. With each generation lost, we become a people more pliable and more willing to comply with the power at hand.

My in-laws were purging items from their house recently and asked us if we wanted a set of books they purchased when my husband was young. It is a set of encyclopedias from Britannica Great Books titled, The Great Conversation. Included in the set are books by Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, St. Augustine and Sigmund Freud just to name a few.  I am intrigued since these have always been names I recognized as great, but never read what they actually wrote. I have made it my New Year’s Resolution to read the entire set of books.  I’ve started with the introductory book written by Robert M. Hutchins which explains why these books were compiled. This introductory was written in 1952 and posits that a liberal education is a must in a democratic and industrialized society like the United States.  Without it, people will have too much leisure time and no way to fill it except with idle pursuits. Sound familiar?  He says that if every citizen was taught a liberal education based on the writings of great thinkers then leisure time would be spent debating and putting into practice great thought. This set is based on Western Civilization but he says upfront that Eastern Civilization is just as important but not the scope of this particular set. He lamented what would happen if our (this is 1952 remember) current educational system would be left intact that rather keeps children busy until they are adults and tells them what to know instead of teaching how to think.

I sat back and realized his worst fears have been realized.  We are that stupid society that spends more time talking about the antics of the Kardashians than what is the best response to quashing the evil raining upon Southern Sudan.  We are idiots being molded into whatever the current powers want us to be.  If you have ever watched The Matrix, you can imagine that instead of Neo – we are the dupes in the barrels with probes screwed into our heads.

So how do we reverse this? How do we stand up to this propaganda and say, “My mind does not belong to you?”  We have two ways and they are all at our fingertips thanks to the internet: We teach our children and ourselves the virtues and we pick up these great books by the great thinkers . . .  and we read them!

We put into practice what we discern as Truth.

The virtues, which by the way are the antidote to the seven demons also known as the vices that so plagued Mary Magdalene, build character and teach how to respond in all situations.  They are prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance. These four are the human virtues that are rooted in the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity.  I leave it up to you to research how each is defined but just by looking at them you can see that our society is sorely missing their influence.

The good news is that rising from a lump of putty - or out of the barrel - into a thinking and discerning person of character is very do-able.  Just as St. Mary Magdalene had the good sense to sit at Jesus’ feet despite the chiding of her sister (Luke 10:38-42), we can take charge of our own education and the education of our children.  Turn off the television and put down the fashion magazines and learn how to be the change that you want to see in the world.

So how did St. Mary Magdalene respond when she heard the news that our Lord was condemned to death?  She persevered. She remembered what Jesus taught her and relied on His Truth to keep faith in God and hope in His promise.  In other words, she practiced her virtues.

How to choose God . . . even in a zombie apocalyse

Author's Note: This blog was originally published at the Pilgrim Log blog for the Pilgrim Center of Hope   (http://pilgrimcenter.wordpress.com/) under the title: Simple and Complicated: Thoughts on John Paul II and the Walking Dead

G. K. Chesterton, English writer, thinker and Catholic convert wrote many books and essays on the nature of man, God and life. On his death bed he summed it up in one sentence:

“It is between light and darkness, and everyone must choose his side.”

A friend of mine once spoke of how complicated our Catholic faith is. I have come to realize that both Chesterton and my friend are correct. The Catholic faith is both complicated and simple.

God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Jesus gave us the eight beatitudes and two commandments,

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. "

We Catholics turned these commandments and beatitudes into the Catechism of the Catholic Church and libraries full of documents, writings and studies on our faith. Our Catholic faith is both complicated and simple because humanity is complicated and God is simple. In fact, God can even reduce His twelve commandments and eight beatitudes into one word: Love

God is Love.

So what is our response to this love? This is where we like to complicate things.

After watching Witness to Hope, a film about the life of Pope John Paul, II, I became intrigued with this man of God who has given the world, Theology of the Body – teachings on how the human body is created to respond to God. As someone who always hated her body; his teachings have turned my Catholic faith inside-out, upside-down and set it on fire.

A few weeks ago I bought the book,  Witness to Hope written by George Weigel so I can learn by reading what I should have learned by living through.

This book is not light reading. It is thick with facts, but the gems of wisdom are so precious they compel me to painstakingly read every word for fear I will miss one.

A few weeks ago, I am huddled in my corner chair reading the book while my sons and husband watch their favorite show, the Walking Dead. This show set amidst a zombie apocalypse pits a small rag-tag group of survivors against a majority population of walkers; dead people who somehow are still able to walk and eat.

As I’m reading, I find one of the gems of wisdom: Person and Act, a study by JPII. George Weigel writes about it (emphasis is mine):

Our personhood, he argues, is constituted by the fact of our freedom, which we come to know through truly “human acts.” In choosing one act (to pay a debt I have freely contracted) rather than another (to cheat on my debt), I am not simply responding to external conditions (fear of jail) or internal pressure (guilt). I am freely choosing what is good. In that free choosing, I am also binding myself to what I know is good and true. In this free choice of the good and true, Wojtyla suggests, we can discern the transcendence of the human person. I go beyond myself, I grow as a person, by realizing my freedom and confirming to the good and the true. Through my freedom, I narrow the gap between the person-I-am and the person-I-ought to be.

I sit back contemplating this, when I realize it is being played out on the TV:

The leader of the survivors, Rick, has to deal with a situation: A member of his group has been bitten by a zombie walker, but not killed. Fellow group members are yelling at Rick to kill the man before the inevitable occurs. He looks around and sees his wife, son and the others with terror-stricken faces. Rick knows this man will eventually become a flesh-eating zombie, but for now he is still a man and member of their group.


He turns to the bitten man trying desperately to decide what the correct response is. A scuffle begins as some of the others attempt to take matters into their own hands. Rick makes his choice and shuts it all down with the words, “We don’t kill the living.”

In a complicated situation, Rick chooses a simple good.

Our Catholic faith teaches various way to obey God’s simple command to love. It is why our faith is often described as a web because no matter where you land, you can take intricate strands back and forth, up and down but they all eventually reach the middle . . . . God is love.

I have been making a conscious effort to decide how I “should” respond in the decisions and choices I make every day. To know the simple good, I have to know my faith. Because of God’s simple love for us, He provides it in as many complicated ways as we humans need, by way of Scripture and the Catechism.

Though I will never have to encounter zombie life or death, I may face issues in my family of unwanted pregnancy or removing life support. It’s comforting to know that our Lord will provide the simple answer to these complicated decisions. I trust my Catholic faith to narrow that gap between the woman-I-am and the woman-I-ought to be, and show me how to simply choose the good.

Jesus, I Trust In You - How Practical!

Sometimes, I just don't know what to think.  I try to be well rounded and read and watch both sides of an issue.  Both sides seem so confident in what they say, they both have facts, figures and statistics trip off their tongue. They all seem just so sure;  but their views are completely opposite!

So who am I supposed to believe?  On the recommendation from an email I received encouraging everyone to say, "Jesus, I trust in You" ten times a day, I have begun to notice a tiny voice cutting through the chaos.

I just love the way God works!  He takes me at my word and answers my prayer.  I find myself cultivating a new habit asking Jesus,  "What is reality here?" when I read divisive issues.

I  am noticing already that I am becoming more intuitive about searching for character and for seeking in me what wants to believe one side over another.  I find I am more at peace and not immediately jumping to one side or another and getting dizzy in the process.  I feel engaged, but apart.

The big picture comes to mind and I see myself now wondering what is the agenda here and what is the motivation?  Is it pure or self-serving?

 Don't you just love it when you realize you asked the right question?

Anticipating Mary's Yes

Imagine the nervous anticipation in Heaven in that few seconds between the time Gabriel says, "For nothing is impossible for God" and Mary responds, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word."


How the legions of angels  must have held their breath, not daring to move for fear they would miss her response. Surely Gabriel returned to a Heavenly celebration filled with cheers of praise and thanksgiving for God's sweet mercy and generosity.

Music and laughter fills the skies as they recount that moment when man's salvation arrives and their Queen is crowned.

War on Women: Knowing the Enemy

The close knit group of female advisors to President Obama (Valerie Jarrett, first lady’s chief of staff, Tina Tchen, etc.) convened a meeting with women’s groups at the White House. Their aim was  to urge more women to speak out in support of the president’s decision regarding religious institutions being forced against their conscience to provide free contraceptives and abortion to their employees. An official at the meeting insisting on anonymity told a reporter that participants discussed framing the debate as a war on women. 

There is a war on women and, either out of evil or ignorance, the women mentioned above are the enemy.

CONSEQUENCES OF WAR: 

We in South Texas read almost daily about tortured and maimed bodies of Mexican men and women dumped in mass graves by drug cartels aided by corrupt police and politicians.

The consequences of this War on Mexicans.

Today's newspaper had an article about yet another dumping; improperly disposed of fetuses dumped in a landfill by two Texas women's clinics and an Illinois waste disposal company. 

The consequences of this War on Women.

KNOWING THE ENEMY:

We women have to ask ourselves who is really on our side.

• Is it women and men who push reproductive rights for women so that we have the so called freedom to terminate our God given gift to procreate, to nurture, and to love?  

• Who demand that we be provided cancer causing, clot risking chemicals as the only answer to determining when we or if we have children? 

• Who tell us that if these chemicals we ingest fail to stop a pregnancy we should freely terminate the life within and dump it?  

• Who tirelessly work to discredit the religion founded by Jesus Himself; our Creator who during His Earthly ministry treated women with equality and respect?

Women are created to love, to teach others to love and to lead from the heart.  People who are led by the heart do not kill life, especially not life within their very being.

We women are being duped by the very people who should be looking out for us. Women are equal to men, but they are not the same. The War on Women will only be won by their side when women no longer value their femininity and feel empowered to lead through love. Women's  power comes from our femininity not in spite of it.  

So ask yourself, who is the enemy?

Warhol Seeks the Individual

I confess I am no art fan. 

I know I should be and go to museums with the best of intentions but usually am in and out in less than an hour. 

 

Art such as Andy Warhol and his Soup Can, don’t even get the Clark Griswold’s Grand Canyon “nod and run”  So I was surprised at my interest in Steve Bennett’s article, Warhol’s Reality Show, in San Antonio’s Express-News, S.A. Life section of the 2/5/12 Sunday edition.

In it he mentions Warhol’s devout Catholicism, of which I had no idea, so I had to give this Studio 54 going, Factory legend and 1960s culture darling another longer look.

Since Catholicism teaches that Jesus seeks the individual; His living stones, I interpreted Warhol’s “Big Torn Campbell’s Soup Can (Pepper Pot), as our human desire for God and how we should seek to shed American culture’s love of sameness and uniformity. 

Don’t know if that was his intention, but what I do know is that art is always up to individual interpretation.  So, I guess I’m safe.

I look forward to seeing the rest of his collection, “Andy Warhol: Fame and Misfortune,” at the McNay Art Museum this spring and drawing closer to God.