Christmas 2020.  Covid Blues.  Christmas: Green Hope & Red Truth

Rick Malloy, S.J.

In 2019 it was, Stay away from negative people. In 2020, it was Stay away from positive people.

In 2020, I was so bored I called Jake from State Farm just to talk to someone. He asked me what I was wearing.

In 2020, The world has turned upside down. Old folks are sneaking out of the house & their kids are yelling at them to stay indoors!

In 2020, I saw a neighbor talking to her dog.  It was obvious she thought her dog understood her. I came into my house & told my cat.  We laughed a lot.

In 2020, Every few days you had to try on your jeans to see if they still fit. Pajamas trick you into believing all is well.

In 2020, we didn’t take showers (parfum de moi…) We just keep washing our hands.

In 2020, the virus did what no woman had been able to do before.  Canceled sports, shut down all bars & kept men at home!

In 2021, I need to practice social-distancing…. from the refrigerator.

 

All kidding aside, 2020 has been a year of years; a time unprecedented; an epoch of chaos, challenge, and change.  The year of the Covid shutdown, the year of Black Lives Matter Protests, the year of deathly dangerous and painful political partisanship.  One White House correspondent on Meet the Press summed up the year as “the year of alternative facts.” As this year ends, what do we really need to give one another?  I suggest we need to give one another the gifts of dialogue, truth and hope.

 

The philosopher Gadamer writes, “To reach an understanding in a dialogue in not merely a matter of putting oneself forward and successfully asserting one’s own point of view but being transformed into a communion in which we do not remain what we were” (1991, p 379.  Italics added). 

 

What a gift.  To really reach understanding with one another.  To listen and learn from one another.  To stop shouting and asininely asserting.  To begin to hear and heal.  Hear one another’s hurts and fears.  Heal our wounds and weariness. 

 

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  So proclaims the Gospel of John.  The WORD, in Greek, the LOGOS, is much, much more than a mere one syllable utterance.  THE WORD means understanding has come to live within us, in our heads and hearts, in our communities and countries, in our cosmos.  THE WORD is the ground of being that undergirds all existence.   THE WORD is wisdom that reality is good and beautiful and true.

 

THE WORD is reason, the awareness that reality makes sense, that our lives have deep and desperately significant meaning.  Think of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life.  Without George, Mr. Potter destroys social life, for the greedy and selfish do not live according to THE WORD.  The mean and mendacious, the stingy, sad, and sinful lot, live according to the lie, not according to the WORD of truth and faith and hope and love.  When lies rule, all is lost.

 

William Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) observes:

 

“I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state. Though unlike most Germans I had daily access to foreign newspapers, especially those of London, Paris and Zurich, which arrived the day after publication, and though I listened regularly to the BBC and other foreign broadcasts, my job necessitated the spending of many hours a day in combing the German press, checking the German radio, conferring with Nazi officials and going to party meetings. It was surprising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one’s inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one’s mind and often misled it. No one who has not lived for years in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the dread consequences of a regime’s calculated and incessant propaganda. Often in a German home or office or sometimes in a casual conversation with a stranger in a restaurant, a beer hall, a café, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious that they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers. Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realized how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts of life had become what Hitler and Goebbels, with their cynical disregard for truth, said they were” (Kindle edition, loc 5761 ff.).

 

This Christmas, we need truth and hope more than ever.  THE WORD is truth.  THE WORD is not just in touch with reality, or just corresponding to reality. THE WORD creates and sustains reality, permeates and penetrates all the pulsating beauty and bodacious being of existence.  THE WORD has become human and we see the glory.  THE WORD takes on our human being and transforms us, giving us grace upon grace upon grace (John 1:16).  In Greek, grace is charis, from which we get the word charism, meaning a divine gift, a transcendent power.  Thomas Aquinas says grace is the ability to do what we could not do before.

 

The great grace and gift of Christmas is light.  This year we are all mesmerized by the Star of Bethlehem in the night sky, the closest Jupiter and Saturn have been for 800 years (https://www.space.com/great-conjunction-jupiter-saturn-2020-fun-facts).  “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

 

We cannot see light, but light gives us the power to see.  This Christmas, let’s give one another, give our communities and countries, our churches and cosmos, the gift of looking for, seeing and appreciating the light, the light that makes life possible, and pregnant with the possibilities of new birth.  Carl Sandburg once said, “A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”  This baby, this light, this WORD, is God’s pledge and promise that life will go on forever.

 

And isn’t that our hope?  That, despite it all, despite the destructiveness of our days, light and life, goodness and grace, faith and freedom, joy and justice, peace and promise, love’s crashing into our stubbornness (Damn it, for God’s sake, wear a Mask!) will win in the end.

 

We need to grace and gift one another with hope these days.  But how?  More than 325,000 in the USA and 1.7 million worldwide lost lives to Covid.  Political tensions can terrify.  Families stressed and strained by months of isolation and/or too much togetherness, now face holidays on Zoom rather than in the warmth of fireside with “fire water.”  No traveling.  No visiting.  No cheer.  A year without Easter and, the final insult, the cancellation of Christmas.  How hope? 

 

“Hope it the thing with feathers // That perches in the Soul // And sings the song without the words  // And never stops – at all” – Emily  Dickinson.

 

How hope? Sing.  Communicate.  Zoom.  Don’t eat too much junk food or drink too much wine, but indulge wisely and well.  Watch the movies. Decorate the tree.  Walk outside on a 15 degree, clear star filled night and let the awesomeness of the universe caress you.  Play with children.  Sit late at night, in a room lit by Christmas lights, and gaze on the manger.  Know God is with us. 

 

Isaiah proclaims: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.  You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing” (Isaiah 9:1).  St. Paul attests, “The grace of God has appeared, saving all” (Titus 2:11).

 

Luke reveals, “And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:10-14).  And little Linus sagely tells us, “That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.”

 

Pope Francis addressed the world in an op-ed article in the New York Times on Thanksgiving Day.

“If we are to come out of this crisis less selfish than when we went in, we have to let ourselves be touched by others’ pain.  … the danger that threatens in a crisis is never total; there’s always a way out: “Where the danger is, also grows the saving power.” That’s the genius in the human story: There’s always a way to escape destruction. Where humankind has to act is precisely there, in the threat itself; that’s where the door opens.

This is a moment to dream big, to rethink our priorities — what we value, what we want, what we seek — and to commit to act in our daily life on what we have dreamed of.

God asks us to dare to create something new. We cannot return to the false securities of the political and economic systems we had before the crisis. We need economies that give to all access to the fruits of creation, to the basic needs of life: to land, lodging and labor. We need a politics that can integrate and dialogue with the poor, the excluded and the vulnerable, that gives people a say in the decisions that affect their lives. We need to slow down, take stock and design better ways of living together on this earth.

The pandemic has exposed the paradox that while we are more connected, we are also more divided. Feverish consumerism breaks the bonds of belonging. It causes us to focus on our self-preservation and makes us anxious. Our fears are exacerbated and exploited by a certain kind of populist politics that seeks power over society. It is hard to build a culture of encounter, in which we meet as people with a shared dignity, within a throwaway culture that regards the well-being of the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled and the unborn as peripheral to our own well-being.

To come out of this crisis better, we have to recover the knowledge that as a people we have a shared destination. The pandemic has reminded us that no one is saved alone. What ties us to one another is what we commonly call solidarity. Solidarity is more than acts of generosity, important as they are; it is the call to embrace the reality that we are bound by bonds of reciprocity. On this solid foundation we can build a better, different, human future.”

 

There’s the hope.  We can dream big.  We can come out of this crisis better.  We can allow ourselves to be less selfish.  We can open our hearts to feel others’ pain.  We can delve into dialogue and come out “transformed into a communion in which we do not remain what we were.”  To all who receive him he gives power to be sons and daughters of God (cf. John 1:12).

 

Have a Blessed Christmas.  Un Prospero Año Nuevo.  Jesus again begins the Dialogue.  He calls us to live and to love Truth.  He is our Hope.

And may we stay away from the frig in 2021.

Rick Malloy, S.J., on Pope Benedict's Decision!

 Pope Benedict XVI Steps Down.

 Richard G. Malloy, S.J., Ph.D.

Vice President for University Mission and Ministry, the University of Scranton

(Front Page Story in the University of Scranton's paper, the Aquinas, Feb 15 2013)

This week we saw something that hasn’t happened in 719 years.  A Pope resigned.  This is a wise and humble choice on the part of Benedict XVI.  He has led the church since 2005, taking over from the charismatic and beloved John Paul II.  Admittedly more shy and less media savvy and charismatic than his predecessor, Benedict has charmed many he visited, e.g. his USA trip in 2008.

Celestine V in 1294 A.D. was the last Pope to voluntarily resign as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.  (Gregory XII was forced to resign in 1415, and so ended a painful schism, in the Western church where two Popes were claiming the Papacy).

Benedict’s eight years as head of the world’s more than one billion Catholics have not been easy.  He had to deal with the never ending revelations of priests’ sex scandals and Bishops mishandling of these matters.  Benedict XVI has been less the conservative enforcer some predicted and has certainly not made the conservative –liberal logjam any worse than it was when he took office.  Still, relations with religious women, and especially two well respected female theologians, Margaret Farley and Elizabeth Johnson, did not please the Catholic left.  But the Catholic right has not been pleased with what some see as his unwillingness to take a hard line and “crack down” on dissenters. 

This Pope is a brilliant theologian and an astute reader of the signs of the times.  He realizes that women and men of faith gain more by the patient and prayerful work of persuasion than the bludgeon of deafening dogma.  In the long run, dictators never win true allegiance of hearts and minds. 

Especially in his writings (hundreds of articles, multiple books, Encyclicals and three recent popular books on the life of Jesus), Benedict has been a voice of faith grounded in solid biblical scholarship.  Jim Martin, S.J., notes, “in [his] books, the pope brought to bear decades of scholarship and prayer to the most important question that a Christian can ask: Who is Jesus?  This is the pope’s primary job--to introduce people to Jesus--and Pope Benedict did that exceedingly well.” http://americamagazine.org/content/all-things/popes-legacy

Benedict’s voice calls for faith in an age where faith is fragile.  The erosion of faith in European and First world countries threatens the life of the church.  Yet hope rises where the church is blossoming, in places like Africa, Asia and Latin America.  China has seen Christianity grow exponentially in recent decades.

In his Introduction to Christianity, Benedict writes, “one could very well describe Christianity as a philosophy of freedom” and “The Christian message is basically nothing else than the transmission of the testimony that love has managed to break through death here and thus has transformed fundamentally the situation of us all.” (1968, p. 158; p. 307)

Jesuit Father Drew Christiansen argues that Benedict’s “encyclical Caritas in Veritate, with its affirmation of structural reform as ‘political charity’ and his call for a global authority to regulate the financial sector, may be the most radical since John XXIII's Pacem in terris 50 years ago.” http://americamagazine.org/content/all-things/benedicts-legacy

In Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict movingly reveals his view of God who exists in loving relationship.  “We see that to be God’s child is not a matter of dependency, but rather of standing in the relation of love that sustains man’s existence and gives it meaning and grandeur.  One last question: Is God also Mother?  The Bible does compare God’s love with the love of a mother.  …  The mystery of God’s maternal love is expressed with particular power in the Hebrew word rahamim, … ‘womb,’ later used to mean divine compassion, … God’s mercy.  The womb is the most concrete expression for the interrelatedness of two lives and of loving concern…” (2007, p. 139).

Joseph Ratzinger was born in 1927 and ordained a priest in 1951.  He has been serving the church in many capacities for over six decades.  He merits some time to relax, read and pray.  Maybe he’ll even have some more time to write.

College students know how to use twitter.  “Tweet” the Pope at his twitter handle “@pontifex” and say, “Thanks.”

Where Would Jesus be Born Today?

This is one of Time Magazine's pictures of the year. The homeless sleep in a tent city outside Seattle. Such dynamics are playing out across the USA and our world (Read Nigerian Jesuit's Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them).

All those who argue against the redistribution of wealth (even when the top 1% have more than the bottom 95%) should know that heaven is a place where wealth is distributed justly, for such is the reality of the love of God. Catholic Social Teaching calls for the just distribution of goods, not the insane inequality that see things like the grotesque paying of $700,000 for the average bonus for those who "work" (what exactly do they do that is worth all that?) at Goldman Sachs.

Those who want to maintain systems of inequality, socially sinful systems fueled by the celebration and worship of the idol greed, a false God who demands the sacrifice of our brothers and sisters (e.g., the unemployed, those whose homes are "under water," those whose lives are ruined by our wars, those whose lands are destroyed by the first world's pollution of our planet) will not want to enter the Kingdom of God. They will be free to choose a place where the few hoard all against the hopes and prayers of the many. That place will be hell.

Know that Jesus comes to save us from our idolatrous enslavement to an unjust and insane corporate capitalism. Join Jesus' redistribution program where "all will give according to their abilities and take according to their needs," the communistic system that characterizes family life. Only a system based on love of one another can make a world wherein we can live forever in peace and justice and love. - Rick

Freedom and Fireworks in Skagway Alaska

Left: Fireworks over Skagway, AK.
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Freedom and Prophecy

Rick Malloy, S.J.

Notes from Homily for 14th Sunday, Year B, 2009, Skagway Alaska

A guy forgets his wife’s birthday. A few weeks later he forgets their anniversary. She is mad. He repeatedly apologizes, but no go. He’s still getting the cold shoulder, and every time he asks her how things are going she says, “Fine.” All guys know when a women says things are “Fine”… he’s in trouble. Finally he says, “Look. I’m sorry. What can I do to make it up to you? What do I have to do so we can get back on track?” She’s been wanting a car so she says, "Well, you could put something in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in six seconds.” So the next day she sees an envelop in the driveway. She runs out, rips it open, and reads, "Your gift is in the garage." She opens the garage door looking for a new car. Instead she finds a bathroom scale. … We’re told he’ll get out of the hospital in another week or two… Let me play the prophet and tell you: Don’t give your wife a bathroom scale…

Today we’re called to reflect on the relationship between Freedom and Prophecy. Happy July 4th. This weekend our county celebrates our freedoms (FDR’s four freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from want and Freedom from fear).

Cardinal Rigali was approached by a worried college student who awkwardly asked, “Should I, like, kiss your ring?" The Cardinal, putting the student at ease replied, “The essence of our faith is the freedom of the children of God.” Christ calls us to freedom (“For Freedom Christ has set us free,” Gal 5:1)

You can do anything you want. But that’s not FREEDOM; that’s LICENSE. You are not free to do things that are dumb, dangerous, and deadly. DON’T GET YOUR WIFE A BATHROOM SCALE AS A JOKE! Don’t think, “I’m a free person, so I can drink a half gallon of vodka a day.” You are not free to drive on the left side of the road. Freedom for the follower of Christ is all about choosing what is loving and lasting. Freedom is all about choosing all that is sane and smart.

Freedom is not doing whatever you want. True Freedom is wanting to do what you ought to do. Freedom open to the influence of grace means that we find in ourselves the power to want to do what we ought to do. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that Grace is the ability to do what you could not do before. If little boys don’t develop the freedom to take a shower every day, by the time they are 13 no one wants to sit next to them (If you didn’t know the smelly kid in school… maybe you were the smelly kid!). If you don’t develop the freedom to study and learn, you’ll never graduate from school. If we don’t learn the freedom of discipline, our lives become chaotic and out of control. Addictions reign in our lives and soul. If our political and social and economic orders don’t learn discipline and true freedom, our society runs off the rails.

We are called to freedom for love and the common good and to open our hearts to all that creates the good and builds up the community. We are called to discipline ourselves for freedom from all that destroys and diminishes us. We are called to open our hearts to the freedom that makes for a world of peace and prosperity, justice and joy, faith and freedom, hope and healing, love and life and life eternal.

There is a connection between prophecy and freedom

Prophecy and Jesus as Prophet:

Biblical prophets were not those who foretold the future (no one can foretell the future. If someone claims they can, ask them for next week's lottery numbers). Biblical prophets were those who announced in the present what has to be freely chosen and done in light of the truth of the future. Prophets articulated programs and actions on the personal and social levels that would get us to the desired future.

Jesus was a prophet. In the light of the coming Kingdom of God, he told us, and tells us, what we need to do and where we need to go in order to get to the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of “truth and life; holiness and grace; justice, love and peace” (Preface of Christ the King).

We need to discern between true and false prophets. There are too many screaming and yelling and pretending they know what the future holds. Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann… are those two on the same planet? Do we follow those who, like Rush Limbaugh, starkly state they want our leaders to fail? Do we listen only to those who say what is wrong? Or are we free to carefully evaluate the plans and ideas offered and ready to join together to work to solve the problems we face?

The Church does not tell people for whom to vote, nor on whose side they ought to be in political debates (see the U.S. Catholic Bishops' website Faithful Citizenship). But Americans of all political persuasions should agree with what President Obama said on the 4th of July: “We Americans don’t fear the future; we make the future.”

Vatican II and Freedom

FROM THE DECLARATION ON HUMAN FREEDOM (DIGNITATIS HUMANAE PERSONAE). “8. Many pressures are brought to bear upon the men of our day, to the point where the danger arises lest they lose the possibility of acting on their own judgment. On the other hand, not a few can be found who seem inclined to use the name of freedom as the pretext for refusing to submit to authority and for making light of the duty of obedience. Wherefore this Vatican Council urges everyone, especially those who are charged with the task of educating others, to do their utmost to form men who, on the one hand, will respect the moral order and be obedient to lawful authority, and on the other hand, will be lovers of true freedom-men, in other words, who will come to decisions on their own judgment and in the light of truth, govern their activities with a sense of responsibility, and strive after what is true and right, willing always to join with others in cooperative effort. Religious freedom therefore ought to have this further purpose and aim, namely, that men may come to act with greater responsibility in fulfilling their duties in community life.” http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html

Confronting Abortion: How?

To Anne B., Ed F. and Bill G.:

Thanks for your thoughtful and cordial comments.

Overall, I think we share the same goal: the cessation of the killing of life in the womb. Many of us favor pro-life in any and all situations (e.g., no capital punishment, no war, no euthanasia).

Mother Teresa calls us to care for the last and the lost, the lonely and the least, of our society. Abortion is one of a host of Social Justice issues we must confront as Catholics. The question is, how?

Some things politicians can and should do for us all (e.g. universal health care; clean water, etc.), things we cannot do on our own. It would be nice if politicians would outlaw abortion, but in the many years since Reagan's election, they have done relatively little of any real substance to stop abortion. On the other hand, we can stop abortions by convincing young people to not abort the children they conceive. Even better, we should challenge their ethical standards and behavior across the board.

Concerning Obama, as I understand it, the Illinois vote you cite, Bill, was a moot point, because there was already a law on the books which mandated that doctors protect the life of a child who survived an abortion attempt. Obama’s voting against the particular law you and others continually cite made no difference in the practice of protecting children in Illinois. People constantly citing that case skew the reality of the situation.

McCain is not pro life. In 2000, he was against repealing Roe v. Wade, a position he changed for the recent election. In the third debate in 2008, he clearly stated that the abortion question should be returned to the States to decide, State by State, which virtually assures legalized abortion in this country.

The only pro life candidate in the last election was Ron Paul. We all should have voted for him if we wanted to back the pro life position with our vote.

Many are screaming that Obama is pro-abortion. I do not think he is. He clearly states he supports a woman’s right to choose. That doesn’t mean he is advocating, or forcing, or encouraging women to abort babies. He will not use the power of the State to legislate morality in this case. Frankly, he can’t. Neither can any President. Until the constitution is changed, or the Supreme Court’s reading of Roe v. Wade changes, there is nothing a President can do to make abortion illegal. Presidents take an oath to uphold the constitution. It is up to us to change the constitution, not blame Presidents for abiding by the law as it stands.

I wish abortion were not legal. Like the Everyman in A Man For All Seasons, I wish rainwater were beer (or Diet Pepsi since I don't drink). But it isn't. All the Republican candidates, who took Catholics votes in the years since Reagan was elected, have not done anything of real substance to make abortion illegal. This President will not make abortion illegal either. He is just honest about it.

Abortions decreased under Clinton. They increased under George W. Bush. Abortion has as much to do with people being able to afford children as it does with making it legal or illegal.

Even if abortion becomes illegal in the USA, it will be legal in other lands. There is no way to stop women from aborting babies, or men from paying for abortions, if they choose to do so.

I say forget Washington. No law forces a person to abort. If we want to end abortion, let’s work to change the hearts and minds of people. When no one shows up at the abortion clinics, abortion ends.

Let's stop yelling at easy targets (politicians) and get down to the hard and challenging work of speaking with our young people. We need to help them understand, desire, and practice the truth we live by, i.e., the Love of God in Christ Jesus.

Peace,

Fr. Rick