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Petersboat
Hope for Family Life and World War | The Monday After
00:22:42
Is it necessary that all conflict must become all-out war? Is the annihilation of the enemy what makes for peace? Or, is there some way to permit that there will always be conflict in a fallen world, but that not all conflict needs to lead to the tearing apart of peoples. In fact, what if there were a way to be drawn even closer together through conflict?
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Just two quick things here. At the outset, I wanted to, first of all, let you know that I'm going to be reading this today. So it may sound a little different to you when you listen to it than it would if I were speaking to you from my heart, which I am right now. So I apologize if it sounds a little flat, but I appreciate you're letting me be careful with my language by reading the text, because I'm going to address some of the things that are happening in the world today, or at least reference them. And I'm also going to remember some of the more painful memories of my childhood and recalling some of the fighting between my mother and my father after my father lost a job and my mother and he were arguing. And I wanted to do that as carefully and as reverently as possible. So writing it would, I think, be the best. The best way. I also, secondly, want to just thank my parents because they let me speak to you about some of the experiences of the family in a public way. And in that sense, I think they're happy to participate in my priesthood along with, you know, praying for me. But also, I just wanted to acknowledge, I think it's courageous and admirable of them because they also know that I'm remembering it as we all remember our past, which is perhaps a little diluted by time and the emotional experience of it. I mean, I was just a child. This is at least what it seemed like to me. You know, the comedian Norm MacDonald wrote his autobiography, said it was based on a true story, which is a funny way of saying, you know, all of us look back at our past and see it the way we see it. But I remember the years of conflict for you here because my parents did invite Christ into their conflict, into their sufferings. And He, I believe, uses what they've gone through over the years to make them as close as they are now. He gives us glimpses of the glory to come for them by showing us, even now, little glimpses of his grace powerfully at work in their lives. So, in a sense, when I look at the fighting in the house when I was a little boy, I want to look at it with you as if looking at the cross in order to look through the cross to the glory to come. Does that make sense? And in that spirit, I'll share with you here, because this past week we heard that Jesus took Peter and James and John up Mount Tabor as they were making their way to Jerusalem, where he was going to die on the cross. He gave them a glimpse of the glory to come by allowing his face to shine like the sun before them so that they can look through the cross to see not merely evil, but to see what God can do as he redeems this world. And that's where our hope comes from. See, our hope doesn't come from man one day getting it right, you know, our hope comes from what God can do with us even as we get it wrong. Part one Must all conflict be all out war? Is it necessary that all conflict must become all out war? Is the annihilation of the enemy what makes for peace? Or is there some way to permit that there will always be conflict in a fallen world, but that not all conflict needs to lead to the tearing apart of peoples? In fact, what if there were a way to be drawn closer together through conflict? You know, when I was a chaplain in the high school, two football students were sent to me because they were fighting. So the coach sent them to my office. They were at each other's throat at practice after having it out in my office, but then apologizing to one another and forgiving one another, those two guys became closer than they were before the conflict. For the rest of the season they were tight. It seems to me that the bond of reconciliation is an even stronger bond than mere likeness of interest or concord. So not all conflicts must become all out war, which too often has as its end the destruction of the enemy. You know, when he was asked what he wanted to do about the south following the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said something like, we destroy our enemies by making them our friends. See, he believed that the bonds that could be forged through reconciliation could be strong bonds indeed. He might even say about our country, which is the a great country that it is great not despite the fact that we endured a civil war, but because we are a people who reconciled after a civil war. And that's what made Abraham Lincoln a great president. And isn't that the vision for the United States, that the Constitution could serve as a kind of foundation underneath all the states on which all conflict could be fought by way of a common language and value system about human rights? There will always be need of a judicial system to interpret that Constitution. But it is the belief of this country that you can permit conflict and that not all conflict has to lead to all out war. That's what makes the United States possible. Part 2 reconciliation is possible. See, I believe in this kind of reconciliation and the very strong bonds that it can forge because I saw this happen, this kind of thing in my own family Growing up in a home where my mother and father were fighting because my father had lost his job, I was afraid that one was going to destroy the other. I feared that that was the only possible outcome to conflict. I felt like it was unavoidable, that it would end with the annihilation of either my mother or my father. But because my parents brought their relationship to the foundation of the church, all of their conflicts have turned over the years to reconciliation. And the bond between the two of them has grown stronger and stronger because of it. I saw my father as more forceful because he was physically strong. And I was afraid that he may destroy my mother by force. But the very spiritual language my mother was using seemed equally dangerous. Words like feelings and respect sounded just as threatening to my father when used in the heat of a warlike argument. And I certainly did not want to choose between the two of them. I loved them both, and I had the intuition that life was supposed to be both man and woman. I wanted my life to be lived with force, as something strong and effective, like my father. But I also wanted to be something artistic and meaningful, like my mother's spirituality. I just didn't want my father to be forceful without spirituality, nor my mother to be religious without the use of reason. I wanted them to find some way to live in the tension between both, even if it meant a cross. My mother's femininity always seemed like the vertical beam of the cross, reaching from earth to heaven and heaven to earth. And my father's masculinity always seemed like the horizontal beam of working hard and honestly with courage in this world, even as it so often knocks us down. But that cross would need some solid ground in which to be planted, and that's where the church comes in. Otherwise, a cross falls over, and then all of that vertical desire for God is directed at the horizontal reality of life in a fallen world. And then religion becomes a sword, a sort of resentment and blame. As I said before, my parents did bring their conflicts to God. They brought their marriage to him in a new way. And the church became for them a kind of foundation, something sturdy enough that they could upright the cross that they were for one another, so that their relationship was pointing toward God. Again, it's interesting. No cross ever falls vertically. If a cross is prevented from reaching upward, then both beams fall to the horizontal. It reminds me of something C.S. lewis said. If we aim for heaven, we'll get this world thrown in. But if we reach only for this world, we get neither. It's like my father. If he were ever to take his eyes off of God, he would start to compete with my mother and grow to resent the ways she challenges him. But the same could happen to her. The only way for a husband and a wife to permit the imperfection of their spouses is to keep their own eyes fixed on God. We were all made for God. And unless we let him satisfy our desire for flawless love, which he alone can satisfy, we'll try to squeeze perfect out of one another. And we'll only disappoint one another when that happens. And then we divorce or we resort to saying in our despair, as nations often do, the only way to peace for me is the annihilation of you. But when really severe conflicts arise, like the ones we're seeing today in the world, when people can't agree on a foundation on the fundamental principles that make reconciliation possible, in other words, when people don't share common religious views about the meaning and purpose of life, if, say, a particular people were to replace the cross of Christ with the sword of a warrior prophet, that's where God's grace alone can intervene to accomplish the conversion of a man's way of thinking about life and reality. So, and we ask this question this weekend. Is it reasonable for us even to hope for this kind of grace to show up? Is it reasonable to trust that the Catholic Church is. Can continue to be a firm foundation of reconciliation and an agent of restoration in this war torn age we live in? Well, of course I wouldn't have become a priest if I didn't think so. I mean, I suppose I may still have been called, but I wouldn't have said yes. I did say yes though, because I had first seen firsthand in my parents marriage what the church can accomplish for people who are willing to bring the conflicts of their lives to God. Before we had come of age, my sister and I were already witnesses to what Catholicism can be for a family. You know, I recently found a picture of the four of us. My father, my mother, me and my sister. We were piled together on a hotel bed. I think we must have set the timer on the camera. We were on vacation pilgrimage in Massachusetts. We were visiting the Norman Rockwell Museum and the Divine Mercy Shrine. Norman Rockwell, the best of the horizontal and. And the Divine Mercy Shrine. The best of the vertical. Right. It was a black and white photo. I don't know why we developed it like that. My sister might have been being artsy or something, but our faces were shining like the sun. I remember that day. Part three. Peter, James and John. We heard yesterday that Jesus took Peter, James and John up Mount Tabor to show them a glimpse of his glory. The Scriptures say that his face shine like the sun before them. It was to encourage them because he had just told them about his going to Jerusalem where he would be crucified. So he was trying to say to them, do not be afraid. This will not end in death for you. The suffering will not be forever. Moses and Elijah appear with our Lord as a sign of the share in Christ's glory that awaits those who belong to God in this life. And they represent the law and the prophets. And there's something more to be said about their presence on that mountain. But we can save that for another time. Instead, let's just ask right now, why Peter, James and John? I said before that my parents brought their marriage back to the foundation on which they had married in the first place, namely the Church. Looking back, it seems that by doing so, they were taking up their cross again and following Christ to Jerusalem. By not giving up on their marriage, they were saying to Jesus, Jesus, we trust in you. We trust that the sufferings of this life will not last forever, nor will our lives end in death. In fact, we believe that by suffering and dying with you, our marriage may even lead us to a share in your glory. But it's 2,000 years later. So how does the Church accomplish this for us? Now let's go back to Peter, James and John. Peter. He would come to represent the foundational leadership of the Church, the authoritative interpretation of the word of God entrusted to him by Christ. James. When James was called by Christ, he was mending his fishing nets. And that's what he would become for the early Church. As a fisher of men, he served as a reconciler and a unifier of the growing number of communities. And John. John is the one who remains with the Lord, the one who goes to the foot of the cross to contemplate the man offering his life for us at the intersection of the vertical and the horizontal beams of our lives in this world. John is the prayer of the Church. These three men, Peter, James and John, represent the unique assistance that the Catholic Church offers to this world, the only assistance that is both human and divine. The Catholic Church is Peter, the authoritative interpreter of Scripture, caretaker of its proclamation, and the infallible teacher of faith and morals. The Catholic Church is also James, the mender of nets, the reconciliation between peoples that is made possible through the forgiveness of sins. And the Catholic Church is the mother of all acceptable prayer entrusted to John at the foot of the Cross when he himself is entrusted to the Blessed Mother, who perfects his prayer by interceding for him. The Catholic Church can be for the whole world what it has been for my parents, a foundation underneath the society they created with God. The Church offers a common language to be spoken in a household of many tongues. It offers healing and restoration to mend what would otherwise tear away from the whole. And it teaches conversation and intercession with God through the Son of God, who makes us God's children too, as we become with him the ones in this world called peacemakers. Part 4 the conflicts in the World Today if it's true that the Western world is a more highly developed horizontal reality of life through our mastery of technology, but that the Eastern world is more vertical, being more spiritually open to the mystical nature of life, isn't it possible to meet at the cross where the horizontal and the vertical intersect? There will be conflict, absolutely, but there need not be war. There could be reconciliation. Some will reject it, like always, like the criminal who spent his last breath cursing Christ. But some will embrace it, like the criminal we now call the good thief for stealing heaven at the last minute by offering his last breath in prayer. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom, the kingdom of God. That kingdom we pray for all the time. Thy kingdom come. It comes to us through the cross now as a mercy, as a free gift, as it did in the beginning, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end. This is how life comes into the world, through mercy, always as gift. And maybe that's why God allowed our very first parents to fall. It wasn't the second or third generation of parents of our humanity. It was our very first parents, our very first mother and father fighting. Perhaps it was so that he could show the whole world mercy according to his design. As St. Paul put it this weekend, mercy is what moved God's heart to create man in the first place, giving us the free gift of life, a free gift we did nothing to earn. And so life in this world is offered to us just as freely as it was to Adam, the first man Christ beheld. And eternal life is now just as freely offered as it was to the good thief, the last man Christ would behold. Part 5 Man will always have His Reasons when my parents were arguing, it was because each of them had their reasons, each one of them had their cause. And to be honest, as a child I knew that. My sister and I both knew that my father was not perfect, nor was my mother. And we would see and understand to whatever degree we could, that my mother sometimes hurt my father and that my father sometimes hurt my mother. And when I look at the conflict in the world today, I see the same thing. Both sides have their reasons. So the question isn't so much which side is right. The question, rather, is the question the child asks when he sees Mommy and Daddy fighting, namely, will they forgive one another? Will Daddy forgive Mommy for being different than he is in some ways? And will Mommy forgive Daddy for being different than she is in some ways? Will they say to one another, I forgive you for not being me? The peace that is born of forgiveness is something even stronger than the mere absence of conflict. God accomplishes this peace through the forgiveness of sins. And we hear it most eloquently through the words of absolution spoken by the priest in the confessional. The priest says, God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself and poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. See that God accomplishes it. The priest then continues through the ministry of the Church on the apostles Peter, James, and John and the others. May God grant you pardon and peace. And he concludes, I absolve you from your sins. The Ministry of the Church this is one of the reasons I'm so passionate and personal about all of this. Someone asked me after Mass yesterday with all sincerity, a mother with young children. She said, really, Father? She asked me, what do you think it was that enabled your parents to reconcile when they were fighting? You know, like, what was it really? And I said, I think it was the ministry of the church. And I still believe that. I believe it was their willingness to put their relationship again on the foundation represented by Peter, to open their hearts to the possibility of mending their tearing nets like James, and to find peace in the tension between the vertical and the horizontal beams of life by remaining with the Blessed Mother under the cross like John. Part 6 God's promises and Our Hope God first promised us eternal life by putting that desire in our hearts. When he created us, God put that desire there. That's the first promise he puts on our heart in that first covenant. Then he promised through Noah not to destroy the world even as we turn from him then to Abraham, that faithful people would be as numerous as the stars of the sky to Moses, a land after the desert, and to David, an everlasting kingdom. And all these brought to fulfillment in Christ, the new and eternal covenant. And to the Blessed Mother, the promise of the Holy Spirit for the conception of this new and eternal covenant. And just before Christ makes his presence known, he is announced to the world by John the Baptist with the he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Our hope is in the promises that God makes to us. And our joy in thanksgiving as Christians is that God is trustworthy, that he fulfills his promises. So when Jesus says to us, in this world you will have troubles, but take courage, for I have overcome the world and I will remain with you even until the end of time, and I will not leave you orphans, we can take courage. We can trust that promise. It is not irrational to trust the Lord's promises. After all, the one who says to us, if you eat this bread, you shall live forever, and who said, I will come back again and take you to myself, is the same man who said, lazarus, come forth and little girl arise. We are not pacifists. We do not need to be. There will always be the need to defend the widow and the orphan, to stand up for the oppressed, to defend the family, and even to flip the tables of the money changers when we need to. But all of our conflicts, our corrections and exhortations and calls to conversion as Christians should be directed toward reconciliation with and not the annihilation of the other. Those who live by the sword die by the sword. And if the world needs a sign, like the one that was given to Peter, James and John on Mount Tabor, a sign that this kind of reconciliation between nations is possible, it need only look at the Roman Catholic Church spread throughout the world, and need only take note of its most distinguishing characteristic, namely, that it exists in so many different countries of the world, and that Mass is celebrated in so many different languages of the world, and that its communion, the communion of its members, is real and deep. As deep as the humanity that we share in common. As deep as the breath of God that brought us into existence in this world in the first place, before we had done anything to deserve it. And as deep as the bond that we share in our first fighting parents, Adam and Eve, but as deep as the hope for eternity which still remains in all of our hearts because God himself has placed it there. Sam.