Fathers For Good

Time after Time - 1/11/11

If I believed in some sort of harmonic convergence in the universe, I would post this blog entry at 11:11 a.m. That would make the time stamp 11:11 on 1/11/11. I am sure bloggers all over the world are having fun with these numbers.

But I am not numerically inclined, and certainly not superstitious in this way. Still, I think even Catholics committed to Christ can find a lesson in the fact that the world is set up naturally to have these kind of diverting convergences of date and time. After all, God created the world and set in motion the sun, stars and planets, and mankind has discerned a pattern in these to organize his days.

We are not deists who think the great watchmaker has set the world in motion and gone away, leaving man to make the best of it all. We are Catholics who believe in the Incarnation, that God has come into his world as a man and staked his claim on this earth and in our lives. According to the Greek word used in John's Gospel, he has "set his tent" among us. A wonderful image for God dwelling with us.

So as we check our watches and cell phones today, waiting for 11:11 at morning and night, let's remember who put time in motion and brought us to this minute. Just as "every hair on our head" is counted, so God saw this time from all eternity, and he blesses us in it. How will we use this moment?

Tebow Scores One for Life

We heard similar objections 20 years ago after Super Bowl champions from the New York Giants, backed by team owner and faithful Catholic Wellington Mara, took part in a pro-life video called “Champions for Life.”

Among the critics was columnist Anna Quindlen, then working for the New York Times, who used the term “out of bounds” to describe the 10-minute video that related football stardom to abortion opposition.

Now the terrific Heisman Trophy quarterback Tim Tebow is at the center of controversy over an ad that is slated to run on CBS during the Super Bowl, Feb. 7. Leader of the two-time national champ Florida squad, Tebow has used his media platform throughout his stellar career to talk about the Bible and Jesus Christ.

Sponsored by the evangelical group headed by James Dobson, Focus on the Family, the 30-second Tebow ad is expected to carry a strong pro-life, pro-family message that is nonetheless personal and compelling. While she was an evangelical missionary in the Philippines some 23 years ago, Tebow’s mother became ill while carrying him, took antibiotics, and (the story goes) was advised by doctors to get an abortion. She refused, and now we have one of the greatest football talents God has given the world. And a fine young man as well.

When informed of this ad, pro-abortion feminist groups once again shouted “out of bounds.” The National Organization for Women (NOW) and other similar groups have lobbied CBS to drop the ad, which reportedly costs more than $2 million. They say that the Super Bowl, an event that draws the nation’s attention, should not be used as a forum for one side of a divisive political issue.

Writing on NOW’s website, the organization’s Vice President Erin Matson explains her opposition to the ad: “Standing alone, it sends the message that all women who give birth are heroes; it sends a message that abortion is always a mistake; and it is insulting to the one in three women in this country who have abortions”

From this statement, we can see why NOW is becoming increasingly ineffective in reaching the hearts and minds of today’s women. First of all, women who give birth ARE heroes, and who is NOW to suggest that they are not? Since when is it not heroic to carry a rapidly growing being within you for nine months, suffer all sorts of discomfort and perhaps long bouts of nausea and vomiting, and go through long hours of labor and a painful delivery? I saw my wife do just that as she went through two c-sections. She will always be a hero in my eyes, and I am sure the majority of men in America think the same way about their wives.

NOW is also off base about the “one in three women” being insulted by the pro-life ad. It’s my guess that most women who have had an abortion would wish Mrs. Tebow all the best for making a choice for life. After all, who can argue with the result?

From all statistics and anecdotal reports, the majority of those who have had abortions do not want their experience celebrated at half-time at the Super Bowl. Even if they would defend their choice, abortion does not rank as a favorite memory. After all, what woman would include a picture from the abortion in her photo album or on her refrigerator? Yet every woman who has given birth has ultrasound and delivery room photos, and some even cherish videos of the baby squeezing out of the birth canal.

At the March for Life, thousands of women carried the sign, “I Regret My Abortion.” They want their experience to serve as a cautionary tale to any woman who would, to erase the “mistake” of unwanted pregnancy, follow them in making an even bigger mistake that will stay with them all of their lives.

More power to Tim Tebow and his mom for speaking out and using his football fame to tell a deeply personal story that will change hearts and save lives. Score this as another Tebow TD.

Driving Out Demons

We don’t like to talk about demons. When is the last time you brought up the subject of evil spirits at home with your family or at work with your colleagues? Have you ever heard a homily about demons, even when they appear in the Scripture passage at Mass?

 

This is not to say that we are not fascinated by the subject. The long lines at horror films and the mega sales of ghost and occult stories show an appetite in our culture for exploring what is dark, hidden, forbidden and frightening.

 

I thought of this the other day when demons played a prominent role in the weekday Gospel reading.  In the first chapter of his Gospel, Mark describes the early public ministry of Jesus: Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is sick and Jesus “grasped her hand and helped her up, and the fever left her.” When news of this healing spread, the whole town flocked to the house and “brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons.” Jesus cured the sick and “he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him” (Mark 1:29-39).

 

Every once in a while a word or phrase in the Bible jumps up and grabs your attention, as though you had never come across it before. These words hit me: “not permitting them to speak.” There has been much written and said about why Jesus did not want the demons to speak; basically, he didn’t want his identity and ministry to be revealed yet. But that’s not what intrigued me about those words.

 

What struck me was the fact that these were really demons – evil spiritual beings with an identity and a voice. You see, I had been educated in the modern skeptical tradition, by Catholic scholars who thought themselves smarter than the tradition of the Church. I had been told that the demons in Scripture were not really personal beings; they were really manifestations of some sort of psychological illness that people at the time did not understand. People who were thought to have demons really had epilepsy or some sort of psychosis, and Jesus healed them not by driving out these demons, but by affirming their humanity and reintroducing them to the human community.

 

I never really bought this explanation, but there seemed to be some truth in this way of reading Scripture. After all, the evangelists wrote their Gospels in the language of the time, using the idioms and understandings of their readers to communicate a deeper spiritual message; just as the Genesis authors used the concept of “days” to describe the creation of the heavens and the earth – the message being that God is the Lord of all manner of time, matter and beings.

 

Yet this phrase in Mark’s Gospel, “not permitting them to speak,” stuck in my mind. Mark did not write that Jesus forbade the afflicted persons to speak; Jesus forbade the demons to speak. Once separated from the possessed, these demons had a voice of their own, and a will and a personality of their own – they knew Jesus and he knew them. Clearly, the Gospel is not describing a psychological illness or epileptic siege. These are demons.

 

Exorcists say that demonic possession can often accompany mental illness, and mental illness can often give the appearance of possession or “obsession” by demons. So they must always rule out physical and psychological causes before deciding that demons are truly involved in the life of a troubled person. But they also are clear that demonic possession does occur. Demons are real. They are personal, individual spiritual beings who are smarter than humans and intend to do us harm.

 

I think we all know or suspect this fact. Demons are more than things that “go bump in the night.” A friend of mine recalls an exorcist saying: People may scoff at the existence of demons or the devil, but when they see a possessed person walking on the ceiling, they tend to believe.

 

I write this not to scare anyone, but to wake us all up to the reality of this evil. Demons, of course, have no direct power of us, and we can combat them through prayer, sacraments and the power of the name of Jesus Christ and his Precious Blood. God’s love and mercy expressed through his Church is stronger than even the devil himself, who is the biggest loser of all time.

 

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!

My New Resolution

A few hours into 2010, I finally made my New Year’s resolution. This was something of a big deal since I had never made such a resolution in all my adult life.

As a kid I used to make an annual resolution, usually to be more obedient to my parents, or more kind to my brothers, or to put away my toys and clothes – things I should have been resolving to do everyday anyway.

Somewhere in my teens, I decided that New Year’s resolutions were artificial and contrived, not thinking that the failure to keep them was hardly a reason to reject them. So rather than make an annual pledge, I resolved to live “each day as though it were my last” – brave words from someone who knew very little about the world and his own limitations.

So I went without the “artificial” annual resolution for many years until I was in my parish church yesterday on New Year’s Day, for the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God. Whoever would have thought that I would be writing the year “2010” on my check to the church that morning, I thought. When I was growing up, 2001 was a “Space Odyssey,” and we all thought that by 2010 we’d be traveling in flying saucers like the Jetsons, and living on the moon.

Yet here I was on the first day of a new decade in the 21st century, standing in a church built in the 1860s, praying the same basic prayers as my father and his father, seeing the future not in some grand technological leap, or in some ethereal hope like world peace that my generation used to rally around. No, my hope for the new year was in Jesus Christ, who was present as always in the Eucharist, and in the love of my wife and the bright eyes of my children.

Despite the many setbacks and disappointments in my life, and the dreams of material things that would probably never be realized (and perhaps for the better), I was thankful, immensely thankful, for the simple but everlasting things I had.

So I resolved on New Year’s Day to express this gratitude by writing thank-you notes. Not thank-you e-mails, or thank-you phone calls, or (heaven forbid!) thank-you Twitter or Facebook messages. But handwritten, simple thank-you notes.

I started to make a list in my head of all the people to put on my thank-you list. As I watched our pastor receive the gifts of bread and wine and begin to offer them for us at the altar, I resolved to put Father Gary first on the list. He had two assistant priests when he started as pastor a few years ago, and now is the lone priest, as the other two have moved on to other parishes. Yet Father Gary hasn’t complained to his congregation, and has kept the parish of 3,000 families running smoothly.

Next on my list: my wife, my two boys, my parents, my two brothers, other relatives, coworkers. The list has gotten long, and I’ve yet to buy the stack of thank-you cards from the local Catholic bookstore.

I will get the job done though. Maybe you can make a similar resolution. Just think of the person you wish to thank pulling out the daily mail from the box, expecting the usual array of bills, catalogs and junk, and seeing a small hand-addressed envelope from you. It will be a small, personal touch sticking its head up amid a mass of instant messaging. Most of all, it will be a triumph of personal love that this one person will likely remember forever. And you will feel better, too.