Original Sin, Social Justice, and Mercy
12/03/11 19:54 Filed in: sunday reflections
You can read a story like this, about how Governor Walker has allowed lobbyist into the capital but not allowed everyday citizens and how he has given hundreds of millions in tax cuts while cutting billions from programs that serve the citizens and fall into the traditional lines of classical liberalism in America: democrat or republican. But if you read that story alongside the Church readings for the first Sunday of Lent, you might want to resist that move.
Stealing from the poor -- whether by the government or by corporations -- is taking the devil up on his third temptation to Christ.
Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence,
and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you,
if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”
It is to eat from the tree in the Garden of Eden, when human beings broke from God and broke from each other. Remember. Eve and Adam turned against each other as soon as they ate from the tree: blaming each for their sin.
If we are to return to the Garden of Eden and return to God, we must join together. We must absolutely and resolutely resist the forces that divide us into us and them -- into public employees and private employees, into union members and non-union members, into immigrants and citizens, into Hispanics and caucasians.
Religion is “tying back together.” Our first task as Catholics is to tie ourselves back together as human beings and as a community.
Stealing from the poor -- whether by the government or by corporations -- is taking the devil up on his third temptation to Christ.
Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence,
and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you,
if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”
It is to eat from the tree in the Garden of Eden, when human beings broke from God and broke from each other. Remember. Eve and Adam turned against each other as soon as they ate from the tree: blaming each for their sin.
If we are to return to the Garden of Eden and return to God, we must join together. We must absolutely and resolutely resist the forces that divide us into us and them -- into public employees and private employees, into union members and non-union members, into immigrants and citizens, into Hispanics and caucasians.
Religion is “tying back together.” Our first task as Catholics is to tie ourselves back together as human beings and as a community.
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Lent and Human Nature
09/03/11 20:22 Filed in: Human Nature
Today marks Ash Wednesday for most Christian denominations. In the Roman Catholic Church, parishioners attend a special mass in which the priest marks their foreheads with a cross made from ashes. Then, for the next forty days, Catholics sacrifice things they love and also attempt to change behaviors, moving from bad behaviors to good or incorporating more good behaviors into their lives.
The traditions and practices we engage in say something about our conceptions of human nature. Lent makes little sense if we don’t first believe that human beings are fallen creatures or, at least, that we fall occasionally. Nor does it makes sense if we aren’t redeemable in part through out actions. In many ways, the actions Catholics and Christians unertake during Lent recognize the truth of Aristotelian virtue theory -- that we can become more virtuous by consciously changing our behavior. Such an understanding of human behavior entails some modicum of free choice on our part.
The tradition of Lent, then, reveals a rather complex and sophisticated view of human nature. It recognizes our free choice in determining what kind of characters we have (virtuous or vicious) and the need for human beings to renew themselves occasionally. Such renewal begins with a recognition of our failings and our frailties. It cannot end there, though, and in many ways people corrupt Lent by forgetting that we can change and, moreover, that Easter represents, not only the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but our own resurrection. Fundamentally, Lent is hope. If we only sacrifice and do not actively pursue avenues of expansion of ourselves, we’ve really missed what Lent is about and, more importantly, what Easter is about. In recognizing that Easter is the most important Holy Day of the year, we can come to grasp that Hope rises up in our future because we allow God to form us as the best persons we can possibly be.
May your Lent be filled with hope and renewal and may God bless us with the Grace we need to change our lives for the better -- to change who we are for the better.
The traditions and practices we engage in say something about our conceptions of human nature. Lent makes little sense if we don’t first believe that human beings are fallen creatures or, at least, that we fall occasionally. Nor does it makes sense if we aren’t redeemable in part through out actions. In many ways, the actions Catholics and Christians unertake during Lent recognize the truth of Aristotelian virtue theory -- that we can become more virtuous by consciously changing our behavior. Such an understanding of human behavior entails some modicum of free choice on our part.
The tradition of Lent, then, reveals a rather complex and sophisticated view of human nature. It recognizes our free choice in determining what kind of characters we have (virtuous or vicious) and the need for human beings to renew themselves occasionally. Such renewal begins with a recognition of our failings and our frailties. It cannot end there, though, and in many ways people corrupt Lent by forgetting that we can change and, moreover, that Easter represents, not only the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but our own resurrection. Fundamentally, Lent is hope. If we only sacrifice and do not actively pursue avenues of expansion of ourselves, we’ve really missed what Lent is about and, more importantly, what Easter is about. In recognizing that Easter is the most important Holy Day of the year, we can come to grasp that Hope rises up in our future because we allow God to form us as the best persons we can possibly be.
May your Lent be filled with hope and renewal and may God bless us with the Grace we need to change our lives for the better -- to change who we are for the better.