Deacon Dan Wright

Lenten Reflections

After a busier that usual week I had hoped to return today with a new reflection on the discipline of Lent.  However, just as I was getting started writing (Marco Frisbee will love this) the water heater--in the attic no less--sprung a leak.  There's nothing more distracting than a water leak in the attic at 9 p.m. on Sunday.

I will be back this week--I promise--with new reflections.  It's funny because one of the topics that was on my mind was patience.  I've gone through my life thinking that I've learned a tremendous amont of patience, and funny enough it's being tried (tempted?) by Mircosoft on one side and Sears on the other.  What's next?  Looks like what I need is a "clean install."  Now, there's a new way to think of Lent--time to unintall the system and fix all the leaks (spirtually speaking of course).

So, I'll be back soon enough.  Please pray that the black tape holds.

A Few Thoughts on the Disciplne of Lent

I recall several years ago hearing a Presbyterian friend say, "I don't do Lent."  I gave what he said a great deal of thought.  It wasn't that I had any second thoughts about Lent for myself, just only that I wondered what was at the heart of his objection.

It had been only a few years in the past that a close friend, an Evangelical with whom I was acquainted at the time I went through RCIA, had tried her best to convince me that there was something "wrong" with observing Lent--especially the observance of Ash Wednesday, which for some reason bought the idea of shame to her mind.  Of course I have remained unmoved by any arguments against my annual observation of the season.  Still I have to admit that Lent has been the most difficult of Catholic practices for me to get the hang of.

What I have done and continue to do each year is to put some reflection into the practice of preparing for Lent, and now that it's here I thought I'd share a few thoughts with you--nothing too theologically deep this time, just a few thoughts that I recently jotted down.

Foremost, I believe that the observance of Lent is actually a discipline, thus my difficulty in getting used to "doing Lent."  Like many people discipline is not what I would choose first from the top 10 list of spiritual activities.  However, the Lord calls us to strengthen the discipleship by which we live. 

In order to serve God in a pleasing manner we must learn to trust.  So first, I reflect on the season of Lent as a time to strengthen the discipline of security.  Trust goes hand in hand with having faith, thus a fitting daily Lenten prayer or meditation might be, "Strengthen my faith O Lord, strengthen my trust."  We need never fear seeking greater faith.  Our Lord answers us in the most amazing ways.  God will send into our lives exactly what we need most.

Of course there are other aspects of the discipline of Lent that I'd like to share with you, but rather than share them all right now I'll let them unfold naturally.  So my first reflection is on trust--on being secure in the Lord.  It's really a big deal for most of us.  I'd be a liar if I said that I never have security issues.  However, having a discipline about security makes it possible for God to be the master over those things that are the source of our insecurities.  It's not that we gain security in ourselves but that we learn to allow God's light to illuminate the darkness of our doubt.

More to come. 

Blog Time Off

I'm taking Monday a couple days off from blogging this week.  Check back with me later for fresh material. I think early Wednesday evening (my time) ought to be about right. There's been pressing paperwork and several computer issues resulting from my "upgrade" that have kept me away.

Noted Catholic Worker Dies

One of the founders of the Catholic Worker movement has died, leaving two types of legacy in Oregon.

Benedictine Sister Ruth Ann Heaney, a widow and well-known advocate of prisoners religious rights, died in December in Columbia, Mo. at age 91.

Oregon has two Catholic Worker houses, and Sister Ruth Ann's son John lives in Aloha.

Sister Ruth Ann was born in 1914 in Casper, Wyo. She grew up in Chester, Neb., and attended St. Mary College in South Bend, Ind., where she graduated in 1936 with a degree in social work. When at school, she heard a speech by Peter Maurin, intellectual force behind the fledgling Catholic Worker movement. Adherents offer Gospel-based hospitality to the poor and advocate for non-violence, peace and justice.

Read more. Although Sister Ruth Ann died in December, the story is new. 

Still it's true, we are known in the end by the things we've done, by the truths we've stood for, and by the righteous fights we've won.  Rest in peace sister--what a blessing you were.

Damage Done

NEW YORK (CNA) – The second of two bloggers hired by the John Edwards U.S. presidential campaign resigned Feb. 13, following continued pressure from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights over anti-Catholic comments posted on the Internet.

Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights President Bill Donohue told the Associated Press Feb. 13 that in his mind the issue is now closed.

Blogger Melissa McEwan, in making the announcement on her personal Weblog, Shakespeare's Sister, said that she left the campaign because she was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the level of attention focused on her and her family.

The blogger, who was hired as a consultant for the Edwards’ campaign Web effort did not address her previous comments on Christianity and Catholicism, but apologized to her fellow “progressive bloggers.”

Read more

I don't see anything progressive about being a religious bigot.  If Edwards had discovered that one of his staff had written inflammatory racial material, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that he would have fired such a person on the spot.  It strikes me as strange that when it comes to Catholicism, or even religion in general, intolerance is not only acceptable--it's somehow viewed as being "tolerance."

God Save the Queen!

Almost 500 years after Henry VIII founded the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church is set to surpass it and become Britain's largest denomination.

A new report says immigration -- especially from Catholic countries in Eastern Europe -- is building up numbers in the Catholic Church, The Times of London reported. The Anglican Church is in a long-term decline.

Read more

We see a similar phenomenon here in the Southwest US.  However, the majority of our immigration influx is illegal.  I've often wondered how much anti-immigration sentiment is actually anti-Catholic sentiment in disguise.  Closely watching the situation in the UK over the next few years will be interesting indeed.

Sagan Resurrected?

It’s been a long 10 years since we’ve heard Carl Sagan beckoning us to consider the possibilities inherent in the “billions” of stars peppering the sky and in the “billions” of neuronal connections spiderwebbing our brains....

In his absence, the public discourse on his favorite issues — the fate of the planet, the beauty and mystery of the cosmos — has not fared well. The teaching of evolution in public schools has become a bitter bone of contention; NASA tried to abandon the Hubble Space Telescope and censor talk of climate change; and of course, religious fanatics crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center, leading to a war in the Middle East that has awakened memories in some corners of the Crusades.

Now, however, Dr. Sagan has rejoined the cosmic debate from the grave. The occasion is the publication in November of “The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God” (Penguin). The book is based on a series of lectures exploring the boundary between science and religion that Dr. Sagan gave in Glasgow in 1985, and it was edited by Ann Druyan, his widow and collaborator....

“I would suggest that science is, at least in part, informed worship,” he writes at the beginning of a discussion that includes the history of cosmology, a travel guide to the solar system, the reason there are hallucinogen receptors in the brain, and the meaning of the potential discovery — or lack thereof — of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Never afraid to venture into global politics, Dr. Sagan warns at one point of the danger that a leader under the sway of religious fundamentalism might not try too hard to avoid nuclear Armageddon, reasoning that it was God’s plan.

“He might be interested to see what that would be like,” Dr. Sagan wrote. “Why slow it down?”

Almost in the same breath, Dr. Sagan acknowledges that religion can engender hope and speak truth to power, as in the civil rights movement in the United States, but that it rarely does.

It’s curious, he says, that no allegedly Christian nation has adopted the Golden Rule as a basis for foreign policy. Rather, in the nuclear age, mutually assured destruction was the policy of choice. “Christianity says that you should love your enemy. It certainly doesn’t say that you should vaporize his children.”

Read more

In many respects Dr. Sagan's criticisms of fundamentalism don't seem to be too far off the mark. However, could it be that he failed to understand the true intent and purposes of Christ's transforming love?  Did he fail to understand the meaning of true religion?  Or, did he simply find it rarely practiced in our times? 

Interestingly, I find myself in agreement with the assertion that Christians frequently fail to follow the intentions of Christ. Too often we do the exact opposite with no intention of seeking to right the situation. 

In Sagan's assessment of fundamentalism I am reminded of Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees and the kind of religion that they sought to promote.  In many respects we might say that the Pharisees achieved some measure of success--this is something that I have mused over since my early experiences with evangelicalism.  Religion devoid of love is not the faith that is born of our Lord's passion, rather it is something truly alien to the heart of Christ.

If Sagan would have only searched for Christ with the same rigor that he applied to science, his findings might have yielded surprising evidence.

Healing Our Blindness

Often we tend to look upon miracles such as the healing of the blind man in today’s gospel narrative as one of the greatest possible miracles. To our rational minds the possibility of such a far reaching healing may lie somewhere in the realm of fantasy. Yet a far greater blindness calls out for healing. It is a healing that demands perhaps even greater faith than a physical healing. It is a healing that must occur on multiple levels in order for our sight to be restored

In our times we suffer from the inability to see beyond the immediacy of our own limited experience of the world. Often the needs that we are most aware of are our own—we tend to focus narrowly on what concerns us individually or within the confines of a particular interest. We exhibit the symptoms of a lack of universal vision.

Undoubtedly there is a spiritual blindness that only the Master can touch, but even beyond our failure to clearly apprehend the depth of our personal spiritual need, even beyond the possibility of the false perception that everything is somehow right, there is a great need that goes unnoticed daily.

Sadly, on a global level we fail frequently at being able to see the need of our fellows. Similarly we may fail at perceiving from their viewpoint. We have gone far past the challenges to Christianity that began being most evident in the past century. However, I do not suggest that every viewpoint is valid or even that we should entertain certain positions. Rather, we are to learn to see with the eyes of others by putting their experience, their lived experience, to the litmus test of the depth of human suffering.

The time for great miracles has not passed at all. To the contrary the present holds the possibility for greater miracles than ever before. However, in order to reach the world with the message of Christ and with his power to make all things new, we must learn to see in such a way that we not only acknowledge the suffering of others, but that we learn to step into their reality in such a way that it reveals the depth of their need to us. Only then will we learn to end the suffering and evils of our times. Far from being a situation of hopelessness, global healing is a real possibility. The miracle begins with the healing of our blindness.

Choosing the Leaven

It’s either the leaven of righteousness or the leaven of evil—you and I must choose. The message of today’s word is a simple message of truth. There has always been the choice of knowing God and choosing to do the good, or denying the good and choosing evil. It's a story as old as the flood!

Jesus warns the disciples to beware of the evil might grow in one’s heart—“the leaven of the Pharisees,” he says, “and the leaven of Herod.” Such growth overtakes one’s ability to see clearly. Through it we become blinded to true righteousness and to the power that belongs to God alone. In our vanity and pride we imagine ourselves to be above the need to utterly depend on God.

Here we will do well to yield to the simple love exemplified in Jesus. It is a love that has the power to transform our lives. Without our submission to love, to God who is love, we become assured of our own ability to be righteous, and thus we lose our need for God. We turn to the imitation of goodness and look to earthly powers to remedy the problems that we find most perplexing. Yet we must beware because aside from the power of God to transform the human heart there is no salvation; there is no power to free us from destruction.

Like the disciples who embarked on their journey with the Lord, we decide whether or not to understand the Lord’s instruction to us. He meets our needs with superabundance. His is the power to give us the bread that ends all hunger, especially that which satisfies the hunger of the soul. Therefore, we have insight into the Eucharistic aspect in the gospel narrative. The Lord provides for more than the hunger of the body. In our coming to him he provides for our deepest needs; he answers our most difficult questions and enters the situations of our lives with the power to heal.

The righteousness of God, the only goodness to be found, lies solely in man sitting in the boat who instructs us on our journey as he accompanies us. In him alone, in God alone, lies the power to transform our lives into examples of righteousness; in him alone lies the ability to change the world.

On Seeking a Sign: The Reality of Sin Among Us

Why does this generation seek a sign?
Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given…” Mk. 8:12

For the pastoral theologian, or even the casual observer making comment, sin is the most difficult topic to approach. Typically people don’t want to hear about sin; we don’t want to have our faults pointed out. In this, I am no different from anyone else. Yet I have learned that growth can come most easily when I am made aware of my failings.

In most situations I am not one who likes to form a rash judgment of others—especially where what we ordinarily consider to be sin is concerned. I am one to forebear, and to forgive easily when it comes to the social sins of our generation. However, on a deeper level I see a greater and more troubling reality at work, and the rejection of traditional moral values is only a symptom of a greater darkness at work among us. In the case of the greatest sin we are identical to the generation whom Jesus rebuked for seeking a sign. Even if a sign were given, we would deny it outright. The greatest sin is our blindness to the reality of God’s love, and that which blinds us is our own sense of being right.

The psalmist asks

“Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?”

His question, it appears, is addressed to those who make the claim to righteousness; that is, it is addressed to those who recite the statutes of God and profess his covenant. Could it be that the greatest sinners are not those whose lifestyles we find repugnant because they reject our values concerning marriage or sexuality, but rather those who have become so blind to the presence of God that they demand a sign from the creator standing in their midst?

Years ago I remember a young divinity student who questioned a professor in regard to sin. “What is sin?” he asked, “I find it difficult to find and precisely name sin in our day and age.” At the time I failed to realize the depth of his question, which was taken to be rhetorical by the professor. Many years later now, I have not forgotten it. I still ponder the question “What is sin in our day and age.” Certainly I cannot easily nod to the setting up of one’s own morals against the biblical and magisterial teachings, nor can I pretend that the materialism of the world today is innocent. Sin is a reality among us and undoubtedly we live amid a generation that has accepted the temptation of godlessness wholeheartedly. However, we must ask what it is that opened the door to the great culmination of evil in our day.

Although God continues to call prophets to preach among us, rather than meet their words with joyful repentance and prayer, we reject them outright. They offend our sensibilities and our allegiances. We hear them only as a din of offensive proclamations against our will to determine our own direction, while Christ, in contrast, calls his disciples to follow rather than to state that they are righteous already. We seek a sign but we find nothing offered.

Often repentance may consist only in a shift in our attitude: I am resolved to stand for true righteousness regardless of what it may cost me; however, I still am not disturbed that an entire generation is rejecting the values of historical Christianity. It is only for me a challenge to find meaning in it, for my faith tells me that God will never forsake us nor will he leave us. True righteousness is peacemaking and healing. Righteousness loves even when love is rejected and called “shameful” because it demands that we make peace and offer healing to a broken and war-torn world. There is no need for a sign when the greatest sign has already been given. Our response, our correct attitude, is to look deep and root out the source of sin.