Deacon Dan Wright

Discovering and Accepting Truth as Spirituality: The Journey of Getting Our Facts Straight

For years I held that the stories of Christian martyrs and their persecutions were historical facts and thus to be accepted without question. However, I recently found an article on a new book by Notre Dame scholar Candida Moss, which calls the historicity of these stories into doubt. Moss is interviewed in the article.

Something that Moss said--just a simple statement--stood out to me, and in many ways defines the direction that my spiritual growth has taken me most recently. Moss says, "We... have an obligation to get our facts straight, however painful that might be." Sometimes it turns out that we make a discovery in our lives that goes against everything we ever held to be true. How do we handle it when that happens?

First, a maxim I have learned to live by is that we have nothing to fear in discovering and accepting truth. This holds even when what we discover seems to strike at the heart of what we believe and value. Jesus taught that his disciples would know the truth and the truth would free them. From the viewpoint of faith there is certainly nothing to fear in learning truth. Mine has become a religion of seeking and learning truth regardless of the cost. Truth has that kind of value.

Knowing truth helps us to be aware of when we are being manipulated for some purpose, and it exposes the dangers of falling for such manipulation. In searching for truth it is not that we are merely relying on facts without examining the subjective depth of truth claims, but that we allow the facts to speak to us from as many different variables of experience as possible. However, the subjective truth we experience has to be weighed against whatever the evidence that exists tells us.

Throughout my life I have found that belief often has to be adjusted, but doing so does not necessarily involve a loss in faith. Actually, the opposite tends to hold true more often, at least in my experience. Sometimes it is the case that the adjustment--the eye-opening experience--is what faith actually requires in order to continue to grow and be healthy. Any time our beliefs become such that we refuse to adjust them when truth calls for it, then those beliefs bear more the character of idols.

The case of martyrdom and persecution that I examine in tonight's reflection is a great example. Recently, over many months in the past year, I have heard the claim that the Church--the US Church in particular--is undergoing a time of great persecution. I have heard from the pulpit that we should not be surprised to see Christian bishops shed their blood in a year's time. From the first time I heard the claim of persecution I knew that something was wrong. I asked, "Where is the violence and the bloodshed against the Church right now? It may exist somewhere in the world but not here: not in the US Catholic Church." Moss aptly points out in her interview that we do a certain wrong to those who actually suffer persecution when we misuse it for our own purposes.

All true believers, and all seekers of truth, owe it to themselves to question those claims--both recent and historical--that have somehow gained a place of being beyond inquiry or doubt. What may be our outcome is a purified personal belief that better helps us see ourselves as a part of a plurality of religious truth where persecution on account of one's religion will scarcely be tolerated.

The journey of truth continues along the path: it never really involves loss. Truth is always a gain, and if it does involve exchanging some aspect of our personal belief--even if it is painful as Moss says--we have to treat it as an obligation. This only amounts to spiritual growth.

Revisiting St. Thomas the Apostle: Patron of All who Have Doubted

When I first began my blog about six years ago, I felt that the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle was an important date for us to bear in mind as a community of believers. That post is still here, and I think that what I was getting at in 2006 is perhaps even more important to us now in 2012.

Many years ago, long before I had place to post my thoughts on the Internet, a wise priest told me that someday I would find my personal patron saint. Since then I've considered more than one who has indirectly influenced my life--people like Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta or perhaps Dorothy Day: people who gave their lives for the poor of the earth. In my search for serving in justice and charity these have stood out. However, I'm not sure now that I would consider them to be my patron saints. A personal patron ought to be one whose life somehow reaches deep to cross paths with our own. With a patron saint we make a deeply personal connection.

In 2006 on the feast day of St. Thomas I considered the doubt that existed in the world then. I considered what I read in the news of increasingly vocal opposition to belief, and moved by that opposition and unbelief I wrote to it. My point of view hasn't changed really at all: belief is now challenged more than ever it seems. In way that may seem strange to many Christian believers I tend to identify deeply with Thomas the doubter, and I identify with those who have a hard time believing. I think we tend to believe in the wrong things while we overlook the most obvious. If there has been a patron saint in my life it will mostly likely turn out to be St. Thomas the Apostle before any of the other noble inspirations I might mention here.

As with my earlier post, I still believe in looking beyond the empirical objective world for the deepest realities. I believe in and I look to qualitative experiences of the lifeworld, the "down and dirty" and "nitty-gritty" of life, to find the stuff of faith. For me faith can't be so much about the things that demand scientific proofs, rather faith is about life as it is experienced. If faith is about merely believing, about blindly accepting and following--without questioning, reflecting, or grappling with doubt--then I would be among those whose doubts are overwhelming. I might count myself among the unbelievers. However, I am a believer and I believe that life offers evidence daily in itself for what I believe in.

While opposition to Christianity in our world seems stronger than ever, the greatest challenges to faith don't necessarily come from anti-Christian or atheistic claims. The greatest opposition comes from our willingness to take hold of what is false and our unwillingness, perhaps our fear, to seek out the truth with clarity. It comes from our unwillingness to search beneath the surface and explore the deepest layers of experience. Faith is about having the courage to hang on when there aren't any readily available answers on the surface at the moment.

In 2006 I hinted in my post that there is a problem with being both an ideologue and a believer. The two are in opposition to one another. I hinted that we have to move beyond legalistic and political positions. Well here we are in 2012 and we aren't necessarily better off. I look around and I see those who claim to have faith battling those who they see as their opponents with politics and legalistic religion. We seem to want to put out the fire by pouring gas on it. Instead of faith we choose dogma. Instead of looking to the world and passion of human life we look to the dead letter of the law. Instead of Jesus, Christians choose politics. Humanity--like that of Christ--with all its earthiness, tends to be looked to last when we consider the stuff of faith. I think this is a huge mistake. It is part of the dupe of all dupes.

A few years ago when I learned of the doubts that Mother Teresa reportedly had in her life I was concerned. Now at this point in my life I am no longer worried about it so much. Doubt is part of belief and I actually would seriously question the faith of one who claimed to have never doubted. 

Indeed our world offers us a great deal to be doubtful about, though often it is in a negative and unhealthy way. Unfortunately sometimes the public expression of our faith, our religion, also offers us plenty to be doubtful about. Whenever certain quarters of Christianity begin to demand fanatic following; when so-called faith begins to demand ideological or political allegiance; when it overlooks the experiences of real-life people caught up in real-life struggles, then how can we help but feel a temptation to doubt and even to walk away in despair?

It's really no coincidence that I write this post on the eve of Independence Day after a long hiatus from blogging anything but an occasional homily. For me the greatest enemy of true Christianity is and always has been the idols we place before having faith in that which truly should be the ground of all we believe: the Holy.

We make our idols now not in the form of wood and stone, but in the form of nation, party, and ideology. We tend to elevate our ideals to the level of the things that are sacrosanct in the faith. We set aside the deeper and harder to grasp realities of belief for more concrete and graspable ideologies. We replace the word of faith with the notions of state and freedom. We place our banners and flags next to our shrine and our altars too often have become the soapbox of mere political wrangling or the places to honor and elevate ideas that are in no way equal to the mystery symbolized by those sacred places.

True belief makes certain demands or challenges on our part and we are better off by taking them. To be faithful we remain courageous when faced with challenges and doubts. We admit that we may not always have the answers. Faith asks us to take a position that might put us in a dangerous spot: it asks us to stand for truth in a time when eyes have become blind to it.

Faith demands that we have a vision of a world where there is fairness, peace, and justice, and in faith we work to bring those about. Faith demands that we take a position that may be unpopular because it doesn't lend support to the idols or the idolaters or to their ideals. Belief demands that we explore the texture of humanity, which never really comes in a neat and clean package, and that we look squarely at those things that tend to challenge us most; that is, at those things which cause us to be most fearful and most doubtful. Faith demands that we leave the idols and ideologies behind for the reality of life as we live it. Faith asks us to be honest about our deepest doubts, and faith opens a world for us where we can finally touch that which is most real.

It turns out that our greatest threats to faith, and our greatest threats to freedom--if that is what concerns us--is our all too easy willingness to accept an imitation of the real thing. We have to be like Thomas: we have to reach out and touch the humanity that has experienced the cross. We touch it by making contact with each other and especially with those who suffer. We recall that the all-in-all of our believing walked among us to teach us not to be Pharisees, scribes, or even good citizens of Rome. He came to have his hands, feet, and side pierced and he asks us to touch his humanity, and nothing aside from this will do. 

 

Friday Reflection: The Memorial of Agatha, the Memorial of Goodness

He gave the power to become the children of God to everyone who received him. 

John 1:12

St. Methodius, in today's Office of Readings, tells us that St. Agatha, being true to the meaning of her name, was truly good. He tells us that she lived as a child of God. The memorial we celebrate today may be taken as reminder of our call to goodness.

Being good requires some exploration on our part. What seems like it should be self-evident actually takes a bit of uncovering. Recall that our Lord said, "Why do you ask me about the good?" or, in other versions, "Why do you call me good? There is but one who is good and that one is God." Goodness may not be as common as we might think.

To be good we must be Christ-like, which goes along perfectly with my intention to further explore how Jesus stands out in his person and in his holiness. Some might argue, erroneously, that it is impossible to be good. However, as Christians we have a duty to seek out what is good and—to the best of our ability—to do the good. We bear in mind, of course, that Jesus is perfect goodness revealed in a human person.

If we consider goodness to the opposite of evil, and evil to be the absence of goodness, it follows that goodness is the overall positive attributes of something. It is that which is not lacking in its positive intention: it is that which is whole and complete. It is the realization of faultless perfection.

To be good is to be an imitator of goodness; to imitate Christ and to imitate the saints. It is to pray that God will make us good because he is able to create from what is not yet. God is able to add goodness where none yet currently exists.

To be good in the world in which we live today calls on us to make strong decisions. It calls on us to stand up for what it means to love others. It calls on us to make difficult decisions courageously. It calls on us to give of ourselves. Goodness demands positive contribution; it demands right action. Often goodness requires sacrifice. Always goodness embrace humanity without reservation. 

I like the line from St. Methodius where he says that Agatha lived as a child of God. In these words we find the secret of being good and pleasing to God. We might pray something like this: "Today Lord, I want to be your child. I want to live as a child of God. I want to be your good child; to be your loving and obedient child. Today I want to live in the reality that you make it possible for me to be everything it means to good. Today Lord I receive you into my heart."

 

 

Remembering Timothy and Titus: On Being Disciples

The mother of Jesus and his brothers arrived at the house.
Standing outside, they sent word to Jesus and called him.
A crowd seated around him told him,
"Your mother and your brothers and your sisters
are outside asking for you."
But he said to them in reply,
"Who are my mother and my brothers?"
And looking around at those seated in the circle he said,
"Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God

is my brother and sister and mother." Mk 3:31-35

The gospel reading today for the Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, is one that I find to be an interesting selection. It juxtaposes Mary, whom we call blessed and mother, and whom we adore, with all who strive to do the will of God.

To do the will of God might seem to be a monumental task, perhaps one too great for mere men and women to accomplish. We need not look far in this life to notice, not the triumphs of humanity, but the common failures and traps. In our times it frequently seems that the expectation is for us to make a mess of our lives, and so we go about doing just that.

However, there is another way; it is the way of those who are called disciples. One of the memories I cherish and value from my childhood is that my great aunt, who took on the role of mother for me, taught me at an early age that I could be a disciple. She did this by directly teaching me about the disciples and apostles and then telling me that I too could be a disciple.

Discipleship is about doing what the world does not expect us to do. The world tells us to follow after our base appetites and to let no one tell us that the way of our desires will lead to an unfulfilled life rather than the fulfillment that they falsely promise.

Jesus wants us to be disciples. He wants those who long to do his will. Doing the will of God has the effect of incorporating us into the family of Christ. We stand alongside his mother and his brothers and sisters who have said, "I desire to do your will O Lord, help me in my weakness to be what you want me to be. Help me Lord to be what the world does not expect me to be. May I triumph in you; may I overcome in you, and may I be made new entirely in you."

Discipleship is the witness of the power of God to reach in and change lives. It is the witness of conversion, and the witness of a love greater than any love the world knows. Really, I think we all want love. Too often this becomes the source of many failures. If we only knew that the love of God awaits us and the magnitude of it, we might fall to our knees immediately and pray, "thy will be done."

Paul's Conversion and Our Conversion

Although I considered the readings for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul today as a place to begin my reflection, what stood out to me more, at least in the general theme of conversion was a reading from First Peter, which was part of yesterday’s evening prayer:

Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he who in his great mercy gave us new birth; a birth unto hope which draws its life from the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; a birth to an imperishable inheritance, incapable of fading of defilement…

Certainly when we look at the life of St. Paul, who said that his sins were greater than those belonging to any other because of his persecution of the Church, we can see both the mercy of God and the new birth in Christ active in his life. Indeed, God frees us all from sin and gives us a new beginning in a world made new by the power of Christ.  Paul shows us what we can attain with faith. The essential message of Saints Peter and Paul does not vary. God makes all things new; he does it in us by the power of his great love to give us a new beginning, a new birth. In Christ God makes all things new and we stand blessed to participate in praising God along with countless saints and angels.

As I read the passage quoted above I felt compelled to insert myself into it as I continued:

…which is kept in heaven for me who is guarded with God’s power through faith; to be revealed in the last days.

While the message of the conversion of St. Paul certainly teaches us about the great apostle, it also teaches us about ourselves. It is about Paul and us. Therefore, when I first read St. John Chrysostom’s excerpt from the Office of Readings for today’s feast, I felt a strong sense of affirmation.  He says:

Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what man really is, and in what our nobility consists, and of what virtue this particular animal is capable…

...Of what we are capable through God's mercy by our daily participation in the new creation; by our participation from moment to moment in God's design for humanity. What might be wrought by faith human tongues have just begun to express.

Remembering St. Agnes: Considering a Child's Sacrifice

Today is the birthday of a virgin; let us imitate her purity. It is the birthday of a martyr; let us offer ourselves in sacrifice. It is the birthday of Saint Agnes, who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve….Dragged against her will to the altars, she stretches out her hands to the Lord in the midst of flames, making the triumphant sign of Christ the victor on the altar of sacrilege….Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr’s crown; unfitted for the contest, yet effortless in victory, she shows herself a master of valor despite the handicap of youth. As a bride she would not be hastening to join her husband with the same joy she shows as a virgin on her way to punishment, crowned not with flowers but with holiness of life, adorned not with braided hair but with Christ himself.—St. Ambrose, On Virgins

It may be that sometimes we don’t sufficiently consider the lives of the saints and martyrs on their feast days or memorials. For those who are able to attend Mass daily there may be a better understanding where there is a priest for whom such things bear great importance. I must admit that sometimes, due to the busyness of the day or something else, I have failed to give the kind of attention to the lives of the saints that would truly inform my worship. However, sometimes there is a saint who seems to call out and catch my attention.

Years ago I had a long visit with a wise elderly priest after coming to terms with an especially trying personal challenge. The priest told me that there had always been a saint praying for me, whom I may not have realized or known about—he said it was a special saint whose prayers were just for me. I believe this now more than ever.

I can’t really say that Agnes, this young girl who lived in the third or fourth century, has been my special saint. However, I do know that she stands out to me today. Perhaps it is her youth and the fact that I have a little boy who is only a year younger than Agnes was when she offered her life in the truest imitation of Christ. Perhaps it is my consideration of my own daughter, who is just couple years older than St. Agnes was, who speaks to me. Regardless, I want to stop for a moment and consider St. Agnes, whom St. Ambrose tells us “succeeds in convincing others of her testimony about God.”

Today I call out her name. I say "St. Agnes, little friend, not unlike some of my students whom I fondly remember from years past, not unlike my own children, pray for me. Help me to have your courage and commitment to Christ. Help me to become like you, who depended on God and placed yourself entirely in the hands of Christ our savior. Let me be like you…to hide myself in Christ Jesus…to place myself entirely in his great sacrifice… but also to face the here and now with courage. Not being called to suffer the martyr’s death necessarily, but being called to give my all, my everything, for him who loved me greatest and saved me from eternal death."

The Lesson of Meeting Hate With Love: Reflecting on Martin Luther King Jr.

Recently a coworker asked me what I thought the significance is of celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Too often those of us who get the day off from work—teachers, government employees, students and others—may tend not to think all that much about why we have the day away from our work, but instead we may treat it as just another day off. 

I believe it’s a mistake for us not to reflect upon and consider the significance of this holiday.  In fact, we really ought to find some way to celebrate it actively.  We ought to find some action by which we can incorporate the meaning of the holiday into our lives.  I want to offer a suggestion: we can allow Martin Luther King Jr. Day to be the occasion for a renewed commitment to making peace in our world.  In the name of Martin Luther King Jr., that is, in the name of all the good that he stood for, we can commit to a daily act of peacemaking in order for the world to be a better place for everyone, a place of true freedom and mutual respect; a place of true justice and hope.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is about the dream that he had, and a dream for us to share.  His was a dream of peace; a dream of cooperation and equality.  Dr. King’s dream included all Americans—no, more than that.  His dream is a dream for every man, woman, and child of planet earth.  It is a dream that I find to be in keeping with everything that I’ve been taught about the true significance of living the life in Christ.  It is a dream where I see in the faces of all people my brothers and sisters, my family, and my friends.  Dr. King’s dream is a vision of a world free from oppression and hostility; free from hatred, inequality, injustice, and ignorance.  How could we not make it our own?  How could we not live it today?

The lesson that I take from Dr. King, and that I commit to live, is the lesson of meeting hate with love.  In a conversation with a friend recently I mentioned that Dr. King taught that we must meet hate with love.  I went on to say that to do so is certainly not the “natural” thing to do.  Much to the contrary, it’s natural to meet hate with repulsion, and often with aggression.  My friend told me that meeting hate with love is supernatural, and indeed to do so requires that we tap into God’s reservoir of grace.  Something I want to emphasize here is that it’s far from impossible to meet hate with love.  In fact, meeting hate with love should be the habitual Christian stance.  It’s the real way that each of us will change the world one person at a time.

Take a few moments today to consider the significance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Incorporate it into your prayer life if you will.  Ask God to make you a vessel of peace.  Consider today the significance of this great Christian leader who asked us to share his dream.  Consider the value of peacemaking and nonviolence as a way of bringing about a transformed world.  Moreover, reflect on the real responsibility that each of us must take to do something to make peace a reality.

Let us go forward together and always meet hate with love.  Love has the power to transform, and all who encounter true love will remain forever changed by it.

Meditation on the Memorial of St. Ephrem: The Sacraments

Living within a Christian milieu that consists of ideas tempered strongly with evangelicalism, we sometimes miss or overlook our rich heritage of the sacramental understanding of the faith. Having grown up in an evangelical household I can tell you that the word "sacrament" was not mentioned ever. It wasn't until I began exploring Catholicism that I began to consider the Sacraments as the means to grace.

It's not uncommon to find that Protestants, especially Evangelicals—with the exception of the old "mainline" denominations to a degree—reject the idea of sacraments and sacramentality.

Years ago, when I was working toward a theology Masters at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, I had a conversation with a woman who was in the process of being ordained to the United Methodist Church. She asked me about my theological interests. I mentioned Rahner, though at the time I had only just begun to read his works. My interest in Rahner sprang from what I perceived as his similarity to the European phenomenological philosophers whom I had studied as an undergraduate.

"You know," she told me, "that's good, but he's sacramental." I replied that a sacramental approach was exactly what I wanted. In her "…but he's sacramental" I perceived an implicit rejection of the notion that God works through sacraments as a means to provide the grace needed unto salvation. I suppose this type of rejection is what runs behind ideas such as the evangelical doctrine that baptism is not necessary for salvation, but rather that it is merely a church ordinance. In an evangelical view the same might be said in regard to the Lord's Supper, marriage, etc.

My classmate's objection to Rahner's theology as "sacramental" was ironic given that Rahner's theology might have helped her to see a connection between an individualist or personal view of grace and the certainty of grace available made possible in each of the Sacraments.  Sacraments and sacramentality in general are not such that they should appear as somehow foreign to or not belonging to biblical Christianity, even from a merely biblicist point of reference.

So this morning, as I happened to look at the Office of Readings for the Memorial of St. Ephrem (born 306 A.D.), I was delighted to find rich sacramental language dating from the early days of the Church.

In your sacrament we daily embrace you and receive you into our bodies; make us worthy to experience the resurrection for which we hope. We have had your treasure hidden within us ever since we received baptismal grace; it grows ever richer at your sacramental table.

Indeed it is refreshing to find such early affirmations of the faith we have come to know and depend upon. However, over the years I have noticed that frequently the idea—the truth—of sacramental grace often does not get the attention it deserves.

I have frequently wondered whether the Sacraments are still understood as the primary means of grace, or if we, like our Evangelical neighbors, understand salvation as a purely individual concern, defined only in terms of one's personal relationship with God. A question that concerns me is whether as Catholic Christians we are beginning to embrace a way of believing which is lacking in the communal dimension of the Sacraments as the primary means to receive the grace that leads to eternal life.

I ask this only because I frequently fail to see much attention given to teaching and sharing the understanding of the idea of the Sacraments as the normal means to grace. Perhaps it's a local phenomenon that comes from being literally surrounded by non-denominational churches, bible churches, storefront churches--some less than a mile apart, some back-to-back.  Surely there is influence.  I see it several parishes.  There is undoubtedly a tendency to be less sacramentally-centered and more emphasis put on the personal or individual dimensions of faith. 

It seems as if, in terms of importance, we risk transposing the knowledge of the importance sacramental participation with individual prayer and bible study, which of course in themselves are good.  However, personal prayer for forgiveness of sins is not a substitute for Penance.  Nor is bible study or preaching a substitute for Eucharist.  While we receive grace and forgiveness in personal prayer we do not receive it as a sacrament.  The same might be said for receiving the presence of God in bible study.  Sacraments offer us the certainty of grace beyond the limits of personal doubt.

I suppose it all goes along with shorter lines at confession, which in turn makes me wonder how much understanding accompanies those who are in the long lines for communion. From time to time at Baptism meetings I have caught doubtful glances or confused looks when mentioning that Baptism is something that we do in order to receive grace unto salvation and begin the sacramental life.  Occasionally I have gotten the unintentional negative nodding gesture.  I have heard from couples in mixed faith marriages that their baby will be christened now and then baptized as an adult if he or she chooses to do so.

I would never want to deny that grace is freely available in our world through belief and trust in Jesus Christ. I would never tell a Pentecostal that he or she has not received the Holy Spirit because of not having received Confirmation. However, if we approach the Sacraments without faith, without the belief that they offer us the fullness and certainty of grace, we are no better off—even less so—than those who deny the need for the Sacraments altogether.

Today, especially in the times and world in which we live, we might pray with St. Ephrem, "Teach us to find joy in your favor! Lord we have within us your memorial, received at your spiritual table; let us possess it in its full reality when all things shall be made new."

The Memorial of Mary Magdalene

As I was reflecting on the meaning of the Memorial of St. Mary Magdalene, I couldn't really help but consider the popular notions and the twists that modernity has placed on her life and person. What many, if not most, people commonly know about Mary Magdalene comes from the false ideas made popular by Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.

In terms of our faith, that is, in terms of our real-life relationship with God and the Church, and with one another and with the whole world, what does the life of Mary Magdalene stand to teach us? What do we stand to learn aside from the fantasy and unreality that the non-believing world has chosen to accept as truth? Certainly fantasy—in the sense of creative imagination—about Mary Magdalene is nothing new, as the Gnostic literature of Nag Hammadi reveals.

Even from a more orthodox historical point of view there has never been great agreement about Mary Magdalene, but there has certainly been plenty said—especially in consideration of the tradition that identifies her with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. So what are we to think or believe? What is the lesson to be had?

I don't know that it matters all that much that we identify with certainty whether or not Mary Magdalene was the sister of Martha or whether she was the sinner who anointed the Lord's feet, as the painting above depicts. Putting the three together—Magdalene, the sister of Martha, and the sinner—has helped somewhat to fill in the unknowns. However, what is clear from Luke 8:2-3 is that Mary Magdalene experienced a great healing and exorcism in her life.

I suppose that the popular media would never accept the fact that Mary had been freed from seven demons, which is at least symbolic of a great depth of sin and despair, as one of the most important things we can know about her. However, I deeply believe that this is where we should put our attention.

The first reading today from Micah reveals God's great clemency:

Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?
You will cast into the depths of the sea
all our sins;
You will show faithfulness to Jacob,
and grace to Abraham,
As you have sworn to our fathers
from days of old.

It does us some good to consider the ideal of grace as made concrete in an individual person. Sure, throughout history there have been great conversions, but in many ways Mary Magdalene serves almost as a prototypical example of God's grace made concrete in a human being who had a great need to be forgiven. It also does us good to consider that such grace is made available by faith in, and love for, Jesus.

The gospel narrative today tells us the story of Mary Magdalene's being privileged to be the first person to witness the Resurrection of the Lord. It is penance come full circle. As I considered the Easter witness of Mary Magdalene, the thought crossed my mind that many people might prefer that the first witness of the Resurrection had been someone else—perhaps Peter or the disciple "whom Jesus loved" or even Mary his mother—yet the one who had this privilege above all these is the one out of whom went seven demons.

The idea of someone who had been trapped in the depths—perhaps unimaginably despairing—of sin having the grace to be the first to witness the resurrected Lord speaks deeply of the faith that we need more and more in our times. Indeed, I have long held that Mary Magdalene is the kind of individual that stands to say the most to us.

Years ago a wise priest told me in counseling after confession that I had a saint who had been praying for me long before I was born. He told me that someday I would know who this saint is. Perhaps, he told me, I would even come to have a special devotion to this particular saint. In some ways I think that Mary Magdalene might be that saint.

On more than one occasion I have had people write in and tell me that religion as presented in blogs and on the Internet fails to address the true struggle that most Christians experience in their lives. I don't have to think back too far to find places in my own life that cause me to say to myself, "Yes, I do know the struggles. I too have struggled and frequently continue to do so."

What Mary Magdalene shows us is that freedom from struggle is not something that is outside our reach. She shows us that faith stands to be perfected in sinners. It could be that we get things wrong when we associate faith only with the pious and godly saints who never doubted or felt trapped by addictions or alcoholism or who experienced the darkness of depression or never had acted in such a way to feel genuine regret.

Mary Magdalene speaks to us of grace. Her face is reflected in the convicted killer on his way to the death chamber; it shows in the eyes of the woman leaving the abortion clinic. Her struggling heart is one with every drunk and drug addict, with every man and woman exploited by pornography, and with every adulterous husband or wife—and even those who have abandoned, neglected, and harmed their own children are not beneath Mary Magdalene. Yet hers is the witness of grace. It is the witness that our Lord Jesus heals us, removes our demons, and invites us to partake in his Resurrection.

For Mary Magdalene's dignity and meaning to shine through we don't have to imagine her in some fantastic role of hidden power. We don't have to fantasize that she possessed the gnosis of salvation. She lived a common human life; she needed healing and forgiveness and she turned to the God who promised that such graceful love as to forgive the fullness of guilt would always be available.  In her real life experience, there is an abundance to which we people of the 21st century can and perhaps must relate.

New Rules on Criteria for Sainthood

VATICAN CITY, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- The Vatican Monday issued a new set of rules tightening criteria for declaring someone a saint in a move seen as a return to more traditional practices.

The 100-page document released instructs Catholic bishops to be tougher when deciding which candidates for sainthood can begin the official procedures leading to canonization, Italy's ANSA news agency reports.

Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, head of the Vatican's saints department, writes the new rules ask bishops to show "greater sobriety and rigor" when accepting requests to begin the first phase of the proceedings.

ANSA says in a recent interview Cardinal Martins hinted that under Pope John Paul II certain prospective saints were fast-tracked because they came from countries the pope was set to visit or countries that didn't have a saint.

A new set of rules was needed, Cardinal Martins said, "to respond better to the new spirit introduced by Benedict XVI."

Critics of Pope John Paul II said his approach had devalued sainthood in the eyes of the world.

Source

From Zenit:

In his remarks, [Cardinal Martins] explained that the aim of the document "is to contribute to ensuring that current norms for the diocesan inquiry of a cause of beatification and canonization are applied with ever greater care."

The instruction is divided into six sections. Cardinal Saraiva Martins noted the theme of each of them: "The first draws attention to the need for a true reputation of holiness before beginning a process...

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For critics of the "fast track to sainthood," which has been witnessed in the recent past, this should come as a welcome return to greater consideration before moving ahead with the causes of sainthood, which also should avoid any possible mistakes of a too hasty approach.

The new rules seem to be a prudent move to a more traditional stance.