Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent
I hope no one else is finding this the case, but for myself, I am finding it difficult to be Catholic these days. This is not because I am thinking about leaving - but friends of mine - friends who are smart and loving and helpful and generous and usually kind but who do not share my faith, keep asking: "Why are you still Catholic?" Opposition to Catholicism comes from various all quarters: left and right, East and West. For some, it is Pope Francis' understanding of the Church and for others it is the church's teachings on homosexuality that lead them to ask these questions; for others, it is the church's stand of climate change and for others it is the church's stand on abortion. For still others, it is the apparent contradiction between a God who loves us and has a personal encounter with us with the empirical evidence of science that lead them to ask these questions. And for others, it is the sinfulness of a church hierarchy that has, in the past (hopefully now, always in the past) condoned sexual abuse through its silence.
If this is it - and it is a lot - why would anyone remain Catholic? We are broken people, in many ways. Being Catholic often means being betwixt and between, and sometimes that means being on everyone else's bad side, at least in sometimes. (I also want to say, I don't think this feeling is exclusive to Catholics, or Christians generally, necessarily - just that this is the particular configuration of events that is leading me to see being Catholic as difficult.)
So, in the midst of all this, I am grateful for today's scripture readings because they remind me, more broadly, of "why?"
Today's first reading (Wisdom 2:1a, 12-22) is one of those readings where it is a good idea to read the whole book, or at least the first chapter, in order to get a sense of where the author is coming from. He is speaking about two groups of people - on one hand, there are the materialists, the ones who see that there is no purpose beyond this life, no substance beyond what we can see, feel and touch. These are the people the author calls "wicked" because they have been "thinking not right." They have been not been using their minds well, and as a result they are not living life well. On the other hand is the just one (Christians have traditionally read the "just one" as being Jesus) - and his followers. From the point of view of the materialists, the "just people" are not doing the right thing because they call God Father and seem to have very intimate knowledge of God.
It would be wrong-headed, I think, to over identify Catholics with either the materialists or the just. I have a feeling that all of us, at some point have been both evil and good; all of us at some point are guilty of not "thinking right". So I think we should not say that Catholics are the "just" ones, for often we are not, as recent events have painfully reminded us.
What I think is especially important to get from this passage, however, is the sense of being tested - "let us see if his words are true" - even to the point of death. The materialists in this passage do not *really* believe in God, and so they think that death is the end. "See if God will save him," they sneer.
And, despite all appearances to the contrary, the words are true. God does take care of Jesus, who is the just one. Being put to death, even death on a cross, is not the end. This is the refrain we have in the gospel reading, as well (John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30). Jesus wishes to follow God's commands by observing the Feast of the Tabernacles (a late fall feast, see here for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukkot). Jesus is saved from death, again and again in this passage. This is a precursor to his resurrection, of course, when he will finally and ultimately defeat death.
The message of good news to us is to be broken, but in another sense. Have faith in God, and live your life faithfully, despite, and perhaps even because of, appearances to the contrary. We follow God because we believe that love has been poured out for us on the cross, because our bodies are loved and redeemed, because Jesus shares his own life and death with us in the Eucharist.
So our call is to live into that life and death, knowing that we will likely be broken, that death (real or figurative) may happen. Yes, it is hard to be Catholic because it is hard to be constantly witnessing to Jesus' death and resurrection, even and especially to the people who need that witnessing in our own church. It is hard to die, and rise to new life. But, like the hymn we sing occasionally, let us be broken for love:
"Let us be bread, blessed by the Lord,
broken and shared, life for the world.
Let us be wine, love freely poured.
Let us be one in the Lord."
My prayer for us, as we move swiftly toward Easter, is that we will find more and more ways of following Christ, even to death and new life.
- Jana M. Bennett