Tag: Catechism of the Catholic Church

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Forgiveness and the Holy Spirit

“I just can’t forgive and forget.” How many times as a priest have I heard that line!

When I respond with “Of course you can’t!” or “You don’t have to!” it’s not uncommon to see a stunned expression of disbelief. Isn’t that what our faith teaches us we have to do?

No, it’s not.  In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches exactly the opposite! Paragraph 2843 tells us that it is not in our power to stop feeling an offense, nor to forget about it.

If we find ourselves battling with unforgiveness, we can be assured that it is not our feeling that is the problem, nor our remembering. They need healing and care, yes, but our emotions and our memory are marvelous, God-created human faculties that are actually standing witness to the reality and the gravity of the harm that happened. I have written before on how feeling anger is actually part of the path of forgiveness.

There is an untying or unbinding that needs to happen if we desire to forgive from the depth of our heart, as Jesus invites us (Matthew 18:35). This unbinding can only happen if we yield and surrender. But it is a divine work, made possible by the victory of Jesus in his dying, rising, and ascending. Slowly but surely – sometimes in cathartic moments, other times in painful and vigilant waiting – his victory becomes our victory. We truly become like Christ – which means we share in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Remember that “Christ” means “anointed one,” and “Christian” refers to one who shares in that anointing.  It is the Holy Spirit who transforms our hearts as we walk the path of forgiveness.

The Catechism describes it this way:

It is there, in fact, “in the depths of the heart,” that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession (CCC 2843).

Every offense wounds both the perpetrator and the victim. Unhealed wounds fester in both. It is within our wounds that the evil one tends to find his playground. Ignatius of Loyola describes the devil as “the enemy of our human nature.” In his hatred and envy, he is eager to torment us. Human scenes or harm or neglect (whether emotional, physical, sexual, or spiritual) offer the devil fertile soil to sow his lies – lies about who God is and lies about who we are as God’s beloved children.

If and when we find the courage to face our deeper wounds, we can welcome the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He is the Paraclete – the one who comforts, consoles, counsels, encourages, and soothes.

Think of a little girl with a wound. Does she want mom or dad to put ointment on it? Not normally! She probably needs a good deal of reassurance that it’s going to be okay. Is it going to hurt? Actually, yes. But it will also soothe and help it get better. She may need to breathe and calm down first before she is okay with them tending to the wound.

We are invited to approach our heavenly Father as little children, and to welcome the anointing of the Holy Spirit – especially when we find ourselves feeling the wounds of past harm.

When I do this personally, I find it incredibly helpful to have visible reminders of who God is and who he has been for me. I also believe strongly that Jesus, dying on the Cross, was also speaking to me when he said “Behold, your mother!” Mary has very much been a mother to me on my own healing journey, giving me the emotional and spiritual safety to receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit with confidence.

It still hurts – sometimes a lot. There’s a reason why people avoid going to doctors – even really good ones. There’s a reason why people don’t always follow through on healthy rehab. Even when we know there is new and better life on the other side, we are afraid of the suffering and surrender that precede.

But the anointing of the Holy Spirit also comforts and consoles. If we allow him to touch us where we are wounded, healing will always happen – sometimes with a cathartic release or a dramatic unbinding, but more commonly with slow and steady doses of his healing balm. That is why healthy Christian community is so important. We often need others to point out and celebrate the progress we are making. We can count on the devil to discourage whenever he sees an opportunity. The Holy Spirit works through our companions, our mentors, our spiritual guides, and our therapists to spur us on us with encouragement by celebrating every step of progress. Like little children who are learning and growing, we need a cloud of witnesses cheering us on.

Notice in the Catechism quote that healing of past harm is not a matter of erasing, but of transforming. As the Holy Spirit anoints us, we become truly Christ-like. Jesus’ wounds are not erased – he actually shows them to the apostles after his Resurrection. But those wounds are transformed, as is he. He is now seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us. The more we receive true healing in the depths of our heart, the more we become like Christ. Injury is changed into empathy and compassion. Our wounds become (like Christ’s) sources of healing and transformation for others. Like him, we become powerful intercessors.

I offer a caution here! With the word “intercession” comes a risk shortcutting the process. Becoming Christ-like means willingly suffering, dying, rising, and ascending with him. We don’t like the whole powerless part, so we have a human tendency to grab onto something that gives us the illusion of control. If I can be an intercessor (praying for those who have hurt me) then I can feel in control – and I can conveniently keep all attention away from my unhealed wounds. And little or no transformation will happen. Only when I willingly and freely walk the path of Jesus, the healing path of the Paschal Mystery, can I truly experience the transformation of forgiveness.

True intercession comes from a place of already-won victory. It is the risen and ascended Jesus who is our intercessor at the right hand of the Father. As we come to share more and more in his victory, our healed wounds become a powerful place of intercession on behalf of those who have harmed us. To the extent that we resist and refuse to go into the depths of our heart – where the wounds are –we will remain bound up in unforgiveness and resentment. We can “intercede” feverishly in that case – and we will only be making an idol out of the one who has harmed us, orienting ourselves around him or her rather than worshiping the living God.

As the Letter to the Hebrews teaches us, Jesus is our great high priest who truly became one flesh and one blood with us and has now brought our human flesh and blood into the heavenly sanctuary, where he reigns victoriously with the Father. Their Holy Spirit allows all that is Christ’s to be ours. That means willingly entering into the depths of suffering and dying with him – knowing that he has gone there first. All the while we will likely find ourselves recoiling with a fear of betrayal, resisting any experience of powerlessness, and both wanting and not wanting such intense love. The Holy Spirit will comfort and encourage us. We will discover the newness of the Resurrection and power of the Ascension, and come to share more and more in the great triumph of his Mercy.

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Fatherhood

Fatherhood is under fire today. Even to talk about it can be taboo. I will take that risk. Authentic fatherhood cuts into the core of Christian faith, because Jesus reveals God as his Father. Read John’s Gospel. Read his three letters. You will hear again and again that Jesus is from the Father. He is in communion with his Father – not just as a human being now in time – but in an eternal communion of intimate love. The bond of love between them is so perfect that it IS a third person, the Holy Spirit. Jesus repeatedly expresses his desire that we come to share in this communion; he invites us to experience God as “Our Father,” to pray and relate to him in that way, both individually and communally.

This poses a problem in a world (and a Church) in which fatherhood has so often failed or harmed. Almost all of us have a distorted view of God the Father, because we are looking at him through the lens of our earthly experiences of fatherhood.

We tend to take the analogy backwards. We are thinking, “God is a Father sort of like these earthly fathers.” It is the other way around! Any authentic earthly fatherhood is rightly called fatherhood only to the extent that it is a sharing in and revelation of God’s Fatherhood.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church warns us against projecting our earthly views of fatherhood onto God:

…we must humbly cleanse our hearts of certain false images drawn “from this world.” Humility makes us recognize that “no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son” … The purification of our hearts has to do with paternal or maternal images, stemming from our personal and cultural history, and influencing our relationship with God. God our Father transcends the categories of the created world. To impose our own ideas in this area “upon him” would be to fabricate idols to adore or pull down. To pray to the Father is to enter into his mystery as he is and as the Son has revealed him to us (n. 2779).

These days you will find anti-patriarchy and pro-patriarchy camps in Christianity. The Catechism here offers sympathy and caution to both sides! Both are speaking certain truths that need to be heard. Both sides also have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. On the pro-patriarchy side, you will often find culture warriors who are defending, not God, but worldly structures. Those structures are much more about privilege and power than they are about a true sharing in God’s Fatherhood! God is always on the side of the poor and the oppressed, and if we find ourselves blindly defending oppressive fathers (whether dads or spiritual leaders), we may find ourselves far from God! But on the anti-patriarchy side, there is an over-reaction against these abuses. They are right to acknowledge that many men have victimized, dominated, intimidated, used, exploited, excluded, and silenced. Such acts belong not only to isolated individual men, but have often been embedded within structures that silence opposing voices and blame the victim: including governments, businesses, schools, families, and our own churches. But throwing out fatherhood altogether means cutting off our access to the true Fatherhood of God. We are created to receive his blessing, and will remain miserable without it.

Without God as a Father, Jesus himself would have no identity! He simply IS the Son – eternally begotten of the Father. He invites us to discover our own true identity by receiving fatherly blessing. We need fatherhood to remember our story and to know who we really are.

Any authentic expression of fatherhood is a true sharing in God’s Fatherhood. The apostle Paul puts it this way: “For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named…” (Ephesians 3:14-15). More commonly, it is translated “every family,” but in Greek the wordplay is obvious: God is Father (pater) and all patria is from him. Without God’s Fatherhood, there is neither fatherhood nor any other sense of family belonging.

We begin our understanding of Fatherhood by connecting with and meditating on the Trinity. This weekend (eight weeks after Resurrection Sunday), many of our Christian liturgical traditions celebrate “Trinity Sunday.” Jesus is the Son. He is from the Father. He depends upon the Father, and draws his true identity from the Father. When Jesus is baptized, the Father claims him as his beloved Son, in whom he delights.

There are layers of truth here. The Father anoints the humanity of Jesus with the Holy Spirit and declares this human being to be truly his Son. But he is also speaking of their eternal relationship. He is eternally God’s Son – even had he never become one of us, even if he had never created human beings or a universe at all!

The Son is eternally from the Father, yet they are co-equal in dignity and majesty. There is no “greater than” or “less than” in the Trinity. If there were, then Jesus and the Holy Spirit would not truly be God! They would be somehow less than fully God.

Can you see the relevance for human versions of fatherhood or patriarchy? If our fatherhood truly reflects and draws its substance from God’s Fatherhood, then there will be no opposition between equality (on the one hand) and being a source of identity and blessing on the other. That means that we must renounce any counterfeit versions of fatherhood that want to exalt someone on a pedestal. Fatherhood is never about power or privilege. Properly understood, there is an authority there – but it is an authority that lifts others up. True fatherhood pours identity into others, helping them to discover in God the Father who they truly are.

This is true of husbands and dads, but it is also true (in a parallel way) of spiritual fathers: priests or bishops. Each in different ways are a sharing or participation in the Fatherhood of God; each causes grave harm when the God-breathed authority is usurped for the sake of power or privilege.

Perhaps that is why Jesus gave such a stern caution, “Call no man on earth your father – you have only one Father, and he is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). In point of fact, we do call men our “fathers” – both biologically and spiritually. Paul referred to himself as a spiritual father (1 Corinthians 4:15; 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12); the Letter to the Hebrews exalts Abraham as our patriarch. Jesus is not condemning earthly fatherhood, but reminding us of its true source.

Dads are fathers. Priests are fathers. Others are father figures as well. Like it or not, we who are fatherly have a massive impact on how others form their view of God the Father. We can heal or harm their relationship with God, depending on how we embrace our calling.

To be continued…

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Purity Culture – Conclusion

This is the fifth and final installment of my reflections on the “purity culture” often found in Christian homes and churches. Out of fear that young people will be corrupted by the sex-obsessed culture, we sometimes miss the mark ourselves. We link shame and sexual desire together in ways God never intended; we abdicate our responsibility of providing apprenticeship in chastity; or we model a moralistic self-righteousness rather than humble growth and fruitfulness. Perhaps the biggest mistake is turning “purity” exclusively into a moral issue and/or a sexual issue. That is certainly not the biblical view nor the Catholic view.

Lie #5 – “Purity” is mainly about sexual morality

In the Beatitudes, Jesus teaches, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:7). Isn’t it interesting that most American Christians hear these words and instantly imagine sexual morality?

Yes, Jesus proceeds to address adultery and lust in the subsequent chapters. But he also addresses murder, aggression, anger, unforgiveness, and greed. He teaches about prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. He invites us to seek first the Kingdom of God, and in so doing to persevere in seeking, asking, and knocking.

Above all else, Jesus speaks from start to finish about a relationship with God the Father. He invites us into communion. He desires us to be “blessed” by our Father, who sent his own Son to die for us while we were yet sinners. We do not and cannot earn our way into relationship by good conduct. We enter our covenant with God as ones who are poor in spirit; grieving and mourning, meek and humble; aching with hunger and thirst. Jesus knows that we will be presenting broken lives to God for mending.  Purity of heart means bringing God all of the scattered pieces of our shattered hearts! It is then that real growth can begin.

In other words, when Jesus speaks of being “pure in heart,” he is inviting us to be wholly and wholeheartedly consecrated to God. That means allowing every dimension of our being to be blessed by him. It is the opposite of hiding away pieces of ourselves in shame! It was the devil who tried to convince Adam and Eve to run and hide after they had disobeyed God.

Toxic shame is perhaps the single greatest obstacle that keeps us from letting ourselves (ALL of ourselves) be loved by God and others. Many of us are more susceptible to shame because we learned to tie performance and relationships together: “I am only lovable if…” or “I am only lovable when…” To the extent that those lies have purchase in our hearts, Christian morality becomes a torment rather than Good News.

The urge to hide ourselves is challenging enough when we feel shame over moral faults. But the devil has worked still greater harm in many of us. In moments of betrayal, abuse, abandonment, or neglect, he has crept in and whispered lies – convincing us to hold contempt toward our desires, our bodies, our sexuality, or our capacity for delight. We then enter a false battle for “purity” – trying to rid ourselves of that which is best in us! If we feel shame every time we feel desire, how can we grow in healthy relationships? Hiding ourselves does not lead to intimacy.

Our shame can be healed by moving away from hiding and towards relationships: becoming truly and safely seen, known, heard, understood, and cherished – not some idealized version of ourselves, but as we currently are, a work in progress.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 2518) speaks of purity of heart as a threefold sharing in God’s purity: in our charity, our chastity, and our orthodox belief. In other words, we are created to share in divine Goodness, divine Beauty, and divine Truth.

Truth, Goodness, and Beauty – the human heart has an almost insatiable longing for all three! The devil HATES this longing in us, but cannot erase it. So he attempts to divert and distract us away from the intimacy of relationship that is at the core of all three.

Our intellects are ordered to the Truth. Purity of heart includes surrendering to the Truth whenever the evidence is in front of us. The humble heart is willing to be proven wrong – or incomplete. The arrogant heart resists the vulnerability of surrender – either through obstinate refusal to believe what God has revealed or through a dogmatism that thinks it knows everything – as though Truth is an object we could possess. The closer we get to divine Truth, the more we realize how little we truly know!

Our wills are ordered to Goodness. We long to love and be loved. And so God commands us to love him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is a two-way street: freely receiving and freely giving. Growing in purity of heart includes recognizing any ways in which we are blocked – either in giving or receiving. The more we love, the greater our ache to become more God-like in our love.

Our ache for Beauty flows from both our intellect and our will. Here we find the intense desire of eros that is such a glorious divine gift. No wonder the devil tries so hard to ruin it! Early and often, he entices us to curse our desire for Beauty – to feel shame around this God-given longing.

Yes, our desires often run wild – overindulging in food, becoming possessive in relationships, or wandering into sexual fantasies. That is why the Catechism speaks of “apprenticeship” in chastity. There is an appropriate pruning or discipline – not for the sake of cutting off desire, but of fully claiming it.

The word “purity” is first and foremost about our relationship with God –with sexuality as only one dimension. It is a damaging distortion to use “purity” in a moralistic sense. Instead, the Catechism of the Catholic Church devotes ten full paragraphs to the much more helpful words “integrity” and “integrality” (see nn. 2338-2347). Little by little, we learn how to put all the pieces together, aided by healthy relationships with God and others.

Becoming a whole person in our sexuality, our desires, our emotions, and our relationships is not a matter of “on” or “off,” maintaining or losing. It is a lifelong task. The Catechism proclaims this integration to be “a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life” (n. 2342).

We are called to keep growing in charity, chastity, and truth our whole life long. The more we grow, the more we will long to grow. Getting a taste of God’s Truth, Goodness, and Beauty is described by many of the mystics as a “wound” – but in this case a wound of love that keeps us coming back to our lover for more. Once we begin tasting from the spring of living waters, our thirst for God intensifies. We desire more; we ache; we taste; we desire; and so the cycle of growth continues.

Apart from those living waters, we wither and die. If we only bring parts of ourselves to the living waters, the relationship will remain impartial and restricted. God desires ALL of us. The mystics desire ALL of him. Unlike lust, however, there is no devouring here. Jesus and his bride become one flesh, in a way that causes both to flourish. Every healthy and holy human relationship imitates that heavenly nuptial union. It is indeed a daunting and lifelong task to keep maturing in imitation of Christ. We need not shame ourselves or others in the process, but allow the kindness of God to keep spurring us on to deeper repentance.

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Purity Culture – Lie #3

Few would deny that we live in an age of unhealthy and dysfunctional sexuality. The “purity culture” we’ve been discussing is an understandable reaction to a real threat. But those engaging in the fight often act as though sexuality is itself the threat. That is quite a contrast from John Paul II’s description of the fruitful one-flesh union of husband and wife as an icon that makes visible the eternal love of the Trinity!

Lie #3: We have to protect our children against sexuality.

Christian families and churches vary in their messaging around sex. Some are prudish and puritanical; others openly proclaim sex as a good and beautiful gift of God. But few have healthy and helpful conversations.

It’s not merely the message that matters; it’s the modeling of the message. A family may have snappy Christmas postcards and impeccable social media posts. They may seem to have it all together. But those who have eyes to see can tell when a married couple is healthy and joyful in their relationship (including their sexuality). You can tell when they are merely pretending, when there is strain, and when there is shame and contempt. Children have fully operational right brains, and as such, they are incredibly intuitive and insightful. If their parents feel shame around their bodies, their desires, their fantasies, or their behaviors, the children will be impacted significantly. Parents who are unhealthy in their own sexuality will invariably transmit their dysfunction to the next generation – especially when they don’t admit it or talk about it.

When the Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses healthy sexuality (n. 2339), it offers the image of apprenticeship in virtue, particularly in the virtue of chastity. Rather than warning against a loss of purity or advocating a posture of protection, the Catechism speaks of gradually growing into the virtue of “chastity” – a virtue that leads to human flourishing in our expression of love and sexuality. Chastity here is not synonymous with celibacy; it applies to everyone. Chastity is a free, joyful, wholehearted, and creative giving and receiving of love – in the way that best suits the place we find ourselves (married, single, celibate, dating, engaged, elderly, prepubescent, adolescent, same-sex attracted, sick, disabled, divorced, widowed, etc.).

Our sexuality is a stunningly beautiful gift from God, one that affects all dimensions of our existence. In his intentional design, he has created us as sexual beings, male and female. He declares us “very good” in his own image and likeness. He invests us with a spark of creativity that none of the other creatures receive. Thus empowered, we are intended to be the stewards of the entire cosmos.

Christian scholars as diverse as C.S. Lewis and Pope Benedict XVI describe this divine spark of creativity as eros – the Greek word for “love” as an intense or erotic desire. Far from seeing eros as a threat, they see it as God’s greatest natural gift to the human race. The creativity of eros shows up in sex, for sure, in the amazing gift of procreation. How many mothers and fathers have held their newborn infant, marveling that this growing child came forth from their very bodies, from their one-flesh union? But eros, when directed in virtue, also fuels every other shining achievement: poetry, music, art, architecture, scientific research, discoveries, and inventions. Celibate individuals tend to be even more passionate and even more fruitful. Consider the public ministry of Jesus, the missionary zeal of Paul, the brilliant philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas, or the intense and alluring joy of Francis of Assisi.

Our sexuality is a precious and powerful gift. As such, it requires ongoing maturing through slow and steady growth. This process only happens well through apprenticeship. Think of a lumberjack or a blacksmith teaching his trade to children, or of Mister Miyagi teaching karate to Daniel LaRusso. They train their youth to wield something powerful – harmful if misused. It’s all the more reason to teach patiently, step by step, how those tools and methods work. Growth and mastery happen through thousands of small moments – including setbacks, conflicts, mistakes, and failures. Nor is the maturing involved simply a matter of skill or technique; it is a style of relating and a way of life.

Many of us my age and older received zero instruction from our parents around our sexuality. At best, there was “the talk” – as though one awkward conversation would yield a lifetime of virtue and holiness in one’s sexuality. When it comes to the single most beautiful gift God has given us, we offer the least guidance. Effective apprenticeship means that children trust both the teaching and the example of their parents. It means they readily go to them when they are struggling.

Perhaps the most helpful thought experiment is what happens if a child stumbles across pornography. These days, sadly, it is not a matter of “if” but only of “when.” It will almost certainly happen before the child reaches 18, and quite possibly before he or she reaches 10.

The normal instinct of the young (both mammals and humans) is to run to their parents when they unexpectedly stumble on something big or unknown or powerful. You don’t have to teach them – it happens automatically!

Why is it, then, that so few children go to mom or dad when they stumble upon pornography, or have an unexpected sexual encounter? Something has happened in their experience that warns them that it will not be safe. The more shame that mom or dad feel around their bodies and their sexuality, the less likely the children will be to go to them. It is one thing to call the body a temple of the Holy Spirit; it is another thing to treat it like one!

Early and often, children need help in understanding their bodies and what they are experiencing in their bodies. The more attuned parents are to what is really happening in the hearts and bodies of their children, the more helpful those conversations will be.

In those rare cases that children run to their parents and receive good care, they will not suffer lasting trauma. Good care includes helping them understand how normal and healthy it is to feel aroused and to feel curious, and to offer guidance on why God created us to feel that way. Then any shame involved in the experience melts away.

As well-meaning as it is to “shelter” children, we need to train them instead. Ask yourself this simple question: would you rather that your children get information and answers from you or from google?  There are real threats in the culture (internet pornography, sexual predators, and human trafficking). Truly protecting children means having healthy and helpful conversations early and often, equipping them and training them. It means apprenticeship!

Our children are as God created them to be: sexual beings with developing bodies, natural curiosity, and capacity for arousal.  That means talking with them, gradually over the years, about their bodies, their body parts, and pornography – using the correct words for all of them and an explanation that makes sense to the children at their developmental stage.

I find that parents who have had the courage to engage their own story and heal from their own shame become the most comfortable and confident at mentoring their children in chastity. Obviously the parents themselves are called by Christ to continue maturing. In many cases, there is a need of remedial mentoring. There are stories of harm or neglect from their own past that have not yet received the healing of Jesus. As parents heal from their shame and recover the glory of their own sexuality, their growth in chastity will attract and guide their children. We cannot expect our children to grow in ways that we have not grown ourselves!

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