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COLUMNS
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» In Light of Faith
 
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
by Genevieve M. McQuade
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
Childhood memories of this well-known inquiry from the fairy tale “Snow White” may make us consider what standards we use to judge our image.
We might appraise our attractiveness by our bodily appearance, behavior, feelings, or perhaps by others’ reflections of us. Do we cringe from such revelations measured by debatable standards?
St. Paul provides a superior norm: “Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one” (1 Corinthians 15:49). This key verse unlocks Sunday’s readings, too.
Transformation into the “image of the heavenly one” is our call to holiness. No person is exempted. What is this image? Psalm 103 proclaims God as the generous gift-giver — pardoning our sins, healing our ills, delivering us from the pit, surrounding us with compassion, and more. Paul further describes Jesus as “life-giving spirit.”
To bear God’s image is to give life! We, too, are meant to be gift-givers, in other words, to be life-givers! Moreover, to bear Jesus’ image is to reflect his true beauty.
Luke’s gospel, though, severely tests this beautiful, life-giving countenance with one of the most rasping, radical passages in the Bible. Jesus urges us to do good to those who hate us, love our enemies, be merciful, and not condemn.
We’re to promote life in loving action toward everyone — deserving or not! We are called to be life-givers when every human instinct cries out otherwise to suppress or, worse, wipe out life.
To save David from 3,000 troops, Abishai was quite ready to nail the unaware Saul to the ground (see 1 Samuel 26:8). Even though Saul had malicious intentions, David would not permit Abishai to harm the slumbering Saul, because Saul was the “Lord’s anointed.” So are we — and likewise, under God’s protection.
Do we harm ourselves and others, however, by not peering into our soul’s mirror to recognize our ongoing need for a makeover to our hearts?
The life-giving Spirit of Christ must become visible in us. A mind-over-matter sense of duty, although noble, will not endure. Divine transformation alone will gift us with the sincerity of heart capable of birthing new life in the face of ugly circumstances.
How? We’ve heard that when we spend a lot of time with a person, we begin to mimic their behaviors, even look like them! We take on their ways.
We can look more like Jesus by spending time with him. As he gazes with love upon us, the Lord imprints his own loving image within our hearts for his purposes. As we permit God’s anointing to transform us, we will beautify our domain with Christ’s fairest-one-of-all image. May we evaluate our own true beauty by how generously we give life in all circumstances.
“Give and gifts will be given to you…and overflowing, will be poured into your lap” (Luke 6:38). We have to look like Christ, Life-giver beyond measure!
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Those who feel in control still need God
by Mary Hood Hart
I have grown to love Google. Why, I’ve even become dependent on this Internet search engine. Seeing the blank rectangle on my computer screen, clean and ready for me to type in my word or phrase, prompts in me a sense of great confidence.
If someone asks me a question I can’t answer right away, “let me Google it,” I’ll say, confident I’ll find whatever I’m looking for.
Google seems to know how much I need it. Two icons appear under the search box, one reads “Google Search” and the other reads “I’m Feeling Lucky.”
The implication is that if I don’t do a Google Search I’ll be depending solely on luck. Why rely on luck when I can be assured of Google’s trustworthy response?
On the rare occasion my Internet service is down, I am lost. Without the Internet for Google and e-mail, I feel as if I’m adrift in a sea without familiar landmarks, comfortable connections.
How did I grow to place so much faith in Google, in the Internet? In the same way I have developed faith in most of the objects on whose function I rely each day.
I place my faith in the alarm clock to awaken me each morning. I rely on the coffeemaker to feed my early morning addiction to caffeine.
I have faith in the car engine that starts when I turn a key, the traffic light that guides me through the busy intersection, the overpass spanning the highway.
Writing this column, I have faith that the words forming in my mind will transfer to the movement of my fingers.
I have faith that when I type on this keyboard the letters will appear on a blank screen. I have faith that when I save this document, it will be available to me later on. I have faith that when I e-mail this document to the editor it will be received and printed.
Indeed, I rely on the functions of a myriad of objects to see me through my day. Only rarely (usually when something goes wrong) do I consider how much I depend on them, trusting them to perform their assigned tasks.
Modern life consists of a series of interdependencies. I depend on the utility and water companies to provide services. More specifically, I depend on the workers in these companies to do their jobs. If something breaks down, I am vulnerable, living in the dark, without water, without phone service, with limited access to the outside world.
Interestingly, modern men and women, as dependent as we are on the function of objects and services, have no trouble placing faith in these objects and services; indeed, we do so blindly each day.
But when pressed, we often find it difficult to place our faith in a higher power, a Source of all gifts, the Source of grace and love.
So, when the power goes out, we’re quick to call the electric company to report the outage. We know we’re unable to fix the problem alone.
But when we experience personal crises, illnesses, broken relationships, struggles with addictions, loneliness, betrayal, grief, why do so many of us feel we have nowhere to turn?
Part of the problem is that we are conditioned to believe we are in control of our personal lives. As dependent as we really are, we delude ourselves into thinking that we can rely on our own power to fix what goes wrong.
In simpler times, humankind had no such delusions and was more inclined to look outside the self for guidance and comfort both from religion and from the community. Even now, those who are materially poor, particularly in other cultures, tend to be more aware of their powerlessness and their subsequent need for God’s help and the help of their community.
Americans tend toward rugged individualism, a philosophy of life that encourages self-reliance and that discourages dependency on a higher power.
To be clear, I am not referring simply to Americans who are atheist or agnostic. Even those of us who profess faith in God find ourselves failing to trust God. Instead we rely on our own devices until we are on the brink of despair.
For many believers, God is very often the last resort.
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We’ve come a long way
by Barbara Hughes
A poster or an essay — those were the choices that as a Catholic school student I knew were facing me come February and the annual contest for Catholic Press month.
Looking back, I wonder how I did it. At the time my only exposure to the Catholic press was the Baltimore Catechism, my St. Joseph Daily Missal and The Little Messenger, a weekly children’s magazine that every student received.
Back in those days, Catholics didn’t read Scripture. The Bible was regarded as a family heirloom, pulled off the shelf only when it was time to record a birth, wedding or death of a family member.
Consequently, my knowledge of Scripture during those early years was handed down to me, not through the Catholic press, but through the art of storytelling by my parents and the nuns during religion class.
I confess that my early recollection of the New Testament was limited to the nativity and the passion of Christ. And for me, the Old Testament was about David and Goliath and Joseph and his coat of many colors.
I’m sure the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments factored in somewhere but it was stories about young people that captured my imagination.
Tales of saints like Joan of Arc, Dominic Savio, and Maria Goretti were my favorites. And then there was St. Tarsicius, the young boy whose hand remained firmly clasped around the pyx that held the Eucharist throughout the attack which caused his death.
In retrospect, one might speculate that the interest generated by those young superheroes were the precursors of today’s action figures.
Yes, life was simpler back then, but when I consider the impact that the Catholic press of today has on the lives of ordinary folks, I’d have to say, “We’ve come a long way.”
Average Catholics are far more knowledgeable about their faith and personal Bibles have replaced family Bibles. The Scriptures are studied, prayed over and reflected upon often if not daily by more people than we know. Even critics of Vatican II would have to concede that when the Holy Spirit opened wide the doors of the Church, Scripture, long imprisoned, was liberated. But that wasn’t all.
Encyclicals became newsworthy and Catholic social teachings pin-pointed issues that are relevant today.
Today, books on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas or the life of Mother Teresa are almost as plentiful at Barnes and Noble and Borders as they are in Catholic book stores. And all are available to the average person, thanks to the Catholic Press.
Newspapers as diverse as The National Catholic Reporter and The Wanderer find their way into tens of thousands of mailboxes on a near weekly basis - not to mention The Catholic Virginian.
Through fiction and non-fiction St. Anthony’s Messenger offers a glimpse into the lives of ordinary Catholics. Spiritual Life provides thought provoking articles for those with a more contemplative heart and Maryknoll Magazine grants readers a window into the lives of the poor overseas.
Publishing houses such as Ave Maria, Paulist Press, Crossroads, and Ligouri offer books for all ages on spirituality, Christian formation and Church teaching. And the list goes on and on.
Several months ago I listened as several people at an event I was covering voiced their concern that the secular media printed only negative news. It would seem that in a world where the sensational and the negative garner the spotlight, the Catholic Press is more important than ever.
I recall one of my teachers saying, “Show me what you read and I’ll tell you who you are.” There’s a lot of truth to that.
Typically we’re drawn to the articles that grab our interest and so it’s up to us to find a balance. While it’s important to be informed about world, local and national events, if all we read is news about the war, or the latest scandal or crime spree, our outlook can become very jaded.
The Catholic Press offers “Good News” and serves as a reminder that God is present even in the midst of suffering. It’s not about burying our head in the sand, but about understanding discipleship entails bearing a cross.
While the Catholic press has devoted its share of ink to Church scandals, it offers another way to measure success and failure. It brings hope as it chronicles the efforts of ordinary men and women, today’s superheroes who may well be the saints of tomorrow.
In retrospect, I guess it’s true: old habits really do die hard. More than 50 years later and I’m still writing an essay on the Catholic press. Back then, I never could have predicted that I’d be contributing to it.
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Copyright © 2006 The Catholic Virginian Press. Articles from Catholic News Services, including Fr. Ditzen’s column, may not be reproduced here due to copyright considerations.
The Catholic Virginian is a biweekly publication serving the people of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond. This website includes some, but not all, of the articles from the print version of The Catholic Virginian.
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