Dorothy Day on Married Sex

A commentor asked why people in marriages where one spouse has AIDS shouldn't just practice abstinence. It reminded me of this great vignette from Dorothy Day's (also great) biography by William D. Miller:

Dorothy invariably greeted the arrival of her grandchildren with joy and in her notes, at least, seemed not overly stricken when the persistently fruitful Tamar [Dorothy's daughter, who was married, very poor, and eventually had eight kids] would inform her that another was on the way. Once a priest, though, offended her mortally with a saturnine rejoinder when Dorothy told him of the onset of Tamar's fourth pregnancy. . . . His rejoinder was "not much control there." "Having heard this from other Jansenist Catholics, I could control myself to a certain extent," said Dorothy, "but for a priest to say such things . . . Do you know the facts of life, I wanted to say. Instead I said meekly,'Once a year may produce such a result.'"

Day was dismayed at this priest's thoughtlessness about marital relationships and plenty steamed about his slight of her daughter. Not only did she publish their conversation in the Catholic Worker the next month, Miller says, she recounted it in the same space 24 years later.

Dorothy Day Guild looking for miracles

I mentioned back in September that the Archdiocese of New York was thinking about putting Dorothy Day up for canonization. This week I got some mail from the newly formed Dorothy Day Guild: it's on. I'd happily link you to the Guild's website but they haven't got one; how they expect to do this without a Web presence I don't know, two millennia of saint-making sans modems notwithstanding. Anyway, the Guild is working to spread awareness of Day's life, work and writings and, of course, collecting stories of any miracles that may happen through her intervention. One for "Blessed;" two for sainthood.

This prayer for Dorothy Day's intercession is by Monsignor Kevin Sullivan of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York.

God our Creator,
your servant Dorothy Day exemplified the Catholic faith by her conversion,
life of prayer and voluntary poverty,
works of mercy, and
witness to the justice and peace of the Gospel.

May her life inspire people to turn to Christ as their Savior and guide,
to see his face in the world's poor and
to raise their voices for the justice of God's kingdom.

We pray that you grant the favors we ask
through her intercession so that her goodness
and holiness may be more widely recognized
and one day the Church may
proclaim her saint.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Catholic Church to Ease Ban on Condom Use (Deutsche Welle)

 

Sounds of Earth Moving Captured (Discovery Channel)

In Which Sleep, Blog Readers or Someone Does My Work For Me

Today I read Quarterlife Crisis and Good Catholic Girls: How Women are Leading the Fight to Change the Church. Now, through the magic of REM sleep, my subconscious will resolve these into a coherent vision of how I will dispel my twentysomething alienation by becoming a leader in the church of tomorrow. That wasn't actually my original plan, but it would be nice if it worked that way, no?

I'm working on a paper on the reign of God for my Biblical Spirituality class. Earlier this year I commenced a thought project on what the Reign or, if you prefer, the Kingdom of God looks like--I figured, since the R of G is what we want to bring about in our lives, knowing what it looks like might help me figure out more perfectly what I should be doing. What does the Reign of God look like to you, and what biblical passages or other sources have helped you shape that vision?

WE're God's Love?! (hides under bed)

A classmate shared this Wikipedia quote about Peter Lombard (1100~1160), whose writings were very influential to medieval theology:

Peter Lombard's most famous and most controversial doctrine in the Sentences was his identification of charity with the Holy Spirit in Book I, distinction 17. According to this doctrine, when we love God and neighbor, this love literally is God; we become divine and are taken up into the life of the Trinity. This idea was never declared unorthodox, but few theologians have been prepared to follow Peter Lombard in his audacious teaching.

Lombard's words are:

It has indeed been said above and shown by sacred authorities, that the Holy Spirit is the Love of the Father and the Son, by which They love one another and us. Moreover, it must be added to these, that the very same Holy Spirit is the Love or Charity, by which we love God and neighbor. When this Charity is so great in us, that it makes us love God and neighbor, the Holy Spirit is then said to be sent and/or to be given to us; and he who loves the very love, by which he loves (his) neighbor, in this very (thing) loves God, because Love itself is God, that is, the Holy Spirit.**

You'd have to go far to find a more humbling thought. What do you want to make of your love for others, if it's God's love? Make it more pure, less self-interested? More demonstrative and palpable? Greater in scope, for more of God's children? More in quantity--and how in the world do we do that?








**This is from the Franciscan Archive, which apparently has the only existing translation of the Book of Sentences into English. Hint, hint, enterprising graduate students . . .

Talk About Unintended Consequences

The New York Times had a really interesting article about how castrati--18th-century opera stars mutilated as boys to preserve their high voices--came into being because of a Vatican prohibition against women in church choirs. Obviously, Rome condemned this practice on behalf of the dignity of the body, but by then castrati had become entrenched in popular culture. I couldn't figure out what this reminded me of.

Then I remembered. It's the documented increase in abortion rates with diminshed access to birth control. What did they think, people would just stop wanting to hear high notes?

Say What You Will About Religion

Although my Easter wasn't quite as fraught as energetic new blogger SRB's, I did have an interesting conversation with a family member about the usefulness of attending church, or being a part of organized religion in general. It went something like this:

People just go to church because they're lonely losers who need the community.
Yup, that does apply to a lot of churchgoers, but half or more are families or couples who are incredibly busy but still find it important to make time for church. Besides, wait until you're out on your own and come try telling me about lonely losers.

Everybody at church acts fake.
After a discourse about how no sane person behaves in class the same way she does out at the bars, I pointed out that one of the great things about church is the way it forces us to at least act as though we believe that people different from us are our sisters and brothers. If you have the means, you can arrange your world so you never have to encounter anyone you don't agree with: drive your own car, live alone, go places where those of your age, race and income cluster. In church, we know that we're not only going to encounter people different from us, but also that our being there advertises the fact that we believe in our own equality with and fraternal love for everyone else there. This is a holy goal, but it's against lazy human inclination, so no wonder if someone acts a little strange in trying to live it out.

Then I went into this unprompted speech about how one of my favorite things about Catholicism is the way it connects you to two thousand years of history. The faith we celebrated Sunday is the same our grandmother was baptized into and the same her ancestors emigrated to exercise freely and the same the disciples began to build after the death of Jesus. (The Easter vigil liturgy, with its sweep from our oldest faith story to the confirmation of the newest Catholics, reminded me powerfully of this.) Your relationship with your faith will probably be the oldest single relationship you have and the only one that may last your entire life. And then it was:

So you're saying that religion is one constant interpretation that never changes.
No, of course the job of our leaders in faith and our own reflection is to take elements of tradition and make them relevant to our own lives. Isn't it WONDERFUL!

But if people do that, they'll just hear what they want to hear. Like people who just want to come and hear that they're forgiven and so they're all okay.
Yes, a lot of people definitely come to religion for what they can get out of it, and hear what they want to hear in any religious message. But at least they're getting their affirmation in a place that is also going to remind them that they have a responsibility to the poor, and a responsibility to be in community with one another, and a connection to history and to the future. That's not the same as the "Whatever you do is totally fine!" message they'd get from other sources, like Oprah.

And that point I carried. Religion: It's better than Oprah!

Love in the Passion

As I'm posting this reflection on the Passion on our greatest day of joy, I'll give you a pass if you want to wait to read it. I've been slouching toward the Resurrection this week, taking advantage of school break for my own ends and neglecting my pastoral committment here . . .

John 19:25-27 

      When I read John's Gospel, I almost want to put it down and walk away at moments during Jesus' trial, march to Calvary, and his Passion. The evangelist does not let us have it easy. We want to say, "Stop! It would have been enough to tell us just once"--that the crowd shouted "Crucify him!", that Jesus fell. But instead the author relentlessly repeats, multiplying the sense of the crowd and their flaming hatred, of Jesus' own helplessness. In stories with a buildup so dramatic and violent we're conditioned to expect a last minute reversal, a hero to swoop down and set everything right. Although we know there will be no deus ex machina here, it still breaks our hearts to see the helplessness of the cast of characters we're rooting for: a suffering man and his anguished, powerless friends.

      There are a few stark moments of beauty in this story, thrown into relief against the backdrop of hatred, ignorance and pain. One is when the crucified Jesus calls his mother--addressing her tenderly as "Woman," a term of respect and endearment--and calls his friend John, and makes them family to one another. We often interpret this story as an instance of Jesus' perfect concern for those he loved, and it is that. I see it also as a model of our relationship to God in helpless times of trouble. At a time when Jesus felt abandoned, he made sure that two of his best beloved would not be.

      Our artistic tradition tells us that the disciple John was a young and gentle man. We can imagine him as someone, like many we know, who retains the loving heart of a child through every stage in life, perhaps a sensitive person whom life's pains and losses have special power to wound. Jesus who sees and loves the human uniqueness in each of us would have treasured his friend's tender nature, and we can be sure that throughout his passion Jesus' heart was filled with concern for the pain and loss of all those he loved.

      With them was Mary, who had known this pain would come since she first held Jesus in her arms. Mary had, in all likelihood, taught Jesus his first prayers; she watched as his role with God grew in his own understanding and in the eyes of the world. She traveled with him throughout his ministry and is called his most faithful disciple. Mary heard as public opinion swelled against Jesus, and she walked with him up Calvary. The strength of God must have been with her in so strong a way as to be almost a part of her being. God was not visible when the Son of God died, but God's steadfast, unyielding, parental love was manifest: the mother of God was there on that hill. 

      Jesus commits John and Mary to one another's care. This is a model of human concern for the welfare of those we love, and it's more than that.  As Jesus entrusted the disciple John to the motherly attentions of the one who gave him life, he entrusts all of us who are his sisters and brothers to the care of God who gave Jesus life.  John accepted his responsibility to care for Mary's earthly welfare, taking her into his home. We, too, are called to respond to God's parental love with willing attention to God's well-being, God's purpose on earth.

      I imagine the young disciple and the aging disciple embracing one another in honor of Jesus' request. Mary's arms encircled one who was human as her son was human; John was comforted by the strength of God who was with Mary intrinsically and innately. Perhaps we, too, can do nothing better when we are faced with the relentless horror of the crucifixion but to reach out our human arms and embrace God. Hold on tight.

Viscerally grateful--but not for long

Matthew 14:25-32

      Peter's terror in this, one of his characteristic scrapes, spoke differently to me after an experience I had earlier this year. Driving north on Lakeshore on a slightly misty evening, I whipped around a curve and suddenly saw a car stopped ahead of me in the lane, its passengers clustering around it. I slammed on the brakes and suddenly, with a horrible noise, my tiny car was skidding towards the concrete lane divider. I tried to gain control of it, while all I could see were my own headlights on that solid wall ahead of me. Amazingly, though, I came to a stop without hitting either the wall or the stalled car that had caused me to skid. (I realized later that I had turned diagonally but was skidding parallel to the wall, which explained why it had seemed to be rushing up to me for such a long moment.) The other cars also had miraculously avoided me. I sat in my lane shaking and sobbing, "God, you saved my life, you saved my life!"

      In that moment, I felt the hand of God acting in my life as clearly as if I were holding Jesus' hand to keep out of the waves. But I'm like Peter: no matter how many times God teaches me with stories, yanks me away from catastrophe or fills my nets with fish, I fall back into apathy and doubt. One minute we're transfixed with joy at Jesus' saving power; a few minutes later we realize it's the middle of the night, we've still got to row his prayer-boat back to shore, and our feet are wet. The annoyances of life—especially if we forget that life is in Jesus' service—crowd on top of these Kairos moments as fast as I went into my skid, and with the same power to obliterate all our joy. I've known this story all my life without reading it quite this way, and I'd lacked this perspective on my almost-crash until I read it again: the light hit the mirror just right, and I was able to see myself.

Immigrants' rights: a few days without shopping

Boycotts of everything will be going on May 1 and, in some cities at least, April 10 to protest HR 4437. Clean up your white shirt and stick that cash back in your pocket: you'll be right in step with hundreds of thousands of US working people and bishops all over the country.

iPope bopping to divine beats

Last month the staff at Vatican Radio gave Benedict XVI a shiny new iPod. (Although the Papa's known to have a taste for luxury, it's a relatively humble Shuffle.) Apparently he's got it loaded with Vatican radio programming: audio plays, commentary and snore-inducing classical.

 

I mention this because I'm working with a few friends on a prayer service focusing on contemporary music and thought I'd hit up my dear blogfans for suggestions. Understand that I'm not talking contemporary liturgical music, although we all love the acoustic guitar. I fear that Catholic prayer post-Vatican II risks being stuck in the aesthetic style of era that created it--the sixties--just as firmly as pre-Vatican II worship was mired in the medieval trappings that codified it. Parish choirs sometimes do a good job breaking out of this mold (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a little afraid of them, because everyone knows that she who runs the liturgy runs the parish and that's the choir director, so please stop brandishing those music stands) but when you've got amateurs organizing prayer outside of liturgy you're even more likely to end up surfeited with the chords C, G and F and lyric imagery straight out of Free to Be . . . You and Me. Which is certainly fine in proportion.

 

But there are more ways of being spiritual than that particular aesthetic vocabulary can express, and my friends and I think the music we listen to contains some fine examples. Which rock, hip-hop, techno or (gasp) pop songs fire your spiritual imagination, and why? I'll try to find your choices and comment on them in a later post, and I'll talk about some of my own.

Reflection on Lamentations

Super-belated. Sorry.

Lamentations 1:15
“All the mighty ones in my midst the Lord has cast away; He summoned an army against me to crush my young men; The LORD has trodden in the wine press virgin daughter Judah.”

I was just a few days into my first year of college on September 11, 2001. I’ve never seen my student Mass as full as it was the Sunday after that cataclysmic day. I have a powerful image of coming in late to find that I could barely make my way inside the doors, as the church was packed to standing room only, all staring with more than usual intensity at the presider.

In the face of terrible events of such great scope, people often ask how a believer still believes. This wasn’t an issue for those Massgoers that day, and it wasn’t a question after Jerusalem fell. The Hebrews knew that any event so greatly tragic didn’t disprove God: God was clearly bound up in something so huge. Their interpretation was that God had caused this tragedy to happen: perhaps they couldn’t imagine humans capable of such great destructive power.

I was greatly moved throughout the book of Lamentations by the image of the broken nation as a daughter. In many languages today, we call our countries mother- or fatherland: Uncle Sam, la patrie, Mother India. This parental image implies that our nation owes us something, is more powerful than we are, and that perhaps—as all children secretly suspect—we ourselves know better than to do the foolish things our country does.

Contrast this with the image of nation in the book of Lamentations. It grieves a parent deeply to see a child suffer, perhaps more than an injury to oneself. And fairly or not, a parent feels responsible for a child’s wrong behavior. The inhabitants of Jerusalem saw this connection clearly: they felt that where their nation had gone wrong, each of them was responsible. The prophets of our own day are shouting to make this message heard again.