Being "WOKE" Catholics in Ordinary Time: Bearing with hardship with the strength that comes from God...

If history is an honest judge—something that can’t be taken for granted these days given who may be chronicling events—being a moral person in any generation has never been an easy goal to achieve. It’s much easier to think something, say something, and do something other than what commonsense morality dictates.

Why? What’s easier always seems to yield greater pleasure. For example:

• Diet? But what about that piece of chocolate cake?
• Exercise? But what about that movie I want to see on TV?
• Get up out of bed and go to work? But I’m tired!
• Work on improving my marriage? I’m bored and want some excitement.

It’s true every human being can improve one’s character by practicing the self-disciplines associated with commonsense morality. It’s more frequently the case, however, that human beings willingly allow what good character they do possess to become corrupted through repeated self-indulgence.

There’s only one reason it’s more difficult to be a moral person than to yield to what’s easier and more convenient: Conducting oneself in accord with the dictates of commonsense morality inflicts pain and suffering because it requires abstaining from what gives pleasure.

Yes, indeed! It takes good, old-fashioned hard work to root morality into one’s character and to conduct oneself in accordance with commonsense morality.

So, while every human being can improve one’s character by practicing the self-disciplines associated with the dictates of commonsense morality, it’s more frequently the case that people will allow what good character they possess to become corrupted through repeated self-indulgence.

It’s precisely for this reason many people lack integrity. Not devoting themselves to the arduous work required to become and remain a moral person, they don’t remain faithful to the dictates of commonsense morality—“conscience” it’s called. Eventually, their word isn’t their bond (that is, these folks can’t be trusted) and their principles are vacuous (that is, these folks don’t stand up for what they claim to believe).

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle noted that, for the immoral, vice provides a reliable and dependable source of pleasure. In contrast, for the moral, virtue is the only reliable and dependable source of pleasure. However, the latter isn’t accomplished simply by wishing it, Aristotle noted. No, it requires lots of practice and self-denial, that is, if one is truly serious about reorienting the powerful desire for pleasure so that what’s immoral loses gradually its seductive power.

With self-denial oftentimes requiring patience, practice, and perseverance, there are some human beings who do what’s required to root morality into their character and conduct themselves each day with integrity. Their word is their bond and these folks stand up for and defend the principles they espouse.

Especially for Catholics, being moral in any generation has never been easy—it’s the equivalent of sentencing oneself to a life-long Lent—because conducting oneself in accord with the dictates of commonsense morality requires self-denial. Aware of this fact and what Aristotle taught about rooting morality into one’s character, St. Paul reminded his protégé Timothy in today’s epistle:

The rash one has no integrity; but the just one, because of his faith, shall live. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord…but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.

St. Paul reminds Timothy regarding the importance of demonstrating religious integrity…not rashly forsaking his religious principles for the sake of expedience or to make life easier or more comfortable.

For Jesus’ disciples, the content of faith provides the only reliable and dependable source of pleasure. But, living out that content each and every day isn’t accomplished by simply wishing it. No, rooting religious integrity into one’s character requires reorienting the desire for pleasure—the difficult work of desiring to fulfill what Scripture and the Church teach—so that what’s antithetical to the faith loses its seductive power. That takes self-denial—a lot of patience, practice, and perseverance—if disciples are to root the faith into their character and to conduct themselves each and every day with integrity. Yet, success in this arduous work strengthens these disciples. They aren’t ashamed to testify to the Truth of Christ and willingly bear hardship for so doing—especially the opposition of those who haven’t rooted the faith into their character and don’t conduct themselves with integrity.

Writing to Timothy—whose name means “honorable one”—St. Paul didn’t mince his words when it came to those disciples who lack religious integrity. They have what he called a “spirit of cowardice.” What these folks need, he reminded Timothy so he wouldn’t become a coward, is to cultivate and renew what God has already breathed into disciples, namely, a spirt of “power and love and self-control.”

“Sleepy” Catholics lack religious integrity. Although they’ve committed themselves to the Catholic faith by freely partaking of the Sacrament of Confirmation, they fail daily to renew in themselves that spirit of “power and love and self-control” by conducting even a simple memento mori to root the day in their faith. For this reason, “sleepy” Catholics fail to devote themselves daily to the difficult work of self-denial—practice, patience, and persistence—that’s required if they’re to be aware each day of what it means to be Catholic.

“Sleepy” Catholics also aren’t faithful to the dictates of their conscience. Yes, they may claim in the public square and for all to hear how they’re really and truly “faithful” and “practicing” Catholics. However, “sleepy” Catholics define conscience as “how I feel,” especially when it comes to matters involving Church teaching and especially crucial moral issues. “What Scripture and the Church teach is God’s revealed word only if I feel good about it,” is their standard of judgment.

Moreover, “sleepy” Catholics are cowards when it comes to defending the Truth of Christ because, for them, truth is defined by how the majority feels, is therefore relative, and about as solid in substance as water. For “sleepy” Catholics, there’s no continuity in Scripture and Church teaching that’s been consistent, reliable, dependable, and unchanging over the millennia. Instead, “sleepy” Catholics are, as Fr. George Lawless used to say, “Shallow as a saucer.” For them, truth is progressive and developmental with the present generation possessing the capacity to achieve far greater insight and wisdom than all that insight and wisdom across the millennia bequeathed by humanity to the present generation.

For example:

• The President of the United States oftentimes portrays himself as a “faithful” and “practicing” Catholic. He even pulls his Rosary form his pocket to “prove” the veracity of his claim to the media. Yet, this man has done more to ensure that abortion—up to and including the moment of birth—will be readily available and anywhere across the nation than any previous President of the United States.
• Archbishop Salvatore Cordilione of San Francisco has reprimanded the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, telling her not to present herself for Holy Communion due to her stubborn refusal to change her mind about the so-called “woman’s right” to choose to abort her unborn child. Yet, Madame Speaker persists in pressing for legislation that provides the means to the end of eliminating in utero human beings up to and including birth.
• The Governor of California—who gushes with praise for the Jesuit education he received—posted billboards just this past week promoting the deceit that Jesus was pro-abortion (euphemistically called “pro-choice”). It was their teaching about social justice, in particular, the Governor credits with providing him such substantive meaning as a politician.

And those are just three of many “sleepy” Catholic politicians, to say nothing of all those who opine the same talking points in the media as do those who fashion themselves “social influencers.”

As a result, the word of “sleepy” Catholics isn’t their bond (that is, the beliefs they profess shift with the winds of culture) and their principles are vacuous (that is, they believe what tickles their ears). Kowtowing to the boisterous crowd whose members blare on and on about how they feel regarding everything—for example, the need to mutilate minors’ sexual organs because those minors “feel” uncomfortable in their body—“sleepy” Catholics seek be applauded for not being like those conformist, stick-in-the-mud rigorists who live in an antiquated, ignorant, and bygone past. Swimming in the mainstream of public opinion rather than listening to the dictates of commonsense morality, so far from God’s revealed Word do “sleepy” Catholics wander, they fashion themselves to be experts when it comes to both Scripture and Church teaching. After all, they are so much more enlightened about the Truth of Christ than either Scripture or Church teaching.

Pope Francis regularly condemns what he calls “clericalism” by which the Pope means “people in the Church who have forgotten they are to be pastors, and do not welcome the suffering.” Most frequently, he’s talking about cardinals, archbishops, bishops, monsignors, pastors, and priests—“careerists” the Pope calls them, the “elders of the people” like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day—who possess juridical, moral, and religious authority. Judging people and making deals with them—“bargaining” God’s law, the Pope calls it—these clerics live in a state of “arrogance and tyranny towards the people.” He adds:

These clerics have forgotten what it was to be a pastor. They were the intellectuals of religion, those who had the power, who advanced the catechesis of the people with a morality composed by their own intelligence and not by the revelation.

Clericalism instrumentalizes the law, Pope Francis says, allowing its practitioners to regulate how other people are to live their lives rather than, as pastors, assisting people to understand the law so they might choose, like Abraham, to “Walk in [God’s] presence and be blameless.” After a while, those afflicted by clericalism become the public “intellectuals of religion” who view themselves as superior to the law—vain, proud, and arrogant, the Pope says, “like Judas.”

Pope Francis adds:

With the law they themselves had made—intellectualistic, sophisticated, casuistic—they cancelled the law the Lord had made, they lacked the memory that connects the current moment with Revelation.

The evil of clericalism certainly exists in the Church today but not only among cardinals, archbishops, bishops, monsignors, pastors, and priests. No, it’s also found in exponentially greater numbers among “sleepy” Catholics.

Yes, it’s true!

“Sleepy” Catholics judge Catholics who uphold the Truth of Christ—God’s revealed Word as that’s taught by Scripture and the Church—as inferior, odd, and unworthy. “Whoever would want to associate with those sinners?”, “sleepy” Catholics ask themselves. It’s those who uphold the continuity of Church teaching across the millennia—the unwashed, closeminded, anawim who cling to “pre-Vatican II, unenlightened morality”—who need to change!

Seduced by clericalism, “sleepy” Catholics believe they possess and can rewrite the Deposit of Faith and they will be first in the Kingdom of Heaven. They seek to rule the Church by a majoritarian vote through a democratic process yet all the while they push those they’ve judged as lesser members of the Church to the peripheries. Woe unto those stick-in-the-mud, mindless Catholics if they don’t repent of their sin! They will find themselves unworthy of citizenship in God’s Kingdom!

However, don’t point the finger of blame at all those folks because, to one degree or another, each of us is a “sleepy” Catholic and is afflicted in one way or another by the evil of clericalism. Each of us has grown, as Pope Francis observed, vain, proud, and arrogant, “like Judas,” he said. The evidence is found in the belief each of us holds that we have integrity because we’re fulfilling what Scripture and the Church teach while all those others aren’t.

Sadly, we seem to have forgotten what Jesus taught his disciples in today’s gospel:

When you have done all you have been commanded, say, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.

The antidote to the vice of clericalism is to increase our faith by learning to overpower the seductive powers of vanity, pride, and arrogance—as Judas didn’t—and embrace humility—as Jesus did—by “doing what we are obliged to do” as Scripture and Tradition teach. Only this antidote possesses the power to strengthen moral and religious virtue as well as character so that we will exude integrity. But it does require practicing the self-disciplines associated with the dictates of commonsense morality as well as what Scripture and Tradition teach. Doing so isn’t easy and requires lots of patience, practice, perseverance, and self-denial.

That represents this week’s challenge from scripture: To bear our share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.

If we’re to be up to meeting this challenge, we will need to construct the foundation up which moral and religious virtue will be strengthened and take root deep within our character. To that end, we need to develop some patience and perseverance by practicing some self-denial in the form of this memento mori: Upon awaking each day, take five minutes to rekindle your Catholic faith by recalling when you received the Sacrament of Confirmation.

Recall the experience, your thoughts and feelings, as well as your hopes. Then, pray the traditional prayer to the Holy Spirit which offers a wonderful source of reflection and inspiration:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful

   and rekindle in me the fire of Your divine love.

Send forth your Spirit and I shall be recreated.

And through me, renew the face of the earth.

Self-denial taking the form of this week’s memento mori will construct the foundation upon which moral and religious virtue will be strengthened and gradually establish strong roots in our character. Doing so isn’t easy—it will require practice, patience, and persistence—but when tempted by clericalism—to be vain, proud, and arrogant—we’ll take a humbler approach by “doing what we are obliged to do” as Scripture and Tradition teach.

This antidote will strengthen our resolve to follow the path of “WOKE” Catholics who “do this, in memory of me.” Then, given continued self-denial taking the form of patience, practice, and persistence, each of us will experience the fulfillment of the promise made on Christmas Eve: “They shall name him ‘Emmanuel,’ that is, ‘God is with us’.”

And upon hearing the voice of the LORD, we no longer will act rashly and harden our hearts but will exude integrity. As the prophet Habakkuk reminded promised us today:

The just one, because of faith, shall live.

And, in humility, we shall pray:

We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.