With the 2022 Liturgical Year (officially called the “Year of Grace 2022”) drawing to its close, we’re taking time to reflect upon this past year’s theme—the promise we heard on Christmas Eve, “They shall name him ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’.” These reflections reconsider how “sleepy” Catholics differ from “WOKE” Catholics, the idea being to assess the degree to which we’ve awakened from our slumber and arisen from our sleep for the new day that was dawning this past year...for those who live in the knowledge that “God is with us.”
The focus of these reflections has been Jesus’ teaching concerning persistence, in general, and over the past three weeks, in particular, how “WOKE” Catholics persist in prayer, in being humble, and in evangelization. Persistence is a necessary natural virtue that, when elevated by divine grace, enables “WOKE” Catholics to extend Jesus’ saving mission across the millennia—the “Son of Man [who] has come to seek and to save what was lost,” as last week’s scripture taught. Especially important in this regard is to evangelize “sleepy” Catholics who need to experience “God is with us” in a culture where many people have pushed God so far to the peripheries of daily life to the point they don’t “believe in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. Amen.”
Today’s readings call to mind Jesus’ teaching about the significance of persisting in endurance when confronting life’s trials and difficulties. The first reading—part of a longer narrative about seven brothers—presents not just what four brothers endured for the sake of living their faith in a hostile and alien culture. Looming behind the scene is their mother and what she endured watching on as each of her sons was maltreated, tortured, and executed.
What’s important for “WOKE” Catholics to note about this narrative is how faith in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting strengthened each son in his adversity and their mother in hers. In today’s gospel, Jesus taught those in his religious community who didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead—the “sleepy” Jews who were the Sadducees—that when death comes to those who persist in living their faith and enduring what that brings:
[T]hey are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise….
It’s this faith in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting—the final statement of the Nicene Creed we reiterate each Sunday at Mass—that’s supposed to make all the difference in how Catholics live their days. This faith, which the Letter to the Hebrews defines as “assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen” (11:1), is not a “fact”—like a scientific discovery. Instead, it’s the pledge of a future that’s based upon a trustworthy tradition of past belief which informs and shapes the way one makes decisions about how to live each day in the present generation.
For all Catholics, faith should provide the motive to endure assaults upon the Catholic faith and its practice when it comes under attack. Today, many of our fellow citizens attempt to bully pro-life Catholics so they will cower in silence and disappear. Many of our fellow citizens also attack Catholics for upholding Scripture and Church teaching about homosexuality, marriage between one man and one woman, two genders that are complementary not equal, the immorality of self-willed bodily mutilation to change one’s gender, among others. “WOKE” Catholics don’t give into such pressure tactics. Instead, they persist in witnessing to their faith in the hope that their evangelical efforts will change the minds and hearts of those who oppose God’s revealed Truth.
Some people believe persistence and endurance are synonymous. But, as Jesus reminded his disciples in today’s gospel, they must persist in endurance, indicating that although both natural virtues share similar DNA—making persistence and endurance more like members of a family or clan than identical twins—they differ in how they are experienced and lived.
Last week’s scripture readings reminded us that persisting in living the faith isn’t merely a matter of putting up with and tolerating life’s trials and difficulties. Instead, it requires possessing the willpower to strive for excellence by living through and overcoming those trials and difficulties. As a natural virtue, persistence emanates from within—it’s a matter of forging a virtuous character—of being willing to confront head on those trials and difficulties, learn from them, and become a more virtuous person.
In this sense, persistence is the result of confronting and overcoming adversity that’s beyond one’s present capability. It ushers into human experience what’s called “true happiness” because, when tested, an individual has demonstrated a virtuous character—something that one possesses and no one can ever take away.
Consider what persistence requires this way: To move from point A to point B, a person must decide to change and adapt to overcome each trial or difficulty. For “WOKE” Catholics, persistence requires possessing the willpower, assisted by divine grace, to grow morally and spiritually in order to overcome adversity. This powerful experience changes that individual by forging a more virtuous character. To persist, a Catholic must desire to be the virtuous person which the situation and its circumstances require. For this reason, some have argued that persistence is greater than endurance.
Maybe so, maybe not.
As Forrest Gump observed, “life is a box of chocolates.” Yes, that’s true: Life is unpredictable and full of surprises. And, yes, it’s also true: We aren’t omniscient, so we don’t know what will happen next. However, what Forrest Gump didn’t say is that life is more like a “Whitman’s Sampler” box of chocolates. There’s so many flavors to be discovered in that box of chocolates, each of which can be savored and enjoyed.
But as many of us know, while there’s many choices to make, there also are consequences for making those decisions which cannot be undone. Sometimes we choose the wrong chocolate and its filling ruins the experience. Yes, we can choose to spit that particular chocolate out and throw it away because we didn’t enjoy it as we had expected. But we can also choose to endure consuming the chocolate and not throwing it away—wasting it unnecessarily—because we freely willed to choose that chocolate.
With Jesus teaching by word and example what endurance is as a necessary characteristic of discipleship, it’s equally admirable and important as persistence because endurance is stirred into flame in response to what’s emanating not from inside onself but from outside oneself—a matter of willing to suffer through adversity. To endure, one must passively experience, accept, and engage one’s willpower to survive what’s being inflicted.
Like persistence, endurance also emerges from within as life’s trials and difficulties confront and test a person’s resolve. To move from point A to point B, one must intend to expend the energy required to get to point B. When the goal—point B—is to persist in living our Catholic faith, none of us can prepare ourselves fully to become the person we need to be until we intentionally rise to life’s trials and difficulties that shake us to the core and test our faith.
To endure requires desiring and being motivated to achieve faith’s end—“the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. Amen.” Success involves enduring a series of sometimes very harsh and painful ups and downs which, in turn, requires continuously reassessing, resolving, and recommitting to the faith by rising to the occasion…just as that mother’s four sons and the mother herself did in today’s first reading. The means to this end is to make one’s sole desire to fulfill one’s God-given personal vocation in this life by navigating one's way through adversity.
Knowing that trials and difficulties in life are inevitable makes it’s possible to endure them. But they still can shake a person to one’s core because the reality of the experience oftentimes is worse than what was expected. Yet, endurance makes a person more confident—“assured of things hoped for and convicted of things not seen”—knowing it’s possible to move forward despite adversity. The challenge is to make it through these experiences by calling upon one’s knowledge, skills, and cunning because the goal is to embody one’s faith in one’s life, as Jesus did and taught through his example, by persisting in prayer, humility, and evangelization. This represents the difference between knowing what the Nicene Creed states—“I believe in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. Amen.”—and figuring out what it means when a tragedy arises.
None of us can predict the precise moment when adversity will arise in the form of life’s trials and difficulties. But each of us can chose whether we will respond virtuously by enduring them. Just as fire refines gold, so too endurance refines virtue and forges a virtuous character. If we’re to live our faith and become the unique, irreplaceable person in all history that God has created us to be for this particular era, the natural virtue of endurance reminds us not to avoid but confront adversity head on. The battle will strengthen us in faith, although it will take some time and reflection to recognize how this occurred as we “do this, in memory of me.”
Want to learn about endurance? Ask any person who’s been married for two-plus decades, any parent who’s raised children to adulthood, or any Catholic who has witnessed to the Truth of Christ in a hostile and alien culture.
“How did you do it?” many ask.
For all of us, life is like a box of chocolates...a Whitman’s Sample box of chocolates. The difference between “sleepy” and “WOKE” Catholics is how the latter freely will to choose to endure the trials and difficulties because their personal vocation requires “doing this, in memory of me.” Confronting adversity, they embrace the Cross and, placing themselves upon it rather than running away from it, they became “crucifix Catholics” who know through personal experience something of what Jesus endured as he embraced the Cross assigned to him.
All of us know and understand this truth. Yet some of us choose to avoid enduring what it means to live our faith. This past Year of Grace 2022, we’ve characterized those folks as “sleepy” Catholics. For them, adversity has caused sadness and tears, begetting listlessness and perhaps even misery as well as depression as they’ve continued wondering what their purpose in life is. They’ve wandered aimlessly this past year rather than moving from point A to point B.
At some point, each of us can decide to live our faith by accepting life’s trials and difficulties as inevitable. Yet making this choice represents only a first of many steps we will have to make if we’re to endure those trials and difficulties when they arise. “WOKE” Catholics understand that moral and spiritual growth and development has always been a battle, one requiring fighting a host of obstacles, even those family and friends erect. “WOKE” Catholics choose to endure, however, because their desire is to pass, as Jesus did, through the darkness of Good Friday and to emerge from it in the bright light of Easter Sunday. The source of their endurance is God, who St. Paul reminded us in today’s epistle “…is faithful…will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.”
“WOKE” Catholics understand the importance of endurance not simply for the reason is strengthen their faith. Integral as this natural virtue is for growing in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic faith, their endurance evangelizes others to God’s revealed Truth found in Scripture and Church teaching. Again, “WOKE” Catholics have Jesus as their model, who endured rejection not with fear and terror etched into his face but always radiating love, even for his executioners, who he said, “know not what they are doing.” Over the past two millennia, Jesus’ endurance has inspired millions—if not billions—of people of all classes, races, and cultures to cultivate the same virtuous character when life’s trials and difficulties test their faith.
With so many people today having rejected the notion of “absolute truth”—everything’s relative and based upon how they feel at the moment—the concept of cultivating the natural virtue of endurance is nonsensical. As a result, these people don’t experience true happiness. Instead, they seek fleeting happiness in transitory things. Living life in and of and for this world, as St. Paul would observe, they think of nothing more than the present moment and life which ultimately terminates in the grave, not in “the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. Amen.”
For their part, “sleepy” Catholics haven’t completely rejected the notion of absolute truth and deep in their souls they yearn for what endures. Yet, living in and of this world, “sleepy” Catholics push this yearning to the peripheries of their lives and along with it, God. Yes, “sleepy” Catholics may think once and a while about this yearning. Yet, when adversity arises—and it always does, especially when what promised happiness fails yet once again—“sleepy” Catholics retreat into the familiar sadness and tears that beget listlessness and perhaps misery as well as depression as they wonder what their purpose in life is.
“Sleepy” Catholics desperately need to experience “God is with us” because, as St. Paul reminded the Thessalonians, “God our Father…has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace.” God seeks to “encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.” What “sleepy” Catholics need are evangelists who have endured life’s trials and difficulties to communicate effectively and share with them the “good news.”
That represents this week’s challenge from scripture: To encourage the hearts of “sleepy” Catholics and strengthen them in every good deed and word.
This week, each of us can “do this, in memory of me” by conducting a simple memento mori: To identify one person’s pain and evangelize that person by “directing their hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ,” as St. Paul wrote.
While this memento mori may sound easy—sort of like having coffee with someone, sitting there quietly, and listening patiently to them complain about life—it’s far more difficult to achieve than it might appear. As we learned last week, persisting in evangelization requires listening to those complaints not seeking to defuse a situation or offer solutions. Instead, the challenge involves discerning the person’s underlying moral and spiritual need that’s being masked by narcissistic self-pity and using today’s language to say to that person what Jesus would say.
Building upon that exercise, this week’s memento mori requires directing the heart of that “sleepy” Catholic to the love of God—that “God is with us”—and to Jesus’ model of endurance.
For their part, “sleepy” Catholics suffering from the deadly moral and spiritual disease of narcissistic self-pity don’t believe “God is with us.” While their hearts are devoid of joy, they desperately long for it. What they need is an evangelist who sparks in their heart the hope that “God is with us.” In turn, this spark of hope engenders faith—“assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen”—as it moves the heart, encouraging “sleepy” Catholics to arise from their slumber and awake from their sleep for the new day that’s dawning for those who experience that “God is with us.”
Moreover, because it’s oftentimes the case that the source of this lack of faith—narcissistic self-pity that’s caused by forces beyond the control of “sleepy” Catholics—they need to hear, grasp, and understand how the power of evil is at work in their lives depriving them of joy. That said, focusing upon what they don’t possess does absolutely nothing to alleviate the adversity causing the sadness and tears and begetting listlessness and perhaps even misery as well as depression as they wonder what their purpose in life is.
If “sleepy” Catholics are to decide to live their faith by accepting life’s trials and difficulties as inevitable and learn to endure them, they need to hear, grasp, and understand that the best they can hope for in this world are glimmers of hope which provide the foretaste and promise of God’s kingdom. These glimmers awaken a heart to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic faith which teaches how the joy for which our hearts yearn in this world is only going to find its fulfillment in “the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. Amen.”
Yes, it is true: Life in this world is like a Whitman’s Sampler box of chocolates and there are choices to be made, each of which has its consequences.
“WOKE” Catholics can spark those glimmers giving hope in “sleepy” Catholics by sharing the trials and difficulties they and others have endured—evangelizing through their word and example of life, just as Jesus did. This effort prepares “sleepy” Catholics to hear, ponder, and contemplate how Jesus endured his trials and difficulties. God sent His only begotten Son of God to teach us through his example the Way, the Truth, and the Life that’s God’s blessing for those whose endurance, in imitation of Jesus, fills their hearts with joy. This gift empowers endurance as those inevitable trials and difficulties arise and, in turn, strengthens their faith and resolve to live it.
Having persisted in evangelizing to this point, now it’s the proper time to state, as St. Paul did to the Thessalonians:
I will pray that the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.
In this way, “WOKE” Catholics bring the gospel to the ends of the earth and Jesus remains with humanity until the Lord’s return. While this evangelical effort may not demonstrate success, it is an intervention supported by prayer that offers “sleepy” Catholics an experience of “Emmanuel” and a glimmer of hope that can spark greater faith. It’s always up to “sleepy” Catholics to decide whether they will grow and develop as more faithful Catholics and “do this, in memory of me.”
In a world where people would prefer that “WOKE” Catholics not evangelize or tone down God’s revealed Truth, “there is no compromising with the Gospel,” Pope Francis said on All Souls’ Day this past week. Living the Way, the Truth, and the Life isn’t a complex matter that’s defined by those Catholics whose arguments appeal to the majority. No, the most effective evangelical intervention is a “WOKE” Catholic whose character reveals having persisted in endurance by embracing the Cross and making of it a Crucifix, with a heart that radiates joy.
Their desire isn’t for something in and of this world—the best career, the greatest achievements, the most prestigious titles and awards, the accumulated wealth, highly-prized earthly gains, or popularity. With faith “in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. Amen.”, “WOKE” Catholics know all that will vanish in the flash of an instant—everything and every bit of it—at the moment of death. That’s when they believe and live in hope that their faith will be fulfilled, as Jesus taught in today’s gospel regarding his heavenly Father:
He is not God of the dead but of the living.
Comments
Post a Comment