Over the course of many years, I’ve heard wives complain “My husband never listens to me.”
My experience has been verified by TV sitcoms and comics like “The Bickermans.” Superadd to all that the recent TV commercial where a husband—who has to yell over the blaring TV—asks his wife what an announcer or character just said. After his wife shrieks to her husband what he didn’t hear, the announcer asks, “Who needs a hearing aid when you already have one?”
The simple truth is: Nobody.
And, I can testify—living in a nursing home full of older fellows, as I do—that many of them are as hard of hearing as the fellow portrayed in that TV commercial. They also stubbornly refuse to wear their hearing aids. So, I appreciate the frustration of the wife in that TV commercial—and all those wives she represents—due to a husband’s refusal to admit his disability and do something about it.
Admitting that one doesn’t hear clearly enough and needs to be saved from deafness is very difficult and requires a good deal of courage for people—both guys and gals—to admit. And, as true as that is about a physical limitation, it’s even more true when it comes to admitting our moral and spiritual limitations.
When it comes to the Catholic faith, most Catholics today—perhaps 80% of them—are deaf to Church teaching. This deafness has to do with the heart—into which, Scripture teaches, God has placed His law—and their stubborn refusal to listen to their hearts. Instead, they choose to persist to live in objective sin, grasping ahold of the swaddling blanket of what I call a childish “Christmas crib faith.” They’re not maturing morally and spiritually by embracing what Christ called a childlike faith that I call a “Good Friday crucifix faith.”
The evidence of this lack of moral and spiritual maturity is two-fold. The first evidence is an “I’m okay, you’re okay, so we’re all okay” attitude exhibited when they evangelize and catechize about its cardinal virtue: “Tolerance.” Evidence of the second is the opposite of the first, namely, a puritanically rigid, harsh, judgmental attitude justifying condemning everyone, everybody, and the Church! Both attitudes reveal a fundamental love of self and little, if any love of God and neighbor.
The problem with the first attitude is what underlies it: The denial of the existence of truth when it comes to matters associated with faith and morals. Not accepting God’s revealed truth in those matters if only for the reason they cannot be proven or they’re viewed as purely subjective, man-made changeable social and political mores, these folks believe any assertion concerning what faith and morals requires of all human beings isn’t binding upon anyone except the individual having the temerity to assert they are binding. “If that’s what you want to believe. That’s fine for you,” these folks say. “So, let’s just get along. But don’t bring the matter up again.”
What’s telling about all this is how these folks are the first to cry out when someone violates one of the 10 Commandments and they’re the victim. Betray, libel, or steal from these folks and they’re the first to demand justice! “How could you?” they demand, not once realizing they’re implying the existence of a true standard of justice!
Where does that standard come from? Our faith teaches us that God has revealed this truth and, listening to their hearts crying out, they’re outraged…as they should be! But they’re not willing to admit to or commit themselves to the Source of that truth so that will grow morally and spiritually.
The problem with the second attitude is what underlies it: Moral and spiritual deafness resounding in a puritanically rigid, harsh, judgmental attitude that’s expressed in self-righteous condemnation of anyone and everyone, including the Church, for everything that’s wrong. This attitude deflects conscious awareness away from one’s need to turn from sin by focusing intently upon the evidence of sin everywhere else and how anyone and everyone else must repent from their sins. Then, so these folks believe, all will be right with the world.
Again, there’s a kernel of truth in this attitude—sin abounds today in many, many forms. Yet, this second attitude also fails like the first because it evidences little, if any, love of neighbor. Does anyone really believe that if all those sinful people turned away from sin, individuals whose words and actions express this second attitude would suddenly realize they also need to turn from sin?
As today’s gospel attests, as bad as moral and spiritual deafness is when it comes to growing to maturity in the Catholic faith, most Catholics today—perhaps 95% of them—are also mute when it comes to evangelizing and catechizing others about the Catholic faith. Like its counterpart, moral and spiritual deafness, this muteness also has to do with the heart—into which, Scripture teaches, God has placed His law—and the dread and fear these Catholics have of what’s virtually certain to happen when they listen to their hearts and evangelize and catechize others about the Catholic faith. Motivated by this dread and fear, these Catholics also grasp hold of the swaddling blanket of a childish “Christmas crib faith” and never mature morally and spiritually to embrace what Jesus called a childlike ,“Good Friday crucifix faith.”
The evidence of this lack of moral and spiritual maturity is found in the blame these folks assign to the lack of faith and its practice which they rightly see in today’s culture. This is the fruit of the failure on the part of others to evangelize and catechize properly, what they call the “professionals.” If it’s not the bishops who are at fault, it’s the priests, religious sisters and brothers, and all of those lay religious educators. “If they had just done their job, everything would be better today,” these folks think if they don’t say it aloud.
Again, there’s a kernel of truth in this observation in that it’s true that some if not many of those folks should have done a better in performing their jobs. But that’s to neglect the fact that every baptized and confirmed Catholic bears the personal and moral responsibility to evangelize and catechize others about the Catholic faith and its practice. Spouses are supposed to evangelize and catechize one another, parents are supposed to evangelize and catechize their children, siblings are supposed to evangelize and catechize one another, and all Catholics are supposed to evangelize and catechize as Jesus disciples in this era “to the ends of the earth,” just as the apostles did in their era.
Yet, those who are mute are the first ones to grumble and complain when bishops, priests, religious sisters and brothers, and lay religious educators opine that “If spouses, parents, and siblings performed their jobs, the Church and the world would be better.” And so, they remain mute when it comes to their personal and moral responsibility to evangelize and catechize others about the Catholic faith.
The problem with this second attitude is what underlies it: The disease of moral and spiritual muteness. This attitude deflects conscious awareness away from one’s responsibility to evangelize and catechize others by pointing the finger of blame at everyone but oneself. “They’ve all failed,” people afflicted with this moral and spiritual disease say, “and if they’d only have done their jobs, I wouldn’t have to put up with the effects of their failure.”
Once again, there’s a kernel of truth in this attitude—the failure of Catholic evangelization and catechesis in the past 6 decades is as obvious as the nose we all have on our face. Here’s what the research data indicate: 76% of baptized and confirmed Catholics don’t believe in Church moral teaching because it contracts how they “feel” and 80% of baptized and confirmed Catholics under the age of 40 don’t practice their faith calling themselves “spiritual but not religious.”
Does anyone really think all these people have the faintest idea that their attitude about their moral and spiritual responsibility to evangelize and catechize others about the Catholic faith and its practice evidences their need to turn from sin?
“Ephphatha,” Jesus said to the deaf-mute. “Be opened!”
That represents this week’s challenge from scripture: Using the words of St. James, to “be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that God promised to those who love him.”
How might we do that?
Each day this week honestly answer this question: “What kind of Catholic do my attitudes evidence am I?”
If being Catholic means living a “Christmas crib faith” that requires neither listening to the word of God nor evangelizing and catechizing others in it, go ahead and live that way each and every day! But, be consistent because you cannot have it both ways: Expect everyone else to evangelize and catechize others about the faith and then blame them for their evident failure, as if you know better but just aren’t interested in doing anything about it. Then honestly admit your motivation: “I’m not much interested in being Catholic, just self-identifying as one.” Go on your merry way bickering with and sniping at all those Catholics who don’t live up to your moral and spiritual expectations of them. At least that’s being honest and, after all, that’s a whole lot better than being a hypocrite, what Jesus called the Pharisees!
But, if being Catholic means living a “Good Friday crucifix faith,” then live it! Commit yourself to listen to the word of God and to evangelize and catechize others in it. This week, “Let your ears be cleared and your tongue sing!”, as Isaiah said to the Israelites. And, when you fail this week, as you and I surely will due simply to our fallen nature, confess your failure, realizing that not one of us can save ourselves from sin which is why God sent His only begotten Son to teach us by his example what’s necessary.
This week, let’s just be more honest. Do you want to live a more honest “crucifix faith”? Then, like Jesus, listen to the Word of God in your heart and proclaim the Gospel of the kingdom, saying “Ephphatha”—“Be opened!”—to all the deaf-mutes you will be sure to encounter this week, where evangelization and catechesis count most: Your marriage, family, and home.
Then, don’t forget to pray for those folks so they also will become “rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that God promised to those who love him.”
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