The Real Elephant in the Room on Oscar Night

By this time, you should know that the film Spotlight took home the Oscar for Best Picture. The film tells the story of the journalists of the Boston Globe and their investigation into the Archdiocese of Boston’s handling of pedophile priests and the scandal of sexual abuse of minors by priests including John Geoghan. The scandal rocked not only the local community, but the entire Catholic world. It drove Catholic-convert Rod Dreher, who was a journalist covering the scandal, to Orthodoxy and many more to run for cover. It also resulted in Cardinal Bernard Law’s resignation as the diocesan administrator and brought in then Archbishop (now Cardinal) Seán O’Malley.

This movie highlights a time of great pain for the Church not in the scandal of the revelation but the facts of what happened. Priests had done horrific things to children, and in the Church, this was covered up.

I cannot and will not excuse what happened in the Archdiocese. The fact that these things have come to light is ultimately a good thing, despite the pain. Dioceses across the US have “safe environment” training now. Even our confessionals have a window in the doors now. The bathrooms children use in our Catholic schools are not to be used by any adult under any circumstances.

I haven’t seen the film Spotlight yet, and don’t know if I will but what I did see and hear last night, was this:

“This film gave a voice to survivors and this Oscar amplifies that voice which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican,” said producer Michael Sugar, who accepted the award with his co-producers. “Pope Francis, it is time to protect the children and restore the faith.”

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/joan-desmond/oscar-winning-spotlight-producer-tells-popetime-to-protect-the-children/#ixzz41ahMOVoW

Wait, what? Like Joan Desmond said in her article, I was confused. Very confused. Apparently, as Desmond herself surmises, Sugar simply thinks and believes that the Boston Globe journalism is where this story ended. Ahem. As a faithful Catholic, I suggest Mr. Sugar take a long hard look at what’s been going on in recent years and his own industry.

This award was given to a movie that tells a true story of horrors by a group of electors whom we all know ignored actors of color this year but who also awarded child-rapist Roman Polanski Best Director for The Pianist in 2003, the year John Geoghan was murdered in prison. Polanski has stayed out of the US so that he would avoid prosecution for his crimes.

And let’s not forget this is an industry that sexualizes young children in films and the countless young women who’ve felt they’ve had no choice but to sleep with men under duress for jobs. That’s also known as prostitution.

Apparently, Mr. Sugar believes that abuse is only abuse if a priest does it or it occurs in the Catholic Church. Because it’s the price of doing business in Hollywood.

As Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway put it:

Best part of the Oscars was an auditorium packed with Roman Polanski and Bill Clinton supporters pretending to care about sexual assault.

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) February 29, 2016

Hollywood, feel free to make movies about scandals that bring attention to abuse, human trafficking and other controversial topic, but before you begin to lecture anyone on these topics make sure you have the complete story.

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Growing Up

2016 is a year of firsts for my oldest son.

Thus far, Joseph has made his First Confession and in just under 2 months will make his First Holy Communion. Today is another first, his first soccer game on his first ever sports team. (We missed the first practice on Thursday night because the governing body decided Wednesday night to move the start week up by one week surprising both the club and the coaches and it was way too last minute for us.) Last night, Jeff took him to Dick’s to buy his first shorts, socks, cleats and shin guards…

When we moved we could not have anticipated the changes in our kids. While the move has not always been smooth and has presented us with some very unexpected challenges, over all it has been good. Joseph has fared probably the best of all of us. He was always smart and did well in school but we’ve seen him blossom academically. He also has developed socially as well in ways we did not anticipate as he is incredibly savvy for his age. We’ve tried for the last two years to get him into soccer but the league where we lived previously was very poorly organized and run. Despite a rough jump start, we’ve been impressed with our current club.

I really didn’t realize until this last week how much my son needed this move. Don’t get me wrong, he loved his old school and misses his old friends, but he needed to grow and mature in a way that our old community was just not conducive to. He needed to plant roots in fertile soil that we were only able to halfway provide in our old community through our home and parish. It was unthinkable where we used to live that it even be suggested that kids visit the woefully inadequate public library or even go into the school library except with their class. Here, he is encouraged to do both. Here he is encouraged to take responsibility for his education and his choices both inside and outside of school. He has the freedom to be held accountable and it has become apparent since our move just how stifled he was and just how much he chafed under the restrictions of where we lived before.

It’s not all sunshine and roses. I guess a better description is that sometimes the sun can burn and roses have thorns. He’s had his share of struggles in navigating this new uncharted territory. That’s good. It’s healthy. And the fact that he’s experienced the negative effects of his choices at a young age will help him immeasurably in the future. In some ways I feel guilty that he did not get this earlier in his life, but such was God’s plan and so I know that guilt is unfounded.

A blessing of parenthood is getting to watch these children that God has entrusted to us grow and blossom into the person He created them to be. This last year has given me a small taste of how beautiful that can be.

Modeling Faith When It Feels Hard To Trust

Today I found a major downside of our new home, I’ll abbreviate it: insurance and autism. To give you a brief background, our insurance has never covered autism related therapies so the school system stepped in even with the ever-elusive ABA therapy. They had a therapist on consult in our old system.

Here things are much different. Here, military insurance is king and as such, the school system provides very few services because so much of the population can get them through the military. We are not military. As such, we cannot afford to provide services outside of school. And school is loathe to provide them because the majority of the kids can get them. So we are caught in a donut hole…and I’m having to bring up in school meetings that we are the exception and it is not right that our child has to suffer for things beyond her control which, are, in fact within the school system’s control.

I want to throw my hands up in the air and scream, “Why God?! Why did you let us make this move and make things appear so perfect only for us to find out that there was a major flaw at the center!” And inside, I am kind of screaming that.

But, my kids. My kids can’t see that I’m having this crisis, can they? Will it diminish their faith if they see their mother grappling with trusting this to God? I’m getting hit on all sides here, the school is demanding she get therapy that they refuse to provide (but could, if they wanted to) and the therapists won’t take her insurance and we simply can’t afford to pay 100% up front. No one we know can do that. I keep on repeating to myself that God will worth through this, God will carry us over this huge chasm that has us in suspended animation.

I do believe it’s good for children to witness our dry times of faith and that it is also good for them to see us struggle so they can find God in the storm, but how to do that? How to help them understand that God hasn’t abandoned us even though we are chasing our tails searching for a way out of this conundrum.

I’ve crunched the numbers, even with help from family, we cannot afford the therapy the school wants Shelby to get. Without insurance, it’s unreachable. No one offers payment plans, and I don’t blame them because we’d be dead before they ever got paid off at the rates for services and the amount of services she needs. The only solution is to find a way to get the school system to offer the services.

Faith like a mustard seed, right? David vs Goliath, right? It could happen, right?

For now, I’m choosing not to speak about this issue with or in front of the boys. I will ask Blessed Mother Teresa to intercede and allow me to continue to do this work that’s been given me in joy and not despair and maybe someday I will tell them about how hard it was to just get out of bed each morning, dreading another rejection and another request from the school. For now, I will bear this burden quietly with my family and go about the difficult burden of trusting when it feels like it’s all gone to hell.

To quote Casting Crowns:

Your world’s not falling apart, it’s falling into place…

Blessed Mother Teresa, pray for us!

The Story about Zika and Birth Control Catholics AREN’T talking about…

The Pope said some things on a plane. That’s not what this post is about.

In the days following those things being said on a plane and the “clarification,” a lot of us Catholics here in the US got, well, angry. And confused and we narrowed the lens of what was said and what was meant into the confines of our own lives. We focused on how what the Pope said hurt us personally because we were being witnesses to Church teaching on the subjects of openness to life and nfp and whatnot. And then we spent a lot of time focusing on a) how this would schism the Church, b) how to respond and c) how we still love Papa Francesco and we are definitely NOT bashing him. I know because I did it too.

And so, here we are.

From the comfort of our First World homes with air-conditioning and wi-fi, we’ve gotten upset (and rightfully so) and some of us are having trouble shaking that upset. Well, allow me to please shake you out of it.

While the mainstream US media has made Zika and microcephaly fates worse than death itself and while we’ve fretted about whether what the Pope said on a plane is a change to Church teaching…in Brazil, mothers of babies with microcephaly live their lives.

Maybe you’ve see a picture as you’ve scrolled past major news sites of a baby boy with microcephaly in Brazil who is in a bucket. Surely this is the story of despair. But, strangely, it is not.

In fact, the BBC went to meet this baby and his mother. Would you be surprised to know he has a name? It’s Jose Wesley. And his mother, Solange, thinks of him as a normal baby. And she is proud the story has gotten out because she knows that there are other families out there who can be helped by seeing and hearing it. She talks about what it was like to have Zika. And what the doctors have told her the future holds for her and Wesley but how she believes it might not happen like that. This profile (which you should watch and not just read) is not a story of difficulty and sadness, it’s a story of hope and a mother simply loving her son. Does she really look all that different from you caring for your own baby or a friend caring for hers?

The point she made by allowing her son to be photographed by the AP and later by being interviewed by the BBC without ever saying it? His life matters. His life has value. Microcephaly surely means life will be different for him than for his brothers, but that doesn’t make it less than. She doesn’t see him as the face of microcephaly and this condition does not change the fact that he is Wesley.

And what about that hope and optimism about his future?

Allow me to introduce you to Ana Carolina Cáceres. Once again, thanks to the BBC, we have her testimony:

“When I was born, the doctor told my parents: ‘She will not walk, she will not talk and, over time, she will enter into a vegetative state until she dies.’ He was wrong.”

Ana is twenty-four now and has graduated from college with a degree in journalism which she hopes will help her to give voice to others like her, who are voiceless.

Through an American-Catholic lens, we want to focus our pro-life attentions on the aspect of birth control to avoid these children possibly being born with microcephaly or stopping abortions of children showing signs of the condition in utero. We are playing into the hands of our mainstream media and secular culture by focusing solely on those aspects.

How many times, as a pro-life Catholic have you heard, “These people only care about the babies before they are born and then do nothing once they are here,” or some variation of that. Should we ignore abortion and birth control as they pertain to Zika/microcephaly or any other condition? Of course not. But we should also not talk about them to the exclusion of the issue of children born to mothers who contracted Zika (whether through sexual contact or mosquitos) and developed microcephaly as a result. The issue of their lives is also a pro-life issue; a very big and serious one that is being lost in light of the focus of disease prevention and the Pope’s statement and it’s fallout.

It is fine if you were upset or angry or confused by what Pope Francis said, but let’s take that most American of stereotypes and put it to good use by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and sharing the stories of Wesley and Ana Carolina. Let’s make those stories go as viral as any Papal pronouncement because their lives are witness to what we profess when we follow Church teaching on life…they matter. They were created by God who never, ever makes mistakes. Don’t allow the secularists or the anti-life movement control this narrative with scare tactics and confusion. Counter with life in all its glory.

I have nothing more to add but want to share this…

Melody of Blossoming Joy wrote this response to the comments of Pope Francis last week.

I wanted to share that but also to share this from Chris in the comments:

Perhaps we should send our letters of confusion to the Holy Father, instead of to eachother [sic]. St. Catherine of Sienna comes to mind as someone who personally challenged a pope. I’ve been praying for him. My mother is his age and I cannot imagine her being able to take a trip like that, not to mention the countless hours speaking and hugging handicapped people, the sheer exhaustion. So, I guess I just have been praying for him. But I might write that letter too.

The wisdom here needs to be underscored. We all have an opinion on so many things that we discuss online with anyone but the person with whom it pertains to. I think in the midst of confusion and possible dismay, Chris’ idea is prudent.

 

Edited to add one more great link from Kendra at Catholic All Year (which really picks up Chris’ suggestion and runs with it) and provides additional information.

Also, as Jennifer Ambrose is wont to tell me in times of trouble: if the Church could survive the Borgias, it will survive this.

On Loneliness in a Time of Facebook

For Lent I gave up my personal facebook account. It’s been a good spiritual exercise thus far for sure. Truly not seeking out the validation of friends has been an experience that has stretched and grown me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Not to mention the time I have for other things.

It’s also served to highlight my isolation since our move. I love living here and I know leaving our old community was the right choice but I had quite a few IRL friends there. Here? Well, I have a few co-workers but they all live a half-hour or more away. And there is the one mom at my kids’ school I kinda know. And then, my kids’ teachers. That’s it. That’s all folks!

99.9% of the time, that’s more than what I need. Sometimes it would be nice to have someone to go down to the beach with or share a cup of coffee with, but the reality is, I live in a community with almost nothing in common with my neighbors. We have an overwhelming sense of community but very little sense of companionship. No one in our neighborhood has kids my age and the wives are all military wives who are transient in nature and therefore stick close to their own, I get it. And as an outsider, even if you’re super outgoing (I’m not) it’s difficult to break in. All the “newcomer” stuff is geared to the military (much of it happening on base, where I cannot go).  Even the autism community meets publicly quite a ways away and has thus far managed to meet only when I have to work (I never get enough notice so I can ask off). So, finding friends with much or anything in common is pretty difficult, even one or two.

In this situation, when one closes oneself off from an avenue of social media, it’s quick to become lonely for one or two friends to talk to occasionally.

And then this is where John 3:30 comes in. In admitting I need a few friends sometimes, I am admitting I need Him. I need Him to open doors I can’t open myself to make this happen. And maybe it won’t happen his Lent, but I have to trust in His will and as I allow Him to increase, and decrease myself, I am sure it will all work itself out the way it is supposed to. It’s something I would have despaired of a few years ago, but now, can be at peace with. I’d like to take credit but I’m sure it’s all Him. For sure I would be much lonelier now without both facebook and God!

Let’s Not Let a Little Thing Like What You’re Supposed To Be There For Distract You

About a month ago my son made his First Confession. I had him wear a dress shirt, a tie and khakis. I even made him tuck his shirt in. I explained to him that God’s forgiveness is free to us at any time and in any condition, but as it was his first one, I would like us to treat it as a special occasion. Clean, new clothes to reflect our clean soul afterward. I even dressed “up” for the day.

We were a rarity. Lots of kids in t-shirts and jeans. Parents in sports jerseys and sweat pants. Different strokes, right?!

A few weeks ago, our Director of Faith Formation had a parent meeting for all parents of children who will be receiving their First Holy Communion in the weeks after Easter. This included all the parents from our parish school who had a child receiving the sacrament at our parish and the Faith Formation parents. I ended up sick that day but she briefed me afterward and told me that the main questions were about what the children were allowed to wear. She asked me if I had any questions regarding that or anything else. My answer: Joseph is getting a brand new suit.

I was curious as to what the parents might have thought was acceptable. Sleeveless dresses? Jacket optional? It doesn’t really matter. Just like Confession, when we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, it is our desire to receive Him that matters, but we should receive it respectfully.

I can be a judgy as the next person. I truly can. And it’s for this reason that I spend a lot of my prayer time after receiving the Eucharist with my eyes closed.

I realize that attire during Mass is a hot-button issue for a lot of people. And there are a lot of different issues that could be addressed: veiling, skirt length, women in pants, men in ties, shorts etc. I really and truly try to ignore most of it. Modesty, I believe, is a state of mind as much as a way of dressing. Personally I don’t wear nor allow my children to wear any clothes with words of them nor pictures of animals or characters, but the lady with the two toddlers who sits near us during Mass always wears skirts with patterns of animals or cute scenes. They’ve caught my eye a couple of times before Mass and before I let myself think more about them, I refocus on the massive Crucifix and the man hanging from it.

It is a real shame that people sometimes come to Mass not dressed in honor of what they are about to receive. But honestly, that’s not my concern. And nor should it be yours. At our previous parish there was a couple from Nigeria. They came to Mass each week in their brightest, best robes and dashikis, they stood out, but it’s exactly how they would have come to Mass in Nigeria, in their best. And how do I know that someone else’s best isn’t jeans and a t-shirt. Because honestly I don’t.

The reason we should all be at Mass is hanging from the Crucifix and found in the Tabernacle. When we allow ourselves to be distracted by the elderly woman talking behind us, the baby wailing or the person who receives Him in cut-offs…we’ve lost the entire point. We’ve abandoned our reason for being there altogether. As a lay person, I am there because of God’s grace and no other reason. And when I judge the state another’s soul by the clothes on their person, I’m no longer in a state where I can licitly receive the Eucharist.

Distractions happen. We’re all human. But when they begin to distract us completely from our Lord and Savior and His sacrifice and the miracle in our presence? Let’s think about that, a person’s clothing or hair or the fact that we can see her hair has taken precedence over the greatest love we can ever experience? This is something we need to understand fully and to appreciate the gravity of. It would be awesome if no one ever dressed and/or behaved in a way that even for the briefest of moments took our eyes off of His, but then the Devil wouldn’t exist at all would he? The real victory is when we actively turn our eyes away from the evil one’s distractions and refocus them on Him who is “I am.”

So, with that in mind, let’s try to pay attention, as fully as possible on what has brought us to this place and in that spirit, thank Him for bringing all of us together at His table to receive His greatest gift.

Entourage: The Movie (because sometimes I get suckered into watching douche-y movies about douche-y guys)

If you want to skip this blog post feel free, I just gotta get it out there and be done with it.

Back when Entourage was on tv, we didn’t have cable at all so, therefore, I only saw edited second-run on late night (after 11) tv reruns. And it was…okay. Not the great show I expected but I figured a lot was edited out, so, whatevs.

If you’re still with me, Entourage was the HBO series starring Jeremy Piven and Adrian Grenier based very loosely on actor Mark Wahlberg’s real life agent and “entourage” of friends/family that ran for eight seasons. Grenier played the Wahlberg based character actor Vincent Chase and Jeremy Piven played Vincent’s agent Ari Gold who was based on Wahlberg’s real life agent, Ari Emanuel. The other characters, Johnny Drama, Turtle and E are based on Wahlberg’s real life cousin, gofer and manager/best friend. Of these, Drama is the closest to his real-life counterpart based on the real Johnny Drama who fans of the reality based Wahlburgers show will know.

After the series ended, a movie was conceptualized. A movie that pretty much didn’t need to be made. The series accomplished pretty much everything it set out to do, but as Hollywood is wont to do, they decided to milk whatever else they could out of the popular series.

I basically watched the series for reasons and by reasons I’m sure you will understand were Adrian Grenier and Jeremy Piven. And I tolerated a lot of crap. Like the fact that these guys were total douchebags. Piven was the typical a-hole agent. Grenier and his crew were complete typical young-Hollywood stereotypes.

In the movie Vincent is making his first movie as star and director and Gold is now a studio head. And the movie co-stars Vincent’s brother Drama and is ballooning in costs. The biggest financial backer is a wealthy Texan Larsen McCredle played by Billy Bob Thornton and his son, Travis, played by Haley Joel Osment. Osment plays what he plays best, a whiny brat who always gets his way and stamps his foot and lies when he doesn’t.

Travis tries to derail the movie when he becomes jealous of Vincent and Vincent’s relationship with Emily Ratajkowski (playing herself). Ultimately the movie gets made, the way the guys want it but Ari is in a bit of a holding pattern as to what to do next (retire, again?!).

Jeff wanted to watch it on HBO which we have never had before and which we often forget we have (the reason we have the package is because we only upgraded to it because we wanted Cartoon Network). That was weird because he had no interest in the series. Ever. We immediately got into an argument about the character of Drama. He said it was Matt Dillon playing the character and I said it wasn’t so he said that it was “one of the Dillons.” Turns out we were both right. It was Kevin Dillon, Matt’s less famous brother.

We both felt like the film was a last gasp for fans and if I had been a huge fan before, I would have felt very let down by it. The guys showed very little, if any growth. And the character of Travis was so obnoxious I felt like puking whenever I saw his smug little face. The fact that the actors in the main cast aside from Piven have virtually vanished from our consciousness since the show ended (in 2011) appears to have been an additional impetus for the movie. And Piven would have done better to leave Ari Gold behind, having since re-igniting his career in the ITV/Masterpiece production of Mr. Selfridge as the titular character.

If you haven’t seen this movie, don’t. And if you loved the series, especially don’t.

 

 

Quiet Time with Jesus, the real lover

I worked for a few hours yesterday afternoon/evening. I sold lots of beer and wine and lots of flowers and chocolates and cards. Some of the families where buying special Valentines dinners with fun desserts. Lots of husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends were trying to express their undying affections.

I’ve gone through lots of feelings about Valentine’s Day. There are years I’ve loved it and years I felt like it was a huge waste of time and money. And then there are years like this one where I can just take it all in stride.

Last night when I came home I found out about the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Known as a conservative justice and excellent interpreter of the Constitution, Scalia was also a faithful Catholic and father of nine. Scalia wrote a passionate dissent on the ruling on same-sex marriage handed down last year, not from a moralistic standpoint, but a Constitutional one that is very worth reading.

While Scalia states in his opinion that,

The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance.

Scalia was in close quarters on this issue with Chief Justice John Roberts (who wrote the main dissention on the ruling), Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito…all Catholics. The opposite side of this court contains two more Catholics, Sonya Sotomayor and Anthony Kennedy. These Justices are lightning rods in the culture wars of today be it same-sex marriage, the affordable care act or any other controversial Constitutional issue. And their being Catholic is often called into question.

Scalia died on the eve of what the Church calls both St Valentine’s Day and World Marriage Day. The irony of this is not at all lost on me at least. Scalia, as a Supreme Court Justice, was in charge of interpreting the law and did so on marriage. St Valentine was put to death as a result of breaking the law, because of marriage.

While the secular world would like us to think that this day is about little cherubs in diapers with bows and arrows and little heart shapes (actually modeled after the shape of a woman’s buttocks when she is bent over), the reason this day was ever commemorated was because of a priest in the Roman Empire around the year 270.

During the reign of Emperor Claudius the Cruel, marriage was outlawed. The reason: to make more men eligible for military service in the Empire. Valentine was simply a priest who believed that God’s law usurped man’s. Especially when man’s law was clearly self-serving and wrong. He married couples secretly in civil disobedience and violation of the law. For his efforts, he was beaten, jailed and put to death. And years later we remember him by exchanging gifts of chocolate and flowers.

A couple of weeks ago, the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we heard the reading from St Paul’s First Letter to the Church in Corinth and his extortion on love. It’s a beautiful verse not because it talks about romantic love but because it describes the greatest love in existence, the love of Christ for us and how when we love Him back perfectly, we can love the rest of His creation, including other humans. Our Parochial Vicar’s homily gives a perfect and beautiful explanation of how this love is perfection.

So here we are in 2016, we’ve lost a man who attempted to preserve marriage as one man and one woman and we are at the annual celebration that has it’s origins in another man who played a role in preserving marriage. It’s some time to be alive, I tell you.

The marriage of a man and woman is the living example of the marriage of Christ and His Church. A Church that risks persecution, yet again.

Christ is the common denominator. His love is the love we should be seeking an emulating today. Without His love, our expressions of love to one another: whether romantic, familial, brotherly etc are empty and meaningless.

And so He is who I began this Valentine’s Day with. I found myself up before 5 AM thanks to a certain autistic princess’ crazy sleeping postures and came down stairs to pray the Divine Office and Rosary in the presence of our Savior thanks to online Eucharistic Adoration.

It is easy to get wrapped up in the politics regarding marriage or the secular notions of this day. It is easy to forget the most important and central love in our lives. As our Parochial Vicar said in this morning’s homily, we are Christ’s beloved children, we are chosen. Christ is the great lover in our lives. It is Him we should honor with our lives this day and in our loving Him, we can love our spouse, our children, our friends and all creation. Like all loving relationships, this one will require time. So, this Lent, put in some face time with our great love, if you can’t do Adoration at your parish or there is no perpetual Eucharistic Adoration near you, check out the link above and do it online. Spend that quiet time whenever you can snatch it. You can’t express Christ’s love without regularly experiencing it yourself.

 

For the Sick yes, but also for the “Well”

Last night as I drove home from work a particular Gospel reading started bouncing around in my brain. I couldn’t tell you off hand which Gospel it was from but I could hear Jesus’ words clearly; he came for the sinners the “sick.”

This morning I logged online and read the readings for today:

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.
Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house,
and a large crowd of tax collectors
and others were at table with them.
The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying,
“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

-Luke 5:27-32

Ah, yes, Holy Spirit, once again you have my attention. We are all sinners, we are all “sick” in our fallen state. But, we must not forget our need for Jesus in times when we are “well” nor the sacraments either.

In today’s world we have a huge emphasis on “preventative medicine.” Most insurers cover at least annual physicals, pap smears, regular checks for prostate, breast and colon cancers and any variety of screenings: cholesterol, blood pressure etc. The idea being that with regular maintanance, doctors will find issues sooner or early signs and be able to stop events before they even start.

I remember an older friend once telling me that when life was well, she would sometimes find herself neglecting prayer outside of her weekly Mass commitment. She wouldn’t even think of Sacred Scripture and Confession was the furthest thing from her mind. And then the bottom would drop out and she would humbly, hat in hand, find her way back into a more regular routine with Jesus, acknowledging that her low state reminded her of her total reliance on God for everything.

It is true that the Church is a field hospital, as Pope Francis says and equally true that Jesus came for the sinners. And I can see where I relate to what my friend was saying. At times when all things are good, it is sometimes easy to “forget” why that is.

My Lent is starting off better than any I’ve had in years. We made it to Ash Wednesday Mass and no one was sick. I’ve been keeping my fasts and they are seeming deceptively easy for some reason and feeling very engaged in new spirtual practices. It feels so easy, but that Gospel bouncing in my head last night kept my feet on the ground, “Keep doing it Kristen, keep it up,” the Holy Spirit seemed to say, “you feel ‘well’ but the sickness of sin lies just under the surface and if you neglect Him, it was rise up.”

Just like regular visits to my doctor will help me to prevent issues in my physical health, so regular reception of the sacraments, reading of scripture and prayer help fight against spiritual ailments. I think of Blessed Mother Teresa who kept going despite such spiritual dryness. I will never be so well that I do not need Jesus. Even if everything feels as though it is going “right,” that deception of “feeling well” will only be a temporary mask over the eventual illness if I neglect God in my life.

When God and Satan talked about God’s servant Job, Satan said Job faithfulness to God only happened because Job’s life was going well and that if God took it all away, Job would falter. We seem to have the opposite problem in our lives today. Today Satan tries to steal us from God by making us feel as though we do not need God when times are good and that we, not God, are sometimes responsible for the good things in our lives, and it is only when God removes them that we are humbled by our reliance on Him.

Jesus came for the sinners, all of us, and we should not forget that in the times when life seems to be all above the board. It is then that we should cling harder and persist, not to keep that bad times away but to be able to say, as Job did,

Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb,^f

and naked shall I go back there.^*

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;

Blessed be the Lord!”

Job 1:21

We are never as well as we seem or feel, we need Jesus for preventative, as well as emergency, care.