Vineyard and Virtues

The prayer group this Saturday was really good.  We were discussing the readings for this Sunday (27th Sunday in the A cycle) about the vineyards (Is 5:1-7, Mt 21:33-43) and St. Paul to the Philippians (Phil 4:6-9).  When checking the cross-references in the Catechism, I was struck by the message the Lord was sending.

The first reading is referenced by paragraph 546 (emphasis mine)

Jesus' invitation to enter his kingdom comes in the form of parables, a characteristic feature of his teaching. Through his parables he invites people to the feast of the kingdom, but he also asks for a radical choice: to gain the kingdom, one must give everything. Words are not enough, deeds are required. The parables are like mirrors for man: will he be hard soil or good earth for the word? What use has he made of the talents he has received? Jesus and the presence of the kingdom in this world are secretly at the heart of the parables. One must enter the kingdom, that is, become a disciple of Christ, in order to "know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven". For those who stay "outside", everything remains enigmatic.

Wow. It was quite telling that this comes in the section about the proclamation of the kingdom. This was one of the same paragraphs referenced last week when we heard about the two sons sent to work in the vineyard.  For the reading this week, it suggests that it is not enough that the vineyard produce fruit, but that it produce good fruit, or it will be torn down.

The second reading is referenced by paragraph 1803 (again, emphasis mine):

"Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." [Phil 4:8]

A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions.

The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God.
[St. Gregory of Nyssa, De beatitudinibus, 1: PG 44, 1200D]

 I love the verse, but had not connected it with the virtues before.  However, it was the additional reference to good works that really caught my attention today.  In the first reading, God showers down his blessings, his graces, on the vineyard; yet it still brings forth wild grapes, sour actions.  In the second reading, we get the reference to the virtues, the fruit of grace and human effort.

Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good.
The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love.

-- CCC 1804

This leads to a key in understanding a moral interpretation of the verse.  God has given us everything that we need to live a virtuous life, his graces a goal, and our free will.  However, sometimes we get so tangled up with the task that we lose ourselves in it.  It becomes a means for and in itself and is no longer directed toward God.  When this happens, the fruit produced from the effort is no longer the good fruit intended, but a sour and pitted shadow.  When we set a particular work up as our good, virtue is not the result, but self-love and in some cases, pride.

True virtue is always directed toward the good, but it does not have a connection with evil.  Aspects that normally are associated with the virtues (and sometimes mistaken for them) can be set up as the good to be pursued and followed at all costs.  Of course, this always brings destruction, because God does not want us to set up something else, no matter how noble, as a false god.  If the seeds of the virtues become poisoned in this way, the only thing that can be done is to uproot the plant; to disrupt the action and stop the individual from continuing the action which could lead to idolatry.  That is why God tears down the vineyard in the first reading; it is the only way to uproot the problem vine and give the cultured grapes the chance to grow.

In my own life, I sometimes wonder why God has stopped me from engaging in some good work.
Why God? I just want to sing in choir/attend classes/teach RCIA! Wasn't that a good enough plan?  How could it displease you?  I'm trying to serve you!  Usually, when I've calmed down, God will politely remind me that I have other priorities, and sometimes, that I was letting pride in my actions creep in.  He's asked me to let go of a lot in the past year, and it's taken me some time to recognize that he was right to ask it of me.

God, grant me the grace to trust you when you are trying to keep me from falling into sin.

The Tent

Having a thought today about survival.

Let us imagine a tent.  It is a research station in the Antarctic, visited only twice a year for supplies.  Living in this tent are five men.  Four are old friends, but the fifth is a recent arrival.  The other four are not fond of him.  He disrupts their work with questions, has a different sense of humor that bothers them and his habits are foreign to them.  They had mentioned at the last delivery that they were willing to take on another man here, but they had never expected someone like this.


One night, one of the group, the eldest, decides that he has had enough.  The newcomer has got to go.  He consults with his companions and they agree that they are not happy with their new acquaintance either.  One suggests that they could wait until the next supply run, but the eldest man will not hear of it.  "He's ruined several of my plans with his interruptions," he complains.  "The mere thought of him is upsetting!  He must go now."

The second in the group agrees: "He snores so loud I can't get any sleep.  He took three bites out of the sandwich I'd left in the fridge and I was the one who lost lab space to his stupid projects."

The other two are a bit taken aback.  They don't like the newcomer, but this is a bit extreme.  "It's fifty below out there. He'll die if we throw him out!" one protests.  "We have plenty of food and space, why not just wait until the next supply run?  We can make arrangements to get him shipped out of here by then."  They argue for a while, but they can't hide that their frustration with their companion.  He has disrupted things. Within a few hours, the third is swayed by the promise that everything will return to normal and nobody need ever know.  The fourth, fearful of damaging their friendship, consents as well.

After the newcomer goes to sleep, the four men pick up his bunk and place it outside.  "It's not murder," says the eldest, seeing the fourth man is still very uncomfortable.  "It will be peaceful.  He'll freeze, but he won't wake up while it's happening.  This way, he won't have to deal with us and the insult of not being wanted here and we don't have to deal with him."

Is what these men did wrong?  They didn't hurt the newcomer, aside from removed him from an environment where he could survive.  They constituted a majority in a place that could be considered sovereign.  They felt they eliminated all acceptable options and the only one left, though it was one they did not particularly like, was the one that they did.  He wasn't wanted.  So what, if anything, was wrong?  Just a question...

Pre-nuptial Agreement

While having a conversation with good friends the other day about their upcoming marriage, we fell upon the topic of pre-nuptial agreements.  Both my friend and his fiancee mentioned that they needed to get in contact with a lawyer who could assist them in setting one up.

Quite aside from their reasons for wanting to do so (which shocked me very much), I was disturbed by the very concept of a pre-nuptial agreement.  It seems to assume from the get-go that the arrangement (one can hardly call it a marriage) will come to an end before either individual does.  In other words, it will not last, and both parties are trying to protect themselves from damage if (or more accurately, when) the relationship dies.

Contrast this with the Christian idea of marriage.  Note that I am not speaking of a marriage between two Christians, but of marriage as what the Church understands it to be.  This relationship is indissoluble, therefore, assuming it will or could end is absurd from the outset.  There are not two pieces that could be put back into their original condition again, but one single piece that if separated would mean the annihilation of not only the new single piece, but destruction of any form of the originals also.  If it helps, think of marriage like a nuclear fusion.  Each is individual before the fusion, but after the process, one cannot speak of there being two molecules joined, but only a single one.  To destroy that single one in an attempt to recover the originals will leave you with a soup of sub-atomic particles that may reform into atoms again, but not the original atoms you began with.

Secondly, in a Christian marriage, you give all of yourself.  To not do so is to not really have a Christian marriage at all.  You must open yourself completely to your spouse.  This, by its very nature, is a dangerous thing to do.  Any time that you reveal something of yourself to another, you risk being betrayed by them: being hurt, being cheated, lied to, etc.  This means that in a Christian marriage, you are making yourself completely vulnerable.  You have entrusted everything you have to another, knowing that this could end badly.  However, you are also entrusted with all of your spouse, and their hope that you will not betray them either.  Without this intention of total trust, and the attempt to have it go both ways, a marriage cannot be made.  If you intend to keep something back, a possession or habit that you would hoard for only yourself, then you are stating that you would rather remain an individual with a loose attachment to another individual.  You do not intend to be married.

It may help to remember that marriage is supposed to be analogous to our relationship with God.  He has already stated his intention to give us everything, to give us even Himself.  Our Christian life is an attempt to do the same in return, to give our very self back to God, completely and without reservation.  There is nothing that we can hold back, nothing that we can state is ours and that God has no business poking in.

As always, I may be missing something.  Any other thoughts on the subject?

A Buffet Catholic

While reading through my regular feed of Catholic blogs the other day, I was disturbed by the number of times that the term "Cafeteria Catholic" was used.  I'm not sure why it bothered me so much just then; I have, of course, seen the term in use for some time.  But once I got to thinking about it, I decided that I really didn't like the term much.

When Catholics who are trying to follow the teachings of the Church (orthodox Catholics) refer to someone as a "Cafeteria Catholic", the goal almost always seems born from a desire to call them a name, no different than calling someone stupid on the playground.  It is a way of attempting to separate oneself from another that they see as foolish, dirty, dangerous or otherwise undesirable for company.  In virtually every case, the one seen as unorthodox is not there to defend themselves from the term, so we can safely rule out that it is being used to awaken them to their state.  I recognize that not everyone uses the term in a derogatory way, and if you are such a one, then my apologies to you.  I ask your pardon, as I am still quite entrenched in the other group, and have done my share of name-calling.

If one feels that they must continue using the term, then I propose a new term.  Well, more of taking back a term and re-purposing it.  If someone insists on calling another a "Cafeteria Catholic", then I must insist on my own title:

I will be called a "Buffet Catholic".

Please don't misunderstand me.  I know that the term "Buffet Catholic" is seen as synonymous with "Cafeteria Catholic".  I mean here to re-assign it; to take back the term and give it new life.  Let me explain why I feel it necessary to take this particular new title.  (Before I continue, I will state that I know the following is mixing metaphors a bit.)

When one is in a cafeteria, food is often served a la carte. One selects from the multitude of items and takes them to the clerk, who tells one how much they owe.  Much of the food is same day-to-day, prepared elsewhere, separately and pre-packaged. Each item has a price, regardless of how small it is.  One must be careful not to select too much, because one has only so much money available to pay for their meal.  The model is that one only pays for what one wants.

In a buffet, it works quite differently.  While there is still a multitude of items available, one gets to take as much as one wants.  The selection is a good blend of new dishes and old favorites, all of them fresh, all prepared in one kitchen by master chefs.  One need not worry about how much each item is going to cost, because the price is paid once, up front, before any of the food is available.  The model is that one pays for everything, but then all is open.

I want to be a buffet Catholic.  I want to pay the doorkeeper to gain access to the feast.  His price is high: acceptance of authority.  But is it really that high a price?  On the occasions where I have been in a cafeteria, I've often spent as much for a meal there as I would for a meal at a buffet hall.  It is actually quite nice having one price to pay and not having to keep track of whether I've overstretched myself while attempting to build my own meal.

I want to be a buffet Catholic.  I want to take as much as possible from the teachings of the Church and from many different sources, the saints, the mystics, the popes, confessors and Tradition, without having to worry about whether I can afford them or where they came from.  I want to be able to take from any number of fields of service.  I want to accept something from each of the seven courses.  I want to drink deeply from the many fountains of spirituality and not be restricted to one.

I can hear the objection, "But you are only taking what you want!"  Indeed.  I can sample from every category, but I will focus on a few favorites.  This is not really much different from what we do in our walk of faith.  We can sample from the many areas of prayer and service, but we tend to focus on only a few in our daily life.  One is called to a life of study, another to feeding the hungry, another to clothing the naked, etc.  We don't ignore the other dishes we don't like; we keep in mind that others at the buffet will take them and enjoy them.  The important thing to remember is that one is still paying for all the other dishes just as much as for the ones enjoyed.  Furthermore, in a buffet, one is encouraged to take little portions of the other dishes, to expand one's horizons and have a well-balanced meal.  This is less acceptable when one is watching every little thing they accept onto their tray, fearful that this addition may be one cost too many.

The last reason that I like using this term is because it shows a basic truth that underlines everything and we are often so quick to forget (myself included).  The truth that we are not so different from one another.  A buffet is very similar to a cafeteria, though they are not the same.  I've explained above that I think the mindset of one is good and the other needs improvement, but the major point is that they would look nearly the same to one who was not aware of the difference.  I chose the name of "Buffet Catholic" because it identifies with those who are called "Cafeteria Catholic," stating that we are not the same, but we have much in common.

The Didache

The other night, we had some of our friends over and I was discussing the history of the Church. He is very interested in apologetics and learning how to defend and explain his faith (which is, by the way, a wonderful goal for all people of faith, not to mention all Catholics). Many times in our discussion, he would mention that the non-denominational Christians he had been speaking with would deny that Church traditions went back as far as they claim to go. Things such as the Trinitarian baptism, relics, saints, etc. As we talked, it occurred to me that Catholics have a resource which is seldom called upon to defend the truth of the Catholic Church: the Didache.

For those who have not heard of it before, the Didache (also known as the Teachings of the Twelve Apostles) is an ancient text which claims to be the summation of what the Apostles taught. It is estimated to have been written between 50 and 110 AD. It is mentioned by many of the Church Fathers before the Bible was compiled and just narrowly missed inclusion. It was lost for many centuries and was only rediscovered in 1875.

This is an enormous help for the Church, because it is a documented piece of evidence that shows a very Catholic view of the early Christian world. I also disrupts the theory that Catholics simply made up core pieces of the faith.

To give an analogy, imagine for a moment that you go to a barbecue. You've been to many places that serve BBQ, but this place has something different. The chefs have a very specific way that they do theirs and they only smile and politely refuse if anyone suggests changing it. When pressed, they tell you that their recipie is unchanged from the very first one, handed down by the greatest BBQ master of them all.

Of course, most people would scoff at such a claim. "That can't be true. You're getting a bit conceited about your own tradition. There's no way that you have the original BBQ recipie."

Then, one day, a historian runs across an ancient document (say, 1000 years old) which mentions barbecue and lists a recipie. When compared with the one being used by that one group of chefs, it is found to be a match. All of the key ingredients are there, done in the same order, in the same amounts. Other barbecue recipies may be similar, but no others have the same integrity.

If such a situation were to happen, the claims of that group of chefs would be greatly bolstered. Their statement doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore.

This is similar to what one finds when reading through the Didache. It supports Catholic tradition and practices. It is nearly free from the claims of corruption, because it was considered lost for a great deal of history. Christians who dislike the Catholic Church are stuck too, because it predates the Nicene creed and the accepted doctrines of the Trinity. It may even be older than some of the New Testament. It is widely known and accepted by the early fathers of the Church, which throws out claims that it is a heretical work. In short, the existence of this document lends credibility to the Church's statement that its teaching remains unchanged (indeed, unchangeable) from the very earliest days of Christianity.

On a broader level, it gives another area of consideration. If one can see and acknowledge that the Didache lends credibility to the Church's claim that she has the original teachings of the Apostles, why should she not be trusted when making other claims?

Six Words

Had two different blogs mention the Six Word Memoirs project today, so I had to have a go at it:

"Have mercy on me, a sinner"

I can think of lots more. Perhaps some for the comments, or some other time.

What is Truth

I've been having a thought lately, spurred on mostly by C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. In the very first letter, and in many of the subsequent ones, Screwtape tells Wormwood that it never occurs to humans (at least, present-day humans) to ask if something is true. They (we) ask whether it fits with the style of thought that we are used to, what progressed up to the idea in question and how it fits with our current lifestyle. In fact, you seldom hear anyone nowadays ask if the fresh piece of gossip is true, or if the most recent scientific findings are true, or if the latest historical publication is true. The main reason we don't question these things is because society requires a high degree of trust in order to operate. We must trust one another if we are to live together. At some point, we begin to take it for granted that people are telling the truth. At this point, lies quietly slip in and become difficult to kill.

The idea struck a chord with me and so I decided to try an experiment. Whenever prodded with a situation that called for my thoughts on this topic or that, the first question I would ask (if sensible) would be: "Is it true?" Please note that this question proves very ineffective for questions relating to taste, or personal opinions. It is meant for matters that turn on a moral question, or those that require one to search outside of one's self for the answer.

In a discussion with a friend, the comment was made that a mutual Catholic friend of ours was contemplating sending his son for first communion classes. This had raised something of a scandal with the "old church ladies" (a.k.a. a lot of gossip), because our mutual friend had not formally had a first communion himself. My friend said that if he encountered this behavior in his congregation, he would immediately leave and find a different one. It bothered me a bit that he was willing to change congregations so quickly, especially because he is a member of a non-denominational church. Leaving that congregation would essentially mean leaving a micro-denomination and moving to another one. It was even more troublesome that he thought that someone could and should abandon the Catholic Church in a similar manner.

This led to the big question: Is the Church true? Or, put another way, Are the Teachings of the Church true?

Thinking it over, there are only a handful of answers to this. 1) Yes; 2) No; 3) I don't know; 4) What is truth? Interestingly, it also sets up quite the stage for the questions that follow.

1. Yes, the teachings of the Church are true. - This leaves two options: to follow them or not. The first seems almost obvious; once one recognizes that the teachings of the Church are true, it seems only logical that one should follow them. However, there are still those that will choose, for whatever reason, not to follow them. Those in the latter group are the most pitiable of all people. They have seen and recognized the light, but have chosen the darkness.

2. No, the teachings of the Church are not true - This immediately begs the question, if the Church does not teach truth, why do so many people keep taking her teachings as their own? Or why when studies are done on human behavior, they conclude that humans should act in the same manner that the Church prescribes? The Church is not opposed to rational thought. In fact, informed Catholics will tell you that oftentimes that rational thought applied to the facts lead back to the Church, not away from it.

3. I don't know if the teachings of the Church are true - An honest answer, but more of a stage of development. One realizes that it is only a step on the path to one conclusion or the other. For example, it is perfectly acceptable to tell the professor that you do not know the answer the first time you are asked. However, if you are asked again at a later date, and continue to give this answer, you will fail your class. If the current answer is that you do not know, then the real question is whether you are you willing to find out? If one answers that they are willing to learn and test the teachings of the Church for themselves, wonderful. Such studies will soon place them into one of the preceding categories. If one refuses even to learn what the teachings of the Church are, that means they have preconcluded option 2 and will resist any attempts to sway them from that position.

4. What is truth? - Put another way, this is stating that there is no absolute truth. It is a denial that there is a right and wrong. No individual that is honest with themselves can accept this position for long. It is an easily contestable point, which C.S. Lewis and other philosophers and theologians have answered already; I will not repeat those points here, but I refer one that would take this stance back to option 3.

These are only my beginning thoughts on the subject. If I have missed something, or am off the mark, then I am open for correction.