IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

My early religious training, for all its strengths, placed too heavy an emphasis on fear of God, fear of judgment, and fear of never being good enough to be pleasing to God. It took the biblical texts about God being angry and displeased with us literally. The downside of this was that many of us came away with feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred, and understood those feelings religiously, with no sense that they might have more of a psychological than a religious origin. If you had feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred, it was a signal that you were not living right, that you should feel some shame and that God was not pleased with you.

Well, as Hegel famously taught, every thesis eventually spawns its antithesis. Both in the culture and in many religious circles today, this has produced a bitter backlash. The current cultural and ecclesial ethos has brought with it a near-feverous acceptance of the insights from contemporary psychology vis-à-vis guilt, shame and self-hatred. We learned from Freud and others that many of our feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred are really a psychological neurosis, and not an indication that we are doing anything wrong. Feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred do not of themselves indicate that we are unhealthy religiously or morally or that God is displeased with us.

With this insight, more and more people have begun to blame their religious training for any feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred. They have coined the term “Christian neurosis” and have begun speaking of “being in recovery” from their churches.

What’s to be said about this? In essence, some of this is healthy, a needed corrective, though some of it also suffers from its own naiveté. And, it has landed us here. Today, religious conservatives tend to reject the idea that guilt, shame and self-hatred are mainly a neurosis (for which our religious training is responsible), while religious liberals tend to favor this notion. Who is right?

A more balanced spirituality, I believe, combines the truth of both positions to produce a deeper understanding. Drawing on what is best in current biblical scholarship and on what is best in contemporary psychology, a more balanced spirituality makes these assertions.

First, that when our biblical language tells us that God gets angry and unleashes his fury, we are dealing with anthropomorphism. God doesn’t get angry with us when we do wrong. Rather what happens is that we get angry with ourselves and we feel as if that anger were somehow “God’s wrath.” Next, most psychologists today tell us that many of our feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred are in fact unhealthy, a simple neurosis, and not at all an indication that we did something wrong. These feelings only indicate how we feel about ourselves, not how God feels about us.

However, that being admitted, it is too simple to write off our feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred as a mere neurosis. Why? Because even if these feelings are completely or largely unmerited, they may still be an important voice inside us, that is, while they don’t indicate that God is displeased or angry with us, they still can be a voice inside us that won’t be silent until we ask ourselves why we are displeased and angry with ourselves.

Here’s an example. There is a wonderfully enlightening exchange in the 1990s movie, “City Slickers.” Three men are having a conversation about the morality of having a sexual affair. One asks the other, “If you could have an affair and get away with it, would you do it?” The other replies: “No, I still wouldn’t do it.” “Why not?” he is asked, “nobody would know.” His response contains a much-neglected insight regarding the question of guilt, shame and self-hatred. He replies, “I would know and I would hate myself for it!”

There is such a thing as Christian “guilt neurosis” (which incidentally is not limited to Christians, Jews, Muslims and other religious persons, but is universal among all morally sensitive people). However, not all feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred are neurotic. Some are trying to teach us a deep moral and religious truth, that is, while we can never do a single thing to make God angry with us for one minute, we can do many things that make us angry with ourselves. While we can never do anything to make God hate us, we can do things that have us hate ourselves. And, while we can never do anything to make God withhold forgiveness from us, we can do things that make it difficult for us to forgive ourselves. God is never the problem. We are.

Feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred do not of themselves indicate whether we have done something wrong, but they do indicate how we feel about what we have done – and that can be an important moral and religious voice inside us.

Not everything that bothers us is a pathology.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

Kneading Faith
By Fran Lavelle

My first parish after graduating from college was Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Columbus, Ohio. Holy Spirit also had an elementary school and was truly a neighborhood parish. The parish was mostly made up of families with young children and older married couples who raised their children in the parish and school.

That first year at Holy Spirit was the first time I was really aware of World Marriage Day. It may have been that during my high school and college years I had not paid attention, or it might be that our university parish did not celebrate World Marriage Day in a significant way. In any event, I recall the priest at Holy Spirit inviting all of the married couples to stand and re-new their wedding vows. As the married couples stood, I remember looking around and seeing a sea of children still seated along with myself. It was and still remains a powerful image in my mind. I remember witnessing those couples, young and old, recommitting their lives to one another. The vow to love one another in good times and in bad is much more profound knowing that a couple have had their share of both in the years they have been husband and wife.

I have a friend who has been married for over 50 years. In reflecting on her marriage, she speaks to how organically their marriage has evolved over the years. She told me once that she and her husband have had four “mini-marriages” within their one marriage. It is natural that as we age, we grow and mature.

In their marriage they were able to meet the challenges of their changing relationship as they moved through the various stages of life. Now retired, they have had the opportunity to look back and see that the work they put into remaining together built a bond that they could not have imagined on their wedding day. She tells me often that it is all a gift. The good and the not so good helped them grow in their love and strengthened their commitment to one another. If you are a couple or know a couple who have been married for a number of years you know exactly what I am talking about.

The church in her wisdom rightly celebrates the gift of marriage as both vocation and sacrament. It is important for single people, young couples, and newlyweds to see what enduring love and sacrifice look like.

Each February the diocese celebrates the gift and witness of marriage. Under the leadership and planning of the Office of Family Ministry all couples celebrating their 25th, 50th and 60th wedding anniversaries are invited to the Diocesan World Marriage Day celebration. It will be held Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023, at 3 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. Peter in Jackson, Mississippi. There will be a Mass followed by a reception. To register contact your parish office or go to www.jacksondiocese.org/family-ministry to register yourself. For additional information or questions, please contact Debbie Tubertini at the Office of Family Ministry at (601) 960-8487 or email debbie.tubertini@jacksondiocese.org.

May your commitment to your marriage be a great witness to the young people in your life just as those couples were for me all those years ago. This year I will be celebrating my first World Marriage Day as a newlywed. God willing, we will have many years to celebrate the gift of our late life vocation. Keep loving one another well. I know it is my long-term plan!

(Fran Lavelle is the Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Jackson.)

GUEST COLUMN
By Sister Constance Veit, LSP

Our motherhouse is located on a large property in a tiny village in rural France. With its old stone buildings, expansive pastures, flower gardens and shaded pathways, it’s a gorgeously bucolic setting and the most peaceful place I’ve ever been.

During the year that I lived there I don’t think I heard a single airplane overhead, an emergency siren or even a car horn. The nighttime silence and dark, starlit skies were especially striking.

Looking up at the stars I felt the deep security of knowing I was enveloped by God’s love.

The memory of those starry Breton skies still quiets my soul and fills me with a sense of peacefulness in the midst of life’s inevitable difficulties.

What a contrast this is to the darkness enveloping our Ukrainian brothers and sisters this winter as their country continues to be bombarded on a daily basis. This darkness is not a blanket of security or prayerful serenity – although cries to God no doubt rise from it – but an inescapable cloud of fear and dread.

As I think of the people of Ukraine during this Advent season, I am reminded of the words of the prophet Isaiah about the people dwelling in darkness. (Is 9:2ff) This passage speaks of a burdensome yoke, a taskmaster’s rod, boots tramped in battle and cloaks rolled in blood.

This is harsh military imagery.

The people living in darkness are wounded and oppressed, like our Ukrainian brothers and sisters today. They desperately need someone to shine a light into the cold cellars and improvised bunkers in which they huddle.

They need a savior.

It is just after the winter solstice, the darkest point of the year, that we celebrate the coming of our Savior at Christmas. Isaiah proclaims, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Upon those who lived in a land of gloom a light has shone …For a child is born to us, a son is given to us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”

In their icons Ukrainian Catholics and Orthodox Christians traditionally portray the Nativity scene as a black cave surrounded by jagged rocks. This inhospitable setting represents the cruel and sinful world into which Jesus was born.

From heaven a large star sends a single shaft of light to pierce the darkness and guide the viewer’s eye directly onto the baby lying in the manger. This babe is the light that will dispel all darkness.

An Orthodox monk reflecting on the Nativity icon wrote, “O God, upon whom will the light shine if not those who live in darkness? If I truly feel that I am in darkness, then I surely will seek the light.”

This insight helps us to understand that the miracle of Christmas is not automatic. We must realize our need to be plucked out of the darkness that surrounds us – we must intentionally seek the light.

For most of our contemporary world, Christmas is filled with bright lights, shiny baubles and excesses of every kind. It is difficult to quiet our hearts enough to seek the true light we so desperately need.

Perhaps an act of solidarity with our Ukrainian brothers and sisters can help us to clarify our priorities this Christmas.

Archbishop Borys Gudziak, Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia and the highest ranking Ukrainian clergyman in the United States, recently spoke at a meeting of U.S. bishops.
He suggested that we open wide a window in our home, turn the lights out and sit there long enough to really feel the cold. This act of solidarity, he suggested, will help us to feel what the Ukrainian people are experiencing everyday as this war drags on.

May this simple gesture of empathy and solidarity inspire us to intensify our prayers for peace, that the light of Christ will truly pierce the darkness this Christmas – the darkness of sin and war enveloping our world, and the darkness that lurks in each human heart.

O Lord, God-Hero and Prince of Peace, how we need you! Come into our world anew this Christmas and dispel the darkness with your divine light!

(Sister Constance Veit is the communications director for the Little Sisters of the Poor in the United States and an occupational therapist.)