IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Imagine this: A man, entirely careless of all moral and spiritual affairs, lives his life in utter selfishness, pleasure his only pursuit. He lives the high life, never prays, never goes to church, has numerous sexual affairs and has no concern for anyone but himself. After a long life of this, he’s diagnosed with a terminal illness and, on his deathbed, tearfully repents, makes a sincere confession, receives the Eucharist and dies inside the blessing of the church and his friends.

Now, if our reaction is, “Well, the lucky fellow! He got to live a life of selfish pleasure and still gets to go to heaven!” then (according to Piet Fransen, a renowned theologian on Grace) we haven’t yet, at all, understood the workings of grace. To the degree that we still envy the amoral and wish to exclude them from God’s grace, even as we count ourselves in, we are the “older brother” of the prodigal son, standing outside the Father’s house, heaven, in envy and bitterness.

I teach in a seminary that prepares seminarians for ordination. Recently our professor of Sacramental Theology shared that he’s been teaching a course on the Sacrament of Reconciliation for more than forty years and only in the last few years have the seminarians asked: “When do we have to refuse giving someone absolution in confession?”

What’s betrayed in this concern? The seminarians asking the question are, no doubt, sincere; they’re not trying to be rigid or hard. Their anxiety is rather about grace and mercy. They are sincerely anxious about perhaps dispensing God’s mercy too liberally, too cheaply, too indiscriminately, in essence, too unfairly. Their fear is not so much that God’s mercy is limited and that there’s only so much grace to go around. Not that. Their concern is more that by giving out grace so liberally they are being unfair to those who are practicing faithfully and bearing the heat of the day. Their fear is about fairness, justice and merit.

What’s at stake here? That grace is not something we merit. After the rich young man in the Gospels turns down Jesus’ invitation to leave everything and follow him, Peter, who watched this encounter and who, unlike the rich young man, has not turned down Jesus’ invitation and has given up everything to follow him, asks Jesus what those who do give up everything are going to get in return. In response, Jesus tells him the parable of the generous land owner and the vineyard workers who all arrive at different times, wherein some work for many hours and some for virtually no time at all, and yet they all receive the same reward, leaving those who worked the full day and bore the heat of the sun bitter with sense of unfairness. But, the vineyard owner (God) points out that there is no unfairness here since everyone has in fact received an over-generous return.

What’s the deep lesson? Whenever we are protesting that it “isn’t fair” that those who are not as faithful as we but are still receiving the full mercy and grace of God we are some distance from understanding grace and living fully inside it.

My dental hygienist knows I’m a Catholic priest and likes to ask me questions about religion and church. One day she shared this story: Her mother and father had both, as far as she knew, never attended church. They had been benign enough about religion, but not interested themselves. She, their daughter, had begun practicing as a Methodist, mainly through the influence of friends. Then her mother died and as they talked about plans for a funeral, her father revealed that her mother had been baptized as a Roman Catholic, though she had not practiced since her middle-school years. He suggested they try to arrange a Roman Catholic funeral for her. Given all those years of absence, it was with some trepidation that they approached a priest at a nearby parish to ask whether they might have a Roman Catholic funeral for her. To their surprise, the priest’s response was non-hesitant, warm and welcoming: “Of course, we can do this! It will be an honor! And I’ll arrange for a choir and a reception in the parish hall afterwards.”

No price was exacted for her mother’s life-long absence from the church. She was buried with the full rites of the Church … and her father, well, he was so touched by it all, the generosity of the church and the beauty of the liturgy, that he has since decided to become a Roman Catholic.

One wonders what the effect would have been had the priest refused that funeral, asking how they could justify a church funeral when, for all these years, they weren’t interested in the church. One wonders too how many people find this story comforting rather than discomforting, given a strong ecclesial ethos today wherein many of us nurse the fear that we are handing out grace and mercy too cheaply.

But grace and mercy are never given out cheaply since love is never merited.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com. Now on Facebook www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser)

KNEADING FAITH
By Fran Lavelle
I was in Vicksburg several weeks ago and was asked if I knew what the acronym HWLF stood for. I did not. I was told that it is the response to the question, “WWJD? (What would Jesus do?)” The answer, “He would love first.” In the weeks since that brief graced moment, I have had several reasons to remind myself HWLF.

On Catechetical Sunday the Gospel was the parable of the prodigal son. It is a reading that has the power to speak to us in a myriad of ways depending on where we are in our own spiritual journey. The parable lesson is one I have visited and revisited on several occasions. I don’t know if you are ever at Mass and something is said that strikes you to the core of your being, but that is exactly what happened to me that Sunday. Father Cosgrove was talking about the two sons and he simply said, “The father loved them both. You know what I mean? The father loved both of his sons.” Yes, He Would Love First. Loving first means we welcome home those who have strayed and loving those who can no longer see the belovedness of the other.

All of this got me thinking about two unrelated deaths of men who were likewise loved by God, Father Al Camp and a high school friend of mine, Mickey. Father Al and I had several things in common; of great importance was our Ohio roots. When ever Father Al saw me he would say, “Hey, hey there Buckeye.” To be clear, Buckeyes are the nut bearing state tree of Ohio and Ohioans are known as Buckeyes. While I hold no hostility to the large state school in Columbus, Ohio I am not that kind of a Buckeye. I could always count on a flash of Father Al’s cheeky smile and his easy-going disposition, but I knew that below the smiles and salutations was a deeply faith filled man and true servant of God’s people. Hearing stories about Father Al at his memorial Mass underscored for me the importance of living an intentional life of authentic service. I was also reminded not to sweat the little stuff and to laugh. Father Al had a wicked dry sense of humor and loved to laugh.

Later the next week I found out that a guy I went to high school with had died a few weeks shy of his 54th birthday from an overdose. Mickey was a brilliant man with Kennedy-esque good looks. He was the only child of a well-known, well to do family in town. Mickey went to law school and spent most of his career as a prosecuting attorney. About a year ago, Mickey was indicted for federal tax fraud. He spent the past year in federal prison. On July 1, Mickey got out of prison and was sent to a halfway house. A few days after returning home from his year-long incarceration, Mickey overdosed and died. His long battle with addiction ended Mickey’s life just as his friends were hoping he would have a new beginning. I read the eulogy that one of his closest friends gave at Mickey’s funeral. It was filled with the sadness one expects when a life so full of promise tragically ends.

I found myself reflecting on these two lives, both in how they lived and how they were memorialized. The stark difference in their lives seems so apparent, one an 87-year young servant of God’s people and the other a gifted 53-year-old who struggled with addiction. But they also shared many things in common. Both were smart and handsome. Both were raised Catholic. As with all of us, both men lived with the consequences of their choices. I thought about God’s love for Father Al and Mickey. I felt a profound gratitude in knowing that they were both beloved sons of God. They were loved first.

That understanding is exactly what our broken world is in most need of. To know we are loved. Loved by God. Every single one of us. That is the central message of all catechetical formation. It is easy to fear that our catechetical programs, RCIA sessions, adult faith formation classes are watered down by relativism. It is easy to get too far into our heads and look at rubrics and rules and make black and white determinations about who is and who isn’t worthy of this or that. We want to “give them” the truth, not mince words, tell it like it is, but when we approach formation like an academic endeavor, we can turn out people who know the faith but have not experienced it.

We all have the responsibility to share the love of God and the gift of faith. We cannot approach love the same way we approach learning, although we do learn by loving. Now more than ever it is critical that we inspire others to see the belovedness of one another.

In those moments when we ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” may we respond, “He would love first.” And do likewise.

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

SPIRIT AND TRUTH
By Father Aaron Williams
People are always complimenting my vestments after Mass. Kids at the school recognize the certain vestments that I only pull out on big feasts. Parishioners like to tell me which vestment is their “favorite.” When I was preparing for ordination, I gave some time to consider what sort of vestments I was going to order or who would make them. I noticed a lot of my classmates buying matching vestments in each color from various catalogue producers—the church equivalent of off-the-rack clothing companies. I just wasn’t too excited about the idea of spending a large amount of money on standard vestments which everyone else had and honestly weren’t too impressive. So, I began to consider the directives of the Church.
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal says, “sacred vestments should contribute to the beauty of the sacred action itself” (335). This is further developed in a later paragraph reading, “It is fitting that the beauty and nobility of each vestment derive not from abundance of overly lavish ornamentation, but rather from the material that is used and from the design. Ornamentation on vestments should, moreover, consist of figures, that is, of images or symbols, that evoke sacred use, avoiding thereby anything unbecoming” (344).
So, from this we learn that the intention of the Church is that the vestments used at Mass are themselves beautiful—but that their beauty is derived not from being elaborate or lavish but their material and design. This is further explained by the fathers of the Second Vatican Council: “[Bishops], by the encouragement and favor they show to art which is truly sacred, should strive after noble beauty rather than mere sumptuous display. This principle is to apply also in the matter of sacred vestments and ornaments.”
Thus we see the Church desires a glance between sumptuous/gaudy vestments, but also vestments that are noble and beautiful. Now, God is beauty itself. St. Augustine praises this in his Confessions. “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient ever new.” If vestments are beautiful, it is because they reveal to us the beauty of God. And, here we find the purpose of church vesture at all. We use vestments in the liturgy not to honor the minister, but to honor God—or, more explicitly, to reveal God’s beauty to humanity.
And, this was the approach that God himself used in defining the vesture and ornamentation of the liturgy in the old covenant. In commanding Moses to make vestments for Aaron, God declares, “And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty” (Ex 28:2). Later in the same chapter, God described each vestment in detail—which threads will be used, which colors, how they are ornamented (cf. Ex 28:31-38).
When you consider the prescribed design of these vestments in light of the whole of the Old Testament, it’s easy to see why God demanded these figures. The colors, fabrics, styles and ornaments are all evocative of the Garden of Eden. The same was true of the decoration on the walls of the temple itself, which included designs of trees and flowers. The whole purpose of these ornaments was not “art for the sake of art,” but so that the worshiper would be drawn in to the act of worship by the beauty surrounding him, and even more so, to be taken back to the Garden—to the paradise of God.
In a similar way, the Church exhorts us to build beautiful churches, have beautiful music and wear beautiful vestments not simply because it makes the Mass more dignified, but because this beauty is meant to invoke in our minds a longing for the beauty of heaven.
Regrettably, in recent years it has not been uncommon to find sacristies which once housed beautiful and historic vestments now filled with simple and mass-produced polyester counterparts—often equally or even more expensive than vestments purchased from sellers who today are using truly noble fabrics and designs such as silks or damask fabrics with patterns of flowers, angels, crosses and crowns.
Often these catalogue vestments are bought because of a myth that they must be cheaper than the custom option. The reality is that most of the mass-produce sellers use very inexpensive fabrics but overcharge. My most expensive vestment, which was custom designed by a one-man company in Poland, was less expensive than the average vestment sold by the largest vestment seller in America—a Belgian-based company that exclusively uses factory-made artificial fabrics, many of which are simply plain polyester with printed designs, if any.
I remember one of my professors at the Liturgical Institute was speaking about the need for beauty in the liturgy today. He proposed the question of whether, in a society with such poverty, we should invest in beautiful churches or vestments. He said, “The poor today live under concrete bridges, and in parks, and see ugliness all around them both in their surroundings and in how they are treated. But, the riches of the Church are their riches. There’s a reason you find the poor at churches and not a government buildings. Everything at the church is theirs and they deserve something beautiful.”
Nobility is not the enemy of beauty. We can have beauty without becoming ornate and extravagant. “And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty” (Ex 28:2).

(Father Aaron Williams is the Director of Seminarians and Parochial vicar at Greenville St. Joseph Parish)