AN HONEST REFLECTION ON AGING

 

Compared to a lot of people much younger than me, I am still in pretty good shape for an 80 year old! (Even typing that number, and seeing it in print, makes me want to go back and delete it!) As much as I would like to deny being 80, I am doing my best to embrace it and make the most of it by telling myself that, at least, I am not 90 yet! However, it is not lost on me that the clock is gradually winding down!  

I am consoled by the fact that I have been planning for this age since I was ordained and I have have taught other young priests about the "how" and the "necessity" of starting to plan early with the end in mind!  (1) I started saving when I was 26 for the day when I would own my own retirement home. Even though my salary was $90.00 a month and Mass stipends were $2.00 a day, I opened a "Christmas Club" account at a bank in Somerset, Kentucky. I never spent it at Christmas time, but kept it up for 5 years which gave me a down payment for my first small house. Skipping most vacations and doing extra work like giving retreats and parish missions, I kept buying, remodeling and flipping houses (6 in all) over the years until I was able to outright "own" my own home a few years ago. In my later years, I have also managed to save enough to live without serious financial worries going into my retirement years. (2) When I was teaching at St. Meinrad Seminary, I gave each diocesan graduate in my "Transition Out of Seminary and Into Ministry" class $100.00 to open their IRA (Individual Retirement Account). I always opened the class with these meant-to-shock words: "Don't trust the Church to take care of you when you are old! It is "supposed" to, but what if it "can't" or "won't?" Instead, I asked them to develop a "personal financial plan" telling me how they would take their salaries and benefits and pay off debts, give to charities and save for retirement. I stressed the necessity of "planning with the end in mind." No one had ever taught my class before. It was my invention. I did that each semester for fourteen years. Some of them might remember me and thank me when I am gone for opening their eyes to the realities of money management and aging! 

Personally, what concerns me these days are not financial concerns. I have been preparing financially since I was 26. My concerns now are mostly health concerns and concerns about the good I have done, if any, that I will leave behind. 

I had two overnight trips to the hospital early this year. Once for prostate surgery and a necessitated follow-up for a blood transfusion. The only other trips to the hospital since the 3rd grade for a tonsillectomy and anemia, was a rotator cuff repair from lifting a heavy pot over my head twenty years ago and a blood clot almost ten years ago from flying too much giving priest retreats in ten countries.  

Other than that, at 80 I have no high blood pressure, no joint issues, no heart problems and no diabetes. I get an annual physical. I get all the injections I can get to ward off things like COVID, the flu, pneumonia, shingles and I keep my other injections up-to-date. 

What scares me, I guess, is what might happen! Since I know so many old people (people my age), I seem to get more and more calls about their health problems. I realize almost daily, "There, but for the grace of God, go I!" It is not lost on me either that these days, I do a lot more funerals than I do baptisms or weddings, and many of those funerals are for people younger than me! I am not in a panic yet, but daily I realize there are more days behind me than in front of me so I try to stay committed to the old slogans, "Make hay while the sun shines!" and "Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)" 

With all this on my mind, I wrote a blog post recently about my "addiction to projects." While I have been tempted to "not take on any more projects," I am failing miserably to let go of my beloved "project obsession." They may no longer be "big projects," but they are "many." Right now, I am counting five small projects that I am involved in! I was tempted to back out of taking on any more such projects, but I know they are good for me because they keep my mind off myself and my needs and put it on other people and their needs. I have decided to keep "taking on projects" because they keep me turned "outward" rather than "inward" which I believe is good for my health! 

I realize at 80 that there are a few things I can do to help myself stay healthy, even though I have little power over the aging process, that I am deeply involved in at this point in life! I also realize at 80, there are still a few things I can do to help others, both young and old, stay positive and engaged in life by using what talents and resources I have as long as I can! 

"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

This George Bernard Shaw quote will be the guidance I have decided to focus on in my remaining years. I first realized the truth of his words in a moment of grace on a fire-escape at St. Meinrad Seminary @ 1964. Since then I have been "simply amazed and forever grateful" as my life continues to unwind.  

Who knows? Maybe I will make it to 100? I just hope I can escape a long and painful exit while being a burden to others! The ideal end for me is not the length of years, but to go to bed one night and not wake up the next morning or at least be conscious and pain-free enough to freely choose to leap into the great unknown where "eye has not seen nor ear heard the great things God has in store for those who love him!"  

And, yes, I hope to get there without ever having to swallow a handful of Balance of Nature and Prevagen capsules every day! 

NOT ABOUT WHAT WE DO FOR GOD, BUT WHAT GOD DOES FOR US

 

Someone might say, "You have faith and I have works." Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.

James 2:14-18

Ever since the Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther, reached a boiling point and put his foot down 400 years ago, Catholics and Protestants have perpetuated this myth: Protestants think that Catholics believe that they you can earn their way to heaven by doing good deeds while Catholics think that Protestants believe that they can get to heaven just by believing in Jesus without having to do anything!

Part of the problem is that the Letter of James stresses the need for good works, while Paul’s Letters stress the need for faith. The Letter of James today says this: “Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (2:8-9) says this: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. it is not from works, so no one may boast."

So, which is it? Faith or good deeds? The short answer is that they cannot be separated. If you have faith, you will do good deeds. Good deeds are responses to one’s faith. It’s not either/or, but both/and!

The Catholic Church, in fact, teaches us in the Catechism (161) that: “Believing in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation. Without faith no one has ever attained eternal life.” Even Protestants would admit that the author of the Letter of James taught that justification is by faith alone, but also that faith is never alone. It shows itself to be alive by good deeds. The bottom line is this: a believer's good deeds are expressions of thanks to God for the free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.

What caused the problem, of course, was not the teaching of the Catholic Church, but some of the practices of the Church. People like Saint Augustine and Saint Ambrose would have agreed with “salvation by faith,” as our present Catechism teaches, but the Church’s wide-spread practice of selling indulgences, as a means to salvation, in effect contradicted its own teaching! The practice basically reinforced the belief that if you give enough money to the church or the poor or you did enough other good deeds, you could basically guarantee your own way into heaven.

Now if I haven’t completely lost you yet, let me tell you about a couple of practical situations where I have seen this theological controversy of faith versus works played out.

When I was down in southern Kentucky as first pastor of Saint Peter Church in Monticello from 1975-1980, I ran into this trite old Protestant-Catholic misunderstanding head on. There was a lot of poverty in Wayne County in those days. I immediately set out to see what our church, hopefully in partnership with the Protestant churches, could do to help alleviate some of it. I got nowhere.

I recruited two nuns who were “home health nurses.” They would go into the hills and hollers and offer simple health service. We opened a used clothing store. We had a fund to help the poor pay rent, utilities and food. Many of the churches thought we were selling some Catholic notion that if people did social work, they could earn their way to heaven. After trying to involve them in some kind of ecumenical, cooperative effort, one day I was told “no” point blank that they did not believe in churches doing social service. I was told that the role of the church is simply to convert people to Jesus Christ – that salvation comes through faith, not through works.

We may have been the only church in the county offering practical help to the poor. The reason I think so is that I can still remember answering the phone one day when a caller asked me, “Is this the church that helps people?” We always understood our service work as an expression of our faith, not a means to salvation. However, we were perceived sadly by many people down there, as a church, who did not believe in “salvation by faith.”

I see this controversy played out more and more at Catholic funerals these days. The American wedding industry has about ruined the Sacrament of Marriage as a religious experience and now the Funeral industry is doing its best to highjack funerals as a religious experience as well. What I am talking about specifically is the spreading practice of multiple “eulogies” after communion at Catholic funeral Masses.

People often use the words "sermon," "homily" and "eulogy" interchangeably, but a true "eulogy” should never be given at a Catholic funeral because they perpetuate the myth that we Catholics believe we can earn our way to heaven by doing good deeds. A “eulogy” is about all the things the deceased did for God. A “homily” is about what God did for the deceased. The assumption is that if the one doing the “eulogy” can list enough good things that the deceased did in this life, then the conclusion should be that he or she earned her way into heaven. “God, just look at all he or she did for you! Surely, you owe him or her heaven for all those good deeds!” It perpetuates the myth that salvation can be earned by doing those good deeds. The point of a “homily” is not about what the deceased did for God, but about what God did for the deceased! 

The real message of course, the teaching of the church, is this: salvation is a free gift of God for the taking! A good homily says, “See what God has done for this person by offering him or her salvation free of charge! Is it not wonderful what God has done for him or her, not, is it not wonderful what he or she did for God?”

After that message is preached loudly and clearly, then it is OK to list the responses the deceased made in appreciation for that free gift from God! That’s what a “homily” is all about! A “eulogy” teaches bad theology, a bad theology we have been trying to overcome for the last 400 years – a theology of salvation through good works!

One of the nastiest letters I have ever received came after a funeral homily I gave in our Cathedral. I had focused on all the wonderful gifts that God had showered on the deceased in his lifetime and how the deceased had responded to it in faith. The writer of that letter was not happy at all! She ripped me up one side and down the other, saying “I did not drive 200 miles to hear about God! I wanted to hear about all the good that my uncle did in his life!”

I have been to a couple of funerals recently where I literally wanted to scream! One was at a priest funeral. After a fine homily, a well-planned and carefully executed funeral Eucharist, two family members got up and talked about how much the dead priest had gambled and drank. They joked like it was an after-dinner toast at a wedding rehearsal dinner! It was disgusting!

The real reason for the rising popularity of “eulogies,” I believe, is that some people have quit believing in an afterlife. As a result, funerals are now turning into sappy, staged, privatized productions called “memorial services” or “celebrations of life,” focusing on “this life,” not “eternal life.” I saw a funeral home TV ad recently that bragged that they could “design a specialized service to fit the personality of the deceased.” Funerals are becoming less and less about praying for the deceased and for the "wonderful things God has in store for those who love him!" Do we not hear people say more and more that “funerals are for the living?” The dead, we are subtly told, are only alive “in our memories” not in some afterlife.

Brothers and sisters! We believe that we are saved by grace! It’s all about what God does for us! As a response to the free gift of salvation, we need to show our appreciation by lives of loving service. However, we should never forget that our good deeds cannot “best” God! We can never “outdo” him! We don’t even need to! A living faith responds to that free gift, yes, but that living faith does not “earn” anything!

We need, not to just teach this and believe this, our practices should never contradict what we teach and believe!