USEFUL WISDOM FOR 2024 #46

 

 

THE MASSACRE OF SAINT NICHOLAS

                                                                   

by

Fr. Ronald Knott

a repeat from previous years

Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Nicholas. Ever since St. Nicholas changed his name to Santa Claus, he has been going downhill fast. How did he sink so far?

Nicholas started off as a rich young man from Turkey who ended up becoming a kindly bishop. Dressed in a red cope, miter and crosier, he was known for his love of children and his determination to use his inheritance doing anonymous works of charity.

Probably “too Catholic,” 17^th century Dutch Protestants helped turn him into a married ex-priest living at the North Pole. Instead of being a holy bishop presiding over a diocese, he ended up presiding over a gang of workaholic elves. Obviously, he married without being “laicized.” Why else would he have been banished to such a God-forsaken place as the North Pole?

It must have been a traumatic career-change. He ended up with a serious eating disorder and a possible drinking problem that turned him into a rotund bag of cholesterol with a bad case of  “rosacea.”

Just when you thought he could not sink any lower, a few years ago he stared in a new “adult” movie with an R rating called “Bad Santa.”  For those who think foul-mouthed drunks and vulgar rudeness are funny, this movie promised to be a huge hit. The reviews use words like, “demented, twisted, gloriously rude, rancid, vulgar and unreasonably funny.” 

So far, no one has raised any serious questions about his obsession with children, his enslaving of small animals to carry loads heavier than any UPS jet or his penchant for “breaking and entering” homes all over the world. Of course, there is always next year.

St. Nicholas, the compassionate bishop, is not the only one to lose at this time of year. Even Jesus is being nudged out on "Christmas cards" by elves, reindeer, snow men and kittens in stockings.

Instead of Jesus’ birth being central, Christmas has become a frenzy of buying: buying things people don’t need, for people they don’t like, with money they don’t have. Just recently a mob of shoppers, rushing like a herd of charging elephants for a sale, trampled the first woman in line, knocking her unconscious. No wonder so many are left disappointed, in debt and the suicide rate is said to spike right after Christmas! 

Before you dismiss me as a grinch, let me assure you that I love Christmas. My point is that it takes a lot of imagination and determination these days to “keep Christ in Christmas.”  Since I am single and my life is so different than that of many people, I am reluctant to give practical suggestions, but here is one. Keep it simple. Do less, not more. Take a little of the time you saved and go on a one-hour retreat. Take a long walk by yourself or spend a few minutes in an empty church or take a soak in a hot tub and try to remember what Christmas is really all about - even if it is only a short break from the mad rush of the season.   

 

        

SUFFERING ELECTION DISAPPOINTMENT? SANTA CLAUS IS NEXT!

THE WAY TO GO IS MARKED OUT FOR US

Our Psalm today, Psalm 25, is a long petition asking God for guidance on what he requires of us to lead a good life and a life pleasing to Him. This line, in my estimation, is the very heart of Psalm 25! 

Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.

Psalm 25:4

Unlike the "Ten Commandments" in the Old Testament, which stress the things that one who loves God should not do, the path one should not walk, "The Beatitudes" of Jesus from the New Testament are a list of things that a person who loves God does do, the path he should walk. It is important to remember here that Jesus is not saying “do these things and God will love you,” but rather “if you love God, these are the things you will do - this is the path you will take! ” We do not do these things to earn God’s love, rather if we love God, we will do these things - this is the path we will walk! So, what then does a serious lover of God look like? What are the paths God has taught him or her to walk? What values does he or she need to learn from God so as to live a life pleasing to Him? How many of them describe us as "growing in holiness?"

Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths,

Psalm 25:4

(1) He or she is first of all “poor in spirit.”  What Jesus is talking about here is not merely economic poverty. Even the dirt poor can be greedy in their hearts. What it means, really, is the deep-down knowledge that when it comes right down to it, we own nothing and everything can be taken away from us in an instant. Do you really understand that hard truth? Every material possession, every blessing we have ever had, is a gift from God that was given to us, not to hoard, but to share. The more we have been given, the greater the responsibility we have to share.” “Poverty of spirit” is a basic knowledge that we are all poor, when it comes right down to it. No matter how rich we are, we are a heartbeat away from total poverty. We can’t take anything with us, when this is all over as Jesus famously said in the Parable of  the Rich Fool. "The rich man said to himself "You have so many good things stored up for many years: rest, eat , drink, be merry! But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life could be taken from you. Then who will get all that you have saved up for yourself?’ As they say, “There are no pockets in shrouds!” I am reminded of a story about two old ladies at a funeral home looking at their friend, who had just died, in her casket. One said to the other, "How much do you think she had to leave?" The other answered solemnly, "All of it!"

Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.

Psalm 25:4

(2) A serious lover of God is able to mourn. One who loves God seriously knows that we are interconnected human beings and therefore never loses his or her ability to feel the suffering of others. A cold-hearted, self-centered, disinterested person is not a friend of God. A friend of God shares the compassion of Christ who was moved deeply by the horrible suffering of simple human beings and is never far from “the gift of tears,” as the saints called it.

Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.

Psalm 25:4

(3) A serious lover of God is meek. A “meek” person is not a person who lets people walk over him or her. A “meek” person lives with the knowledge that he is never “a god,” but nonetheless always a “child of God.” In other words, he neither inflates his own worth on one hand, nor does he allow others to deflate his value on the other hand.  Being meek means to know who we are in God’s eyes- nothing more, but nothing less!

Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.

Psalm 25:4

(4) A serious lover of God hungers and thirsts for righteousness. A serious lover of God does not dabble in religion, placing religion somewhere outside the realm of his daily living and daily choices.  Rather, he or she is a serious spiritual seeker, always trying to align his everyday life with Christian principles.  He or she strives always to close the gap between being a Christian in name and being a Christian in fact, while being totally free of religious fanaticism and doing spiritual violence to others in the name of orthodoxy.

Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.

Psalm 25:4

(5) A serious lover of God is merciful. Being merciful means letting God be the judge of other people. It means giving people the benefit of the doubt, giving them a break, wishing them well on their path, knowing that with God, it isn’t over till it’s over, and with God there is always another chance. Yes, it also means living the maxim, “There but for the grace of God, go I!” Thomas Merton said, "The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all livings things, which are part of one another, and all involved in one another."

Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.

Psalm 25:4

(6) A serious lover of God is clean of heart. A serious lover of God doesn’t just do good things, he or she does them for the right reason and with the purest of motives.  I tried to remind the seminarians at Saint Meinrad that it is a good thing to want to be a priest, but one must go into it for good reasons – to serve people, not for what priesthood can do for them. It is a good thing to give to the poor, but one can give to the poor, not because they love the poor, but because they will get their name in the paper or will have a building named after them. A serious lover of God always does good things, but he also does them for the right reason.

Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.

Psalm 25:4

(7) A serious lover of God is a peacemaker. War is getting more and more irrelevant. We need to become as good at peacemaking as we have been at building sophisticated weapons. There will always be misunderstanding between people. One who truly loves God has the ability and the credibility to prevent disagreements from becoming a reason for violence. We need not think globally only. Families, marriages, neighborhoods, siblings and churches desperately need these peacemakers. When enough of us really love God, we will have enough peacemakers to move us closer to universal peace.  If you love God, you love his people! If you love his people, you will do what you can to bring them together.

Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.

Psalm 25:4

(8) A serious lover of God will be persecuted, insulted and lied about. The brighter the light the fiercer the attack! Evil does not like goodness. Evil cannot tolerate the presence of goodness and so it attacks. One who seriously loves God is more than willing to accept persecution, insults and lies, knowing that personal integrity is more important than comfort, approval or winning at any cost.

So, the bottom line is this – you will know that you are on the path to holiness if these "beatitudes" describe you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

USEFUL WISDOM FOR 2024 #45

 

 

EVERY DAY SHOULD BE A DAY OF GIVING THANKS

Ten lepers were cleansed, but only one

of them returned to thank Jesus.

Luke 17: 11-19

The opposite of “feelings of gratitude” are “feelings of entitlement.”  Over the years, many parents have resonated with this famous sad line from Shakespeare’s King Lear, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

Some programs start out as a way to help people, but sometimes end up leaving people with a sense of entitlement, a feeling that those services are actually owed to them.  Many recent studies say that narcissism and a sense of entitlement has risen significantly higher in our country in recent years.  Even Time Magazine named the word “ME” as the “person of the year” back in 2006. Entitlement is the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. People with a sense of entitlement see no need to say “thank you” because they have come to believe that they deserve to be taken care of and have things given to them.

When I worked in the seminary, I learned that even a few seminarians, after being “taken care of” throughout their seminary years, sometimes leave the seminary with attitudes of “entitlement,” feelings of deserving special treatment especially since they will be priests during a time of priest shortages. In my transition-out-of-the-seminary class, I spent one whole class teaching them to say "thank you." I reminded them to thank their seminary teachers, the many people in their dioceses who financially supported them, their vocation directors and even the seminary kitchen workers and janitors before they left. Sadly, many of them had never even thought about doing that before I mentioned it to them. I always began that specific class with a bit of cowboy wisdom, “When you get to where you are going, take care of the horse you rode in on!” One glaring symptom of our culture may be that growing sense of entitlement. When I “googled” the phrase “you deserve it,” I found no less than 322,000,000 sites!    

In the gospel today, Jesus heals ten desperate lepers, nine were Jews and one was a foreigner, but only one of the ten returned to say “thank you” and he was the foreigner!  Why?  Did the Jewish lepers think it was merely Jesus’ job, as a fellow Jew, to heal people? Did they think, “Why should I thank him for doing what he is supposed to do?”  This story reminds me that our sense of entitlement may even include God! Have we grown to believe that it’s God's job to take care of us because somehow we “deserve it?” Why are we so ready to be mad at God when things go wrong and yet never think of God when things go right, much less offer our thanks?  As a priest, I get pulled into situations all the time where people are angry at God for this or that disappointment, but I can't remember having many people call me to tell me the wonderful things God has done for them! 

Entitlement is an attitude that “life owes me something,” or “other people owe me something” or “God owes me something.” Our culture is constantly barraging us with messages that feed those feelings of entitlement starting when we are babies.  Back windows of mini-vans used to announce “baby on board.” Kindergartners were taught to sing, “I’m special.” McDonald’s built an entire campaign around the slogan “You deserve a break today.” Another company proclaimed “Pamper yourself with Calgon!” Another ad campaign told us “You owe it to yourself to buy a Mercedes Benz.”  Clairol told us to change our hair color, because “you are worth it.”

We are even conditioned by the Bill of Rights, which focuses on our entitlements. We may have a right to the pursuit of happiness, but we actually have no "rights" to happiness itself! The Ten Commandments, on the other hand, focus on our responsibilities and obligations. Demanding our rights, while shirking our responsibilities, is always a recipe for losing our so-called “rights.”  

When we feel entitled, gratitude is impossible because we believe that things are owed to us. If you’re like me and really sit down and think about it, we would probably have a whole list of things we feel entitled to, and when we don’t get them, we feel cheated.  

If we start believing that a favorable turn of events in life is owed to us, and then when things don’t turn out favorably, we feel angry, resentful or frustrated. We begin feeling we have been ripped-off and cheated out of what we deserve. In reality, entitlement is a lie, a perversion of the truth. The truth is life owes us nothing and everything is a gift.  When I was designing my tombstone, which is in place and ready, I took that reality into account. That's why it says at the top, "Simply Amazed - Forever Grateful." 

Gratitude is the only response to the realization that everything in life is a gift. We deserve nothing. Ultimately, everything is a gift.  So, saying thank you is more than good manners. It’s good spirituality. “Thank you” is the simplest and most powerful prayer a person can say.

Why are we Catholics, who are so blessed in so many ways, not beating down the doors of our churches to give thanks to God every weekend end? We have every reason to be grateful because we have come so far! Being Catholic wasn’t even legal in the early days of this country. Many of our great, great grandparents were uneducated, dirt-poor immigrants from equally poor Catholic countries who endured persecution. We, their ancestors, have so often forgotten to be thankful for how far we have come because of their sacrifices! 

The Church calls us together each weekend to celebrate the Eucharist. The word eucharist means to give thanks. Why is there not a rush to offer thanks within our parish communities? Could part of it be that we have come to believe that everything we have is something we earned and we are therefore entitled to it?  Could part of the drop in Mass attendance be about a sense of entitlement? Maybe if we were to discover once again that everything we have is on loan, maybe we would again be compelled to gather in great numbers with other “Eucharistic” people, people who need to express their gratitude, on a weekly basis. “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” (William Arthur Ward)      

Challenged by the nine no-show lepers in the gospel today, let’s all take a good hard look at our lives and everything in them and remember that it’s all a gift! Let’s resolve today and every day to be that one cured leper who bothered to return and give thanks.

When I was in the seminary from age 14-26, I was always wanting to give my mother something but never had the money. Looking back, what I gave her was what she needed most and that was my attention and appreciation. I liked to make her laugh, be with her and dream with her about “what I was going to do for her someday when I was ordained and had some money.”

Lacking money, I gave her time and attention. During breaks from the seminary, we would stay up late at night just talking. She never complained, but I always wondered if she didn’t often feel that people were more interested in what she could do for them than what they could do for her. I have no regrets now that she is gone. I couldn't give her lavish gifts, but I am proud to say that I expressed my appreciation for her freely and often.   

That's exactly what we need to do each day - say "thank you" to God the source of everything we have! As the spiritual teacher Meister Eckhart said, "If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is "thank you," it will be enough!"