JESUS IS THE ONLY NORM -- KEEP YOUR EYE ON HIM, ONLY

18"For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon!' 19"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'  Matthew 11; 18-19

¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’¹³ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’  

Luke 18; 11 - 13

40Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, "We are not blind too, are we?" 41Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.  John 9; 40 – 41

I introduce this reflection with those three passages because my life has been covered with the thoughts expressed there.  These have been brought to the forefront of my heart and mind ever since I have begun to prepare for a series of presentations on the Gospel of St. Matthew, starting Wednesday, April 2 at St. Christopher church in Moreno Valley.  It seems that since then, every time I go to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacred Scripture has something that makes me think of every day life and how we live it.

It seems that in about every moment of our lives we have an opportunity to act righteously or to defy the advice of Jesus.  It seems that we are surrounded not only by our own desires and passions but by those of others too.  We go through life learning how to “see” life through the actions of those around us as compared to the behavior that makes us comfortable.  All three of the characterizations above are so factually correct that we cannot escape identifying with them.  Jesus did not have to look far to put examples of human nature before our very eyes.  

Who of us has not ridiculed, at least in the secret of our own mind, the street preacher?  Who of us has not wondered how come our parish priest could be so loose at a wedding or a baptismal party?  How many of us have made up our minds about the state of the soul of our elected officials?  How often do we wonder about how Jesus could have chosen a tax collector to be an apostle?  We just know that we are righteous and correct and what we see around us in others is so corrupt. 

The words of Jesus warn us that we have to bring our conscience up to a higher level in order to be truly virtuous.  The words of Jesus warn us that the true measure of our righteousness has to be Him, not other humans, not even our selves, but Him.  Our faith tells us that the urging of Jesus to make ourselves ever closer to perfection in order to get to Eternal Life is a non-negotiable imperative.  Our faith tells us that the only measure of perfection is God Himself, present to us in His Incarnate Son, Jesus.  Our faith tells us that the only target that can serve as a guide for our quest to perfection is Jesus.  Every time we compare ourselves to others, we err.  Every time we compare ourselves to the person in the mirror, we err.  Every time we create an image of what reality we choose to be our norm, we err. 

The only way to not be wrong is to keep our eye on Jesus, the true light of perfection.  We must keep our eye on Jesus for He is the only Norm against which we are called to be measured.  That Norm includes the command to “pick up our cross daily and follow Him.”  [Luke 9; 23]  We can do that, can’t we?  We can.  Keep our eyes open and on Him and carry our cross at the same time?  If we can’t, we’d better learn because if we don’t, the alternative is not very pretty.

When you come to my funeral, keep your eye on Him and you won't be tempted to cry.  Don't judge, just stay happily at peace with Him in your heart and ask Him to kindly drag me over the Threshold.

GOD'S EXPECTATION OF US? PERFECTION. PERIOD

Matthew 5:48

The other day I received an email message that read:

"I'm sure even Jesus didn't expect his apostles to hit their mark 100%. What he expected was they fixed it if they see it needs fixing. Seems to me like the history of the Church followed the same story."

I could write a book in response, but I also have to make a living.  So, I will just leave you with these six hundred words.

I have to say that some statements at the top are slightly out of context.

You don’t believe that 1 bad thing in 1,000,000 is not acceptable.  You don’t believe that there is no room in Catholic life for an AQL attitude. [Acceptable Quality Level] I know that you don’t believe it because you can write what you wrote above.  I am telling you that what you wrote is dead wrong.  The history of mankind, not just the history of the Church is a history of falls and rectifications.  In fact, the history of creation going back to the angels is a history of falls and rectifications.  Never in this history has God ever expected anything less from His creatures than total perfection.  Never.  

If God expected humans to be anything less than perfect, He Himself would then be imperfect.  When God does something, it is perfect.  He expects it to maintain its perfection.  For humans to accept anything less than what God expects, which is perfection, is a sinful attitude. 

To say that God expects humans to fail a certain percentage of the time is to degrade the value of human life to a degree that is outside the Divine Will.  To say that in the Divine Will humans are expected to fail and then to say that He expects them to “fix it if they see it needs fixing” is beyond the ability of humans to produce.  The only way to fix immorality is in conjunction with God Himself.  It is erroneous to think that it’s OK to miss the mark because God expects it anyway.  It is erroneous and presumptuous to think that humans can be saved because they can fix it if they are less than perfect.  It is erroneous to think that Jesus was tortured, crucified and died and resurrected because he expected humans to continue being less than perfect.  To think that He did all of that to remove the burden of being perfect from them, is flat out wrong. 

You will not find in the Sacred Writ, Jewish or Christian, Words from God indicating that He expects anything less than perfection.  You will see a lot of condemnation for imperfection, to the point of damnation for human obduracy in immorality.  You will find nothing in Traditional, Apostolic and Church documents indicating that a life of falling short is OK.  You will not find a Saint who accepted the attitude of expectation that humans will fail a certain percentage of the time.  You will find confessions of human frailty, and in those confessions you will find the glory of having overcome the frailty and found perfection.

I repeat, and I will not be dissuaded by anyone, because it is a matter of Divine Will,  God does not expect His Human Creatures to be anything less than perfect.  There is no AQL in God’s plan.  No, not even in His Church.  With Him, perfection is the expectation, and only perfection.  We, His collaborators do not have the freedom to expect anything less than what He expects.  From ourselves or from those around us.

To you I say, Believe it, or else.

Now you know why you won't have to cry at my funeral.

VIRTUE -- WHAZZAT?

Last week ParishWorld.net ran a top story that was entitled, "Has the Notion of Sin Been Lost?" I looled at that headline and said to myself, "Sure, and why not? It should be lost, forever, and replaced with the notion of virtue." Sadly, both of these notions are on the endangered list. Sure we are surrounded by people who don't think that pre-marital sex is sinful; sure we are Surrounded by people who think that masturbation is not sinful; sure we are surrounded by people who think that euthanasia is not sinful and for sure we surrounded by people who think that lying is not sinful.

My attitude? So what? We are also surrounded by people who call in sick 20 days a year while they are perfectly healthy; we are surrounded by people who promise to get the job done by tomorrow, but they don't tell us tomorrow of which year; we are surrounded by people who are perpetually late for appointments; we are surrounded by people who come to church every
Sunday but who insult their fellow Christians in the parking lot; we are surrounded by people who say that they are Catholic but who don't educate their children in the faith, don't get them baptized and then make up all kinds of excuses for their negligence; we are surrounded by people who don't take care of their health because it takes too much time; we are surrounded by
volunteers who promise you one thing but then are not reliable enough to get it done. Do I need to continue? No, you get the point. We live in a world that not only is losing its sense of wrong, but its sense of right as well. The world we live in has no desire to replace the bad with the good. We live in a world that has no desire to understand that strong good habits (virtues in religioius speak) can actually keep us free from bad habits (vices, in religious speak). We live in a world that doesn't want to understand that prayer is better than sit-com TV. We live in a world where the leaders themselves do not repect the straight-talk truth. We live in a world where Catholic leaders prefer to negotiate the bottom line truth in order to accommodate Protestant friends. We live in a world where even Protestants try to cover up their core values by calling
themselves Christians. We live in a world where Muslims sell us the notion that Islam is a religion of peace and understanding while they murder Catholic bishops, priests and deacons because they refuse to stop practicing their Catholic religion in public.

It's OK to take polls and write articles about the decline in the notion of sin. Let's take a poll and write an article about why it is that the inhabitants of this planet have declined to the point where the reality of high expectations and the desire to achieve perfection have declined to the point where school teachers and even university professors feel comfortable in rewarding A+ to people. If A is the top grade, then everyone else would be less, right? Why are we diminishing the value of the A by making the top grade the oxymoronic A+? Oh, I forgot, we have to make little Johnny and little Janie feel good about getting an A even though their work doesn't really make it. It's like the teams who have losing records, you know, .390 or something like that, and still are included in the playoffs. It's like the employers who don't fire those who only report to work 200 days a year because they are "good employees". It's like giving every child in the league a certificate for good performance. It's like giving everybody a raise or a bonus, even those who are known in the board room as "Bozos".

Let me state this bluntly: This attitude of ours as a civilization is as deleterious to our existence and yes, to your eternal salvation as sin, the way we understand it, or think we understand it, will be. I hear it every day, "Jesus was kind; Jesus was merciful; Jesus was understanding." Yeah, OK. but go read Matthew 25 and get to the bottom line: Those of you who don't measure up are never going to have to worry about your heating bill again, for all eternity. You think that this is tough, what about this, "'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth." (Revelation, chapter 3, verse 16)

I therefore urge you, Be Good! Be Virtuous! Stay Close to God! Stay Close to the Truth and don't negotiate it with anyone, not even yourself. I'm not afraid to tell you, negotiating the truth to water it down is the great sin of this century. We all have to learn to strive for perfection because God Himself orders us to do so. We are reminded of this by the Second Council of the Vatican. Our Christian life is a constant striving for improvement. We have to remember, an attitude of "it's good enough" is not going to get the job done over the long haul. Let's help one another to get it done and there will be not excuse, absolutely none, for us to cry at one another's funeral. Especially not mine!

If you do cry at my funeral, I will tell St. Peter on you.