What Price A Miracle?

JMJ. There is a popular notion that a bright, shiny penny lying on the ground is a little message from someone whom we have lost. One is supposed to pick it up because to ignore it is to ignore a small sign from the beyond. How true that is I couldn't say but I've always picked up pennies, regardless of how shiny or banged-up they be. My rationale is that 100 of them make a dollar.

Most people ignore them, though, and it just hit me recently how much they resemble the small blessings God sends us each day. Most of us ignore most of them exactly the same way. Like the time St. Anthony helped us find our car keys. Or seeing the sun peek through the clouds on a cold, dreary winter day. Oh, and then there was the time we held the door for someone in a store for about the umpteenth time and for once he or she said, "Thank you."

None of these were earth-shattering, none of them changed the course of history. But upon reflection, (if only we remember to do so,) we realise that they were our Lord's way of saying, "Just wanted to let you know I love you." And, like a bunch of pennies, they all add up to something big when the Creator says, "I love you." Now THAT'S a blessing!

The Carrying of the Cross, Revisited

JMJ. Something came to me the other day. I was out walking the dog and saying a mental Rosary at the same time. (And my wife says I need to learn to multi-task!) I won't say that it was an epiphany. But I had been thinking about our Lord's mortality and how He was so overcome with fear in the garden of Gethsemane that it was necessary for angels to minister to Him. How amazing, I wondered, to be allowed to bear up the Creator in His distress.

And it was only a few hours later that His steps faltered again and His strength came well-nigh to failing Him as His broken body was called upon to carry His own cross to Golgotha. But it was not an angel this time who came to His aid but a mere man, St. Simon of Cyrene, who was called upon to offer Him aid. Not His divine Self which supplied His own strength, not heavenly angels this time, but a man--a poor sinner just as I am who was allowed to accompany Him to the place of His execution.

His Holy Mother could only pray for Him and weep for Him, St. Veronica wiped the blood and spittle and sweat from His face, and all of His disciples fled Him in fear of the Romans and the Jews. Only one man helped Him bear the weight of that fearsome tree and he was forced to do so. But what a vocation!

The Barren Fig Tree

JMJ. I know a lot of people who have left the Church 'cause they felt they "weren't being fed." Now, I will be the first to agree that there are good homilists and there are less than sterling ones. (And even the best have off-days.) The Sunday gospel readings recently jerked me up-right as if I'd been pole-axed. Time and again I've read the passage in Luke, chapter 13, verses 6-9. And it always went right over my head. I guess it's true that when we're meant to hear something, the Lord will open our ears.

I'm not going to quote the entire passage here since you, imaginary reader, are as capable of reading it as I am of writing it. The idea is that a fig tree has not produced fruit for some time and the owner wants to save soil and room and cut it down. The gardener prevails on the owner to give it another chance, promising to give it special care. (It can always be dealt with later if it still is unproductive.)

Father said, "Now the Owner is God and the Gardener is Jesus." And I thought, "Holy cow, and I'm the fig tree!" I don't think I heard much of anything 'til the Consecration. I was too boggled by the knowledge that at any time my "Owner of the Vineyard" could have yanked me out by my roots. And I'd have had no one to blame but myself! I breathed a figurative sigh of relief that there is a merciful Gardener Who was willing to speak up for me, beg for mercy, and to tend me that I might one day blossom and merit the heavenly Garden. Amen!

Unchanging/Unchangeable

JMJ. When I was a kid, we all played a game we called "telephone." I'm sure there are other names but most of us have played it at one time or another. It's a great object lesson in how things can go awry if you place humans in the equation. Basically it involves a bunch of people (the more the merrier) sitting in a circle. The first person tells a simple tale to the person next to him, he to the next, and so on around the circle. The lesson comes when one compares the last tale to the first.

Now I don't have much of a problem with how things get garbled accidentally. After all, that's part of being human. What annoys the daylights out of me is that folks change things around on purpose, usually to suit their own agendas. Especially in matters religious. Now, Jesus, being God, was not stupid. He knew what it meant to be fully human. That was why He had to leave us with an infallible arbitrator/teacher to rule in cases of misunderstandings, intentional or otherwise. He left us the Catholic Church.

The Orthodox churches were the first to turn away from the safety of the Church's infallibility by denying the primacy of the heirs of St. Peter for their own nationalistic reasons. Then came the Protestant churches five hundred years ago, all making up doctrines to suit their own interpretations of God's holy Word. Things have devolved so badly that each "Christian" now makes things up as he or she goes along.

This is evidenced most starkly in the words of the red and black banner that hangs from most UCC churches and says "God is Still Speaking." Yes, I agree that He speaks to us each and every day. The idea implicit in their thought, though, is that He's saying different things than He did originally. Just like humans, they say, God is evolving. Society has changed so artificial birth control must now be allowed. Society is more complex than it was so it's ok to have sex outside of marriage or with someone not one's own marriage partner. "I'm gay and I'm entitled to love, too." Or even (God help us) "This baby I'm pregnant with is hampering my life-style so it's ok to abort it!"

Of course there's a fly in the ointment of these cafeteria Christians (and even cafeteria Catholics.) That fly is Holy Scripture--the one source that all Protestants point to as their sole authority. Take a look at Hebrews 13:8,9. I'll even quote it. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings." And when you stop to think about it (which the nay-sayers never do), it could be no other way. God is perfect; how can He need to evolve? If you put your hand into a fire and burns yourself, how can it be otherwise if repeated? The fire (especially the eternal fire) never loses its heat. Do not be deceived, do not leave the sureness which Christ left you.