Pacem in Terris

This September 11th is one of sifting back through old memories and reliving as an adult the stories of my youth.  The feelings have a strength fourteen years after the fact that is surprising.  As an 11-year old, the gravity of the situation was not lost on me.  Yet what was unknown or scary to me then has been replaced by a deeper empathy, sensitivities that are born through maturity and growing more into a woman's heart.  Even at the time, the events of September 11th, 2001 impacted me greatly because of my father's profession.

I live in the Midwest and before that day, I didn't know what the World Trade Center even was.  Nobody I really knew even lived on the east coast and so my feelings were based on the stories I heard, wondering what was happening in our country, and recognizing that if I had lived in New York, my life might be very different.

For all of my youth, I was proud of the fact that my father was a firefighter in a nearby city.  On September 11th, as I saw firefighters respond for their duties, I felt a kinship that is born of knowing your beloved firefighter would race into that building right along with them.  The stories of firefighters climbing dozens of flights in full gear, directing people to the exit, telling them they were going to make it out as they continued to climb higher, reduced me to tears.  It didn't take too much of an imagination for me to picture the same being true of my father.  Fire engine crews being absolved by the department chaplain before entering the burning building.  With hearts beating wildly in their chests, a brotherhood of firefighters carrying out the wounded.  That would have been my dad, too.

This year I didn't just recall 9/11, I returned to the news footage, I heard the confusion in people's voice, I re-read stories of heroism.  My heart felt again that ache and my patriotism was again aroused.  Because I remember after 9/11 how the country was bonded together and how "God bless America" was not uttered as a passing comment but as something we infused in our very marrow.  In a country that now daily bleeds division in terms of political party, religious creed, color, and wealth, it was refreshing to go back to a day of devastation and remember the unity that is forged through suffering and pain.  The 11-year old Trish wept for people she had never met, for families she never knew.  It was not anger that drew us together, even though there was a decent amount of that, but it was a mutual love of our own country and the experience of communal woundedness.

I watched most of the CNN live coverage of 9/11.  Story after story, I read about firefighters who offered themselves for those they had a responsibility to protect.  For my students, this is an event they learn about in history class, something foreign to them that they are told is important.  Yet for me it is a defining moment of the age I grew up in.  It is one of those memorable historic events that makes an impression on young and old souls alike.

Despite my love for my nation, conflicted and tormented though it be at times, I cannot simply stop at recalling 9/11.  I must extend this awareness of suffering and warfare to those around the world.  The Syrian refugees who are fleeing, the conflict in the Middle East, the impact of radical Islam on their neighboring Christians.  September 11th is but one of the instances of humanity willingly inflicting pain on humanity.  On that day of national remembrance, I led a prayer with my students, pleading for peace for the whole world.  It isn't as though there are just wounds that are fourteen years old, there are daily wounds being made, blood still pouring out, "the voice of your brother's blood is crying...from the ground." (Gen. 4:10)  And the Lord is asking, "What have you done?"  It is not enough to recall, we must respond.

Peace is fervently needed.  Our world is aching for peace, our country's deep-seated tension is pleading for peace, our families are battle-weary, and our very souls are hungry for internal unity.  Global peace is only attained through the soul-peace being achieved by each person.  When we experience honesty and integrity in the most difficult areas of our life.  When I cease to battle against the Lord of my soul and seek to understand my very self in way that may seem frightening or off-putting.

As we sift back through the memories of old hurts, of the traumas of humanity, may we also experience a renewed desire for peace and hearts of compassion to encounter those in their war-torn moments.  May our yearning for union override our wanting to win at all costs.  May the Queen of Peace pour grace and mercy upon our world that will bring us to unwavering peace, starting with our own souls. 

The Love of a Father

“To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak.  I have become all things to all, to save at least some.  All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.”  
1 Corinthians 9:22-23

Be all things to all people.  That is a tall order.  An impossible order, I suppose.  There will always be a way that you fall short or don’t live the way someone expects or wants you to live.  Yet I saw this “all things to all” being lived out in a beautiful way.

We celebrated a large Mass with all of the Catholic students of our diocese.  In the thirty minutes following Mass, I watched the eager crowds of children gradually disperse.  While they waited, I watched my parish priest as he made his rounds.  He stopped by the section where students from his previous parish were seated.  A large group of them began to wave excitedly.  To them, he was a star and they were excited to see him again after his absence.  After a few minutes of talking to students and teachers, he migrated to his current parish and greeted the children.  I kept waiting for him to walk away, but he didn't.  One-by-one as the students left their rows to go to the bus, he greeted them.  Some wanted a high-five, others wanted a hug, and some simply waved.

It was beautiful to watch them each pass under his fatherly gaze, often accompanied by a pat on the head or shoulder and always a smile.  This is not the first time I have been amazed by his fatherly care.  During his homilies at Mass, it is easy to get that sense that he is our spiritual father.  Yet the way he lives it out does not remain simply spiritual.  It is not just in prayers and sacrifices that he seeks to be our father.  Rather, he greets the people of his parish and goes to their homes.  His heart is filled with a tender fatherly love for his children, some of them biologically older then him.

My experience with priests has led to me to harbor a deep love for them.  While I would not relate to all of them in a fatherly way, I have found many who are living out the call to encounter people where they are “for the sake of the gospel” in order to “have a share in it” also.  The priest who instructed my summers of Totus Tuus also lived out the role of a father.  We were primarily young college students and he laughed with us, taught us, and loved us.  At the end of the first summer, he thanked us for “calling out the fatherhood” in him. 

For all of the things that the secular media says about the institution of the priesthood and all the ways it seeks to change it, I am inspired to continually meet young, holy priests (or not-young, holy priests) who have sacrificed having their own families so as to welcome an entire parish as a family.  Regardless of your upbringing and family background, in the beauty of the Catholic Church, everyone has a father who reveals to us, in part, the person of God the Father.

Your sins aren't that special

"Your sins aren't that special."

The girls giggle, perhaps a little shocked by what I said, simply because it came as a surprise.  They were concerned about going to Confession to a priest they knew.

"He'll know my voice...."
"He'll hear my sins and judge me.  Later, when he sees me, he'll judge me more."  She smiles and I know she is joking.  Partially.

"No, he won't.  He isn't going to remember your sins.  Your sins aren't that special."  I pause for a moment as they giggle.  "You're special, but your sins aren't."

I myself was struck by that phrase, in a way.  How often I live my life as though my sins are special, as though they are my determining factor.  After thousands of years of beautiful, broken humanity, I doubt there is a way one could sin "originally" anymore.  Sin isn't unique, novel, or groundbreaking.

Do you know what is special and unique?  Virtue.  It has a depth, breadth, and richness that cannot be matched by any vice, no matter how shocking or seemingly gratifying it may be.  We think our sins set us apart, for better or worse, and make us into the individuals we are.  We find our flaws to be infinitely more memorable than our strengths or triumphs.  

We are wrong.  It is our virtue and our quest for virtue that truly distinguishes us.  Look at the vast array of saints in the Catholic Church.  The ways they reflect God are manifold but each is different, highlighting a different attribute of the ineffable God.  We see in them incarnational realities of God's love, mercy, forgiveness, patience, and more.  They are unique because of their holiness and their particular way of manifesting it.

Your sins aren't special.  Quit acting like they are and return to your Father.