The Chicago Cubs and the mystery of faith

I often joke that I came out of the womb wearing a Cubs hat; I was born in New Hampshire into a family of Chicago Cubs fans on November 9, 1992. Three months later, I was baptized.

I chose neither of these things. But before I could walk, talk, or seek a rational alternative, both were part of my temporal and eternal destiny. To root for a team that last won the World Series in 1908—the same year the Ford Model T was unveiled—often feels like an exercise in futility. Maintaining faith in the Trinity, professing the resurrection of the body, and placing trust in a higher power is often daunting. All the same, being Catholic and being a Cubs fan is as ordinary to me as wearing shoes. Heavy, wet shoes, but still.

So yeah, I’m Catholic. “Practicing?” people inevitably ask. Yeah, practicing, even if I’m not very good at it. And I’m a Cubs fan. “Seriously?” Seriously.

As a kid, I joined my parents at church every Sunday. Like most children, I was too young to evaluate my faith, to question the complexity and the legitimacy of theism, or to understand the full implication of those latter Stations of the Cross—where things get fairly bloody.

Likewise, long before I understood how agonizing it would be to support the most pitiful franchise in professional sports history, I was draped in Cubs paraphernalia. I grew up loyal to the team because my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had done the same. Though I grew up in New England, my family has deep roots in Chicago; I figured being a Cubs fan was a matter of ancestral genetics, current geography notwithstanding.

By adolescence, my religion and Cubs fandom were a crucial part of my identity. I embraced them both in October 2008.  

The Cubs posted the best record in the National League in 2008. They were primed for a post-season run and sports media across the country couldn't help but predict the Cubs would win the World Series after an astonishing 100-year title drought. They were featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated and, as a naive 16-year-old, I believed they might finally break their curse.

They played the Dodgers in the first round of the playoffs and lost the first two games of the series. On October 4, the Cubs faced elimination and trailed 3-1 heading into the ninth inning. My parents had both already stopped watching; they’d endured too many years of disappointment and had no desire to witness the inevitable. So I retreated alone to their bedroom to watch the final inning.

I was sick with fear. Desperate, I looked around the room and spotted a rosary on my mother’s nightstand. As Alfonso Soriano came to the plate, I started praying. I prayed Hail Marys at such speed that I’m sure even the Blessed Mother couldn’t comprehend the words.

Strike one. My sweaty fingers raced over the beads in an effort to save the Cubs. I completely skipped the sorrowful mysteries and the prayers between each decade.

Strike two. Now with even greater ferocity, I scrambled to finish the rosary. Swing and a miss.

Strike three. The Dodgers burst out of their dugout. Series over.

The Cubs had failed me. Prayer had failed me. The rosary beads still hanging from my limp fingers, I rolled over and buried my face in a pillow.  

It was irrational, immature, and selfish to think a ninth-inning rosary might compel God to intercede on the Cubs’ behalf. Still, though I was too distraught to realize, the seeds of faith were growing somewhere within me as Soriano struck out. Those seeds were likely growing even before my baptism, but the Cubs’ predictable collapse in 2008 offered me an opportunity to realize my faith and an invitation to cultivate it in the years to come.

The following April, I reaffirmed my faith in the Chicago Cubs on opening day. One month later I chose to be confirmed in the Catholic Church. I decided independently as a sophomore in high school to maintain the beliefs to which I grew up blindly subscribing. I chose to be confirmed because I was acutely aware that my faith—while even today I don’t completely understand it—was an undeniable aspect of my being.

Did the Cubs compel me to be confirmed? No. But my experience watching the Cubs lose informed my discernment and encouraged me to explore my spirituality.

Every Sunday, I hear the priest proclaim “the mystery of faith” during the Memorial Acclamation. As we proclaim the fact that Christ, by his death and resurrection, set us free, I reflect on what it means to believe in something for which little tangible evidence exists.

I place enormous trust in a higher power whose presence I have felt but never seen. Likewise, I continue to believe in a team that has cruelly disappointed generations of fans before me.

Last April, the Cubs opened their season against the St. Louis Cardinals on Easter Sunday. Of course, I attributed this to providence—the Cubs would begin their long overdue march to a championship on Resurrection Sunday. They came close, but ultimately in October they were demolished by the Mets in the National League Championship Series. Like Christians awaiting Christ’s return, I remained faithful and looked forward to a bright future.

This year, for the first time, both the Cubs and I call Chicago home. On Sunday, April 3, I went to church and prayed that they beat the Angels the following day in their first game of the season. They won. And though the season is still young, the Cubs boast the best record in league which has baseball analysts from Long Island to Long Beach predicting that this is the Cubs’ year.

I have faith the Cubs will win the World Series this year. Or the next, or at the very least probably before I die. But if they don’t, well there is always the mystery of faith promising me a front row seat and a 16 ounce cup of cold salvation in the bleachers beyond.

Do dogs go to heaven?

Tobey and Caleb

Humans have kept animals around for centuries. At first it was for hunting purposes, pest control, and general working tasks. It did not take long, however, for animals to start being bred and kept as companions. According to a 2015–2016 American Pet Products Association (APPA) survey, around 79.7 million households in America are home to a pet. It is clear animals hold a special place in our hearts. So when they die, as with our loved ones of the human variety, of course we want to know what becomes of them. Where do they fit into the world God has created? 

Pope Pius IX is among the first of the popes to fully address the issue of animals going to heaven, though not favorably. He said that heaven is a place reserved for those with souls and a conscience, which animals don’t have. He is even reported to have opposed the founding of an animal anticruelty society in Rome in the 19th century “on the ground that to grant permission would imply that human beings have duties to the lower creatures,” says Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher who writes about animal rights. 

Since Pius IX, however, popes have had differing views on the condition and treatment of animals. Pope Paul VI is reported to have consoled a boy whose pet dog had died, saying, “One day we will see our pets in the eternity of Christ.” (In 2015, through a series of journalistic mishaps, that quote was falsely attributed to Pope Francis.)

In a 1990 papal audience, Pope John Paul II proclaimed that “the animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren.” He added that animals are the “fruit of the creative action of the Holy Spirit and merit respect” and that they are “as near to God as men are.” Though Pope John Paul II never made any claims about heaven, he enforces the idea that all animals are God’s creation. 

In a 2002 interview with German journalist Peter Seewald, Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, discussed his love of animals and echoed an idea found in Genesis and restated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Animals are indeed God’s creation and therefore should be respected. He condemned factory farming, saying the commodification of animals is a sign that something is broken in the relationship between the creator and creation.

Pope Francis, whose papal name refers to the saint who famously welcomed animals as fellow creatures of God, prays in his encyclical on the environment, “Teach us to discover the worth of each thing, to be filled with awe and contemplation, to recognize that we are profoundly united with every creature as we journey towards [God’s] infinite light.” 

While we may never find out in this life whether our beloved pets will end up in heaven, it is certain that animals are our fellow creatures of God. As such, the love and dignity we show them is one way we can heed Pope Francis’ call to care for creation.

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Image: Andrei Rublev, public domain scan.

May 22, 2016

Click here for scripture readings.

I was once accosted by a fundamentalist Christian in the street.

He asked me whether I had given my life to Jesus Christ.

I have.

He asked me if I spoke in tongues.

I can, but don't.

He asked me if I had made the necessary sacrifices for the Holy Spirit to come into my life.

At this point I said that as a priest I was doing okay, but definitely not rich,

I was chaste and obedient for Christ, which I think is a decent effort in that direction.

Mind you, in saying I take the vow of poverty I always think of cousin who is not Catholic, who, on seeing Jesuit rectory one time said,

"If this is poverty, I'd like to see how you guys live chastity—it all seems pretty loose and fast to me."        

The problem with our evangelical brothers and sisters is that they often think the Holy Spirit can be reduced to external signs.

We know, however, from the first Pentecost and from our own experience that the Spirit works in unpredictable AND ordinary ways.

From the Acts of the Apostles we learn that where the Spirit of God is active all sorts of gifts are present:

         boldness to stand up for what we believe;

         the ability to hear and listen;

         an end to fear that locks us in on ourselves;

         confidence in the salvation won for us in Christ;

         fidelity to Jesus' commandment to love;

         clarity about what's true; and

an “at home-ness” with God.

The problem for many of us is working out where the Holy Spirit is leading

 us. 

This requires the gift of the discernment of spirits.      

St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, left the church a guide for working out how we can tell if and where the Holy Spirit is leading us.

One summary of them goes like this:

1.  Don't make a decision when you're down. Let the crisis pass and take time to weigh all the options.

2.  The Holy Spirit enables us to let go of our unhealed past and not live in the unknown future. The Holy Spirit draws us to deal with the here and now, as it is, not as we may like it to be or think it should be.

3.  The Holy Spirit frees us up to bring out into the open anything we keep buried in the dark. There is nothing that has ever happened to us that is beyond the Spirit's healing.

4.  The Holy Spirit breaks down isolation and draws us into community with other people.

5.  Be careful of things that appear too perfect, they sometimes have a sting in the tail and can be destructive.

6.  Be guarded about all things that are urgent. The Holy Spirit brings a sense of perspective to problems.

7.  The Holy Spirit is always present where compassion and forgiveness are demonstrated.

Not bad for a guy who died in 1556.

So Pentecost is not the charismatic movement's birthday.

It is God's promise to abide with us come what may.

And living in the power and love of the Spirit and claiming her direction is an intensely practical affair.

It is with this type of confidence that can sing the ancient chant,

"Come O Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and we will be recreated and you will renew the face of the earth."

On this Feast of Pentecost, may our hearts be open to the Spirit’s fire so that we may live our baptismal promises by doing our part to renew the face of our earth. 

Pentecost Sunday C

Image: "Tongues as of Fire," 
©Jan Richardson.

May 15, 2016

Scripture readings

I was once accosted by a fundamentalist Christian in the street.

He asked me whether I had given my life to Jesus Christ.

I have.

He asked me if I spoke in tongues.

I can, but don't.

He asked me if I had made the necessary sacrifices for the Holy Spirit to come into my life.

At this point I said that as a priest I was doing okay, but definitely not rich,

I was chaste and obedient for Christ, which I think is a decent effort in that direction.

Mind you, in saying I take the vow of poverty I always think of cousin who is not Catholic, who, on seeing Jesuit rectory one time said,

"If this is poverty, I'd like to see how you guys live chastity—it all seems pretty loose and fast to me."  

The problem with our evangelical brothers and sisters is that they often think the Holy Spirit can be reduced to external signs.

We know, however, from the first Pentecost and from our own experience that the Spirit works in unpredictable AND ordinary ways.

From the Acts of the Apostles we learn that where the Spirit of God is active all sorts of gifts are present:

            boldness to stand up for what we believe;

            the ability to hear and listen;

            an end to fear that locks us in on ourselves;

            confidence in the salvation won for us in Christ;

            fidelity to Jesus' commandment to love;

            clarity about what's true; and

an “at home-ness” with God.

The problem for many of us is working out where the Holy Spirit is leading us.

This requires the gift of the discernment of spirits.   

St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, left the church a guide for working out how we can tell if and where the Holy Spirit is leading us.

One summary of them goes like this:

1.  Don't make a decision when you're down. Let the crisis pass and take time to weigh all the options.

2.  The Holy Spirit enables us to let go of our unhealed past and not live in the unknown future. The Holy Spirit draws us to deal with the here and now, as it is, not as we may like it to be or think it should be.

3.  The Holy Spirit frees us up to bring out into the open anything we keep buried in the dark. There is nothing that has ever happened to us that is beyond the Spirit's healing.

4.  The Holy Spirit breaks down isolation and draws us into community with other people.

5.  Be careful of things that appear too perfect, they sometimes have a sting in the tail and can be destructive.

6.  Be guarded about all things that are urgent. The Holy Spirit brings a sense of perspective to problems.

7.  The Holy Spirit is always present where compassion and forgiveness are demonstrated.

Not bad for a guy who died in 1556.

So Pentecost is not the charismatic movement's birthday.

It is God's promise to abide with us come what may.

And living in the power and love of the Spirit and claiming her direction is an intensely practical affair.

It is with this type of confidence that can sing the ancient chant,

"Come O Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and we will be recreated and you will renew the face of the earth."

On this Feast of Pentecost, may our hearts be open to the Spirit’s fire so that we may live our baptismal promises by doing our part to renew the face of our earth.

Solemnity Of The Ascension Of The Lord

Image: "Ascension"
© Jan Richardson

May 8, 2016

Click here for scripture readings.

Today, Jesus comes full circle.

Thirty-three years ago he descended from heaven;

33 years later he ascends back to heaven.

We are not privileged to know what he thought on this day,

but if I were he, I would have three questions about his earthly experience:

What did it mean? What did it accomplish? What now?

What did those earthly, human years mean, this new life with a body in time?

The Son of God descended from knowing all things intuitively to learning everything bit by ignorant bit.

The One who had created all things by simply saying the word now painstakingly shaping wood into a chair.

That perfectly peaceful person in complete control of divine desire descended to the depth of human passion.

He forgave a few people, but sinners abound.

He healed a few people, but not everyone.

So, except for raising a couple of people from the dead — who then had to die again — the day-to-day life of Jesus might have been pretty much like our lives.

And like all of us intelligent people, he must have occasionally felt ill at ease with ignorant villagers;

he might have soared like an eagle except for those turkey disciples.

If only the religious leaders knew more scripture and if the civil leaders were not leftovers from the royal court,

if he hadn’t been born in the wrong time at the wrong place, he might have succeeded more.

Second question: What did all those years accomplish?

Jesus saw the world as a battle between his Father and Satan.

So, he spent a lot of time and energy exorcising demons.

That looks like a strange strategy to us.

His main message was the Kingdom of God.

But he wasn’t dead a few years before that project was put on the back burner by his first followers.

They had their own agenda of survival in a secular culture.

And his followers are still doing the same thing.

Jesus thought of himself as dying for his friends in faithfulness to his Father.

Later theologians have tried to explain how one person’s death could make up for all of humanity’s sins

and what it might mean to be reconciled with God.

But whatever the life and death of Jesus meant to his Father, to us it means that God has experienced our pain and joy and dreams and disillusionments.

God now realizes what complex, improbable lives we lead.

Last question: What now?

Jesus could have decided that he had done what he came to do; that whatever he did or did not accomplish was a matter for the records;

that he had done all he could do, and the rest was up to God.

Pretty much the way we feel.

But not entirely.

Most people have a desire to leave some kind of a legacy: a family, a foundation — some continuation of their life that would somehow vindicate their existence,  carry on their project.

Jesus had that same desire, magnified to divine intensity.

But if the sin of the world has been forgiven,

if humankind has been reconciled to God,

what is there left to do?

Ah, there’s still that pesky “Kingdom of God” that keeps getting tabled because of more pressing business.

When will we learn that the Kingdom is our agenda?

When will we learn that, if we pursued that, everything else would fall into place.

Easter Sunday 6

Image: Rick Morley, Gratia in Porcella or Grace in the Storm,
Inspired by the grace of God evident in communites of faith
living in the wake of Superstorm Sandy

May 1, 2016

Click here for scripture readings

The First Reading reports that some Judean people came to the Christians at Antioch to tell them they could not be saved unless they were circumcised.

The Judeans were worried that the traditional practices were being altered by the church at Antioch, and they were exercising themselves in behalf of the tradition.

But who are these people?

Who empowered them to speak for the Lord?

How do they know what the Lord requires for salvation?

And what business is it of theirs what the Christians in Antioch are doing?

They themselves live and worship in Judea.

To be officious is to push your services on people who neither want nor need them.

To be a busybody is to pry into the affairs of other people and try to meddle in them.

These people are what I call “officious busybodies for the Lord, aren’t they?

And they do seem to be mindless in their meddling, don’t they?

Here is their idea of God:

God is the kind of Deity who will not let anybody into heaven who does not have a certain amount of flesh cut off his junk.

Spell their thought out this way, and it looks blasphemous, doesn’t it?

What kind of goodness or love would there be in such a God?

What kind of God cares that much about foreskins?

And, of course, I am being careful not to say anything about the issue of women, who don’t have foreskins to lose.

In fact, these officious busybody defenders of the Mosaic tradition are not being true to the Mosaic tradition either.

That tradition mandated circumcision for males as a ritual of initiation into the Jewish people.

It said nothing about criteria of salvation.

The apostles rebuke those Judeans by telling them what the decision of the Holy Spirit is: Circumcision is not required for salvation.

And this response is perfect.

The decision about what is required for salvation is the Lord’s.

And the mindless meddlers were actually opposed to the mind of the Lord.

So people who push their way forward to rebuke the Christian practices of others need to be careful how they speak for God

and what kind of God they are witnessing to by what they say.

Thank goodness we don’t have anyone in our parish who wants to be a mindless meddlesome officious busybody for the Lord?

Fourth Sunday of Easter C

April 17, 2016

Click here for scripture readings.

We are surrounded by many voices.

There’s rarely a moment within our waking lives that someone or something isn’t calling out to us and, even in our sleep, dreams and nightmares ask for our attention. 

And each voice has its own particular cadence and message.

Some voices invite us in, promising us life if we do this or that or buy a certain product or idea; others threaten us.

Some voices beckon us towards hated, bitterness, and anger, while others challenge is towards love, graciousness, and forgiveness.

Some voices tell us that they are playful and humorous, not to be taken seriously, even as others trumpet that they are urgent and weighty, the voice of non-negotiable truth, God’s voice.

Within all of these: Which is the voice of God? How do we recognize God’s voice among and within all of these voices?

That’s not easy to answer.

God, as the scriptures tell us, is the author of everything that’s good, whether it bears a religious label or not.

Hence, God’s voice is inside of many things that are not explicitly connected to faith and religion, just as God’s voice is also not in everything that masquerades as religious.

But how do we discern that?

Jesus leaves us a wonderful metaphor to work with, but it’s precisely only a metaphor:

He tells us that he is the “Good Shepherd” and that his sheep will recognize his voice among all other voices.

In sharing this metaphor, he is drawing upon a practice that was common among shepherds at the time:

At night, for protection and companionship, shepherds would put their flocks together into a common enclosure.

They would then separate the sheep in the morning by using their voices.

Each shepherd had trained his sheep to be attuned to his voice and his voice only.

The shepherd would walk away from the enclosure calling his sheep, often times by their individual names, and they would follow him.

His sheep were so attuned to his voice that they would not follow the voice of another shepherd, even if that shepherd tried to trick them (shepherds often did this to try to steal someone else’s sheep) by imitating the voice of their own shepherd.

Like a baby who, at a point, will no longer be cuddled by the voice of a babysitter, but wants and needs the voice of the mother, each sheep recognized intimately the voice that was safeguarding them and would not follow another voice.

So too with us: among all the voices that surround and beckon us, how do we discern the unique cadence of God’s voice?

Which is the voice of the Good Shepherd?

There’s no easy answer and sometimes the best we can do is to trust our gut-feeling about right and wrong.

But we have a number of principles that come to us from Jesus, from scripture, and from the deep wells of our Christian tradition that can help us.

What follows is a series of principles to help us discern God’s voice among the multitude of voices that beckon us.

What is the unique cadence of the voice of the Good Shepherd?

• The voice of God is recognized both in whispers and in soft tones, even as it is recognized in thunder and in storm.
• The voice of God is recognized wherever one sees life, joy, health, color, and humor, even as it is recognized wherever one sees dying, suffering, poverty, and a beaten-down spirit.
• The voice of God is recognized in what calls us to what’s higher, sets us apart, and invites us to holiness, even as it is recognized in what calls us to humility, submergence into humanity, and in that which refuses to denigrate our humanity.
• The voice of God is recognized in what appears in our lives as “foreign,” as other, as “stranger,” even as it is recognized in the voice that beckons us home.
• The voice of God is the one that most challenges and stretches us, even as it the only voice that ultimately soothes and comforts us.
• The voice of God enters our lives as the greatest of all powers, even as it forever lies in vulnerability, like a helpless baby in the straw.
• The voice of God is always heard in privileged way in the poor, even as it beckons us through the voice of the artist and the intellectual.
• The voice of God always invites us to live beyond all fear, even as it inspires holy fear.
• The voice of God is heard inside the gifts of the Holy Spirit, even as it invites us never to deny the complexities of our world and our own lives.
• The voice of God is always heard wherever there is genuine enjoyment and gratitude, even as it asks us to deny ourselves, die to ourselves, and freely relativize all the things of this world.

The voice of God, it would seem, is forever found in paradox.