On Faith

 

In my understanding, a mystery is something that changes a person in relation to the Divine. The mystery of Christian faith is conveyed through Baptism and is lived through every day. Faith in its ordinary meaning encompasses loyalty and trust, so you may have faith in a football team that lets you down, but remain loyal. Trust is what you have. Loyalty is what you do.

Faith is the theological virtue that enables us to believe in God and believe in Truth as revealed in Jesus’ words and Word. That’s what makes Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” so interesting. Is Pilate a Nazi Gauleiter jesting with his Jewish victim? Is this a Stoic rhetorical question from his schooldays? Pilate is a man of action. He orders crucifixions, many. He lacks faith, but finds no harm in Jesus. Why?

Faith isn’t intellectual assent to a set of propositions. Nor is it blind, or unthinking. Faith is a Trinity surrounding you with love and support. Believing is related to loving: you may love what you trust, and trust what you love, and see miracles. In the words of Tyndall’s 1526 translation of Luke, “Thy fayth hath made the safe.” Go in peace.

On Envy

Envy consumes the eye. It is tainted sight. Invidia means looking closely, too closely at the advantages of others. Wealth, beauty, achievements, relationships, opportunities. It gives birth to resentment, hostility, and hatred. While jealousy defends one’s own possessions, envy desires another’s. It dwells in a limited world; it feels there is never enough; a world of reaching for prizes, seeking for names. Aquinas calls envy “sorrow for another’s good.”

 Envy distorts judgement. Where justice returns to everything that which belongs to it, envy seeks to take it away; envy will suffer loss, so others may lose. The evil eye is envy personified, withering crops, sickening children, fuelled by a sense of grievance and inferiority. Envy is the seat of many crimes, from theft to murder. 

Integrity is seamless. Wholeness protects. “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” That eye is the road to the heart: kindly, beneficent, generous, benevolent, loving. Light enables us to see reality as it is; darkness obscures. “If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.” We know so little about others, even judging God: “Are you envious because I am generous?” God’s eye is true. 

On Greed

 

Avarice. The casino guy washing himself in fountains of coins splashing out of machines; the oligarch plotting the offshore travels of rivers of state funds through money laundering channels to private island accounts: greed is godless. Amos the prophet on the case of the fashionista with the $15,000 handbag; the Temple treasury taking the widow’s last mite. The Scriptures are pitiless about greed. Zaccheus must restore fourfold all he’s extorted.

Greed destroys the earth. Deep sea mining. Deforestation. Animal extinctions. So much beauty. In heaven as it is on earth: colonising even the moon.

Benefactors as well as malefactors. How was the money acquired? Is there a tax deduction? The good old Biblical term “the poor” has fallen out of favour: can it be you, or me? Or not? Be careful here. Paul advises balance. (“According to your means”). Not too little, not too much.  Check yourself at the door. Give eagerly, but wisely.

Hoarding specifically demonstrates greed. Cornering limited resources for personal benefit, national glory, ethnic dominance. Letting others suffer and starve.

Tax can be good. And greed can be bad. At the end of your life, “Whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”

On Sloth

 

Sloth is a creature known for its sleepiness. If your metabolism, like my greyhound or your sloth, makes you nap 20 hours per day, are you still slow for the 4 hours you spend awoke? The sloth is slow no matter what time of day. The greyhound is exceeding fast.

The slow sloth got its name, meaning ‘laziness’ in 1749, named for one of the seven deadly sins, called in Latin acedia. Lacking energy (or care) to read your Scriptures, pray your prayers, or care your cares, is what Pope Francis calls a ‘dangerous temptation’ to find ‘disgust’ in everything you do. How does this differ from clinical depression? Possibly in the four hours you can choose to use. The signs of the times are showing how each conscious being must seek the way to mend the world. The simplest may be the most effective. Gospel means news: it was hard enough to know who’s telling the truth in Pilate’s day. Is it not slothful not to check? Look around. Is silence false witness? Silence is no witness. Is no witness false witness? Is fantasy, entertainment, conspiracy theories, propaganda? Be fast chasing what God loves: justice, mercy, humility and truth.

On Gluttony

 

Lent, and a sugarless season. How much could we wish to eat? Places under siege suffer starvation, while who even knows whether prisoners and captives are fed? In times of dire unrelenting conflicts, abundance is unreachably far. Is scarcity, not gluttony, the sin? The concept of gluttony is based upon glut: filled to excess, not only more than you need but more than you can contain.

 A man walked into St Peter’s Bookroom where I worked; he said not to bother the priests, but perhaps as someone from the church I could answer a question about prayer. Is God frustrated or angry at so many pleas? I said was a parent angry when the toddler kept pouring out questions: “Why?” “Are we there yet?” God knows our limited understandings, our big emotions. God knows about us. We Christians, I said, know two things about God. God is good; God is love. Is not love patient, or kind? I said Jesus taught the way of prayer: “Do you know it? ‘Give us this day…’”  “Our daily bread,” he replied. “Keep it simple,” I offered. Pray as you must. Daily bread is daily. Not too little; not too much.

On Racism

Change begins with confession. And one must be careful not to be proud while confessing. I grew up in the USA, which in case you need telling is one of the most racist countries on earth. This produces a stain on the soul, I mean here the white soul, so deep it blends into the bones; to my dismay the utmost scrubbing fails to take it out. However conscious I think I’m being, I still find marks in unexpected places. Things I say and think bring me regret and shame; a continual process of awareness and repentance, meanwhile hurting others.

To which of the vices, (often a failure of virtues), does racism belong? Pride, as a sin, believes that one is better than others; Greed assumes a right to the possessions of others. The first vice of racism is thus a failure of justice, the virtue that returns to everything that which belongs to it. The second is a failure of wisdom (prudence), that assures a right relation to reality. Racism is a wrong relation: since all are God’s creation, no one can be better or more honourable than another. As all are washed in Christ’s blood, all may confess. 

On Wellingness

You can’t be weller than well; that treats health as an asset. The physician isn’t for the well, but the sick. Seeking to be weller than all the others, you keep it for yourself, like the Pharisee who kept all the commandments and thought his soul was well. The doctor diagnosed him: he was sick as.

Ignatius calls the welling up of tears a consolation. For what must we be consoled? For our weakness, frailty, helplessness in face of the devastations of this world. It happens without us. Sometimes we cause it; sometimes it is caused. Where is the earliest cause? The prime vice is greed, though the ancients thought envy the worst of the lot. As a child I didn’t understand what’s meant by coveting, or why forbid it, what’s it doing in the Decalogue? It underlies so many evils. Land, and its resources; family advancement and security; national supremacy; peace and stability; grace and beauty. All to be attained and enjoyed by me and not by thee. Wellness: the earthly paradise. Can you envy another’s peace? Oh, yes. Wellingness: the welling up of compassion, remorse, justice, redress. Even tears. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.