In the Garden

It's official, I'm just as lazy with this blog as I was with past ones. Eh. The following was a post I meant to publish (doesn't that sound official!) a few weeks ago. Actually, it's probably more like a month ago.

My father-in-law hauled over his rototiller and went through the backyard. I helped and later cleaned the gutters. As I worked in the yard, it struck me how many spiritual lessons could be garnered from the garden. One of the first was general frustration. How many of us want the beautiful yard but would rather not do the work? The thing is, you can't expect polished yard without sweat and hard work. People who can hire a landscaping company aren't a part of this example, by the way. Too frequently we forget that the finished product depends on the hard work and is a result of the sweat.

Another lesson is from weeds. Unattended weeds take over a yard quickly and get exponentially worse. Some have diabolical, pernicious root systems that are nearly impossible to remove. In that they're strikingly similar to the bad habits/regular sins. The longer we tolerate sin and refuse to eradicate our bad habits, the more they dig in. You can strike at the weed/the sin above ground, but the true way to get rid of it is to uproot it. And they're maddening to eradicate; every time you think you got rid of them, they come back.

I was digging up & turning over dirt next to the fence where the rototiller couldn't reach. Looking at my shovel and the length of the fence, I swore. Isn't the spiritual life the same? If we look too far ahead and see all the work we have to do, who wouldn't despair? Or think that it would be easier to give up than it would be to start? Once I did start digging & turning over the soil, I'd get a few feet and look back at how far I'd gone. Next I'd question the point of doing that much, since it felt like I hardly made a dent.

Progress is an odd thing in the spiritual life, since it often comes in times we don't expect. That is, those little good works that feel meaningless (like spading dirt along the fence). Those times of suffering when it felt like anything but growth. God knows us and perfectly understands what we need to grow--so He sends us people that love us, a Church to guide us, and consolations along the way.

Incidentally, thinking about the yardwork in a spiritual way was one of the few times I'd ever really felt like I was doing my work for the Lord. I've always known that I could, and I can connect the dots intellectually. But feeling it? That's new! Damn I'm a slow learner.

Them's Fightin' Words

A while ago, I conversed with one of my best friends regarding Bible translations. There are so many translations out there: what one should you pick?

Right from the start, any translation of the Bible lose things on the way from one language to another. To get intellectual here, I'll use the word "dude" as an example. Sure, there are slang words in other languages that more or less fit the English version, but so much would get lost! A surfer's "Dude!", a stoner's "duuuuuuddddee...", "DUDE!" used as an angry exclamation, it could go on and on. A translation could get the literal meaning across; it couldn't possibly get the connotation across.

Thus, not everything translates elegantly. But since we American Catholics aren't fluent in Greek, we have to do our best with the translations we have.

A Scriptural example of a translation problem is 1 Timothy 6:12. "Fight the good fight of the faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." (Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition). I'll just focus on the first phrase, "fight the good fight of the faith."

What do the main Catholic translations have?

Douay-Rheims (DR): "Fight the good fight of faith"

New American Bible (NAB): "Compete well for the faith"

New Jerusalem Bible (NJB): "Fight the good fight of faith"

New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (NRSV): "Fight the good fight of the faith"

All consistent except for the NAB. I really hope this was fixed in the revised NAB that came out a few months ago! The translation really bothered me and I decided to investigate it.

1) Literal

Looking it up in the Greek-English interlinear New Testament, there are two words in that phrase that correspond to "fight the good fight." Before going further, I must fully disclose: I can't read a lick of Greek. This won't have anything to do with the literal meanings of these words. But any schmuck such as myself could look at all the squiggly characters and see two very similar words AND that the NAB leaves one of them out. Even if the word "fight" was translated as "compete," the NAB only includes the verb ("compete") and leaves out the noun "fight."

2) Figurative/Behind the Words

The theological dictionary that I consulted about the word "fight" (and its grammatical relatives) described pre-NT uses of the words as well as the scriptural ones. In secular usage, these words referred to the Greek stadium and its varied contests and conflicts. The usage didn't stop there, however. In the writings of some Greek philosophers, the meaning of the "fight" words extended to include exercise in virtue and striving to live a moral life. Those meanings were still around and in use in St. Paul's day. He not only uses the "fight" words but also uses some war-like imagery. More on that later.

3) Fight vs. Compete: other uses in the NT

In Sacred Scripture, St. Paul employed the "fight" words more than once in his letters. Here is a list of the verses where the same word "fight" is used (Strong #75):

Luke 13:24: "Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able."

In this teaching one can assume that striving wasn't something particularly easy. We can also hear echoes of "take up your cross and follow me."

John 18:36: "Jesus answered, 'My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews..."

Here, fighting refers directly to battle.

1 Cor 9:25: "Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable."

The context here is athletic competition. Paul continues on and uses boxing as imagery. Did you know boxing was in the Bible?

Col 1:29: "For this I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within me."

Striving here again. Feel the weight in St. Paul's words... toil... striving with all the energy...

Col 4:12: "Epaphras, who is one of yourselves, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always remembering you earnestly in his prayers..."

Without knowing Greek, the use of the word "remembering" sounds a little odd, given the preceding verses. Still, the tone of the adverb "earnestly" goes along with striving.

1 Tim 4:10: "For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe."

Striving again, just like in Colossians and Luke.

2 Tim 4:7: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

This echoes the verse in question (1 Tim 6:12). Interestingly, the NAB is consistent: it translates "fought the good fight" as "competed well."

Words can mean a variety of things depending on the context. Striving, fighting... the Greek word (however it's pronounced) seems to carry a lot of anguish with it.

4) The Final Round: the Context of Paul's Letters to Timothy

This comes only from my own reflections; I haven't consulted any commentaries about this. St. Paul's overall tone to Timothy suggests that the protege needs to be a little more bold. Paul uses a lot of verbs in the command form. The tone is so different than Paul's other letters that some scholars (okay, I looked that part up) think that Paul didn't really write them. I don't believe that, however. These two letters were from an experienced veteran to a rookie who was struggling with certain aspects of his ministry. Many of the verbs are in the command form: do, fight, preach, admonish.

Bottom line: I think the NAB castrates 1 Tim 6:12. Their translation could be perfectly valid, but I don't like their omission of "fight" (see above) and I don't think "compete well" fits with the overall context of St. Paul's letters to Timothy. Translators have a tough job, but one of their duties is to not suck the vitality out of the original text.

For the Beauty of the Earth...

Sometimes the majesty of God is grand and overwhelming; sometimes His majesty is best expressed in a whisper. As I drove to work this morning, a thin layer of fog veiled the nearby foothills. The hills and the trees were a dark silhouette against the blue sky; the sun was just starting to make its way over the clouds. This was not a wonder of the world, not the Grand Canyon, not a mountain top view. Those hills were quite the opposite: small, humble... but no less beautiful. The Lord's handiwork glows just as much in the smaller things as it does the larger things.

Mountains and hills, bless the Lord! (Daniel 3:75)

This Just In: People Have Weird Ideas About Jesus

I've finished reading Fr. Mitch Pacwa's Catholics and the New Age, a book equally informative and testimonial.  He isn't simply writing a book pointing out the incompatibility of Catholicism and the New Age movement; he experienced and experimented with New Age practices in the 1970s.   I've found his narrative very valuable because of that experience.

I came across some material that reminded me of a confusing conversation a few years ago.  When I worked at Easter's Catholic Books & Gifts in Sacramento, one customer mentioned "ego suffering" in a conversation.  I don't remember what led up to that point.  This customer told myself and one of the owners that Jesus didn't actually suffer on the cross.  It was actually ego suffering.  Neither of us had heard that term before and didn't know what it meant.  She had learned about this on the Cursillo retreat (of which she was very proud)... and I assume it was a fluke, since I have heard otherwise great things about the Cursillo retreats.

As far as I can tell, this "ego suffering" probably comes from the enneagram, a New Age circle thing that has nine points/personality types.  The opposites of the personality types were different ego characteristics.  "Each ego characteristics was described as a poisonous way of being and relating. No ego  could be retained; removal was the sole cure." (Pacwa, Catholics and the New Age pg. 101)  Maybe that customer meant that Jesus was suffering in order to get to His essence?  Get rid of that ego?  Who knows... when I read that part of Fr. Mitch's book, it sounded like it fit.

It really sounded gnostic.  Gnosticism was a heresy that the Church encountered in the 2nd Century; it had many different manifestations because of the number of crackpots involved.  One of the common features was that the gnostic leaders offered secret knowledge (gnosis is Greek for knowledge) that led to salvation.  St. Irenaeus wrote against this particular heresy... up until the last century, the actual contents of the gnostic writings weren't known; all scholars had was St. Irenaeus' response salvo.  Scholars actually criticized him, saying that he was going over the top in his criticisms just to make his point.  When the gnostic documents at Nag Hammadi were dug up, scholars saw that St. Irenaeus wasn't going over the top after all.  The gnostic writings were just that weird!

The Gnostics missed the boat, however; there isn't any secrecy when it comes to the teachings of Jesus.  Jesus first had a public ministry of teaching and then established His Church to make sure that His message would go out to all the world.  The Bible describes the Apostles teaching in public squares; St. Paul sailed around the eastern Mediterranean, going everywhere he could.  There was nothing secret about that!

The customer's assertion of Jesus not really suffering is flat wrong.  Maybe some New Agers think that, maybe some misguided Catholics or Christians believe that.  St. Paul himself says in 1 Corinthians: "we preach Christ crucified" (1:23).  There wasn't some deeper, secret meaning, only this: for the sake of every human soul, Jesus suffered and died on the cross.

Scattered thoughts on 9/11

I can't believe it has been ten years since 9/11.  TEN YEARS.

One year for Christmas (years before 9/11) my older sister Kristy gave me a pocket atlas, among other things.  On the front cover was a picture of the twin towers in New York... I still have that atlas and whenever I pick it up, I look at it a little longer.  I'm not sure if I even knew what the buildings were when Kristy first gave it to me.

Out of all the songs that came out in the wake of 9/11, Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning" was by far the best.  Very well-written song.  The other country music tributes, as I remember, were infinitely inferior.

There was a movie that came out about 9/11; it involved the rescuing of someone and an inside look at the passengers who prevented the plane from hitting the White House.  I had no desire to watch the movie... images get to me, they sink in deep.  If it's something frightening or disturbing in any way, it sticks to me. I didn't want to see any more detail about the towers collapsing on top of people.  For the same reason, I thank the Lord and my guardian angel that I never saw footage of people jumping out of the buildings.  The image of the towers collapsing on the news is enough.

My mom woke me up that morning when the first plane hit.  Still, I went to school.  My history professor gave the class a choice: either hold class as normal, to focus our minds on something else, or turn on the news.  We watched the news the whole time and the class was collectively in shock.

Did anyone see this coming?  Even though the first Iraq war wasn't all that long before 9/11, the fight never came to us.  Not since Pearl Harbor!  What a blessing it was, for the United States to be safe for 60 years.  A luxury, really, if you look at other places in the world.

There was a priest who died giving the last rites to a fireman.  He was a chaplain for the firemen.  And he never saw it coming... but he died doing his duty, fulfilling the vows he took when he was ordained.  Is there a death more honorable?

Our Lady of the Lake

In a somewhat-related tribute to the start of Notre Dame's football season, here's a quick post on my visit to Lourdes, France, way back in 1999.  The full name of that university in South Bend, IN is Notre Dame du Lac, which is French for "Our Lady of the Lake."  And Lourdes is in France.  Close enough, right?  

To be honest, I'm surprised that something didn't happen to me on that trip to Lourdes.  I took the Chunnel from London to Paris, then hopped on a train to Lourdes.  Before I left, I asked for a little help from one of the French students.  I spoke maybe a few words of French--"sacre bleu," which was in "Beauty and the Beast" (still don't know what it means) and "merci," which is easy enough.  My understanding of French was far less.  That is, zero.  That friend tried to tell me how to converse in a basic conversation but I quickly realized its futility.  I could speak in flawless French but if I didn't understand what was being said to me in response, what use was it?  So my friend graciously wrote down a few travel-related phrases; including the very ironic "I don't know French."  

I arrived in the Lourdes train station at 8 pm local time and it was much darker than I would've preferred.  I didn't have a hotel booked, since I was under the impression that there were a billion hotels there.  That turned out to be true... but this was November, not the peak tourist season.  I walked for about ten minutes, my anxiety increasing with each passing moment.  By the grace of God, I spied a small hotel that was open.  I walked in, was roughly able to communicate with the attendant, and went upstairs to my room.  

At this point, I was very unsettled.  The ratio of normal minutes to anxiety-filled minutes is similar in kind to the human years to dog years ratio.  Still, for wandering around for hours (on the anxiety-filled minutes scale), I was okay.  I had a place to sleep other than the train station.  No problem now!

Until I couldn't lock the door to my room.  It was one of those old-fashioned keys/keyhole things and I couldn't lock the door for the life of me!  Back on Anxiety-Filled Standard Time.  It took a while to sleep, and ultimately I fell asleep out of pure exhaustion.  

The next day I went souvenir shopping and spent a lot of time in the Grotto.  It was truly one of the most powerful spiritual experiences in my life.  I felt so loved!  So special!  I sat inside the cave itself, on one of the benches, praying rosary after rosary for about two hours.  

I don't mean to glance over the good part and relish in the craziness that preceded it.  The craziness makes for a fun story to tell.  The catch about the good part--how much more can I say about it?  I prayed, I felt loved, I felt like Our Lady was looking at me like her favorite--er, second favorite--child.  There weren't a lot of people there (others knew better than to travel to a mountain town in late November) but I felt like the Blessed Mother set everything up that weekend just for me.  The details may be sparse but the power was in its simplicity.  

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us!  St. Bernadette, pray for us!

No one is out of reach

The going-out-of-business sale that Borders is having initially made me drool. I'm a bibliophile, as my wife can attest, and I was genuinely excited at the thought of buying books at a good discount. Alas, Borders' prices were already inflated--for the first few weeks of the sale, it was still cheaper to buy books on Amazon.

Shelves in such a sale are subject to natural selection: only the popular survive. Some books are spread around the store, seemingly in a desperate attempt to get rid of them.

One of those books was the tell-all by the currently-Episcopalian, formerly-Roman Catholic priest Alberto Cutie called Dilemma. I never would have known the book existed had it not been in the bargain bin at Borders (and the religion section, and the biography section). Cutie (pronounced with an accent on the last syllable; I don't know how good looking he actually is) served in Miami, had a local Catholic radio show in Spanish, and later was featured on EWTN. In short: a very high profile priest. His profile grew even larger when a secret relationship came to light; Cutie left the priesthood, then left the Catholic Church and married his lover.

Now as to the title... no one is out of reach. No one. Not an extremely popular Florida priest/media personality. Who got into radio/TV to bring souls to Christ! Not even a dynamic preacher named Fr. Corapi, who could fill a convention center at the mere mention of his name. Not the founder of a widespread youth ministry program, the very popular Msgr. Dale Fushek. I won't bother with the details of each story, they're already well-covered.

The falls of high-profile clerics really get under my skin. It's partially a naive incredulity, as if they wouldn't sin. That's plain nuts. Another part of it was their mission. How could they carry out the ministries they did if they weren't saints? (more naivete on my part) A third part was plain disappointment. I thought highly of Corapi and his preaching. I marveled at his conversion story and seeing that grace is, in fact, more powerful than any sin. When I volunteered with my parish youth group, I experienced the Life Teen youth ministry program (Fushek). He started the program to draw teenagers into the Catholic faith and to a deeper relationship with Jesus. The departure of one teen from his parish sparked a movement that touched the lives of thousands!

Throwing Cutie into the mix, how many souls did the three of them bring to Christ? How many people--I'd guess in the tens of thousands--were brought to Christ? And think of those converts and the lives they, in turn, touched and brought to Christ? Praise the Lord for the work that Jesus did through those three men!

Now go from three Spirit-filled priests to three ex-priests. Two left the Catholic Church (Cutie and Fushek) and the other opted for a brand over the priesthood (Corapi)? It drove me crazy. I tried to distill the reason from the frustration. Was it pride? Some other sin? Was it because of the fame? Or something the public never saw?

The only thing that gave me peace was that single thought: no one is out of reach. That might sound odd or anything but peaceful. Still, we humans cannot escape our fallen nature! The devil will tempt us, yes, but sometimes he doesn't have to work very hard. We will be tempted until our death, whether the temptations be small or large. God promises His grace to all who ask, yet we could be drowning in an ocean of grace and still refuse it.

Lastly, I cannot close without acknowledging my own sinfulness. I have plenty of weaknesses and shortcomings. I don't consider myself very far advanced on the path to holiness. I am a sinner, no better or worse than Cutie, Corapi, or Fushek. The challenge to all of us is perseverance in the Catholic faith! The minute we give up or stop trying, the easier we fall.