Month: April 2016

There is so much mystery in the human psyche and how it develops. We can work ourselves into a panic fretting that we haven’t given properly, and that our children aren’t receiving properly; and half the time, we’ll be right. Truly, the only way we can be at peace is if, along with doing our best, we remember to turn our children’s lives over to God, over and over again. God’s generosity works both ways: He is generous in what He gives us, and He is generous in how He receives, as well. When we turn our children over to God, He will not let our efforts go to waste.

Read the rest at the Register.

Yesterday on the radio, Mark Shea and I spent nearly an hour talking about mercy — what it means, what it’s for, how we receive it, and how we pass it on. (Some faulty equipment forced me to use my phone to join the conversation, so this hour also includes stunning audio of my ridiculous dog barking, my baby crying, my older kids slamming doors, and of course someone clattering by on stilts. On stilts. Savages.) 

I had a small epiphany as we talked. Mark mentioned the parable of the unforgiving debtor. You know the story: This fellow owes his master a huge sum of money, and throws himself on his mercy, begging for more time. The master has pity and forgives the debt. Rather than rejoicing, the servant immediately turns around and finds a fellow servant who owes him a small amount of money. He refuses to have mercy on him, but grabs the poor man by the throat and has him arrested. The king finds out about it and has the first servant sent to prison and tortured.

The message gets repeated several times:

[I]f you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. 

It certainly sounds like a simple tit-for-tat arrangement: if you refuse to forgive, then God will get back at you by refusing to forgive you. Or, if you are forgiven by God, then you better pay Him back by forgiving other people. It seems fair, but it’s always bothered me a bit. I understand that the unforgiving servant is behaving abominably, but after all, the master has endless wealth. He can easily afford to forgive the debt anyway, even if the guy he forgives is a jerk. Can’t he just eat it, because . . . well, he’s the master?

Setting aside the parable for a moment, I thought about how giving and receiving mercy, how offering and accepting forgiveness, seemed to proceed in my own life, in my actual experience. The truth is, I sympathize a little too much with the unforgiving debtor. It’s horribly easy to go to confession, collect my $200 — uh, I mean absolution — and then turn around and get mad at my husband for some minor thing, like not offering to strap the baby into her car seat. And I just got out of confession, where I probably wouldn’t even bother to confess something so minor as a trifling act of omission of courtesy. How can I act like that? And what can I do to be a better servant, more grateful, more forgiving in response to the forgiveness I’ve just received?

I find that I fail miserably to forgive when I behave as if the forgiveness offered to me is a transaction, a simple tit-for-tat arrangement — as if forgiveness is a heavy responsibility that I have to lug around until I can palm it off on someone else.I find it harder to forgive others if I behave as if I am receiving forgiveness in return for going to confession. Of course, absolution still “works” — I really am forgiven — even if my contrition is imperfect and my disposition is lousy. But I’m far more likely to be able to change my behavior afterwards if I remember to receive forgiveness in the context of a relationship with God.

This means calling to mind that forgiveness is offered out of sheer love, and allowing myself to just kind of revel in it, rather than make sense of it. There is no reason for it, no sense to it. He didn’t have to do it. He did it just because He wanted to, because He loves me. It’s not about me at all; it’s all about Him.

Perhaps that was the real mistake that the unforgiving debtor made: maybe he never really acknowledged the love that was at the heart of the master’s forgiveness. Probably he convinced himself he had it coming, somehow — that it was unfair for the master to expect him to pay off his debt. Maybe he resented him, and persuaded himself that it was the least he could do.  Isn’t this how we sometimes act when people are very good to us? We twist it around in our heads until their generosity not only seems fair, but the very least we can expect, rather than unfathomably more than we have any right to even hope for.

Little wonder that, even after receiving mercy, this servant was unable to find it in his heart to forgive his fellow servant even a small debt. He couldn’t find mercy in his heart because he hadn’t ever really let it in to his heart.

Okay, now let’s return to scripture. Notice that it says, “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.” (Emphasis is mine.) I think that was the problem all along. The servant couldn’t pass on forgiveness because he hadn’t received forgiveness into his heart.

Oh, the heart. 

Mercy and forgiveness flow both ways because that’s how living things operate. We breathe in and out. Our heart has veins and arteries, and the blood flows through the chambers both ways. One way isn’t enough. It would be absurd to imagine that we could be healthy if we inhaled as much as we liked, but never exhaled. We wouldn’t be pleased if our heart did a great job of pumping blood in, but couldn’t let any blood out. It’s not that we’re trying to be fair; it’s just how we’re designed. It’s how living things operate. We’re not dead ends; we’re a series of systems that ebb and flow, cycle, and exchange. This is what it means to be alive.

And this is what it means to forgive: first, to accept forgiveness for what it truly is. It seems like bestowing mercy would be the hard part, but maybe receiving mercy is where we need to start. Next time, I’d like to talk more about what that actually looks like, and why it’s so hard.

***

Photo: The Sacred Heart of Jesus by Tony Alter via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Last week, I wrote a bit about scruples and how to recover from them. One reader responded:

While appreciating your exposition on scrupulosity, I dare say that the real problem among the faithful is a lack of scruples …

As a Convert from Protestantism, it is easy to see this embrace of the heretical Protestant beliefs in the total depravity of man (therefore don’t worry so much about sin – Hello, Year of Mercy) and that of “Once Saved Always Saved; I’m hearing these errors and those like them from Catholics all the time.

Many more Souls are in danger for the lack of scruples than are from an excess of scruples; so why so much in so many venues about too much concern for sinfulness when there is obviously too little?

Another reader agreed, saying:

Yup. I don’t see much of that either. A few scruples & a little fear of God would go a long way.

Do they have a point? It does seem a bit odd to write about how to recover from a crippling sense of sinfulness when, well, look at us. Look at the world. Civilization as a whole is suffering from scruples in the same way that Kanye West is suffering from shyness.

Part of the problem is that there is a specific spiritual meaning for the word scruples, and then there is a more general meaning. In general, in secular usage, having “scruples” just means having some hesitation before doing something that you think might be wrong. It means being careful and prudent, thorough and meticulous, and not letting yourself off the hook. And yes, many of us could use a bit more of that.

But scruples in a Catholic context isn’t just about being cautious. It’s not an antidote to laxness, and it’s definitely not a movement toward God in any way. It’s simply another kind of sickness, just like laxity — another tool that the devil is happy to use to pry us apart from our Savior. There is nothing extra-holy about being scrupulous, nothing super-Catholic. It’s a perversion, and should never be encouraged or lauded. It’s not seeing with extra sharpness; it’s just another kind of blindness.

Yet a third reader responded with a comment that deserves some attention:

This may sound a bit strange, but I think that scrupulosity and the apparent loss of scruples are both symptoms of failing see the love and mercy of God  … Knowing God’s mercy does not mean that we will sin more, it means that we can safely acknowledge our sins and find forgiveness.

I’d like to especially emphasize that last part: “Knowing God’s mercy does not mean that we will sin more, it means that we can safely acknowledge our sins and find forgiveness.” Scruples — and wishing for more scruples in others — is not a sign that we understand sin or forgiveness, or that we see things especially clearly. It’s a sign that we don’t trust God. It’s as if we believe that, in order to accept mercy and forgiveness, we have to already do the work ourselves — to perform surgery on our own bodies, and present the diseased tissue to God, already excised and packaged, just waiting for Him to sign off on the fact that, yes, it was malignant and needed to go.

When we believe in scruples, we think we need to do the work ourselves. We reduce forgiveness, and God Himself, to a rubber stamp. “MERCY” [whomp]

But mercy isn’t the fee that God is contractually obligated to pay to us after we submit an invoice for our sin in the confessional. Mercy is, itself, the transformational work. Mercy opens our eyes for the first time. Mercy is diagnosis and treatment and good health. It is bigger than we can imagine. It grows. It makes us grow. It simultaneously reveals the true horror of our sin and shows us how empty and powerless that sin is. That’s the full picture that we’re missing, whether we’re lax or scrupulous: sin is horrible, and sin is eminently conquerable.

In a way, the first commenter is right: the Year of Mercy does tell us “don’t worry so much about sin.” But he’s wrong if he thinks that mercy means “go ahead and keep on sinning, because there’s always mercy.” Instead, the penitent who brings even his paltry, imperfect regrets to the divine surgeon will come out the other side worrying less about sin — not because it’s no big deal, but because God is so much bigger. So much bigger.

When we accept mercy, that means that we are ready for God to do whatever He wants . . . even if it’s better than we think we deserve. We are all the man born blind. We know we’d like to see, but we don’t even know what that means, until here comes Christ. What do you think the man born blind saw first, when his eyes were opened? Surely it was the face of Christ. There is nothing else worth seeing.

***

Image: Christ and the pauper. Healing of the blind man. 2009. Canvas, oil. 100 x 55. Artist A.N. Mironov

 

There will be no April Fool’s Day jokes in this post. Mama too tired.

The week after Easter is probably the weirdest culinary week in our household, unless maybe the week after I have a baby. On Holy Saturday we have our Passover seder, and then we eat the leftovers mixed with whatever food I can scrounge up after having no time to shop because of the seder and Easter. There is, of course, candy debris all over the place, and the fridge is utterly crammed with hard boiled eggs that nobody wants.

I kept forgetting to take pictures, too, and every few hours, Benny feels the need to remind me with the blazing opprobrium of a four-year-old, “You and Daddy ac-ci-den-tal-ly put black jeddy beans in my baksket, but I don’t like black jeddy beans, so next year you won’t put black jeddy beans in my baksket!”

[img attachment=”97255″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”benny easter basket” /]

You know, I kind of regret what I said about gentiles celebrating Passover. First of all, it’s not in line with what the USCCB says:

A. Many Christians are given the opportunity to participate in a Passover Seder during Holy Week.”This practice can have educational and spiritual value. It is wrong, however, to “baptize” the Seder by ending it with New Testament readings about the Last Supper or, worse, turn it into a prologue to the Eucharist. Such mergings distort both traditions.” Ideally, then, Christians who wish to attend a Passover Seder should do so at the invitation of Jewish friends, families or synagogues that often welcome guests to this important meal. This allows Christians to experience the Seder as a Jewish family liturgy, still deeply meaningful to Jews everywhere. However, in the event that Christians celebrate the Seder alone, the following advice should prove useful:

“When Christians celebrate this sacred feast among themselves, the rites of the haggadah for the Seder should be respected in all their integrity. The Seder . . . should be celebrated in a dignified manner and with sensitivity to those to whom the Seder truly belongs. The primary reason why Christians may celebrate the festival of Passover should be to acknowledge common roots in the history of salvation. Any sense of “restaging” the Last Supper of the Lord Jesus should be avoided…. The rites of the Triduum are the [Church’s] annual memorial of the events of Jesus’ dying and rising.” (God’s Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching, no. 28)

I didn’t present my opinion as doctrine, but still, I try to listen to the bishops, and you should, too!
Second of all, I made it sound like I feel more strongly about it than I do. This is a pitfall of blogging every day: you get ahold of an idea and, in your zeal to express yourself clearly, you end up working yourself up into a vehemence that you don’t necessarily feel.

So if I caused you any distress, I do apologize. As long as you are discreet and respectful, I think there is a lot of wiggle room here.

We had a very lovely day with my parents and one of the kids’ friends.

[img attachment=”97252″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”seder” /]

My mother, who has Alzheimer’s, had a lucid moment as she was leaving, and said, “Your house is so little, but it . . . shimmers!” It was a day that shone, and not just because of all the chicken fat molecules suspended in the air.

[img attachment=”97253″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”seder dessert” /]

All right, so here’s what we ate:

SATURDAY

-Chicken soup with 94 matzoh balls
-3.5 lbs. Chopped liver
-2 jars Gefilte fish
-About four gallons of Charoset
-Roast Leg of Lamb 
-2 large roast Garlic Cinnamon Chicken 
-about a pint of horseradish
-Spinach pie

Dessert:
-2 large Lemon Sponge Cakes
-Assorted macaroons (store bought)
-Jelly fruit slices; chocolate-covered jelly rings 
-Almonds
-Chocolate-covered halvah
-About a cubic yard of Chocolate-covered caramel matzoh, which the kids eat like it’s offended them and needs to be punished with their teeth

You can find the recipes for all of these things here. Except I used the sponge cake recipe on the canister. It was a little simpler and turned out just fine. Having a silicone pan was very helpful, as this is a fragile cake. Someday, I will buy a bundt pan, but not until I get around to using my springform pan at least once!

Oh, this is the first year I’ve used a food processor for the chopped liver, rather than a manual meat grinder. WOW, what a difference. It was like velvet. Liver-y, oniony velvet.

Also, my father brought Blackberry Mansichewitz, rather than grape, and guess what? It tasted good! A Passover miracle.

This year’s matzoh balls were perfect. Just perfect. Big and light and fluffy, every one. I’m very proud of myself.

[img attachment=”97260″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”matzoh balls cooking 2″ /]

I’m also proud of how much not-yelling I did while cooking. I made the matzoh balls in the morning, rather than cooking them ahead of time. I boiled them in plain water and then transferred them to the soup.

We also made the charoset on the same day:

[img attachment=”97257″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”sophia charoset” /]

SUNDAY
Seder leftovers, matzoh meal latkes, candy

The kids had their Easter baskets in the morning, then we went to Mass, and then we went to the playground. A sweet and happy day with my favorite people.

[img attachment=”97258″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”Easter morning” /]

I went with the simplest possible latke recipe — just matzoh meal, water, eggs (of course eggs) and salt, fried up in oil. They were lovely.

Oh, and Damien made homemade waffles for lunch. I forgot how much better they are than frozen!

[img attachment=”97254″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”corrie waffles” /]

MONDAY
Frozen pizzas, candy

A.K.A. what I could grab quickly on the way home while the baby did her Tasmanian Devil routine.

TUESDAY
Hamburgers and chips

The kids were really craving something that wasn’t egg-based.

WEDNESDAY
Bangers and Mash

Mashed potatoes and sausages. I made some quick gravy using the drippings from the sausages. Tasty.

THURSDAY
Gochujang Bulgoki, white rice, roasted broccoli

Must order some more gochujang. I also used the food processor again, rather than slicing meat and veg forever and ever, and it turned out great. But man, that machine is violent. I’m used to the brisk and powerful but sort of poetic orbital motion of the standing mixer. The food processor is all business.

Sauce recipe:

5 generous Tbs gochujang
2 Tbs honey
2 tsp sugar
2 Tbs soy sauce
5 cloves minced garlic

and cooking instructions here.  I’m cheating with a picture I took last time:

[img attachment=”97249″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”korean plate” /]

Also *whispering so Korean grandmothers don’t hear*: I didn’t have any honey, so I used maple syrup, because it kind of looks like honey. And I skipped the carrots, and crushed the garlic instead of mincing it. And I used terrible American rice, and skipped the lettuce. IT STILL TASTED GOOD.

FRIDAY

I have no idea. The inside of my refrigerator makes me want to weep. I guess we could have matzoh brei! Okay, yes, this sounds like a plan. It may not have meat, but it’s definitely not penitential.