Safe Haven

I heard my three favorite words in combination yesterday. No, not those three! But as I reflected a little more on the mystery of Christ, and his goodness to us in the gospel, I realized that "I absolve you..." means the same thing as "I love you." I think about the possibility of just going through the motions as a Catholic, and strangely, all I can do is laugh at the mercy of God. Once you understand the story of redemption, there is nothing mechanical about our sacramental system! I think it means that the true work of evangelization is to teach the biblical story. Once people understand at a heart level what the basic message of the Bible is, everything the Catholic Church teaches and does makes too much sense. Just think: the age of the Church is by definition the outworking of the blessings of the New Covenant! They already know the rules, to some extent. They think they know what "Catholic guilt" is. Who forgot to teach them about Catholic love?...

Even if every single person in the GOP leadership is a craven, unprincipled, lying hack, (I don't believe this, but stay with me) who rolls over to get their belly-rubs from Obama, the answer is not Trump. Do your best to convince me that this is not the stupidest campaign in the history of the country; you won't. I kept waiting for some sense of normal, some personal thought of, "This is a real campaign, that I could see myself supporting." It never came, because there is nothing there. Nothing.  We have reached the point where winking and nodding at fringe theories and websites becomes dangerous, not because they are wrong, though they are, but that the people who consume them are so consumed by rage that they can't reason. At all. The lesson for the much-maligned establishment is this: you cannot control mindless rage. The lesson for the rest of the alleged conservative movement is that anger is not always morally appropriate, and the people are not always righ...

If this is the end for him, I wanted people to know all along why I have so vocally supported him. Firstly, and most importantly, he's completely pro-life/anti-abortion. It took a tremendous amount of guts to go on 60 Minutes and other places and say he didn't believe in exceptions, because that's a person we kill, and there is no "sweet spot," morally or otherwise, in that case. Secondly, I think that, if we as a party have decided that the minimum wage cannot or should not be raised (which I believe is morally dubious, mind you) the only thing close to a defensible compromise position would be tax credits aimed right at married families, and that's what Rubio has suggested. Senator Paul may be right that it will be very expensive. Ideologues may well be correct that it's a clever redistribution tool, to give money to people who haven't paid it in taxes. Well, yes. If the economic hazards of the marginal working-class are such that emerging from it ...

Why do Catholics support a strip-club owner for president? Because they are Catholics in mortal sin, that's why. It's the same reason why they feel they can support pro-abortion politicians in the Democratic Party, though that plainly violates our principles governing the dignity of human person. We see a lot of immorality, on a range of issues, precisely because Catholics don't think or live like Catholics. Granted, if we did, the Republican Party might be more centrist on economic issues. But for all we know, the GOP might have become the abortion party. The reason it didn't is because white Protestants realized that the Catholic Church had been right on abortion all along. Ask the much smaller percentage of Catholics who attend Mass at least once a week for whom they intend to vote. To paraphrase Saturday Night Live, the answer sounds like a Miami law firm.

It's often hard to be contemplative right in the moment of receiving Holy Communion. I need the moments after, and even then, my ability to focus is questionable. But it means something that He wants to be with me, and I with him. I tell him every day that I am not worthy to have him come under my roof, and yet he does. Suppose we are all Zaccheus, hoping to catch a glimpse, but Jesus wants to stay for dinner. I think we have no idea the love waiting for us. When you put it in a biblical metaphor, you get "wedding" or "endless party." That tells me that we lack the ability to describe the joy that awaits, as if youthful revelry is a pale shadow of what we're made for. It fits. The most fun I've had the last 5 years is in celebrating the chance to receive the sacraments. Those sacraments are pledges of the future glory.