Hell's Greatest Secret - Sins of Omission

Dear Theophilous,

It’s over 20 years ago, but it still haunts me like it was this morning. My wife (fiancée at the time) and I were visiting the priest who was going to marry us at St. Augustine’s Seminary in Toronto, where he was teaching. We were heading out to lunch, and as we drove down the long driveway we saw an older man off to the side of the road juggling shopping bags and trying to open a gate that was obviously stuck.

“Poor old guy,” Father commented from the back seat. I murmured agreement and continued to roll down the drive. Just as we were about to roll past where the older gent was still struggling with the gate Father piped up, “Stop the car!” He then proceeded to jump out and easily lift the gate so it could swing open. When he got back in the car, Father didn’t say a word, but I looked sheepishly forward, embarrassed that I had not stepped up to the plate when God had provided me with the opportunity.

My wife, Father and the old gentleman have probably all long forgotten the incident. For me, however, it still lingers in the recesses of my conscience.

I had sinned.

I hadn’t done anything wrong. I hadn’t broken any of the commandments. In fact, I hadn’t done anything at all. And that’s my point. By deliberately choosing to drive on by, I had committed a sin of omission.

Prattling off the Confiteor by rote each week, we probably don’t notice it, but we are reminded that the good we don’t do can be just as damning as the sins we wilfully commit:

I confess to Almighty God,

And to you, my bothers and sisters,

That I have sinned,

In my thoughts and in my words;

In what I have done, and in what I have failed to do.

Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault…

Going into the confessional, it’s easy (kind of…) to list the sins we have committed. We have the 10 Commandments and the Beatitudes to guide our examination of conscience. I actually have an app that takes me through the process, gives me a check list of all my faults, which I then scratch in hieroglyphs onto a piece of paper so I don’t forget anything.

But what about sins of omission? How do we recognize what we have failed to do?

Do you look the other way when passing a hand stretched out for spare change?

Do you give up your seat on the bus?

Do you offer half a sandwich to the co-worker with no lunch?

Do you offer to carry a senior’s groceries to their car?

Do you defend the faith when someone slanders the Church?

Do you take a stand for life? Marriage?

Do you hold the door open, or let it close in someone’s face?

Do you say thank you when you receive?

Do you wave when someone lets you into traffic?

As long as the list of sins I’ve committed is long, I’d bet that my list of sins of omission is just as long, if not longer.

Satan must kill himself laughing each time he sees us ignore the chance to do God’s will. This is his greatest secret. Daily we’re offered a multitude of opportunities to do God’s will, yet we choose to turn the other way. Lucifer doesn’t even have to lift a finger, and we quietly turn from God towards him.

To combat this, I’ve tried to consciously change the tactics of my examination of conscience. Not only do I reflect on the sins I have committed, I try to pick out the moments when I have failed to do good in the world. I look for the opportunities God gave me to be a witness to His love in the world and I failed to rise to the challenge. I confess these shortcomings and resolve to do better in the future.

In Defence of God's Holy Name

Dear Theophilous,

Waiting for a wayward student on the school bus a few years back, my colleague and I did a roll call to figure out who was missing. The bus was quiet, and about three-quarters of the way through the list there was no response to the name called. In the pregnant pause that followed, from somewhere in the back, came a loud, “Je*** Ch****! She’s always late.” To which I couldn’t help but immediately reply, “I’d rather you drop a holy f***, than what you just said if you’re going to swear at all!” Needless the dead silence that followed told me that I had gotten my point across.

You shall not invoke the name of the Lord, your God, in vain. Ex 20:7

Our Lord has a name that is so holy; it needs to be handled with caution. His name is so powerful, if not used properly; it can be dangerous for the one speaking it. The very mention of God’s name should give pause for reflection. The sound of the Lord’s name demands veneration. It is a name so sacred, He knows that we can’t even hear if from His own lips – when Moses asked God’s name in the burning bush, the answer was an enigmatic:

I am who I am. Ex 3:14

Some how, some where along the line, we seem to have lost this sense of the sacred. In western society in 2016, it’s not at all uncommon to hear a pejorative Je*** Ch****! or OM(F)G! at the drop of a hat, and nobody bats an eye.

Don’t get me wrong. There are still some circles where the name of God is still sacred; unmentionable. My experience is that this is among the more orthodox Jewish communities, many of who will still write G*d or Y*w*h to communicate His name without writing it. I think we have a thing or two to learn from this treatment of God’s name.

So how do we combat this de-sanctification of our Lord’s holy name? How do we change a world that seems bent on infuriating God? The same way it disintegrated… One soul at a time.

At the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Phil 2:10-11

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bend before me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.” Rom 14:11

On thing that I’ve started doing, in the hopes of at least making people aware of their words, is to change these pejorative utterances of our Lord’s name into a prayer with a simple: Blessed be His name forever! and then bow my head.

I’m not sure how much of an effect this is having, but I’m sure it’s unnerving a few people. My next step – when I get up the courage, will to begin genuflecting at the sound of the Lord’s name. I can just imagine the fun some in my extended family will have with this – but hopefully my perseverance will eventually pay off.

From Cafeteria to Google Catholic

Dear Theophilous,

I think we’ve all heard of the term Cafeteria Catholic; referring to the kind of person who picks and chooses which Church teachings to follow and ignoring the ones they’d rather do without. The term comes from the same kind of whimsical approach most of us take when getting lunch at the cafeteria; perhaps choosing the daily special over the cellophane wrapped sandwich, or maybe this time we’ll take the red Jell-O instead of the green.

The sad thing is, we all probably know of at least one Cafeteria Catholic. There’s Uncle Fred who likes to take his Eucharist without the obligatory side of yearly confession. Or maybe there’s your pew neighbour who’s there every week, she coos at the babies being baptized and loves Pope Francis, but she also thinks a woman should have the right to choose abortion.

Unfortunately, when we try to show these folks that Catholicism is a smorgasbord rather than a cafeteria, where every last teaching is to be not only eaten, but also savoured, we’re usually shouted down for trying to force-feed them.

Recently, however, I’ve noticed an even more disturbing trend when it comes to Catholic teaching; something I would like to call Google Catholicism.

Let me explain…

My brother-in-law is in the last year of his radiology residency. Like all doctors, although his speciality is radiology, during his residency he has had to do stints in all areas of medicine from paediatrics to gerontology and everything in between. Early on in his residency he spent some time in the ER of a major downtown hospital. When I asked him about this experience, he said the worst part was that most patients that came in had already self-diagnosed from the internet, and that they were telling him the treatment he was supposed to prescribe. It seems that 30 seconds on Google supersedes 12+ years (at that particular moment) of university education.

A parallel can be extended to the Catholic Church. Pope Francis, himself, even likened “the Church as a field hospital after battle.”

From having watched and meditated upon the goings-on at the recent Synod on the Family; it’s left me wondering if the Church is a field hospital where the patients, and in some cases even the nurses, are telling the surgeons what treatments to prescribe. Those who were once Cafeteria Catholics, who picked and chose which teachings of the Church to follow to suit their needs, have now become Google Catholics, telling the Church which teachings to change to suit their needs.

The biggest hullabaloo seemed to centre on the question of Communion for divorced and re-married Catholics. Although there is a recognition of a state of sin (cf Mt 19:3-8; Mk 10:2-9 and Lk 16:18), the proponents of this practice, and others, seem intent on flying in the face of Christ’s teachings. The Magisterium is right in saying that there are simply some teachings that cannot be changed, because they come from Christ Himself; yet there are still some, both inside and outside the Church, who insist they know better.

On this matter, as well as any other (especially homosexuality), the pat argument of the Google Catholic is to trot out the ubiquitous Pope Francis quote: “Who am I to judge?” Although correct in that we do not have the right of final judgement on a person’s soul, we do have a responsibility to judge each other’s actions so as to best help one another present the best case possible when it comes to our final judgement. Added to this problem is the fact that this quote is usually wildly misused, misunderstood and presented out of context. Pope Francis himself recently explained: "On that occasion I said this: If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person?" (cited in New Catholic Reporter) In this statement there is a notion of love for a sinner seeking mercy; a seeking out of the Lord and a willingness to follow in His ways of repentance.

Just as there is an inherent danger to our physical health when we self-diagnose and self-prescribe off the internet without the foundation of a sound medical education, so too is there an inherent danger to our spiritual health when we self-diagnose and self-prescribe for our sins. Being a Google Catholic can be great, if you allow it to open the doors to the smorgasbord of Catholic teaching. However, if you insist on being a Google Catholic to put yourself ahead of Christ and the 2000+ year cumulative teachings of the Church He founded – then you’re playing with fire.

What Would Jesus Do?

 

 

 

Dear Theophilus,

WWJD? What Would Jesus Do? The question is just about as ubiquitous as the colourful plastic bracelets. Unfortunately, I don’t think the majority of the people asking the question would be happy with the answer.

The question, WWJD? is usually followed by the questioner citing Christ: You shall love your neighbour as yourself, (Mt 22:39) or Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. (Jn 13:34) The intended meaning being that if you are a true Christian, then you will let others do whatever they please, not hold them up to a moral standard; that love must somehow equal permission.

This endemic problem stems from contemporary society’s habit to read their own perspective and opinion onto the sayings of Christ instead of reading what Christ has to say onto their perspective and opinion. As Michael Coren so aptly put it in his book Heresy, people are looking for God the Grandfather (doting and obliging) instead of God the Father (wise and guiding, yet firm with His love). We seem to have forgotten that sometimes love has to say, “No.”

The people who trot out the question, What Would Jesus Do? enrobing themselves in what they perceive to be the love of Christ, a love which will let them do their own will instead of God’s, are usually surprised by Jesus’ stronger words of love and what one should do:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Mt 5:17-19)

Guiding us to follow the Commandments God set out in His covenant with His people. That by following His law we will come to know greatness in heaven.

Christ also stated:

I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. (Lk 12:49-51)

The fire Christ promises is to purge us from our sinful ways. The division He brings is between those who choose to follow Him and those who reject His law.

I know that much of what I have just written would come across as being hardhearted. That, according to what many people in the world say today, I am being un-Christian. The crux of my point here returns to what I have already said, when we quote Christ saying Love your neighbour as yourself ; are we reading our own perspective onto Christ’s words, or are we reading His words onto our perspective? Do we really understand the true meaning of God’s love?

Christ’s love for us desires to bring us to an eternal wholeness, and this is a love He calls us to share with one another. Christ’s love strives to bring us out of our sinfulness and into the light of His ways, and this is the love that He calls us to share with one another. Christ’s love accepts us for who we are, yet challenges us to change for the better, to go and sin no more; and this is the love He calls us to share with one another.

In this light when we are faced with a moral dilemma, What Would Jesus Do? is a legitimate question to ask ourselves, and others. The question calls us to a higher moral standard; a divine moral standard at that. WWJD? demands that we mirror Christ’s love by keeping others from harm, calling them from their sinful ways. Perhaps the hardest thing of all for us to do when we strive to Do what Jesus did; is to judge sinful actions without being judgemental of the sinner.

The next time someone trying to argue for permission for their sinful ways tries to take the ethical upper hand by asking WWJD? followed by the usual Jesus quote: Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another; I will answer them as Jesus did: You are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. (Mt 22:29)