Cigarettes and Lollipops

I was visiting a parish, not too long ago, to participate in a Mass to St. Anthony, my late Italian grandmother Angelina’s favorite Saint, and my late father’s too.  In this humble little church, there was an elderly gentleman sitting all by himself in the pew in front of mine.  Next to him and his missalette, was a pack of Marlboros and some Dum-Dum lollipops in a Ziploc bag.  I used to smoke cigarettes years ago, Marlboros as well among other brands, and Dum-Dums are one of my favorite lollipops too.  I wasn’t exactly sure why he had this duo next to him, but I recall when I was trying to quit cigarettes, having lollipops as a substitute did wonders sometimes.  I cut myself a lot of slack trying to quit cigarettes, which I eventually did. Do I offer the same slack to my fellow Christians?

The 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time gave us a powerful reading on forgiveness, reminding us to be merciful to others, as God is with us.  When Jesus asks us to forgive and love our neighbor as ourself, He meant more than modern psychology thinking that teaches that our emotional well-being should take precedence above all else.  When Jesus said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself”, I think it’s safe to say there’s a hyperbole mixed in that command. I mean, Jesus used hyperbole quite often, why not in that statement too?  There is sarcasm in there to save us.

God goes on and on about how selfish we are throughout the entire Bible, from Genesis to the Apocalypse.  In fact, I would even compare “love thy neighbor as thyself” with the “saving” sarcasm of St. Paul, when he expresses his intense frustration with his fellow Jews, not yet accepting the New Covenant as himself and the early Apostles and disciples, thwarting the Gospel message he was preaching to the Galatians (Gentiles), where he sarcastically wishes they would go all the way and castrate themselves for troubling the Apostles and fledgling disciples for pushing circumcision on those they are converting to Christ (cf. Gal 5:12).

God’s complaint is steady with us to date.  We are not to be doormats with others,  but we must also not forget that Christ freely laid His life down. We follow a Lord who was anything but treated justly. We cut ourselves tremendous slack, but in the modern church, we are seemingly less merciful than ever; “forgiving everyone is only for the Pope and Mother Theresa,” seems to be the contemporary theme.  Like Pontius Pilate, we wipe our hands clean of all types of sins and remain “at large,” whether it is losing our temper (which when grows is akin to murder, according to Jesus), being an accomplice by remaining silent when witnessing evil, glancing with lust (which is adultery of the heart, according to Jesus), or voting for a politician that winks at abortion or propagates it.  We coddle and pat ourselves on the back as “good people.”

As the saintly Venerable Archbishop Sheen stated to many inmates when visiting a prison years ago: “The only difference between us is that you got caught, I didn’t”. The inmates chuckled, for they knew with the Venerable Bishop that we are under the same sentence. Imagine that, if anyone had the right to cry innocence in our past century, it was the kind, integrated Archbishop Sheen, yet he considered himself no less or more than inmates. It’s the truth at the end of the day. We pull out all the stops for ourselves, why not for others? (cf. Luke 23:40).

God asks us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Notice the “neighbor” part receives the first balloting.  Jesus could just as easily have said, “Love yourself as your neighbor” but he didn’t.  Why?  Well, partly because we generally don’t love our neighbor as we should, and our neighbor isn’t necessarily our neighbor next door, but the “slowpoke” in front of us holding up traffic while “making” us late for work.  The Lord is emphasizing we pull out all the stops for ourselves and we should cut others some slack too. Even St Paul reveals this when admonishing us men how we are to love our wives in the following quote from Paul in Ephesians 5:29, “see no man ever hates his own flesh, but he nourishes it and cherishes it.”  The word  “pamper” is used in some translations.  We make all kinds of excuses for the wrongs we do. We pamper ourselves all the time. We get impatient and justify it by pointing out the impatience of others.  We deflect our sins after a hard day at work by watching all the “bad” people on the news.

The most we may do beyond our penance, is the gentle patting (not beating) of the breast at the Confiteor at Mass.  Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.  We state as we gently pat our chest like a weary King Kong with our right hand, and practically drop the missalette with the other, as we yawn with boredom at Mass.  Again, the bishops are quite coddling us nowadays, in more ways than one.  Years ago, the Confirmandi would receive an actual slap to the face upon being confirmed, to prepare one for the persecution ahead in following Jesus. Now?  Not much more than a touch to the face if anything beyond the anointing.

Just like the dispensation to eat corned beef and cabbage during Lent, we make all types of excuses.  We cover our own tracks and our misdeeds, but we will not cover our neighbors’ tracks. No, we’ll bring them to lawsuits. We will literally destroy the house they live in. We will destroy their reputation with superfluous gossip and detraction, sometimes even calumny just to get “our feelings met” or “get it off our chest,” as we arrogantly apologize with no remorse. However, we will always cover our own tricks and tracks, and then we teach our children to do the very same; Catholics sue one another.

St. Paul was furious when he heard of fellow believers bringing their problems within the community to the courts to be disputed by unbelievers and the very people who oppress Christians, the Romans.  He does use the qualifier trivial cases, in regard to disputes. Later he states to have lawsuits at all is to defeat oneself regarding being followers of Christ, similar to two Catholics going to court today (with seculars arbitrating, similar to the getting the Romans involved) over a tree falling on a fence in their yard or the like.  Could Paul even be going so far as to mean any and all types of lawsuits?  It seems he is. In 1 Cor 6: 1-8, Paul’s main message is not only to knock off the disputes but to handle these matters, big or small, on our own. Find a mediator within the church to arbitrate the matter, no matter how grave, and help the Christians keep peace, forgive and work it out. How about a Grand Knight in the K of C?  How about the Deacon?  How about the Priest?

When one of you has a grievance against a brother, does he dare to go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?  …To have lawsuits at all with one another is to defeat you.  Why not rather suffer wrong?  Why not rather be defrauded?  But you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren.

This is no “outdated” stuff.  This applies here and now.

In this past 26th Sunday’s readings, we see God getting right on it telling us that our way isn’t fair, His way is the right way.  Ezk 18: 25-28.  As we move through the Mass, we see us taking the form of a beggar in prayer, embodying David’s humble pleas before God for mercy (Ps 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9).  Remember your mercies Lord is our response.  “The sins of my youth and my frailties remember not,” we ask the Lord again and again for forgiveness.

St. Paul then addresses the early Christian community of the Philippians to “be of the same mind… and here’s the clencher that encapsulates this whole message, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.”  Although charity begins in the home, and we naturally are obligated and desirous to take care of our families first, is St Paul asking us to go beyond the Christian community, that we even see “Gentiles” or “outsiders” in the same light?  Is Jesus asking us to do the same?

Even though we are to forgive, that doesn’t mean recklessly not discriminating, for as Pope Paul VI stated, “If you want peace, work for justice.”  I think it’s also safe to say the “main” theme Jesus is getting at is balance in “love thy neighbor as thyself.” If there are no goalposts, there are no rules.  If there is no penalty, no purgatory, and worst of all no Hell, then “anything goes,” as is the society we’re in now.  “Cutting someone too much slack can lead one to hang oneself,” as the saying goes.  Like lavishing an addict with a bankroll of money and telling them it’s to aid them in getting back on their feet, for example.  In 1 Cor. 5: 1-11, St Paul even goes on to tell his early community to expel a brother if he is living in immorality, lest he destroy the community from within and cause scandal to others.  Charity does indeed begin in the home.  A type of early excommunication, the penalty box pain can lead one to repentance!

As well, St Paul teaches us in Romans 13 about how we are to view authority, do you wish to be free from fear of him who is in authority? 

Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good.  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.  Therefore, one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for conscience’s sake (Rom 13: 3-5).

Here, we can see that St Paul is clearly seriously considering the common welfare of mankind beyond the early Christian communities.

As The Catechism of The Catholic Church 2266 states:

The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good.  Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense.  Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense.  When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation.  Punishment, then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.

So, in a certain way, just like where Jesus says to “love thy neighbor as thyself,” there is apparently an admonition to be kind to ourselves, so too, the secondary effect of putting a malefactor in prison has the effect of “doing good to those who maltreat you” but this is not the emphasis of this statement by Christ.  The main message is to roll out the red carpet for our enemies with forgiveness, like St John Paul II who forgave his attempted assassin in prison.  We don’t deserve forgiveness, so we imitate Christ and forgive even if our neighbor, however evil, has harmed us.

Finally, we turn to Christ alone with his ongoing voice, His Church, being here St Paul which tells us earlier on how to handle matters… interestingly, this precedes the following Gospel reading from Mass.  Here we have the lawgiver Himself telling us how to handle things in the Church, and beyond. Even if we don’t have a church at hand with an arbitrator willing to handle it, we would be wise to follow this method as Christians in my belief, even in everyday affairs.

Jesus tells us to use a four-step method (Jesus likes to use small, basic 1-4 step methods, I’ve noticed):

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the Church, and if he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector (Matt 18: 15-17).

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”  Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven (Mt 18:21, 22).

I will end with a story. A long time ago two hermit monks left their community for business.  In this rare circumstance of going into town, one of the monks was tempted and gave into sin with a prostitute while the other took care of legalities for the community and gathered rations.  The guilty party confessed to the other as they were returning.  He also told him that he was afraid and ashamed to go back to the community after committing such a crime and embarrassed to tell the abbot.  Upon arriving home to the monastery, before the guilty monk could say a word, the innocent monk approached the abbot and bravely stated that he slept with a prostitute and proceeded to ask forgiveness.  The other monk was dumbfounded and couldn’t even muster a word.  Later he asked, “Why did you do that?”  The innocent monk replied, “Our Lord took on our sins and was punished, and he was innocent.  We follow Christ, why wouldn’t I?”