Jesus Visits Martha and Mary

How many times do you just stop and say to yourself, "Life will be victorious"? If you have faith, it will be so for you. You deserve it. Believe you do. Think of possibilities. Imagine yourself receiving from the universe all you ever dream of. Life will be awesome, and you will enjoy every moment of it. Rest in this knowledge, and be like Mary. Wait patiently at the feet of the master. Open your heart and receive. Bob Marley would sing, "Don't worry about a thing. Because every little thing's gonna be alright." Relax, and take life easy. Are you upset, agitated, confused; is your blood pressure going up - are you stressed out? Just take it easy. Breathe deeply, exhale; get off your feet - go get a massage or something. Sit down and listen. Listen to the birds sing, to the running streams; feel your own pulse. Breathe again, and smile. Know that "every little thing's gonna be alright."

 

I know there's work to do; your boss is riding you. You've got lots of commitments, tons of stuff to do. You feel you can't take it easy. You feel as if you're on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. You're screaming inside - can someone help! "Lord, ask my sister to come and help me," Martha exclaimed. She could not understand it. Here she was, frantically busy with the cooking and the serving and the cleaning and everything, and there was Mary seated and listening to Jesus. Crazy. "Do you not care that Mary refuses to help me?" Could Jesus not see that it was all unfair? Why do I have to file all these documents? Why is it always I who has to take out the garbage? Why can't I get a freaking break! God, where are you - I'm stressed the hell out!

 

"And Jesus said to her, 'Martha, you are concerned and disturbed about many things'" (Lk 10:41). How true this is for many of us. We lead very active lives. We juggle two or three jobs with raising a family and being responsible for our aging parents. We are overwhelmed with financial and relationship issues. Indeed, we are concerned and disturbed about many things. And how can we not be? There are bills to pay; there are obligations to fulfill; there are standards to maintain. We have a reputation to protect and uphold. We feel justified to be so concerned. Yet, Jesus says, "But only one thing is necessary; Mary has chosen that valuable thing, and it shall not be taken from her" (v42). The rushing about and hustling; the frantic chasing and bustling; the brouhaha and scurrying - none of this matters. Only one thing does: sitting at Jesus' feet.

 

But what does it mean to sit at the feet of the master? What does it mean to go after the one thing that is truly important? It means contemplative humility. What is contemplative humility? It is the acceptance of our human limitations, based on the recognition of our dependence on God. Philippians 4:13 acknowledges that we can do everything, but only through Christ that gives us the strength. We cannot simply take the first part of the verse, the part about our being able to do everything, without paying attention to the latter part of it, which supplies the impetus of such ability - the strength that comes from the divine. While Martha was busy tasking her human strength to meet the occasion of Jesus' visit, Mary was leaning on the everlasting gift of the savior's strength.

 

This strength is a spiritual one. It is strength of mind, what philosophers call nous. This nous is the principle of the universe, which Aristotle would call the agent intellect. It inspires all of creation. It is the principle of harmony, of unity and of all that is good. We taste of it when we contemplate the divine presence. We sense its rhythm when we pray. It is all around us. The song-writer says of this abiding spirit: "It's all over me; it's moving me around." It is the power of the Holy Spirit, embedded in the word of God. Jesus declares, "The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (John 6:63b). And the strength they impart is responsible for the conduct of everything moral, everything just, everything needful for the salvation of our souls.

 

We connect with the nous through our own intellect. For Aristotle, when our intellect aligns perfectly with the agent intellect, we experience indescribable beatitude, similar to the heaven we know of as Christians. The agent intellect, nous, speaks to our own intellect imparting messages of peace and consolation, revealing visions of success and joy. The mind of God speaks to our own mind and makes us believe that everything will be alright; makes us realize that we are not alone, that our future will be glorious. When we receive such beatific vision; when we heed such consoling message; when we accept such soothing communication - we rest in the peace it affords, and we do begin to believe in the potential of a bright future. We begin to truly hope that life will be victorious. And this hope wells up within us and drowns out all negativity, doubt, worry and stress.

 

But we must listen. We must place ourselves close enough to the source of the healing message; we must place ourselves within earshot of this communication. We must, like Mary, sit close to Jesus and listen attentively in humble contemplation to his healing message. We must choose the necessary thing. We cannot afford to be like Martha, distracted by all the mundane and material things of this world. We cannot afford to be blinded by the hullaballoo of commonplace existence. We cannot be so wrapped up in chasing material comforts that we lose sight of the heavenly vision that endures even after everything else has faded. The song-writer declares: "I'm coming back to the heart of worship, and it's all about you, Jesus." Indeed, humble contemplation leads to a similar declaration. It is and should always be all about Jesus.

 

The lyrics of the song include this pertinent line: "I'm sorry for the thing I've made it when it's all about you, Jesus." What are the things that we've made to be more important than our relationship with the master? What are the things we've put first instead of the Lord? Money? Relationships? Material success? What have we made idols of? When have we been like Martha and distracted ourselves with mundane things when we should have been focusing on Jesus, on his divine word? Are there times in our lives when we chased after the trappings of material success and ignored the call to focus on spiritual wholeness; hankered after physical reality and ignored the beatitude of the spiritual? Jesus reminds us: Only one thing is necessary. And it is to be found in humble contemplation; in sitting close to Jesus and listening to him speak the words of eternal wisdom, nous, into our open hearts; words of consolation and peace.

 

So let us not worry too much about worldly matters. Recall what Jesus said concerning the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, who neither toil nor fret, and yet are taken care of by the divine providence (Matt 6:25-34). Similarly, we should cast all our worries on the Lord (1 Pet 5:7), who always cares for us. Let us not stress ourselves out over things we cannot change or resolve. Whenever we have done our best, we should leave the rest to God. "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? If you cannot do this, then why worry at all?" (Lk 12: 25-26). Jesus calls us again and again to let go and let God, as the saying goes. Again, the Alcoholics Anonymous pray "Grant me Lord the strength to change the things I can; the serenity to accept the things I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two." Serenity and wisdom - ring a bell? Sounds to me like humble contemplation, the type that Mary had as she sat at the feet of the master with open heart and ears.

 

Jesus went a-visiting today to the house of Martha and Mary. They were his friends, and he loved to visit them. Martha was being hospitable, which is not at all a bad thing - we all should be hospitable. But there is more than one way to show hospitality to our friends. Martha chose to busy herself with cooking and cleaning and serving - mundane things - while Mary chose to sit at Jesus' feet and listen patiently to him. Martha was overwhelmed and complained, asking Jesus to instruct Mary to help with the cooking and cleaning and serving. Jesus said Mary had chosen better by listening rather than doing all the mundane stuff with which Martha was overburdened. We like Mary should never overwhelm ourselves with the cares of this passing world, but realize instead that, through humble contemplation, we can align our minds to the eternal wisdom and behold thereby the beatific vision of a glorious afterlife in heaven with Jesus and the saints.

Displaying Humility in Interpersonal Relationships

In an episode of Family Guy, Cleveland moves away from Spooner Street and Peter, Joe, and Quagmire are in need of a new friend. Brian overhears Peter expressing this need and volunteers to be the friend so desired, to which Peter responds: "Oh sorry, Brian; I don't think it's possible you know, because of the whole Quagmire thing." "What Quagmire thing?" Brian asks. "Oh you know," Peter replies, "just that he hates you." "Quagmire hates me? Why would Quagmire hate me?" Brian demands. "You know, because you're annoying." Brian is not convinced, and so he tricks Quagmire into having dinner with him, so as to make Quagmire like him. The dinner turns out to be a disaster, with Quagmire ending up hating Brian even more. And when Brian returns home from the outing depressed, Stewie tries to cheer him up. Stewie makes a very important remark: "You don't need Quagmire to like you. In fact, you need only one person to like you, and that is you. Besides, Brian, I like you, and that makes two."

 

We all need only one person to like us, and that is each of us. We need never get worried when it seems that we are lacking friends or companions. Some spiritualists say we don't even need God to like us, because we are God to ourselves in some sense, and if we like ourselves, that definitely means that God likes us. This is true, but there is an involved theology here, which I will not explain today. Today, I simply want to talk about displaying humility in interpersonal relationships. I want to explore the condition very many people face of not finding friends they can rely on, or liking people that refuse to like them in return. Perhaps I too had this problem in the past, but since I began to understand the concept of sacrifice I have grown from it.

 

Liking someone is like having a food truck. You prepare the meals, such as tacos, enchiladas and so forth, and stock the truck up, and then you drive through the neighborhood announcing your wares. Some may come and buy, some definitely will not. Some buy because they are hungry. Some others buy because they have heard of your possibly good reputation. A few others buy because they are drawn to you. The reasons people buy are many, and so are the reasons people do not buy. We can never know why or why not people buy. All we can do is make the food, stock up the truck and drive around the neighborhood announcing our wares. We cannot at any point park the truck, grab a few of the tacos or enchiladas or whatever and begin to chase after customers who refuse to buy, trying to force them to, as if they owed us a duty to purchase our wares.

 

Relationships are like that. Sometimes we like a person but they don't like us back, and we worry and complain; we say we lack friends. We pout and throw tantrums: But why won't they like me! As if these people were obligated in some way to like us. We wish we could enter their minds in some way and try to find out why or why not they like us; we probably act like Brian earlier, and trick them into going out with us, just so we can ply them with questions and try to unearth the reason for their not returning our supposedly generous feelings toward them. All this is unnecessary. The moment we realize that the reasons for other people not being friendly toward us are many and unknowable, the moment we begin to relax and not worry so much.

 

Also these many reasons very often have nothing to do with us. They usually have to do with the people that do not care about us: they may be petty, or jealous, or mean. Indeed they often are, or maybe they cannot deal with the good things in our lives. Whatever the reason, it is very often to do with them, and not with us. Besides, there are some so-called friendships that are best over with anyway. There are some individuals you used to be friends with whom when you think of how and why you were friends with them in the first place you cannot begin to make sense of it. When you come face to face with their pettiness, jealousy and meanness you thank God they are out of your life once and for all. The absence of some people from your life is a blessing to always thank God for. I mean, it's like you wake up in the morning and get on your knees quickly and say, "Thank you God for removing this person from my life. Then you progressively enjoy the freedom and lightness of heart that their removal from your life brings.

 

With certain individuals we need psychological distance. Have you ever noticed that there are some people who, when you see them, you just get depressed? You may be having an awesome day, but as soon as these individuals pass by, it's like you're beginning to choke. Spirit killers you may call them, and the farther the psychological distance you have from them the better for both you and them. We can't be friends with everyone, and everyone can't be friends with us. In a previous post I talked about participatory frameworks. Some people have participatory frameworks developed in the context of backgrounds that are so very different from ours that they cannot even begin to gel with ours. There simply are no common grounds, and nature realizes this and so separates us from the get-go, and whenever we come into contact, nature inspires us to implement a separation again.

 

That's why there are different geographical spaces  on earth to accommodate different energies, and different ideologies to accommodate different spirits and keep them perennially separate. It's the same with relationships. And humility consists in realizing this fact. You see, participatory frameworks are complete in themselves. Each unit of energy is complete in itself, and participates ideally not for what it can gain, but for what it can share. Communication is sharing; relationship is sharing, of ideas, feelings and the like. Getting into a relationship simply to mooch off of someone is dangerous, and feeling rejected because your caring is not reciprocated is dangerous as well. It is pride to assume that your attentions toward someone are so appreciated that they must pay you back.

 

Jesus has something to say about expecting rewards. He says that when you invite people to a dinner party you're throwing, don't invite those that can invite you back. Rather, he insists, invite those that cannot invite you in return so that your reward will be in heaven (Lk 14:12-14). Displaying humility in interpersonal relationships therefore means: firstly, you realize that relationships involve sharing and not taking. We do not enter into relationships to mooch off of others and satisfy our needs and cravings. Displaying humility in interpersonal relationships also means we go about caring for others, without expecting others to care for us in return. It means that we realize that we as participatory frameworks are created by God to be complete in ourselves and so we need only ourselves to love us. Displaying humility in relationships further means that we thank God that some people are actually not close to us, and for our own good, because of the incompatibility of our participatory frameworks. Displaying humility also means that we sacrifice disappointment or loneliness in exchange for trust in the divine providence to supply all our emotional needs, and knowledge that there is an eternal reward in the afterlife for those that do good however unrewarded in this life.

 

"Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over shall be poured into your lap. For the measure you give, you shall receive" (Lk 8:38). What this means is that rather than staying at home pining about being lonely or whatever, we should get up and go about doing good, spreading love, knowing that Jesus, who does not lie, has assured us that the love we give will return to us abundantly. Also, there is a saying: Nemo dat quod non habet, which means: No one gives what they do not have. This means that when you give, you are spiritually affirming that you have, and that affirmation will bring the reality about. Feeling needy of love? Give love, and keep giving. The need will go away. But the satisfaction will not come from people; it will come from God.

 

You can't please people. You must have heard of the story of a man and his daughter going on a journey with their donkey. Initially, the man rode and his daughter walked. People they passed along the way criticized: "Look at that selfish man. He rides comfortably on the donkey while his delicate daughter walks along on foot. Imagine the cruelty!" The man heard this criticism and was embarrassed. He got down from the donkey and helped the daughter on. As they continued along the road, some other people criticized: "Look at that selfish daughter. She rides comfortably on the donkey, while the old man walks on foot. Such disrespect!" The man and his daughter, to please the people, both got onto the donkey. As the progressed along their journey, still more people complained: "Look at this man and his daughter, both of them are riding on this frail donkey. Such wickedness!" The man and his daughter both got off the donkey and walked by it, to which a few more people they met along the way said: "Look at this foolish man and his daughter - they have a donkey, but refuse to ride it!"

 

True charity - agapo - is loving others in spite of the fact that we realize they cannot love us back. It is altruism, selfless and humble service for the sake of God, and for the other's own good. It is charity in secret, not in the open like the Pharisees do, but only so that "God who sees in secret will reward us" (Matt 6:1-8). I recall when I lived in Wichita for a year unemployed. I had just finished my Master's program and was waiting for my PhD admission to materialize. It was a long and lonely period for me at first. This is because I sat at home day in and day out waiting to hear back from the schools I had applied to. When this condition became unbearable, I decided to go and volunteer at the local animal shelter. It proved to be a rewarding experience. I got to leave the house often, to meet people and make new acquaintances. Plus I felt heavenly reward for all the good I did for the animals at the shelter. Something else happened. I had a friend that owned a dog and before I began to work at the shelter, anytime I went to visit this friend the dog was hostile, but after I had worked at the shelter for awhile, whenever I went to visit this friend the dog was friendly, and I used to wonder if it could sense that I was serving its fellow dogs at the shelter, and so was being friendly.

 

When we feel lonely or needy of love, we should begin to give love without expecting anything in return - indeed, the reason I write this blog is to give love to those who read it - and I never get any love in return, but God consoles me. "I look up to the hills; from where will come my consolation? It will come from God the maker of heaven and earth" (Psalm 121:1). I know that God cares for me, because I care for myself. "The lord shall provide for my need, according to the divine riches and glory, and will give angels charge all over me; Jehovah Jireh cares for me" (Phil 4:19). In many instances in the bible, God encourages us to care and give without asking for anything in return, trusting that the divine providence will replenish us with blessings. For example, the bible says that whoever gives even a cup of water to someone will not go unrewarded (Mark 9:41), because "the Lord is near unto all those that call upon the divine will in truth" (Psalm 145:18).

 

We have been talking about displaying humility in interpersonal relationships. We have said that we should not enter into relationships out of need, or in order to gain something. We have said that it is rather like laying out wares for prospective customers without forcing them to buy. We have shown that it is proud to demand recompense for charity we have shown to others; to trick or cajole others into loving us or requiting our affections and to complain of loneliness. We have learnt to instead do things altruistically and selflessly, and humbly, trusting in the reward from God in the afterlife and in the satisfaction that God always takes care of us and is near to us. We should also realize that as participatory frameworks we are complete in ourselves, wonderfully made to perfection (Psalm 139:14), and we need only one person to love us: us.

 

Between Pride and Humility: Exploring the Artistic and the Scientific Minds

Let's continue to talk about humility, a very important concept. Yesterday, we showed humility to begin with loving God, and to consist in simplicity, sensitivity, selflessness and sanctity. Today, we will explore its mechanics, by talking about the concepts of artistic and scientific minds. Humility in this sense is replacing the artistic mind with the scientific one. Now, when I use the word scientific here I don't mean theoretical science, and I do not as well refer to the fine arts when I use the word artistic. These two sorts of minds can be possessed by anyone, whatever their talents be. Individuals who are skilled in the fine arts and humanities - who like to draw or write or sing - can have fully trained scientific minds, and individuals skilled in the theoretical sciences - who like to calculate and measure and experiment - can very well have artistic minds.

 

An artistic mind is one that is inchoate. It is an immature mind. It is grounded in imagination rather than fact, in possibility rather than actuality. In Aristotle's epistemology, the process of knowing begins with gathering sense data, then forming mental images of them - also called imagination - and finally intellection, also called understanding. In other words, we begin by using any of our five senses - sight, sound, touch, taste and smell - to gather data from our environment, and then we form mental images of these data; in order words we imagine, or form phantasms, and eventually through cogitation we understand. What all this means is that there has to be an intellectual progression from mere sense perception, to imagination, and ultimately to intellection for us to know or understand anything. If this progression is not complete - if say, we stop at imagination without taking the further step to intellection - we hinder our understanding. Minds that rarely or only sometimes complete this progression are inchoate ones, and are artistic. On the other hand, minds that always or most of the time complete the progression from sense perception to intellection are scientific minds. All this has nothing to do with IQ. A very smart person may very well have an artistic mind, whereas a very dumb person may have a scientific one.

 

Another way to think about the difference between a scientific and an artistic mind is to recall the concept of emotional quotient. An artistic mind has a low emotional quotient, whereas a scientific mind has a high EQ. The value of having a high EQ cannot be overemphasized, and so it is preferable to have a scientific mind rather than an artistic one. Let's take the discussion further. Think of a baby's mind. It is very artistic, because it is still developing. A baby is narcissistic, demanding and emotional. When it is hungry it begins to cry - notice that I use the pronoun "it" to refer to a baby, just like I would an animal. I think the reason we refer to babies and animals by "it" is that they do not possess the necessary power of reason that teenagers and even more so adults do. And reason is the only variable that separates humans from animals. Humans are rational animals. When a baby wakes up in the morning and does not immediately see its mother, it begins to cry very loudly, "Waa, waa, waa!" The mother might be sleeping after a tough, long day, but the baby does not even give a crap. All the baby knows is that it is hungry, and so it continues to cry until the mother rushes to feed it. Recall the episode of Family Guy where Lois was resting in bed after a hard-day's work, and Stewie began to wail, "Mama, mama, mama!" Until Lois, very irritated, squealed "What!" Babies care only about themselves. They are insensitive to others. They do not care whether their parents are tired. When babies are hungry, they cry until they get what they want. Also think of the way babies play. Sometimes they want a toy or something, and someone else has it. A baby has no boundaries. They can simply grab another person's stuff and hang on to it, crying and causing a fit. They want the toy or whatever it is, and they imagine someone should let them have it. They do not understand the concept of respect for other people's property.

 

More so, a toddler's attention span is short. How many babies for example can sit through an hour-long class on anything - science, computers, gardening, knitting - anything? None. Not without falling asleep or crying, or crawling about. Even elementary school children cannot sit through such an hour-long session. Children and teens need frequent excitement. I have taught these youngsters and I know that to keep their attention I have to be creative: tell stories, sing songs and play games. I have also taught at the university level, and I've not had to be so creative, because the attention span of adults is longer. Using the analogy of babies, I have been so far able to adduce the characteristics of an artistic mind: it is emotional and unstable; it has a short attention span and so is impatient; it is immodest; it is insensitive, and it is immature or inchoate. Next, think of the mind of an adult, especially say, a sixty-year-old retired pastor's. Such a mind is, as they say, cool, calm and collected. You would never find a mature mind crying loudly for food like a baby would. Having lived long enough in the world and observed how things operate, a mature mind knows that it's really not cool to manipulate others with tears simply to get what one wants. A mature mind also knows that the world does not revolve around them and so they need to be sensitive to other people. A mature mind would never see another person tired from a hard-day's job and begin to yell, "Mama, mama, mama!" A mature mind would never latch onto another person's property and begin to throw tantrums till the other person let them have it. A mature mind would not simply fall asleep or cause trouble in an hour-long seminar or class simply because of a short attention span - all this especially if the mature mind was a virtuous or philosophic one.

 

A mature, virtuous, philosophic mind is a scientific mind, while an immature, unstable, non-philosophic one is artistic. The former is well trained, balanced and sound, while the latter is scattered all over the place or unstable. The scientific mind understands, but the artistic mind imagines. The mature mind completes the process of intellection by allowing sense data to pass from the organs all the way to the intellect, while the artistic mind stops short at imagination. The scientific mind exercises the human power of reason, while the artistic mind doesn't. The scientific mind has a high emotional quotient, while the artistic mind has a low EQ. The scientific mind is thoughtful, while the artistic mind is emotional and overly sentimental. A scientific mind is by far preferable to an artistic one, and is more human.

 

But how do scientific and artistic minds relate to humility and pride? Yesterday, we said that humility starts with respecting God, and displaying in our lives the virtues of simplicity, sensitivity, selflessness and sanctity. All of this is only possible through the exercise of reason; but we have already shown that the artistic mind lacks this necessary rational exercise, and so we deduce that to the extent a mind is artistic, to the same extent is it unable to respect God and display simplicity, sensitivity, selflessness and sanctity - in short to be humble. Conversely, because we have seen the scientific mind to be endowed with the rational capacity, it is manifestly able to respect God and display the four aspects of humility. So, whereas the artistic mind is proud, the scientific one is humble. The artistic mind is grasping, while the scientific mind is simple because of its understanding of property; the artistic mind is insensitive, but the scientific mind is sensitive; the artistic mind is selfish and egocentric, but the scientific mind is selfless, and the artistic mind doesn't even know what sanctity means, whereas the scientific mind does.

 

When a mind is not fully developed, it remains to the extent it isn't an artistic one. Artistic minds are prone to error, criminality and self-destruction. Because of their low emotional quotient, artistic minds find it relatively easier to hurt others and themselves. Adults who are psychologically immature have artistic minds. Somewhere in the process of their human psychosexual development, these adults were unable to exchange a propensity for imagination with one for intellection. They became trapped in inchoate emotions of greed, envy, fear, anxiety, insecurity and so forth. They were unable to embrace an attitude of understanding. They never learnt to think with their heads, but only with their hearts. Perhaps their childhood or early adulthood was full of trauma, trauma so inescapable that they never lived through or moved past it. And so subsequent events began to be experienced through the tinted vision of these horrific pasts. So for example, a girl was sexually assaulted multiple times by a relative, and subsequently is unable to trust men and have healthy relationships with them, and so remains unmarried even at age 50, even though everyone hears her say her greatest wish is to have a loving home. Such a woman always interprets potential relationships with men based on her imagination, rather than actual understanding; based on phantasms or mental pictures sourced from her earlier horrific experience. For every mental proposal of bliss with a potential partner, scenes from the old experience arise to block and drown out any hope of success in relationships, and so she remains single even at 50, never understanding that one bad experience is not categorically generalizable; always imagining that because she suffered at the hands of one man, she would suffer at the hands of everyone else.

 

Artistic minds are sick. Some are sicker than others. These minds are proud because they are insensitive, complicated, selfish and unclean, but they are also sick. Healthy minds conversely understand. They know the value of simplicity, sensitivity, selflessness and sanctity, and so choose to be humble. These are scientific minds. Artistic minds on the other hand are unable to make such a choice. Think of a healthy body going out to exercise, and then of a sick body that is unable to run or jog or do any other form of exercise. Similarly, unlike a scientific mind, an artistic mind is unable to be simple, selfless, sensitive and saintly because it is sick and incapacitated. Mental pathology is a serious issue in the field of psychology, but also in spirituality - recall that I said in a previous post that spirituality can handle all what psychology can.

 

In the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 5, verses 1-20, Jesus and his disciples went to the region of Gerasene, and there they met a demoniac. This fellow had a sick mind. The bible states that "he had been dwelling among the tombs," (v4) and had resisted every attempt to subdue him, breaking off binding chains, and cutting himself with sharp rocks. When he caught sight of Jesus, this possessed individual pleaded to be left alone. He called himself Legion because he contained within himself many evil spirits. If this man lived in our day and had no faith in spirituality, he would be taken to a psychiatric ward and kept under lock and key. His body would be plied with many psychotropic drugs and he would probably experience some relief - laborare est orare; working is praying - but a man of faith could also exorcise and set him loose faster, which is exactly what Jesus did. The Lord forced the evil spirits out of the man and into a herd of swine that subsequently all committed suicide. Perhaps that would have been the demoniac's fate. Eventually, the evil spirits would have driven the poor man to kill himself, like the pigs did.

 

In our time, many people suffer from many psychological diseases; afflictions of the soul, such as: depression, mania, hysteria, anxiety, loneliness, insecurity, grief, chronic anger, and so on. Psychiatry has a thousand and one diagnoses for these conditions, ranging from bipolar disorder through ADHD, and on to PTSD. Visit psychiatric wards and see for yourself the suffering among inmates there. It used to be even worse in the past. In 17th Century Europe, mentally challenged individuals were treated even worse than cows, pigs and horses. These unfortunate, artistic minds suffer terribly. Now, not every artistic mind is that bad. There is a gradation with regard to both artistic and scientific minds. For scientific minds, the higher the grade the better. So, a more scientific mind is more blessed: more stable, more sensitive, more astute, more understanding, more holy - more humble and better. Conversely, a more artistic mind is more cursed, more bedeviled: more emotional, more unstable, more insensitive, more complicated, more wicked - more proud, and more devilish, especially as Lucifer is as proud as they come.

 

A criminal may not be remanded in a psychiatric ward, but he or she has an artistic mind nonetheless. Such a person is so proud that they feel they are entitled to take another person's property by force, quite like a baby that latches onto another person's toy and demands to be given it. A gossip or a troublemaker, or a perpetually angry person, or a lonely person; or a person suffering from chronic depression - all these people may not be in jail or in a psychiatric ward somewhere, but they all have artistic minds. They cause hurt to themselves and to others. There was once a set  of twins, let's call them Freyer and Alice. Freyer was always bubbly and optimistic and sporty. She was a cheerleader and a member of the female basketball team. Her grades were good and she was homecoming queen. Her twin Alice on the other hand was moody, short-tempered and lazy. Her grades were poor and she was disinterested in sports and pretty much everything else. Alice brought untold pain and sorrow to her parents and her sister, and especially to herself. It hurt her to get out of bed every morning. She imagined that she was going to have a bad day everyday, and her negative, pessimistic actions nearly always made sure of that. Freyer on the other hand understood that if she stayed positive and worked hard, she would always succeed.

 

Many times Alice went to the school counselor's office, and the counselor would ask her why she always had such bad grades. Alice would say it was because her attention span was poor. At the start of the semester, on the first day of class, she would be quite excited. The new subjects would intrigue her. But half-way into the term, she would lose all desire to go on. Artistic minds are like that. They are quick to start something, but they never finish. They are like monkeys, jumping from one tree branch to another, without stopping long enough to perch on any of them. Scientific minds on the other hand are like butterflies. They stop long enough on a flower and suck the nectar slowly. When they are done sucking, they can then gracefully move on to another flower and stay there long enough as well to suck the nectar. I know someone who definitely has an artistic mind. Something very terrible happened to this person when he was a child, and so life has been tough for him. This person has never graduated college, never married, never held down a job for more than a couple months at a time, and depends on others for sustenance at age 37. This person imagines that life will always be tough, and fails to understand that with effort and determination he can succeed.

 

Jesus had something to say about starting something without finishing. He recommended that before anyone embarked on any project, such a person was to take stock of the requirements for such project and determine if he or she had them. If not, the person could start building and not finish and would then be the laughing stock of passersby who would say: here is a person that started to build but could not finish (Lk 14:28-30). Taking stock of the requirements for a task means that we endeavor to understand everything the task entails and find in ourselves the potential to meet these requirements. We should not simply imagine that because others are doing it we can as well, or negatively, because others are unable to do it, we might as well give up. Some of the things that hold us back are simply imaginations based on negative emotions; dredging up phantasms to confirm our erroneous beliefs: "My father died, and so I have no support and therefore cannot succeed"; or, "I am the son of a common janitor, and so I can never attend Yale." Or, "I am not very smart and so I cannot pass my exams." A scientific mind rather says, "Even though my dad is dead and it seems I have no support, God is helping me and so I can progress," or, "Even though my dad is a janitor, his own IQ does not define mine, plus scholarships are available to meet the cost of going to Yale if I do very well on the entrance tests," or still again, "Even though I am not that smart, I can study very hard and pass my exams." In each case, understanding prevails over imagination in the scientific mind and leads it on to success.

 

A scientific mind is successful. A scientific mind starts something and nine out of ten times finishes it. A scientific mind has positive relationships. A scientific mind is optimistic and entrepreneurial. A scientific mind is a blessing to themselves and others. A scientific mind is modest. We all want to be successful; we want to start something and finish it. We want to see the actualization of our hopes and dreams; to have positive relationships, and manage affairs. We want to be humble, and liked by others, and respected too. We want to enjoy life, and not be oppressed by the sorrows of the unstable, emotional artistic mind. We don't want to experience sadness, or loneliness or any mental challenges. We want our souls to be healthy. And so we all desire a scientific mind. But how can we replace an artistic mind with a scientific one? How can we grow from being a baby to being an adult, especially a philosophical one? How can we develop our EQ? How can we replace pride with humility?

 

Rene Descartes, eminent philosopher and mathematician, has the solution. It is a three-step plan that can help us grow our EQ and replace pride with humility; imagination with understanding; failure with success; pain with joy, and an artistic mind with a scientific one. The first of the three steps is consciousness. Descartes says that whenever we are confronted with a negative emotion, such as fear, or anger, or insecurity, or depression, we should be conscious of it. We should notice it. Some people don't notice the emotions they feel. If you ask them, "How do you feel?" They say truthfully, "I don't know." We should not be oblivious of how we feel. We should always be able to pinpoint whatever it is we are feeling. We should be conscious of our emotions. If we don't know how we feel, we will spontaneously act out and be like we were victimized or something. No, we should know what we feel at every point in time.

 

The second step is to exercise restraint. In other words, we should take a step back and reflect. We shouldn't just feel and then proudly act. This is arrogance. We should never arrogate to ourselves a right to act on our emotions however unjustified they are and however hurtful to ourselves or others they may be. This is the height of insensitivity, selfishness, wickedness - which is the opposite of sanctity - and disrespect for God. Rather, we should apply the power of reason by thinking of the emotions, the results of the phantasms in our souls obtained through imagination rather than through thought, and their potential result. By allowing ourselves time to think, we enable the imagination, the phantasm, to make the short trip to intellection, to actual thought. At this realm of thought, intellection or understanding, we contemplate the foundations of our emotions, and evaluate the consequences of acting through them. We see the damage for example that can result if we speak or act angrily. We mentally take stock of the impetus and impact of our possible action, just like Jesus said to in Lk 14:28-30.

 

The third and final step is consideration, rationalization or repentance. This is where we have thought about the emotions we feel and their consequences and therefore inform our mind to desist from acting in so and so way. It's like playing parent to yourself. You speak to yourself, engage in intrapersonal mental dialog. You say to yourself for example: Samuel, don't do that. Don't act on the insecurity you feel. Just believe - I mean God has brought you this far, right? This rationalization allows you to realize that there is an alternative to acting out your negative emotions. There is an alternative to speaking out of turn for example because you are angry. There is an alternative to quitting your job simply because you feel frustrated. There is an alternative to robbing a grocery store simply because you feel greedy. There is an alternative to getting a divorce simply because you feel disappointed at your spouse. You can always choose your behavior. By being conscious of whatever negative emotion it is you are feeling, taking a step back to think through it, and then speaking to yourself thoughtfully, you can always act with sensitivity, simplicity, selflessness and sanctity. You can sacrifice a whole world of negative emotions and behaviors in preference for positive ones, and so place yourself perpetually on a path to success. You can increase your EQ, be more humble and develop for yourself a scientific mind.

What Does Humility Mean?

Because it is the lesson my soul must learn, I am interested in humility. I think about it everyday. As I walk or shop or talk  - whatever I do, wherever I am, I ask myself: Am I being humble? But what does it mean to be humble? I've read some essays on the subject. Different authors have approached humility from various viewpoints. Some have called it a mental disposition; some, an attitude, and a few have said it is manifest behavior. Perhaps it is all these things. I want to develop my own philosophy of humility. I want to think about it from the bottom up, so that whatever I learn will be impossible to forget. I want experience and thought to teach me what humility is, and I want to teach others what I have learnt, progressively populating the world with humble individuals. "Anyone who obeys God's laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt 5:19).

The starting point of humility is respect for God. "O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what is required of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). Walking humbly with God means that we realize the divine will is greater than our own wills. We humbly depend on God for our sustenance, and we acknowledge our neediness of the divine providence. In short, we love God. "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one, and you shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul and strength" (Deut 6:4-5). When we put God first in our lives, we have begun to choose humility. On the contrary, if we put ourselves first, we have let go of basic humility.

Putting God first in our lives means that we strive to obey the divine will. In every situation, we ponder what that will is. "God's commandments that I give you today are to be in your hearts. Impress them on your family. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and wear them on your foreheads. Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates" (Deut 6:6-9). Perpetual vigilance and introspection are indispensable to the humble soul. A thirst for the commandments of God and a constant examination of conscience are also invaluable. Humility searches the heart to find it submissive to God.

In the book of Samuel, chapter 12, God sent the prophet Nathan to King David to accuse the king of having committed a grave evil concerning Uriah. Nathan told David of the king's injustice, and David immediately repented. He humbled himself before the Lord. He did not begin to defend himself or make excuses for his behavior. He swiftly acknowledged his guilt and sought to make amends, and God forgave his sin. In Psalm 51, verses 16 and 17, David says: "For in oblations you take no delight; burnt offerings from me you would refuse. My sacrifice is a contrite spirit; you will not spurn a humble and penitent heart."

In the Magnificat contained in Luke Chapter 2, Maria Mater Dulcis praises God for exalting the humble and sending the proud away empty. Again, "God resists the proud, but favors the humble" (James 4:6; Prov 3:34). The bible is replete with instances of God's favor to humble folk. In contrast, the proud have always been brought low. Jesus himself told many stories about the value of humility. In one particular allegory, he asked his disciples to imagine that they were at a dinner party and, without being invited to do so, went to sit at the places of honor only to be subsequently asked to sit at the lower seats, thus humiliated in the sight of everyone. Whereas, if they had initially sat at the lower places and were then asked to move on up, they would be elevated in front of everyone (Lk 14:8-10). Jesus ended the story with the maxim: "Everyone who exalts himself or herself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself or herself will be exalted" (v11).

Humility begins with honesty with oneself, with acceptance of the self for who and what it is. Humility does not take on airs. It does not parade its deeds in the open for all to observe. Remember what Jesus said concerning the Pharisees and their insincerity. Humility acknowledges its limitations, and is content. Psalm 131 says: "My heart is not proud, Lord; my eyes are not haughty. I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. Rather I have calmed and quieted myself. I am like a weaned child with its mother, and so I am content. Israel, put your hope in the Lord now and forever." Humility is not pretentious, and does not impose. It is not vain.

Humility puts the other before the self. It is modest and conciliatory. It receives praise with deference, and does not unnecessarily challenge others. Humility relates to the root word, humus, or soil. On Ash Wednesday, the minister tells the congregation: "You are but soil, and unto soil you will return." In such fashion, humility reminds us that we will die someday, and so we must be careful. We should not undertake daredevilry or prattle about without restraint. Humility implies prudence in all our activities. Aristotle calls prudence practical wisdom or phronensis. It is evident in simple acts like not putting one's hand in the fire because of the awareness that our flesh is combustible, or not jaywalking because of the awareness that we can be knocked down and die. 

Aristotle is of the view that phronensis, unlike theoretical wisdom, need not be learnt in school. We can develop it by regular practice. This is why I said earlier that I am striving to learn from experience and thought what humility means, and build a practical philosophy of it for myself. Phronensis is available to everyone. We don't need a triple-digit IQ to perform simple acts like brushing our teeth, licensed driving and eating our dinner. Once we begin to do them, we ordinarily never forget how. This is unlike rocket science or quantum mechanics, both of which are speculative sciences and both of which need to be studied in school and revised periodically so that their practitioners never forget. This is why for example a janitor can clean a room perfectly, even though he may not pass a calculus exam.

Humility like phronensis is therefore habitual and practical and universally attainable. In the Prayer, we ask the Holy Spirit to renew the face of the entire earth, to continually be available to all people and not just some. In reading this, you will find that you can implement the ideas contained here, regardless of your IQ, because they are not theoretical ideas, but practical ones. From experience and thought, I have come to the realization that humility consists of four aspects: simplicity, sensitivity, selflessness and sanctity. In this sense, it is all the things that scholars have said: a mental disposition, an attitude, and behavior. It is evident in the way we think, our worldview, our standards of morality and esthetics, and in our ethics. People around us can usually tell if we are humble or not. By our words and our actions, what is in our heart comes forth. "For a good tree does not produce bad fruit; neither does a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree is known by its fruit. People do not gather thorns from figs, nor grapes from bramble bushes. A good person out of the good treasure of their heart brings forth that which is good; and an evil person out of the evil treasure of their heart brings forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Lk 6:43-45).

Let us examine the four aspects of humility, beginning with simplicity. Simplicity means that a person is not ostentatious or boastful; they do not attempt to show off or intimidate. Humility "cuts one's coat according to one's cloth." Simplicity has an economic ring to it. It implies frugality in spending. It does not necessarily mean poverty, but only prudence with regard to material resources. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 5:3). The call here is to detachment. We are to put money and material possessions in proper perspective. We are not to attach ourselves to them or idolize them, but only use them to satisfy our needs, and to help the less fortunate. Recall here the parable of the dishonest steward - I'll take a post to explain this parable very soon; it is pretty much one of my favorite of the stories Jesus told. 

Simplicity is a grace. Imagine if everyone in the world were simple! No person would be living in poverty. People with plenty would share generously with those that were poor. Lazarus would not have to sit begging at the gate while the Rich Man dined sumptuously at table. There would be fewer people on welfare and more with jobs and living wages. There would be no people with a hundred pairs of shoes, while some had only two. There would be no starvation in parts of the developing world, while rich countries consumed vast amounts of resources. I try in my own life to be as simple as I can. Here is a personal principle: I never buy anything I do not need. Before I buy a new pair of shoes, I must be sure that my old one is unwearable or, if still wearable, that I give it to charity. So, for every new thing I acquire, I dispose of something. This is why my dorm room is as scanty as it was when I moved in a year ago. I always grin happily when any of my seminarian brothers comes into my room and exclaims: My, what a simple room! I fancy as well that when I move out, my luggage will be light.

What this means as well is that I do not live above my means. This, at a time when more than 70% of our population is living with credit-card and other debts. I know some people who at 25-33 years-old have amassed close to 100,000 dollars in debt, and counting. I personally have never taken out a loan or owned a credit card since the day I was born. I always live within my means, buying only what I need. In my world of footware, I have only one pair of formal shoes - which I wear to chapel and anything church-related. Then I have a pair of sneakers, which I wear to casual events; a pair of boots for the winter, and a pair of slippers for sauntering about the house: to the kitchen, the bathroom and along the hallway. Just four, and all needed. This simplicity or economy does not just show itself in my possessions or lack thereof, but also in my speech and writing; I like to think that I show an economy of words, saying what I mean and just that. It isn't just because I am poor that I am simple. I like to think that even if I were rich I would still be simple. I remember one man from my Kantin-Kwari work days. He was a very wealthy merchant, but when you entered his house, all the furniture he had in his parlor were recliner puffs and a rug. A disclaimer is here required. Jesus has said that what the right hand is doing the left should know nothing about (Matt 6:3), and in the story of the Pharisee and the Publican, the Pharisee was condemned for boasting. Also, Jesus repeatedly criticized the Pharisees for outward show of religiosity. In view of the foregoing, in showing how I apply simplicity in my own life, my intention is not to boast but to teach.

A second aspect of humility is sensitivity. This means that you realize there are other people in the world. When you play music in your room, you don't blast it at the highest volume. It would disturb other members of the household. Also, if others are working in the yard, you should join them. You should try not to scandalize others. "If you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea" (Matt 18:6). Also, "If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell" (Matt 5:29). Sensitivity means that one is attentive to others and not egocentric. Recall what we said about optimal interpersonal perception or ihunaya when we explained the parable of the Good Samaritan. Also, in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the wealthy fellow's sin was his insensitivity to Lazarus. 

A third aspect of humility is selflessness. It is replacing "What's in it for me?" with "What's in it for others and me?" We are enjoined to put others first. When we speak or act, we are supposed to do it for the universal population, including ourselves. Kant's categorical imperative in his philosophy of virtue, or ethics, is to imagine that every person did what we were doing - how would the world look like then? Also the Golden Rule states: Do unto others what you would have them do to you. Altruism is highly encouraged. From the simple courtesy of holding the door open for an old person to volunteering with the Peace Corps, selfless service is a constant channel for humility.

The fourth aspect of humility is sanctity, consequent on repentance and examination of conscience. Socrates says that an unreflected life is not worth living. Humility seeks to acknowledge shortcomings and make amends. In church we ask God for forgiveness of sins that we have committed through our most grievous fault, maxima culpa; faults which have made us fall short of the divine glory (Romans 3:23). Reading the lives of the saints, one constant theme to be found is humility. All the saints were humble: Teresa, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia - all of them "walked humbly with God," while they were on earth. Humility and sanctity go together like two sides of the same coin: we cannot be truly humble without being saintly, and we cannot be truly saintly without being truly humble. Conversely, the devil, father of all that is unholy, is said to be proud, and it was pride that forced him out of heaven in the first place (Isaiah 14:12-14). All in all, humility is an important virtue. We all are encouraged to practice it. It is not taught in schools, but like Aristotle's phronensis is available to all and is mastered by constant practice. It is a mental disposition, a manifest attitude and a code of behavior. It consists in obedience and respect for God, as well as in simplicity, sensitivity, selflessness and sanctity.

Choosing Life: A Spiritual and Moral View of Abortion

Life does not begin when the baby is born. You know when dad and two older kids come to visit mom in the hospital and find her holding the little cherub in her proud arms - that's not when life begins at all. It's way before then. Life begins at conception. Let me explain what this means. You see, it's actually not the stork that brings mom the baby. Grownups only tell kids that because the truth is kinda icky. Mom and dad make the baby together. What I'm about to explain is something I've never done before, and if I stay in the seminary and become a priest I'll never do it. But I've read about it, and I'm sure my information is pretty accurate. Dad and mom make the baby by having sex together. Inside dad are these little things called spermatozoa. They are so very small and so very many. While having sex, dad deposits these spermatozoa inside mom. Now, mom has eggs inside her, and the spermatozoa are drawn to the eggs. As soon as one sperm cell joins with one egg, life begins. This exact moment is called conception or fertilization. "From the womb before the birth I conceived you" (Psalm 110:3). Again, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart" (Jer 1:5).

 

The product of joining a sperm cell with an egg in the mother's womb is called a zygote. This zygote is microscopic, yet it is a human life in its own right just like any of us. It contains all the biological programming that makes us who we are. Within a few days of fertilization, the zygote has experienced numerous changes, and has attached itself to the wall of the mother's womb. By the 28th day, it has become an embryo which through a placenta feeds on the mother. After two months, the fetus' size is about 3cm. In eighty days, it has grown to be about 9cm, and after four months, about 20cm. Nine months later, it is about 50cm, and weighs about 7.0lb, quite ready to be born. And this nine-month period, the meeting of two cells in the mother's womb to the birth of a baby composed of some 60 billion cells, is called gestation.

 

And at every moment during gestation, the unborn is alive. The mother can speak to it, and feel its activities. It is counted as a life, a member of the human population. In the Jewish tradition for example, if by some misfortune a person were to injure a pregnant woman in such a way that she lost her unborn baby, the demand was a life for a life according to the lex talonis. This is evidence that the unborn child was seen as a living person. Some wealthy parents also begin to modify their wills to include their unborn offspring. There are many other practices which show that people recognize the  unborn as living persons. There is life in the womb before parturition.

 

In view of the foregoing therefore, abortion, defined here as the medical destruction of unborn life, is technically murder. In Law however, there is a difference between abortion and murder. Murder is a crime, but abortion is not. The latter is justified by the courts. Whenever I write, I never criticize our laws. I am too much in awe of this amazing land and its politics to do that. Besides, Psalm 115:16 says: "The heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to people." The ideals of Holy Mother Church, true though they are, are just that - ideals. In the realm of politics, we should leave the adjudication of claims to people, not priests. The courts are justified and have the jurisdiction to declare that abortion is not a crime. But there is a difference between a crime and a sin. Mother Church has jurisdiction over the latter.

 

So you can understand why Mother Church is worried. Imagine you were a mother, and your child was engaging in sinful behavior, but the child didn't realize it - would you keep quiet? No, not if you cared for them. This is why the Church does all it can to cry out against abortion which we have shown to be, from a moral standpoint, essentially murder. And it is from a moral and spiritual standpoint that the rest of this post will proceed. I have no competency in law and politics, and I always try to stay out of them. If I am very lucky to be a priest, my degree will be in theology, not in political science.

 

In a previous post, I defined a human soul as all the conscious, semi-conscious and unconscious activities of an individual from the moment of conception to the moment of actual death. I also said that every soul, teleologically speaking, has a purpose intended for it by God. In the book of Jeremiah, we see God telling him that the divine will had set the prophet apart even while the prophet was unborn. In other words, Jeremiah's personality and purpose were determined even before he was brought into the physical world. The unborn zygote like we earlier said has all the biological programming that makes it truly human. This programming contains within itself organs deriving from cells and chromosomes. What biology would call cells, organs and the like spirituality would call energy. And the first law of thermodynamics concerns the conservation of energy. It states: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but only converted from one form to another. Also, God says: "It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it" (Isaiah 55:11). The spiritual energy that God sends to be enfleshed in the mating activity of parents is deliberately sent. Of an average of 300 million sperm cells released by the father into the mother's body during sex, only one actually fertilizes her egg. Just take a moment to think about it - only one. Can this be an accident? I really don't think so. Besides, not every coitus results in conception.

 

Every energy field made in conception is ordained by God for a purpose. God entrusts the earliest moments of the unfolding of that purpose to parents. That being the case, a woman having an abortion is like her saying to God: I really don't give a crap about your divine purpose. I'm gonna do things my own way. Here is a God that knows everything, a supreme being that is infinitely wise; in the infinity of the divine wisdom, God sends a life force, a bundle of energy that can neither be created nor destroyed; a soul to this individual woman, so that she can manage the earliest periods of this soul's unfolding, but the woman is audacious enough to slap God in the freaking face! Some people are bold, I tell you. It's like your boss at work. He or she tells you to do something, and you stand up straight, look them in the eyes and say, "I'm not gonna do that." That's a recipe for being fired. Many bosses, if you refused to do as they required, would fire you. And so to keep your job it would be better for you to obey your boss. God is like the biggest boss ever. No one can know better than God, and so no one can be more powerful than the divine will, because scientia est potentia, which in English means "knowledge is power." When the divine will has a plan and sends a woman a soul to care for, God expects the woman to cooperate with it. God doesn't like taking no for an answer.

 

But many women complain. They call their pregnancy "unplanned." Whose plan is important, by the way? God's or the woman's? Besides, who was it that had sex in the first place? Some women say, "Oh, I wasn't ready," or "I was raped," or "I used every precaution." There are many excuses to be given for abortion, but none holds moral water. Think of Maria Mater Dei. She was only about twelve years old and a virgin when the angel Gabriel was sent to her. She probably wasn't ready; she hadn't had any consensual sex, and she was using the best precaution of all - abstinence - when the angel announced that she was going to conceive and bear a son, Jesus. As an unmarried girl, her life was going to be endangered. She was going to be stoned when the pregnancy began to show. She must have been terrified. Her family and friends would shun her; she would be ostracized in the market place, and of course she would eventually be pelted with rocks till she expired, but she courageously said, "I am but a servant-girl to God. Let what you have said happen to me" (Luke 1:38). How many girls of today can do this?

 

So for example a sixteen year-old high school cheerleader girl - let's say her name is Jessica - has sex with her dashing jock of a boyfriend, Trey. They'd been on a date at Wendy's. Trey had bought her one of those awesome shakes Jess liked, and they had enjoyed themselves sipping and talking and then making out in the car afterwards. Then Trey had suggested it, and they had gone from first base to second base and then hit a home run in a matter of minutes. Weeks later, Jess tells Trey she's pregnant, and Trey panics - "My life is ruined, damn it! How could you do this to me, Jess?" "What're you talking about, Trey - what I did to you? What about what you did to me?" "I'm supposed to go to Princeton in the fall on scholarship. I worked hard for this; you're not gonna ruin this for me, Jess; I'm not gonna let you. You've got to take care of it." "You mean get an abortion?" "Hello - did I freaking stutter!" And Jessica flees, crying her eyes out. Or, there's been a kegger. College frat guys and sorority chicks are near passing out. One guy "gets lucky" and forces himself on a girl who is too weak to resist because she's tipsy. He takes advantage and literally rapes her, and they both feel terrible the morning after, not just from the worst hangover they've had, but also from the realization that they've had unprotected sex. Weeks later, the girl finds out she's pregnant, but doesn't even remember who's responsible. Cases like these abound. Some are worse, some are better. They are the usual grounds for a woman's wanting to have an abortion. The unborn life in them is inconvenient in situations like these. The unborn child obstructs their plans and feels like a burden, and they want to rid themselves of it.

 

But, even though they did not "plan" to have babies, God purposefully let them. And to have an abortion is to disrespect God, who never makes mistakes because of the divine perfection. St Anselm sees God as the most perfect reality conceivable, above which no level of perfection is conceivable. Aquinas calls God the ultimate Good, in whom there is no desire of evil, no wish for harm for anyone. For Aristotle, there is no evil intention in God, for there actually is no evil, but only the potentiality of privation in goodness. "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jer 29:11). Again, "All things work together unto good for those that love God and are called to the divine purpose" (Rom 8:28). Hence, for those who are spiritual enough to appreciate the reality of God, abortion need never be an option. But for those who hate God or are prejudiced toward him, abortion remains an option.

 

In the parable of the talents contained in Luke 19:12-28, the wicked servant was very prejudiced toward his master. He said he knew that his master was "a hard man, harvesting where [he had] not sown and gathering where he had not scattered seed," (v21) and so the servant threw away the talent entrusted him, whereas the other servants cared for the talents entrusted them. The master condemned the wicked servant to everlasting suffering in hell for aborting the talent given to him, while he praised the others, who groomed theirs. Similarly, so what if the pregnancy was not prepared for; what if the circumstances of conception were less than ideal; what if the mother is on welfare or on drugs - the unborn child is still a "talent" entrusted by the divine master to the woman, who is a mere servant. God desires that the talent be saved and valued, not destroyed and cast away; allowed to fulfill the purpose intended for it, not sent back void to the master.

 

The unborn life is a soul in search of the life lessons marked out for it. The best way for the soul to learn such lessons is for it to be born at the specific moment, in the specific circumstances and through the specific mother. The universe has perfectly calculated the situation, and the general order of events has made room for the arrival of the additional life. The mother however claims to know better than God. She purportedly knows the baby's birth will be a bad idea, and so has to prevent it from happening, and so she aborts the fetus. Relieved that she has prevented a catastrophe, she returns home. But she cannot know what the future holds - that's why there is a God. But then again, perhaps many of the people who get their unborn babies aborted don't believe in God.

 

Unplanned pregnancy has many life lessons to teach both the mother and the baby. For a soul to be born to a woman in such circumstances as to make her want an abortion, that soul must have some tough lessons to learn indeed. And an unplanned pregnancy might be a wakeup call to a mother, to make her reexamine the use of her sexuality and put her life back on track. This may not always be the case, though, since a few women have one unplanned pregnancy after another, apparently learning nothing from previous such experiences. And how sorry for those babies I am. What manner of life lessons must be intended for them that they should be born in such circumstances! And yet God allows it. He knows intimately the value of even the sorriest human life. Jesus says in Luke 12:7: "And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows."

 

How can one know all this and still want to have an abortion? It seems to me that the people who choose to have abortions do not believe in God. Saints Aquinas, Anselm and Bonaventure have proved the existence of God, but many yet do not believe. For these unbelievers, life is a random set of events with no purpose; no conscious, deliberate order. Existentialists see individual people as the be-all and end-all of their individual fates, and give the power of destiny to mortal people. Yet the psalmist asks God: "What are people that you are mindful of them; ordinary people that you care for them?" (Psalm 8:5). Again the psalmist declares: "People are just a breath; they fade like a passing shadow" (Psalm 144:4). How can people, so described, be the supreme arbiters of destiny? Only God is justified to take human life. Only God is the arbiter of human destiny.

 

There should be no reason for an individual to commit abortion. My appeal is directed at individuals. Even though you are legally permitted to commit abortion, choose not to exercise your liberty. Keep your babies. Let them live and grow inside you, and birth them. God knows why you're pregnant. It's like money you have in the bank - it's legally yours to do as you please; you can save it or you can blow it. It's your choice, but then again what is the better choice - waste or conservation? Especially as waste is not the actual destruction of wealth, but simply relinquishing material power to a shrewder person. In the same way, when a person aborts a child, the soul is not destroyed; God's spiritual plan and principle are not thwarted. All that happens is that the mother proves herself to be unworthy to participate in God's plan, to her own disadvantage. God simply entrusts the plan to someone else, and condemns the mother. In the parable of the talents, the talent was taken from the wicked servant and given to the one who already had more. In the book of Esther, Mordecai tells her, "If you do not participate in God's design to save the Jews, help will come from another person, but you and your father's house will perish completely" (Esther 4:14).

 

Do you want yours and your father's house to perish? I'm sure you don't. I am speaking to your conscience, and not to politics - those are beyond my pay-grade; the psalmist says in the 131st song: I do not bother myself with matters beyond me. I am saying that you as an individual should abhor abortion because morally speaking it is as grievous as murder, and spiritually speaking it is like slapping God in the freaking face, saying you know better than God does, and refusing to participate in the divine plan! Resolve never to have an abortion, and encourage your friends and family not to as well. Indeed, in so doing, you would not only be benefitting spiritually, but you would be escaping some of the medical complications that can result, such as infections, loss of fertility or permanent damage to the womb, all of which are directly proportional to the dating of the abortion in the lifecycle of the unborn child.

 

Furthermore, there are commonsense alternatives to abortion. To begin with, a mother can decide to put the baby up for adoption. There are many couples who cannot have children of their own, but are desperately seeking to adopt. A mother can enrich their lives with a child. Think of the example of Trey and Jess. Trey can still go off to Princeton on scholarship, and Jess can continue with her life, especially if supported by friends and family during the gestation period, by simply passing on the responsibility of raising the child once born to adoptive parents. Where a woman decides to keep the baby, welfare and counseling programs abound to help her cope with her decision. Church groups and government institutions provide an enormous amount of aid to such mothers. There is always a moral way out. Always. And "God will make a way, where there seems to be no way" (Isaiah 43:19). And if unplanned pregnancy remains the primary excuse for abortion, then let us begin to plan. Vigorous sex education programs should be embarked upon in homes and schools. Couples should embrace family planning measures and thus responsibly approach the procreative process. Everyone should be involved in some way.

 

Finally, think of Moses' mother in the bible (Exodus 2:1-10). At a time when babies were being aborted, she took the risk of keeping her own child, knowing that if she were discovered she would be put to death. She hid her child in her bedroom until he was too big to be hidden anymore, and then she took him to a river and placed him among the reeds on the bank. She and Miriam her daughter watched protectively over him until Pharoah's daughter came a-bathing. Then they connived to ensure that Pharoah's daughter adopt the infant, with its biological mother for nurse - genius! The baby grew up to be one of the greatest individuals in human history. If people like Moses' mother could go to extraordinary lengths to preserve the life of their child, not knowing whether such a child would in fact grow to become a towering personality in human affairs, why can't everyone? We must let God be God. We should choose life.

 

 

 

Understanding Homosexuality from a Spiritual and Moral Perspective

Homosexuality is a controversial issue in our day. Simply defined, it is the situation where an individual prefers to have sexual relations with members of their own sex. Homosexuality applies to male and female, and the acts considered homosexual are not limited to sexual intercourse alone. Homosexuality is controversial in contemporary politics. Specifically, liberal politicians are of the view that homosexuals should be allowed to get married, especially since their homosexuality is a natural condition. Conservatives on the other hand are more inclined to believe that homosexuality is erroneously chosen by the individual and should be discouraged.

Freedom of choice, as defined by moral philosophers, includes both the will and the intellect of the individual and is not brought on by forces external to them. When homosexuality is called a choice, conservatives mean that homosexuals are willful perverts who are free to be heterosexual – which is the conservative norm – but instead proceed to be homosexual. This implies that homosexuals do not embrace self control and are not willing to play by social rules, and so must be sanctioned for their conscious choice. The flip-side view is that homosexuals are born that way, because of genetic proclivities to same-sex physiological characteristics. If they are born so, it means that they do not freely choose their behavior, but find themselves acting in a homosexual manner because they cannot help it. If they indeed cannot help themselves, liberal politicians propose that government help them by using the laws of the land to say it is alright for them to be gay and act on their homosexual desires.

The latter is a deterministic paradigm, as opposed to the former free-will paradigm. Determinism refers to the idea that forces external to the individual’s intellectual and moral will are responsible for the individual’s acting in a certain way. The force in the case of the born-this-way advocates is natural birth. If a person is born homosexual, he or she cannot have chosen to be so. They cannot then be held responsible for being homosexual, and so they do not deserve to be held in opprobrium. The Catholic Church as a moral institution does not encourage homosexuality, and does not permit its ministers to be homosexual. The argument among Catholic philosophers with regard to homosexuality is that the human being has a choice not to act on whatever sexual desires they have, be these desires homosexual or heterosexual. In other words, if the born-this-way argument is that the individual cannot help being homosexual, the Church is saying that the individual can help acting homosexual. There is a difference between feeling like doing something and actually doing the thing.

Moral philosophers talk about the five steps involved in human action, and they are: antecedent emotion, constitutive judgment, desire, deliberation, and consent or choice. Even if homosexuals were born so, whenever they are presented with a situation that calls to question whether or not they will act in a homosexual fashion, they are responsible for deliberating and choosing to or not to act homosexually. They are not held responsible for feeling like acting homosexually or being drawn by the potential of homosexuality, but they may be held responsible for consummating the homosexual act. Heterosexual individuals deal with much the same reality. They are responsible for consummating the sexual act, albeit heterosexual. The concomitants of sexual behavior similarly behoove on heterosexual couples. If they have unprotected sex, they could contract diseases. They could harm their relationships or compromise their understanding of love. In this respect, homosexual and heterosexual couples are similar: both share the physical and psychological consequences of having sexual intercourse.

But what does it mean for one to describe themselves as homosexual? The reality of a complex human sexuality as a whole makes it difficult to ascribe sexual proclivities to certain groups of individuals and proceed to label them that way. The human sexuality is hard to define, and medical doctors and philosophers still grapple with what really constitutes homo- or heterosexuality. The Kinsey Scale for example places individuals in medial positions between absolute heterosexuality and homosexuality, and numerous individuals that identify as gay admit to having had many sexual encounters that were heterosexual. In our day, the gay movement is prevalent because of our increasingly commercial culture. Capitalism has a way of placing a price tag on everything, defining them in terms of utility and materiality. Wealth, productivity, status – these are the defining measures for even otherwise spiritual realities. It used to be that when a person said “I love you” to another person, the one to whom such a statement was made would reciprocate in a non-sexual manner, understanding the speaker to mean friendship or companionship. Today however, saying “I love you” to another person nearly always connotes sex. Indeed, when a person tells another, “Let us just be friends,” it can definitely be interpreted to mean, “I do not want to have sex with you”; in other words, “Let us not be sexually active with each other,” as if "friend" were a polar opposite of "sexual partner," and vice versa. Popular culture is similarly guilty of flashing sexual images over the radio, television, cinematography and other media, particularly the Internet. Pornography is the cheapest it has been in a century, and magazines, newspapers, books and other print communications do not want to be outdone by the electronic media.

In Plato’s Symposium in contrast, thinkers talk about the true meaning of love. They call it many laudatory names. Ultimately, it is Socrates that states that love is a child of Virtue, and Need. Socrates is of the view that love is needy, but also in search of the good. This good is Beauty itself, which is transcendent of material reality. Love is interested in finding what is immortal and lasting. It is not simply sexual intercourse, which is temporal. The Symposium’s account of love is relevant. In the first place, it shows that spiritual love is greater and of a higher quality than carnal love. Socrates states that the gradation of love begins at its lowest level by the love of an individual body. This is what happens in the case of a homosexual person acting on his or her desires and having sexual intercourse. When a person defines love as a physical attraction and is drawn, in the words of the Symposium, to an individual body, such a person can only see love in terms of sex.

Plato sees this situation as inferior. It is earthly and permissive. Preferred to the love of individual bodies is the love of the human soul, the essence rather than the matter of a person. The love of the soul is the better love, and even higher than this is the love of customs and cultures and institutions, and laws, and ultimately the intelligible, which can only be known by the mind that is trained and disciplined by philosophy, and on from there to the concept of the Beautiful itself, which cannot at all be known by the carnal. What I think homosexuals can learn from the Symposium is foremost to redefine love. A person that truly wants to live a life in keeping with the majority of society should define love not as carnal attraction, which is by far the lesser and belongs by right to the appetitive aspect of ourselves, but as the love of souls, and spirits. When a person has started out by defining love as that of the soul and of spirits, the person is able to place a restraint on his or her carnal impulses. Such a person sees love not as a sexual game, but as a serious intellectual activity to be contracted within the framework of society, cognizant of the restraint of chastity.

By saying that higher forms of love are loves of customs and laws and ideals, the Symposium affords a homosexual person this opportunity: to seek from society the way by which he or she may practice love. In my opinion, choosing to act on homosexual desires and excluding oneself from what the majority are doing is preferring lower forms of love to higher forms thereof, based on an inferior definition of love. If higher forms of love prefer customs and laws and ideals, then higher forms of love would not want to fall foul of these customs, laws and ideals, and would look to them to guide the self in how to control and express feelings which appear to be leading one to be sexually involved with members of the same sex. Take Socrates for example. In the Symposium, Alcibiades states that he tried to test Socrates by seducing him behind closed doors, to see if the love Socrates felt for him was carnal, because everyone knew that Socrates loved and admired Alcibiades. Despite the seduction, however, Socrates did not have any carnal intercourse with Alcibiades, and the latter testified in the Symposium to the moral rectitude of Socrates. This rectitude was attributed to Socrates’ trained mind. Being a philosopher, he was able to distinguish between the higher and lesser forms of love, as well as realize that the love of the soul of his friend Alcibiades was far more important than the love of his friend’s male body.

The duality of the reality of body and soul would always call the conscious mind to stop and see whether it were not better to focus on the love of the soul rather than the love of the body. Socrates is of the view in this regard that both the body and the soul are capable of inspiring procreation. The body gives birth to humans, but the soul gives birth to ideas. These ideas live even longer than the individuals which the body gives birth to, and is the stuff of which fame is made. The reality here is that humanity is perpetuated not just by individuals being born to populate the species, but also by the stories of the triumphs of individuals who may or may not have physical children, but whose noble deeds inspire those that hear of them. Socrates was trying to show that, by paying attention to these higher forms of love, individuals would be able to make the world a better place, full of morality and justice, a reality shared in the Republic by Plato. Homosexuals therefore owe it to Society to discover if the feelings they have that seem to pull them to others of the same sex are not simply a call by Destiny for them to focus their creative – by creative here I mean the potential for human work, and not simply the arts, as the Symposium does in fact enjoin us to consider all aspects of human endeavor as creative – efforts on inspiring others and “giving birth in the soul,” rather than in the body.

A counter argument here might be: But why should a select population of individuals be singled out and made to bear the responsibility of not having same sex, but only inspiring others? This is a question difficult to answer, and yet various religions have celibates, and celibacy has always been a human condition. Jesus himself was celibate, and encouraged his followers to be like him, as did St Paul. More so, being single has always been promoted for the purpose of concentrating on delicate artistic activity, as among goldsmiths in West Africa. There are countless other reasons for the value of celibacy. Families and loved ones of those that are homosexual also have a unique responsibility toward them (homosexual relatives). They are not supposed to treat them like pariahs. They are supposed to act as friends and helpers. One of the reasons I think that homosexual people go hay-wire and begin to act out is that the people that ordinarily should have given them a love for culture and souls and intellectual things did not. What would make a person reject society and culture and laws if not that the guardians of these mores refused to be a model example for them? And so they question: If the people that represent society to me are not living up to their charge of being good models of human culture and society, what incentive is there for me to sacrifice my selfish, carnal desires in preference of being a celibate inspirer of the human family? There is not much.

If the mindset of homosexuals changes through the efforts of a transcendent definition of love, a preference for society rather than individual bodies, and a supportive network of friends and family committed to mentoring them in choosing higher forms of love, then the communications that spread in the public place will change, and this will include mass communications: there will be less pornography, less nudity and less obscenity in the electronic and print media of communication. More and more people will begin to see love as a higher ideal that points us all toward laws and customs and not necessarily sex. More and more heterosexual couples will begin to wait until marriage to have children. They will begin to see that we all can choose the way we act even if we cannot always choose the way we feel. They will begin to see a teleological avenue for the expression of love, which is to give birth in the body for heterosexual couples, but to give birth in the soul for homosexual individuals and heterosexual couples. 

They will begin to see love not as a game or a deontological sexual reality, but as a moral, conscious choice made in favor of the preservation of the human species in material as well as intellectual terms, the latter being of greater significance than the former. Ultimately, these attitudes would usher in an altogether more moral society that would be freer and less commercial; a sensible approach to the human condition outweighing and keeping in check the baser, appetitive aspects of the human soul and promoting the higher, more disciplined, and philosophical aspects thereof. Family and friends of homosexual individuals cognizant of this vision should therefore love them and teach them to prefer the higher forms of love to the lower ones. They should teach homosexuals to embrace the human family as united and holistic, separate from animals, mobilized in the cause of growing the human species and preserving it in morality and immortality. This is a charge we all bear, whether called to give birth through love in the body, or in the soul. We all should be able to mentor the homosexual individuals that are seeking for a justification to sacrifice lower forms of love that concern sexual desires for individual bodies, in favor of the higher forms of love that prefer the laws, customs and ideals of the political, social and cultural milieu in which they live.

When the homosexual in question begins to see love in a higher sense and begins to love and prefer souls and spirits, the concept of love is in this way brought to a psychological and spiritual place, and it is from this psycho-spiritual place that the individual can proceed to operate morally. Some of the ways by which the individual can operate in this way include looking for means to advocate for change in society; devoting time to physical activities that are non-sexual, such as sports and recreation, as well as volunteering to any of the many charitable causes around the world. Relatives and friends can also help by always being huge pillars of emotional support and by encouraging platonic friendships for their loved ones, and providing a welcoming climate where these homosexuals can experience loving representatives of the laws and customs they are supposed to love in preference to individual bodies. They can thus strive to provide the psychological and spiritual frameworks that enshrine the higher forms of love in homosexual minds.

So far, I have been speaking from a moral perspective. I have a further argument, from a spiritual one. For those that believe in reincarnation, a person who experiences homosexual tendencies may see their soul as inchoate. Perhaps they were of a different gender in a past life, and did not use their gift of sexuality in the best possible way. Perhaps they were manipulative and narcissistic and exploited others for their own ends, or maybe they were vain or promiscuous and lewd. Perhaps they were heterosexual, but oppressed the minority population of people who defined themselves as homosexual. Their gift of sexuality, having not been used in the way intended for it by God, was taken away and entrusted to another soul in its depreciated state. The new soul would be born in conditions that would force them to learn the spiritual lessons of humility, chastity and tolerance. The new soul would be expected through the relatively greater sacrifices of homosexuality in a conservative polity - recall what I said about sacrifices in a previous post - to use this precious gift of sexuality in an uplifting way, in a spiritual way, to avoid perpetuating its suffering.

Individuals that define themselves as homosexuals who are monogamous and endeavor to raise families are obviously more spiritual than those who simply visit gay bars and have sex with every person they meet, wherever they meet, just like monogamous heterosexual couples are more spiritual than prostitutes and active nymphomaniacs. But even this better circumstance is less than the ideal of celibacy. The yardstick in either case is restraint, heeding the call of chastity. Through sacrifice, the feelings of frustration or deprivation that the individual who defines themselves as homosexual may experience upon restraint are replaced with hope in a next life or an eternity filled with sexual fulfillment and freedom. In such an eternity, God will endow the soul with a filling vision of sexual emancipation and peace.

In this material world in any case, from a strictly political perspective, because individuals that define themselves as homosexual fulfill all the obligations of Citizenship, the Court was legally correct and within its jurisdiction to allow them rights to marry, just like heterosexuals possess. It was the politically correct thing to do. Because these individuals pay taxes and serve the land in many honorable ways, they do have the right to enjoy what material allowances government has to offer. Plus, sociopolitical progress is moving more and more toward inclusion in all its ramifications. All of this is politically proper. But from a spiritual and moral perspective, individuals who self-define as homosexual need not act out their antecedent emotions. They can sacrifice them in this life for the awesome reward of the next. "Eye has not seen and ear has not heard" what God has in store for the people who felt antecedent emotions of homosexuality in this life but refused to act on them because of respect for their bodies, for the higher principle of the soul, and in willingness to obey the Holy Spirit, and the age-old customs of the majority of the population. I encourage these individuals to continue to sacrifice the physical expression of their sexuality, in view of a greater reward waiting for them in the afterlife, for its spiritual and moral design.

In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), the wealthy fellow was right to enjoy his money. Politically speaking, he was legally permitted to enjoy his privileges. But he was insensitive to the poor and needy man that lived at his gate, who longed to have the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. The rich man clearly did not love Lazarus, but cared only for materiality. When the rich man died, he went off to the flames of hell, and in his pain asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus to give him water. Abraham replied that there was a gulf separating heaven from hell; plus the rich man deserved his current suffering, having already enjoyed his life on earth, oblivious of the pains of Lazarus. Similarly, the physicality of the human sexuality, like the relatively short life on earth that we have, is nothing compared to the enduring beatitude of spiritual and moral expressions of charity, as shown in care for the needy; soul sharing, and multiple works of charity to all the brothers and sisters in the world to whom we owe spiritual love.

Teleologically speaking also, our sexuality was designed for procreation and the preservation of the human species, with bodily pleasure only as an incident result. With homosexual acts conversely, pleasure is paramount, and child adoption among monogamous, recently-married homosexuals is only an incident result, and is not the majority occurrence. But let me be generous here: I know a homosexual couple that was married for many years and raised three healthy young boys. They reared these boys from childhood to adulthood, and now these young men are themselves married, and to heterosexual partners. Also, there was a gay couple that benefitted from the recent Ruling concerning gay marriage and are using their newfound status to help raise four disabled children from the foster and orphanage systems. There are other stories like these, and the humanitarian acts they describe are honorable and blessed, and noble. So granted, homosexual couples depopulate orphanages, but perhaps not quickly enough: not all homosexual couples are so altruistic, plus chaste homosexuals can work as single people in the foster system, or as staff caregivers in orphanages.

In short, even though, materially and politically speaking, homosexuals deserve every legal right politics give them in this temporal world, individuals who feel antecedent emotions that are homosexual can choose not to act on these desires. They can understand firstly that, morally speaking, homosexual acts are expressions of lower concepts of love. Helped by family and friends, these individuals can choose higher forms of love, as expressed in the soul and the spirit and in the customs of the majority of the human population. Also, they can sacrifice their desires and exchange possible feelings of frustration or self-denial for the enduring beatitude of the afterlife or the more permanent reward of spiritual love. They can also embrace the teleological concept of human love founded in procreation, and perennially strive to tow the Cartesian it affords.

And while individuals that define themselves as homosexual struggle to sacrifice their sexuality for the greater good, Mother Church should continue to be supportive, and sensitive. This is a mark of humility. No name calling; no overreaching into sexuality politics; no strictures - just love and gentle admonishing. Love conquers all. In 1 Corinthians, love is patient and kind. We, as priests and seminarians, should be patient and kind to our brothers and sisters that self-define as homosexual. Indeed, personally, I would prefer that Holy Mother Church stay out of politics, even if this might be asking for too much. We do have social truth to impart to the world, but there is a saying that one can lead a camel to the stream but cannot force it to drink. Other than via politics, we can bring about positive change through popular influence. But even then, education, the media, and various social and interest groups are strong competitors for individual minds and hearts, and we should deal with this reality humbly and graciously. We should realize that, for the percentage of the population that is not Catholic, the human conscience - formed through education, the media, and various social and interest groups - is the interpretive arbiter of morality and spirituality. Yet we can progressively seek to influence the human conscience with the powerful help of the Holy Spirit.