Category: Deep Church Thoughts

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Publicly Praise; Privately Admonish

     Remember when we all thought that the internet would lead to a greater access to ideas and information and a more fruitful exchange of diverse opinions? So much for great expectations. Instead we got trolls. Anonymous acrimonious criticisms of those who disagree.

       To quote Our Lord in another context, “It shall not be that way with you.” (Mt. 20:26).

Everyone makes mistakes, but no one likes their mistakes to be broadcast in public. It’s embarrassing and uncharitable. In our present day, when no thought seems to go unposted, we Christians have a moral duty to preserve the dignity of others, even those who sin against us.

Does that mean we are to be a doormat? Of course not. In charity, we also have a moral obligation to the offender to make them aware of the offense so that they may amend their ways and peace may be restored. In today’s gospel from Matthew 18, Our Lord shows us how to engage in grace-filled “fraternal correction.” Step one, take them off in private and let them know how they have offended.

Here are a few hints:

1. Do not surprise them. Set up a time to meet with the offender so they may prepare mentally for the encounter. It can be as simple as, “I would like to meet with you to speak about what happened in the lunchroom. When is a good time?”

2. Focus on the behavior, not the person. Using the formula: “When you…I feel…because…” is a great tool. For example, “When you made fun of that young person, I was very embarrassed for them and for you, because they have a disability of which you may not be aware.” 

3. Make sure they know you have their best interest in mind. Preface your comments with, “You know, we have been friends for some time and I respect you greatly…”   

I know that I always appreciate when someone corrects me in charity. It helps me to be a better person and a better Christian. As a result, I always try to publicly praise and privately admonish. In this way, we can preserve each other’s dignity, establish deeper communion and build up one another in charity. 

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Holy Longing, Holy Sacrifice

For a holiday weekend, we sure had a lot going on.
We had a beautiful wedding this weekend with Jenna and Jake. It was so moving, even the cake was in tiers.

For a holiday weekend, we sure had a lot going on.

       We had a beautiful wedding this weekend with Jenna and Jake.   It was so moving, even the cake was in tiers.

Moving on…let’s talk about the readings that that Church gives us this week.  I’m going to talk about holy longing and holy sacrifice. 

       Jesus’ words to St. Peter seem pretty harsh given that he has just given him the keys to the Kingdom.  What’s going on here?  Why is Peter getting chewed out for thinking like human beings do and not like God does?

Jeremiah helps us to understand the context. What a marvelous passage about how the word of God burns like a fire in his heart.  He has to let it out or he will burst. 

And then the Psalmist who reminds us that our souls “are thirsting for you, O Lord my God.”

       Indeed.  There is a God-shaped hole in our heart, a holy longing for communion from the very depths of our soul, a deep desire for meaning and belonging that can only be satisfied by union and right relationship with God and others. This is exactly what the prophet Jeremiah and the Psalmist are getting at. St. Augustine also quipped, “Our hearts are restless, O God, until they rest in you.”

       The problem, of course, is that we silly human beings are easily distracted (Squirrel!).  All too often we try to fill that holy longing for lasting communion with all kinds of shiny, twinkly things in the world that tempt us. St. Thomas Aquinas observed that these were typically wealth, pleasure, power or honor. Like fast food, they fill us for a little while, but in the end, they always leave us empty, unsatisfied, and discontent. These are the things that Madison Avenue spends  billions of dollars to convince us will make us happy. They are not bad in and of themselves, but if they become our central desire, then we are thinking “not as God does, but as human beings do.”

       This is why Jesus calls his best friend St. Peter, Satan, and right after he gives him the keys to the Kingdom. Like all the disciples, St. Peter is still thinking that Jesus has come to establish the very political kingdom of Israel. He is seeing exercise of power in the way that the world sees and uses power, not as God sees and uses power.

       Jesus sets him straight immediately. Authority and power in the Kingdom of heaven is not simply being able to compel others to do your will. That is domination. Rather, authority in the Kingdom, and thus in the Church, is only fruitful when it is exercised in service to others. Christ himself told us what he means when he said, “The Son of Man have come to serve, not to be served.” He showed us when he washed the feet of the disciples as he instituted the ministerial priesthood at the Last Supper. The exercise of authority in the Church only makes sense when it is done in the context of service to God and others. Sometimes this means great sacrifice. But where love is present, sacrifice comes readily.

       Jesus picked up his cross as the supreme act of service and sacrifice for us. Can we who would be his disciples do otherwise?

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The Perfect Setting

    “It’s the gospel truth!” is a pretty common phrase. But what is a gospel anyway? Within the context of the   Bible the four gospels are a very specific kind of literature. While they are very historical, they are not written as histories. Rather, the gospels are four different authoritative narratives that were spoken, written, redacted and disseminated among the Christian people for the sole purpose of answering one single question: “Who is Jesus of Nazareth?” How one answers that question makes all the difference.

No surprise then, that Matthew’s gospel would make special mention of Jesus’s question to the    disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”

The setting for the question is significant. Caesarea Philippi situated right at the bottom of a HUGE rock.  In the rock is a cave.  In the bottom of the cave  is a spring which is the headwaters of the Jordan River.  Our Lord deliberately chose this place to ask the question.  The rock, the cave, and  the spring all provide a dramatic backdrop and great visual aids for what is going on.  Our Lord has a great sense of the dramatic.

The cave is a type of foreshadowing of the tomb, signifying Jesus passion, death, and resurrection by which he will redeem all creation to the Father. 

The spring can be seen as a symbol of the waters of baptism by which we go into the tomb with Christ and rise with him; our faith becoming an overflowing wellspring for the world.

The rock, of course, reinforces Jesus’ declaration of Peter as the rock on which he will build his Church. This is no little bitty rock. This is huge edifice that defines the horizon. The Church built on the rock of Peter is the mystical body of Christ.

Who do people say that I am? The setting in which Jesus asked the question helped his disciples understand who he is.  How we each answer it today will have eternal consequences.

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How to Engage the World

Fr. Leo preaches the good word.

There was a young fellow looking at a plaque on the wall of the church. The pastor came up to him to see what he was doing.

“What are all these names on the wall?” the boy asked.

The pastor replied, “Those are the names or those who died in the service.”

“Oh,” the boy pondered, “Which service, the 8:30 or the 11:30?

   Words are important. The field of semantics gets a bad rap.  I’m not sure why. It’s really important stuff. How we formulate thought, how we structure and present our ideas and the choice of words we use can make all the difference in whether we are simply speaking, or communicating.

Of course, my mother used to say, “Make your words sweet, for one day you may have to eat them.”

There are rituals of communication in every culture. When to speak and how you speak. Ritual phrases that give context and meaning.

       For example, in our own culture, phrases like, “Once upon a time…” or  “This is a true story, no kidding!”  Or “Here, hold my beer and watch this!”

     There are rituals of communication in every culture. Knowing what they are can make all the difference.  Jesus uses this knowledge to make a very important point about the Kingdom of God in his encounter with the Canaanite woman in today’s gospel passage.

       Remember, the Jews of first century Palestine did not have a lot of interaction with Gentiles. There were many reasons for this, some good, some bad. In any event, her mere presence is irritating to the disciples and they just want her gone. Jesus chooses his words wisely so that his lesson for the disciples can make the best impact. 

       First he says nothing. Is he ignoring her on purpose or just waiting for the right moment? It comes with the disciples’ request to send her away. 

       Next, he states the obvious, at least that which would seem to be obvious to the disciples. As the Messiah, they would expect that he had only come to deliver “the lost sheep of Israel.” Jesus now has the disciples’ full attention. They expect him to put her in her place while      affirming the privilege of theirs.

       Next he says what they are all thinking. Does he really believe that she is a dog? Of course not, but many of them do. He already knows her faith and she shows it with her comment about even the dogs getting the scraps from the table. 

       Next he says and does something truly shocking. He praises her faith and heals her daughter. This rocks the world of his disciples. All their lives they were taught that they were the only ones who would enter the Kingdom, but if he can perform a miracle for this pagan foreigner, what does that say about the nature of the Kingdom. Is there room for Jews and Gentiles? 

       They would do well to listen to the words of the Lord spoken through the prophet Isaiah who said,

       for my house shall be called

       a house of prayer for all peoples.

Indeed, as St. Paul notes in his letter to the Roman, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled in the person of Christ and in his Church.

       Paul is struggling with the fact that so many of his fellow Jews did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah and embrace the gospel.  He reasons that once they see how powerfully the prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled in the Gentiles, even if only out of jealousy, they will come to faith in Christ. 

       We in the Church should also take heed of the lesson of the Canaanite woman. Sometimes we can get a little smug, even when it comes to our relationship to other Christians. When we do so, we would do well to remember the encounter between Jesus and the Canaanite woman and what he has to teach us about the breadth of God’s mercy.

       The Second Vatican Council says without apology, that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. Namely, it is true that everything Jesus intended the Church to be is found here in the Catholic Church.  But the Council also notes that nevertheless, there are

       “many elements of sanctification and of truth are    found outside of its visible structure.” (LG 8)

So how are we to approach other Christians, or other people of faith? 

       I like the example of the Holy Father, who speaks so eloquently about personal encounter with the other in a spirit of fraternal accompaniment

       This approach dovetails very well with the powerful example of Pope St. John Paul II, who showed us how to stand in the truth in love.

       The Catholic Church shall never compromise the Sacred Tradition or cease to be who Christ has called us to be. But we can change the way we approach others in the world. After centuries of acrimony in our relationship with others, at the Second Vatican Council, the Church chose fraternal dialogue as the way that we will engage the world.

       This includes other Christians, other people of faith, and even people of no faith. As Christ did with the Canaanite woman and with so many others, we hold out the open hand friendship to of all people of good will.

       Remember, whatever Christ touches Christ transforms. The same is true for the Body of Christ, the Church.

       Our job as individuals, as families, as a parish, as an archdiocese and as a universal Church is to become so much a part of our neighborhoods, our town, our country, our world that they cannot imagine life without us.

       It is in our encounter with the world that we truly become Lumen Gentium, a light to the people. 

       Let us be people of such a light, let us allow Christ to touch our hearts and transform them into a heart like unto his own,

       so that in our encounter with others, even those very much unlike us, Christ may touch and transform them,

       and the words of the psalmist may echo through to the four corners of the earth:

        O God, let all the nations praise you!

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Time is an Ingredient

Back in the seminary, about half my class came straight from minor seminary and about half from various professions. We had police officers, teachers, lawyers, pilots. One fellow was an engineer. At one point, we were preparing a birthday party for one of our classmates. There was no Costco in Rome, so we put the engineer in charge of baking the cake. Big mistake. The directions said to put the batter in a pan and bake at 350º for 45 minutes or so. Being an engineer, he did some quick calculations and determined that he could save some time if he put it in at 525º for 25 minutes. The results were predictable. It was charred on the outside and gooey raw on the inside. What he didn’t realize is that time is an ingredient.

This is a little bit about what Jesus is teaching about the Kingdom in the parable of the wheat and the weeds. The weed in question here is most likely darnel or cockle, a noxious weed that closely resembles wheat and is plentiful in Israel. The difference between darnel and real wheat is evident only when the plants mature and the ears appear.

In the parable, the workers first reaction is to question the quality of the seed. As Deacon John taught us last week, that is not the issue. This is the work of an enemy. As difficult as it seems, given that the roots of the weeds are intertwined with the wheat, it is better to wait until the harvest to separate them. Time is an ingredient in the fulfillment of the Kingdom. 

It’s the same with us in our own spiritual lives.  So often in our prayer life we want to cut corners and save some time. The results will be as predictable as that cake or the ripping of the wheat with the weeds. The truth is that each of us has our gifts and our crosses. Sometimes we want to shed our cross, but in doing so, our gifts would be cast aside as well. Time is an ingredient and God’s timing is so much better than our own.       

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Growing and Sowing the Word (and some fishing pics)

[Greetings, Church Fans! I had a great time out in fish camp in an undisclosed location in western Alaska. There are a couple of pics at the end to give you an idea of how we get our protein here in the Great Land.]

       One nice thing about parables is that they lend themselves to multiple levels of interpretation and thus one can derive many different levels of meaning. So it is with the Parable of the Sower.

Lesson #1: The seed is the Word and how fruitful it is depends on the ground on which it falls. If it falls on the path it gets eaten up. If it falls on Rocky ground it doesn’t last. If it falls in thorns it gets choked off. But if it falls on good soil it yields 30, 60 or 100 fold. As disciples, if we want to be fruitful, we have till the soil of our souls to be able to receive the Word so that it can grow in our hearts. 

Lesson #2: That tilling the soil of our hearts takes time. When I look at my own life, I know that I can identify my own heart with each of the different types of soil. There were times that I was the path. There were also times where I was a flash in the pan Catholic. There were times when the cares of the world choked off the Word. But eventually, I was ready to receive God’s Word and let it do its thing. 

Lesson #3: The Sower’s primary job is to spread the Word. Period. I’m amazed at how prodigal the Sower is in the sowing. He just goes about throwing seed everywhere without seeming to pay any attention to where it lands. I don’t know about you, but when I plan a garden, every seed or start gets its own special place in the garden. Not so with the Word of God. We must also see ourselves as Sower’s of the Word, but the lesson here is very clear. Our job is not to worry about success, but simply to spread the Word in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and wherever else we happen to be. We are not to be concerned with what happens after that. But we must sow the Word so that it can find good soil to grow.

     As we each write the parable of our life, the Parable of Sower is a good reminder for each of us that we are both soil and Sower, but in the end it is God who makes it grow.

         – Fr. Leo

And now… the fishing pics

Probably one of the biggest red (sockeye) salmon out there. 15.2 pounds (7 kg).
Joy the Dog is ready for adventure. “Dog is my copilot?”

Dave and Barb at the stream. The weather was pretty wet.
Independence Day at Fish Camp.
Quiet respite by the lake. My little airplane rests in the background.
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Dying to Self, Living in Christ

     One of my favorite actors is Anthony Hopkins. The man can take on any role most convincingly. It is he who quipped, “I make my living by pretending to be other people.” Believe it or not, my favorite role of his is not Hannibal Lecter, but as St. Paul in the 1981 miniseries, Peter and Paul. 

       St. Paul is a very intense, and very intriguing character. Unlikely as it was at the time, it is no surprise that Christ chose him to be the apostle to the Gentiles. This is a guy who could think and pray outside and inside the box and then act decisively on the fruits of his deliberations. He fully embraced what Christ meant in today’s gospel when he completely reordered his life after meeting the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus. In short, he received Christ totally and completely. He “lost” his previous life and found new life in Christ.  Pretty cool.

       In his letter to the Romans that we read today, he helps us understand this teaching of Jesus. For Paul, baptism is the portal through which the Christian dies to his former life and begins to live anew in Christ. “Are you not aware,” he says, “that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

Whether we do this at our baptism as adults or embrace it later if we were baptized as infants, for each Christian there is that moment when we must each decide in our heart of hearts whether our life will be in Christ or in the world. This “fundamental option” as it is sometimes called, will make all the difference. 

       How, because Paul does not stop there. It is not enough to leave the old life behind. There is so much more. Dying with Christ in baptism leads one the Resurrection in Christ.

       Now, there is a temptation to think of the Resurrection as some distant, far off, eschatological reality. That’s only partially true. St. Paul had a very good sense that to be a Christian was to be a person of the resurrection from the moment of your baptism. “Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin, and living for God in Christ Jesus.” For St. Paul and for all of us, heaven begins now.

Pedro Arrupe, the late Master General of the Jesuits said it well.  He said,

“Nothing is more practical than finding God,

That is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings,

What you will do with your evenings,

How you spend your weekends,

What you read,

Who you know,

What breaks your heart,

And what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”

              ― Pedro Arrupe

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“Be Not Afraid!”

When Pope St. John Paul II stood on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica after being elected the first non-Italian pope in six centuries, his first words to the Church and to the world were, “Be not afraid.”

     These were no small words from a man whose entire ministry had been carried out under the oppression of a communist regime. We all know how that story played out. The Church in Poland is still there, and the communist regime is not.

In truth, as the largest organization in the world, the Catholic Church has often lived in tension with civil authorities who see it, erroneously, as a threat to their base of power. In the present age, like any corporate citizen, the Church reserves the right to speak in the public forum regarding matters that affect the dignity of person and the common good.  Nevertheless, since the pontificate of John Paul I, the Church has made it clear that it does not desire, nor does it see as constructive, to assume the trappings of civil governance. Nevertheless, where the Church is seen as a threat, it is often persecuted, sometime with deadly force. The sad and volatile situation in Nicaragua and China bears witness to this fact. Even in our own American society, where the Church advocates for the dignity of the human person and the protection of human life from conception to natural death, we see a deliberate attempt to marginalize religion in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, in order to remove our voice from the public square. Looking at current trends, the late Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago quipped, “I expect to die in my bed. I expect my successor to die in prison. I expect his successor to die a martyr in the public square.”

Are such trends cause for concern? On one level, yes. As a Church, as an Archdiocese, as a parish and as individual Catholics we can do much to mitigate this trend by proactively and constructively engaging the society in which we live. The Church has a face. As individual Catholics, we should actively engaged in our neighborhoods. We need to know our neighbors and they need to know us. As a parish, we need to proactively and constructively engage the community around us. For example, there are two community councils within our parish boundaries. We need to have a regular and effective voice at both of them.  Similarly, we need to engage the neighborhoods around us so that they see us as a vital part of life on this side of town.  In short, as a parish, we need to become so much a part of the local community that they cannot imagine life without us. 

Still, if things get out of hand, as they have from time to time throughout history, there is no cause for fear. Our Lord said that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church.  He did not say that they wouldn’t try really hard!

There is nothing in the present age that we have not seen several times throughout the centuries. They are all gone.  The Church remains. If we are true to Christ and to His Church, there is nothing we cannot overcome. There is no one we need fear to fear, because there is no limit to God’s love for us.

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An Abundant Harvest

Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there.  Thanks to all who have sent me a Father’s Day card.

     I like to give new life to old things. When we first got the parish house, there was an old, dilapidated greenhouse out back. It was made from a lot of those old single-pane windows that the U.S. Army gave away back in 1978 when the renovated the barracks on Ft. Rich. It looked to be about that old. The previous owners had been using it to store wood. Many of the panes were broken and the roof panels had holes. But the guts are good, so I decided to revive it. Why? Because I also like to grow tomatoes, and you can only grow tomatoes in Alaska in a greenhouse. I seem to be fairly good at it. 

       The project is taking longer than I had hoped, mainly because I can’t find a contractor willing to pour the footer and slab I need. Too small a project I guess. Nevertheless, by summer’s end, I am determined that it will be complete. I may have to get creative.

       This may seem like a lot of work just for a few dozen tomatoes, and it is. But to me, it’s worth it. There’s just something special about planting the seeds, watching them grow, and harvesting the fruits in due time.

       I think that is a lot like what is going on in today’s gospel as Jesus gives the Twelve a pep talk before sending them out. They have been with him for a while.  Now it is time to send them on a little mission so they can grow in their faith and confidence as his disciples. Notice he gives them authority and sends them out to do exactly what he has been doing: proclaiming the Kingdom, healing the sick, casting out demons. Cool.

       As a parish family, we are called to do the same thing. Within the believing community, we plant the seeds of faith, we help each other discern the gifts that we have been given, we call those gifts forth, train to give competence, give authority to use those gifts in the various parish ministries that serve the parish and the community around us, and then we have a big party every Sunday and at the end of the year to give thanks to God and to each other for the gifts of time, talent, and treasure that have helped our little part of the Kingdom to bear fruit.

       From time to time, we also call forth young men and women to serve the Church as holy priests, deacons and consecrated religious. It is essential that we do so to fulfill our mission.

       I’d like to concentrate on the way that we call young men to the Holy Priesthood for a moment, because this is the most pressing need at present.

       Where do vocations to the priesthood come from? What are the conditions in which the seeds of a vocation can thrive and grow? 

       1. Prayer. As individuals and as a parish family we need to pray for vocations. 

       They did a study a few years ago on the parishes that seemed to be hotbeds of vocations to see what they had in common.  Their findings were interesting. Demographics did not matter. It did not matter whether the parish was wealthy or poor, culturally or ethnically homogenous or diverse, urban or rural. 

       The only common denominator in parishes that produced lots of vocations to the priesthood was…

       …regular Eucharistic adoration.  

       2.  So, we need to pray for vocations, and we need to encourage vocations…but where?  How?   

       a.  At home – especially fathers

       Mom and Dad, you want your sons to be happy. You want what’s best for them. Dad’s, you have a special role in that. 

       If Christ is calling them to priesthood, what a blessing if you support that.

       Let me tell you what I mean. When I was 24, I had been working as a program manager for Junior Achievement, but in the background I had been discerning a vocation to the priesthood. There was no small amount of inner turmoil and self-doubt.

       One of my main concerns was how to tell my dad.

You want your dad to be proud of you.  I wasn’t sure how he would react.  So I scripted out every argument in my head:

       “If he says, this, I will counter with that. If he says that, I will counter with this.”  Eventually, I had it all worked out in my head.  All I needed was the right opportunity.

       I did not have to wait long.  A week or two later, my dad calls me up and said, “Hey, your mother is out of town this week, why don’t you come on by for dinner.”

       Thank you, Holy Spirit.

       We had a great dinner grilling steaks and eating huge football-sized baked potatoes.

       Then he says, “Hey, why don’t we have some brandy and cigars out in the living room.”

       Hey, cool!  We never got to have cigars in the living room when Mom was home. So, there we sat chatting away with our brandy and cigars, with a big fire going in the fireplace.

       So I said to myself, “Self!  No time like the present.”

       But before I could say anything, my dad looks at me and says, “Leo, you’ve been working that job at JA for some a couple of years now, and we both know that’s not what you are going to be doing forever. So I ask you, what are you thinking of doing with your life?”

       Gee, thank you Holy Spirit.

       I paused for a moment and then said to him, “Well, Dad, to be honest, I think I want to become a priest.”

       He paused for a moment, had a sip of brandy and took a puff off his cigar, looked me right in the eye, and then said,

       “Well…be a good one.”

To this day, that is the best gift I have ever received from my father.

       b. We encourage vocations at home, we also need to encourage vocations as a parish family.

       The early Church did not have a shortage of vocations crisis. Why?  Because it was the parish that called them forth from the congregation. 

       Your vocation was not primarily some inner prompting from the Holy Spirit. It came from the people around you.

       The community gathered, prayed, and then discerned who among them had the gifts necessary and then called them forth for ministry. 

       It’s interesting to note that the premise of John Chrysostom’s great treatise on the Holy Priesthood is that he and his friend Bartholomeus are hiding, because they have been called by the local church to be priests. The tract takes the form of a Greek dialogue where John is convincing his friend that he needs to come out of hiding and embrace his vocation. 

       I makes me wonder…what would happen if we did something similar here…

       We are not at that point, but I will say that if you see a young man in the parish who you think has the gifts, take him aside and say to him, “You know, I see the gifts in you that would make a good priest. Have you thought about it?  Please do. I’m going to be praying for you.

       I guarantee you, if you can see it, they have been thinking about it. 

       And it might not be who you would expect at first glance.

       We all have a role to play. We all have gifts to offer to further the spread of the Gospel and the salvation of souls here in 99504.  As a parish family, one of the best things we do is plant the seeds of faith, water them with our prayers and faith.  It’s up to the Holy Trinity to take it from there.

       We plant the seeds, the Father gives the growth, the Son gives the commission, the Spirit gives power of God’s love. This is how we yield an abundant harvest.            

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Ask Fr. Leo – Do all Dogs Go to Heaven?

Some of the simplest questions can lead to the most profound theological investigations.  Below are a few of them that I have received over the last few months.

Dear Fr. Leo, 

Will I see my dog in heaven? – M

Dear M.,

          Roy Rogers once famously quipped, “If dogs don’t go to heaven, when I die, I want to go where they went!” Not a bad thought, but to help answer this question, I like to invoke the theological principle: “Lex orandi, lex credendi.”  Literally, “the law of praying is the law of believing,” or more colloquially, “As the Church prays, so she believes.”  To this end, I would direct your attention to the Eucharistic Prayer IV. It’s one of my favorites, but it doesn’t get a lot of use, unfortunately. The beauty of the fourth Eucharistic Prayer is its sweeping catechesis of salvation history, from the first moments of creation, through the people of Israel, to the coming of the Christ, to His passion, death and resurrection, to the foundation of the Church at Pentecost, all the way up to the final judgment at the end of the age when as we read in the Book of Revelation, there will be “a new heaven and a new earth.” (Rev. 21:1) In Latin, the Eucharistic Prayer IV refers to our entry into the Kingdom of Heaven with Mary and all the saints, “There, with the whole of creation, (ubi cum univérsa creatúra) freed from the corruption of sin and death, may we glorify you…”  I’m not sure about you, but for me, the whole of creation includes all of creation, not just some of it. This would necessarily include dogs and all other creatures. 

          There is also an argument to made from the famous maxim of St. Thomas Aquinas: “That which is received, is received according to the mode of the one who receives it. (Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur.) Thomas presupposes a hierarchy of being with the Holy Trinity at the top, then created beings such as the Blessed Mother, the angelic beings, human beings, animals, plants, rocks, and so forth.  Since the Kingdom of Heaven is primarily about relationships, namely communion, then any given creature’s participation in that Kingdom could be contingent on its ability to relate to other beings. The Trinity, of course, is relationship itself. Then follows the rest of us according to our nature in the order I just described. We human beings relate to God and to one another according to our nature. Likewise, anyone who has spent any time with dogs knows that they are too are social beings, albeit they relate to others according to their canine nature.  So, you could make a case for dogs in heaven based on their ability to enter into relationship according to their nature. The presence of cats in heaven, based on this same criteria, is still a matter of theological speculation.

Dear Fr. Leo,

          How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  – L

Dear L:

          That depends. Do you mean with the four-piece jazz ensemble or with the full Big Band orchestra? 

          This was actually a question asked by the Scholastics in the Middle Ages, primarily as a rhetorical exercise, but it does lead to some fun things. The question as stated is a bit cumbersome because it fails to consider the nature of angelic beings. Unlike human beings, who have a physical body and a spiritual soul, angels are purely spiritual beings. They don’t have a physical body. As such, they don’t take up any physical space.  So, the answer to the question could just as easily be “All of them.” or “None of them.” 

          But let’s take things one step further. If angels don’t have a physical body, but humans do, what are the implications for us in God’s plan of salvation? There is an attractive myth out there in popular literature that when we humans die, if we have lived a good life, we become angels. That’s a nice thought, but that’s not how it works.

          As human beings, we have a body and a soul. In God’s plan of salvation, we don’t metamorphose into something that we are not. Rather, we become fully what God has created us to be, body and soul.  We become perfectly human.

          What’s the process by which this takes place?  The resurrection of body at the end of the age. We know this because of the resurrection of Christ. Remember, Christ was fully human as well as fully divine. He didn’t simply shed his human nature and its physical body when his mission of salvation on earth was done.  Rather, God raised up his mortal body.  The Risen Christ is humanity perfected. That is what awaits us if we remain in communion with him. As St. Augustine said, “The joy of God, is the human person fully alive.”  For us humans, that means “the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.”