Jesus and the Rise of a new Fatherhood

It's rarely spoken about, but one of the undercurrents in the Gospels is the way that Jesus heals broken fatherhood. He heals all creation, but in a particular way, he comes to heal our image of fathers and fatherhood. "When you see me, you see the Father," he says in the gospel of John.

But look how clearly and strikingly the readings from Mass a few days back make this point: Mark 5:21-43, and 2 Sam 18.

Jairus, the synagogue official, implores Jesus to heal his daughter who is on the point of death. There is no indication that Jairus is a bad father at all; in fact he seems to be doing all he can to help her. But that's just the point: earthly fathers alone cannot provide what human beings really need, no matter how good they are. Jairus cannot save his daughter from death, even a young death. Jesus responds by going off with him to help her, to provide what this good-willed father cannot provide on his own: life.

On the way, Jesus meets another hidden crisis of fatherhood. A woman who had a hemorrhage meets him. Mark tells us she had suffered greatly at the hand of many doctors and had spent all she had. But she only got worse. Though the text doesn't tell us explicitly, there is an implicit judgment we might draw: where was her father? Why was she pouring her resources and not him? She is apparently alone and growing destitute and hopeless on her own. Her father could not protect her from illness and social stigma and poverty. Maybe he tried his best, maybe not; but he is not there. He's gone. She's alone. If this theme of fatherhood seems a stretch, simply hear what Jesus calls her when he finally lays eyes on her: "Daughter." In touching his cloak, she touches the power and love of a Father who loves her. And she is healed.

But during this delay along the way, it seems that Jesus has failed as a substitute father to Jairus' daughter. The report comes that she had died. It seems as though Jesus claim to simply heal the girl and restore her to her father is ridiculous. The crowd laughs at him and mocks him. After all, too much damage is done, too much water under the bridge. He ignores the nay-sayers and proclaims, "The child is not dead but asleep." Even physical death does not put the girl outside of his fatherly care, though she is out of the reach of Jairus.

Jesus remarkably takes on the role of the father of the house: he tells certain people to leave the house, guides the parents (it is their house!) through the house to the girl's room, and takes the child by the hand. She arose immediately. His fatherly providence continues, telling them to give her something to eat. While he restores the parents to their role in the girls life, it is clear that Jesus brings a fatherly identity and power with greater authority than that of natural parents and even the forces of nature.

How often do we think of Jesus as a father? Recall that he is called the "son of David" on several occasions. David himself was a father whose love for his son was stronger than even the most heinous betrayals. When his rebellious and treasonous son Absolom is finally killed, David cries out, "My son, Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you, Absalom, my son, my son!" If this is true of David, how much more true is it of Christ, who consummates the desire we see in David's heart, to die for his beloved child on the Cross?

Especially for us men--whether fathers physically or spiritually, directly or indirectly--we can find great strength knowing that Jesus opens up for us a great hope: he is fatherhood healed of all brokenness, neglect, and selfishness. We men are hard-wired to give and protect life, but this can seem to daunting to commit to for a lifetime, or, given our own weaknesses even for a week, sometimes. But Jesus comes to undo the fall, and this includes the fall of the first father. He gives life and protects us in His Church. He can teach us how, too.

Treasure under the house: the intellectual riches of Christology

If you asked me what my favorite class was, in all those great years during my formal studies for the priesthood...I'd say probably Christology. The study of Christ. Sounds funny, but until I arrived at the hallowed halls of my two seminaries (in Denver and Chicago, respectively), I honestly had no idea such a thing even existed.

At first hearing, I thought "Christology" was a joke. Literally. Or, at best, I thought maybe it was a topic some professor had made up on a whim, with tongue slightly in cheek. The study of Christ? Who ever heard of such a thing? The "logy" of bio-logy...socio-logy...anthropo-logy...that seemed to make sense given the relative pin-downability of those areas of study (life, peoples, man, etc.). But taking class on the Lord Jesus? What do we think he is, a dead butterfly? It was like taking a class on my Mom, or my Dad. How would you possibly catch and study someone so mysterious and, well, huge? I assumed: "I know Jesus... I don't need a class on him."

Turns out, Christology was, and is, pretty darn real. In fact, I discovered that the first six or seven centuries of Church history resembled a long intellectual wrestling match of the greatest human minds with answering this basic question: Who the heck is Jesus Christ? How can we possibly make sense out of Him?

I realized that, despite my Catholic upbringing (no, I didn't go to Catholic schools growing up.)  how little intellectual content I possessed regarding some somewhat simple questions: How was Jesus God and man? Did he have a soul? Did he know everything? How did he pray? Did he fear death? Did Jesus know he was God? Did he have two minds? Did he know he would rise from the dead? Was Jesus Jewish or Catholic or both or neither? Did Jesus think about me while he was on the cross?

I took the class--it was January, 2004--and my Christology class blew me away--not because it was the best-taught class necessarily, or because class interaction was the best, but because the intellectual content which provided logically coherent and rich answers to these questions was like discovering a massive cave of treasure under my house. I had no idea, but it was there all along, and my mind started coming alive as a Catholic in a new way.

The treasure I discovered was made up of intellectual heroes, giants, speaking to me from across the centuries: Sts. Paul, Iranaeus, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzen, Basil and Leo the Great, Augustine, Ambrose, and a host of others, unfolding the Mystery of Christ in ways I intellectually thirsted for, thought I hardly dared to ask the questions.  I had never experienced my heart and my mind being so united and exhilarated by anything quite like that ever before. These men helped to transfer me, whole and entire, from adolescence to adulthood in terms of my Catholicism; they certainly also helped me entertain the feasibility spending all my twenties studying Christ full-time, which I ended up doing.

Now, as a priest at the largest university in the United States of America, I'll be sharing some of these riches in a weekly Christology course for any interested students. It'll be my first crack at teaching a university level course on campus--thought not-for-credit--but I'm very interested to see what kind of discussion and interest it generates. In an environment that often scoffs at the intellectual rigor of Christianity, I hope it will be helpful. If the material has half the effect on others that it had on me in my twenties, it'll be well worth the effort.

See www.asucatholic.org for details on the free class.

What Do Women Want...

At our ASU new student getaway, our FOCUS missionaries led a fascinating discussion on chastity. They focus (no pun intended) in their formation of college students on three areas where students often struggle: chastity, sobriety, and excellence. The missionaries are all young, attractive, and dynamic people, so they had a good hold on the students attention and they spoke about the whats, whys, and hows of chastity in campus life.

Here's what I thought fascinating. In the Q and A, I asked the men: what do you think women want from you? After all, women seem to spend significant energy on getting men's attention. But what do they want once they get men's attention?

The men's answers were interesting and the guys seemed surprisingly confident about them, along the lines of, "Women want us to love 'em," and "Women want love." After about 6-7 comments like that, there was general agreement: Yessiree, women want our love! We love 'em--them ladies--and that's what they want.

But suddenly it dawned on me that only men had answered, and the women in the room--both the FOCUS missionaries and college women--sat quietly listening. Now I'm no expert in-all-things-women-related, but I know enough to know we men don't have an immaculate track record in knowing how women think...

Then the women responded. And the results were quite different. "We want to be protected, we want to feel safe," and "We want to give our selves to you, and know that we'll be ok," and "we want to know that you'll protect us and take us in a good direction," and "We want you to pursue us, even after we get married, for the rest of our lives."

We want to you protect us, and to pursue us. The men knew the women wanted to be loved...but only the women knew how that is supposed to happen. Frankly, the guys had no idea. But it seemed to be the most obvious thing to the ladies, the most natural addendum, clarification, to what the men had said. The men's answer was correct, but vastly imprecise or incomplete.

I looked around the room. Guys were slowly but attentively nodding like they were hearing the secret location of treasure map for the first time.  Most of the women were smiling and some even had a few tears of delightful recognition--or some strange joyful delight, I don't know--in their eyes. I was flabbergasted--for us men it was like we had discovered the fountain of youth or were kids seeing the secrets of the elves in the north pole. The vibe for the men was like this: So this is how it is supposed to work! It's so simple! Why didn't some one tell us this?

For the women, it seemed to me like some lost mystical photo album of their collective mysterious shared life was open on the coffee table before everyone and we were happily flipping through it. And we all felt a flood of this soothing "memory" of simply who they are--so specific, but so mysterious!--and therefore who we are as men, as well.

Of course, we've known it forever. The Church knows it. Blessed John Paul II reminded us in his encyclical on St Joseph that every man's vocation is the dignity of woman. He told us that St Joseph's two tasks were protecting the birth of Christ and the beauty of Mary. And so it is with every man today, every day of his life, until he dies. It just something special when you see college freshmen get it, surrounded by sad sexual lies as they are. But truly, all of a sudden, to this group of students, I'd say that things like immodest clothing, promiscuity, and the like, came into sharp relief as really quite sad and empty, a pathetic decoy for the Real Thing.

Protect us and pursue us. The guys in the room didn't know that was the answer to the question, "What do women want from you?" but once they heard the women say it...it turns out that those are the very two things they had been wanting to do all along. Just needed to ask.

virtue media...Catholics come home commercial

Just the other day I had the experience of shooting a scene for a "Catholics Come Home" commercial produced by Virtue Media and Veritas productions. I was involved in a very short clip--just a few seconds long--but it took hours to set up and shoot. It was fun, but man, it made me realize how incredibly hard it must be to shoot a full length movie...

The scene was of my doing the elevation of the host and chalice (of course in this case it was non-consecrated!) at the "This is the lamb of God..."

The cool thing was since the commercial won't run for months, I used the new translation, which took a little practice: "Behold, the lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world...." It was really powerful to say those new words again and again (and again, and again...)

The way they set up the shot, the panning of the camera, the slow-mo of the final shot, the filters used to make the afternoon light in the church (Immaculate Heart in Phoenix) look like a heavenly light-filled sunrise morning...very cool stuff. I'll post when the final project is done, and let you all know when and how it will run.

FOCUS code names

Here's a post simply derived from the fact that you have GOT to get to know ASU's new FOCUS missionaries. They are outstanding people! (FOCUS=Fellowship of Catholic University Students...here, they are a team of four full-time Catholic missionaries to ASU)

Our four FOCUS missionaries are--as I write this--running,romping, roaming, and roaring about the campus of ASU as freshmen move in. They are, in a word, dynamos. Here's an update about who they are--with a little edge to it--I've taken the liberty of giving each one an "evangelization code name":

1. James Timberlake. Code name: Purple Lion. The fearless leader of the team of missionaries. Confident and a go-getter, he is at the same time comfortable being the last in the room to speak. I'm not joking about fearless. He is a former college football player, gave up med-school to be a missionary, and is able to catch two volleyballs thrown at him while racing down a pool slide.

2. Andrew Dennis. Code name: Uhaul. With comparable towing and hauling capacity to a small Uhaul truck, Andrew earned his name by arriving in Arizo-

na driving an actual Uhaul truck, and then promptly and generously asking me if I wanted to partake in a protein shake. In the middle of a street. At 12:45 am. He has major evangelical hauling capacity, too. Also a former college football player, he is a missionary rookie with huge potential. Recommended for your FOCUS fantasy team.

3. Sheen Byrne. Code name: Little Sparrow. Coming into her third year as a full-time Catholic missionary, Sheena has the heart of a falcon packaged in the gentleness of a spring song bird. You'll see her on the power wire outside your room

when the sun rises. She'll perch on your window-sill as you cook breakfast. Then she's on the kitchen table as you sip your coffee. Next this you know, she's on your shoulder reading the morning paper with you, and chirping about Jesus. A saavy veteran with rookie zeal. Deadly combo.

4. Jessica Petersen. Code name: Peach Eagle. Unlike Little Sparrow, capable of swooping in at high speeds...yet students find that her precise talon strikes are as easy-going and agreeable as a summer peach tea in Alabama. A

rookie who was reaching out to students within hours of her unpacking her suitcase, "JP" is a remarkably effective missionary even though in her first year of full-time mission work.

*5. Daniel Tansil. Code name: Turtle Dove. The "liason" from the Newman Center to FOCUS, Daniel is practically speaking a key element of the FOCUS team, though officially a New

man Center employee. Tough and shrewd as an old turtoise, but possessing the soft coo of the Holy Spirit, Daniel brings to ASU not only his experience as a former student but a myriad of skills, including selling real estate, frisbee, and cross country cycling. This is one turtle that

runs circles around the Hare.

The whole FOCUS, working in close collaboration with the All Saints Newman Center, has a secret code name as well: Voltron. If you we're a seven year old in 1985, you'll understand what I'm talking about. Wikipedia it. Defenders of the Universe...unite!

new missal video

Video on the Roman Missal is done!

Great feedback on the video had been pouring in. Life Teen did a great job producing the video. It's a cool experience of the amazing "ripple effect" of a piece of online media. You make it. You post it. And it keeps going, and going, and going.

Here's a link to the video as it is linked at an excellent Catholic blog:

http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2011/08/dynamic-new-video-on-forthcoming-new.html

Basic point: the new English translation is not simply about a long process of translation or some esoteric battle between "liturgists." It is about allowing the voice of Christ in the liturgy--which is the voice of the Roman Catholic Church, the Latin Rite, in this case--to resound more truly, more convincingly.

Video on new missal

GeoTagged, [N33.42391, E111.93888]

Green screen magic! Yesterday I shot a video resource in which I explained aspects of the new translation of the Roman Missal--dispelling myths, and sharing the beauty and goodness that the new translation exemplifies. The good folks at Life Teen are producing the project, so I'm sure it will be well done--despite my efforts...I'll be sure to post the video when it's finalized.