Lenten Reflections 2005

This was going to be a longer series, but events at Calvert House intervened. Thus, there are a few less topics, but they all deal with theological matters. If you're looking for politics or book reviews or romanticism, those will wait until Eastertime, and I'll try to do more joyful subjects then.

Hope

The following reflection ran in the Calvert bulletin on 27 February. It's very appropriate to the situation. In reality, I had written almost all of this in late January, anticipating March 1 and the next topic. It's based on the following three pieces of scripture: Romans 5:1-8, Revelation 21:1-6 and 22:1-5.

Ninth week is starting, the winter has been harsh, and things can look pretty bleak about now. In the reading at Mass, Paul wrote about the trinity of great theological virtues, faith, hope, and love. Given the time of year and quarter, it's very appropriate to start with hope, our Christian Hope. The best definition I've seen is the following: "The resting of the heart on God, with full trust that He always cares for our salvation, and will give us the happiness He has promised."

The two passages from Revelation describe the eventual fulfillment of that promise. "The Lord will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain ..." It's marvelous poetry and a brilliant bit of inspired text. The author John manages to describe at least part of what we will receive in the Kingdom to come, with the return of the Messiah. Sometimes called the eschatological (or end-time) hope, it's a powerful message. Through the cross, Jesus has demonstrated caring for our salvation. Through Resurrection, he pointed the way to salvation, and this wonderful world to come. Believing in that eternal message, and resting our heart in it, is a very useful thing to ponder this week.

Yet there's more to hope. When I read these Revelation passages, I'm reminded of a book. No, not Left Behind; rather, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. At the end, the protagonist Montag is searching his mind for something to help his fellow travellers, to make the trip a little easier. He chooses this passage. "And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." Why this bit? It entwines eternal hope with the other type, temporal hope. As the definition states, God cares for our salvation and happiness. That care is not only in the future. It is also in the present. By choosing that passage, and choosing it to help others, Montag reminds us of hope here and now.

This temporal hope can be very hard to find, particularly in Hyde Park, particularly right now. Cold, wind, clouds, snow, darkness, grey walls, papers, readings, projects, problem sets, dissertations - who doesn't see this? It's so, so easy to get lost, turn away, and lose the assurance of God's care. That's sad. But not only sad, it drives the heart away from the Lord, and towards hell - once accurately described as the total absence of hope, the tactile proof of despair.

The mission for the week can be to perform acts of hope, that by bringing it to others, it also comes closer to us. Assuring people of God's love is not simple. It's certainly not walking around Hyde Park shouting "Jesus loves you!" No, there are many better ways. Occasionally, it's a massive gesture, like holding his hand when he's crying or answering her frantic midnight knock. More commonly, it's smaller things: complimenting someone in discussion; smiling; inviting the quiet neighbor to tea; setting a small bag of chestnuts at the door.

Montag's searching and speaking is one of those actions. I don't know how the travellers felt later in that day, when he spoke the words and they considered them. The book doesn't say. In my mind, I want the intent to came through, that they could trust in God and believe in his caring. And I want it to be true for all of us.

A Matchbook (1 March)

Monday night and Tuesday I carried a pack of matches. No, I haven't become a smoker or a pyromaniac. Nor is it for work, or Calvert House, or any friend. Nor is it Chicago pride, even though the book was made by the Superior Match Company of Chicago, U. S. A. The saying on the top of the matchbook, "The People's Friend", isn't particularly exciting either. It's the slogan for a political candidate, who has her picture on one side, and her name and office on the other. As offices and officeholders rank, she's not very important. Although she did attend the 1984 Democratic National Convention as a delegate, she doesn't even appear in Political Graveyard. Besides, given the result in 1984, involvement with that nomination is no electoral accomplishment. Actually, I don't even know if she won that election, though I know she won that office at least once.

As you might have guessed, there's some personal reason. The picture on the striking side is of my mother's mother, my grandmother. It's the only picture of her I own. The other side states "Elect Gloria V. Rankus Mayor of Reynoldsville". It was a Tuesday 17 years ago, March 1, 1988, that was the last day of her Earthly life. And I miss her.

I barely remember her husband, my grandfather. He died when I was 7 or 8, after a hard life in the mills. I remember him mostly as really tall, with hard hands, although my parents say I'm taller than he was. I do remember my grandma Rankus. The matchbook picture is a lot younger that what I recall, maybe in her early forties. If you look closely, you can see the wood paneling I remember from the house. I knew her in her later years, her late fifties. I never remember her without her walker. When my parents would take my brother and I to visit, Thanksgiving, Christmas, during the summer, she would treat us so kindly, as grandmothers do. She had a song for me, which I can't listen to anymore. No, I won't tell you what it is. Also, my brother and I would always mark our heights on the inside of a kitchen cabinet. Our two cousins did too. The marks are still there, along with my cousin's son as he grows.

When I think of my grandmother's death, I always think of the books and the door. For a while, my mother had been spending her weekends in Danville, three hours away, at the Medical Center where her mother lay. One weekend, mom and dad said that we were all going, so we did. I can still remember how to drive there from my parents' house, and that it took about 3 hours and 5 minutes, because I timed it on my stopwatch. Crazy what we recall, eh? Ray and I took these fantasy books to play with. I saw them this at home this Christmas. Actually, the books had a really brilliant idea; they had an adventure for two people, with two slightly separate quests in the books. While one person travelled, the other person played the part of the monsters. Then you would switch. We spent a lot of time in the lounge outside the patient rooms, with the books. Saturday went on, and on, and on. Occasionally, Mom or Dad would come outside and see how we were, but then head back in. In the evening, we left, had dinner, slept in some small motel, then headed back for Sunday. Eventually the books were done, as was our homework, so we doodled or played around until it was time to leave.

"Everyone just keeps disappearing behind those doors."

Then there's the door, from which Mom and Dad entered and disappeared. Occasionally other adults would enter and disappear. Why not us? Well, we were 13 and 10, and at that time (being 1988) one had to be 14 to enter the patient wards. I'm sure that someone thought this was a good idea, that children would be traumatized by seeing people with tubes and machines and the like. Of course, at 13 intellectually I was smarter than most adults. But that didn't matter, and my parents aren't the type to break rules. I can't remember the last time I saw Grandma alive; I only saw her at her funeral, after the director had fixed her up. The director wrapped a rosary through her fingers. Besides the matchbook, I took one of her rosaries as my own. I carried it in my bag for years. About two years ago it fell out, and I couldn't find it again. I don't think I'll carry another.

You might say I stopped being a kid at her funeral, because things changed. It's not just the loss of a grandparent, for that's something. My viewpoints on alcohol changed. After her death, within a year I had my first major depressive spell. I didn't want to have pictures of myself, or pictures in general. The matchbook is the only picture I have of her, intentionally. There are good things. I'm generally a Democrat because her Democratic party was one of unions and workers and logical government. Her Pennsylvania Democrats were the pro-life party, as with Gov. Bob Casey, as they should be. She became mayor of a rural PA town despite looking not very white; she and Plessy v Ferguson make me Hispanic in the eyes of the law. Most importantly, she was always so gentle to me, so caring, so loving. It wasn't different than the love of other grandmothers for their children, but it was an example of goodness. I strain very hard to act like how I see her, to be gentle, to be kind when I deal with others.

March 1st is usually the worst day of my year. The seasonal aspect of my depression is peaking after the sunless winter. Here in Chicago, it's around ninth week of Winter Quarter, a bleak time in student life. Plus there's the history. Usually I remain private, but this year I decided against that. Part of leadership is showing weakness, to not stray away from the parts of life we wish to neglect. Thus, I had the Mass Card for Gloria Rankus on Tuesday. And I sat in the chapel and cried. I wondered if I would sob throughout the entire Daily Mass, roughly 40 minutes. I didn't make that; there were a couple dry spells. I still used 22 tissues (statisticians always count). And I found out that once tears dry on glasses, they leave spots that look like road salt. Streaks were all over the lenses.

Remembering isn't easy. It's not supposed to be. That's why I do it.

Mortification is for Wimps (15 March)

In the Four Failures, I mentioned this group Opus Dei, "The Work of God", and I called them the shining favored example of Catholicism as Obedience. Recently, the group has accelerated its quiet recruiting at Calvert House and on the University of Chicago campus. Well, less quietly now that there's no priest. I guess this is fitting, given that the first American cell was established near the University of Chicago. Given this place, that doesn't surprise me. As you might expect, I strongly oppose the group. I can give procedural reasons - a special structure outside every other rule of the church; the personality cult around "Our Father"; restrictions in reading and mail; some leaders' support of the Franco regime. Those are all important, particularly given my interest in high pressure religious groups and mind control, but the Lenten series of reflections is supposed to be on faith and practice. Instead, I want to critique three points where the group explicitly fails to follow its mandate. According to the propaganda, the group is primarily for ordinary lay people, and tries to act in the world. Here's a quote from the founder cited on the official webpage:

"Ordinary life can be holy and full of God ... Our Lord is calling us to sanctify the ordinary tasks of every day, for the perfection of the Christian is to be found precisely there."

One of the things about critiques is that it invariably tells much about the critiquer, what he or she finds important. By saying X and Y and Z are malformed, I'm defining not X and not Y and not Z as good practice, as normative. (A normative act is not only well-ordered for an individual, but also should become common practice, the norm.) In this case, that's precisely the point. Twelve fruits, particularly the musings, is about me; what I do, I think, I believe. Some of what I post is more objective and less personal, like about church seating or courtship or even romanticism. This is not one of those pieces. I'm defining my normative Catholicism in stark opposition to the Escrivites.

• Secrecy: When I meet someone at a Catholic event who belongs to a religious order, even as a postulant, he tends to bring up his group quickly. In faith type situations it's important enough to mention, and the people have confidence to do so. Do Opus Dei members do the same? Not that I know. Potential members are even encouraged to not discuss their decision with others, including parents. Are they even decent enough to put signage or religious symbols in front of their New York headquarters? Apparently not. Even their official descriptive website article does not give the address. I had to search pretty hard through the site to find an address on this page, which is apparently only good if you want to report an intercession. (Also, I think it lists a secondary entrance.) For your information, the almost 50 million dollar building is at Lexington Avenue and East 34th Street, 243 Lexington Avenue.
  I won't argue that the group should publish a public list of its members. That's too much. But there's something lacking in not publishing leaders, phone numbers, and locations of local chapters. Christians are called, according to Matthew 28, to go and make disciples of all the nations, to witness. That involves public proclamation, for how else will the nations know? Not listing addresses or buildings is not witnessing for the group, which supposedly seeks to help people live up to their Christian calling, and supposedly has a universal call. If I had a great way to live my Christian life, I would want to tell everyone, or at the very least every Christian. Yet they don't seem to do that. Maybe it's just isn't so great.
• Sexuality: Opus Dei has a deformed viewpoint on the concept of sexuality and relations between men and women. Usually sexuality in Catholicism refers to chastity, the condition of being pure, decent, and modest. Often, even chastity gets reduced, to abstinence from sexual intercourse before marriage and then fidelity afterwards. That's a starting point, which I fulfill. But chastity and sexuality encompass more than avoiding penetration. It's working with women, hanging out, talking, courting, praying; acting in the world. The world has lots of women and lots of men, roughly half each. I need to deal with both halves.
  Look first at the system of Opus Dei. Men and women are kept sequestered; they have different leadership and different structures. That's not unusual in churches - well, evangelical fundamentalist churches, with Men and Women's Ministry. Though I bet the group wouldn't consider that a flattering comparison, their system goes further. I could quote from various writings about how women have inflamed passions, need to be tamed, and so on, but someone could contest context and translation. Besides, I like to focus on actions over words; in this case, the design of the headquarters. The architects, May and Pinska, talk about the challenges given them in this article. The construction went much farther than different ministries. They were asked to build separate entrances for men an women, on separate streets, complete with separate on-site parking for men and women. (I wonder what happens if a visitor accidentally parks in the wrong lot.) This also explains the different intercession address above, and it doesn't surprise me that tracking prayers became woman's work. Inside, the architects describe the request for "separation visually and acoustically of men and women within the building." The retreat center at the top is used alternatively, no mixed groups. No mixed conversation, no multiple gender prayer, no learning from the other sex. Celibacy is enforced through removal and denial. That's not in the world at all.
  Sexuality is much more complicated than separation. First, there's the call to marriage for many people. I'm a single guy, and I admit moments of concupiscence, temptation to sexual sin. I can get distracted by short skirts, and I have thought of how certain women would look in a bikini. Am I going to solve that problem by avoiding women? Not at all; imagination rolls right past reality. Maybe some people struggle so much with sexual concupiscence that they should avoid situations with the other sex. They should steer clear. But in no way can that be normative. We humans were made with appreciation of attractiveness and beauty and romantic love. Has anyone read the Bible lately? Like the Song of Songs? Scholars have tried to deny the human focus, interpreting it as God and church. That's a shame. Go read it. The first verse is "Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth!" Later, "your eyes are doves behind your veil." "Your lips are like a scarlet strand; your mouth is lovely." It's a spectacular view of romantic love; the bride and the groom talk about anticipation, and being chaste, and waiting for one another. Catholic romantic sexuality would be greatly improved by reading it.
  Sexuality also includes how we treat one another, for not all people are called to marriage, but all deal with women and men. Sure, there are differences between XX and XY, but there are many more similarities. I form friendships of both genders, depending on the qualities of each individual person. A majority of my friends right now are female. This makes logical sense, since I have a strong social worker streak. We (I and my male and female friends) talk; we eat; we discuss faith; we pray; we console each other; we assist each other; we hug and touch and live together. I can do all these things and still remain celibate and modest. I don't want to lose half the world because of a chromosome. That's what separation does, a grave shame, and it cannot be normative.
• Mortification: The most intimate members, the numeraries, do physical harm to themselves. This point is not in doubt. They whip themselves at least weekly with a small cord, displayed through the link, a discipline. Many also wear a metal chain around their thigh, a cilice, for two hours a day. Despite some worries, the practice is not physically dangerous, a false criticism. There is historical tradition as well, and no statute forbids the practice. Thus, it's legal. Yet there is no reason that any person in this current world should physically damage themselves. If the idea is self-punishment or penance, this is sinful. The flagellant has either taken vengeance into hand, a point reserved to God, or attempted to complete reconciliation privately, outside the Catholic guidelines about penance. This also leads very quickly into self-destructive behavior, denying that our bodies are temples of the Lord to be kept whole and in good shape. (Some defend mortification by saying it's less painful than gym workouts. This is likely true, and some people do punishment via treadmill. But others, like myself, look at healthiness as part of God's mandate. Gym work keeps my body, my gift from the Lord, in proper shape, while beating it does not.)
  The most common defense is purification through sacrifice. This is completely incorrect, based on a terribly misguided sense of sacrifice and suffering. Sacrifice is the denial of pleasure. Suffering is the assumption of pain. They are very different. For instance, not eating meat on Friday is sacrifice, despite what a Texan might claim. Fish or pasta or cereal can easily substitute without damaging the body, perhaps even improving part of God's creation. Some things are borderline, like sleeping on a board instead of a mattress. There is extra goodness in a plush bed, so as long as it doesn't hurt a back or lead to fatigue things are acceptable. On the other hand, whipping oneself does not reduce pleasure; it causes pain. That's creating suffering. That is sinful.
  Yes, I said sinful. There is so much suffering, so much pain in the world right now that voluntary creating more sins against those in pain. It's showing a lack of knowledge about people, likely from that secrecy and splitting of the world. Look at my last year, for instance. As a matter of fact, we're called to relieve suffering, not cause it. Matthew 25 lists the tasks on which we'll be judged; feed the hungry, hydrate the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the ill, visit the prisoner. Spend time whipping oneself? Not on that list.

Wearing the cilice shows that Opus Dei is not committed to sanctifying ordinary tasks and the ordinary world. Through excessive secrecy, they not only deny the stranger, but also lose track of life. Through malformed sexuality, they not only deny true chastity, but also shrink away from potentially valuable relationships. They can't realize the needs of the world, because they're not part of it, and thus must resort to pain creation. To me, it looks like fear. It looks like a six-year-old, perhaps Calvin (and Hobbes), with a secret clubhouse and worries about cooties. That immature fear builds the title of this piece - Mortification is for Wimps.

True strength comes from striding forth, talking with people male and female, speaking the Gospel and trying to relieve their pain. That's my normative Christianity. It's what I try to live. Know what? I'm inventing a new practice, the AntiMortification. Instead of whips, there are hugs. Instead of the cilice, there is the flower. Instead of fraternal correction, there is fraternal praise. Instead of private holding pain, there is public relieving suffering. The other way might be favored now, but I (at least according to the Chrism Mass Gospel, Luke 4) have the truer work of God.

Community, Suffering, Redemption (21 March)

As the news reporter was kind enough to remind me, yesterday was the first day of Holy Week in the Christian church. Catholics have three special services; Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil Saturday night. We like the number three. Maybe I read too much into it - OK, likely I do - but to me each part illustrates a different part of the Christian mystery of life. Holy Thursday Mass, with the washing of feet and readings on the Lord's Supper, is about community. The Good Friday Passion is about suffering. The Vigil, as part of Easter Sunday, is about redemption.

One of the more interesting things I do is ask persons about their part of the triduum. The answers correlate strongly with their visions of Christianity. People that talk about the Vigil tend to be triumphant and authoritarian and positive. Good Friday people stress struggle and suffering and pain. Holy Thursday people, the smallest group, speak of community and service and action. People are not Good or Bad Christians based on their responses; all three parts matter, and different people naturally have different preferences. It just illuminates.

It shouldn't be too hard to guess that I think the Good Friday service is most important, and Easter Vigil the least. Isn't it obvious? This year, I'm going to try to focus on the fulfillment of the promise through Sunday morning, even looking for an outdoor sunrise Catholic service. So, what about it - community, suffering, or redemption?

Salvifici Doloris (Holy Week)

Suffering is an extremely difficult concept. From the dictionary, I get a couple definitions - distress; agony; a state of acute pain. One source even called suffering and pain virtual equals. In the last piece, I described suffering as the assumption of pain. That was nice to distinguish it from sacrifice, which is why I said that, but it's not fully correct. Here, I want to focus on a different definition; suffering as misery resulting from affliction.

That definition is much closer to the Catholic understanding, very different from the secular one. Some people consider the difference very stark. One such writer is Nicholas C. Lund-Molfese, M. A., J. D., involved with higher education ministry for the Archdiocese of Chicago. Nick was involved with the transition after Father Mike's resignation. He is not a good man. Also, I am extremely unhappy with his leadership. Fortunately, that doesn't cloud my mind and prevent my learning from his scholarship. You can find some of his writings on this site. In "Salvifici Doloris: A Challenge to Catholic Social Scientists", the following excerpt appears. It's a strong but not unusual viewpoint of what folks call the culture of death.

The title of that paper refers to a 1984 letter from the Pope on the understanding of human suffering, available in full. There are a lot of letters and promulgations from the Vatican, and I'm glad Nick pointed this one out. I've spent the last week reading the letter, and I want to look at a few things. But before moving to the Pope's paper, what about Nick's claims?

A few of his claims ring true, but most are false. He is right about the difficulty of explaining suffering without God, which I'll come back to later. Furthermore, majority support does exist for abortion. Many of those people, a decent percentage if no majority, label abortion a moral choice. On the other hand, infanticide and selective abortion do not have popular support. Elsewhere, Mr. Lund-Molfese tries to correlate low sentences for new mothers that kill babies with public support for the practice. If he were to listen - to commentary and outcry - he would realize the opposite. People feel the internal penalty of having killed one's child is so great that only a small additional penalty is necessary. There's plenty of outrage. Calling Mark Barton, someone who committed suicide, a normative example is a great stretch. And as for abortion, I rarely hear abortion defended as a release of suffering, or even a release of pain. The most common defense is power over the female body, freedom to do what one wants. Tangentially, there's avoidance of pain, because bearing and raising a child takes time and effort. At least from what I hear, the pain is secondary to the control and liberty. The claim, like many others, is not correct. Putting two facts together and divining causation doesn't work.

Enough digression; I return to the main topic, suffering. The Pope's paper covers a lot of ground, more than I could justly place in one musing. I'd need a whole page, and probably a month of nightly journaling, which I don't want to spend. Maybe I could give a lecture or something. Here, I want to focus on the basic definition, what Nick rightly says a world without God lacks, full understanding of suffering. Suffering is humankind's response to evil. Man suffers when he experiences evil. Section 7 of Salvifica Doloris points out that linguistically, the Old Testament Hebrew doesn't have a root to distinguish between evil and suffering. Greek, and the New Testament, separated the two words. The concepts, though, haven't separated much. Evil, in its many forms, causes misery. Sometimes we bring this misery upon ourselves, because of our own ungood acts. Not all suffering is a consequence of our fault, or any fault, though; the Christian sense (and section 10) does not label all suffering punishment.

There's an tricky point about death. Watching people contract cancer, or stroke out, or attending funerals causes sadness. I wrote about that earlier on this page. When I die, whether today, tomorrow, or in the future, I expect pain as well. Any honest definition of suffering must account for death. A world without another, without God, must consider death immensely great pain. And it does. Even us Christians, who claim to believe, have some trepidation over the process. After all, our belief is less provable than the solution to linear regression. Plus, the physical pain, trouble of change, and struggle with loss lead to suffering. But can we call death evil? I have to duck, focus the evil on the process, and hope for the Rapture. But that's not fulfilling. So I'll duck, admit the problem for now, and head back to the letter.

The Pope focuses on atonement theology, that Jesus suffered redemptively. "Each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ," he writes in section 19. The Bishop of Rome points out that Jesus calls us to suffer with him. In Luke 21 it is said "you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. ... You will be hated by all for my name's sake." Christians shouldn't be afraid to proclaim the Gospel, and take whatever problems may arise. I fully assent here; I'm often annoyed because my Church does not proclaim enough. What scares me is that the Pope's view of atonement goes farther, much farther than suffering for Christ. Suffering is talked about as glorious, as necessary, as completing the messianic suffering of Christ. I'm not sure about needing to finish anything; maybe remembering or upholding would be better. The most pernicious quote lies in section 24:

How can suffering be good? Suffering is the experience of evil. Suffering is caused by evil. We can talk about the redemptive value. It's not useless - we remember Christ's choice, we understand our limitation and fallibility. The world doesn't see these values, that meaning. Suffering is not useless; that I understand, and that every human needs to understand. But our promise, our Revelation, is of a world where every tear will be washed away. Our future is without evil and pain, without suffering. Calling our temporary situation good confuses the terms, and that's an error.

The other problem with atonement is that it neglects our responsibility to oppose evil. While reading, I wrote "But why don't we have more?" There are movements, like those talked on this page, who decided that the proper course was to create pain for themselves. Others might cite the positivism, the "goodness", to let pain and evil continue. This makes no sense, and the letter rightly states so: "Christ's revelation of the salvific meaning of suffering is in no way identified with an attitude of passivity." Unfortunately, this appears in section 30, long after several pages on atonement and glory. That's too late, and too dangerous, and I'm worried about that. Do my worries override the helpful parts of the letter? Well, no. I'm glad I read and studied it. Suffering's not the greatest possible evil, and it has value, but that still doesn't mean I should mortify myself or create it.

Isaiah 53 Revisited (Good Friday)

I'm still not on great terms with my Church. I haven't taken Communion inside my diocese since 14 February, which will be the biblical 40 days on Saturday. (Since I have travelled outside the boundaries 4 times, to 4 different churches, and taken Communion each time, one might call it wandering the wilderness of suburban Chicagoland.) On Good Friday, there's no Mass, no consecration, and no reference to the power of the Bishop, so I felt more comfortable attending Calvert. All we do is pray for our Bishop Francis, and that's something I'm very pleased to do. More importantly, it was time to revisit Isaiah. Last Easter I had just begun talking about depression, taking effective leave throughout spring quarter, and reorienting my life in more positive ways. I read the first reading at the Passion on Good Friday, and wrote about what I felt in this musing. It was the first depression piece. I wondered at verse 10, "But the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity." And I asked:

• How can the Lord be pleased to see infirmity?
• Is infirmity part of the plan?
• Is my infirmity God's will?
• If the Lord is pleased to crush him, is He pleased to crush me?

This year, I obviously wasn't reading, but am friends with the reader. As we chatted beforehand in the lounge, I said I would be writing about what I felt. I consider him a good reader, and was not disappointed. I could hear a bit of physical strain, from the flu, and that helped - a Suffering Servant song should not be read like an alpha male. Yet it wasn't desparate and struggling, like how I read last year. The words were strong, descriptive, and patient, serving more of a reminder of Christ's action of atonement, and less of an association with the suffering. From a pastoral perspective, his reading was better than mine; although sometimes it seems otherwise, a majority of U of C people are not in despair. The key phrase I heard was that "he was spurned" in verse 3, twice repeated with strength and pause. That's an interesting choice, and would be worth talking about. In his journal. This is mine.

I tried to be solemn, but I'm not very good at it, and wound up thinking about last year, and got all teary-eyed. Compared to last year, my life is so much better. I'm healthier, about 15 pounds lighter. Not just depression starvation loss, either; four months of gym cycling have improved my shape. I'm sleeping better; the artificial sun lamp allows me to have day and night, even if my "day" starts around 10:30. I realized that academic melancholy and submission are not normative, and I don't have to try to act that way. I have a larger friend network of more compatible people, and I've even been fortunate enough to meet a couple beautiful ones. I've managed with help to reorient myself, towards happiness and joy. People have started to comment on how I sound happier, look better, have the light that stands out again. It was a long, lost two years that have ended for now, and I hope for ever. Because of that, I look forward to Sunday morning sunrise service as an indicator of my recreation. Not in the "redemption for the sins of others" sense, of course; the "fufillment of the promise and the talents". Can I answer the questions I left unanswered a year ago? Some well, some still stump me. But let's try.

• How can the Lord be pleased to see infirmity? God isn't. He is pleased to see Jesus's free choice of sacrifice and suffering. Infirmity is merely a side effect.
• Is infirmity part of the plan? Not at first. The concepts of Original Sin and free will cover the hole pretty well. Free will lets us turn away from goodness. Original Sin brought (and brings) evil and suffering and infirmity into the world. I'm not arguing for literal Biblicism, but I don't need a cause, since I'm a statistician not a historian. However it got here, the plan has it now.
• Is my infirmity God's will? Still not sure. My chemistry is fragile. But was that planned, to give me different gifts and experiences, or an artifact of the process? That's a mystery.
• If the Lord is pleased to crush him, is He pleased to crush me? No. At least, I hope not. And having that hope is a great gift.

Written Lent 2005. Well, mostly.
A fair and balanced reference on Opus Dei is the FAQ by Matthew Collins here. Question number 43 admits secrecy, #34 gives the mistaken view of sacrifice, and #8 shows the broken view of sexuality. He talks about other issues: heavy pressure in #45, book control in #48, reading mail in #31, instrumentation of friendship in #49. The pictures of the cilice and discipline are taken from a television news segment involving members of odan.net.