The native place.

What if it IS True? Blog

Discovering, wrestling with, and trying like crazy to live Gospel virtue.

03/31/14

John 4:43-54

At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee.
For Jesus himself testified
that a prophet has no honor in his native place.
When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him,
since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast;
for they themselves had gone to the feast.
Then he returned to Cana in Galilee,
where he had made the water wine.
Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum.
When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,
he went to him and asked him to come down
and heal his son, who was near death.
Jesus said to him,
“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
The royal official said to him,
“Sir, come down before my child dies.”
Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.”
The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.
While the man was on his way back,
his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live.
He asked them when he began to recover.
They told him,
“The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.”
The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him,
“Your son will live,”
and he and his whole household came to believe.
Now this was the second sign Jesus did
when he came to Galilee from Judea.

Isn't this a great illustration? It kind of reminds me of the judge and the widow, or the story about the man who knocks late at night on his neighbor’s door for a loaf of bread. It's almost as if there's a degree of annoyance in Jesus's tone here. At least a little scolding it seems. But the royal official isn't seeking a sign, he's seeking a miracle. Sometimes we may be just the opposite and actually fall into the trap that Jesus seems to be referring to. We can hope for signs before we're willing to risk trusting in a miracle.

I see the obvious virtue here as abandonment. This abandonment is a total trust, not a wait and see. Now it's true that the official began to follow Christ only after the miraculous healing of his son, but he trusted enough at first to seek Him wholeheartedly. Are we willing to do this? Will we go out on a limb? I like that this passages starts with the reference to the prophet in his hometown. It's almost like we're those Galileans at times. After all, we've gotten used to Jesus. Maybe taken him for granted, or worse, given up on him altogether.

There's disturbing numbers that say only 30% of Catholics in the pews believe in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist. There are other numbers that ay 75% of our faithful leave the Church at some point in their adulthood. Is this honoring Jesus in his native place? What if we sought him out? What if we availed ourselves to the sacraments like reconciliation more regularly or maybe Eucharistic adoration? What if we actually cracked open a bible, or our smart phones for that matter and read the readings for the mass on a daily basis? What would happen?

Try abandonment. You might find that simply opening yourself to it will bring about new wine as we hear about in the passage as well. Or a healing of your family as we see intimated here. It's at least worth the try, right? Or, will we choose to continue to play the skeptic, waiting for the sign before we seek? St. Augustine said understanding is the gift of faith. We want it the other way around. It is possible to get it right though, but it all starts with abandonment. Just like the royal official.

Good luck and God Bless,

Leo Brown

The IS and IF explanation.

What if it IS True? Blog

Discovering, wrestling with, and trying like crazy to live Gospel virtue.

In little ol' Lexington Kentucky there lives a media ministry that operates two radio stations, a 24 hour streaming site, several audio podcasts, a You Tube channel and a number of blogs. This is one of them. Also, in that same little Lexington are three station vehicles that are logoed with a huge graphic that asks the question, “What if it IS True?” We see this as a sort of Pascal's wager, on a rolling billboard, that is. Blaise Pascal was a 17^th century mathematician, physicist and all around smart dude who came up with what we now call Pascal's Wager. He basically said that if a Christ follower ends up being wrong in the end, so what? If the atheist, however, ends up being wrong then there's a travesty. An unfortunate, avoidable, eternal travesty. With this in mind, we ask the question in four foot high lettering to drive home the point.

On the other hand there's this blog. This blog is a companion piece to one of our YouTube productions that is a daily Gospel reflection that seeks to find the obvious virtue from the mass reading and then try to find ways to live it. So essentially this blog asks more the question “What IF it is true?” Subtle difference in the phraseology, but a major difference in the application. This blog presupposes the IS and focus on the IF. IF it is true then it means it's got to be true in our life. IF it's true in our life it's going to look like something. I personally believe that the best way to make it look like something is by practicing virtue.

Over the years I've gone through bouts of intense fitness crazes. I've been a seven day a week gym guy. I've run half-marathons and racked up close to triple digit weekly milage running. I've ridden century rides on my bicycle and logged hundreds of weekly miles and the one thing I know is true that every time I train super hard like that something amazing happens. People start commenting. They ask what I'm doing. Or simply make a remark about how I look. It's obvious when someone is an athlete. Now that I'm at the age where my body has begun to betray me and my physical transformations will likely never be as dramatic as they once were I do hope to still get the same attention. I just want it to be because it becomes even more obvious that I'm pumping the iron of Gospel virtue.

I welcome you to join me in this endeavor. Catholics have been traditionally bad at this. We have greater exposure to the Gospels than any other faith group that I'm aware of, but we have sadly left the heavy lifting up to the clergy. It's their job, right? They're the ordained guys. Let them look like it. But what would happen if we all started working out? Catholics, non-Catholics (heck, even non-Christians). The Greek pagans had virtue figured out pretty well before the Theological Virtues were even around to assist them. What's our excuse?

It always all comes down to focus. Thomas Jefferson said that the harder he worked the luckier he got. What if we immersed ourselves in Gospel training? What if we sought to mimic the virtues revealed by Christ? What if we decided to get in one of the many growing GPS (Gospel Prayer Solution) groups that are emerging and started working out with our friends by growing in not only our understanding of virtue but of living a mission of virtue? IF it is true it will be obvious. IF it is obvious enough WE may eventually stop asking altogether because others will beat us to the punch. IF, that is, it looks like something.

Good luck and God Bless,

Leo Brown

Strange people in strange places

What if it IS True? Blog

Discovering, wrestling with, and trying like crazy to live Gospel virtue.

03/30/30

John 9:1-41

As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth.
His disciples asked him,
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, 
that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered,
“Neither he nor his parents sinned; 
it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.
We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.
Night is coming when no one can work.
While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
When he had said this, he spat on the ground
and made clay with the saliva,
and smeared the clay on his eyes,
and said to him, 
“Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” —which means Sent—.
So he went and washed, and came back able to see.
His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, 
“Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?”
Some said, “It is, “
but others said, “No, he just looks like him.”
He said, “I am.”
So they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?”
He replied,
“The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes
and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’
So I went there and washed and was able to see.”
And they said to him, “Where is he?”
He said, “I don’t know.”
They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees.
Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbath.
So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see.
He said to them,
“He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.”
So some of the Pharisees said,
“This man is not from God,
because he does not keep the sabbath.”
But others said,
“How can a sinful man do such signs?”
And there was a division among them.
So they said to the blind man again, 
“What do you have to say about him,
since he opened your eyes?”
He said, “He is a prophet.”
Now the Jews did not believe 
that he had been blind and gained his sight 
until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight.
They asked them,
“Is this your son, who you say was born blind?
How does he now see?”
His parents answered and said, 
“We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.
We do not know how he sees now,
nor do we know who opened his eyes.
Ask him, he is of age;
he can speak for himself.”
His parents said this because they were afraid
of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed 
that if anyone acknowledged him as the Christ,
he would be expelled from the synagogue.
For this reason his parents said,
“He is of age; question him.”
So a second time they called the man who had been blind 
and said to him, “Give God the praise!
We know that this man is a sinner.”
He replied,
“If he is a sinner, I do not know.
One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.”
So they said to him,
“What did he do to you?
How did he open your eyes?”
He answered them,
“I told you already and you did not listen.
Why do you want to hear it again?
Do you want to become his disciples, too?”
They ridiculed him and said, 
“You are that man’s disciple;
we are disciples of Moses!
We know that God spoke to Moses, 
but we do not know where this one is from.”
The man answered and said to them,
“This is what is so amazing, 
that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes.
We know that God does not listen to sinners, 
but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him.
It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind.
If this man were not from God,
he would not be able to do anything.”
They answered and said to him,
“You were born totally in sin,
and are you trying to teach us?”
Then they threw him out.
When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out,
he found him and said, ADo you believe in the Son of Man?”
He answered and said, 
“Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”
Jesus said to him,
“You have seen him,
the one speaking with you is he.”
He said,
“I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him.
Then Jesus said,
“I came into this world for judgment, 
so that those who do not see might see, 
and those who do see might become blind.”
Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this 
and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?”
Jesus said to them,
“If you were blind, you would have no sin; 
but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.

Lot's of great stuff in this entertaining passage. Love the man born blind. He's sarcastic. He's unafraid. And best of all he's totally transformed in a matter of forty one verses. Which is a significant amount, mind you, but there is a dramatic change in this guy that even those who see him daily recognize. Or I should say, don't. He's so different that they literally think he's someone that only slightly resembles that blind beggar that they've seen every day for years. We see these miraculous healings in other passages, but this is the only one I'm aware of that the healed person is unrecognizable. It's almost like Jesus himself being mistaken for someone else after the resurrection. There's something glorified in this man.

So what's the virtue here? Well, to be transformed and glorified we have to be docile to the will of God. But I see something perhaps more subtle, but certainly crucial to evangelization and that's bold witness. If we were to couch that in standard cardinal virtue terminology it would be fortitude. We have to have the courage to stand up and bear the witness to what God has done in our life. If not, we're like the parents of the blind man, afraid of being cast out. After all, that's what happens to the blind man. He's cast out, but cast into the light of seeing things for what they are. So why are we afraid?

We're always supposed to have a reason for our hope to share with others according the the first letter of St. Peter. So why don't we? Often we sit silently when we could speak. A priest friend of mine shared recently how he felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to talk to a guy at that gym. In the sauna, no less. Weird, right? Well, it turns out that they were of the same college fraternity at different schools, so they were already brothers. And, it also turns out the guy was looking for a church home. So the prompting turned out to be an appointment. An appointment of eye opening. An opportunity for the sauna guy to be healed. Pretty cool.

While we may not always be prompted to reach out to strange people in strange places, I do believe that if we looked for and listened to those times when we can share the hope we have in our hearts we may look more like the man born blind, and by that I mean unrecognizable. Some may even say, “no that's not my co-worker, it just looks like him”. Whatever it takes. I'm wrangling this notion in my heart right now. Fortunately, I don't frequent saunas, so that's one less thing to worry about.

Good luck and God Bless,

Leo Brown

Convinced I'm righteous

What if it IS True? Blog

Discovering, wrestling with, and trying like crazy to live Gospel virtue.

03/29/30

Luke 18:9-14

Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray;
one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — 
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

I love the concept of Jesus addressing this to “those convinced of their own righteousness”. I guess that obviously means I'm supposed to hear this. How often do I let my pride put me in competition with everyone around me? “I'm glad I'm not like that clueless individual”, I think to myself. All the while knocking things around like a bull in a china shop with the huge plank sticking out of my eye.

I've been reading a bit of C.S. Lewis again recently and I love the stuff he has to say about humility. Essentially Lewis boils humility down to not competing. How tough is that? We all want to be the best, or at least better than the other guy. No doubt this is the heart of the Pharisee. He's like the rest of us. Competing and not even knowing why. His culture likely did that to him just as ours does today.

The big question is how do we effectively humble ourselves and mean it, not a facade or an act of some sort. Lewis talks a lot about acting as if you are virtuous in order to become virtuous. So maybe an act is the place to start. But I think the bottom line to being humble is first, not to wait until you ARE humbled and second, stop the competition. If you stop competing you won't be glad you're not like the losers, right? Especially if by being glad you're not a loser actually makes you a loser like our Pharisee friend.

I recently had the pleasure of being the music leader on a retreat for middle schoolers about the Mass. One of the segments was presented by Fr. Alan Carter who talked about Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vevendi, or the law of prayer, is the law of belief, is the law of life. If we start praying like the tax collector, begging mercy for our sins, especially the sin of pride and competition, we might just end up believing the world doesn't revolve around us and eventually our lives will reflect that as well.

Good luck and God bless,

Leo Brown