My Brother Louie

As we meditate on the Gospels, it’s only natural that we would try to imagine what the various biblical figures looked like, beginning with Our Lord Himself. One character I find especially intriguing is Zacchaeus, whose encounter with our Lord is recorded in today’s Gospel.

Whenever I think of Zacchaeus, I picture Louie De Palma, Danny DeVito’s character in the popular 1980s television series Taxi. We know that Zacchaeus was not only short, but also dishonest, despised, and resourceful. He was hardly the sort of character we might choose to emulate, any more than we would aspire to be like Louie De Palma. Yet I’d suggest that Catholic laymen do well to meditate on the call and conversion of Zacchaeus.

Perhaps the call of the rich young man is better known, so we might compare the two accounts. The rich young man keeps the commandments but wants to know what else he must do to attain eternal life. Good question! Jesus’s response–sell everything, give to the poor, and follow Him–was more than the rich young man bargained for, at least for the moment. We understand in Our Lord’s response the call to evangelical perfection, particularly as lived by consecrated persons who embrace radical lives of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Jesus’ response to the rich young man is instructive to all of us as we strive to follow Him single-heartedly. But what about us “rich” middle-aged men, with wife, children, job, mortgage, credit-card bills, and student loans? Are we supposed to sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor, and only then follow Jesus? How does Jesus’ universal call to discipleship relate to Catholic men who are to remain “in the world,” but not of it?

Enter Zacchaeus.

A New Birth of Religious Freedom

As the Fortnight for Freedom comes to a close today, we do well to take to heart these words of Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. of Philadelphia:

“Religious liberty is an empty shell if the spiritual core of a people is weak. Or to put it more bluntly, if people don’t believe in God, religious liberty isn’t a value. That’s the heart of the matter. It’s the reason Pope Benedict calls us to a Year of Faith this October.

“The worst enemies of religious freedom aren’t “out there” among the legion of critics who hate Christ or the Gospel or the Church, or all three. The worst enemies are in here, with us–all of us, clergy, religious, and lay–when we live our faith with tepidness, routine, and hypocrisy.

“Religious liberty isn’t a privilege granted by the state. It’s our birthright as children of God. And even the worst bigotry can’t kill it in the face of a believing people. But if we value it and want to keep it, then we need to become people worthy of it. Which means we need to change the way we live–radically change, both as individual Catholics and as the Church.”

Do You Believe in Miracles?

This weekend is the feast of St. Augustine, though this year it falls on Sunday and will be preempted by the Lord’s Day celebration. St. Augustine, after St. Paul, is probably the most celebrated “convert” in the history of the Church. Yet, we’re all converts, and we all have stories to tell. In that spirit, I’m reprinting here a “testimony” I gave several years ago.

Back in 1984, I was a young lawyer who years before had abandoned the faith of my youth. I had largely cleaned up my act since my wild undergraduate days, but that was more a matter of expedience, not moral conviction. I felt as though I should give my life to something or Someone, but I really didn’t know where to turn.

My sights weren’t set particularly high, so I resolved to help build the earthly city. After all, what else was there to life?

At that time, my mother asked me to start going back to Mass on Sunday so as to set a good example for my nephews and nieces. I was reluctant to do so, as I felt like a hypocrite since I no longer even considered myself a Catholic. I eventually relented, figuring that an hour a week wouldn’t kill me.

As it turned out, some of the Sunday homilies that I heard gradually drew me in, and I became increasingly receptive to what the Church had to say, especially in social justice matters. Soon, I no longer had to be asked to go to Mass, even though I was still on the fence.

Attending weekly Mass opened an unexpected door for me. One of the secretaries at my law office saw me one Sunday at Mass, so she invited me to a weekly young-adult Bible study. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I said I would go with her to check it out. Here’s what happened.

Spiritual Cataracts

Today’s Gospel is the familiar passage from Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, in which He advises us to remove the large beams from our own eyes before trying to remove the tiny specks from our neighbor’s eye. This lesson has long been a source of fruitful meditation for me.

On one occasion several years ago, after hearing this Gospel at Mass, I decided to illustrate the point of the lesson to my children. What I did was blindfold two of my daughters after dinner, and they took turns trying to lead the other around the basement. Quite predictably, there were many humorous collisions and wrong turns. It was truly a case of the blind leading the blind–or in the case of my fair-haired daughters, the blonde leading the blonde! But when one of them was able to remove her blindfold, she was easily able to lead her sister from point A to point B.

The children learned that while it’s a very good thing to help others in need, we have to allow the Lord to help us first.