"The Just Judge and Us"----from " In a Godward Direction"

The story of the woman taken in adultery is often cited when people are talking about the church’s responsibility to offer discernment, or even judgment, in spite of Jesus’ explicit command not to judge (Mt 7.1, Lk 6.37). It is true that this story is often misused from the liberal end of the spectrum, and people forget the final line, “Go, and do not be sinning any more.” Let us not, however, omit a crucial part of the story. After all the accusers slink away, “condemned in their own consciences” as some versions say, Jesus says to the woman, “Who has condemned you?” [i.e., Who made themselves judges over you?]. “No one,” she said. “Neither do I condemn you. Go and do not be sinning any more.”

Jesus — the only human being qualified to judge (because of Who He Is) — here refuses to judge, even in a case where guilt is clear. If he refuses to judge, how dare we presume to judge? The point of the story must be that no one who is a sinner (and all are sinners) can judge another, especially if the only sinless one, Jesus, refused to exercise that role. Jesus refuses to play the judgment game. (See also Jn 8:15-16, 12.47–49 [and 3.17–18]).

Not that he will always refuse it, nor that we will not partake in the judgment (both in the dock and on the bench). But the Judgment is reserved to the End, the Last Day. At that time, not now, Jesus and his Chosen Ones will judge the world. And his Chosen Ones include the people of Nineveh, and the Queen of the South, as well as the Apostles. (Mt 10.15, 12.41–42, 19.28; Jn 5.22-24,29, 12.48). For the time being, the world judges wrongly (Jn 16.8-11), and Jesus warns us neither to judge nor condemn on the basis of partial evidence — for until the Last Day when all is revealed, we have only partial evidence, having, as Paul says, imperfect knowledge. (Mt 7.1–5, 12.7; Luke 6.37, see also Rm 2.1–5, and Jn 7.24.)

I served jury duty over the last several weeks, and one of the instructions the judge gave at the beginning of the case was that we were to form no conclusions until we had heard all of the evidence, and then to deliberate on the basis of that evidence. (The case settled before we reached that point.)

How much better the church would be if instead of condemning and judging others we looked into our own hearts and confessed our faults (which are many) to one another, seeking the help and support of our companions in pilgrimage? And waited in patience for all to be revealed?

Here is my prayer for the church:

What kind of church we are to be? Shall it be the “O.K. Club” or “St Saviour’s Hospital”? The church of those who are at ease in Zion, or those who dwell in the exile of Babylon? Will it be the church of the Pharisee or the Publican? Of those who bind burdens, or those who liberate? The church of Caiaphas, secure in his skill, or of Cephas, who knew his failings? The church of Paul at his worst, or Paul at his best? Will it be the church of those who close the door on others, or of those who are trying to get in? Will it be the church of those for whom the Decalogue, the Summary of the Law, and the Golden Rule are not enough, or of those who know how hard it is to follow even these high standards? Will it be the church of those who are prepared to cast stones, and were condemned by their own consciences, or those whom they accuse, and whom Jesus refuses to condemn? Will it be the church of those who sit in judgment, or of those who love much, and minister to Jesus by washing his feet with their tears?

I pray our church will be a wing of St Saviour’s Hospital. There are no outpatients there, and everyone who arrives is a terminal case: they die to self, in order to rise to life everlasting. For the church is not a society of nice people who obey the rules. The church is the Body of Christ. There is no salvation in the Law. None. The Law did not and will not save us. Jesus did and will.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Life...Death...Rebirth

Good Friday Music: "Pie Jesu" and "Ave Verum Corpus" by Gabriel Faure

Sad Days Indeed

We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting."

— Kahlil Gibrán

“The world breaks us all. Afterward, some are stronger at the broken places.”
— ~ Ernest Hemingway

“It’s a lot easier to be lost than found. It’s the reason we’re always searching, and rarely discovered - so many locks, not enough keys.”
— ~ Sarah Dessen

"God is Energy, Not Solace"

"One thing is missing in my prayer life, one thing I am learning but may still not believe: The presence of absence is not the absence of presence. Just because I do not feel God's presence does not mean that God is absent. It only means that prayer is not about me anymore. It is about being what I know now that God means me to be.
In fact, absence is as much proof of the bondedness called "missing you" as it is a fear of distance called "you don't love me." It is the challenge to learn to trust darkness as well as light.

--------Joan Chittister, "The Breath of the Soul"






"One cannot know God as long as one seeks to solve "the problem of God." To seek to solve the problem of God is to seek to see one's own eyes. One cannot see his own eyes because they are that with which he sees and God is the light by which we see------ by which we see not a clearly defined "object" called God, but everything else in the invisible one... We exist solely for this, to be the place He has chosen for His presence, His manifestation in the world, His epiphany." (Thomas Merton)

You Might Want to Consider Pro- Choice Arguments...

If ever Carol Gaetjens becomes unconscious with no hope of awakening, even if she could live for years in that state, she says she wants her loved ones to discontinue all forms of artificial life support.

But now there's a catch for this churchgoing Catholic woman. U.S. bishops have decided that it is not permissible to remove a feeding tube from someone who is unconscious but not dying, except in a few circumstances.

People in a persistent vegetative state, the bishops say, must be given food and water indefinitely by natural or artificial means as long as they are otherwise healthy. The new directive, which is more definitive than previous church teachings, also appears to apply broadly to any patient with a chronic illness who has lost the ability to eat or drink, including victims of strokes and people with advanced dementia.

Catholic medical institutions — including 46 hospitals and 49 nursing homes in Illinois — are bound to honor the bishops' directive, issued late last year, as they do church teachings on abortion and birth control. Officials are weighing how to interpret the guideline in various circumstances.

What happens, for example, if a patient's advance directive, which expresses that individual's end-of-life wishes, conflicts with a Catholic medical center's religious obligations?

Gaetjens, 65, said she did not know of the bishops' position until recently and finds it difficult to accept.

"It seems very authoritarian," said the Evanston resident. "I believe people's autonomy to make decisions about their own health care should be respected."
(From Chicago Tribune)
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Being male, I can only intellectually and ideologically support women when they basically say to the Bishops: "Hands off my body, you old farts!" But with this new guideline everyone can see how it feels to have your genuine and thought-out wishes brushed aside in the name of dogma and doctrine.