Before I Forget…

q Prayer may not save us,
But prayer makes us worth saving.
   -Rabbi Abraham Heschel

q Belief in Christ is a matter of life and death and true Christian integrity lies in not being able to get rid of the figure that moves from tree to tree in the back of the mind.
-Flannery O'Connor

Who is this Christ that we love and serve with our lives?  Who is this Christ that "moves from tree to tree in the back of our mind"? The beauty of our Catholic Mass attempts to let the Crucified-Risen Christ take center stage, not only in our minds, but in our hearts, lives and communities.  At the Last Supper Jesus said, "Whenever you do this, do this in memory of me."  We must know Him and love Him if we are to remember Him.  Every time we gather for Mass we remember what Jesus said and did as we listen to the gospel and celebrate the Eucharist. 
As I write this column, the United States is at war in Iraq.  And Jesus Christ keeps moving "from tree to tree in my mind" as I listen to the news, as I celebrate the Eucharist, as I pray for our troops and a speedy end to this war.  I have tried to live my life as His disciple.  I try to be worthy of the name, Christian .  I read in the gospel that "Peace" is His farewell gift to us.  As we prepare to remember and celebrate His death and resurrection, I see my Christ as a nonviolent God as he is arrested, tortured and crucified.
Our country and the world community is divided over using force instead of diplomacy.  Pope John Paul II and our American Bishops asked the President not to go to war.  The Christian Community, the Body of Christ, is divided once again over this issue.  If it were only easier to be a Christian, a disciple!?  As you pray and meditate with the Sacred Scriptures, and celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, does that "figure move from tree to tree in your mind?"  What does Christ speak to you as you listen to Him in prayer these days? 
We have a history as Church, the Christian Community.  The early Christians' objection to military service is found in the phrase "Ecclesia Abhorret a sanquin"--when translated from the Latin into English means "the Church shrinks from blood shed." 
In the third century, as Rome was crumbling, Celsus, a cultivated pagan, criticized the Christians particularly for their refusal to fight in the army.  The great Christian Scholar Origen responded to Celsus:  "Christians have been taught not to defend themselves against their enemies; and because they have kept the laws which command gentleness and love to neighbor, on this account they have received from God that which they would not  have succeeded in doing if they had been given the right to make war, even if they may have been quite able to do so."  Origen argued for the small Christian community in Rome, and from time to time stopped the opponents of the Christians, and the people who wanted to kill these pacifist Christians. 
Origen defined Christian pacifism this way:  "No longer do we take the sword against other nations, nor do we learn war any more since we have become the sons (daughters) of peace through Jesus, Who is our Author; instead of following the traditional customs by which we were strangers to the covenant."   
Do you believe Christian non-violence could have worked against a person like Saddam?  Does God will that all people be saved?  Are all of us first the children of God, then Christian, Muslim, Jew, and finally a citizen of a country?  What does Christ say to us in these times?
Let us pray for peace and safety for our troops.

Fr. Bill