President Barack Obama, and now, Chief Justice John Roberts: A Crisis of Virtue

Most of us are still reeling from the nearly incomprehensible Supreme Court ruling announced this morning.  It is now, however, perhaps more than ever, that we must be clear concerning the real issues and the real problem. 
     First of all, we need to remember that during the debate leading up to the passage of the health care law (the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act), the Administration, and its allies in the legislature, vigourously denied the notion that the mandate to buy health insurance and the penalty for failure to do so amounted to a tax.  Still, when the opening arguments of the case were presented to the High Court back in March, by that time, the Administration was arguing the opposite (i.e. that yes, it is indeed a tax).  In this way, the Administration made its case for the law on constitutional grounds.  In other words, the President of the United States is a liar, who said one thing in order to get what he wanted, and then proceeded to do something completely different.  This is objectively true. The evidence will not support any other conclusion.
     It is a staple teaching of all traditional ethical systems that the purpose of speech is to express what is actually in the speaker's mind, and that to use deceit in order to further one's ends is vicious.  Neither is it permissible, according to traditional ethics to do something evil (deceive someone, for example) in order that something good can occur as a consequence.  In such a case, the "good" that is supposed to result from the vicious action (e.g. deception) is actually not a good at all, because the morality lies in the interior act, which attains its value from virtue.  This president has proven himself to be one of the most vicious men of our times through his rank duplicity, as well as his support of a multitude of things that are intrinsically as well as objectively evil. 
     Sadly, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts has today become an accomplice to this evil man's deceptions.  It is worth noting that traditional ethics also tells us that one of the ways to share in the guilt for the crimes of others is to become an accomplice to those crimes.  How is the Chief Justice an accomplice to the President's crimes? By accepting and furthering the specious argument that the mandate is a tax --a tax, which, by some miracle of nature, is levied by the insurance companies, not the State. 
     So what is wrong with the PPACA anyway?  Its problem is that, like its authors and the Chief Justice, it is vicious.  It is so wrought with vice that it is rotten to the core.  Why? Because it tramples on the virtue of justice.  We have known since the third century B.C., thanks to the Greek philosopher Plato, that the essence of justice is to give to each whatever is his due.  Well, in a just society, the real decision-making power belongs to the heads of families to make decisions that effect the good of their families.  Only those decisions that the heads of families delegate to the local government legitimately belong to the local government.  Similarly, only those decisions delegated by the local government legitimately belong to the state government, and so on, up to the federal level.  This aspect of the virtue of justice is called the principle of subsidiarity.  It is of the greatest importance, because subsidiarity keeps the emphasis in human society where it needs to be in order to ensure justice-- that is, on the family and the individual.  It is, after all, the human person, who is made in the image of God, not the State or any other organization that is created by the compact of certain human persons. 
     The President and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (and many others) have commited a grave crime against justice by overturning the principle of subsidiarity (and doing it by mendacious means).  Recently, David Brooks wrote a column in which he claimed that we have a crisis of authority in America, not a crisis of leadership.  He explained that the country's problem is that no one is anymore willing to follow those who are our elected leaders.  However, contrary to Brooks assessment, these are vicious men (and women).  We elected them because we believed that they were virtuous.  We were deceived.  The President, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and all those who have abetted them are liars (devoid of virtue).  No good man is morally required to admire them, respect them or obey them.

DEUS VIDEAT ET JUDICET!
(May God see, and may He judge!)

Insight from a Great Poet

THE JOURNEY TO HOLINESS: FROM FEAR TO LOVE

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

Today is the Sunday of All Saints. Last Sunday, we celebrated the feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the Mother of God, the birth of the Church.  But today, we celebrate the holiness, which the Holy Spirit engenders in the Church in every age.  We give thanks to God for all of His saints, who lived according to the commandments of God, enlightened by grace.  There is no greater thanks that we can give to God than to live our lives joyfully and peacefully, full of the knowledge of God’s love for us; and there is no better way for us to honour all the saints than to become united with them in perfect love of God and of neighbour, and thus to take our place at the table in the Kingdom of God.

     The Ukrainian poet Gregory Skovoroda, at the beginning of his work entitled the Garden of Sacred Songs, wrote:

People fear to descend to death,

To fall into a fate unfortunate,

Where fire unquenchable will welcome them.

But death is holy—putting an end to our evils.

O holy death, you bring even wars to an end.

When your conscience is clean, do not fear the fiery Perun, no!

For the righteous man is not burned by the fire of hell,

But He inherits glory and the life of Paradise.

Here, Skovoroda describes the saints of the Church, who realized the defilement of their consciences. They ran to Christ, Who healed them, and gave them a share in the everlasting life of the Holy Trinity. Through His marvelous Mysteries, He made it possible for them to live in obedience to the Father. Their journey in Christ to the house of the Father began with fear, just as Skovoroda describes, but later, that fear was transformed into love. As Saint John says: “Perfect love casts out fear.” As Skovoroda says, in Christ the saints welcomed the restoration of their minds, so that they came to know and understand the world in a different way, according to opinions and ideas often contrary to the wisdom of this world.  The Holy Apostle Paul gives us an example of this, when he says: “For me, life is Christ, and death is gain. Only, as I remain in the body of this death, I am still able work profitably.”

     Our journey to the house of the Father ought also to begin with a healthy fear before our all-holy God, Who does not endure impurity, but punishes sin and evil deeds with justice. We ought to remember that it is necessary for each of us to make an account before Him not only of all the deeds we have done, but also all those that we should have done, but failed to do. We must begin by recognizing the defilement of our consciences. Then, we must implore Christ for His mercy and the forgiveness of our sins through His life-giving suffering and death.  Our journey continues as our fear becomes transformed into love –as we feel the love that the Father has for us, which seeks the perfection of His image in us. Our love for the Father grows, as we experience the Father’s loving care in our behalf, as He purifies us of our defilement, and, in its place, gives us peace—the peace, which the world does not understand, as the Son of God told His apostles: “I leave you peace, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you.” His peace is not like the world’s peace, because it brings with it the restoration of our minds, just as Skovoroda describes. In this restoration, we begin to understand that the only misfortune is sin, and that suffering and even death are servants of God’s loving plan for our salvation.

The Gospel of the Coming of the Holy Spirit-- The Meaning of Belief

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

     In the Gospel for Pentecost, the Lord promises that “rivers of living water” will flow from within those who believe in Him.  The Apostle John goes on to explain that the Lord Jesus was speaking about the Holy Spirit, who had not yet been sent on the faithful, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. 

     Today we can focus our attention upon the promise of Jesus, and ponder what it means to have “rivers of living water” flowing from within us.  A few weeks ago, in connection with the similar passage in the Gospel concerning the Samaritan Woman, we remembered that the spiritual writer Seraphim of Sarov wrote that the purpose of the Christian life was the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.  This, of course, is another way of saying what St. Athanasius of Alexandria said, namely, that the purpose of the Christian life was to become God by grace (to share the same life with God).  So, what do we have to do in order to acquire these “rivers of living water”?

     The Gospel passage supplies the answer to the question.  We have to believe in Jesus.  But the belief that is being spoken of here is much more comprehensive than the usual idea of “belief,” which we are familiar with from day to day.  To say that I “believe” in something mundane costs me nothing, but to say that I believe in the Lord Jesus is life-changing.  After professing that belief, no aspect of my life can be the same.  Faith not only means assent to certain abstract truths, but a commitment to a concrete way of life, which is founded on those truths.  So, what does this belief entail, which will cause us to inherit the “rivers of living water?” Let us see what the Word of God has told us regarding these sacred rivers.  The forty-third chapter of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah is especially illuminating.  There, we read: “For behold, I am bringing forth a new miracle! Now it will sprout, you will surely know it: I will make a road in the desert and, in the wilderness, rivers.  The beasts of the field will honour Me—the jackals and the ostriches—for I have put water in the desert and rivers in the wilderness, to provide drink for My chosen people, this people which I fashioned for Myself that they might declare My praise.  But you did not call out to Me, O Jacob, for you grew weary of Me, O Israel.”  This passage shows that the work of the Holy Spirit, the “rivers of living water,” is our salvation, since these rivers are to provide drink for us. They are to give us life.  But the passage also shows that salvation is a synergy. God plays His part, but He has also assigned a part to us.  He gives us drink; He gives us life, but our duty is communion and fellowship with Him.  We have a duty to live in relationship with Him through prayer.  This same theme is brought out in the forty-first chapter, where the Holy Prophet once again speaks about the coming of the Holy Spirit in similar terms: “The poor and the destitute beg for water but there is none, their tongue withers from thirst; I, the Lord, will answer them; the God of Israel, I will not forsake them.  I will open up rivers upon the hilltops and springs in the midst of valleys; I will turn the desert into a pond of water and a parched land into sources of water. In the wilderness I will set cedar, acacia, myrtle and pine tree; I will place cypress, fir and box tree together in a desert, so that they should see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has brought it about.” Here the Lord speaks through the prophet concerning not only the life-giving rivers of the Spirit, which will be opened for all, but He also speaks of the Fruits of the Spirit, which we who receive the Holy Spirit must manifest through our fellowship in His Spirit and Life.  In the same way that beautiful trees spring up along the course of a river, so too must the fruit of our relationship with God spring up.  This relationship, which bears such abundant fruit is accomplished—on our part—principally by prayer. Partaking of the living waters of the Holy Spirit is meant to be the beginning of an ever-deepening relationship, which continues beyond this life into the Kingdom of God.  We see, in Isaiah, that the prophet uses the image of a river that grows ever wider and wider, the symbol of our communion with God, which grows greater and greater. In the thirty-third chapter, he writes: “Behold Zion, the city of our festivals; your eyes will see Jerusalem, the tranquil abode, the tent that will not be displaced, whose stakes will not be uprooted forever, and none of whose ropes will be severed. For only there will the Lord be our Mighty One; it will be like a place of wide rivers and channels; a boat cannot traverse it, and a mighty vessel cannot cross it.” The Lord makes the waters of His Holy Spirit run down like rivers to the thirsty soil of our souls, but it is our part to drink thereof.  We must freely enter into communion with God through prayer.  If we accept His call to relationship, then He will make the fruits of His Spirit grow up in us. 

     Prayer is raising the mind and the heart to God.  In other words, it is intentionally joining ourselves to Him, Who is the Creator of everything that exists.  Once we enter His presence through prayer, we realize that His presence is the basis of every ethical and moral judgment, since nothing impure or evil can enter therein.  For this reason, the Fathers tell us that the beginning of prayer is simply to sit in the presence of God.  The Mysteries of Christ are the means, which Christ has established for our salvation, but the greatness of the Mysteries will be fruitless in us, if we are strangers to prayer—to the presence of God. 

     God is never far from us.  All we ever need do is place ourselves in His presence.  Naturally, the principle means to our communion with God is the Liturgy, in which we meditate both by deed and word upon the life of Christ our God and on the history of salvation in such a concentrated way that Christ becomes really present to us, and we become present to Him in His Kingdom. Nevertheless, the goal of Catholic Christians is constant prayer, a life that is lived continuously in the presence of God by His constant recollection.  We begin our journey toward this goal by setting aside certain times for prayer, in order to establish the habit of prayer.  Then, with the habit and practice of prayer firmly in place, we can extend our prayer little by little to the rest of our life.  We should set the goal to set aside at least fifteen minutes for prayer (besides the very formal and staid morning and evening prayers, which are customary for all the faithful), using either the Jesus Prayer, or a passage of Scripture as a means to concentrate the mind upon the presence of God.

     Our God is pouring out the “rivers of living water” of His Holy Spirit to us.  We need to willingly drink thereof—willingly enter into His friendship through prayer.  If we make the commitment to deepen our communion with the Lord, we will more abundantly share in His life, becoming one with His Holy Spirit.