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Cursing the Darkness

Better to light one candle
than to curse the darkness.

It seems, considering how we invest our time, energy, and attention, that we have become inordinately absorbed in cursing the darkness!
First, let’s be clear what we’re talking about. “Darkness” refers to the absence or lack of light; by extension and metaphorically it alludes to wicked or evil beings that inhabit or are associated with it.
Second, let’s be clear about the attention we give to darkness.
– Although we want light, we’re not being inundated by candle-lighters or overwhelmed by the light they’re shedding. But we do try to educate potential candle-lighters about the depth and extent and danger of the darkness.
– That’s what prompts us to condemn the darkness. We want to persuade people that, even in spite of certain advantages and satisfactions of the darkness, it’s not good. So, we try to heighten their awareness of the undesirable consequences of the darkness.
– But, to motivate cursing the darkness, we really have to reveal the darkness in its depth. We have to call attention to its vastness, its origin, and its seemingly rapid expansion. We have to dramatically illustrate its deceptive worth and value. We have to announce the dark dangers daily.
What happens! Often we end up becoming absorbed by the darkness and its effects, by the absence of light.
Look at the entertainment sector: audiences are thrilled by films that exceed one another in shockingly vivid depictions of death, destruction, and violence.
Look at the religious sector: church goers sometimes are titillated by exhortations to righteousness and virtue that dramatically describe the consequences of their absence—sins and their enormity.

Look at the political sector: citizens are ceaselessly informed about the scope and significance and failings of the “other”, so as to muster support for the “right” side.
If we’re often hearing and speaking of the darkness, its extent, and the achievements of darkness dwellers, we may not be doing a great job of spreading the light.
There are always spots of light amid the darkness, like stars in the night sky. Do we see them as spoilers of the darkness, or as harbingers of the beauty of the light?
In over-educating people about the achievements, pleasures and dangers of the darkness, we may be blinding them to the power and glory of the light.
To be a force for light, we need to be aware of the darkness, but not to curse and denounce it in such exquisite detail that in effect we become its promoters.
To be a force for light, don’t forget that the most important thing is to light and keep burning the candle of our lives—even one spot in the night can encourage others to shine their little light as well.
To be a force for light, we should learn from the current pandemic. One tiny virus so multiplies that it is interfering with human life on earth, causing more death than many a war, radically affecting and altering the behavior of almost everyone.
Your priority is to light your candle, which instantly dispels nearby darkness and can become a very contagious behavior—each candle-lighter encouraging another.
Remember Paul’s plea to the Ephesians: “…you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth…”

7 March 2021

The Martha Complex

“To be or not to be?” For Hamlet, this literally was a life or death question. Is life worth living? Why must I prolong the agony? What have I done to deserve this? What alternatives do I have?
For most of us in this ever busy, bustling world we live in, our question could well be “To do or not to do?” Why do I have to do so much? Why do some others get away with doing much less or so little? What’s this rat-race for anyway?
Usually from earliest childhood we’re used to being judged on performance:
– “Oh, you’re such a good baby! You ate all your dinner.”
– “Oh, what a good girl! Look how nice and neat your room is.”
– “Great job! You really cleaned up the yard.”
– “Hey, man, your home run won the game!”
– “Your thesis was outstanding. You’re going to graduate cum laude.”
– “You’re going to get a good raise this year. Your work was super.”
– “Congratulations! For outstanding service, you’re going to be promoted next month.”
In the U.S., usually when you meet a stranger, after a while a common question is, “What do you do?” Meaning, of course, what is your job?
We have become used to identifying ourselves by what we do. Often it’s our label: farmer, waiter, cop, preacher, painter, aid, teacher, doctor, nurse, and the like.
You can even pass the “do” test with a label like poet, so long as you can point to your poetry, preferably published.
Once upon a time college was associated with training in “liberal arts”; now it’s much more likely to be a matter of job training and preparation.
For better or worse, we live in a world that esteems doing and doers.

O Lord, my heart is not proud
Nor haughty my eyes.
I have not gone after things too great
Nor marvels beyond me.

Truly I have set my soul
In silence and peace.
As a child has rest in its mother’s arms
Even so my soul.

These verses from Psalm 131 are a good antidote to an overdose of “doing”.
Resting is not “doing”—it’s an abstention from doing. It’s just “being”.
“Being” allows basking in silence and in peace. It can be accompanied by joy and gladness. It can be far more contagious than any virus. It is the great liberation from the slavery of “doing”.
Thanks be to God for the state or stage of life when the demands of “doing” abate, when we no longer are being judged by achievements and successes, when we are retired or exempted from the requirements of doing and accomplishing.
It is a great time for “being”, especially if we rarely found much time for it before.
Poor Hamlet, so wrapped in the tragedies of his life, in what he had to do to oppose and reveal them, in the requirements of honor and vengeance, and in his relative inability successfully to “do” all that overwhelmed him, that he seemed to see “being” as no more than “not doing”.
Martha complained of Mary because she wasn’t “doing” enough. Jesus rebuked her, saying that “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
If you’ve got to “do”, do like her.

28 February 2021

The Doctrine of Fallibility

I don’t think that there ever has been a solemn, ecclesiastical definition of the doctrine of fallibility. You know why? There’s no need to.
As anyone with even half a grain of common sense knows, human beings are fallible.
That means that they can be deceived or make mistakes or fall into error or do something wrong (in traditional religious terms, they can sin).
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude or offensive, but you are fallible. And, to be perfectly (?) honest, I’m fallible, too. You might say, it’s part of the human condition.
Don’t be unnecessarily ashamed! It’s the way God made us, so to speak. It’s the nature of a created being, It means we all have limitations, we all are less than perfect.
Yes. Even you. Even me.
I remember this being discussed in a Theology class years ago. The teaching was that, except for a special act and provision of God, no human person has been, is, or can be without sin.
Has there ever been a “dispensation from fallibility” for a human person? Yes!
– Mary, the mother of Jesus: By a special dispensation of God, she was born even without “original sin” and by the grace of God never sinned during her whole life. (Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.)
– The Bishop of Rome: If and when he speaks ex cathedra, in the fullness of his authority as successor of Peter and head of the church regarding matters of doctrine, he cannot lead the people of God astray. (Doctrine of Papal Infallibility.)
Many people would not agree about such dispensation or even think in such categories. Generally, we accept that human beings, being limited and therefore less than perfect, are fallible.
But, oh how shocked we sometimes can become in denouncing another’s failures!

All throughout human history, because we know about human fallibility, there have been social structures designed to moderate or react to the damage it can cause.
Training, apprenticeships, compulsory schooling, accreditations—rules, regulations, decrees, laws, judicial decisions, edicts, constitutions—legal punishments, classifications, competitions, disputes—they’re all needed in a world of fallible people, no matter how high their ideals and standards may be.
It really is hypocritical when puffed up with “righteous” indignation, we profess shock or surprised dismay by the failings of another. Failings are part of the nature of people.
Rather than entertain ourselves with the failings of others (which we often do), our challenge as fallible persons is how best to react to the manifestations of their fallibility.
All of our training, restraining, and punishing social structures are not enough. We also, each and all, need to have and bring to the table personal understanding (insight into what makes the other person tick), compassion (empathy for a fellow fallible), forgiveness (not forgetting, but remembering that failing is part of “doing what comes naturally”), and love (pardoning, empowering, and revitalizing).
There’s an incident near the end of Jesus’ life that his followers know well yet often forget:
When he was being crucified, so were two others—criminals. One mocked Jesus; the other asked to be remembered when he came into his kingdom. Jesus’ response to this very fallible thief was: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

21 February 2021

Changing the Name or Renaming the Change?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
In Shakespeare’s play, these words of Juliet referred to the challenge of her love for Romeo even though he bore the name and was a member of an enemy family.
In many countries, the practice has been that upon her wedding the wife changes her family name to that of her husband—and in some places even moves into the dwelling place of her husband’s family. But, name notwithstanding, she’s still the same person.
When it comes to politics, there’s a lot of changing names for the same old same old, although once in a while there really is a real change—whether it gets a new name or not!
And, what do names in politics mean, after all? Does Republican mean a believer in a republic or just a partisan supporter of a particular group? Does Democrat mean a believer in a democracy or just a partisan supporter of a particular group?
Are Liberals advocates of freedom? Are Communists crusaders for the community? Are Radicals trying to get back to the root of things? Are Reactionaries fond of redoing some of the things that worked before? Are Conservatives trying to conserve the best of the past?
In education, when someone has completed a certain amount of studies, he or she gets a new title—which isn’t always used. We don’t call a college graduate “Bachelor” nor someone with a few more post-graduate years of schooling “Master”, but frequently we do refer to someone with even more studies and skills as “Doctor”.
In religion, we call some celibates “Father” even though they’re not one; we call others “Pastor” even without a flock of sheep; and “Bishops” aren’t always good overseers (that’s what the title means). And, why do Catholics call some of them “Monsignor” (meaning “My Lord”)? Good Lord, none of them are Lords, even if some act like they are!

“Clothes make the man.” We often confuse being well-dressed with being successful or wealthy or important—but there’s no necessary connection with any of them
The reverse is true, too. The Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military is the president, but he has no impressive uniform at all. Modern royalty only uses distinctive clothing for special and ceremonial occasions. Most people with academic degrees rarely wear the robes after receiving the degree.
The point is that changing a name, title, form of address, or dress doesn’t necessarily mean a changed person or position or place—although sometimes it really does!
You can’t judge a book by its cover. A new job title doesn’t necessarily mean a raise in salary. Consultation is not the same as agreement. Being legally married doesn’t guarantee love—and vice-versa! “I see” doesn’t necessarily mean I really do.
A song from My Fair Lady is apropos:

Words. Words. Words.
   I’m so sick of words.
   I get words all day through,
   First from him, now from you.
   Is that all you blighters can do?
Don’t talk of stars,
   Burning above!
   If you’re in love;
   Show me!
Tell me no dreams
   Filled with desire!
   If you’re on fire,
   Show me! . . .

People change, for better or worse. Beware of not recognizing the change because the name’s the same!

14 February 2021

Trying to Do the Right Thing

confuse 1. to mix up; jumble together; put into disorder 2. to mix up mentally; specifically, a) to bewilder; perplex b) to embarrass; disconcert: abash c) to fail to distinguish between; mistake the identity of

The last part of the definition is an important danger signal. It’s about something we often tend to do, and rarely recognize—although lots of folk sayings should warn us:

– separate the wheat from the chaff
– two wrongs don’t make a right
– don’t be misled by appearances
– don’t judge a book by its cover
– action speak louder than words
– all that glitters is not gold
– don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater

When it comes to right and wrong, things can get confusing. We may fail to distinguish between and mistake the identity of what is of God and what is merely human custom.
I learned a little lesson about that a long time ago, when as a young priest I was sent to Puerto Rico to learn to speak Spanish and to understand the challenges of intercultural communication.
There are many differences between North American Catholicism and Latin American Catholicism—different priorities, different popular customs, different cultural values—but the same fundamental faith.
Here’s a very simple example:
When I heard the confessions of children in New York, it was likely that their main sin would be, “I disobeyed” my mother, father, teacher, etc. But I found that in Puerto Rico the main sin of children was more likely to be, “I disrespected” my mother, father, teacher, and the like.

Are they both sins? Is it ever right to disobey or is it always wrong? Is it ever right to disrespect or is it always wrong? Which “sin” appears to be worse? Which is worse? Like many things, the more you think about them, the more confusing they can become.
Take a far more complicated example, a very contentious matter in the United States both politically and religiously, about being “pro-life” or “pro-choice”.
At first it seems simple enough: we should be both! If “pro-life” refers to respecting human life from conception to death, we certainly should try to do that. If “pro-choice” refers to respecting each person’s God-given right to make his or her own free choices, we certainly should try to do that.
But . . .
What to do, if your free choices limit or block mine or someone else’s?
Is it legitimate for me to take the life of another if it’s the only way to defend myself or to defend another or to defend my home, my family, my land, my country?
What about turning the other cheek or Jesus’ praying, as he accepted being crucified, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do”?
If I’m a doctor, must I do every possible thing to heal and prolong life even though it seems clear that my patient is dying?
Is there such a thing as a “just war”? And if so, when? Who decides? If I’m raped, must I bear the child? If I’m dying and in great pain, may I decide not to be resuscitated?
What about the execution of criminals?
O to have Solomon’s wisdom! But even he sometimes confused things and made mistakes. Hopefully he learned from them!

7 February 2021

Just Imagine

Imagination usually refers to the ability to create mental images of things that do not yet exist and hypothetical future scenarios that could exist. It’s a vital ingredient of creativity.
Creative imagination is a necessary component of every field of human endeavor and the inspiration for invention and innovation.
What would science, art, philosophy or theology be like without it? Without it, persons, families, societies, and institutions may decline, wither, and lose vitality.
Imagination is fundamentally a good, although we can imagine good things or bad things, good scenarios or bad ones. Imagination can be at the root of great innovations and of great destructions.
But, oh how sad and confining it is not to have a lively imagination, not to be creative nor innovative, not to be inspiring or ground-breaking.
And, in spite of every effort to do so, you can’t ban or control imagination. Nothing is unthinkable, even though many choices, activities, and deeds may be turn out to be inappropriate, regrettable, harmful, or destructive.
In many sectors of life, there have been failed attempts to control information, beliefs, interactions, freedoms, and creativity—they’re often bad and ultimately unsuccessful.
Let’s be a little imaginative in some areas of religious practice . . . and remembering that just because a thing never happened doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t.
– Married clergy: Can priests or ministers be married? Of course? From the beginning of Christianity, married men have been ordained priests in the Eastern churches, both Catholics and Orthodox, There certainly have been married men with leading ministerial roles in many Christian churches for many years.

– Female clergy: Can women be priests? In some branches of Christianity the practice is already well established. Can women be bishops? (Same answer.) Imagine a woman as a cardinal. Why not? A cardinal is a papal elector. Could a woman be pope?
– Sabbath observance: Christians are church-centered in their worship. Observant Jews are home and family centered. Can Christian observance be more like the Jewish? Imagine the head of a family leading a weekly eucharistic (Thanksgiving) ceremony at home.
– Marriage: Marriage involves a mutual choice and bonding of persons and traditionally has to do with having and raising a family. If the choice and bonding don’t exist anymore, does the marriage exist? What does it take for the civil authority to acknowledge that it is over? What should it take for the ecclesiastical authority to do the same? Should they?
– Human sexuality: Is it or should it be restricted to marriage? Is it by nature or should it be limited to acts of mating or procreation? Should sexual bonding be allowed to persons of the same sex? What about same-sex marriage?
– Respect life: Do we respect a right to life of the baby in the womb? When can a war be just? What about assisting suicide? Capital punishment? How do we strike a balance in a divided and pluralistic society? Can morality be legislated?
– Justice issues: Do I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all? Am I or should I be concerned about legislative oversight and support for these values?
Just imagine a little what could, should, shouldn’t, or might happen.

24 January 2021

Thinking outside the Box

I remember reading an article some time ago about oil and the future of the petroleum industry that reminded me of a conversation with a friend many years previous:
“You know the Fischer company, the ‘bodies by Fischer’ of the Cadillacs?.” he said, “Well, they used to be a carriage company. When ‘horseless carriages’ started to become popular, the Fischer company decided that their business wasn’t just carriages but transportation.
“They responded to change and development by ‘thinking outside the box’, and they not only survived but grew.”
Many small and big oil companies have been doing the same. They’ve been accurately reading the signs of the times and rethinking their business model, their “mission”, if you will.
The article explained that they were not only embracing new technologies like fracking but also totally different businesses like wind turbines. To use my friend’s example, they also were thinking outside the box, realizing that their business is not just “oil” but “energy”.
What about religious people and religious organizations? How many of them have been successfully reading the signs of the times and thinking outside the box?
It’s not easy to do, of course, since it involves letting go of secure, familiar, and once effective and fruitful things and risking embracing a relatively unknown, uncertain, and somewhat risky future.
There has been a lot of progress—and a lot of defeatism, too. For example, take “ecumenism”. During the last half century, most Catholics have moved away from “outside the Church there’s no salvation”.
In fact, one of the seismic shifts in the understanding of the church has been that the one church of Christ embraces all who are trying to live as disciples of Jesus.

Some of the aftershocks of this ecclesiologic earthquake have involved placing less emphasis on rites, rules, and regulations:
– For example, defining church membership less by the ritual of baptism and more by the life-time commitment to follow Jesus that the ritual presumes and celebrates.
– For example, esteeming faithfulness to that commitment less by regular Sunday Mass attendance, Friday abstinence, or observance of other church regulations and customs and more by fidelity to the teachings, all the teachings, of Jesus.
– For example, judging the validity of marriage less by the marriage ceremony having been conducted according to church law and more by the existence of the decision and commitment that the ceremony symbolizes and represents.
– For example, respecting persons with ministry in the church less for their having been ordained or authorized and more for their personal integrity, competence, and loving commitment to service.
Change isn’t always comfortable, probably frequently isn’t comfortable—don’t we often speak of “growing pains”? It’s painful because change—growth, maturation, development, evolution, whatever you want to call it—is challenging.
It doesn’t involve just thinking outside the box, it means getting out, climbing out, breaking out of the box. It means rethinking your identity, purpose, and mission.
It It means letting go of some things, even really good things, so that you can have others, even better.
A chick can’t live unless it cracks the egg!

6 September 2020

Rights of the Body

You know how it is, every now and then while reading, a word or phrase hits you. Instead of slipping right past it, you come to a full stop—and you look it carefully and think about it.
Well, that’s what happened to me last year on All Souls Day! During the Office of Readings of The Liturgy of the Hours, I was really struck by the second reading, from a book on the death of his brother Satyrus by St. Ambrose of Milan (340-397).
It began with Ambrose asserting, “We see that death is gain, life is loss” quoting St. Paul’s famous, “For me life is Christ, and death a gain.”
It was followed by what seemed, at first, an ordinary reflection on the dichotomy, the tension between the desires of the soul and those of the body:
“. . . our soul must learn to free itself from the desires of the body. It must soar above earthly lusts to a place where they cannot come near, to hold it fast.”
However, However, although Ambrose cautioned, “Though we are still in the body, let us not give ourselves to the things of the body,” his next words managed to avoid the extremism sometimes associated with Paul’s thought.
“We must not reject the natural rights of the body,” Ambrose wrote, “but we must desire before all else the gifts of grace.”
Ambrose avoided advocating the rights of the soul at the price of disparaging the body. So to speak, he saw the goodness of both, but simply prioritized one over the other.
However However this was not the way the world was turning.
Christianity had developed initially in the pagan Greco-Roman world with its ideals about physical fitness and sexual moderation, but, perhaps in reaction to excesses of that world, was beginning to stress more the dangers of the body and its desires and to esteem sexual abstinence over sexual moderation.

Towards the end of Ambrose’s life, controversies about the roles played by free will and original sin in human behavior weren’t leaving much room for considering “the natural rights of the body”.
As centuries passed, from the early exaltation of the heroism of the martyrs and the development of a theology of “original sin” to the establishment of monasticism and religious and clerical celibacy, a certain disparagement of the body gradually became enshrined as the new ideal.
The early development of psychology in the nineteenth century, especially the work of Sigmund Freud, opened a door to a radically different way of looking at human nature and behavior—especially traditional Western attitudes about sexuality. It impacted and challenged traditional church teachings and customs, and still does.
Extremism, no matter what kind, tends to provoke a counter-extremism. No surprise, then, that centuries of extreme disparagement of the body had been leading to a modern over-emphasis on its “rights”.
Extremism in rejecting or defending “the natural rights of the body” seems to underlie many of the social and moral issues polarizing our contemporary society—for example, contraception, abortion, the nature of marriage, different- and same-sex relations, and LGBT rights, to name a few.
We need Ambrose’s moderation, balance, and priorities. A person is more than a body, and everyone’s rights include more than the rights of the body. Some rights are more important than others—for example, the “inalienable rights” of the Declaration of Independence to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

30 August 2020

(Available in
Spanish translation)

Thanks Be to God!

What Americans do on the fourth Thursday of the month of November, what Jews do on the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan, and what Christians do on Sundays have a lot in common.
All three involve symbols, and the symbols involve remembrance, and remembrance involves gratitude, and gratitude expresses itself in giving thanks.
Thanksgiving in the United States traces its origin to 53 Pilgrims celebrating their first harvest in Plymouth in 1621, joined by 90 Native Americans. The format of the Thanksgiving celebration is a meal together, giving thanks to God for his bounty, and the typical foods served evoke those of the original celebration, especially turkey, cranberry sauce, corn, and other fall vegetables—and pumpkin pie!
Passover began as a celebration of the liberation of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. It is celebrated with a ritual family meal of remembrance, rich in symbolism. Many of the foods eaten are reminders of specific aspects of the ancient history of the Jewish people.
Sunday Mass (or Divine Liturgy) is a kind of weekly echo of the Easter celebration. It is rooted in the Passover observance and also is a ritual, collective meal of remembrance, rich in symbolism. The foods eaten are only two: bread and wine.
Sometimes what happens with ritual observances is that we can get so engrossed in the details that we pay less attention to the overall meaning. And, with ritual meals, we can get so absorbed by the foods themselves that we pay less attention to their symbolism.
Thanksgiving, Passover, and Mass, each in its own way, are about remembering the gifts, love, and providence of God and personally and collectively giving thanks to God for them.

“Thanksgiving” names the essence of the observance, “Passover” alludes to the critical moment in the history of the people of God which was the beginning of the observance, and “Mass”, oddly, echoes the final Latin words of dismissal (Ite, missa est) when the Sunday observance is over!
The better name for the Sunday observance is Eucharist—which comes from the Greek word, eucharistia, meaning gratefulness, thanksgiving.
What sometimes happens with our observance of each of these rituals is that we may become so concerned with, devoted to, or distracted by particular aspects of them that we are insufficiently attentive to their central element and purpose: grateful personal and collective thanksgiving to God.
In St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Christians, he reminded them of this, that the essence of their weekly observance was more than just a meal together:

. . . the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor 11:23b-24)

The broken bread was to remind them of the loving gift of Jesus’ body, of his life for them; the wine, of the lifeblood of Jesus that sealed the new covenant. For all this, and for you and I being part of it, we ever give grateful thanks to God!

14 June 2020

Holy Places, Practices, People, and Spirit

Our religious language sometimes may sound very curious to others!
We often say that a “Practicing” Catholic goes to “Church” to “hear Mass” on “Sunday” and to “receive” the “Eucharist”.
Here’s a few of the curious things:
– “Practicing” usually means actively working at something and often implies learning how to do something well. (e.g., “Practice makes perfect.”)
– “Church” originally referred to people, the assembly of the believers in God, rather than to the place where they assembled.
– “hear Mass” is an odd old expression. Like attending a play or a concert, it suggests we’re watching and listening to others—actors, artists, or priests—doing something special and meaningful.
– “Sunday”—meaning the “day of the sun”—is a curious name for what Christians consider to be the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week. (Nowadays it often seems more like the last day of the weekend.)
– “receive” means to get, accept, hold, which is an odd verb to use with words like “Eucharist” or “communion,” which refers to being in union with God and/or others.
– “Eucharist” itself means “thanksgiving” —which makes the expression to “receive” the Eucharist especially curious, since thanksgiving isn’t something you get, but something you do.
Because of the Corona virus pandemic, we haven’t been able to go to Church on Sunday (although we may have been able to hear and see Mass on television), and we haven’t been able to receive the Eucharist.
In effect, right now, according to the definition, we’re not “Practicing Catholics”!
The situation is different for Jews. An “Observant” Jew follows the Torah as faithfully as possible, especially as regards the Sabbath Day—the last day of the week, the day of Rest.

The Sabbath is observed and celebrated at home. After Friday ends at sunset and the Sabbath day begins, a family prays together at home with a certain degree of ritual and preparation. No rabbi is needed—the head of the family leads the prayer and ritual.
Of course, Jews may choose also to gather in prayer with others in a synagogue, but there’s no obligation to do so.
When the Jerusalem Temple still existed, the privileged place of contact with the Lord and the place of sacrifice, a faithful Jew (an “observant’ or “practicing” Jew) was obligated to go there to sacrifice only three times a year, for three major feasts.
A Jew doesn’t have to have a special ordination to lead others in prayer or rituals. The Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony that welcomes a young person into adulthood is enough. A Jewish adult can read and proclaim the word of God in the midst of the community of believers.
Maybe we can learn something important from contemporary Jewish practice. The destruction of the Temple didn’t mean the end of Judaism—but it did change Jewish practice and piety.
At least for now, the pandemic and closures have challenged Catholics to a significant shift in their practice and piety.
We traditionally have had an emphasis on holy places and practices, on assembling in churches for sacred rituals led by priests.
Now we’ve been challenged to remember that faith resides in and is nourished by all God’s holy people, that the holy Spirit always is at work among and in each of us, and that we can gather together to give thanks to God—all this, at home!

24 May 2020