Author Archives: Friar Musings

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About Friar Musings

Franciscan friar and Catholic priest at St. Francis of Assisi in Triangle, VA

Holiness

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A good place to begin our exploration of All Souls is to start with the concept of Holiness. If you’d like to take a 6-minute detour, take a moment to watch this video on Holiness which traces the scriptural roots of holiness, explaining how “becoming holy” is more than living a moral life, but a process of preparation for entering into the presence of God in the eternal Temple of Heaven. In speaking of the heavenly city and its eternal Temple, Scripture tells us that “nothing unclean will enter it” (Rev 21:27). In the biblical tradition, “unclean” (or impure) is not limited to sin. The Old Testament lists non-sinful things that can cause one to become ritually impure. What is common to the list is that they are things of “death” that reflect the incompleteness of the world and of people. When St. Matthew writes, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48) he is speaking of a wholeness, a completeness that carries no trace of corruption or death; a state ready to enter into the heavenly Temple. The Catholic Church teaches that Purgatory is a state/”process” of purification to become truly holy by ridding oneself of the last impure vestiges of our temporal life. If you are 99% generous, there remains 1% selfish which you need to let go.

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Becoming what we watch

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Freya India posted an interesting article on “The Free Press” website (and on her substack channel also). The basic premise is that what we watch on TV or stream is wasting our lives on mindless entertainment – but more than that some lives are becoming mindless entertainment for others as people post their lives in images and video on all manner of social media … all for the clicks. It was an interesting read. Enjoy.

“Why look good without getting a selfie; why go out without uploading an Instagram Story?” writes Freya India. (Illustration by The Free Press)
Read the article

Adoption into Glory

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For more than a week we have been reading from The Letter to the Romans.  We transitioned from hearing about Abraham as an example of faith working its way through human imperfection to the source of that imperfection: sin. “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death.” (Rom 5:12) The readings that followed traced the unfolding of the consequences of sin unleashed into the world. But St. Paul offers us hope in the person of Jesus Christ. “…just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all. For just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous.” (Rom 5:18-19)  St. Paul is making the point that now it is the obedience of the faith that keeps us on the path of righteousness as an antidote to the death brought about by sin.

That obedience is necessary because we live in a world where temptation roams unrestrained emerging from an evil that St. Paul describes as an entity seeking to corrupt the good of the world and people so that we experience death rather than glory. Evil seeks to reign over all, and rob us of the glory God intended for us. It is as St. Peter (1 Peter 5:8), evil is on the prowl and means to devour you. And it is not just you. It is as Paul describes in Romans 8, “…creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Rom 8:21). The whole world waits for us to accept our adoption as daughters and sons of God. That acceptance brings us into the presence of God.

Being in the presence of God is a big deal, as big as it comes. Being in God’s presence was lost in Eden and perhaps the rest of Scripture can be thought of as God’s efforts to restore us to that intimate presence afforded to the family of God.

What could keep us from that presence? In the language of the Old Testament it is because something has rendered us “impure” in that we have come in contact with Death. Death that entered the world through the sin of one man. The Book of Leviticus has two whole sections on ritual and moral purity. Leviticus provides rituals of thanksgiving and atonement with one purpose in mind: that we be mindful that we worship the God of Life – Life that is meant to be whole, complete, and without the corruption of decay. Life that is meant to be lived in the presence of God. Life that is Holy as God is Holy.

In the Old Testament, there were regulations to keep the faithful from contact with that which would make them impure and not ready to enter into the presence of God. These regulations were designed so the impurity of forbidden things (e.g., a corpse) would not “infect” the person. The rituals were to restore the person.

In the New Testament, Jesus reaches across those regulations to touch the ritually impure. The lepers, the blind, and in today’s gospel, the woman who was “crippled by a spirit” and as a result was so “bent over” that she was “completely incapable of standing erect.”

Jesus reached out to touch her. Was Jesus made corrupted and rendered impure? No, his holiness “infected” the woman, removing that which was never desired or intended by God. Now she stands upright, a child of God, an heir to the glory of God. 

Now she may draw near into the presence of God as the taint of death has been removed.

May we realize that in this Eucharist we are again touched by Jesus that we may be made holy and live fully in the presence of God. We are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ … that we may also be glorified with him.”

Image credit: Healing of the Crippled Woman. By Theophylact, Byzantine Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria. 1055 AD | PD USA

July 1945

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July 1945, in some ways was like the lull before the storm. I remember my first experience of the eye of a hurricane passing over my home town. I was a small child and my parents told me about what would happen. Sure enough in just a moment we went from hurricane winds and lashing rains to an amazing stillness. We wandered outside just to feel the stillness and utter silence. In time and slowly, the winds picked back up to the full whip of hurricane winds. July 1945 is like the passing of the eye of a hurricane. The winds of Okinawa have quieted, the “divine winds” of the kamikaze are still … for the moment. And the world waits to see if the winds of the Asia-Pacific war will roar back with the advent of Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu.

Analogical imagining aside, there were key events that continued to play out in the month of July, both on the battlefield and behind the curtains in the halls of allied and Japanese governance.

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All Souls – Liturgy and Historical Roots

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As it sometimes does, in the year 2025, The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed – otherwise known as “All Souls” falls on a Sunday. This affects the liturgical calendar in two ways: All Saints falls on a Saturday and remains a Holy Day, but not one of obligation. All Souls replaces the 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time and is celebrated in its stead. 

From the earliest centuries, Christians prayed for the dead. Inscriptions in the Roman catacombs bear witness to intercessory prayers offered for the repose of departed souls. The Eucharist especially was celebrated in memory of the faithful departed. As time passed the monastic communities, particularly Benedictines, played a major role in shaping the Commemoration. Monks would set aside days to remember and pray for confreres who had died. A well-known example is Cluny Abbey in the 10th century, where Abbot Odilo established a commemoration of all the faithful departed, a practice that gradually spread throughout Europe. As the practice moved from monasteries to parishes, local churches and chapels, it developed into a universal observance, deeply tied to the life of ordinary Christian families, who saw it as a time to pray for deceased relatives and friends.

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Collision or Conversion

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The early 20th century evangelist, Billy Sunday is reported to have said once that the best thing that could happen to any person would be to reach a moment of deep conversion, to be justified by God, to accept Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, walk out of the revival tent, be hit by a truck, and killed instantly. There would be no backsliding, no withering under the scorching sun of modern life, and no chance to move from this one moment of original holiness.

I wonder what Billy Sunday had to say about the Pharisee in our gospel parable? The introduction kinda’ says it all. The Pharisee is someone who is “convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.” I guess the Pharisee needs to look both ways upon leaving the Temple and avoid anything resembling a 1st century truck.

From the outside, I suspect the Pharisee is a model of piety. He is praying, fasting, and giving generously to the poor. He is doing what the Law demands, what God requires. He is doing what all the prophets demanded. How is he the “bad guy” in this parable? From the outside he looks OK.

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Task Group 30.8

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Many years ago I prepared a couple for Sacramental Marriage. He was an Army Officer assigned to a local joint operations base and had primarily served in the Quartermaster Corp (Supply). He had written a history of Army Logistics in World War II. He gave me a copy and it was very interesting. My take away from the book was that perhaps the German generals and divisions were better than the Allied counterparts, but integrated allied logistics won the war in Europe. He certainly made a case. One of the examples he used in his book was the Battle of Anzio in Italy, especially during the major German counter attack against the Anzio beachhead. It was a detailed explanation of the same observation Rick Atkinson makes in his The Liberation Trilogy, the second book, The Day Of Battle. In short, the ability of the allied forces to deliver a massive tonnage of munitions (air, shore bombardment, artillery, etc) across the entire front of the German advance turned the battle.  

This post is my homage to the logistics forces of the war in the Pacific.

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A Parable of Right Relationships

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This coming Sunday the gospel is the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. 

The Pharisee’s prayer is filled with himself. He speaks of his virtues, compares himself to others, and essentially reminds God how good he is. He asks for nothing, because he believes he needs nothing. His prayer is not really prayer—it is self-congratulation before heaven.

The tax collector, on the other hand, has no illusions. He stands at a distance, cannot lift his eyes, and prays only, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He knows the truth about himself, and he places his whole hope in God’s mercy. And Jesus tells us it is this man, not the Pharisee, who goes home justified.

This tells us something about true prayer:

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Japan prepares for Invasion

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“The sooner the Americans come, the better… One hundred million die proudly” 

Such was the Japanese wartime propaganda campaign in 1945 as part of the Ketsu-Go defense plan against the inevitable invasion of the home islands by Allied forces. The slogan urged a total commitment, even unto death, to protect Japan. If necessary, Japanese civilians were to fight to the death to defend the homeland.  Along with military operations, the goal was to inflict unacceptable casualties on the enemy and force a negotiated peace. 

Japan had a standing army of 4 million men, but more than half were spread out across the Asia Pacific region with a large part garrisoned in China and Manchuria but unable to cross the Sea of Japan to reach the home islands because of the naval blockade, submarine operations, and mining of the sea lanes by allied bombers operating from Saipan. Thus the call for the people to come to the aid of their homes and nation.

For more than 2,000 years, Japan had never been successfully invaded. The most serious threat had come from two attempted Mongol invasions in the 13th century, both of which were thwarted by typhoons that caused massive losses of ships, sailors and soldiers. Although the story of the “Divine Wind” (Kamikaze) “grabbed the headlines” in both invasions, the on-shore Japanese resistance was epic. It is estimated that the Mongol losses approached 100,000 with survivors becoming enslaved. The foundational story became the intervention of the divine and total commitment of the people.

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A Parable of Reversal?

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This coming Sunday the gospel is the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. The parable reaches a conclusion as we are told: “I tell you, the latter [tax collector] went home justified.” The verb tense makes it clear that it is God who has justified this person. What does justified (dikaioo) mean? Lowe & Nida give the following for dikaioo:

  1. to cause someone to be in a proper or right relation with someone else
  2. to demonstrate that something is morally right
  3. the act of clearing someone of transgression
  4. to cause to be released from the control of some state or situation involving moral issues

It seems that 1 and 3 best fit the context. The tax collector goes home in a right relationship with God, because God made the relationship right. It was not something the tax collected did for himself (self-justification). The word also implies that he went home having been freed (by God) of his sin or guilt. He came to the temple “a sinner” and went home forgiven.

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