Category Archives: Nonviolence

The Joyful Mysteries

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The following meditations on the mysteries of the rosary were written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy. 

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The First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation

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In the Mystery of the Annunciation three “Yes”es are necessary. Each “Yes” has to be spoken in the context of a potentially horrific future.

Mary must say “Yes” to carrying Jesus in her womb for nine months, and in her heart forever. Her “Yes” would bring with it the probability of being set aside by Joseph, to whom she was betrothed, because he would know the child was not his. Being set aside by Joseph would bring with it either death—for she had ostensibly committed adultery, and the just punishment for adultery was stoning—or else a life of shame and of being ostracized by her “spiritual betters.”

Joseph must say “Yes” to that which his reason and nurturing would insist he say, “No.” From his human perspective at the moment, Mary is guilty of adultery. If he does not divorce her or marry her but instead exposes her to the Law, she—and hence the child she is carrying in her womb—will almost inevitably be stoned to death as her just punishment (Dt 22:21-24). This is important because Joseph’s “Yes” is not the “Yes” of justice under the Law; it is the “Yes” of righteousness, the choice of doing out of love—and contrary to his own interests—God’s mysterious and unfathomable will. This “Yes” of Joseph’s is the earthly father of Jesus saying, “Thy will be done, not mine,” thirty-three years before his son, also against His own earthly interests, would say the same thing.

And the third, “Yes,” is God’s. God, “who is love (agapé),” must say “Yes” to becoming a human being, a member of a humanity long ravaged by and long subject to every manifestation of evil capable of expressing itself through the choices, including the choices of violence and enmity, of these same human beings. In Jesus, God, “who is love (agapé)” must be the human incarnation of that agapé—unconditional, nonviolent, self-sacrificing love for all, friends, strangers, and enemies alike. This Divine choice—to become incarnate as a human being in an environment in which legions upon legions of evil dynamics are operating within human beings and within the institutions they have erected, and to become human with only the power of love (agapé) available to confront and conquer these diabolical forces—is a choice that infinitely surpasses any understandings of justice and of reality. It is a Mystery that is beyond human fathoming because such a choice will inevitably result in a life of having to struggle to love, having to suffer to love, and having to die at the hands of other human beings to love—as God must and will always love on earth He loves in heaven.

In the Mystery of the Annunciation, from the perspective of human beings in their spiritually fallen state, these three “Yes”es defy all notions of what is reasonable, even reason itself. Yet all three “Yes”es were freely given—and of what follows from these three gifts of “Yes,” we are all aware.

The Second Joyful Mystery: The Visitation

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We are told that, when Mary came into the physical presence of Elizabeth, “the babe in my womb [Elizabeth’s] leaped for joy.” (Lk 1: 41). Again, the Visitation is a Mystery that underscores the profundity of the Christ-event from the earliest moments of God’s incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth. How does a child in the womb communicate anything to a child in another womb such that the second child would be moved to respond? And, not simply to respond, but to respond with such a superabundance of joy: “leaped.” The awe and joy of the presence of the glory of God, the Shekinah, experienced by John, a child in the womb of Elizabeth, who comes into the proximate physical presence of Jesus in the womb of Mary, points to a Mystery, not separated from but infinitely more wondrous than even the great mystery of a human life in the womb. It points to the daughter of Abraham, Mary, being The Ark of the Covenant, the complete fulfillment of everything the Ark was and represented in Hebrew Scriptures. Or, more precisely, Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.

The Ark of the Covenant was the sign of God’s real presence among His people. In Jesus the Christ, born of Mary, God was really present among his people in an even more direct way. The Ark of Hebrew Scriptures held the Word of God written in stone, the Ten Commandments. Mary bore the Word of God “made flesh” in her womb. The Ark of Hebrew Scriptures held the manna from heaven.  Mary’s womb held the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ (Jn 6:48-50).

Mary as the Ark of the Covenant, the New Covenant, in the Visitation is not an interpretation of the Gospel artificially place onto the Gospel. It is a truth presented by the New Testament writers themselves.

“How can this be, since I have no relations with a man,” Mary at the Annunciation asks the Angel Gabriel regarding the birth of a son by her. Gabriel replies that it would happen by the power of God: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Lk 1:35). The Greek word translated “overshadow” is used nowhere else in the New Testament. In fact, it occurs only one other place in Scripture, if we refer to the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, which Luke was familiar with. The book of Exodus says Moses had the Ark of the Covenant placed in a great tent that was to serve as the dwelling-place of God among His people. It then reads, “Then the cloud covered the meeting tent, and the glory of the LORD filled the Dwelling. Moses could not enter the meeting tent, because the cloud settled down upon it and the glory of the LORD filled the Dwelling” (see Ex 40:34-35). In the Greek Old Testament, the one Luke knew, the word translated “settled down upon” in English is the same word that is translated into English as “overshadow” Luke is telling us that the presence of the power and glory of God, the Shekinah, will settle down upon, overshadowed, dwell in Mary just as the power of God overshadowed, settled down upon, the Ark of the Covenant and dwelt in the great tent.

There is much more, e.g., when David finally is able to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, it says, “He leaped before it.” That is the same word in Greek as is used to described John’s actions in the womb of Elizabeth when she meets Mary is who now carrying Jesus in her womb. But the basic question that the Mystery of the Visitations and the symbolism of Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant in it present to the Christian, perhaps revolves around this thought. Wherever the ancient Israelites went, they followed the Ark of the Covenant. If Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, how should we as Christians, people of the New Covenant, be following her? The answer to that questions is found in Mary’s last words and only command in the Gospels: “Do whatever He tells you“?

 

The Third Joyful Mystery: The Birth of Jesus, the Christ
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The Baby Jesus—who is the Bread of Life for all humanity, and who, many years in the future at His Last Supper on earth will take bread into His hands and say to His Apostles and disciples, “Take, eat. This is my body”—is born in the little town of Bethlehem whose name in Hebrew, bet lehem, means “House of Bread.” He is laid in a manger from which animals derive their daily nourishment in order to live. What a Mystery: Born in a town called the House of Bread and dying loving His lethal enemies, so that He could be the Bread that nourishes human beings along the Way of becoming one with the Holy One, along the Way of Eternal Life. People can now freely choose to be and to become what they can now freely choose to consume, namely, the Bread of Life for the spiritual nourishment and sanctification of others and self. People can now receive the Bread from heaven that is offered to them in the Person, Words and Deeds of  the Word of God Incarnate, Jesus, as well as when they receive the consecrated Bread at the re-presentation of the Last Supper, at the Holy Eucharist. What a Mystery! What had been exclusively the Bread of Angels in Eternity is, since the birth of Jesus the Christ in the House of Bread, now also the Bread of human beings in time. But God does not force His gift of the Bread of Eternal Life down any one’s throat. He simply daily offers it: “Take, eat.” And then promises, “Whoever eats of this Bread will live forever” (Jn 6:35-51).

 

The Fourth Joyful Mystery: The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
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“God, here he is. He is yours.” This is what Mary and Joseph are saying to God by bringing Jesus to the Temple. They, as faithful Jews, are following the Law of Moses: “Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord.”The Presentation is about trustfully handing Jesus back to God for God’s purposes. Then something unexpected and mystifying happens. Simeon prophesies to Mary, “You yourself a sword shall pierce.”

In Christian spirituality, it has often been said that on Golgotha there are two altars, where two people freely and nonviolently sacrificed their lives in order to do God’s will. First, there is the Altar of the Cross on which Jesus agonizingly fulfills His Gethsemane commitment: “Father if it is not possible that this cup pass without my drinking it, your will be done.” Then there is the Altar beneath the Cross, where Mary, Jesus’ mother, agonizingly fulfills her Nazareth commitment from long ago: “Be it done unto me according to your word.”

Can anyone doubt that the anguish that the mother of Jesus suffered as her Son was beaten, brutalized, tortured, tormented, and ultimately killed was anything less than monstrous and nightmarish? Can anyone doubt that, when the lance was thrust into the heart of Jesus, it also pierced the heart of His mother, bringing with it heartbreaking and mind-breaking pain and grief? Can anyone doubt that such is the suffering of every mother and father, regardless of the age of their child, who sees or learns that their child has been torn apart in body, mind, and/or spirit by the violence and enmity, callousness, indifference and mercilessness of other human beings?

What a Mystery that the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of the Christ, the Mother of God, the Mother of the Savior of humanity, has herself—like all other mothers and fathers whose precious children have been treated as worthless pieces of trash by other human beings—had to suffer the ravages of hell brought to earth through men and women in the service of the Satanic spirits of violence and enmity.

As we mediate on Mary as a mother in sorrow, whose heart a “sword has pierced,” our thoughts and prayers and deeds should go toward all mothers who sorrowfully suffer because of what others have done to their precious child, whether he or she be five months oldest or fifty-five years old.

There is an integral relationship between Mary having been a mother in sorrow on earth and Mary being the Mother of Mercy in heaven, whose Son performed His first miracle for a bride and groom at Cana because His mother in her empathy for their distress requested it of Him.

 

The Fifth Joyful Mystery: The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
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 “When His parents saw him, they were astonished, and His mother said to Him, ‘Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been searching for you sorrowfully’” (Lk 2:48). And so would it be with any mother and father who had lost their child in a department store crowd, at a ball game, or in a snowstorm; they would search for him or her sorrowfully. Mary and Joseph’s concern here is not for Jesus the Messiah, but for Jesus their beloved child. They dread that something awful might have happened to him.

When one person loves another and that someone is hurt, the person who loves him or her is also hurt. It is not the same hurt, but it may be a more terrible hurt. Love generates empathy unlike any other experience in the human situation. This universally embedded truism is a piece of the Mysteries of Creation and of Redemption in which we live.

It is therefore a fact of life that it is impossible to harm only one person. When you harm someone, all those who love the harmed person will also be harmed. When, for example, one kills another human being, one inflicts suffering and kills forever something in each and every person who loves that human being. It is only calculatingly nurtured, normalized superficiality that dupes people into thinking that the only person injured when they inflict harm upon another is the one on whom they are directly inflicting the harm. The experience of each and every one of us tells us that this is a lie. The sorrow and suffering that tears one person’s life to pieces, tears to shreds the lives and hearts of all who love him or her. Remembering this, and nurturing the habitus of mind that continually reinforces that remembrance is necessary for putting on the mind and heart needed for Christlike merciful love towards all, friends and enemies, great and small. Especially is this essential for living as Jesus desires His chosen disciples to live in a society where motivating and teaching children from the toddler stage onward how to play and enjoy making believe they are killing other human beings is a mainstream big and profitable business.

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

American Catholics should learn about Dorothy Day

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Pope Francis speaking to the U.S. Congress:

“In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the Servant of God Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.”

Our good friend Tom McDonough is an expert on this subject. Read his book and, if you have the opportunity, go hear him speak at the Jefferson Market Library in NYC.

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Who Owns Our Children?

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The United States of America has quietly declared that its citizens’ children are Government Property.

The U.S. Senate recently passed a Bill (2017 NDAA) which seeks to establish, as law, several items pertinent to U.S. military operations. Among those provisions is the elimination of the exemption for women from Selective Service registration (a.k.a. draft registration). Since 1980, young men, upon turning 18, have been required to register with the Selective Service. Failure to do so carries various penalties: no driver’s license, no student loans, and no government employment. As a special bonus: non-compliance brings the possibility of being arrested and incarcerated for up to 5 years as well as possible fines up to $250,000.00.

If this Bill is fully approved, young women will also need to register with Selective Service when they turn 18. They will presumably face the same penalties if they choose not to comply.

“Selective Service” is one of many government-speak euphemisms that is essentially a fresh coat of paint on a condemned building. The old term for this euphemism is conscription. The dictionary definition of conscription is: “compulsory enrollment of persons especially for military service: draft”. The modern qualifier “selective” misleadingly implies that one is making a choice to serve. In truth the individual has no choice. Government does all the selecting.

Selective Service registration is unnecessary, coercive and dehumanizing.

Some have argued that registration is really not a big deal. We have not had an actual draft since 1973 when U.S. involvement in Vietnam ended and draft registration was discontinued for the remainder of that decade. Since then the U.S.military has maintained itself quite adequately with an all-volunteer force. It can be argued that registration is nothing than more than a bureaucratic dance between young Americans and the federal government. Kids fill out the paperwork at the Post Office or online and then forget about it. The sales pitch proclaims: “Men…You can handle this.” The implication here is that this task will not put too much physical or mental strain on them. The other parts of the marketing campaign appeal to the young person’s sense of morality (“It’s the right thing to do.”) and need for obedience to State Authority (“It’s the law.”).

If it is not really such a big deal, if it is really nothing more than filling out a simple form then why make an issue of it? Why not just comply with the law and not worry about it? On the other hand, if the actual draft is really a thing of the past, why not just get rid of it? Why not let it be a thing of the past?

The argument has been put forth that if the United States were ever attacked, the government and military would need a system in place to have efficient access to young Americans to be placed into military service. The premise, theoretically, is that not enough young people would volunteer to fight if our nation was threatened. This makes drafting the non-volunteers a necessity. It’s a matter of National Security.

Please notice how all such discussions are expected to be settled simply by declaring that one’s position is vital to National Security!

This argument in favor of maintaining draft registration is somewhat plausible except for the fact that it is wrong! It is wrong because the United States was attacked (we efficiently remember it as 9-11) and we subsequently went to war (and have stayed at war) in the Middle East. As a nation, we have remained actively engaged in warfare in multiple countries for well over a decade. Under these conditions, there has been no need whatsoever to return to an active military draft to recruit additional young people to wear the uniform and “fight for their country.” In fact, the number of young Americans volunteering for military service increased after 9-11 (just as it did after Pearl Harbor).
The U.S. Armed Services recruitment has come a long way from “Uncle Sam wants you!” to the sophisticated marketing techniques currently used to enlist new volunteers. Today’s military advertising is very slick, very Madison Avenue and very effective.

So with the failure of this rationale for maintaining draft registration, what are we left with to explain not only the requirement for young men to register but now also to include young women in this process? What remains is the subtle assertion (if you don’t look too closely or think about it too much) that our children are Government Property. This claim is the result of a highly coercive arrangement by which young people must “voluntarily” sign a government contract in which they agree to serve in the military should the time ever come when they are told to do so:

“In exchange for the State Privileges of driving a car and getting student loans (that I will have to pay back at an obscenely high interest rate when I get out of school and start working at my entry-level job), I_______________ , agree that, whenever I may be called upon to do so, I will serve as cannon fodder for the American Empire. I agree to go where I’m told, do what I’m told to do, kill whoever I’m told to kill, and willingly die painfully and prematurely as may be required.”

As a parent, I am obviously biased on this issue. I do not want my children risking their lives while they try to kill other parents’ children while those other parents’ kids are trying to kill my kids. The mouthpieces of government policy and their corporate media partners euphemistically refer to soldiers as “boots on the ground” as if they are chess pieces to be strategically manipulated to win “the game.” Those “boots” are filled with the barely-grown-up children of mothers and fathers everywhere. These young people are our children and yet we do not own them. They are not our property.

This system has very little to do with patriotism. It has a great deal to do with government exercising control over what it sees as its property. When the government of any nation treats its citizens as property to be managed and utilized it dehumanizes and commodifies the very people without whom there would be no nation. When people are dehumanized in this way it reduces the nation to the status of a mere machine. Citizens are reduced to consumers.

Any system, any corporate entity, that acts to reduce human beings to objects is wrong and deserves a response of nonviolent, noncooperation. Rather than including young women in the mandatory draft registration process as some expression of phony equality, the entire system should be eliminated for all American citizens.

As a society and as parents we bear the responsibility for our children until they are ready to bear that weight themselves. That is the cost of personal freedom. This freedom is not a privilege that our “adult” society bestows upon each new generation but rather it is the repayment of our debt to the generations that came before us and sacrificed for us. It is not the current generation of young people that owe something to the current generation of adults in this world but rather it is the current generation of adults that owe something to the generations of parents who preceded us. Their grandchildren and great grandchildren are our responsibility and not the property of any person or any government.

No one owns our children.

Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

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Wow. I’m speechless after watching this trailer! I can’t believe a film about Gospel nonviolence will actually be on the big screen! This is what the world needs right now.

The extraordinary true story of conscientious objector Desmond Doss who, in Okinawa during the bloodiest battle of WWII, saved 75 men without firing a gun. Believing that the War was just but killing was nevertheless wrong, he was the only American soldier in WWII to fight on the front lines without a weapon. As an army medic Doss single-handedly evacuated the wounded near enemy lines, braved fire while tending to soldiers and was wounded by a grenade and hit by snipers. He was the first conscientious objector to ever win the Congressional Medal of Honor.

 

 

Oh, and as long as I’m on the topic of Mel Gibson, I simply must recommend a short story (well, it’s written like a screenplay but meant to be read as a story) called Surfing With Mel, written by the insanely talented Matthew Lickona. Do you have complicated feelings about Mel Gibson? Read this. It has so much heart and so much compassion at once, without fawning, promoting, or excusing.

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On April 11, 2012, TheWrap.com published a private letter from screenwriter Joe Eszterhas to director Mel Gibson. The letter chronicled, in alarming detail, their disastrous attempt to collaborate on a film version of the Biblical Book of Maccabees. The media flare-up that followed focused on Eszterhas’ characterization of Gibson as an angry, Jew-hating sociopath, but largely ignored the spiritual crisis at the story’s heart. Using the letter as a map, Surfing with Mel sets out to find some meaning within the madness, and winds up outlining a darkly satirical and deeply profane portrait of two men at war with each other, with their pasts, and with God.

About the Korrektiv Press series Lives of Famous Catholics: Writing in his journal about the celebrities of his day, the author John Cheever observed that “we have a hierarchy of demigods and heroes; they are a vital part of our lives and they should be a vital part of our literature.” We agree, which is why the Lives of Famous Catholics series seeks to explore the life of faith by the light of the famous.

The only question worth asking

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John Dominic Crossan (b.1934) is an Irish-American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity and former Catholic priest, who has written twenty-eight books both scholarly and popular. Crossan is a major scholar in contemporary historical Jesus research. He earned his Doctor of Divinity in 1959 at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, the Irish national seminary. He then completed two more years of study in biblical languages at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. In 1965 Crossan began two additional years of study (in archaeology) at the Ecole Biblique in Jordanian East Jerusalem. In the fall of 1969 he joined the faculty of De Paul University, where he taught for twenty-six years until retiring in 1995. Crossan also served as president of the Chicago Society of Biblical Research in 1978–1979, and as president of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2012.

“Is the God of the Christian Bible violent or nonviolent? It is really the only question worth asking.”—John Dominic Crossan

This video is 16 minutes long.

Walking the Way of Nonviolence: Is the God of the Christian Bible Violent? from University Congregational UCC, S on Vimeo.

 

Merton on East and West

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From the essay “Beyond East and West” by Thomas Merton:

“We are no longer living in a Christian world. The ages which we are pleased to call the ‘ages of Faith’ are certainly not ages of earthly paradise. But at least our forefathers officially recognized the favored the Christian ethic of love. They fought some very bloody and unChristian wars, and in doing so, they also committed great crimes which remain in history as a permanent scandal. However, certain definite limits were recognized. Today a non-Christian world still retains a few vestiges of Christian morality, a few formulas and cliches, which serve on appropriate occasions to adorn indignant editorials and speeches. But otherwise we witness deliberate campaigns to oppose and eliminate all education in Christian truth and morality. Not only non-Christians but even Christians themselves tend to dismiss the Gospel ethic on nonviolence and love as ‘sentimental’. As a matter of fact, the mere suggestion that Christ counseled nonviolent resistance to evil is enough to invite scathing ridicule. One Catholic writer declares in so many words that he will stick to natural law and abandon the Sermon on the Mount to ‘Protestant ministers and Jewish Rabbis.’ It is therefore a serious error to imagine that because the West was once largely Christian, the cause of the Western nations is now to be identified, without further qualification, with the cause of God.”

 

Talking to Christians

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My fellow Radicals and Subversives in Christ:  I am so very glad to be with you!

Why do I refer to you this way?  I know that those words may make some of you uncomfortable. I assure you that that is not my goal.

My point is simply this:  The One that we are privileged to follow was and is the greatest radical and subversive who has ever walked on the surface of planet Earth.

Did he support the socio-economic and political status quo of his time? Hardly. He taught and demonstrated a radical departure from the social and political systems established by human beings.  He actively subverted The System of Empire. In response to his radicalism and subversiveness, he was captured, convicted and tortured to death by that Empire.

Why was he a threat to The Establishment?  I suggest that his primary threat was in his challenge to their assertion that they were God. Jesus countered that only God is God and that no human political or military leader or system is any sort of god at all.  That posed a major threat to their power base.  Therefore “The System” moved to eliminate this threat.

What does this mean for us now?

We are called to follow Jesus. He didn’t ask us to adore him or worship him. He told us to follow him.  How can we interpret this directive?  We can follow his example behaviorally.  We can do our best to act as he did. We can follow his teachings and do our best to cultivate an internal attitude similar to his and practice corresponding external behavior.

I believe that following Jesus means following his path of Radical Love. What is radical about his kind of love?  At the Last Supper, he told his disciples to “Love one another as I have loved you.”  This is his instruction as to how we are to love each other (and love ourselves).  He did not direct them (or us) to love any old way. He specifically tells them (and us) to follow his example and do it his way.

So what does it mean to love the way he taught and demonstrated?

He tells us to love those who hurt us. He tells us to turn the other cheek to those who have hit us already. He tells us to love our enemies.  Even as he is being tortured to death on the cross he expresses:  “Father forgive them. They know not what they do.”  He provides a live demonstration even as he is dying. His way of loving is so counter-intuitive, so alien to us.   It would seem that he wants us to actively forgive and love everyone who hurts us.

When we use the words “radical” and “subversive” it’s important to ask:  A radical departure from what?  Attempting to subvert what existing system or situation?

I would argue that the radicalism and subversiveness of Jesus was and is this kind of “movement” away from the Violence of Lies and toward the Reality of True Love. It is the conscious subversion of the idolatry of worshiping The-State-as-if-it’s-God.

Does this mean that we are called to do likewise? I think it does. I think it means that we need to recognize the various ways that each of us is invited or coerced into deifying and worshiping phony gods in our everyday lives.

Who and what are these phony gods?

Who are the individuals that are promoted as heroes in the public eye? Who are those that are advertised as great and powerful that the rest of us are supposed to cheer for and adore? What are we repeatedly told to buy and buy into? What are we directed to glorify by those with materialistic power? What are the institutions and products that are endlessly marketed as “must have” if we are to be acceptable as human beings?

Who wants us to be afraid?

Phony gods.

If we choose to follow Christ, we commit to the path that is a radical departure from the System of Empire and the lies that sustain it. We commit to a path that is a radical movement toward the Unity of Real Love. We express and accept the “Yes!” to who and what we truly are: Manifestations of Love.

If we choose to make this claim, we can expect to be labelled as “subversive” by the world of phony gods. If we take this stand, we should expect The System of Empire to react with violence of some kind. That is consistent with its philosophy. We must be prepared for this reaction.

No empire likes to be told that its “new clothes” are an illusion!

My fellow radicals and subversives, we have choices to make.

We can choose to conform to the System of Empire and enjoy the materialistic comforts that come with it. This option requires behavioral obedience to The Establishment as well as psychological acceptance of its worldview. We must do and think and feel as we are told.

There is another choice.

We can choose to follow Christ’s Way.

This means letting go of the Temptation Traps of the human ego. These are traps like: “I want what I want when I want it” and “I”m more deserving than you” and “Us vs. Them”. It means accepting discomforts we may be unaccustomed to and suffering rejections and criticisms from both strangers and loved ones. It means embracing a lifestyle of all-inclusive compassion and forgiveness. It is a matter of choosing what is real instead of a hollow fantasy. It is a matter of choosing love over fear, freedom over slavery.

It is the choice of redemptive nonviolence over non-redemptive violence.

My fellow Radicals and Subversives in Christ, we have choices to make.