Google Earth Pictorial: Sacred Heart
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If you heard me complain about my pastor back at St. Ignatius parish, it would usually start with “He’s just too smart.” He holds a PhD. from the University Chicago, one of the most prestigious schools in the United States. I will often hear him make statements such as, “I’ve discovered this to be true, but it could also be the way too.” It can be frustrating to listen to him, because I never feel like he is saying anything definite.  

It seems I’ve caught on to his mannerisms a little bit myself. I’m in Kansas at my sister’s family’s house. When I’m here, I often get questions of a religious nature from my beloved nephews in their efforts to either learn about the Faith, stump me, or both. One such question came last night when my nephew asked, “What happens if a priest is married and no one knows about it.” I had imagined 3 different scenarios in which I could answer the question and then talked for a half hour before saying “it could be this way, or the other way too,” and then I had only remotely answered the question. My sister and I laughed. “Can’t you simplify the answer?” “No!” I said, “The question is too vague. It isn’t my fault that the kid can’t ask a question with enough specific parameters for me to answer simply!” 

It is one of the reasons that going around the world scares me. The experience of traveling tends to prove that the absolutes you think are absolute, aren’t so absolute. There are many ways to do things that are different than the way you are used to doing things. This problem is at the crux of a spirituality focusing on solidarity, I am also drawn to the question, because tonight, I spoke at my nephew’s Confirmation class. 

The class was a community event consisting of parents, sponsors, and Confirmandi from Sacred Heart Parish in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. The parish was, as always, warm and friendly, and for at least the third time, the pastor tried to convince me that I should move to Kansas City to work at Sacred Heart Parish. If you have downloaded Google Earth on your computer, you can view my pictorial of Sacred Heart parish by clicking here. 

I spoke to the class about AD SODALITATEM and the pilgrimage to promote solidarity, but I was really there because I am my nephew’s Confirmation sponsor. It is my role to stand up for him as a Catholic and support him as he, and the Church, confirms his full initiation into the Church and the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life.  

Confirmation is a difficult Sacrament to explain and justify, but I personally love the use of symbols in the Sacrament. The principle symbol is that of oil. Each Confirmandi is anointed with oil, but what happens in that process is often overlooked. When one person puts oil on another person, both get covered. Confirmation is often treated as a Sacrament celebrated alone, but to me, the sharing oil represents that not only is the individual Confirmed, but the community is also re-Confirmed by the very act of Confirming, the very act of sharing the sacred oil.  

I love serving as my nephew’s Confirmation sponsor. I love standing and professing with my nephew that this Church holds the Faith in which I believe. But how can I be certain? How can I know absolutely what it is I believe? Why I am I so certain, when there are so many in the world who are different than me? And what am I going to say to them as I encounter them these next few months? 

The Church is in an awkward position in history right now, and it becomes especially hard to discuss these matters with children. On the one hand, we want to share what we hold as absolute truth, how we know that God has worked with the community of the Church for over 2 millennia, and before that with Israel. On the other hand, the Church is actively engaged in dialogue with Christians of all denominations, as well as people of all Faiths, Buddhists, Sheiks, Muslims, Jews. How can they all be right? 

An educated position, misused, is one of relativism. “They’re all correct in that they’re all wrong.” “They all say the same thing.” Or to use my pastor’s manner of speaking in a different context, “This is true, but it could be the other way too.” What!? How can that be? 

The other extreme I fear even more, fundamentalism. Since thinking about these apparent contradictions is so difficult, just stop thinking. Absolute truth becomes a battle cry which gives the fundamentalist the characteristics of self righteousness and arrogance. “The truth is what I say, because the truth says that what I say is true.” (feel free to insert awkward expression of disconcertedness here)  There is no alternative, and solidarity comes to mean conformity.  

It is not easy to cross the divide between relativism and fundamentalism. It is not easy to find communion, solidarity, with people who are different. I offer one thought that my nephew’s helped me realize. In the United States, we use the words “One, two, three…” to refer to the absolute numbers to which they correspond. In Spanish they use “Uno, dos, tres…” to refer to the exact same reality. Who is right? The fact that there really are numbers that exist behind the words we use is not relative. It is not a mere possibility, it is a reality. What changes is the language. “One” can also be “uno.” It does not change the truth that there is a numeral with a singular value. There is something absolute behind the constantly changing social construct used to describe the reality. 

A bigger problem might be that the words we use do not communicate the truth in languages other than our own. The numerous challenges we face in really living in solidarity with one another, seem to stem from our inability to communicate. So of course we have a hard time translating a Muslim’s understanding of God to our own. Even if it is translated from Arabic to English, it is in a different “language;’ a different culture and understanding. 

With that in mind, I have no concerns about Confirmation. I am proudly going to stand up with my nephew, and with all the Confirmandi with whom I spoke tonight, and make a Profession of Faith. I will gladly say “I believe in One God, the Father Almighty. Creator of heaven and Earth…” Because I know that those words communicate to me, and the community with whom I am gathered, an absolute truth. At the same time, I know that those words are merely words, and not THE WORD, (see the beginning of John’s Gospel). 

As I sit here trying to figure out how to finish this blog in some brilliant manner, I’m struck by God’s little irony. The reason I am comfortable with the argument attempting to balance faith and reason is because I have been exposed to a man by the name of St. Thomas Aquinas. We would have celebrated his feast day today were it not for the fact that today is the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, a fact I didn’t even realize until just now. Thomas Aquinas was a highly regarded philosopher and theologian in the thirteenth century and his memory in the recess of my mind is probably what inspired me to be a little esoteric today.  One of my favorite teachings from Aquinas I will paraphrase… We see things not as they are but as we are. The truth is always colored by our perception of it. 

Thank you for trying to follow along with my whirl-wind thought pattern. I am sure it has something to do with being in Kansas. I feel grasping this concept will be important for future discussions about the Church’s teaching on solidarity. There is constancy, even in the midst of change… and that’s the absolute truth.