Do you (really) believe?

If yesterday's Mass readings conspired to send the message about taking on the mind of Christ, today's readings conspire to tell us that that "mind" has to show through the body. In other words, the letter of James and the Gospel of Mark take the very opposite approach from that of certain voices in our government. Those voices would assure us that it is wonderful to take on the mind of Christ, to profess our religious beliefs and even to express them in worship. As long as we don't bring them out in public through peculiar, presumably anti-social choices. James and Jesus, of course, see things quite differently.
Faith without works, James says emphatically, is dead. Religion that doesn't change your life, your relationships, your choices, is no more than the pagan religions of old: as long as devotees offered their incense or made the required sacrifices, they were in good stead. They were "religious." 
A few weeks ago I was at a meeting of pastoral leaders. The subject of the day's discussion was how to awaken people to the necessity of Sunday Mass (in terms of today's readings, the barest of bare minimum expression of faith in the heart). At the suggestion of initiatives to help Catholics get a better grasp of what the Mass is, one participant spoke up: "They already know all that. They just aren't making the choice to act on it."
But I wonder.
Maybe those many (many) Catholics who have let go of any kind of regular Mass attendance could get straight A's (and maybe did get straight A's) on a school-type test about the Mass. Maybe they could tell you what the Real Presence is and why it is important. They "know" it. But do they know it's real?
I think that's the question that we can ask about the issues in today's newspapers, too. And maybe the controversy engendered by the HHS mandate provides us with an opportunity to show how "real" our faith is.

A Parable of Preventative Services

Once upon a time, in the mid-20th century, a small Southern town faced a dilemma. The signage clearly marking public facilities was, in some cases fading, in other cases rusting. Why, one could hardly tell if the waiting room in the bus station, the drinking fountain set into the courthouse wall, or the restroom at the train depot were the one for "Whites Only" or the colored one. If this was let go, children might even inadvertently dive into the wrong swimming pool!

This was a town full of good ol' boys, so they decided things the good ol' boy way. ALL the signage in the town would be freshened up, and every property owner in town, whether an individual or a business or organization, would contribute just a little bit to keep the signage clearly readable, in order to prevent any unanticipated (and presumably unwanted) integration. So they called the plan  "Preventative Services."

The good ol' boys announced this plan with much fanfare, and the Mayor himself made a public appearance. If they anticipated what came next, it may have only been to focus public pressure on the recalcitrant, so they would learn to conform to the accepted norms of the small society.

A local minister came forward. He objected to his church being levied even just a little bit in the cause of preventative services. He had always preached from the Bible, you see, and the Good Book says, "honor all men" and that's what was written in the Congregational By-Laws, which anyone could look up and read right in the Town Hall files from when they registered the church property long decades ago.

One of the Mayor's office workers made some conciliatory noises about finding a workaround, but it would certainly not, on the basis of principle, mean that the pastor would be relieved of  his civic duty of contributing. After all, this was something for the whole town's benefit, so one church's obscure (and ignored) teaching would not be allowed to stand in the way of progress.

The good ol' boys just snickered. Didn't the Reverend know that 90% of his parishioners practiced segregation in their home and business lives? (The Reverend visibly saddened at that reminder of how far his people were from the biblical teachings they claimed to believe in.)

The story is not yet finished.  For more about the Reverend and the good ol' boys, you can refer to any of the following links. Granted, they are about a different situation entirely (and from the year  2012!), but so many principles still apply:


The good ol' boys most recent talking points, answered by the Reverend, point by point.
Who's paying for the signage? Just the town's property owners? (Background information included.)
The Reverend's initial response to the Preventative Services project. (At the time, the Mayor had promised to look into ways of accommodating the church's concerns.)

Dorothy Day Today?

I've been reading All the Way to Heaven. The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day and came across this very timely remark in my reading last night. It is from a letter Day wrote to the IRS when she was called upon for a "visit" about her taxes. ("I have no personal income," she replied, "and so am unable to report.") Anyway, this is the passage that struck me as fitting to our times (even if it was written in 1951):

"I certainly do not want to go to jail, but if some day the 'all-encroaching State,' as our bishops have termed it, does prosecute me, which it would do if it were legalistic and insistent in its rejection of Christianity, which it isn't, I hope I would be given the grace to endure it and be accounted worthy to suffer for Christ, who loved us and died for us..."