The Nativity of the Lord: 2019

Mass During the Day Lectionary: 16

And the Word became flesh

and made his dwelling among us,

and we saw his glory,

the glory as of the Father's only Son,

full of grace and truth.

In the past few years the news media have been awash in "alternate facts" and we have come to realize facts are not what they used to be. They were supposed to be snippets of truth, small, hard pieces of reality. They were discovered, identified, and isolated by science; they were truths not revealed by God. They could be used to build hypotheses which, after sufficient testing and much experience, could be accepted as useful theories.
A theory was useful if it successfully explained what happened and predicted what would happen. When I open my hand the pen falls to the floor. I know why it happened: masses curve space and objects moving through space collide with each other. I predicted it; it happened; the theory of gravity is both reliable and useful. I can assume it's true. 

I use these theories and facts all the time, without much reference to God. I turn the ignition key and the engine starts. I didn't invoke God to make it work; it happened because the science is reliable and true. 

But in the twentieth century scientists discovered facts that proved contrary theories. Is light a particle or a ray? It can't be both but it acts like both, with no theory except "relativity" to explain it.
Facts are really man-made inventions; the word itself comes from the Latin facere, meaning "to make." As in manufacture and facsimile.  Facts are components of theories which help explain reality, but theories can become rickety as facts accumulate. When enough fail to fit the prevailing theory, the theory collapses. It must be replaced by another which will successfully explain what did happen and predict what will happen. 

Learning that facts are "man made" leads to certain inevitable questions: Who are the scientists? Who sponsored the research? What questions did they ask? What answers did they expect? Why did they ask that question? What biases did they assume? Why do their new facts matter?

More importantly, with the advent of "alternative facts", we realize that All the facts in the world don't add up to the Truth. Sometimes they can be used to contradict the truth, as when we tell "white lies" which are ostensibly true but intentionally misleading. Losing faith in facts and those who create them, some people doubt there is any truth. Perhaps truth is only one person's opinion, contradicted by the opinions of other people. Perhaps, in the absence of facts, there is only power, and those who survive are the most powerful.

On Christmas Day Christians celebrate the Truth made Flesh who lives among us. He is not a fact though his birth, death, and impact are historical facts. He is the Word of God who abides forever, a word pronounced in many languages and defined in none; a Word which governs the Church without being governed by the Church.

On Christmas Day, as we again recite the Nicene Creed, Christians declare our faith in "the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth." Historically we know that Gospel Truth finds both welcome and rejection. It is popular and despised. The Gospel can build civilizations, cultures, and societies as people embrace the Truth; and when they stray into deception, the Gospel abandons them to their fate. They are left to cry Lord, Lord in the night, outside the City walls.

Today, we celebrate the Birth of the Savior who is Christ the Lord and we must admit that facts do not save us. We can bludgeon our opponents with facts and they'll laugh at us. Or we can live the truth in love, respectfully and with God's own patience, and watch as Salvation History unfolds before us. We cannot control the outcome; clearly no mortal controls our political, economic morass.

Rather, we praise God that our Savior is born, and our eyes have seen the glory of his coming.

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Lectionary: 280
My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.

Recently, as I drove to the hospital on a Sunday morning, I heard Christa Tippet being shouted down by a young scientist. He could barely contain his contempt for religion as he expounded his own (religious) belief in science. 

He finds his why in the how of things. The reason things are the way they are is their causes, and cause is the only meaning he recognizes. He thinks it’s wonderful that scientists can understand some things; and that they don’t understand others yet; and there seems no end of mystery in the world of causes and effects.

I had been reading only the day before Pope Benedict’s book, An Introduction to Christianity, and his history of facts. The word comes from the Latin root facere, meaning “to make,” as in facts, factory and manufacture. Facts are things we make. Against the Scholastic equation verum est ens (being is truth) Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) advanced his own formula, verum quia factum. That is to say, all that we can truly know is what we have made. 

Scientists are very good at making and compiling facts, and from them they build theories to create more facts. Although many facts are later disproved by better theories, it’s not unreasonable to hope one’s facts correspond with Truth, as a photo might agree with the face of a loved one.

But to believe in facts, or to put one’s faith in the process of creating them, is to walk on very thin ice. It’s like supposing the photo is your loved one. Some Christians invest heavily in the Shroud of Turin, for instance. It was for centuries revered as a sacred relic of Jesus' burial. In the 19th century a scientific instrument, a camera, revealed something mysterious about it. In the negative a clearer picture appeared. Perhaps it really is Jesus' burial shroud! Millions of tourist/pilgrims flock to see it. But if it’s ever proven that the shroud was woven in the Middle Ages, as seems likely, the faith of some Christians will be shaken.

Our faith is not built on facts, and we have no need to argue the “facts” about God. But, for the time being, we let the atheists shout their scientific facts against the fundamentalists. Both sides agree on a seriously flawed argument: that facts can say anything about the existence of God; and from there, something about God.
The mad scientist on Ms Tippet's show went on to say that, "Life is what you make it." If you're satisfied with what you made of yourself, you should be able to die happily. What more could you expect? Can there be any meaning, purpose or reason to human existence than what I make of it? 

In the same book, Cardinal Ratzinger speaks of the “little way” of Saint Theresa. He attests what priests see every day from our side of the altar; there are many saints in the world today. They are quietly following in the footprints of Jesus, without shouting or making their voices heard in the streets. They remain blissfully unaware of the highfalutin arguments of fact-makers and fact-checkers. They cling to their Shepherd for reassurance and guidance.
The day is rapidly approaching when even the high school dropout will lose faith in verum quia factum. (I've noticed that high school dropout philosophy is generally two centuries behind.) On that day we will celebrate the return of wisdom and the vindication of faith. And the whole world will see that Saint Therese's little way is streaming with sheep, for no one can snatch them from them his hand. 

Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest and doctor of the Church

Lectionary: 317

Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables, "How can Satan drive out Satan?

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

President John Adams, first successor to George Washington, is often quoted,

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

The theory was that facts are discovered as true by scientists who seek the unchanging truths of reality. That "unchanging truth" was based on the theory that God is unchanging. Even the deists of the Enlightenment, Adams among them, believed in this eternally unchanging deity.

That confidence began to erode in the twentieth century as certain proven facts contradicted each other without any possibility of resolution. For instance, is light a particle or a ray? It acts in both ways though it cannot be both. Quantum theory emerged, a way of living with two or more contradictory facts. It was largely theoretical for most people until we started navigating by GPS.

We have discovered that facts are manufactured by human beings in conversation with each other. They are made to be communicated, and often encapsulated in a few simple words. But their utility relies on the context that every party to the conversation shares. Huge, even fatal, misundertandings may ensue when the parties don't agree on the context. A billion dollar probe of Mars failed because American engineers installed a component measured with metric rather than imperial standards. Their facts were right; their context was wrong.

Facts may be useful for science, especially the hard sciences of mathematics, physics and chemistry; they're not always reliable in sociology and politics. The study of human beings,-- their attitudes, feelings, decisions and actions -- doesn't lend itself to precise measurements. They are somewhat predictable on a massive scale, as algorithms are showing, but when humans suspect they're acting predictably and being tracked, they do something weird. Even historical facts float in and out of existence like legends and myths; and historians have given up on historical theories like determinism, communism, and manifest destiny. No one knows what anyone will do next, much less how masses of people will act. Perhaps several million people will not emigrate to the United States despite their poverty and the legendary promise of el norte.

When Jesus taught his contemporaries that "a kingdom divided against cannot stand" he was speaking of Truth, not of facts. To speak the Truth one must know, love and serve the Truth. Any fool can hide the truth with a fact. Alcoholics use them often. "I'm going to run down out and buy some cigarettes." doesn't mean that at all. The truth is he's going out for alcohol, but he can't or won't say that. Sure, he buys cigarettes, but that's not why he's going out. He has no love of truth nor of the one to whom he tells this lie.

Truth is a relationship; it is a matrix of relationships which includes God, one's family, neighbors, fellow workers, citizens and church -- and the many dimensions of oneself. It takes time, deliberation, courage and dedication to tell the truth. The truth often leaves me vulnerable to pain and embarrassment. Before I can answer the simplest question I may have to ponder and pray for guidance that I might speak with integrity.

Truth is conveyed with words which are carefully chosen for their communicability. One can tell a three year old that, "Mommy has to go away for a while." but not with words like addiction, alcoholism or a history of sexual abuse. The truth in that situation has to be lived, mostly without words.

Jesus enemies accused him of their own hypocrisy. It was the only matrix they understood, a torn, fragmented world of deceit, secrets, intrigue and conspiracies, destined for annihilation. Because Truth is the only reality, the only real existence, the enemies of Jesus are doomed to evaporate like the morning frost under the noonday sun. Their memory will perish.

The faithful today, assaulted by alternate facts from political, economic, scientific and religious "authorities" rely on God's Holy Spirit to guide us. We beg the Lord to help us know, love and serve the Truth, and to hate every form of deceit.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 113 

"What can we do to accomplish the works of God?"
Jesus answered and said to them,
"This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."

We have heard in today’s Gospel Jesus’s flat declaration, “You must believe in the One God has sent.” 

When his critics demand a sign from him, some kind of proof that he is truly sent from God, they also suggest that they believed in Moses because he gave them manna, which was  bread from heaven. 

They want to see him perform some kind of sign although, only yesterday, he fed an enormous crowd with five barley loaves and a couple of fish. If that wasn’t proof for them, they obviously have no intention of believing in him or any other sign, wonder, or miracle he might perform. So long as they see only what they want to see, they will not believe in him. 

But they are misremembering. Moses did not give them manna. God gave them that bread of angels, as a sign not of Moses’s authority but as a demonstration of the LORD's superabundant generosity. There will always be more where that came from so long as they prove themselves as God’s holy people, worshiping him daily, living by his moral standards which are healthy, healing, and normal, caring first for the neediest among them, and demonstrating to the gentiles the kindness and mercy of God. 

But the critics want an inexhaustible supply of bread that will last forever, “Sir, give us this bread always!” They think that would be like heaven. But they’re mocking him! They don’t believe a word of it. 

And then he promises them precisely what they want…

 "I am the bread of life;

whoever comes to me will never hunger,

and whoever believes in me will never thirst."

Times have changed since Jesus faced his critics in Capernaum, but our human nature has not changed, and people are still demanding signs from Jesus. One of the changes is the rise of so-called science, and especially that pseudo-science that says we should believe only in facts. We will not take anyone’s word for it, not even if that word should come from God. We want scientifically proven facts. 

Let's look at science. Well into the twentieth century, scientific phrenologists studied the shape of people’s skull to discover their moral character. They wanted to prove that European skulls are virtuous, but African skulls are criminal, and Jewish skulls are wicked. Does anyone remember that science of hard facts?

A century ago “medical scientists” proved we have souls because amputees, soldiers who had lost arms or legs during the Civil War, complained about phantom pains. That pain is coming from your ghostly soul, they said, which still has two legs, two arms, two feet, two hands, and all your fingers and toes. We laugh at such nonsense today, and no one believes it; but gullible Christians, eager to prove that religious mysteries can be proven with science, still buy into facts that prove their faith in God. 

In the 19th century, credulous preachers argued that Jonah must have been swallowed by an enormous whale – the King James Version called  it a fish, as does our Catholic Bible  – and Jonah not only survived in the belly of a whale for three days, he even composed a prayer and sang it while he was in there. If the Bible says it, it must be a fact, a scientific fact! Along with Noah’s ark. And don’t you know that God intentionally planted fake dinosaur bones all over the world so as to make people believe in evolution. Although it never happened, because the Bible says the world was made in seven days. 

We laugh at such nonsense today, and no one believes it, but gullible Christians – and many Catholics – are still eager to prove that religious mysteries can be proven with science. They eagerly consume scientific studies of the Shroud of Turin and Bleeding Hosts, and DNA tests of consecrated wine.

It’s a trap, and when Catholics fall for that nonsense we make our faith look ridiculous even in our own eyes. We cannot prove God’s goodness, mercy, or fidelity; and we have no need to prove it. We cannot prove the Blessed Sacrament is the Body and Blood of Jesus. We believe it because he said "This is my body!" and "This is my blood!" and he commanded us to eat his flesh and to drink his blood. And he urged us, on the night before he died, "Do this in memory of me." 

No man can prove he loves his wife, nor can a wife prove she loves her husband. They either believe in each other or their marriage collapses. They can buy gifts, they can take them on exotic vacations, they can give them anything they want, they can swear on the mothers’ graves, but they cannot prove they love one another. 

Parents who try to prove they love their children by never disciplining them and giving them everything they want, are only rotten parents. They will be bitterly disappointed by selfish, ungrateful children.

"This is the work of God, believe in the one he sent." 

We don’t have to prove our faith by any scientific standards. We believe in God, and we believe God, and we don't believe in facts. Facts are made by men; they are manufactured. (Both words come from the same Latin root; facere, which means to make.) We work with facts; they are useful tools. We build theories out of facts, and when the facts are accurate we trust our theories. And when we discover that some facts are not as reliable as we thought they were, we throw them away, and dismantle the theories to build new ones with better facts. 

Science knows nothing about sin. It doesn't believe in sin, it doesn't see it anywhere in the world. Nothing that we do is called sinful, so far as science is concerned. Everything can be explained, our pseudo-scientists tell us, without the theory of sin and without the theory of God. But we know because God tells us, much of our human behavior is sinful. It is unnecessary; it is harmful; and no good can come of it.

Science may discover useful facts, but we don't believe in science or in facts. We believe in God who reveals the Truth to us. And we believe God when he speaks to us, even if he must tell us about our sins.  

Today’s Gospel comes from John, chapter 6. Over the next several Sundays we will hear more of the same chapter as Jesus insists, 

Amen, amen, I say to you,

unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,

you do not have life within you.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood

has eternal life,

and I will raise him on the last day.

We believe Jesus and we believe in Jesus because he remains with us and he still speaks to us. Last month Catholics throughout the United States demonstrated our faith in the Blessed Sacrament with four amazing pilgrimages from Connecticut, Mississippi, Texas, and California; and converged in Indianapolis. Thousands of people participated; millions of people saw it and wondered what it was about. 

We declared not only that we believe in Jesus, and that we believe in the Most Blessed Sacrament; we also declared to our fellow Americans, “We are still here, and we still believe in God despite everything you might say about God. Jesus, the Blessed Mother, or the Pope. Or about us. And we’re not going away because God sent us here to invite you to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and believe in the One he sent. 

Tuesday between January 2 and Epiphany

Lectionary: 206

If you consider that God is righteous,
you also know that everyone who acts in righteousness is begotten by him.

In times of deep division bordering on civil war, many people volunteer to act as mediators, hoping to forestall unnecessary and futile violence. I have often heard of such movements in Northern Ireland and Israel. They are operating here in the United States as well.

The point at issue today considers “facts” and “fake news.” Facebook, Twitter and other social media have inadvertently created a blinding blizzard of mischievous stories, “shared” by naïfs, idlers and state-sponsored liars.

Recently I saw a “photo” of the president-elect and “Hannibal Lector,” an imaginary character from the movie, “The Silence of the Lambs.” The man-eating villain was being appointed as secretary of Health and Human Services. I recognized a creative prank; some people will swear it is true.

Fact or fiction? Harmless entertainment or diabolical rumor-mongering? If some people believe this story, what protocol, system or organization will set them straight?

When the story went out that presidential candidate Mitt Romney had driven several hundred miles with his family in the car and their dog on the roof, many imagined the poor creature was hanging on by his leash. Of course, that wasn’t true; he was safely stowed in a comfortable cage, sheltered against the wind. How many votes did that cost the Republican candidate? Why wasn’t the misunderstanding immediately addressed and corrected?

The liberal press – which opposed Romney -- expects fact-checkers to do this service but facts are notoriously unreliable. It was a fact the dog was on the roof. How much more should have been said? Should the reporter have explained this minor detail? How many details should we demand of every “fact.” Who in his right mind would suppose the Mormon family man was mistreating the family pet like that? 

The word fact comes from the Latin word facere, as in factory, manufacture, facile and artifice. Facts are tools manufacture to serve another purpose. They always have a context; they never stand alone. Is it a fact that cholesterol is bad for you? 

Organized systematically facts support hypotheses and theories, which are also notoriously undependable. Professionals who deal in facts – i.e., scientists – expect them to change and evolve. Most are eventually replaced with better facts, hypotheses and theories.  

People like to quote President John Adams who said, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. 

But all the facts in the world don’t add up to the Truth, and they’re often used to hide the truth. They can be used to great effect to destroy very good people. 

To avoid another civil war, we must cling to the Truth. She is not a fact, she is revealed to those who love her. She is approached with humility, courage and an open heart. No one owns the Truth; she is not controlled, manipulated or dominated by anyone or by any group of people. 

Rather, the Truth seeks open, courageous, humble people who are willing to serve her. They must prepare to love her with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. They should expect to make many sacrifices with little recognition. Those who serve Truth may hope to survive the coming storm.

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Lectionary: 161​

His dominion is an everlasting dominion

that shall not be taken away,

his kingship shall not be destroyed.

"I don't believe that God made the world in seven days!" the eighth grader boldly declared to his pastor from his seat in the classroom. 

How do you explain "the interpretation of scripture" to middle schoolers, a concept hotly debated and studied intensely? Should I introduce them to Divino Afflante Spiritu the encyclical by Pope Pius XII, issued in 1943? Or "The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church" (Presented by the Pontifical Biblical Commission to Pope John Paul II on April 23, 1993.) Two excellent resources but not gauged for middle school. 

But this predicament in which a classroom of Catholic students and I found ourselves represents precisely the problem of faith in our time. 

The boy has already been taught to believe that facts are true and reliable. Truth, to answer Pontius Pilate's question, is all the facts compiled, integrated into systems and working theories, comprehended by the cognoscenti, available to the masses, and technologically applicable. "Scientists" have cornered the market on what is known and scoff at any knowledge that cannot be defined, enumerated, contained and utilized.

That the Universe with its majestic complexity appeared out of the Big Bang is a useful fact with innumerable applications. That God made it in seven days is a story for children and people who don't pester the priest with hard questions. 

How do I explain to the class that facts are not all they're made out to be. "There are facts and there are facts." The facts that the tobacco industry tells us are not the same as the NIH (National Institutes of Health). Both have their own ax to grind, a particular slant on knowledge which they would have us believe. Neither are apt to explain in any detail where their facts were forged but they want us to accept their teachings on faith. 

Perhaps, as the boy continues to ask hard questions, he will become more skeptical of all human institutions, from the Church to the government to the entertainment industry to the counter-culture, and set out in pursuit of Truth. 

Jesus did not answer Pilate's question, but he did declare to the Apostle Thomas, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." 

The Truth is that which binds us together, giving our marriages, families, churches, and friendships substance, as in consubstantial and transubstantiation. It is not a fact, nor a set of facts. 

Some people say they believe in God, but their statement is no more than a polite way of avoiding the real question, "Do you trust God?" They "believe" in the sun, the moon and stars, too; and that there is a nation called China though they've never been there.

The truth can be hard to reveal. When a six year old child asks her mother why she is staying at the VA hospital, can the woman explain her addiction to methamphetamine and heroin? She must tell her the truth; the child deserves that; but it won't come in the same words she tells her brother or mother. Nor does it help to say, "You'll understand someday." The child needs to know the truth, the fundamental truth, that her mother loves her very much and is also aching to be with her. 

Pontius Pilate did not deserve to know the Truth about Jesus. His truth was power, naked aggression, enforced with violence and dressed in legalese. When his truth evaporated, he would vanish. 
As we celebrate the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, we pray that we might know, love and serve the Truth with all our hearts, souls, mind and strength. I just hope my sixth-grade friend meets that Truth before he starts smoking.

Thursday of the Second Week of Easter

Lectionary: 270

The one who comes from above is above all.
The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things.
But the one who comes from heaven is above all.
He testifies to what he has seen and heard,
but no one accepts his testimony.
Whoever does accept his testimony certifies that God is trustworthy.


If I were standing before a hostile crowd or a suspicious judge and had to declare what I believe to be true, and if only one person -- let's say a former opponent -- were to come and stand by my side and vouch for me, declaring that I am indeed an honest person and my word is trustworthy -- you can bet I'd think very highly of my new friend. 

So we can suppose God is pleased with you and me when we "certify that God is trustworthy!" We believe the Lord Jesus has come from above and is above all! We testify to what we have seen and heard. Our testimony includes what the apostles first declared so many centuries ago, that he was crucified and raised up and revealed to us as the Son of God. Our testimony also speaks of the Holy Spirit which has stood by us, directing, reassuring, strengthening, healing, and affirming us. If we meet skepticism, disagreement, or open hostility, we cannot alter what we have seen and heard, for we stand by the One who sent us. 

In today's world, those who speak of earthly things, like to call these things facts. If you've been reading this blog you know I have an issue with facts. I've done a word search of my Daily Homilies and found thirteen harangues on the topic. I'm like a dog with a rag on this issue, constantly tearing at it. But if you're not weary of my expansions on the topic, bear with me because I want to say (again) that facts are things of earth. 
They are not things of heaven; they do not have eternal life. 

For instance, I recall a story out of Africa when well-meaning American farmers gave tractors to their African counterparts. "Tractors are like elephants," they explained, "but fed with gasoline." And then, when their funding and their time ran out, they left. Within a few weeks the mechanical elephants, thirsting for oil, broke down, died, and rusted in the fields. Without the context of the entire American economy, including its agricultural schools and mechanical know how, tractors are useless behemoths. 

My point being, facts must have their context. The African farmers' context is a long way from that of their American supporters. And context of fact, science, and technology is this world; they know nothing of Truth, who comes from above. 

Secondly, as we realize that we live in the Anthropocene Era, we discover that we are the creators of this world. Fashioned by our beliefs, hopes, fears, greed, ambition, and aspirations, this world can hardly bear the Presence of One from Above. Facing environmental catastrophe, we cannot expect "God" to save us from the world we have created. If the coronavirus were not warning enough, hurricanes and forest fires should tell us something. There is no "nature" that exists apart from us. Nor was it ever immune to our scientific inquiries and technological advances. We have been recreating our world since the first hominids fashioned hand axes of stone. 

Finally, we speak of Truth, not facts. Truth exists between honest individuals who carry no hidden agendas of superiority or rank. Truth is revealed by the God who speaks his Word and gives us the Spirit to receive it. Honest individuals certainly use facts in their conversations, but they never use them to deceive. An honest husband will not tell his wife he is running down to the store to buy a quart of milk (a true fact) when his real intention is to buy a pint of alcohol. Nor will his wife use hard facts to hurt him. When they speak the truth to one another, they think first of all of their covenanted love, and then of how to speak honestly and clearly so as to ensure their deeper love. If they must speak painful truth to one another -- as every couple must on occasion -- it is not to harm but to heal. 
When parents speak hard truths to a child they find words that the child can understand. They do not confuse them with information that no child could assimilate.   

When we speak the Truth of Jesus the Spirit of God testifies with us. This Anthropocene world cannot understand what we say, but we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, for whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,

Saturday in the Octave of Easter

 Lectionary: 266

When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.

Among the many influences of my formation in the 1950's was Jack Webb's insistent demand, "Just the facts, Ma'am." Detective Joe Friday was not interested in the victim's anguish or the perpetrator's apparent motives; he wanted only the "facts."  

In that halcyon age, journalism, police work, history, and the vast field of scientific research sought to arrange the known facts into plausible, useful theories that would explain what happens in the objective world. There is no need for opinions, prejudices, and beliefs. These bold discovers would detect the "real world" where humans exist but only as objects to be studied and analysed. Nothing in that world is touched by divine action; God should not play any part. "An act of God" explained what happened only when there were no other theories; but it did not suppose God actually exists or does anything. 

Many people still think that way, even in our post-modern, post-truth era. It is especially useful to those who would deny the Resurrection of Jesus. The gospels are delightfully confusing about the facts. What really happened? When? What was said? Who saw it? Were there many witnesses, or only a few? Why is there no consistent narrative?

Matthew and Mark suggest the Lord appeared to his disciples only in Galilee. Luke and John tell of his appearances in Jerusalem, especially in the Upper Room. Did he appear only occasionally and unexpectedly, for brief moments? Or did he remain with them as if he had never died at all, as Acts 1:3 seems to suggest? 

They ask but they get no answers. The gospels offer nothing more than anecdotal evidence of what really happened. Some believers have speculated that the empty tomb was a "fact." But what does an empty tomb prove? Only that it was empty. You'd be hard pressed to build a dynamic faith that would compel you to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth on that factoid. 

Of course, that skeptical, just-the-facts approach is flawed from the start; when you assume that God does not and should not act in our world, you cannot explain what God has actually done. 

Meanwhile, we the Church believe that the Son of Mary, Jesus of Nazareth, was crucified and buried; but rose from the dead and has been revealed as the Only Begotten Son of God. Nor could we build a religious faith without that "fact." As Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15:14):

And if Christ has not been raised, then empty [too] is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. Then we are also false witnesses to God, because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised,* your faith is vain; you are still in your sins.

I say "the gospels are delightfully confusing" because, as we celebrate Easter we can only laugh at the conquered enemies who howl in protest. They cannot disprove our faith; not even the betrayal of Judas and countless subsequent betrayals in every level of the Church can dislodge our conviction that we are saved by the sacrificial death and glorious resurrection of our Redeemer. If we cannot explain it, we don't need an explanation. 

Our joy, courage, generosity, and boundless patience are proof enough of God's action in our world. We have seen opponents of faith come, and we've seen them go. We heard their endless fuming. Their misconceived arguments that faith is not reasonable and doctrines are not facts cannot dissuade us from eager, obedient listening for the Spirit's guidance. Nor would we, for all the world, cease thanking God for calling us to freedom. 

Memorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

Lectionary: 468

For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them.

Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse;

for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks.

As I understand the traditional Roman Catholic teaching about Natural Law is based on this passage in Romans 2. We have supposed that anyone-anywhere who simply reflects on ordinary human experience will agree to certain universal principles. Just as two and two make four, and what goes up must come down, so it's obvious that a mother loves her child and a husband prefers one wife until death do them part.

Formed by his Jewish religion and instructed in Hellenic philosophy, Saint Paul assumed that God made natural law evident to every thoughtful person. If many illiterate slaves of the empire believed in the panoply of Roman, Greek and barbarian gods, no well-educated free citizen would buy that nonsense. Every reasonable person had to agree there is only one God, who is creator and father of all.

In the following centuries, as a new civilization emerged from the ruins of the Roman Empire, and "everyone" was instructed by western European traditions and customs, it wasn't hard to agree with the idea of "natural law." It was a vital part of the intellectual infrastructure of laws, religion, and culture.

I am not familiar with contemporary thought in the Catholic Church about the natural law. I know that many dioceses and Catholic universities sponsor serious ethical discussions concerning health care, economics, war and peace, and sexual issues. Questions come up in everyday conversations and there are few obvious answers.

Not very long ago, influenced by the Enlightenment and an apparently universal acceptance of the scientific method, "everyone" agreed that facts are true. The work of science is to discover facts and to fit them like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle into hypotheses which, ripened, become reliable theories. However, the true scientist always knew their theories might collapse under the weight of facts yet to be discovered.

More recently, some philosophers challenge the hegemony of facts, saying they are only cultural artifacts and there is no universal truth. What is unquestionably true for an aging American Catholic priest might not be true for a Chinese Buddhist, a Utah Mormon, or even for an Appalachian Baptist.

The conversation was difficult until recently when it suddenly evolved into an existential crisis. The American tobacco industry led the way, followed by Russian propaganda, in disputing scientific research with counterclaims.

We are now too familiar with fake news and alternative facts. Even the President of the United States can challenge universally acknowledged scientific facts and not be consigned to a madhouse. In fact he finds millions of supporters, many with deep pockets, who support him. Truth and Natural Law have apparently degenerated into commodities to be used, bought, sold, exposed, hidden, reshaped, remolded, or denied by commercial, political interests.

In 1919, as the First World War was ending and nations prepared for the Second, the Irish poet W.B. Yeats described our present crisis in his poem, The Second Coming,

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

The poet wondered what rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem to be born.

The Church's traditional teaching about Natural Law meets stiff resistance today. If there is a universal truth that every nation might accept, before which kings will fall down as they cast their golden crowns on the glassy sea, we will not know it in our lifetime. Nor should we expect the intelligentsia and literati  to see the wisdom of the cross. They will continue to resist the God who reveals the Truth to us. As Saint Paul said to the Corinthians, an unlearned, rough-and-tumble crew:

...we speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory and which none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Clearly we should not expect truth from power-hungry Republicans or Democrats, from socialists or capitalists; they have only agendas. Rather, we wait on the Father of Jesus to reveal divine truth and how to live it in this troubled world.