Reconciling Confession

Note: This post is adapted from a talk I gave several years ago at a retreat. Every time I go to Confession, I sit in the pews, trying to convince myself that I’m miserable because I’m examining the darkest corners of my conscience and should be miserable because of what a horrible sinner I am, and not at all because my mind is wandering while asking myself why I came here.

We confess to our sinfulness every Mass in the penitential rite. We admit, “I am not worthy to receive you” every consecration.  So why do we have to go sit down in a formalized one-on-one with a priest.  What’s so different about the Sacrament?   Couldn’t God just give us the grace at Mass? And He does! He forgives venial sins every time we take the Eucharist.  So why does the Church say we should go to confession every month?  I’d like to think the Church doesn’t assume I commit a mortal sin each and every month.

During Reconciliation, I’m unavoidably alone with God.  It’s me and Him. I can’t keep my sins locked away inside, and saying them aloud makes them somehow more real.  But no longer do I have everyone else around me so I can say, “at least I don’t do that.“ No one else can tell me it’s all okay, because “we’re all human, after all.”  No one’s there to justify and give a dozen reasons why it’s not my fault. It’s me and Him. 

And when I look up and see Him on the cross, my justifications can only fall silent.  What am I going to say—he’s asking too much?

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, “That I might not become too elated, a thorn in my flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.  Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ “

In confession, we confront our sins, our weaknesses.  We have no strength to fight this battle.  We must face the countercultural fact that without God, we are nothing.  It is to God’s glory that He turns even our sin—our intentional rejection of Him—to an expression of humility, of faith, and of love.  And that’s why I go to confession.   It is in confession that His glory is revealed in a personal love too powerful to imagine.  A love that can transcend my brokenness and my weakness.  A love that can conquer, and will make me whole.

No wonder, when I leave, I always know I’ll be back.

The Christian who cried Wolf

I recently saw this video.

A thought immediately came into mind: “The Christian who cried wolf.” 

I spend a lot of my time—especially around law school in Boston—around people who are simply not religious.  As much as we don’t like to face it, Church attendance is shrinking, not growing, and we have to learn to function in a society that is becoming less Christian.

It’s difficult to be taken seriously, in a society of growing skepticism, when one uses arguments for public policy whose past invocations include anti-semitism, slavery, and the crusades.

It’s difficult to taken seriously, in a society of growing skepticism, while constantly decrying the “spirit of this age,” and a generation later frantically back-pedaling attempting to show how the Church’s morality is actually “up-to-date."

It’s difficult to be taken seriously, in any society, while constantly crying wolf.

I hope we can begin to get past the thought that the amazing thing about Christianity is its timelessness—how, no matter the historical context, Christians never have to question as new events unfold and new knowledge is revealed.    

I hope we can show the world that the amazing thing about Christianity is its timelessness—not in the sense of willful blindness, but in the sense that it brings a wisdom collected throughout over 2,000 years of a very human history to provide a new challenge in every age.

Transitional Faith

Visiting Duke this week was glorious.  I was able to see many of my friends and spend three straight days of non-stop catching up with people.  I was back in a community I spent years building, and it was so comfortable.  As much as I am really loving law school, I wouldn’t call it comfortable.

A lot of it’s just that I’m a horrendously bad transitioner.  It took three, if not four, years for me to finally feel established and comfortable at Duke.  Almost as soon as I felt comfortable, suddenly I’m in Boston, with a completely new set of people, communities, classes, and challenges.  Sure, new places are exciting, but I have to admit I really like having friends to come home to, people I can text when the thought crosses my mind, and can get a hug from when stress crops up. 

But even if I loved visiting for a break, deep down, I knew college isn’t where I’m supposed to be anymore.  I’m meant to be in law school.  See, faith doesn’t promise us comfort. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, proof of things unseen” (Hebrews 11:1).  Sure, the “substance of things hoped for” might be nice, but if I’m hoping for a job to pay off my debts, I want an actual job—not its “substance” (whatever that is).

As nice as it would be, faith doesn’t promise us that job—that comfort.  Catholic mystics have taught that when you’re getting comfortable, God does something to unsettle you, to make you think and pray.  Get too comfortable, and our faith becomes tepid—lukewarm.  God has some pretty strong words against a tepid faith (Revelations 3:16).  God’s solution?  Remember St. Paul’s thorn (2 Corinthians 12:8)?  Despite his pleas for relief, God’s response is not comfort and bliss, but an assurance to faith—“My grace is enough.” 

As we enter the Year of Faith the Pope has called in honor of the 50^th anniversary of Vatican II, I hope we are able to separate comfort and faith.  I pray we are able to look at darkness and fear, and know that for God “darkness and light are but one” (Psalms 139:12).  That we never forget, the “visible came into being through the visible” (Hebrews 11:3), and that it is through darkness and discomfort—not comfort—that God’s grace enters our lives and changes our world.

Privilege on the Cross

I am privileged.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked hard to get where I am.  There are countless times I would have loved to cuddle up with a book or television show or go out on a Friday or Saturday that I spent in the Engineering Quad with my work on a Saturday night after the library had closed.  I will spend the next three years of my life reading countless legal texts to try and

But, thinking again, what a privilege that I could, in complete safety, swipe in to a beautiful computer lab, and work as much or as little as I wanted in a quiet place with constant access to caffeine that I could buy on a prepaid food plan.  

No one likes to talk about privilege, and that makes sense, but the mere fact that I was raised in a loving family willing to sacrifice for my sake, that I have had an education and other resources that so many lack. I did nothing to deserve that, and I have only my family’s generosity to thank.  

What privilege.

What grace. 

But that’s okay, because there is nothing wrong with privilege.  Nothing wrong with grace.  My accomplishments are not diminished by my privilege, by me having “built that” through grace I did nothing to deserve.  However, there is something wrong with me denying that privilege is there, or using that privilege improperly.  I cannot say a token prayer of “thanks, God” and using that grace merely to “get ahead” and “be successful” without appropriating for my own what simply isn’t mine.  For every luxury I was given, there are countless others who undeservedly did not receive the same privilege, the same grace, and have nothing.

Using my gifts to get myself ahead is no better than the servant who buried the talents his master gave him instead of using them for his master’s greater glory (Matthew 25).  That is not the way of the Cross. In words reminiscent Uncle Ben, the more grace I was given, the greater responsibility I have.  Indeed, it is written that the disciples decided “according to ability, each should send relief” to other believers in a time of famine (Acts 11:29).

This is the Cross: God empting himself, “taking the form of a slave,” and humbling himself “becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross” (Philippians 2:7-8).  The Cross is the subjugation of power to the powerless.  It is Bryan Stevenson turning down a $160,000 annual salary starting salary at a big law firm to defend the lepers of our society—those we deem so irredeemable we condemn them to death.

This perhaps seems unreasonable for anyone to ask.  Our society allows us to put ourselves first, no matter how many more resources we have. But, “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).  

Christ does not teach us to be ashamed of privilege.  Indeed, Christ had the greatest privilege of all—divine privilege.  Christ’s life shows us the ultimate purpose of this privilege.  His ultimate privilege—divinity—was fulfilled in becoming the most limited slave, subjugating himself to sinners who tortured him to death, in order to grace us all with equally undeserved salvation.

It is only on the Cross that privilege can be transformed from arbitrary reward into a vehicle for God’s love and redemption.  It on the Cross that privilege becomes grace.

The Last, the Littlest, the Least

One of my favorite parts about law school is the quality of speakers that come here every day.  Mere intelligence or understanding of the law is not sufficient to be an effective lawyer; you have to be able to communicate that understanding to others in a convincing manner.  Most of the lawyers who get invited to speak at Harvard Law School are rather good at that.  A few weeks ago, I heard one of the most inspiring talks I’ve ever heard by Bryan Stevenson (To give you an idea, it’s the only time I’ve seen Harvard Law School students give a standing ovation.  For a similar talk, go here). One of the points he mentioned was that as a society, we have to not only focus on the “bright and dazzly things” but also the dark and difficult things it’s just easier not to worry about.

This brings me it to the second principle I identified in my post two weeks ago: fighting injustice.  Central to the Catholic understanding of justice is the relation of privilege and powerlessness.  Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles once quoted a common saying attributed most often to Ghandi: "Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members; the last, the least, the littlest.” The social justice tradition of the Catholic Church has long admitted the necessity of a “preferential option for the poor” (as many of the Catholic and Jesuit scholars at Georgetown Law reminded Paul Ryan in a letter that can only be described as snarky on occasion of his visit to their campus). 

The nature of our Common Law system encourages social realities to become legal ones.  For instance, it’s normally very hard to get an injunction—a Court order to prohibit or force someone to do something under pain of fine or imprisonment.  Courts much prefer to award money damages.  However, there is an exception to this when the Courts look at anything to do with land. Land (technically any real property) has held a special place in jurisprudence.  Whether you want to attribute it to some subjective factor that makes land irreplaceable, the historic tie-up of wealth in land, or the first lawyers in England being landowners, the law has disregarded economists’ insistence that land is able to be objectively valued, and will generally not award money damages in land related cases, but rather make people move on and off or even demolish their homes before considering any other remedy to disagreements. 

It’s factors like this that make what lawyers do in courtrooms and in legislative chambers so important.  Our legal system, without people like Bryan Stephenson who fight for the littlest among us, create institutions that favor people already privileged by the societies we live in.  We live in a world in which 50-60% of persons of color in urban communities are in jail, in prison, on probation, or parole.  In the states of the old South, a defendant is 22 times more likely to receive a guilty verdict if the defendant is black as opposed to white.  And habits such as these find their way into law.  Alabama’s Constitution still technically mandates segregated schools, and prohibits “idiots” and LGBT persons from voting.

As Catholics, we cannot close our eyes to the injustice that surrounds us daily.  Certainly, as a lawyer I hope to fight injustice is another that we can be a society of laws, but the relation between law and society is not one way.  Every Catholic has a duty to open his or her eyes to make sure every act keeps at its center what was the central part of Jesus’ ministry—the last, the littlest, and the least.

Veto by Annoyance

Last week, I mentioned two different Catholic legal obligations: follow the law, and fight unjust laws.  There’s a reason I mentioned following the law before righting injustice—we don’t like to think about it as much.   While there might not be so many complaints over laws telling us to not kill others, when it comes down to it, paying our taxes, walking at a crosswalk and following the speed limit seem to have almost no moral value as compared to signing the most recent petition to stop impressing children into armies in Africa.

But more than that, laws can just be annoying!  When I’m in a hurry to get home, or running late to class, the last thing I want to think about is that when I break the speed limit, I breaking the law as surely as if I snuck a Snickers bar out of a 7-Eleven.  However, as I alluded to last week, the Council Fathers of Vatican II have strong words about that exact activity:

“Others think little of certain norms of social life, for example those designed for the protection of health, or laws establishing speed limits; they do not even avert to the fact that by such indifference they imperil their own life and that of others” (Gaudium et Spes 30).

After all, remember last week when I said Romans tells us we should follow the law not just because we’re afraid of fines, but because we are bound by our very conscience (Romans 2:5).  And the moment conscience is brought into, we should recall Fourth Lateran’s comment, “He who acts against his conscience loses his soul.” 

I find a lot of irony when I hear someone say we should value democratic ideals so much that we send our military overseas to kill those who lack a legislature, but then drives home at 95 mph. I guess on the highway, the vaunted democratic process gets thrown out the car's open window.

Of course, this veto by annoyance becomes even more obvious when you think of alcohol.  When I was in college, the legal drinking age of 21 was simply annoying.  Perhaps it’s even bad public policy. Unfortunately, St. Augustine said “an unjust law is no law at all,” not “an annoying law is no law at all” or “bad public policy is no law at all.”  If every time we found a law annoying or bad public policy, most every business would suddenly find themselves tax-exempt entities. 

Now, certainly, we might claim that the drinking age of 21 is unjust—that our fundamental human rights as persons are being violated by not being able to have a beer on a Saturday night before the Earth gets around sun 21 times from the time we were born.  I’m sure the 12-year-old children who have been forced to fight in the Lord’s Resistance Army in the DRC feel the pain of our violated liberty. Sadly, when I was in college, I must have missed the liquor store sit-ins to resist the tyranny imposed by the oppressive Alcohol Law Enforcement.  In another striking moment of solidarity-by-Fried-Chicken, people might have been willing to drink a fraternity’s free beer to protest injustice, but no one was willing to go to jail.

So certainly, in a Democracy, every citizen should actively, And indeed, an unjust law is no law at all.  But remember, it takes a law being unjust before we can simply repudiate it and feel ourselves from the duty they impose.  As a Catholic, we generally find a good way to uphold the rule of law by following it.

And when law and justice are at odds, I hope we find a better way to fight injustice than at a frat party, hiding from ALE, holding on desperately to our right to Veto by Annoyance.

A Catholic Lawyer

Prescript: I apologize for my absence and tardiness today.  As you may know, I started law school, and have taken a bit of time to adjust to a new course load, et al.  I plan on returning to my previous weekly 8 am Sunday posts.  Thank you for your patience

This past Tuesday, our professor surprised my law school section by walking into our first class, and asking us to take a moment of silence to reflect on 9/11.  This wasn’t a class on criminal law, or international security.  This was Civil Procedure. For those of you who intelligent enough to avoid law school, civil procedure is the dreaded class that indoctrinates impressionable first year law school students in all the procedures you need to know to sue someone, in gruesome detail.   At our first class, our professor promised us that by the end of the term, we will know the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure like the back of our hands.  He quickly followed up with the warning:  “But don’t just read them; you might get to Rule 17, and then you will die.”

So why, in a class that trains a new army of lawyers to aid and abet a society often called overly litigious, about procedure so dry that we would die upon reading it, would my professor bother to mention 9/11?

My Professor had been teaching in California in 2001, so by the time his 8:30 Civil Procedure rolled around, the events in New York were long past.  He and his students arrived punctually, as one would expect in a class on procedure, but after playing the video footage of the attacks, he paused, and then asked them, “So what do you want to do?  Should we even have class?”

After a moment, a student with a military background stood up and said, “If we don’t have civil procedure class, the terrorists win.”  My professor says he didn’t know quite what to do with that, but hearing no one offering any objections, he acquiesced, and class began with cases talking about the evidentiary support required to bring suit in federal court.

So why did the student say the terrorists win if his classmates don’t learn how to sue people?  Well, there’s perhaps no other class in law school that allows one to take a stand against terrorism than one on civil procedure.  The whole point of civil procedure—of law—is to offer an alternative method for us to resolve our differences.  If I feel wronged by you, I submit to (hopefully) fair adjudication with the goal of just recompense.  I don’t ram my car into yours.  The rule of law is the repudiation of the mindless violence the acts that day.  The rejection of the belief that might makes right and that because we can we should.

The respect that Catholicism, and Christianity, has for the rule of law—even the littlest law—is remarkable.  If a law is not specifically unjust, we are under a strong obligation to follow it, down to the venerable Vatican II Council specifically calling out speed limits as something we are called to follow (Gaudium et Spes 30).  For, “whoever resists authority opposes what God has appointed, and those who oppose it will bring judgment upon themselves” (Romans 13:2).

But the obligation to follow the law has a strong and equally powerful opposite—action against a law when it truly is unjust.  St. Augustine wrote, “an unjust law is no law at all,” and as the Fourth Lateran Council says, “He who acts against his conscience loses his soul.”  Yet as Catholics, if we don’t like a law, we can’t just shrug our shoulders, pretend it doesn’t exist, and ignore it.  Instead, if our conscience points out an injustice in our society—especially one that the authority that Romans tells us has been appointed by God—we have a duty to fight it with all our hearts.

In her welcome address, our Dean told us that in teaching us law, my school is giving each of us a tool of great power.  How are we going to use it?  These twin principles—upholding just laws and fighting against injustice—this is why I am studying to be a lawyer.  I study to ensure that we are a society of order, and that the events of 9/11 are a catastrophe, not an everyday occurrence.  I learn law to ensure we are a society of justice—that the last, the littlest, and the least are protected no matter the circumstances. 

I am studying to be a lawyer so that I can live, more fully, a Catholic.