Friday, December 09, 2005
FR. McNICHOLS ICONS
In his icon of The Servant of God Adrienne von Speyr, notice the halo. Doesn't a halo designate a saint? She has not been canonized. This icon resides on the website of Jesuit Fr. Raymond A. Bucko, S.J. at Creighton University. He also provides a link to Other Icons by Fr. William McNichols, where you can see a picture of McNichols with John Paul II with a quote from the Pope:
"There will be a new springtime for the Church If people will welcome the promptings of the Holy Spirit, The 21st Century will usher in a new evangelization; and, a tidal wave of conversions will sweep the earth."
Of course the question is whether the conversions will be to Catholicism or to Gnosticism. But maybe it doesn't matter. We can just draw a halo around everyone's head and call them saintly.
There is a quote from von Balthasar there as well: "Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is". I think Jesus Christ put it somewhat differently:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man 'against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's enemies will be those of his household.(Matt. 10:34-36)
He told us we must love our enemies, which precludes harming them, but this love is tough. This love calls sin what it is. This Christ tells us we are forgiven, but we must go and sin no more. In Gethsemene He demonstrated His love by healing the ear Peter cut off with a sword. He faced death on a cross rather than engage in the sort of battle Peter had in mind. The Gospel of Christ is no soppy, syrupy, sweet Gospel that canonizes everyone...unlike the gospel of von Balthasar, or so it would seem. The gospel of Christ requires of us that we cast our heart's desire to the wind and embrace the rules He gave us to live by. McNichols gospel is somewhat different.
Are we living in John Paul II's New Springtime?
Check out McNichols Stations of the Cross of a Person with AIDS which is dedicated to, among others, Louise Hay, whose press turns up in researching Indigo Children. Here on the dedication page you can see the copyright date of these Stations is 1989.
Notice that there is a statement at the beginning of the Stations from Raymond C. Hunthausen, Archbishop of Seattle. The stations depict a person with AIDS traveling the Way of the Cross with Christ. But where is the word "sin"? Where is the word "penitent," which is what the person traveling the Way of the Cross is? It finally appears in the eighth station, but it is rejected; and immediately there follows the soft, sweet, syrupy voice of deception. Is McNichols placing the subject of this meditation, Robert, in the role of a bystander or the role of the cross carrier in these Stations? Is he implying that the carrier is another christ? He doesn't tell us what purpose he believes the AIDS victim's suffering serves.
In the third station we are told of Robert that "At one time he lived there with another young man around his same age". I presume the reference to age is a subtle removal of Robert from any suggestion of sexual abuse of a minor. Yet this was written in 1989, before the scandal broke.
In the fifth station Robert discovers during a visit to the "Gay Men's Health Crisis" center that there is a woman who writes books and makes tapes especially for people with AIDS. He learns of the "healers of all denominations" and the "creative visualization" techniques for people with AIDS.
Do read the Seventh Station in its entirety. Nothing I could say would be the equal of reading the entire thing.
The warning of the Eighth Station is rejected, but in the Ninth Station Robert repents. Now there is some hope. Now there is some reason for encouragement. Now there is the possibility of eternal life with Christ.
Would all AIDS suffers be willing to trod the path of repentence after being preached the soft and syrupy gospel? Or would many simply see in it a reason to believe that he had done nothing wrong? Only tough love can penetrate the deception of sin. Soft love merely enables; it is a vehicle of injustice for the victims of sin. Forgiveness requires repentence if it is to be healing. Yet it is soft love that has been showered on the sexual abusers in the priesthood, and we see where it took us. Tough love knows that the sinner must avoid the near occasions of sin.
Imagine that this is not a story about an AIDS suffer. Place in the story instead a man who abused and killed his wife and was spending the rest of his life in prison. Now does the impetus to offer the soft and syrupy response go away and the need to call for repentence return? How about if he had abused his child and was in prison for causing lifetime damage? AIDS is a prison created by the sufferer, and the sentence is for life. There is a reason we are told not to engage in pedophilia, or homosexual sex, or adulterous sex, or fornication. When we break the rules that God gave us, we suffer consequences. Whether the consequences are AIDS or prison or any number of others, soft sympathy for our plight is not condusive to repentance, and repentance is our only hope for eternal life with our Creator.
We all must die. Death is not the particular curse of the AIDS sufferer. Some of us die in agony through no fault of our own from cancer or the ministrations of a drunk driver, or possibly from the sexual perversion of a priest who robbed us of childhood. They die as Christ did on the cross--innocent of the cause of their death. Some of us die in agony through our own fault by abusing substances or engaging in activities that lead to death. The two are not comparable. Making them appear to be comparable is a deception.
As a story these segments might be of interest. As the Stations of the Cross they are blasphemous.
The Twelfth and Thirteenth Stations deliver a meditation of a scene which takes place in heaven, and subsequently Robert returns to earth and dies. Is some well-meaning priest going to resurrect this meditation after McNichols dies and suggest this wishful thinking was infused contemplation?
McNichols' Stations number fifteen. The last one is his own homily. The emotional impact of these 15 Stations is compulsive, but the doctrinal impact is not Catholic. Don't get caught up in sentimental prayer, a deception that can walk you right out of the love of Christ.
We need some real men to come back to our priesthood. Perhaps if we get them, we will get back the balance between sin, repentence, and forgiveness that is lacking in meditations such as McNichols has given us.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
