Ordinations

I just thought I would post this picture, because I am rather fond of it.  I should have done it some time ago, but time sort of gets away from me. It is from the ordinations to the priesthood celebrated at the Basilica on Pentecost weekend this year. At the conclusion of the ordination Mass, after I announced where I was assigning the three newly ordained, I asked the three to give me their first priestly blessing. My thanks to Father Andy Gutierrez, Father Jesús Paredes, and Father Luis Roberto Tinajero, for their prayer and blessing. And I am grateful to God for having inspired each of them to offer priestly service to the Church in the Rio Grande Valley.

La Fiesta del Corpus y la libertad religiosa

La fiesta del Corpus es una de las solemnidades más hermosas del calendario litúrgico, y es un día de fiesta del cual soy particularmente devoto. Estoy realmente convencido que cuando honramos, adoramos y damos gloria al Señor en el Santísimo Sacramento del altar, Él nos responde de  una manera bondadosa y generosa. Su presencia es en sí el principio y el fin de esa bondad. 

Cada año desde que llegué a la diócesis, he tenido la gracia de celebrar la Misa del Corpus en la Catedral, o en una de sus  capillas, y después guiar la Procesión Eucarística por el centro de Brownsville, concluyendo con la Bendición con el Santísimo.

Este año empezamos con la Misa en la Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepción el domingo a las 6:00 pm y procedimos bajo el vari palio, con incienso y los feligreses cantando y rezando el rosario. Primero fuimos a la iglesia de Santo Tomas, y después a la del Sagrado Corazón. Me conmovió profundamente la fe y devoción de los parroquianos, y me sentí profundamente motivado por cómo jóvenes y ancianos, y gente de todas las edades, participaron en esta expresión de fe de la Iglesia.

Creo que vale la pena señalar que caminamos por las calles (después de adquirir los permisos adecuados) y no por las banquetas. La Iglesia está en la ciudad, y en la comunidad y en el país. La Iglesia no es una entidad privada relegada a la banqueta, y nosotros ciertamente no queremos ser limitados a caminar adentro de la sacristía. La Iglesia y su Señor tienen un lugar en el dominio público, al igual que todas las instituciones no gubernamentales en nuestra comunidad.  

Peregrinar por las calles es un símbolo de una realidad más grande. Es una de las mayores bendiciones de nuestro país que los individuos y las instituciones sean libres de vivir y crecer de acuerdo a su conciencia, mientras esta vida y este crecimiento no lastimen el bien y la paz de los demás. (Es por eso que se necesitan permisos para hacer peregrinaciones públicas. Alguien tiene que redirigir el tráfico).

Tradicionalmente nuestra sociedad ha reconocido que es bueno tener iglesias, asociaciones civiles e instituciones saludables y vibrantes. Todas tienen un lugar en las fluidas asociaciones sociales que componen nuestras relaciones humanas en este país. Así pues los VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars, por sus siglas en Inglés) pueden tener desfiles, la antigua orden de hibérnicos pueden marchar el día de San Patricio, y el equipo de fútbol local puede ser celebrado con un desfile después de un juego de campeonato. Ninguna de estas son instituciones gubernamentales. Sin embargo éstas son instituciones de personas que se asocian libremente para hacer sus contribuciones al bien común y la sociedad local y nacional.

El gobierno ayuda a nuestra comunidad y a la vida nacional cuando busca mantener la esfera pública como un lugar libre y sin trabas. El gobierno juega un papel importante al proteger los derechos de los diversos grupos que viven y crecen en una sociedad libre. El gobierno, no obstante, obstaculiza el bien de la amplia sociedad nacional cuando trata de dictaminar lo que una institución debe hacer para poder contribuir al bien general. No dejemos que el gobierno le diga a los VFW lo que debe tener su código de honor para poder ayudar a los Veteranos. No dejemos que el gobierno le diga a los hibérnicos lo que necesitan para ser irlandeses. Y no dejemos que el gobierno le diga a la Iglesia lo que su conciencia moral debe o no debe de permitir al administrar nuestras escuelas, universidades, hospitales y organizaciones caritativas.

¿Qué es lo que está en juego en la lucha de la Iglesia por defender la libertad religiosa contra la invasión del gobierno? Muchas cosas, pero una de las más vitales es la preservación de ese amplio espacio en nuestra sociedad y cultura donde las personas e instituciones libres pueden operar, propagar, cooperar y competir. Cuando el gobierno oprime demasiado fuerte las operaciones públicas de las instituciones no gubernamentales asfixia con mano dura a las instituciones que la gente establece y forma libremente. Cuando esto pasa, todos sufrimos la pérdida de esa diversidad dramática y creativa de la vida nacional institucional que ha formado esta gran nación.

Continuaremos oponiéndonos al mandato HHS que obligaría a las instituciones de la Iglesia a pagar por medicamentos contraceptivos y abortivos. Nos opondremos a los esfuerzos por imponer una conciencia secular en las instituciones religiosas. Y continuaremos sirviendo a los pobres a través de instituciones caritativas sin importar su raza, religión, país de origen o estatus legal.

The Feast of Corpus Christi, and Religious Freedom.

The Feast of Corpus Christi is one of the most beautiful solemnities on the Church's calendar, and it is a feast-day to which I am particularly devoted. I truly believe that whenever we honor, praise the glorify the Lord in most Blessed Sacrament of the altar, He responds with a generous kindness to us. His presence is itself the beginning and end of that kindness.

Every year, since I arrived in the Diocese, I have had the grace of celebrating the Corpus Christi Mass at the Cathedral, or in one of its mission chapels, and then leading a Eucharistic Procession through downtown Brownsville, concluding with Benediction. This year we began with Mass at IC Cathedral at 6 pm, Sunday Evening, and processed with canopy, incense and the faithful singing, and praying the rosary. We went first to the church if Saint Thomas, and then to Sacred Heart. I was deeply edified by the faith and devotion of the parishioners. And deeply moved by how young and old, and all ages in between participated in this expression of the faith of the Church.

Speaking of which,...

I think it is worth noting that we processed through the streets (after securing the proper permits), and not on the sidewalks. The Church is in the city, and in the community, and in the country, she is not a private entity relegated to the sidewalk, and we certainly do not want to be limited to walking around the sacristy. The Church and her Lord have a place in the public realm, as do all non-governmental institutions in our community.

Processing through the streets is a sign of a larger reality, however. It is one of the great blessings in our country that individuals and institutions are free to live and grow according to the best lights of their conscience, so long as this life and growth does not injure the good and peace of others. (That is why permits are often needed to have public processions. Somebody has to re-direct the traffic). Our society has traditionally recognized that it is good for us all to have healthy and vibrant churches and civic institutions, and associations. All have a place in the fluid societal associations that make up our human relations in this country. Thus the VFW can have parades, the Ancient Order of Hibernians can march on Saint Patrick's Day, and the local football team can be honored with a parade after a championship game. None of these are government institutions. And yet they are institutions of people who freely associate to make their contribution to the greater good of the local and national community.

The government helps our community and national life when it seeks to keep the public sphere a free and unencumbered place. It is an important governmental role to protect the rights of different groups to live and grow in a free society. The government, however, hinders the good of the wider national society when it tries to dictate what an institution must do in order to deserve being a contributor to the overall good. Let not the government tell the VFW what it's code of honor should contain in order to qualify to help Veterans. Let not the government tell Hibernians what it takes to belong to the Irish. And, let not the government tell the Church what it's moral conscience ought, or ought not allow when administering our schools, universities, hospitals, and charitable organizations.

What is at stake in the Church's current struggle to defend religious freedom against government encroachment? Many things, but one of the most vital is the preservation of that wide space in our society and culture where free peoples and institutions can operate, persuade, cooperate and compete. When the government treads too heavily on the public operation of non-governmental institutions, it stifles and strong-arms the institutions that people freely choose to establish and form. When this happens, we all suffer the loss of that dramatic and creative diversity of national institutional life that has made this a great nation.

We will continue to oppose the HHS rule that would force the Church's institutions to pay for contraceptive and abortifacient drugs. We will oppose efforts to impose a secularist conscience on religious institutions. And we will continue to serve the poor through our charitable institutions without regard to their race, religion, country of origin, or documentary status.

The Most Holy Trinity, and Families

We are made unto the image and likeness of God, Scripture tells us. And from Augustine, through Saint Thomas, to Von Balthasar, and into our own time, the teaching of Scripture has moved the great souls to ponder and delight in this truth. It speaks of our dignity as creatures, and of our capacities as creatures called to  share the divine life. Augustine wrote of our memory, intellect and will as the created likeness that grace sharpens into image; Saint Thomas contemplated the flow of the word from the human mind as it understands something, and the spontaneous love that follows upon our understanding. And in this he saw an image of the Trinity. The Augustinian-Thomistic tradition looks inward and sees the human soul’s dynamic ability to know and to respond in love to what it knows. This is the likeness in us that mirrors, however opaquely, the dynamic in the Triune God. The Father knows himself perfectly in the Word, and the inner Trinitarian response to the beauty and goodness of the Word is the eternally concurrent flow of the Holy Spirit.

Building on this traditional perception of dynamic movement of knowledge and love in the Godhead itself, Von Balthasar, I think, provides an additional insight. Between human persons there is a flow of knowledge and love, and this interpersonal relationality bears also a kind of likeness to the Godhead. Let me try to illustrate in a clumsy but, I hope, not useless way, what Von Balthasar is aiming to have us contemplate.

Parents and Children: I sometimes think that parents don’t fully appreciate that the most important thing that they give their children, they give before they know they are giving it. Moms and Dads make spontaneously funny noises to their newborn children, and before long older brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandmas and granddads are all doing the same thing. Goo, goo, goo, we say, or we make funny clicking sounds with our tongues. All of this is called nonsense, and hence no word at all, but they are words. A word is a sound that bears meaning, after all. These noises that we direct to babies are very meaningful, perhaps the most meaningful of all our human words. For they say to the child, “you have our attention, we love you, we are glad you are here.” The noises continue for some time, but there is a moment in the life of the family when someone says: “look, she smiled”. Inevitably, a grump in the room will say “no, she just burped.” But we all wait for the smile, because we want a response. It is the most natural thing in the world to want a baby to respond somehow to all our noises that mean “we love you” with a smile. And the smile says back to us: “I get the message, thanks, I love you too.”

I say this is the most important thing children receive from the adults around them because it assures them that the world is not a lonely place. It is a good place, where big people are looking out for you, and are giving you attention. A child does grow to know this. And a child does, sooner or later, give a smile in response. And the smile means exactly what we think it means: Thanks, I am glad to be here, and I love you too. To know we are loved is the prerequisite for knowing how to love back. It is the dynamic that makes human families strong, and life vibrant.

If we worry about what is going to happen to our kids in the future, we have only to ask ourselves how many children have no one to give them attention they need at the earliest moments, and beyond. The world does not have too many children; on the contrary, we have too many adults who have no time to make baby noises to the next generation when they are in the crib. Of course, it cannot stop with making baby noises; we need to accompany our young people with words and actions that continue to reinforce this fundamental truth: “you have our attention, we love you, and we want you to know that we are glad you are here.” We give this gift so that a baby or a young person can happily give a response, a smile in return. Without this dynamic in family and community life, human relations fall apart. Human beings simply cannot learn how to love unless they are loved first. Our love is always a response to a prior love that we have known and experienced.

This dynamic in human relations is also a way in which we mirror, however vaguely, the inner dynamic of God’s Trinitarian life. The Word is known by and knows the Father, and the Spirit is the love that eternally erupts in the knowledge of this sublime perfection of divine goodness. And it is this inner Trinitarian life that swoops down into our world in order to save us. For the Father has sent us his Word in the flesh, and his whole Person is an expression of the simple, irreplaceable truth that the Father loves us, that he has our attention, and that He is happy we are here. And we hear this Word directed toward us in Christ Jesus, and by holding fast to the mystery of faith, we get the message, and something spontaneously wells up in our hearts. This is the gift of the Spirit, who makes us able to smile back at the Father with a word of love.  

I hope it is not disrespectful to suggest that the mystery of faith is all about God directing baby noises to the human race, so that we can be assured in our childishness that someone really big is glad we are here, and that He is looking out for us. The sad alternative to responding with the smile of faith to these most meaningful of words is to live in this world with the unhappy thought that we are alone, orphans, abandoned and completely on our own. In Christ Jesus, my friends, we are given more than enough assurance that God has our attention.

As God is in himself, so He acts to save us. The Word breathes love, and knowledge of the Word causes love to spring up in us in its most graced manifestation. We were made in his image and likeness precisely so that we could grow in grace to know how much God loves us, and—in grace--  to love him in return. Amen.

Religious Freedom and the Courts

Today some 43 Catholic institutions, including schools, hospitals, dioceses and archdioceses have filed suit in Federal Court to prevent enforcement of the so called “HHS Mandate”, a regulatory aspect of the National Health Care Reform Act passed a couple of years ago by the Congress and signed by the President. In essence, these institutions oppose the mandate because it forces these religious institutions to provide contraceptive and abortifacient drugs as part of employee health-care coverage.

The Diocese of Brownsville supports this effort to seek legal redress for what amounts to a serious infringement upon the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. If you wonder why the Diocese of Brownsville did not file suit, as some other dioceses did, the answer is that it is not necessary for all Catholic institutions to file suit, and thus congest the court system, only those whose situation is typical of what other similar institutions are facing. We may all rightly hope for a judgment in the courts that will protect the religious freedom of all religious bodies.

For us this is not a matter of politics, nor is it a partisan issue. It is a religious freedom issue. There must be a limit to what the government can demand of a religious institution in order for it to offer its services to the general public. We do not force anyone to accept employment at our schools, hospitals or charitable organizations, nor do we oblige anyone to accept the services we offer at those institutions. In a free society, religious bodies should not have to choose between their religious conscience and participation in the public work of healing the sick, offering a good education and feeding the hungry. We only ask that we be allowed to operate our institutions in a manner that is in keeping with the authoritative teaching of the Church.

One more point: It is sometimes said that if Church institutions accept government funding, then the Church should accept the mandate. But, this governmental requirement has no relation to government funding. Even institutions that receive not a dime from the government, if they employ persons and serve persons who may not be Roman Catholic, would be required to provide coverage that includes contraceptive and abortifacient drugs. And if all Catholic hospitals, universities, and charitable organizations stopped receiving government funding tomorrow, they would still be required to conform to this government demand. Even if Mother Teresa herself ran a charitable organization in the United States that did not meet the federal government's stringent new definition of what constitutes a a religious organization, the new rules would require her to pay for artificial contraceptives and abortifacient drugs.

In this context, I think it is timely for me to reproduce here a column I wrote back in March for our diocesan newspaper on this issue.

March 2012 Column, The Valley Catholic

Religious Liberty and the HHS mandate

By The Most Rev. Daniel E. Flores, Bishop of Brownsville

The right to religious liberty is a basic human good, and is recognized in the United States Constitution as one of the first and most basic principles of a free people. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Quite simply this amendment to the Constitution creates a framework wherein religious people in our society can truly live without fear of coercion. Congress, and by implication the whole of the Federal Government, cannot establish that one religious view be favored in law more than another. The second clause of this amendment specifically prohibits the government from infringing upon the rights of religious believers to practice their religion in the wider society.

The recent decision of the Federal Government, through the Department of Health and Human Services, to mandate all employers to provide contraceptive, sterilization and abortifacient coverage to their employees has rightly caused a national outcry of opposition. The principal opposition of the Catholic Church in the United States to the “Contraceptive Mandate” is on religious liberty grounds. It violates both the “free exercise” of religion in this country, and it de facto establishes a social view that is meant to trump the religious freedom of those who wish to live and work in peace without having to conform to this “established view”. Let me explain.

The proposed government rules require that religious institutions established by the Catholic people of the United States, and supported by our contributions, must directly subsidize services that are objectionable to a Catholic conscience. Other religious denominations with similar objections would also be affected. More recently the Government offered an “accommodation” to the rule. Widely seen as an attempt at compromise, it is nothing of the sort. The so-called accommodation simply tells the religious organization that it must accept an insurance plan that provides these services through the insurance company. This is a shell game. The religious institution, sooner or later, must pay for the coverage, even if on paper the coverage is provided by the insurer and not the religious institution. Let us be clear: payment for a service is a kind of moral cooperation with the service. The Rule forces the moral cooperation of citizens who on religious grounds object to the service.  And there is more: many religious institutions are self-insured. Does the accommodation mean that self-insured religious institutions and insurance companies which were founded to respect the religious principles of their denominations, must conform to the government rule or go out of business?

If the government can tell the Catholic Church that it must pay for contraceptive and abortifacient drugs today, will they tell us tomorrow that we must ask for citizenship papers before we feed a starving immigrant? And what shall we do when some future government decides that partial birth abortion is a “health-care issue”?  Will we be forced to cooperate with this, though reason and faith tell us it is a grave evil? The point is that the good of the community and the society is gravely injured when the power of the government reaches a point that it can attempt to coerce the consciences of men and women of faith. The Church, and indeed all religious bodies seek to be free to serve the common good of society without being told that we must check our religion at the door in order to tend to the sick, educate the student, or feed the poor.

The Catholic bishops in the United States have long encouraged a reform of the health-care system in this country. But the aim of a just reform is to provide adequate health coverage to the poor and the marginalized. Health Care Reform is not, and was never meant to be, a way of imposing a particular secularist view about contraception or abortion upon the whole nation. But this is what the new HHS rules, even with the so-called accommodation, does. It imposes a social contraceptive and abortifacient agenda that a Catholic cannot accept. We cannot accept it because it is not sound social policy. Pregnancy, after all, is not a disease. But more importantly, we cannot accept a situation wherein we are told we must cooperate with the government by subsidizing acts we consider immoral.  Whether you call it a religion or not, a secular agenda takes on the status of an established religion when it requires all religious bodies to conform to its dictates. And this is a dictate. The Church will resist it by every legal means possible. We resist because a free exercise of religion is good for the whole of our society. We resist because the coercion of even some of our citizens to pay for services which are offensive to the best tenets of reason and religion is itself a grave evil.

I therefore urge all Catholics and all citizens in the Rio Grande Valley who recognize the value of religious freedom in this country, to support efforts to remedy the HHS rule. And I urge all to be vigilant in the protection of the rights of religion in our free society. Let us not tire of doing what is right.

Libertad Religiosa

Santo Tomás Moro

Por razones de la actualidad del tema, me parece oportuno reproducir aquí la columna que publiqué este marzo pasado sobre el tema de la libertad religiosa:

Columna de marzo 2012, The Valley Catholic

Libertad Religiosa y el mandato del HHS

Por Daniel E. Flores

Obispo de la Diócesis de Brownsville

El derecho a la libertad religiosa es un bien humano básico, y es reconocido en la Constitución de Estados Unidos como uno de los primeros y más básicos principios de un país libre. “El Congreso no hará ninguna ley con respecto al establecimiento de religión, o prohibiendo el ejercicio libre de la misma.” De una manera muy simple esta enmienda a la constitución crea una estructura en la cual las personas religiosas en nuestra sociedad pueden verdaderamente vivir sin miedo a la coerción. El Congreso, y por ende el Gobierno Federal, no puede establecer que un punto de vista religioso sea favorecido en la ley más que otro. La segunda cláusula a esta enmienda prohíbe específicamente al gobierno de infringir los derechos de los creyentes religiosos para practicar su religión en la sociedad en general.

La reciente decisión del Gobierno Federal, a través del Departamento de Salud y Recursos Humanos, de imponer que todo empleador proporcione cobertura contraceptiva, esterilización y abortiva a sus empleados a causado, con todo derecho, un grito nacional de oposición. La principal oposición de la Iglesia Católica en los Estados Unidos al “Mandato Anticonceptivo” es por razones de libertad religiosa. Éste mandato viola el “libre ejercicio” de religión en este país, y establece de hecho un punto de vista social que está destinado a terminar con la libertad religiosa de aquellos que desean vivir y trabajar en paz sin tener que someterse a éste “punto de vista establecido”. Permítanme explicar.

Las reglas propuestas por el gobierno requieren que las instituciones religiosas establecidas por los fieles católicos de los Estados Unidos, y mantenidas por nuestras contribuciones, tienen que subsidiar directamente servicios que son inaceptables para una conciencia católica. Otras denominaciones religiosas con objeciones similares también serán afectadas. Recientemente el gobierno ofreció un “arreglo” a la regla. Visto generalmente como un intento de acomodar la conciencia religiosa, no es nada por el estilo.

El llamado arreglo simplemente señala que las organizaciones religiosas tienen que aceptar un plan de seguro que provea estos servicios a través de la compañía de seguros. Esta es una artimaña. La institución religiosa, tarde o temprano, deberá pagar por la cobertura, aunque en papel la cobertura sea proporcionada por el seguro y no por la institución religiosa. Seamos claros: pagar por un servicio es un tipo de cooperación moral con el servicio. La Regla obliga la cooperación moral de los ciudadanos que se oponen al servicio por razones religiosas. Y aun hay más: muchas instituciones religiosas tienen su propio seguro. ¿Acaso el arreglo quiere decir que las instituciones religiosas y compañías de seguro, las cuales fueron fundadas para respetar los principios de sus creencias, tienen que ajustarse al mandato del gobierno o salir del negocio?

Si hoy el gobierno le puede indicar a la Iglesia Católica que tiene que pagar por los medicamentos anticonceptivos y abortivos, ¿Acaso mañana nos dirá que tenemos que pedir papeles de ciudadanía antes de alimentar a un inmigrante hambriento? ¿Y qué haremos cuando algún futuro gobierno decida que aborto por parto parcial es un “asunto de cuidado de salud”? ¿Seremos obligados a cooperar con esto, aunque la razón y la fe nos digan que es un mal muy grave? El punto es que el bien de la comunidad y de la sociedad es gravemente dañado cuando el poder del gobierno llega hasta al punto de intentar coaccionar la conciencia de hombres y mujeres de fe. La Iglesia, y de hecho todas las instituciones religiosas , buscan ser libres para servir el bien común de la sociedad sin que se nos diga que tenemos que dejar nuestra religión en la puerta para poder atender al enfermo, educar al estudiante, o alimentar al pobre.

Los obispos Católicos en los Estados Unidos desde hace mucho tiempo han fomentado una reforma del sistema de salud en este país. Pero el propósito de una reforma justa es el proveer cobertura médica adecuada al pobre y marginado. La Reforma del Sistema de Salud no es, y nunca se pretendió que fuera, una forma de imponer una visión secularista particular sobre la anticoncepción o el aborto a toda la nación. Pero esto es lo que hacen las nuevas reglas del HHS, incluso con el dizque arreglo. Impone un programa social anticonceptivo y abortivo que un católico no puede aceptar. No lo podemos aceptar porque no es una política social sana. El embarazo, después de todo, no es una enfermedad. Pero más importante, no podemos aceptar una situación en la cual se nos dice que tenemos que cooperar con el gobierno brindando subsidio a acciones que consideramos inmorales. Así le llamen religión o no, un programa secular toma posición de una religión establecida cuando requiere que todas las instituciones religiosas se sometan a sus órdenes. Y esto es una orden. La Iglesia pondrá resistencia por todos los medios legales posibles. Nos opondremos porque el ejercicio libre de religión es un bien para toda nuestra sociedad. Nos opondremos porque la coerción de incluso algunos de nuestros ciudadanos para pagar por servicios que son ofensivos a los mejores principios de la razón y la religión es en sí mismo un grave mal.

Por lo tanto, exhorto a todos los católicos y a todos los ciudadanos del Valle del Río Grande que reconocen el valor de la libertad religiosa en este país, a que apoyen los esfuerzos para remediar el mandato del HHS. Y exhorto a todos a estar vigilantes en la protección de los derechos de religión en nuestra sociedad libre. No nos cansemos de hacer lo que es lo correcto.

Just a thought-1

There has ever existed in the human frame of mind a weak but real hope that life aims toward a happy ending. The delight children take in a happily resolved fairy-tale adventure is an echo of this human preference for an end that merits a smile rather than a grimace. And the disappointment you (and I) feel when a good movie or novel ends badly, also witnesses to this stubbornly human inclination. The ancients, by whom I mean the bearers of culture prior to announcement of the Gospel, struggled to express this attitude. And although the tales of Homer, or the legends of the ancient Norse sea-faring men, or even the pre-Colombian tales of the tribes that inhabited the environs of what is now Mexico City, all had their dark streak denoting the inevitability of tragic suffering and loss in life, they nonetheless held out a glimmer-like hope that the suffering would abate somehow, and a resolution in keeping with our nobler hopes would prevail-- in the end.

The ancients often anticipated a kind of unexpected intervention from on high to accomplish this resolution in a narrative tail. Odysseus got much aid from Athena in order to find his way home. He loses most of his men along the way, and home is never how you left it, but the resolution is satisfying on a deep level. Balder the Good, from the Norse literature preserved in the Prose Edda, seems to shine the more brightly as a figure in mythology precisely because the envy and jealousy of the other gods do not penetrate to hurt him. True, the malicious God Loki, apparently the trickiest of the powers that swirl around the environs of men, did Balder in with a sprig of mistletoe. Still, Balder reigns in a way, even in the abode of the dead, while Loki ends in terrible chastisement.

Ambivalent tales, you say? Well, I agree. But my point is that the ancients knew about the struggle between good and evil. It was an enigma to them, and they tried to weave a credible series of tales that acknowledged the sorrow, without negating the hope. Anthropologists note that the Aztecs assumed into their mythologies a host of deities and heroes present in the religious forms of the peoples they conquered. We know that the god of human blood-sacrifice, Tezcatlipoca, defeated Quetzalcoatl and banished him away. The latter deity did not desire human sacrifice. But the persistent legend circulated that he would return and reign over human affairs in some hoped-for future.

I mention the tree mythic examples to make the point that pre-Christian cultures were realistic about the darkness that envelopes the human condition, that they ascribed this to the influences that to a large extent were beyond human control. They often anticipated, however weakly, the vindication of goodness. Now, I know some will dismiss the relevance of ancient mythic tales as expressions of naiveté, as outmoded imaginary constructions proper to the childhood of the human race, and the desperation of peoples held captive by religious myth. Aside from such an attitude being an expression of cultural snobbery (many post-moderns seem to think we have advanced beyond having to take the ancients into our conversations), I do not need to take up that argument right now. I only need to point out that the stories themselves indicate a stubborn anticipation of a happy ending to a tail that trails much misery. And that the happy ending is inextricably tied to the triumph of life over death (Quetzalcoatl will return), goodness and creativity over maliciousness (Balder is not finally gone, and Loki cannot get away with having sent him to the abode of the dead) and provident protection over malignant usurpation (The Odyssey).

Ambivalence marked by a real, even if wistful hope that in the end the good wins: I would at least say this is present in the ancient record. No doubt, lots of other things are also present there, competing for attention in the ancient imaginal mind. So, you may ask: Why are you writing about this? Mildly interesting, but honestly. Well, because we all need to think more deeply about culture, particularly about what is happening to ours. And I fear that among the manifestations of the uncharted territory modern cultures are traversing, the slowly fading hope in the final triumph of life and goodness is by far the most ominous. And, we cannot fail to ask how this has happened, and what relation it bears to the life and mission of the Church. A starting point for thinking about our current situation, it seems to me, is to ask what effect the Gospel had on the ancient cultures it encountered, and why. To ask that question helps us to understand what the challenge of the New Evangelization is about. What did the Gospel offer to the cultures of ambivalent hopes? What does it offer now to the human community, to our culture and to each one of us individually?

But this is "Just a thought-1". Si Dios me da licencia, I will continue this thought in days to come. Or at least I hope to.