Catholic editorials

Sorry, I Have to Be Somewhere Else in 2040

My former cardiologist and I did not get along. The final step for me was he told me I could no longer eat bread, rice, pasta, potatoes. I told him the only thing I was cutting out of my life was him.

We did not hit it off from the beginning, he said he wanted me to live until I am ninety. I explained to him that as a Catholic priest, I am in the eternal life business. Therefore, I have no interest in living so long here. It is a story that I use to this day, occasionally, at funerals to explain the power of believing in eternal life.

I believe in eternal life and wait for the day that I may go to Heaven, which is part of my ultimate goal. The other part is to do all I can to help others to get there as well. Many may laugh at that thought, but looking at the opening paragraphs, you can see it can effect some real world decisions from time to time.

The scenario actually came to mind reading about Dr. David Wood and the Transhumanist Party who plan to use technology to create eternal life on Earth for humans by 2040; coincidentally, when I would be — hopefully not — in my final decade prior to reaching ninety. 

The bio-technological process would begin with the richest because they could most afford the procedure. Eventually, the scientist explains — as with all technology — it would become cheaper and everyone could afford it. 

Well, I hope Dr. Wood enjoys his current endeavor to his heart’s content. He adds that religious people may not be interested and I as a religious person agree. I will not climb aboard his ‘life forever on Earth’ train.

First, let me explain. Eternal life, in the Catholic sense, is not about living here on Earth ad infinitum (literally), it is about living in peace and justice and in the eternal joy of the presence of the Holy Spirit. That is from St. Paul in the Book of Romans.

St. Irenaeus taught that the glory of God is a person fully alive. So, actually, what we look forward to is the fullest of human existence for eternity. This is something that those who want to create eternal life on Earth cannot guarantee. This is why I am not interested in the slightest. I just am not.

I look back at those days in my teens and early twenties when my mother described me as “Mad at the world.” My slogan at the time was FTW, which means F___the World. I hated school for I was bullied viciously all throughout seventh through the ninth grades, by some students and even some teachers. I literally hated then entering and attending high school. I self-medicated — mostly alcohol. This experience, during my formative years, also formed my outlook on the world for the rest of my life. I never saw existence as paradise or its potential. So, I would have no interest in being part of it ad infinitum. 

Quitting drinking in my early twenties, while in the Navy, I returned to my Catholic roots. It was there that I found this quote in the New Testament from St John: “Have no love for the world or anything in the world,” (I John 2:15).

I was so excited from what I read: “You mean,” I thought to myself, “have no love for the world that taught me how much I do not belong? That world that promised paradise to some, I was not one of them? Hey, you don’t have to tell me twice.”

If there is anything that leads me to embrace Catholicism, and there are lots of them, that is the piece de resistance. Now, Dr. Wood is working hard to grant eternal life to all those who choose to embrace the same world.

No thanks.

Over the decades, I had to learn to let go of my pain and pray to forgive my worst enemies. Nevertheless, I am not sold on the idea of living for eternity here. 

I wait for the day that I experience what Christ offered us from the Cross and I live my life as best I can in pursuit of that hope. Nothing on this Earth can match it. 

I do not want to see my ninetieth birthday on Earth or any age beyond that point. I have other places to be.

Photo credit: USDA

True Freedom in Humility

True freedom begins in humility. That might sound strange because it would seem that the truly free may boldly go and do wherever and whatever they they may want. That is not true freedom; that is unbridled action.

A great example of where freedom begins is in the writings of one who understood this truth well — Howard Phillip (H.P.) Lovecraft.

The theme of his famous story The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward is that we are free to do anything we may want, but some things should not be done. The true freedom is found in understanding the difference.

This is why freedom begins in humility because the humble person will understand that need to seek wisdom for true liberty to be expressed in its fullness. The ‘free persons’ without wisdom will be imprisoned by their ‘freedom.’ The humble will seek wisdom to experience freedom in the most powerful way and to its greatest limit, if there is such a thing.

Choosing to celebrate my freedom by saying anything I want to say and allowing people to celebrate my boldness is nothing more than me acting as a wolf among sheep and encouraging the sheep to see me as one of them. It is the beginning of my own dictatorship where I will allow people to express their freedom any way they want, provided that they express it, boldly. I can then define for them the meaning of freedom and they will celebrate me, thinking that they are truly free because of me. However, they are subjects of my dictatorship of how I define freedom. I could convince them to express their freedom by jumping off a mountain and they would obey, convinced that they found true freedom by doing it. Many dictatorial cult leaders do exactly that.

True freedom revolves around the ability to say and do anything I want guided by the wisdom to know what is truly an act freedom for me and others.

Many years ago, a local museum planned to show a controversial photographic exhibit. Many did all they could to have the government cancel it. I supported the display. When attempts to silence the exhibit failed, someone invited me to go see it with him. I chose not to go and this shocked him. “You, of all people, are not going?”

I explained that the issue was not whether or not it should be shown, but whether I have to have a government tell me what I should and should not see. I have the freedom to make my own choices and I do not have to prove anything to anyone in a truly free society nor do I have to have a government impose its morality upon my life. I never saw the exhibit. That choice is consistently mine.

Christianity has always been criticized for limiting freedom, but it only limits freedom when one follows Christ by obeying convention. The truly free followed Christ, sought to do His will and discovered true freedom there, by seeking divine wisdom.

A great teaching of many of the saints is that even those who fall into sin, but seek the wisdom of Christ, will find the fullness of freedom in Christ because by their own choice they will turn from sin. Those who turn from sin out of fear are not acting in true freedom. Those who turn from sin out of love of Christ are making their own free choice.

The saints are truly free for they act not out of obedience to convention but obedience to Christ which at times goes against convention. Even when they sinned, they chose to take that as an opportunity to grow in holiness by repenting of the sin, sometimes many times over. But they were always on the path to freedom. They did what they chose to do out of love of Christ, maybe through his Church, but not strictly because that was what they were supposed to do.

Giovanni Bernardone, known today as St Francis, committed one of the most free acts in protest to his father who brought him to court. A former crusader, Francis had a complete change of heart. He decided to do what he could for the poor by giving away his father’s clothing merchandise to most destitute. His father sued demanding that he return everything. Francis in protest removed his clothes in the courtroom as a sign of complying to his father’s demand. He then walked out. It was a completely free act, whether or not it was the right thing to do is another question. However, the act was completely free.

Today many would see this as a criminal act and he would be condemned by local and national media who control freedom by following the cult leader model above. They define for people, quite poorly, the meaning of freedom.

We have a calling to live by the wisdom of Christ which leads to true freedom. It teaches us the difference between living in true freedom or living as a foolish sheep. This does not mean that we live by convention even in our parishes. We live by freedom. That freedom comes only from knowing Christ and doing his will for he wants us to know true freedom that no human institute fully understands.

It is in our worship that we meet people on various levels of the quest for freedom. The one who discovers true freedom realizes that no matter what is going on around us, if we seek to do the will of Christ and we seek his guidance and grace, we will find true freedom. It is a lifetime journey to reach the depth of this understanding and, on the way, we will discover newer paths deeper into the quest for freedom which we find in Christ.

Never forget that path we take led by Christ is one in which we must follow Him for he is leading us through the valley of death (cf Psalm 23.) If I use my alleged freedom to go my own way, I walk off the path and find myself alone or even with others in the valley of death. If I use my freedom to trust Christ and continue to follow him, I will make it through the valley of death alive and truly free. The choice is ours.

Photo: Bunker Hill Monument. Bunker Hill Day, Boston, Charlestown, Massachusetts between 1890 and 1901. Publisher: Detroit Publishing Co. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov Public Domain.