It is Right and Just
October
15, 2024
It is Right and Just
I started this post yesterday and this morning I am urged to justify the title I have chosen. What do I mean by it is right and just in this specific letter? I was led to an article from Church Life Journal, A journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life entitled: The Mass for Millennials: It is Right and Just by Laura Camarata, April 19, 2016).
The Eucharistic Prayer which is a dialogue between the priest and the congregation in English begins with the words “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation…to give you thanks.”
In Spanish this line starts with “Es justo y necesario.” It is just and necessary.” This translation leads to a deeper reflection. Not only is it right and just to give our praise and thanks to God; it is necessary. Not only is it something we should do, it is something we must do, as “our duty and our salvation.”
Understanding this declaration as a necessity changes how I view the Eucharistic Prayer as a whole. While we thank God for the many gifts in our lives in this introductory dialogue, we also realize it is necessary to thank him for the gift of our lives as they are redeemed in his son Jesus Christ. In a particular way during this exchange, we are called to thank God in advance for the great miracle about to occur in the Eucharistic sacrifice.
Even when attending Mass in English now, I recall how a posture of humility and thanksgiving is just and necessary to truly enter into the sacrament of the Eucharist. Since the Liturgy of the Eucharist is so central to the Mass, its words help me see why going to Mass is essential to our faith. Going to Mass and receiving the Eucharist is right and just and necessary to living our faith. We don’t go simply because we should; rather, we must attend Mass each Sunday if we desire to bring about right relationship in this world and the next. We must approach the Eucharistic sacrifice with humility if we wish to bring that humility into our encounters. We must receive Christ’s self-gift in the Eucharist to be self-giving love in the world. Our weekly celebration is more than a momentary celebration of God’s goodness—it enlivens communities throughout the week and the year to be strong in faith and to live the good news, thankful for the sacrificial mystery in which we have taken part.
We give God thanks and praise before receiving the Eucharist because it is right and just, but also, as the Spanish translation reminds us, because it is necessary. This necessity is echoed in the relationship between attending Mass and living out our Catholic faith. We go to Mass because it’s right. We go to Mass because it’s just. But we also go because it is necessary to live a Christian life, giving praise and thanks to God.
What a beautiful reflection!!! Don’t you think so?
[From the article, It is Right and Just: Justice (1), opusdei.org] So we can ask ourselves, first of all, what we owe to God or what a just relationship is with the one who is the Source of everything good, beginning with our very existence. Justice begins with our relationship with God, shown in our readiness to give thanks.
What do you have
that you did not receive? (1 Cor 4:7).
Our life therefore is a totally undeserved gift; hence, with respect to God,
gratitude is a deep duty. We can never pay Him back for everything He does for
us, and this is in no way unjust. But it is something deeply due to Him, deeply
just: thanking Him for everything.
After that beautiful
introduction, we can continue with our divine longing for justice
(From
Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the
Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 6).
Second Episode Cecile
But
if this is true in such common situations as the domestic drama between Carl
and Sandee, what about more serious situations?
How do the temptation to wrath and the virtue of patience play out in
situations where there is a long-standing injustice?
Cecilia
recalls a childhood filled with humiliating punishments, cruel comments,
mocking, resentful uninterest, and often painful physical injuries inflicted in
the name of discipline. Worse, her
parents were very well regarded in their community and in the parish in which
she grew up. In his later years,
Cecilia’s father was ordained a deacon.
In addition to enduring the abuse, she regularly had to hear people tell
her about how wonderful her parents were.
“It made me sick,” Cecilia said.
Understandably,
she had little to do with her parents as an adult. Years of counseling, spiritual direction, and
eventually a loving, supportive marriage to Frank allowed her to heal many of
her childhood wounds, although she still struggled with some feelings of
insecurity and poor self-worth.
Over
the years, as she healed, Cecilia allowed herself to have limited contact with
her parents. Christmas cards. A phone
call. Dinner in a public place. “They could never admit what they did to me,
though,” she said. “When I tried to
bring it up, they either denied it or turned things around on me somehow.
There were times when the anger inside me welled up so much that I
wished them dead.”
In
time, Cecilia’s mother died and her father, who was the crueler parent, was
diagnosed with colon cancer. “At first I
was surprised at how glad I was. I
wanted him to know how it felt to be afraid and alone and vulnerable and to
have the very people who were supposed to care turn their backs on you. But then, though, I was in a really different
place. I had spent years working through the mess they had left inside of me. God’s love had really taken hold in my life
and I knew what I was worth. I didn’t
need my father to affirm me or validate what I knew to be true. People tell me that they would have just
written off my parents if they were like mine that they admire my patience, but
a lot of the time I didn’t feel very patient.
“When
my dad got cancer, I wanted to have as little to do with him as I could. He was financially well off enough that I
could have just put him somewhere and let him live up his last miserable days. But I knew that God wanted more from me. I couldn’t bring him home, that just couldn’t
have worked, but I made it a point to spend an hour a day with him. What a
penance that was at first. I practically
itched to get out of the room the entire time I was there. But as time went by something started to
change between us. He never admitted
what he had done to me, but he would sometimes tell me about his own
childhood. I never knew a lot about my
grandfather. I knew he was a bad guy but
I never really understood how bad. It
turns out he died in jail. He was a
violent alcoholic, and he took out his anger on my grandmother and their eight
kids. One day he got in a bar fight with
some guy. My grandfather punched him and the guy fell backward on a broken beer
bottle that pierced his lung. The man
died, and that was the last my father ever saw of his old man. He was twelve at the time.
“He
had to quit school and work to help pay the bills. He was out on his own by the time he was
sixteen. I knew he had a hard life, but
by the time I came along he was a successful businessman. I never really knew the details, and I never
really cared to know. Anyway, it isn’t
like any of that made up for what he had done to me, but at the same time I
guess I saw how much better he had done than his father had. I used to think of my father as this complete
evil bastard who really didn’t care how much he hurt me. Listening to him, I guess I saw that he
really had tried to do better by me. He
could never say he was sorry but he wanted me to know in his own backward way that
he had tried to do better.
“I
was there when he died. It was a
peaceful death. Part of me, even at the
end, felt like it was more than he deserved.
But a bigger part of me was glad that he didn’t suffer more than he
did. And I was glad that I took the time
to work things out between us as much as I did.
“Through it all, I felt God doing some really powerful stuff in my heart. It’s hard to put it into words, but it would be so exhausting going in there sometimes, I would usually spend a few minutes in the chapel before I went in to see him. Something about spending that time with my heavenly Father reminded me that I was safe, and that I didn’t have to be afraid to see my biological father. I’m still sorting it all out, but I know that the whole experience was very healing for me. Not at all the way I had expected, but I grew on a lot of levels through the whole thing. And I’m grateful that God gave me the chance to grow closer to him through it all. I don’t know if my dad’s in heaven or not. But at least now I can pray that he is, and maybe, even, I’ll be glad to see him again someday.”
Justice provides us with a “map” that marks out the most important goals for each day. Its definition stems from the principle that every duty is based on a relationship.
The warmth of our charity and the firmness of our justice
will give us the criteria and strength needed to develop our relationships with
others in the best possible way. Naturally, the bonds of charity place
conditions on our duties of justice. These two virtues determine many of the
decisions we make every day, with concern for my family taking priority over
other possible social initiatives. The “order of charity”
(Cf.
Letters 4, no 14; 6, no.7) that Saint
Josemaría insisted on so strongly is also an order of justice. My relationship
with my sick mother would not be just if I didn’t find time to visit her
because I was too busy with solidarity projects that were very valuable, but
that prevented me from fulfilling my duties as a daughter or son.
Cecilia’s story is dramatic, but her example illustrates the different levels of healing that God wants to facilitate in the hearts of those who patiently address the wounds their anger points toward. Whether or not your own story contains pain that deep, taking the time you need to practice patience in the face of your anger can help you to respond to your hurts—present, past, and existential—in a way that truly satisfies the divine longing for justice.
Social needs, civil rights and duties, international relations, dialogue, and political action call Christians, children of one Father, to be "actively, freely, and responsibly present in public life" (St. Josemaría).
As Christians, we share the longing to make true the ideals
we want for our world — justice, solidarity, charity — with many others. Yet
sometimes conflict still arises when we try to work together. How can love,
justice, and solidarity become realities in our lives?
We
have so much to reflect on and talk about with Our Lord in the quiet moments of
our prayer time and throughout the day.
The best time to do so is indeed in those moments when we can rest in
the presence of God talking to Him and
listening to what He tells us and He moves our hearts and minds to do as He
wants. For me those times are times of
serenity, joy, love and gratitude.
See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may
you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care;
‘til He brings us together again.”
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
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