May 5, 2016
COMMENTARY
I denied my faith once!
In 1955, on my return from a seven-year mission in South Africa, I decided to take a side trip from Cairo for a brief look at the Holy Land. I joined a tour which was dominated by Protestants who were exceedingly kind to this disheveled, unkempt young Roman priest. We were on Mt. Olivet, the site of the Ascension of the Lord when suddenly we were confronted by an energetic Arab peddler with literally one half of an arm on which was strung a whole series of ghastly, garish rosaries. They were of the level one might find on New York City’s Lower East Side with sidewalk vendors – the places where one finds ugly statuettes of the baby Jesus which light up in the dark.
He moved in for the “kill” with a sales radar, so common in those days, fully expecting that his awful merchandise would be gobbled up by these yokels for display back in Omaha or Ohio. He didn’t know that he was waving an analogical red flag at a raging bull. With eyes steely, the “pilgrims” stood tall, glared at him,and as if insulted, bellowed at him. “We are Protestant. “
The poor shnook was momentarily baffled, perplexed and disappointed at this graphic turn of events. The no sales possibility was intolerable. But then he saw me dressed in the unmistakable garb of the Catholic cleric. He must have surmised that I couldn’t turn away from such a Catholic devotion as the rosary! His eyes lighted up and the pitch began. In spite of my repeated refusals, he ran alongside me urging me to buy his wares — even offering to negotiate — a little bit. Not only was I desperately short on cash, but the sight of those pieces of junk ravaged the little sense of the esthetic that I own. Prayer is difficult enough but to try on this stuff would tempt me to throw up!!!
So, I stopped, turned to him and like my traveling companions, I bellowed. “I’m Protestant.”
It crushed the guy. He walked off to try to snow someone else. He thought I was Catholic but I shouted NO, I am not. I led him to believe that he made an incorrect judgment. But I was the one with an incorrect management of a situation.
May the Lord forgive my infidelity and my cavalier dismissal of that unwashed peddler. I see my “legitimate” justification and even the humor of it. But there is a tinge of warning in it. I have reviewed this encounter many times since and I shudder when I think, by comparison, of the trials of my forebears under the English persecution or the sufferings of the young Catholics in Uganda and Japan or the persecution of my brethren in China, Mexico, Soviet Russia and pagan Nazi Germany — because they were Catholic and regardless of consequence they would not deny or dilute the Faith of our fathers.
My lesson?
There are many ways to deny one’s Faith.
The real trial today is more sophisticated and subtle. We are told that it is vital to be in step with the majority. The chic majority disdains religion and Faith. We are told that religion is passe. It has been decided that Faith has no real place in modern living. We are told that you decide what is from God and what is not. It is hip today to change the Church of our Fathers and not let the Church change us. It is very hip to be selective about what one will believe or not. We have politicians who publicly say that their Faith is all-important to them and then immediately oppose Church teaching. To follow Church teaching would impair or inconvenience one’s political career. It is essential apparently to show how liberated one is, particularly if one served as an altar boy in one’s youth. One gets “Brownie points” for such enlightenment. Should one challenge or demolish any area of an “anti-God” movement, there will be threats (it is mostly only that … threats) of immediate retaliation or some subtle form of punishment from this non-believing group which preaches love, acceptance, tolerance and equality.
There is an ever-present and all embracing fear of not looking good publicly. There is fear, for example, to speak the truth about homosexuality lest one be labelled as “prejudiced.” To say that marriage is between one man and one woman is to invite disdain and rejection. To say that public bathrooms should be used according to one’s biological sex is enough to merit a demonstration. But the pressure is so intense that our own people are terrified to admit their belief or follow their Faith. However, be it abortion or assisted suicide or Bruce Jenner, the dynamics are basically the same. Reduce the masses to silence so their positions cannot be heard. And do it by fear. Make them afraid on some level to stand on their own. Rejection is a powerful tool. Make them feel ashamed. Few can handle it well. Yet muzzling the push back of the believer is essential in the campaign to extirpate this troublesome Faith problem.
To surface the fable that “The King has no clothes on” illustrating the patent nonsense of much of the current stances would invite the Big Guns to come out to assert the validity of the invalid.
The self destructive behaviors of drug usage, sexual narcissism, the attempt to destroy essences (deconstructionism) are seen as adult and advanced positions.
But courage is needed not just for the social areas where emotion not reason mostly prevail, but perhaps more so in the world of reason, the grounding of Faith. To say that I believe Jesus is present in the Eucharist I receive every day or that I converse with God every day or that I believe in a life-changing factor called “grace” which is amazing and powerful creates some kind of fury which sounds suspiciously demonic.
As I skim over these ways I can really deny the Faith of our fathers, my meeting with the peddler on the Mount of Olives so many years ago seems almost quaint and innocent. Yet the call for fidelity is always there in every circumstance. As I look back over a long life of confrontation and debate, it strikes me that the enemy of God and goodness has waged a con job. Whenever I have spoken truth, even when terrified, I have found out that fear is often airy persiflage. The enemy is the first letters of the names of a popular female singer. After all, the Lord promised on His ascension that He would be with us all days even unto the consummation of the world. He is with us as we stand for Him.
What is the worst possible thing they can do to me if I speak and live my own truth? Probably, surprisingly little!
Feast of the Ascension, 2016
New York
Paulist Fr. James Lloyd, age 95, is the oldest-living Paulist Father. He resides at the Paulist Fathers Motherhouse on West 59th Street in New York City, just blocks from where he grew up on Manhattan’s West Side. He holds a Ph.D. in psychology from New York University.