Practicing, Not Perfect

These are the words of Pilate to Jesus moments before sentencing Christ to be scourged. Pilate then told Jesus’ accusers that he found “no crime in him.” (John 18:38)

So much for Pilate’s “truth.”

Journalists, apparently, have a similar question for us.

“How do we report the truth while minimizing harm?” is the leading question to encourage participation in a survey conducted by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Perhaps we see where this is headed.

We keep asking the same question, hoping for a more satisfactory answer.

Jesus provided the answer, however, and it the same for Pilate’s time as well as our own.

Listen to Him.

Dear Reader: “When Fish Rise” is the story of a friendship and discovery of faith, something we may not have been looking for at first. We became friends in the place where we first learned to flyfish, a point of reference throughout our 40 years. He became a master and I am still not very good at it. It didn’t matter in the end. We found something greater.

We were a small group, mostly unknown to each other and brought together by shared interest in a philosophy class and a professor with the magnetism of a favorite uncle. He was standing waist-deep and fly casting in a small Poconos stream.

It was 1972 and we were freshmen in a secular university. We were reading a few of the ancient Greek philosophers and discussing their observations on logic, reason and truth: all three in harmony and intrinsically recognizable by most people. I was surprised to find illumination of my Catholic faith in this setting, without reference to Christianity in the teaching. Twelve years of Catholic schooling had failed to imprint the tradition of the Greeks and their influence on my faith, or perhaps I hadn’t been paying attention. This professor awakened something buried deeply, but at first all he seemed to want was nothing more than for us to break the horns of a moral dilemma – when either one of two choices is perceived as equally bad – by proving one or the other horn false using logic, reason and truth rather than the slogans of the day.

Continue reading: https://erwatsonblog.com/when-fish-rise/

Tis the season when we ought to contemplate that the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. But that happened a long time ago.

The awesome event of the Savior’s birth – a correction in the course of human history – is often lost in what we actually celebrate this time of year.

This Christmas season, however, we have a reminder close to home, close to us, that God is still active in human affairs.

A process that could lead to naming Maria Middleton a “Servant of God” is just underway in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It may ultimately lead to her becoming a recognized Saint in the Catholic Church.

This could take a while. Or not. Few saints are declared soon after death, as in the case of Pope St. John Paul II. Some saints wait centuries for recognition, although in eternity a thousand years are like a day.

The first step is the appointment of a postulator to review the facts of Maria’s virtuous life and her lasting impact on those who knew her or her story. If, after study, a recommendation is made to the Archbishop of Philadelphia to open her cause for sainthood – and he agrees – she would be named Servant of God. The Vatican would then begin a more detailed examination of Maria’s life and miracles attributed to her intercession that could lead to sainthood.

Tis the season we can learn from Maria and her unyielding trust in God’s plan for her and for us in this moment of history.

Come, Emmanuel.

Maria blows bubbles for children she met in Uganda.

Some of us may have sat nervously on the edge of a bed or chair while a physician made a rough sketch about a complicated medical condition. I’ve seen this happen many times as a patient, caregiver and healthcare worker. I have only seen a lay person do the same for a physician once.

The physician was confused, like most patients are, when confronted with life-changing news. The lay person, father of a dying girl in need of a miracle, was trying to explain to the physician his cause for hope despite a desperate prognosis. His sketch looked like this:

There are limits to human knowledge, the father argued. Medicine is always discovering something new, just as the social sciences (and all sciences) grapple with new findings. All things, however, are known in eternity. Why, the father wanted to know, rely solely on the limitations of medicine when there is something greater?

This encounter explains in part Maria Middleton’s unyielding trust in God following her terminal brain cancer diagnosis. The miracle we all thought she needed didn’t happen. Instead, her 20-month journey in search of a cure discovered Divine Providence in every moment. Even now, five years after Maria passed into eternal life, her story awakens faith in some and deepens it for others, evidenced by more than 800-1,000 who attended her memorial Mass on October 16.