Denver Catholic

14 APRIL 11-17, 2015 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives A few months ago, our Holy Father Francis talked about a pervasive killer found in our communities. He called this killer "terrorism" and labeled it a "disease" that could destroy "in cold blood." The killer he's referencing is probably not the fi rst thing you think of—he's talking about the sins of gossip, rash judgment, calumny and detraction. Most people know what gossip is. "It's the sickness of cowardly people who, not having the courage to speak directly, talk behind people's backs," the pope said. But what are calumny, rash judg- ment and detraction? The catechism states a person is guilty "of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without suf- fi cient foundation the moral fault of a neighbor; of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the repu- tation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them"; and "of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another's faults and failings to persons who did not know them" (CCC 2477). These sins are cancers that eat us up from the inside out. They spread like wildfi re. They are one of the devil's best tools against the Church because they're not easy to recognize. They work a little here, a little there, and we think they aren't a big deal. We think that we are just talking about one person to another person, but before you know it, the story has gone around, spreading a hurtful message. Ephesians 4:29 says, "Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fi ts the occa- sion, that it may impart grace to those who hear." Notice the words "edifying " and "grace" in that verse? To edify is to provide moral and intellectual instruc- tion. When you talk to someone about someone else, are you edifying them in order to impart God's grace? Or are you just venting and being negative? We, as Catholics, are called to help others toward holiness, to use language to build people up, not tear them down. Pope Francis said we should be "con- scientious objectors" to these sins. The next time you feel like talking badly about someone or listening to someone speak badly about another, why not try to impart that grace promised in Ephesians? Grace is part of forgiveness, restoration and redemption, and those are the ecstatic, counter-intuitive message of the Gospel. When we build up a person instead of tearing them down, we are truly living the Gospel. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, goes one step further and says not only should we not speak evil of anyone, but we should also not think evil of anyone. "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" (Phil 4:8). Those are things we are supposed to contemplate. Those are things we are supposed to try and see in the other, as God sees them. And that is the cure for the diseases of gossip, rash judgment, calumny and detraction. If we focus on forgiveness, grace and the presence of God, then, as it says the next verse of Philippians, "God will give you peace of heart." And that is one of the keys to not just healing our communities, but to our own personal happiness. Killing us softly with your words Kenneth Cramer, MA, LPC, NCC, is the founder of St. Raphael Counseling (www. straphaelcounseling.com) and a member of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association. Guest Column KENNETH CRAMER G alatians 1:15-18 is not your basic witness-to-the-Resurrection text. Yet St. Paul's mini-spiritual autobiography helps us understand just how radically the experience of the Risen Lord changed the fi rst disciples' religious worldview, and why an evangelical imperative was built into that experience. Here's the Pauline text: "… when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with fl esh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damas- cus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him for fi fteen days …" Note the sequence: Saul of Tarsus is stunned on the Damascus road by a rev- elation of the risen Lord Jesus Christ; after being baptized in Damascus, the new disciple disappears into the Ara- bian peninsula (for how long, he doesn't say); he then returns to Damascus; and only then does he make the pilgrimage to the founding Church in Jerusalem to confer with Peter. Thus Paul's fi rst encounter with another apostolic wit- ness to the Resurrection didn't occur for years: at least three-plus (if the "three years" in verse 18 refer to both his Damascus and Arabian sojourns), and quite probably more. What took him so long? Paul's snapshot of his early Christian life immediately follows his self-de- scription as one who was "advanced in Judaism beyond many … among my people" and "extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers" [Galatians 1:14]. So it doesn't torture the text of Galatians 1:15-18 to suggest that Paul spent those unaccounted-for years trying to fi gure things out. What did his undeniable—and shattering—meeting with the Risen One mean? How could this encounter fi t within what a Jewish scholar would know as the pattern of redemption? The Gospels record that it took the fi rst Christian believers a while to understand what the Resurrection meant—their fears and incomprehen- sion (Who is this? Is it a ghost?) bear witness to the unprecedented nature of the experience of the Risen One. Over time, though, Easter and the subse- quent appearances of the Risen Lord worked profound changes in how these pious Jews thought and prayed. The Resurrection changed their idea of the Sabbath; they now celebrated the Lord's Day on Sunday rather than Saturday. The experience of the Risen Lord changed their idea of what "resurrec- tion" meant; this was not a resuscitated corpse but an utterly transformed body, recognizably human (he eats and drinks) but not limited by the normal boundaries of time and space (doors mean nothing to him). And the Resur- rection changed their understanding of what time itself meant (the Kingdom Jesus proclaimed in his public ministry dramatically changed history at Easter, but "history" continued). As a highly educated rabbi, Paul faced an even more complex problem: What did this unexpected Messiah, who died a shameful death but was raised to a new form of life, do to Israel's messianic expectation, its sense of its story from the Exodus to the present, its self-con- cept as the Chosen People? The urgency of those questions suggests that Paul, in his wilderness years, was wrestling with the beginnings of Christian the- ology—stretching, but not abandoning, Israel's messianic hope and the mean- ing of its mission to be a "light to the nations." For Paul came to see, through his refl ection and his ministry, that the redemptive promises God made to the Chosen People had been extended to all of humanity—the cutting from the "wild olive tree" of the Gentiles had been "grafted … into a cultivated olive tree," Israel, such that a new messianic people had been formed [Romans 11:24]. And here was an evangelical imper- ative: What the Church learned from its experience of the Risen One, who changed both history and the cosmos, demanded to be shared. Easter faith is necessarily, not accidentally, missionary faith—two millennia ago for St. Paul; today, for all of us. Easter and evangelism George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The Catholic Di¡ erence GEORGE WEIGEL St. Paul spent years wrestling with what the Resurrection meant, according to George Weigel.

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