Denver Catholic

18 MARCH 26-APRIL 8, 2016 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives Easter is not a question mark E xcavating my desk recently, I found the program notes from a Tallis Scholars concert my wife and I had attended a few months ago. The Tallis Scholars are a mar- velous a capella ensemble, but most of their music that night was rather too min- imalist for my tastes. In any event, the author of the program notes described Arvo Pärt's I am the true vine, and its "qualities of stasis and timelessness," as reminiscent of what "former Arch- bishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has described as 'silently waiting on the truth, pure sitting and breathing in the presence of the question mark'." Which put me in mind of an old joke that used to circulate in the editorial oª ces of First Things. Harvard Univer- sity's crest, it seems, used to read Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae [Truth for Christ and the Church]. Christ and the Church were jettisoned over a hundred years ago; the crest now reads, simply, Veritas. The joke was that the crest's next iteration would be Veritas? – thus honoring the post-modern canon that there is no "the truth," only "your truth" and "my truth." During Lent, I've been rewatching the magnifi cent 1981 BBC production of Bridehead Revisited – the best TV adaption ever made of a great novel, in part because of the stunning cast but in larger part because Evelyn Waugh's book is the screenplay. In the second segment, the protagonist, Charles Ryder, muses on what he had once been taught about Christianity in terms that took me back to that joke, and to Rowan Williams "sitting and breathing in the presence of the question mark" while "waiting on the truth:" "I had no religion [Ryder recalled]… The view implicit in my education was that the basic narrative of Christian- ity had long been exposed as a myth, and that opinion was now divided as to whether its ethical teaching was of present value, a division in which the main weight went against it; religion was a hobby which some people pro- fessed and others did not; at the best it was slightly ornamental, at the worst it was the province of 'complexes' and 'inhibitions'....and of the intoler- ance, hypocrisy, and sheer stupidity attributed to it for centuries. No one had ever suggested to me that these quaint observances expressed a coherent philosophical system and intransigent historical claims; nor, had they done, would I have been much interested." Large parts of the western world seem similarly uninterested today. And the notion that Christianity is mythical rub- bish unfi t for intelligent adults has been given a new lease on life by the media- driven success of the New Atheists, although their fi fteen minutes of fame has just about expired (happy news for anyone familiar with elementary logic). So the real question today is not refut- ing the blustering Richard Dawkins. The real question is, is the Church "silently waiting on the truth" as in Dr. Wil- liams's image, shirking its evangelical responsibilities while basking (or freez- ing, as the case may be) "in the presence of the question mark"? Lent and Eastertide ought to be occa- sions for the Church to examine its collective conscience on this point. The grittiness of Lent, and the "intransigent historical claims" without which Easter makes no sense at all, should remind us that Christianity does not rest on myths or "narratives," but on radically changed human lives whose e‡ ect on their times are historical fact. Within two and a half centuries, what began as a ragtag gang of nobodies from the civilizational outback had so transformed the Medi- terranean world that the most powerful man in that world, the Roman emperor Constantine, joined the winning side. How did that happen? It didn't happen because of better myth-making. It happened because those fi rst Christians met a young rabbi who promised that, should they believe in him, each of them would become " a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (Jn 4:14). Then came what seemed complete catastrophe: his crucifi xion. But they met that teacher again as the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, and were infused by his Spirit. And after that, they didn't sit around in the "presence of the question mark; rather, they told the truth of what they had "seen and heard" (cf. 1 Jn 1:1). And thereby changed the world. George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The Catholic DiŸ erence GEORGE WEIGEL The moment of truth: A fi nancial conversion D o we really believe in the Church and its teachings, or not? My wife, Cathy, and I came to the moment of truth. When our answer was "yes"—we believed in Christ and Church teach- ing—we knew we needed to make some changes in our lives. This included our fi nances. In Mark 12, Jesus instructs us to "repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God." As a couple, we did this well. Or so we thought. A profound conversion experience in the early 1990s led us to reconsider if we were giving to God all that is his. As a boy and into my 20s, giving wasn't a priority. I had memories of my father dropping money in the collection basket, but I wasn't proactively taught to do this. While studying at Colorado State University, I occasionally attended Mass. To tell the truth, I was more interested in women and parties on the weekend. Then I met Cathy. I invited her to a game of racquetball, and the rest was history. We married at Queen of Peace Parish in Aurora.§Although Cathy was raised Congregationalist, we became somewhat regulars at St. Thomas More Parish in Centennial. On most accounts, we were still lukewarm in faith and that was refl ected in our giving. Our lives changed after Cathy entered the Church in 1991. Then we traveled to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina to the site where Our Lady reportedly started appearing in 1981. That's when I changed. Once we came home, the world was di‡ erent. I felt like I had a Saul-to-Paul kind of conversion, only without being struck blind (Acts 9:1-9). My conversion forced us to consider life in a new light. We reexamined every aspect of our lives, and we felt com- pelled to tithe. Everything became a gift from God, including our money, and we felt called to spend it preparing for our home in the next life. "But our citizen- ship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil 3:20). After adjusting our fi nances, Cathy and I tithed 10 percent, even as we were expecting our fourth child. We also made up for the years when we didn't give as much. Years later, I took a pay cut to give some of my time to the Church and was ordained a deacon in 2000. Little did we know the joy, happi- ness and peace that would fi ll our lives. God can never be outdone in generosity. You see, faith and fi nances are intimately tied. The single greatest con- tributor to our inability to see money and possessions in their true light is our persistent failure to see our present lives through the lens of eternity. When we have an eternal perspective and understand that heaven, not earth, is our real home, we know we can store up treasures in heaven. Money doesn't buy heaven. Our faith tells us we are saved by God's grace, but good deeds will accompany us on our journey through death and to fi nal judgment (Rev 14:13). One of our good deeds is our generosity, a fruit of the Holy Spirit, as we read in Galatians 5:22. These deeds will determine our eternal reward. Cathy and I joyfully tithe to the Church to achieve that treasure stored in heaven—and it's worth every penny. "Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard … what God has prepared" (1 Cor 2:9). Deacon Steve Stemper is president and CEO of The Catholic Foundation of Northern Colorado. He has more than 30 years of corporate fi nancial experience and is assigned a deacon at St. Thomas More Parish in Centennial. He and his wife, Cathy, have three daughters and one son. To learn about The Catholic Foundation, visit http:// thecatholicfoundation.com. Guest Column DEACON STEVE STEMPER DISCERNMENT TIPS FOR GIVING • Considerations to help discern if my giving is building me an eternal reward in heaven. • Analyze my fi nances. Do I donate 10 percent of my gross income? If not, what would I tell Jesus is the reason? • Pray about deciding what to give. Then put in writing my goals for 2016 and share it with somebody who will hold me accountable. • Pray that God gives me the courage to "be not afraid." Recognize there will be roadblocks and doubts in my life. But just do it knowing God will take care of me.

• Cover