Author Archives: Ed Pluchar

Litany of Humility

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Maybe you’ve seen this.  Every once in a while I come across something which is, in an accurate way, devastating to my ego.  More on the ego another time…

I’m tempted to say that most people should experience a similar response, though that’s probably an egotistical thing to say.  Therefore, I will say that every line advances the line before it, the total effect I might liken to an imagined world where I own a profitable casino.  One day the casino is struck by lightning, and the fire steadily grabs hold of the entire building and burns it down.  The conclusion of the prayer is like staring at the smoldering ruins, and all that mix of emotions before such (perhaps holy) devastation. The prayer can be found at http://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/prayers/humility.htm, among other sites.

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved…
From the desire of being extolled …
From the desire of being honored …
From the desire of being praised …
From the desire of being preferred to others…
From the desire of being consulted …
From the desire of being approved …
From the fear of being humiliated …
From the fear of being despised…
From the fear of suffering rebukes …
From the fear of being calumniated …
From the fear of being forgotten …
From the fear of being ridiculed …
From the fear of being wronged …
From the fear of being suspected …

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I …
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease …
That others may be chosen and I set aside …
That others may be praised and I unnoticed …
That others may be preferred to me in everything…
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…

Reconciliation and Cynicism

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At the time of this writing, fellow Catholic Guy Adam Fischer is helping to revamp the website for St. Julie Billiart Parish in Tinley Park, the parish of my youth.

A few days ago he informed me that the most visited page among the Sacraments was Reconciliation.  This spurred a thought in me, and I’d like to hear whether you have any thoughts on the subject.
My response was, “There is something sublime about that.  It’s the first act of intimacy for the cynic, to confess sins.”
I hold to that.  At the certainty of sounding cliche, much of the media we consume is cynical in nature.  How else can it be that Jon Stewart’s trustworthiness rates higher than those of traditional news anchors?  His point of view aligns with the culture, and it’s very cynical.
Reconciliation is the first act of intimacy, then?  I think it is, and here’s why:  People become cynical when they observe hypocrisy without due recompense.  Children want to know why some students get more favorable treatment than others, and adults want to know how some politicians can be such crooks and still hold their offices.  The injustice, the complete failure of immediate and obvious karmic retribution, is unbelievable.  It’s offensive, which is another way of saying it is an insult and an injury.  So we begin to distrust everything, especially if promises are involved.
Yet cynicism ultimately breeds death, whether from sloth or envy or avarice.  When cynics, or the cynical elements in us, want to turn back to faith, to child-like trust and child-like life, the first condition is renewed integrity.  We have to admit that we are not without our own hypocrisies.  More to the point:  The cynic puts down his shield of disbelief, his sword of sarcasm – he is fully penitential – and admits that in his unrelenting struggle against hypocrisy, he ceased to trust the promises of God.  It is this betrayal which must be forgiven before full communion is restored.
Of course, cynics aren’t the only ones visiting a suburban parish’s website looking for the reconciliation schedule.  Why do you think Reconciliation was the most visited Sacrament?

Father of Three

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By way of introduction, I am a father of three.  In this life, you would likely only have the chance to meet two of those children.

My wife’s first pregnancy ended in miscarriage.  Among the most deafening sounds in world must be the disappearance of a heartbeat.  Our hollow hopes were soon filled with the conception and healthy development of our second child, Amelia, now almost a year old.  And, still happier, we expect another child in November.

Our hopes are filled, but not all.

It is a very challenging experience to endure a miscarriage.  Any hope can miscarry, so I invite you to explore that grief if you are so moved.  Many, I’m sure, can relate to an extraordinary joy and expectation, and to the lingering trepidation as you journey toward your goal, only to have that trepidation justified as the prize, the shining jewel of your hopes, is irreversibly taken away.  There is a particularly heart-breaking update I made to our “baby blog” during that first pregnancy, where I mention that our baby’s heart rate was lower than expected, and the baby’s body was smaller than expected.  She was still alive, so we only thought the doctor’s original estimates were off.  No, it was a death knoll, a sign that the natural laws are fixed and would not have mercy.

Truly, I invite you to share our grief.  Before the miscarriage, I shared in the grief of many parents who lost their children too soon, and sometimes too violently.  Who can endure escaping a burning building, only to realize your child is still inside?  Who can endure the senseless loss resulting from a drunk driving accident?  Cancer?

There is a temptation, I know, to claim that grief and possess it – horde it, even – as something like a relic, though it is a kind of counterfeit holiness.  This sometimes results from offering one’s wounded heart to another, only to have that grief insulted, or worse, dismissed.  The soul recoils and will hardly offer that pearl to swine again.
By sharing in grief, in whatever humble way we are able, we open opportunities to be Christ for others.  It is amazing to me, how friends who have never been mothers or fathers could offer comfort, but they did.  One of those doesn’t believe in God, and there he was, being Christ-like.  Then there were family members with children of their own, and behold, some of them had suffered miscarriages.  And there was the woman in a small church in West Virginia, who suffered 15 miscarriages before she gave birth to two sons, and one of those is a Nobel Prize winner.  She was comforting us.
Ultimately, grief is for the living.  Our first child, whom we affectionately named Angel (believing she was a girl), is pursued by our prayers.  Perhaps we are pursued by hers.