Hegseth's aggressive push to embrace the still-developing technology stands in contrast to the Biden administration, which, while pushing federal agencies to come up with policies and uses for AI, was also wary of misuse. Officials said rules were needed to ensure that the technology, which could be harnessed for mass surveillance, cyberattacks or even lethal autonomous devices, was being used responsibly.

The Biden administration enacted a framework in late 2024 that directed national security agencies to expand their use of the most advanced AI systems but prohibited certain uses, such as applications that would violate constitutionally protected civil rights or any system that would automate the deployment of nuclear weapons. It is unclear if those prohibitions are still in place under the Trump administration.

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/13/nx-s1-5675781/pentagon-musks-grok-ai-chatbot-global-outcry

In the War & Peace class that I teach, the module on machine learning and weapons systems is one of the most challenging (and chilling). The benefits of machine warriors are often framed in contrast to the normal limits of human warriors--what Kara N. Slade references as a problem of "theological anthropology." Human soldiers are embodied; have rights; can die; need time to think, understand, process; can make errors of judgment; are capable of empathy, even with the 'enemy'; are capable of moral intelligence; can be held responsible for their actions; have to be paid a fair wage; can feel pain; require medical care and other expensive benefits; and so forth. In contrast, machine warriors are faster, can operate at high altitudes and cold temperatures, can process complex data more quickly, don't have the limits of embodiment, are cheaper to deploy, can't be held liable, have difficulty distinguishing between combatants and civilians, and cannot experience human suffering. Regarding cost alone: previous DoD estimates indicated that each soldier in Afghanistan costed the Pentagon $850,000 per year, but a TALON robot can be outfitted with weapons for under $230,000. Slade argues that the American military-industrial bureaucracy is influenced more by national anxiety and fear than by ethics. She cites the Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap as an example.

DoD and industry are working to advance operational concepts with unmanned systems to achieve the capabilities and desired effects on missions and operations worldwide. In building a common vision, DoD’s goals for unmanned systems are to enhance mission effectiveness, improve operational speed and efficiency, and affordably close warfighting gaps… By prudently developing, procuring, integrating, and fielding unmanned systems, DoD and industry will ensure skillful use of limited resources and access to emerging warfighting capabilities. Pursuing this approach with unmanned systems will help DoD sustain its dominant global military power and provide the tools required by national decision-makers to influence foreign and domestic activities while adapting to an ever-changing global environment.

https://jmt.scholasticahq.com/article/11278-unmanned-autonomous-drones-as-a-problem-of-theological-anthropology

Notice that in this framing, removal of human agency through deployment of "unmanned systems" are supposed to increase mission effectiveness and increase efficiency-- claims made also by Musk's dominant ideology of "government efficiency" through the use of artificial intelligence.

Most students don't realize that lethal autonomous weapons systems are not limited to science fiction. In 2021 NPR reported that in March 2020, a lethal autonomous weapons system (Kargu-2) was used during fighting between the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (Libya) and forces aligned with Gen. Khalifa Haftar. The attack drone, made by the Turkish company STM, can be programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition: what the UN calls a "fire, forget, and find" capability. At the time, the Vatican permanent observer mission expressed alarm, and the Holy See's concerns were repeated in 2024 with a call for a permanent ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems. That statement expressed Catholic teaching that technological progress should be used to improve human life, and that "no machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being."

Today, my tax dollars are being spent to prepare for exactly this scenario: machines deciding who lives and who dies and how. The US voted against a UNGA resolution on autonomous weapons in November 2025. And the latest announcement from Hegseth indicates a full-speed ahead integration of Grok without attention to critics' assessments of Grok's flaws or any attention to long-standing principles of military ethics and/or the just war tradition.

It is time to ask whether Catholics can licitly participate in the US military-industrial complex at any level. Trump's second term has seen a movement to "war-making" over "self-defense," with the most obvious example being the renaming of the Department of War. Trump does not seem to feel beholden to the just war tradition and its emphasis on last resort, proportionalism, international law, and humanitarianism. Nothing about the priorities of Stephen Miller align with Catholic values. But one-fifth of active duty military identify as Catholic. The persistent moral injury of working within the objectively evil operational framework of the military under a second Trump administration should be getting more attention-- including by US bishops. If US objectives are to amass greater power and influence, to bully, to use force without justification under law or ethical principles, and now we are training artificial intelligence to achieve these ends more "efficiently," we have lost our way entirely. Without significant course correction--minimally, rejection of unilateral warfare and commitment to the telos of peace-- it is unclear how Catholics could licitly cooperate with present US leadership.

Although one of my friends, who is a senior theological ethicist, said to me when it appeared that "there is nothing new in it" -- and I initially agreed -- I would highlight how Pope Leo's use of Scripture and the writings of theologians and saints (often in reference to Scripture) is very different from Pope Leo XIII's reliance on more philosophical natural law reasoning in Rerum Novarum, which inaugurated modern Catholic social teaching in 1891.

To be sure, the Second Vatican Council's call for moral theology's "scientific exposition [to] be more thoroughly nourished by scriptural teaching" (Decree on Priestly Formation, no. 16) had influenced Pope John Paul II, whose "references to scripture in his encyclicals," according to Charles E. Curran, "far outnumber any of the other references made within these documents" (The Moral Theology of Pope John Paul II [Georgetown University Press, 2005], 45). It may be an interesting exercise during Leo XIV's papacy to compare his approach to Scripture with St. John Paul II's.

In addition, Delexi Te is much more theological -- and Christological -- than papal documents from the past century. Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum mentions "Jesus," "Christ," or "Jesus Christ" less than a dozen times; in contrast, Leo XIV's Delexi Te refers to him around 40 times. To be fair, Rerum Novarum's paragraphs 22-24 anticipate in many respects what Delexi Te says about Jesus, especially how he "for our sakes became poor" (Rerum Novarum, no. 23; Delexi Te, no. 18; both citing 2 Cor 8:9), and how he identifies with the "least of these" at the Judgment (Rerum Novarum, no. 22; Delexi Te, no. 5; both citing Matt 25:40).

Yet, there is a deeper Christological undercurrent in Delexi Te, I think. While Rerum Novarum refers to the Incarnation only once, and Delexi Te mentions the Incarnation only twice, what Leo XIV writes about it runs throughout his apostolic exhortation: "It is not enough to profess the doctrine of God’s Incarnation in general terms. To enter truly into this great mystery, we need to understand clearly that the Lord took on a flesh that hungers and thirsts, and experiences infirmity and imprisonment" (no. 110). Indeed, throughout Delexi Te, "flesh" is mentioned several times to refer both to Jesus and to the poor in ways that bring to my mind the Eucharist. In his article (see below) about Delexi Te, Stan Chu Ilo similarly observes, "To meet the poor is to meet Christ; to love them is to enter the Eucharistic economy."

In my article (again, see below), I also note this connection between liturgy and social justice (I also wrote about it on this blog 14 years ago). Although absent in Rerum Novarum, this link was significant for a number of Catholic social ethicists and liturgical theologians, including Virgil Michel, OSB (and his Catholic Worker friend Dorothy Day, who wrote on "Liturgy and Sociology"). Accordingly, Vatican II's Sacrosanctum Concilium, echoing Virgil Michel in many respects, taught that "the sacred liturgy ... is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit" that should infuse our lives, activities, and work (no. 14). Even though Pope Leo XIV does not mention this connection explicitly, it is discernable in a number of places in Delexi Te.

Of course, unlike Rerum Novarum, which Pope Leo XIII wrote to his "Venerable Brethren the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and other ordinaries of places having Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See," and unlike most other papal encyclicals that were addressed also to "the faithful" and to people "of good will" (as well as Pope Francis's Laudato Si', which was addressed to every human person on the planet), Pope Leo's apostolic exhortation Delexi Te is addressed to "to all Christians," so it makes sense that it is more biblical, theological, Christological, and liturgical.

So, here are some of the initial reactions to Delexi Te by my friends and colleagues. If I have neglected anyone, please share in the comments. Also, as more responses to it come out, feel free to share them in the comments.

• David Lantigua wrote an article at Commonweal magazine.

• Kevin Ahern wrote an article at America magazine.

• Meg Clark wrote an article at America magazine.

• Massimo Faggioli wrote a blog at Fordham's Sapientia.

• Daniel P. Horan wrote an article at the National Catholic Reporter.

• Stan Chu Ilo wrote an article at the National Catholic Reporter.

• Phyllis Zagano wrote an article at the National Catholic Reporter.

• I wrote an article at U.S. Catholic magazine.

As a former law enforcement officer, I have owned a firearm, including for a time afterwards. But I still think that gun violence in the US is a moral problem. The Annunciation, from the Gospel of Luke 1:26-28, has the angel Gabriel reassure Mary, saying "The Lord is with you." One of the things that the shooter at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis is said to have written beforehand was "Where is your God?" As a theologian and as a Christian, I want to believe Gabriel got it right. I hope so. But these days it ain't easy.

Although I had written a little about guns and gun violence prior to that terrible day at my daughter's school, I have felt compelled to write more about this moral issue ever since. I also welcome the attention that several other theological ethicists have been devoting to this problem in recent years. I am not going to rehearse the facts and dispel the misconceptions in this present post. Instead, for those who are concerned and interested, I am going to share some links to my articles on the subject.

I also invite other moral theologians to tackle this issue. I am pleased that the board of the College Theology Society issued a statement on gun violence on June 1, 2023, and that the Catholic Theological Society of America has a three-year interest group focused on "Gun Cultures and Gun Violence."

In 2023 the Journal of Moral Theology devoted a special issue to the topic of "Guns in the United States," which includes articles by a number of Christian theologians and ethicists (some who contribute to this site: Connor Kelly and Luis Vera, ), as well as a response from myself to them. The special issue was edited by Michael R. Grigoni and Cory D. Mitchell, and the articles are accessible for free.

My most recent academic book chapter was first presented at the annual meeting of the College Theology Society in June 2024 at Regis University in Denver: “Gun Violence, Vulnerability, and Flourishing," in Vulnerability and Flourishing, College Theology Society Annual Vol. 70, edited by Cristina Lledo Gomez and John Sheveland (Orbis Books, 2025) 84-100. This essay contains references to the very small but growing number of articles addressing gun violence. If you are interested in this article, please email me (tobias.winright@spcm.ie).

In addition, I wrote "School shootings – slaughter of the innocents" for The Tablet on January 2, 2025. There is a paywall, but registration allows for access to a few free articles per month. Earlier I authored "What does Catholic teaching say about using guns for self defense" in the National Catholic Reporter on August 2, 2023, and "A parent's worst nightmare: An active shooter at my daughter's school" in the National Catholic Reporter on November 2, 2022. An earlier attempt was “What St. John XXIII Has to Say about Gun Rights” in America on February 23, 2018, which was based on a post I did here at Catholic Moral Theology in 2013.

Todd David Whitmore (who was my PhD dissertation supervisor) and I noted the problem of school shootings during the 1990s in our essay, “Children: An Undeveloped Theme in Catholic Teaching,” in The Challenge of Global Stewardship: Roman Catholic Responses, eds. Maura A. Ryan and Todd David Whitmore (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 161-185. Among the few theological ethicists who have addressed gun violence are: William P. George, “Guns and the Catholic Conscience,” Chicago Studies 35, no. 1 (April 1996): 82-95; Richard C. Sparks, C.S.P., Contemporary Christian Morality: Real Questions, Candid Responses (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 136-137; William C. French, “In Harm’s Way in America: Gun Violence and Religious Ethics,” Shalom Papers: A Journal of Theology and Public Policy 2, no. 3 (2000): 39-73; and Patrick T. McCormick, “Weapons of self-destruction,” U.S. Catholic 74, no. 1 (January 2009): 42-43. If you can find any of these, I highly recommend them. Sadly, they are still very relevant.

More recently, Rebecca Bratten Weiss wrote an excellent, accessible piece, "Can gun ownership be ethical? Should Catholics be willing to give up their guns?" for U.S. Catholic on June 25, 2024. Colleagues here at Catholic Moral Theology have also published pieces on the topic: Tom Bushlack, "Guns, God, and Rights" (December 20, 2012); David Cloutier, "The Children of God: The Catholic Response to Gun Violence" (May 1, 2018); David Cloutier, "A March for Peaceableness" (March 24, 2018); Christiana Zenner, "Liberty, Idolatry, and the Culture of Violence" (April 21, 2013); and Jason King, "What I Wish the NRA Had Said" (December 24, 2012).

Finally, the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, where I used to belong, has a task force on gun violence with helpful resources and suggestions for Catholics and parishes.

Non-tenure track (NTT) in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of San Diego are on strike for the second day this week. Today I accepted the invitation to speak at their rally, and I'm sharing my speech here. On the picket line yesterday, I carried a homemade sign with a picture of Pope Francis and a quote from him about the dignity of work. Today I carried that sign in the morning, took a break from the picket line to see the white smoke and coverage of the new pope's appearance, and returned with another homemade sign (hastily thrown together, I'll admit). I hope that my remarks speak to faculty, students, and administration in a meaningful way during this important time of negotiations between NTT union representatives and USD. I was not the only speaker who invoked the popes, and it felt particularly meaningful on such an eventful Catholic news day.

I’m proud to work at the University of San Diego. We are a contemporary Catholic university. We confront humanity’s urgent challenges by fostering peace, working for justice, and leading with love.

That’s why I’m here today – to talk about what it means to work for justice and to lead with love.

You see, being a Catholic university means that we have a rich tradition of thinking about what justice and love look like.

For over one hundred years, authoritative Catholic teachings have supported workers and advocated for labor rights – rights such as the right to unionize, the right to safe working conditions, and the right to a just wage.

Here at USD, these rights are more aspirational than realized. I’m here today because I think that all faculty, tenure line and non tenure line, should be fairly compensated for their work.

I am here because all faculty should have access to the materials, support, and office space they need to teach students well. I’m here because I support the right of my non tenure track colleagues to collective bargaining.

Academic Excellence is the first of our CORE VALUES– and students rightly expect excellence of their faculty. But all across higher education today – including at Catholic universities—administrators are making decisions that undermine academic excellence in their institutions. When a class of faculty experience economic precarity, it is harder for them to devote their energies to excellence in teaching. And this is not meant as an insult to my NTT colleagues – who are doing an amazing job in the situations in which we find ourselves. Rather, I want to suggest that if academic excellence really is central to our mission, we need a structural response at the university. We need to be sure that all faculty are well supported. Some of you may know that 43% of THRS courses on campus this spring are taught by faculty who are not on the tenure track. These courses are essential to the core curriculum and our students deserve to be taught by faculty members who are not experiencing the precarity of job instability and poverty-level wages.

I am someone with privilege – as someone who benefits from tenure, I have greater job protections and greater job security. This helps me to be a better teacher. I can focus more of my energies on my students’ needs and on research that furthers my discipline. I have stable access to my university office and email. I can participate in the governance structures of USD. I am here today because I think that all faculty should have the support that I enjoy in my role at the university.

You certainly don’t have to be Catholic to find a home at USD. But one of the distinct aspects of the USD identity is the mission rooted in Catholic social teachings. These teachings talk about the dignity of work and of workers – a basic principle in Catholic ethics is that human labor cannot be treated as a commodity because that denies human dignity and reduces the worker to the status of a “thing.” In the Second Vatican Council, the bishops explained their support for human rights including the right to food, clothing, and shelter; the right to education, to employment, and to activity in accord with one’s conscience, as well as freedom of religion…. Popes of the last 50 years have continued this tradition of advocacy for workers. John Paul II said that work is for the person, not the person for work. John Paul II said that labor unions are a “mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the rights of working people.” Benedict XVI talked about the church’s consistent support for labor unions. Francis explicitly critiqued the gig economy, exploitation of contingent workers, and wage theft. Pope Francis warned against what he called a “throwaway culture” – where we treat people as disposable. The University of San Diego should not treat workers as disposable. And our new pope has taken the name Leo. This is important. Some of you may know that the first social encyclical, Rerum Novarum, was promulgated by Leo XIII in 1891. There, in the context of the Industrial Revolution, Leo XIII advocated for just wages. "To make one's profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine. To defraud anyone of wages that are his due is a crime which cries to the avenging anger of heaven." (RN 20). I look forward to seeing what Leo XIV will do to carry forward this tradition of solidarity, social justice, and worker rights.

To really live up to our mission, USD employment policies need to align with these papal teachings about worker justice. I think that to live up to USD’s Catholic identity, we shouldn’t only look at things like Mass schedules, saint statues on campus, or the THRS course in the core curriculum. Sure, those are important, but that’s not the only way we live our Catholic identity. We also need to scrutinize our budgets. We need to ask hard questions about why we tolerate a two-tier faculty system that perpetuates inequality right here on our campus.

That’s why we are here today.

One final note – lately my research has focused on reproductive justice. It is a hot topic in today’s world, in the church and politically. But I want to suggest here – especially to those parents, students, and faculty who describe themselves as pro-life – that support for workers is a pro-life justice issue. It isn’t fair that some faculty have parental leave and others don’t. Or that some have group health insurance for their families and others don’t. If my kid is sick and I have to cancel class to take them to the doctor, I don’t worry about losing my job. But some of your faculty members do have this worry. At USD we talk about a culture of care. But it is time to actually live that out.

I’m grateful for the courage, integrity, and energy of NTT faculty who have led this movement. I’m grateful for my students who continue to ask thoughtful questions about what it means to seek justice and lead with love in this particular political moment. And I thank you all for coming out today in support of the hard working NTT faculty who deserve justice at USD.

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24

Second Reading – Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19

Gospel – John 20:19-31

There is something fitting about the fact that the Church will be celebrating the Sunday of Divine Mercy as the first Sunday Mass without Pope Francis. Francis, of course, made mercy a hallmark of his pontificate, choosing “miserando atque eligendo” (having mercy and choosing [him]) as his motto, instituting the Jubilee of Mercy near the start of his papal ministry, and generally setting mercy as the driving force for all his work as the bishop of Rome.

As the Catholic Church mourns and remembers Francis, the notion of divine mercy provides a poignant reminder of who Francis was and all he taught. The readings for this Sunday therefore give us an opportunity to appreciate where Francis sought to steer the People of God. In particular, two dimensions of mercy stand out in this week’s readings, helpfully informing the work of being the Body of Christ in a way that is shaped by the legacy of our last pope.

First, the readings show how God’s mercy is primarily a response to need. The Gospel story of “doubting Thomas” is the prime example. Thomas displays his insecurities when he questions his friends’ testimony that they had seen the risen Christ and insists that he needs proof. When Jesus appears one week later, he does not chastise Thomas for his lack of faith but instead turns to him with compassion and says simply: If you need this material proof, you shall have it. Come, touch my wounds and know that I am truly with you.

This is an amazing scene (captured so vividly by Caravaggio’s famous painting above) showcasing the fullness of divine mercy. Jesus is moved on a deeply affective level to understand, and empathize, with Thomas’s doubts so that he can see what Thomas needs and respond to that need. Jesus offers a tremendous gift with this understanding, turning what could easily be a stumbling block to a relationship (‘How DARE you doubt me?!’) into an invitation to deeper connection.

Francis, of course, stressed this loving nature of divine mercy whenever he preached about the concept. “The mercy of God is not an abstract idea,” he stressed in his Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee of Mercy, “but a concrete reality with which he reveals his love as that of a father or a mother, moved to the very depths out of love for their child. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this is a ‘visceral’ love” (Misercordiae Vultus, no. 6, emphasis added). The readings for this Sunday remind us what Francis emphasized, namely that God feels our pain and thus reaches out in mercy and compassion, not condemnation.

Second, the readings remind us that God’s mercy is not merely a response to need but a truly a comprehensive response to whatever we lack. The Gospel showcases Jesus’s mercy on a spiritual level, with Jesus effectively putting the spiritual works of mercy on full display. He also directly offers his followers the forgiveness of their sins and instructs them to go out into the world to forgive others, in a passage understood to be the divine inauguration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1441). It is clear that mercy operates on a spiritual level.

At the same time, it is also clear in this Sunday’s readings that mercy is not confined to this spiritual plane alone. The first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, recounts the work Jesus’s disciples did in the earliest days of their ministry after Jesus’s ascension and focuses on the “many signs and wonders…done among the people at the hands of the apostles.” These signs included miraculous healings, prompting people from all around to bring “the sick and those disturbed by unclean spirits” to see the apostles who then cured them with the power of God.

The inclusion of these signs and wonders among the readings for Divine Mercy Sunday underscores that God’s mercy is a response to needs on all our human levels. Certainly, it includes the forgiveness of sins commonly associated with the term and fully on display in the Gospel, but it also includes a no less compassionate response to the physical needs that define our human existence as well. It is for this reason that the Church promotes the corporal works of mercy alongside the spiritual works—they are two sides of the same coin and together reveal the fullness of God’s mercy.

Francis, again, has reinforced this same message, pointing to the corporal works of mercy as self-evident goods for the faithful and describing them together with the spiritual works of mercy as the space where “we put our credibility as Christians on the line” (The Name of God is Mercy, 98, 99).

For this Divine Mercy Sunday, as we mourn the passing of the Holy Father, may we take inspiration from his work as a missionary of God’s mercy in the world and strive to appreciate the fullness of Divine Mercy so that we may better imitate this gift in our lives.

The White Lotus is a satirical comedy-drama television series intended for mature audiences. The third season was set at an upscale resort and spa in Thailand, and like previous seasons it juxtaposes scenes of magnificent natural beauty with examples of human opulence tinged with melancholy and even misery. Each character is, in their own way, in a period of discernment. They are making choices that reinforce their understanding of who they are, what really matters in life, and what their future should hold.

Ignatius of Loyola (d. 1556) was a Spanish saint and the founder of the Society of Jesus. His Spiritual Exercises are a classic text in Christian spirituality because they have helped so many spiritual seekers across five centuries. The exercises lead a pilgrim through reflection across different thematic weeks and ever closer to a direct experience of God and to greater self-awareness. In this reflection I will focus only on a narrow slice of this wisdom tradition: Ignatius of Loyola’s account of the rules for discernment of spirits. There he talks about a “good angel” and an “evil one” who present competing narratives in our inner spiritual lives. The task of spiritual growth is a process of recognizing these competing narratives and choosing the good over the evil. Ignatius sees the human person on a journey to God, which involves increasing awareness of and acceptance of the good in one’s life. But “the enemy” provides constant disinformation, doubt, and distortions that make “bad” actions look “good.” Importantly, one need not believe in a “devil” to see the value of Ignatian reflections on discernment. If the language of “evil spirit” trips you up, consider the language of “inauthentic voice” or “lie” instead.

The enemy is accustomed ordinarily to propose apparent pleasure to those persons who go from mortal sin to mortal sin. He thus causes them to imagine sensual delights and pleasure in order to hold them more and more easily and to increase their vices and sins. The good spirit acts in these persons in a contrary way, awakening the conscience to a sense of remorse through the good judgment of their reason.

St. Ignatius Loyola

As viewers see the luxurious linens, gorgeous views, and fine dining of the resort & spa, it is easy to see how “sensual delights and pleasure” draw one in and distract from the proddings of conscience. Now, to be sure, a beautiful beach isn’t evil, nor is the enjoyment of a cocktail with one’s family while on vacation. But Mike White seems to enjoy poking fun at the ways that wealthy Americans like Veronica Ratliff (played by Parker Posey) can live in such a bubble of affluence and creature comforts that they become disconnected from the world around them and even from the signs of distress within their own family. “I just don’t think at this age, I’m meant to live an uncomfortable life. I don’t have the will,” she says. And what she doesn’t know is that she is not as wealthy as she thinks she is. Somehow this becomes both hilarious and deeply sad for the viewer. Since her entire identity is rooted in her social privilege, Veronica doesn't seem to have the skills of navigating the difficult days in her future. “We’re lucky,” she tells her daughter in the final episode. “No one in the history of the world has lived better than we have.” And does this lead Veronica to recognize the injustice of economic inequalities and the wealth gap? Does she soften a bit and begin to recognize the dignity of each person, including those most poor? Does she ask how she can use her considerable power to make the world a better place? Nope. Ignatius might say that her vices only increase as she remains in the hold of the “evil spirit.” Instead, Veronica explains, “The least we can do, is enjoy it!” And she does enjoy it, until she gets her phone back.

The contrary to the first rule takes place in those who earnestly strive to purify themselves from their sins, and who advance from good to better in the service of God our Lord. Then it is common for the evil spirit to cause anxiety and sadness, and to create obstacles based on false reasoning, through preventing the soul from making further progress.

St. Ignatius Loyola

Here Ignatius suggests that when one begins to try to seek the good, one will experience inner confusion and turmoil in part because of the work of the “evil spirit” creating obstacles. As Piper seeks spiritual awakening and Gaitok seeks to be a pacifist, both of them find anxiety, sadness, and obstacles. They find themselves in situations of desolation. But they are not alone. Most of the characters of The White Lotus experience desolation as a constant in their lives. Rick has an identity crisis and is unhappy even though his girlfriend Chelsea loves him unconditionally; Kate, Laurie, and Jaclyn are supposed to be friends but can’t be honest with each other; Timothy repeatedly imagines suicide as a way out of his financial problems and keeps stealing his wife’s medicine to dull his senses. These are not happy people.

I call desolation all that is contrary to the third rule, as darkness of the soul, turmoil of the mind, inclination to low and earthy things, restlessness resulting from many disturbances and temptations which lead to loss of faith, loss of hope, and loss of love. It is also desolation when a soul finds itself completely apathetic, tepid, sad, and separated as it were…. One who is in desolation must strive to persevere in patience, which is contrary to the vexations that have come upon him.

St. Ignatius Loyola

If they had heeded the advice of Ignatius in these moments of desolation, they wouldn’t make any major changes but would rather proceed in further prayer, meditation, frequent examinations, and by increasing their penance in some suitable manner. If only Rick had just had patience, Ignatius says, he wouldn’t have set in motion his own downfall. But in The White Lotus, desolation is not a time to slow down and meditate. There are exceptions – Rick’s awareness when partying with Frank; Chelsea’s fidelity to Rick; Laurie’s tears; Amrita’s accompaniment of her clients; Belinda’s future planning with Mook. In these cases we see breakthrough moments of vulnerability and opportunities for authentic connection. But they are, within this fictional universe, very short-lived. The “good angels” are in a fierce spiritual battle.

Perhaps the wisest critique Ignatius offers pertains to the dangers of secrecy. Secrecy and shame function together in this third season—whether in regard to Jaclyn and Valentin’s hookup, Belinda’s negotiating with Greg via Zion, Saxon and Lochlan’s secret, Laurie and Gaitok’s discovery of Valentin’s friends’ exploits, or Timothy’s shame spiral. Ignatius describes the enemy as like a “false lover who wishes to remain hidden and does not want to be revealed.” The evil spirit is empowered by silence and secrecy but threatened by transparency because “he cannot succeed in his evil design once his obvious deceits have been discovered.”

As we sit on our couches watching the drama unfold, we may feel grateful if our own lives don’t seem so screwed up. But many viewers may nevertheless recognize aspects of the characters’ hopes, dreams, virtues, and vices in their own lived realities. I know I certainly saw the escape into such a luxurious resort as appealing. I found myself charmed by Chelsea and repulsed by Saxon. But then even Saxon begins a slow awakening. His former self would have been shocked to see him reading a book on vacation. The writing is clever and the pressure builds slowly as the season moves forward. While there is plenty of “sin” or “evil” to note, there is also growth and discernment.

Is there hope? As Belinda and Zion zoom away from the resort, is anyone better off than they were at the beginning? I won’t speak for Mike White or others – but I do see glimpses of our better angels in this season’s drama, although it is certainly not a happy ending. Kate, Laurie, and Jaclyn are finally able to be real with one another. Gary/Greg didn’t entirely escape responsibility for his wrongdoing in season two. Timothy doesn’t kill himself, and finally begins to come clean. We are left with the reality of consequences for past actions – and yet also glimpse that the past does not always define the future. We see that people are complicated and that decisions are rarely a decision between one purely evil option and one purely good option. The moral life is messy and complex, and our theological and pastoral vocabulary shoud make room for those realities.

When the enemy of our human nature has been detected and recognized by his deceptions and by the bad end to which he leads, it is well for the person who has been tempted to examine afterward the course of the good thoughts that were suggested to him. Let him consider their beginning and how they enemy contrived little by little to make him fall from the state of sweetness and spiritual light that he was enjoying, until he finally brought him to his perverse designs. With the experience and knowledge thus acquired and noted, one may better guard himself in the future against the customary deceits of the enemy.

St. Ignatius Loyola

Like Ignatius, I affirm a growth ethic. I want to believe that the characters, broken as they are, and in the midst of the messiness they have created, will be able to reflect in some way on what they can learn if they seek to grow in authenticity and true freedom in the future. Some won’t bother to try. But after watching the good angel in battle with the evil spirit throughout the course of the third season, maybe viewers can begin to think about how in our own lives we need to pay more careful attention to ways that we can guard ourselves in the future against those inner voices that confuse and undermine our ability to see the good. As Ignatius says, our inner spirits must “be very carefully examined before they are given full approval, and are put into action.”

Imagine standing in front of Jesus and feeling seen–completely, perfectly, and fully. His eyes pierce, all-knowing and completely loving. He sees and knows your heart’s pains, sufferings, joys, and wonders in a way you cannot even grasp yourself. How glorious and terrifying, to imagine eyes that see beyond the walls put up to defend one’s heart from being known too well into the sin and suffering beyond. Yet what a gift it would be to be gazed into, seen and known, and simultaneously be wrapped in the mantle of being deeply loved. 

The encounter between Christ and the rich young man–in which Jesus answers the rich young man’s questions about how to earn eternal life with a penetrating gaze–serves as the introduction to Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on moral theology, Veritatis Splendor. Setting out to “write an Encyclical with the aim of treating ‘more fully and more deeply the issues regarding the very foundations of moral theology,’” John Paul II chooses to begin with a biblical meditation (no. 5). He spends the first section of the encyclical with an exegesis of Matthew 19:16-26 that reads like the fruit of lectio divina, foregrounding an encounter with the person of Jesus as both the basis for the encyclical and for moral theology as a whole. Amidst the tumultuous debates on freedom, conscience, truth, proportionalism, and other hot-button issues, John Paul II’s framing of moral theology indicates that all good moral theology must flow from an encounter with Jesus. 

For those who struggle with eating disorders, being seen is often a major hurdle–seen physically in the body in which one moves through the world, and seen with the wounds that drive and arise from living with an eating disorder. In addition, guilt and shame often weigh heavy on the consciences of those who struggle with eating disorders and disordered eating–not only because of the size or shape of their bodies, but because of their eating choices. There are moral valences associated with eating–resisting fatty, sugary foods is “good” while “caving” and ordering a burger instead of a salad is “bad.” People with eating disorders often have rules around eating, identifying foods based on the aforementioned categories of good and bad, and their own goodness and badness is to some degree connected to the choices they make about what to eat. Eating “well” in a way that makes them “good” means avoiding fat, sugar, “splurges,” or foods that delight the taste buds. They may or may not enjoy moments of deprivation, but the guilt of eating “badly” or binging and purging is a weight they would rather not carry, and so they consume far too few calories or battle their desire for particular foods. What is it, then, to “be good” and “eat well” where food is concerned, and how is this connected to their goodness as a person? 

The rich young man asks a similar question, rooted not in food-rules but in moral codes. Having followed all of the rules laid out for him, the rich young man approaches Jesus and asks him what good he must do to earn eternal life (Mt 19:16). Jesus’ initial response is that only God is good, and that following the commandments are the way to heaven (19:17). However, the young man inquires again–he says that he has followed the rules of God established by the commandments. He desires perfection. The rich young man realizes that rules are not sufficient to earn perfection, much like someone on the road to eating disorder recovery. Eating “healthy” or “all the right things” is not enough to build a robust life, even if it keeps one’s weight in check or body the particular shape one prefers. One longs to be known and loved, at peace with one’s self. The anxiety, fear, and control that weight, food choices, and calories exert consume one’s focus, energy, and life. But Christ sees beyond that–when he looks at the rich young man, the Greek verb used in Scripture points to a manner of seeing that functions not to observe one’s physical characteristics, but rather to gaze into the heart. This is the same way of seeing that Jesus employs when he gazes upon St. Dismas on the cross, the gaze that sees beyond the appearance of a thief being tortured on the cross for his sins into his heart which recognizes Christ as the one whose own tortuous death will save the world. Like Dismas, the rich young man knows who Jesus is: he kneels before him, something no one else does in Scripture prior to the Resurrection, and he calls Jesus “good”–something used to describe God alone in the Jewish world. Jesus loves him for his faith and for the state of his heart, as he loved Dismas and as he loves each person striving to know and love him today. This way of knowing a person, and the love that underpins it, is the same knowing gaze that Christ offers those who struggle with eating disorders. He sees the degree to which people struggle with food, eating, and exercise. What may appear normal or in-control on the outside, Christ sees through. He sees the suffering, the wounds, the desire to be free, and all that people are ashamed and afraid of, and he gazes at them with love and responds. He becomes the “living and personal Law” (no. 15) that they are striving to find and follow through an intricate series of rules–food-wise, and otherwise.

In response to the rich young man’s query, Jesus tells the young man that there is only one thing left for him: to sell all the possessions to which he is attached, giving what he is concerned about to the poor, and to follow Jesus. In making this request, Jesus is asking the rich young man to walk away from what was societally perceived as indicators of his goodness and worthiness in the eyes of God. Those who were rich in Jesus’ time were understood to be blessed by God; the poor and ill were therefore being punished by God for their sin or the sin of their parents. Jesus shatters this theology, asking the rich young man to walk away from what offers him status and affirms his goodness and shocking those who hear by saying it is easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus reinforces that no one can earn heaven; Jesus makes heaven possible by the gift of his life. We “earn” heaven not by what we do, but by receiving what Jesus wants to offer us. While riches offer independence, those without monetary riches rely on God for their daily bread and others for help. Material riches often encourage pride coupled with self-sufficiency, making it difficult to receive anything–including what God wants to offer us–or to be served. When Jesus looks into the rich young man’s heart, he sees what he loved: his wealth. Likewise, Jesus looks into each of our hearts, and the hearts of those who struggle to have a healthy relationship with food, eating, or exercise, and sees what we love while loving what he sees: us. Whatever it is that we love most in the world, Jesus wants us to sacrifice it for him. His encounter with the rich young man calls us to gaze honestly into our own hearts and identify what we love most and offer it to him out of love. This is the response of love to love, and one of the gifts we are called to receive is the strength we need from God to do this. Receiving the gift of God’s love by allowing Jesus to look into our hearts and offering that to which we are most attached–including eating “rules,” a desire to be a particular clothing size or number on the scale, an exercise routine that binds–is a terrifying proposition that will not only heal, but help set us onto the path that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven via an encounter with Christ, the Law that is living and personal.

Megan Heeder is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Scranton.

All the readings for the Fourth Sunday of Lent may be found here on the USCCB website.

• Joshua 5:9-12

• Psalm 34:2-7

• 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

• Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

The reading from Joshua and the reading from Luke move in very different directions.   The first line from Joshua about God having removed “the reproach of the Egyptians”  refers to what preceded; the Israelites crossed the Jordan with the Ark, stopped at Gilgal, made flint knives, and circumcised all the men who had not been circumcised in Egypt or in the wilderness, thus drawing a sharp line between the degradations of slavery and their new status as a free people, in covenant with God. 

This circumcision also functions, in a way, rather like the bar mitzvah that their descendants will observe marking the transition from childhood to an adult relationship with and responsibility to the Torah.  The first thing they do, after taking a couple of days to heal up, is to celebrate the Passover, commemorating how God freed them, and set them on the way to becoming the great nation that he had promised to make them.   Immediately after the Passover, there is another change in their status, equally stark, but entirely practical.  Since the first exhilarating, terrifying days of freedom, they had been fed by God.  The daily provision of manna was central to the wilderness experience -- a forty year boot camp in radical trust and obedience.  Now that period of preparation is over, and they are ready to begin their mission of becoming a holy nation that makes God’s nature manifest to the world.  And now the manna ceases.  God has delivered the land of Canaan to them and now they have to eat from its yield – figure out how to plan, sow, cultivate, harvest, store, how to take responsibility for their own nourishment.   

The story from the Gospel is on a very different scale – not a grand tale of national destiny and identity, but an intimate family story.  And the direction of the narrative is entirely different.  The younger son, evidently, has experienced his status in the family as oppressive, confining, holding him back from all the possibilities that life has to offer. He pushes and demands his way into adulthood, insisting that he is ready for freedom, self-determination.  Of course it turns out he is no such thing.   He follows every whim, makes no plans, takes no responsibility, blows through what his father gave him, until events overtake him and he finds himself helpless and destitute.   Only then does he realize that the sonship that he thought was servitude, cramping his freedom, was in fact a stable, generous provision without which he cannot survive, let along flourish.  He turns back to the dependence that, in his arrogance, he had despised and rejected, and finds not just what he needs to survive, but the full embrace of love, forgiveness and belonging.  

So we have a story in which God withdraws the provision of food, and ushers his people into adult work, independence and responsibility, and a story in which God welcomes a child back into dependence with a banquet to which the child contributed nothing.  What can we make of that? The Psalm gives one hint – once which we barely need  - that what we rejoice to taste is not just food, but the goodness of God.  Paul takes it further.  The goodness of God - manifest in the liberation of the Hebrews from slavery, in the fulfillment of his promise of the land, in the father’s welcome and forgiveness of his prodigal son – is, finally, reconciliation, the healing of the relationship that was ruptured by sin.  This reconciliation is not something we can accomplish – all the son could do by himself is to creep home and hope his father will give a job; it is the father who sees him and runs to him and embraces him and obliterates his shame and alienation in feasting and music and celebration.  As Paul says, twice, it is God who, through Christ, reconciles us, who reconciles the world, to himself.  This is the dynamic of Luke.  But Paul also says, twice, that God gives us the ministry of reconciliation, entrusts to us the message of reconciliation.   As with the Israelites in Joshua, he treats us as adults - dependent, yes, but not helplessly, childishly passively so – but rather as partners, with agency, capable of stepping into responsibility. 

This is one of the great mysteries of salvation history – precisely that God, whose will it is to save us,  chooses to do so through history – through covenant, through partnership.  He persists in involving us, honoring our freedom in all its brokenness, giving us responsibilities, cooperating with us, trusting us to do our part in working out our salvation, even though he knows we are not to be trusted. It is as perplexing as the father’s welcome of the prodigal was to his older brother.  And yet it is God’s way: to welcome us, to trust us and to give us a share in his work for our own reconciliation.  Everything is God’s, and yet, as the father tells his elder son “everything I have is yours.”

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 11

Second Reading – 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12

Gospel – Luke 13:1-9

The readings for today remind me of the theological notion of massa damnata. Prominently associated with St. Augustine and an integral part of some strands of Reformation theology (especially influencing John Calvin’s doctrine of double predestination), this principle proposes that humanity, in its collective sense, is rightly understood a “condemnable mass” in the aftermath of the Fall.

While there are Catholic critiques of simplistic interpretations of this idea, the notion is not incompatible with our faith. In fact, the assertion that humans stand in need of grace in the aftermath of original sin is a bedrock principle of our hope in the Cross and Resurrection. We can see scriptural resources for this understanding of humanity’s dependence on God’s saving grace in today’s readings.

The Gospel reading, for instance, offers some historical examples of people who suffered painful tragedies and challenges the assumption that these occurrences reflected an inordinate level of wickedness on the part of the victims. Jesus’s response to the self-assured distancing of saying, “they must have done something terrible to deserve it, whereas we are safe because we are good,” is a firm insistence that no one can be so righteous on their own. Sin persists, he makes clear, and repentance is required to be in right relationship with God once again.

In the second reading, St. Paul offers a similar cautionary tale, noting that even the Israelites who left Egypt under the intervention of God’s power in Passover still found themselves unworthy to enter the promised land. Lest anyone should miss the implications, St. Paul insists, “These things have happened to them as an example,” and explicitly warns, “whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall.”

Read in isolation, these two readings might spark a turn to despair, prompting us to ask in the famous words of the apostles, “who then can be saved” (Matthew 19:25)? The beauty of this week’s readings, however, is that these reminders of our fallenness are not presented to us in isolation. Instead, they come only after we have proclaimed as a community that “The Lord is kind and merciful” in our Responsorial Psalm.

The grounding for this conviction can be found in the first reading, which recounts Moses’s encounter with God in the burning bush. As their discussion ends, God famously proclaims the divine name as “I am who am,” defining God’s very identity in terms of relationships of fidelity: “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”

Scholars have various interpretations for the significance of this self-revelation of the divine name, but one of the crucial implications is God’s assurance of accompaniment. By saying I am the God of these relationships, not I was, God professes to be continually present to God’s people. Notably, this is a declaration that not only comes well after the Fall but one which also encompasses figures whose own histories are colored by their fallenness. The message is clearly that God does not abandon humanity, even when they stray (an interpretation reinforced by the subsequent story of Israel’s fraught relationship with God’s covenant).

Here, then, is a powerful Lenten message: Yes, we are fallen creatures and are rightly called to repentance. At the same time, God is present with us, exhorting us to follow this process of repentance and empowering the work of repentance with the gift of divine grace that is ever on offer. We can therefore turn to the Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as resources for our ongoing conversion because God has given us the grace to do so. We need not look at our sinfulness and despair; instead, we can honestly assess our fallen nature to avoid the dangers of relying on a false sense of self-righteousness and can put our trust in the conviction that the “Lord is [indeed] kind and merciful.”

The “preferential option for the poor” in Catholic social teaching holds a central place in the theological ethics of Pope Francis as well as the USCCB’s presentation of CST themes. In this (admittedly long) post, I’m going to trace this theme to its roots in Scripture, describe key touch points in the development of CST and Latin American liberation theology, explain how Pope Francis has revitalized this principle in his writings, and then apply this principle to the issue of immigration. I want to note that I’m drawing heavily from Donal Dorr’s analysis in Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Catholic Social Teaching (Orbis, 1992) and Evangelii Gaudium by Pope Francis. Living out the Catholic faith today means showing partiality for those who face dehumanizing poverty and an unjust immigration system.

Scriptural Foundations

Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutierrez explains that the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures “point the finger of blame at those responsible for the situation.” These passages “denounce the social injustice that creates poverty as contrary to the will of God and to the meaning of the liberative deed of God manifested in the exodus from Egypt” (Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, 238; he also takes up this theme in On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent).

Pope Francis draws on both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament in order to develop a biblical foundation for the preferential option for the poor in contemporary theological ethics. Pope Francis wrote in Evangelii Gaudium (187):

A mere glance at the Scriptures is enough to make us see how our gracious Father wants to hear the cry of the poor: “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them.” (Ex3:7-8).

For the pope, the whole Bible is “marked by God’s love for the weak and abused of human history.” The message of the Bible is that everyone is precious in God’s eyes. In turning to the New Testament, the pope draws on both the teachings of Jesus as well as the actions of Jesus.

Pope Francis writes “God’s heart has a special place for the poor, so much so that he himself ‘became poor.’ (2 Cor 8:9). .. Salvation came to us from the ‘yes’ uttered by a lowly maiden from a small town on the fringes of a great empire. The Savior was born in a manger, in the midst of animals, like children of poor families; he was presented at the Temple along with two turtledoves, the offering made by those who could not afford a lamb; he was raised in a home of ordinary workers and worked with his own hands to earn his bread. When he began to preach the Kingdom, crowds of the dispossessed followed him, illustrating his words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Lk4:18). He assured those burdened by sorrow and crushed by poverty that God has a special place for them in his heart: “Blessed are you poor, yours is the kingdom of God” (Lk6:20); he made himself one of them: “I was hungry and you gave me food to eat,” and he taught them that mercy towards all of these is the key to heaven (Mt 25:5).” (EG 197).

Pope Francis continues: “If we, who are God’s means of hearing the poor, turn deaf ears to this plea, we oppose the Father’s will and his plan; that poor person “might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt (Dt 15:9). A lack of solidarity toward his or her needs will directly affect our relationship with God… The old question always returns: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods, and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? (1Jn3:17)” (EG 187)

For Pope Francis, the promise of Jesus is not just about eternal life. It is an invitation to struggle against hunger, poverty, weeping, and suffering. Jesus wants people to thrive in body, mind, and soul. Francis continues:

“The Good News is then made concrete in the other actions it proclaims: liberating captives, restoring sight to the blind, and bringing freedom to the oppressed…. Thus, the core of the Good News announced by the Messiah is liberation. The Reign of God, which is a Reign of Life, is not only the ultimate meaning of human history.” (248).

For Pope Francis, this requires human participation with God. Humans cannot be passive in the face of injustice. His ecclesiology is one of accompaniment and praxis rooted in Mark 6:37. Pope Francis writes:

“In this context we can understand Jesus’ command to his disciplines: ‘You yourselves give them something to eat!’ It means working to eliminate the structural causes of poverty and to promote the integral development of the poor, as well as small daily acts of solidarity in meeting the real needs which we encounter.” (EG 188).

So, then, upon this foundation of Scriptural analysis, we see the urgency in the pope’s tone and the challenge that this brings to Christians in an affluent context (like, for example, the United States of America in 2025). Before I move on, I think it is important to say that the moral tradition of the church has talked about poverty in a variety of ways. There are at least five different “senses” of poverty in the Christian tradition: material poverty, spiritual poverty, religious vows of poverty, material simplicity, and poverty of spirit. One can see from this list that some forms of poverty contain objective disvalue (e.g. material poverty, spiritual poverty), while others contain value (religious vow of poverty, material simplicity, poverty of spirit). This has been a source of confusion in discussing the “preferential option for the poor,” and so what I would like you to keep in mind is that the “preferential option for the poor” focuses on the material poverty, understood as an objective disvalue. Material poverty is when one does not have access to some or all of the goods needed to lead a dignified human life. Material poverty is one of the largest drivers of immigration today.

Latin American Liberation Theology

To understand Liberation Theology we need to recall the complicity of the Catholic Church in the colonization of Latin America (going back to the 15^th century). In the commercial and political expansion of European nations into Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the popes saw this as an opportunity for the Church to bring the gospel to other countries. Catholic missionaries traveled along with the merchants, soldiers, and colonists from Portugal and Spain. Theologian Donal Dorr explains that the Church gave little or no support to indigenous peoples struggling for independence in Latin America. While some Church leaders spoke out against the colonization policies of Portugal and Spain (including Bartholomew de las Casas’ attention to enslavement and forced conversions of indigenous people), there was little recognition among the popes of the time that the whole process of European colonization was morally repugnant (Dorr, Option for the Poor, 69). For example, popes Benedict XV and Pius XI both insisted that the sole concern of missionaries should be to gain souls and promote the glory of God. Both warned that clergy in Latin America should “never get involved in any of the political” issues and should exhort the people to faithfully obey the public authorities (Dorr 72).

This is the backdrop for the emergence of liberation theology. Sometimes Catholic leaders had sided with the elites and not the people who were struggling for political and economic liberation. Liberation theologians tried to initiate a shift in the church’s perspective to recover the gospel roots of Jesus’ mission and identify again with the poor and marginalized.

Catholic Social Teaching prior to Vatican II

In Rerum Novarum, the first social encyclical, Pope Leo XIII tried to direct the Church in taking a middle way between liberal capitalism and communism. He advocated for just treatment of workers and explicitly stated that the Church was on the side of the poor. He maintained that the State has a duty to protect workers against exploitation and to ensure just distribution of property and wealth. Leo encouraged Catholics to seek political change but only by legal means. On the positive side Pope Leo affirmed the need for humane treatment of workers. But to some degree he approved of the power of the rich over the poor, and did not see a need for major social transformation, focusing primarily on charity towards the poor. Forty years later, Pope Pius XI issued Quadragesimo Anno, which coined the phrase “social justice.” The pope writes:

“To each, therefore, must be given his own share of goods, and the distribution of created goods, which, as every discerning person knows, is laboring today under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back to and brought into conformity with the norms of the common good, that is, social justice.” (QA, 58)

Pius XI recognized in the 1950s that the colonial era was coming to an end but he worried for social stability. Dorr explains that there was a widespread assumption that once the young nations attained political independence they would become masters of their own economic destiny and could begin to catch up with industrialized countries. This assumption proved disastrously wrong because it failed to take into account the extent to which the wealthy nations controlled both the world market and the distribution of capital within formerly colonized nations. (Dorr, 110). In many respects we still see this pattern today.

Vatican II

Let’s jump ahead to the 1960s. Pope John XXIII was optimistic about the world and encouraged the Council fathers to pay attention to the signs of the times. The Council Fathers showed considerable concern about the problem of poverty on a global scale.

The document Gaudium et Spes, issued towards the end of the council, presents justice as central both to the issue of poverty and to that of peace. It calls for a change in international economic structures and stresses the right of the poor to share the earth’s goods.

In 1968 Latin American bishops gathered in Colombia for the Medellin conference (same year as Humanae Vitae). They pointed out the massive structural injustices in their part of the world and committed themselves to giving effective preference to the poorest and most needy sectors of society. They wrote about the need to be in solidarity with the poor and marginalized and advocated for “conscientization” of the poor to educate the poor to an awareness of the causes of the marginalization they experience. The bishops advocated peaceful means of working for justice. Some Catholics became worried that the Latin American bishops were going to advocate for violent popular uprisings inspired by Marxist ideology. John Paul II traveled to Mexico for the Puebla conference in 1979, where he challenged an understanding of Christ as political revolutionary but still advocated for solidarity with the poor.

Gustavo Gutierrez

Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian theologian who died in 2024, was one of the fathers of Latin American Liberation Theology, and his work has been deeply influential on Pope Francis. Through his work with the poor he became more aware of the structural injustices in Peruvian life and became convinced that the Church needed to respond, not simply by affirming God’s love for the poor, but by helping to transform the society and by actively working with the poor to eliminate poverty.

Gutierrez was criticized for relying on Marxist social analysis. He has defended his reflections, saying that Marxist thought influenced him but not because he sees the world only through the lens of class struggle. Rather, Marxist thought, like liberation theology, focuses on praxis. “Doing theology” does not simply mean that we think about God, but instead implies a lifestyle, a way of discipleship. Gutierrez criticizes “armchair theology” (343) and says that to really do liberation theology one must struggle with the poor for liberation from oppression. “Theology of liberation offers us not so much a new theme for reflection as a new way to do theology” (343). “This is a theology which does not stop with reflecting on the world, but rather tries to be part of the process through which the world is transformed.” (343).

Gutierrez wrote, in 1971: “Ultimately, poverty means death. Food shortages, housing shortages, the impossibility of attending adequately to health and educational needs, the exploitation of labor, chronic unemployment, disrespect for human worth and dignity,… the lot of the poor, in a word, is suffering.” (236). How little has changed! Today we continue to face these same social problems, not just in the US but all around the world.

For Gutierrez, the experiences of material deprivation raise questions for the Church’s theology. How can the Church offer a message of hope to those who live in extreme poverty? And how can the Church itself stand up against injustices instead of becoming complicit in injustices? Material poverty is devastating, humiliating, and dehumanizing. Gutierrez says it is essential that Christians begin to analyze and denounce the structural causes of the injustice and oppression. Taking sides is important. God takes sides, and so should we.

Preferential Option for the Poor

The preferential option for the poor is now a central principle in Catholic social teaching. It means that preference should be given to those in most need. This is not “optional” for Christians.

A “preferential” option for the poor does not mean that some are excluded from God’s love. It means instead that some, in light of their condition of suffering, should be given first priority. “It simply points to who ought to be the first—not the only—objects of our solidarity,” writes Gutierrez. (239).

Think of a mother with two children, one of whom tested positive for Covid and feeling the effects of the fever and body aches. The six year old, who isn’t sick, wants his mother’s attention. He wants her to read him a book, to play with him. She must tell him that because his younger brother is sick, she cannot read him a book right now, or play with him. This doesn’t mean she loves her sick child more. Rather, she loves them both, but must give preference to the sick child.

Liberation theologians have argued that theology must be done from the perspective of the poor. Pope Francis focuses on accompaniment of the poor, and the need to understand poverty from the perspective of those who suffer. This focus on immersion and listening is a hallmark of his papacy. In the same way that Gutierrez rejects “armchair” theology and affirms the need to get involved in the praxis of liberation, Pope Francis tells readers of Evangelii Gaudium that faith is not “private” (183).

So how has this principle of the preferential option for the poor been employed in contemporary ethics? It is one of the central frames of argument in Laudato Si, where the pope writes about the reality of climate change and the importance of environmental justice. It has been invoked in the argument against the death penalty in the United States. It has been invoked in a call to end homelessness, as well as the USCCB platform on debt forgiveness. In Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops write:

“A special emphasis must be given to the Church’s preferential option for the poor. While the common good embraces all, those who are weak, vulnerable, and most in need deserve preferential concern. A basic moral test for any society is how it treats those who are most vulnerable.” (FCFC, no. 53, with citation to CCC, no. 2448).

The Migrant Crisis Today

How might we apply the preferential option for the poor to immigration today? In his 1963 encyclical, Pacem in Terris, Pope John XXIII said that “the fact that one is a citizen of a particular state does not detract in any way from his membership in the human family as a whole, nor from his citizenship in the world community.” (par. 25). What powerful words in our own context! The pope’s argument here invites all of us to consider our common humanity as prior to any identification of national identity, citizenship, or social location. So often this kind of analysis is written off as idealistic rhetoric that fails to take into consideration the reality of contemporary nation-states. But those nation-states were constructed by humans in particular historical contexts, with particular histories of power and narratives of control. We should do better.

In 2003, the United States Conference of Bishops issued a joint statement with the Mexican bishops on migration. That statement is called Strangers No Longer. There, the bishops tell the story of Jose Luis Hernandez Aguirre. In doing so, they employ the category of the “preferential option for the poor,” by demonstrating that poverty has a human face and that material poverty is dehumanizing.

In Strangers No Longer, the bishops explained that people have a right to migrate, and that this right must be honored even as nation-states have the responsibility of controlling borders. But the anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies of the second Trump term do not recognize that people have a right to migrate. Into this current political crisis, bishops are speaking up.

SEDAC (Secretariado Episcopal de America Central) issued a pastoral letter “He Saw Them, He Drew Near to Them, & He Cared For Them” to demonstrate support for the ongoing pastoral work of local churches as they respond to the migrant crisis in 2025. The bishops acknowledge that the causes of this migration are many and complex: “social and political instability, inequality and poverty, and lack of access to basic rights such as dignified work, education, housing, drinking water, and health.” (2). They cite an international report on poverty which estimates that “201 million people did not have enough income to cover their basic needs, including 80 million people whose income was less than the value of a basic food basket,” in 2023 (3).

The bishops condemn deterrence policies that violate human rights. “It is important to understand the deadly costs of these deterrence policies and their increasing use throughout our region, to analyze them in light of the demands of the Gospel and to ask how our community of faith should respond to the pain and death they inevitably bring.” (28). Let me restate that. The bishops condemn deterrence policies advocated by the current Trump administration.

The pastoral letter invokes the option for the poor explicitly: “We know that the preferential option for the poor is implicit in the Christological faith in the God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty (Apericida, 392), and we wish to reaffirm the preferential option for the poor and excluded, which should permeate all evangelizing action and the entire life of the Church. Therefore, we, the border Bishops and Bishops responsible for ministry with those who migrate in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, raise our voices in union with the many pastoral efforts carried out historically in our different countries on behalf of those who migrate, refugees, internally displaced persons and survivors of trafficking.”

Their plea is that this work of accompanying the migrant not be delegated to border communities. “This work can no longer be the responsibility of a few professionals or of traditionally assigned structures, nor only of border dioceses. Now it must be a response that comes from the entire People of God, an invitation to every diocese, every ministry, every parish and every member of the church.” (65).

The US Catholic bishops have also called for a series of reforms to the broken US immigration system. These include: policies to address the root causes of migration, such as poverty; reform of our legal immigration system, including an earned legalization program and temporary worker program with appropriate worker protections and greater efficiency in handling family-based cases; and restoration of due process for migrants. In Forming Consciences, the US Bishops demanded that Catholic voters “continue to oppose policies that reflect prejudice, hostility toward immigrants, religious bigotry, and other forms of unjust discrimination.” (FCFC, 92).

David Remnick writes in the March 10 edition of The New Yorker that in the second Trump term, “each day is its own fresh hell, bringing ever more outrageous news from an autocrat who revels in his contempt for the government he leads, for the foreign allies who deserve our support, and for the Constitution he is sworn to uphold.” Advocating for the preferential option for the poor could not be more important. The flurry of executive orders has been difficult even to follow (see this list from ProPublica). Trump’s radical reset of immigration policies deserves strong rebuke from faithful Catholics.

Resistance to the Trump administration's inhumane immigration policies can take many forms. But if you are not resisting, you are complicit. Each of us must discern in our own lives how best to live out our faith commitments. You can learn about organizations making a difference by going here, here, and here. But I want to reiterate that in church teaching, the option for the poor is “not optional.” If we fail to advocate for those who face material poverty and unjust immigration policies, we have failed in the practice of our Catholic faith.

Vatican City is beautiful.

An easy first claim, but part of what the film does well is to show the grandeur of the Vatican. The architecture, art, and costuming express the beauty and rich traditions of Catholicism. In the hands of cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine there are some spectacular shots. The Church is big on tradition, and the emotive experience of watching the film is one of appreciation for the ways in which the Church creates and sustains beautiful places, places that enable us to feel rooted in a tradition and all of its smells and bells and gorgeous linens.

The Church is a sexist institution.

What may seem subtle to some viewers was particularly striking for me. The women religious are working behind the scenes in roles of hospitality --conforming to gender stereotypes that continue to be promulgated in official church teachings--while the clergy are in position of actual power and decision-making about the future of the church. It is painful when characters within the film assume that women exist to serve men's needs (sexually or otherwise), and to see men who benefit when women are kept in subservient roles. While there is creativity in how some women use power within patriarchal systems, demonstrated in the film when Sister Agnes (played by Rossellini) collaborates with Cardinal-Dean Lawrence (Fiennes), she does not do so as his equal, and women do not vote within the conclave itself. In a key scene, Sister Agnes has to remind the churchmen that God also gave women eyes and ears. Though these aren't currently the body parts that make one eligible for ordination in the church, perhaps change will come eventually. While the final scene with laughing nuns certainly ends positively, I see this more as an end to the immediate drama than peace-resulting-from-justice.

Holiness and sin go hand-in-hand.

Much of the commentary I've seen focuses on the ways in which influential cardinals within the film try to advocate for their favorite candidates to the papacy. Some of this falls along the existing fault lines of Catholic ideologies: Bellini is the Western white liberal; Adeyemi represents socially conservative African values; Tremblay wants a status-quo conservatism; and Tedesco wants to roll back reforms initiated by Vatican II. Everyone thinks they are right, and that the Holy Spirit is on their 'side,' and this gives them license to use their power to shape what they think is the best outcome. Without going into too many spoilers here, I'll just say that the portrait of power-hungry clerics feels right. I've met and been mentored by many holy priests whose ministries inspire selfless love and commitment to the gospels. But this doesn't describe all people who are ordained or who have taken religious vows. My experience of the church is that there are a lot of very good people and sometimes there are assholes too. The call to be holy is a call to all of us, but ordination is not a magical blessing that makes someone perfect. We know that the Curia needs reforming. We know that power corrupts and that the laity have for some time sought additional mechanisms of oversight and control over diocesan budgets, but most lay leaders are only in advisory roles. As someone who is lay and outside of those power structures, one of the things that felt most realistic about the film was the behind-the-scenes conflicts (both personal and inter-personal) between our human potential for goodness and our human proclivity to sinfulness.

Sexuality is complicated.

The movie has a twist. I won't go into details except to say that I thought it was effective. Having recently listened to the podcast Tested, which describes differences of sex development and explains ongoing impacts to international athletics, the fact that the film takes up the question of intersex identity and the potential impact to church teachings and practices didn't strike me as a crazy plot twist. Instead, the piece that resonated with me the most was the wise counsel of Benitez who "exists between the world's certainties." In his speech about terrorism, Benitez speaks from experience about the horrors of war and demonstrates the flaws of an "us versus them" ideology. Benitez becomes an internal correcting influence because of the value of wisdom from lived experience. The implications for ecclesial conversations about sexuality are provocative -- what corrections are needed, and whose lived experiences should be centered so that the church can engage in that self-correction?

The Church moves slower than the turtles.

My favorite ecclesial symbol within the film is when the cardinal rescues the slow-moving and confused turtle. I'm middle aged now, and one very real possibility that I see is that I will die before women are treated as equal to men in all aspects of canon law and church governance. The church moves so slowly. The hard shell of the turtle symbolizes protection and the turtle's long life span points to wisdom-keeping and endurance. These are true also of the church. But in the film the turtle escapes and ends up confused, so Cardinal Lawrence has to rescue it. This has been his role for the duration of the film, and he rescues the last turtle with care. There's a playfulness to this symbol. It invites each of us to care for the confused and slow turtle. When the turtle/church goes astray, which it is prone to do, use whatever power you have to lead it back home.

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 & 6

Second Reading – 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20

Gospel Reading – Luke 6:17, 20-26

The theme of hope is certainly prominent in this Sunday’s readings, with a detailed exposition of the question in what (or whom) we should put our hope. This question, especially, seems particularly poignant—almost painfully so—for our present moment.

Consider the opening contrast in the first reading, which compares “the one who trusts in human beings” with “the one who trusts in the Lord.” The former, Jeremiah insists, is “cursed” while the latter is “blessed…like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: it fears not the heat when it comes…but still bears fruit.”

The message is that putting all one’s hope in the works of human beings inevitably leads to disappointment, but drawing one’s hope from the Lord allows one to persevere even through “the year of drought.” I know that for many the current moment feels like a year of drought both literally (think wildfires decimating homes after drought created the conditions for conflagration) and figuratively (as once reliable sources of support like US foreign aid dry up). If our sole source of hope is the benevolence of human beings, the vagaries of that benevolence confirm that such hope is in vain.

Christian faith offers a response to these (and any other) moments of anguish, with St. Paul pointing to the resurrection as the fundamental reminder of where Christian hope can be found. “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,” St.  Paul warns, “we are the most pitiable people of all,” because the goods of this life are always susceptible to destruction. But Jesus’s resurrection reassures the faithful that temporal goods are not the only, nor even most important, goods we seek. On the contrary, we are called to yearn for the ever greater goods that are found in union with God.

Of course, none of this is to say that we should give up on earthly projects that would counteract suffering and improve the lot of human beings now while we turn our attention to the afterlife. Liberation theologians, such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, rightly pointed to the hypocrisy of using Christianity’s hope in the resurrection of the body to ignore the plight of the body in this world. The long tradition of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, meanwhile, demonstrates that the fundamental Christian call to love one’s neighbor cannot be fulfilled by simply telling those in need that things will “get better” in the next life. Jesus’s disciples have a real duty to make sure that things get better now too.

This duty is implicit in the framing of the blessings and woes (Luke’s version of the Beatitudes) found in the Gospel reading for today. While many of the blessings point toward a future reward—for example, the hungry are assured “you will be satisfied” and the weeping are consoled with the guarantee that “you will laugh”—the first blessing is tellingly communicated in the present tense. “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.” The tension between the already and not yet of Christianity’s eschatology facilitates this present tense translation, asserting that the kingdom is a reality now even as its fulfillment is still yet to come.

How can all this be true in practice? How can the poor have the kingdom of God (and, relatedly, the rich “have received your consolation”) now even as the sufferings associated with poverty persist? How can we be called to turn from a hope in the inconsistencies of human benevolence toward a lasting hope in God without abandoning the work of aiding those in need?

The answer seems to depend on our ability to see our hope in God as the source of our motivation to do the work necessary to bring hope now to those who need our help. If we place our fundamental, existential, hope in God and then use that hope to inspire our work for love and justice, for example, we will not despair when humanity’s sinfulness—in both its personal and structural manifestations—stand in our way, and we will continue that work and find ways to bear fruit even in the year of drought.

It seems quaint to remember that in January of 2020, Archbishop Gomez thought it was a good idea to scold Catholic president Joseph Biden on the basis of what Gomez described as the “preeminent priority” of abortion. As I argue in my book, Catholic bishops’ focus on overturning Roe v. Wade and elevating abortion politics as the guiding feature of Catholic political work cemented the US bishops with partisan interests and allies so focused on “protecting unborn life” that they ignored other threats to human dignity in our social fabric today. A hyperfocus on criminalizing abortion gave preachers easy talking points in which they could argue that abortion was the preeminent issue for voters, implying for voters that a vote for Trump was morally virtuous despite the overwhelming evidence that the Republican party’s platform did not align with Catholic teachings regarding anti-racism, care for prisoners, the dignity of immigrants and refugees, economic justice, health care, and more. The Trump plan is not about building bridges or respecting the law. It is about destroying the very scaffolding of public order and justice.

Where was the USCCB outcry after the Republican convention last summer when voters held up signs saying “Mass Deportation Now”? Where was the USCCB outcry as Trump celebrated blocking the bipartisan immigration/borders bill in February 2024? Where was the USCCB outcry as Trump repeatedly lied on the campaign trail? Where is a statement by the USCCB defending the role of the media and supporting a fair and free press? Where is a statement by the USCCB defending food programs, foreign aid, PEPFAR, USAID? Broglio doesn’t even try to scold Trump. He basically says that some executive orders will be good and some won’t. “It is our hope that the leadership of our Country will reconsider those actions which disregard not only the human dignity of a few, but of us all.” USCCB leaders could stand on the strength of the Catholic moral tradition's defense of human rights, economic justice, and commitment to a government that serves the common good. But they let themselves get distracted by thinking they needed to advocate for pro-Church "religious freedom" policies --policies that affirm their own power--instead of focusing on those who will be the victims of Trumpism 2.0.

Catholic bishops have enormous privilege both in the church and in society. But with that privilege comes great responsibility. Unfortunately, Barron, Broglio, and Dolan seem to care more about being buddies with the new dictator than critics of Trump’s explicitly racist, misogynist, and anti-immigrant agenda. They celebrate orders that they probably lobbied to secure – orders harming trans youth and public education. The people whom Trump has appointed to key positions do not demonstrate any awareness of the common good or the requirements of justice. We are heading for a constitutional crisis that could have been averted. We should not be surprised by the executive actions of this administration. Project 2025 was widely discussed for months.

I want to live in a country in which children have enough to eat, workers are paid fairly for their work, pregnant women feel well supported in making decisions in conscience, and everyone has access to education and safe neighborhoods and health care. Working together to mend the social fabric of the US is not an easy task. We need leaders willing to advocate for the long term common good. A strong leader in this context must publicly rebuke the Trump/Vance agenda that seeks to expand executive power, create disruption in markets, and cut programs that serve the poor. Any talk now is already too late, but we need to play catch up. Now is the time for bold critique of Trumpism 2.0.

St. Elizabeth of the Visitation

We learn about Elizabeth in the infancy narrative of the gospel of Luke. When Mary was pregnant and needed some girl time, she sought out the company of Elizabeth, with whom she stayed for three months. It was in the household of Elizabeth and Zechariah that Mary found welcome and concrete support. Elizabeth lives out the virtues of hospitality (opening her home to her friend) and solidarity (sharing in her friend’s troubles while actively committed to her holistic flourishing). Providing refuge, care, and nonjudgmental support, Elizabeth celebrates Mary’s visit with a Spirit-filled greeting. The circumstances of Mary’s unique pregnancy (unplanned and probably quite scary) become an opportunity for shared stories and blessings.

I wish Luke had told us more about their conversations. Did Elizabeth and Mary talk about their pregnancy symptoms—the fatigue, backache, body changes and hemorrhoids? Did they cook meals together, and share long talks around the wood stove at night? Perhaps they started nesting, gathering the linens that would be needed to swaddle their babies in only a few months’ time. We don’t have details. We do know, however, that their conversations provided such hope to Mary that she boldly proclaimed her Magnificat prayer, a prayer significant for what scholars describe as the “great reversal” motif of Luke’s gospel.

In this prayer form, Mary praises God who:

has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;

 [who] has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
    and lifted up the lowly;

  [who] has filled the hungry with good things,
    and sent the rich away empty.

(Lk 1:51b-53)

Not exactly the scene we saw in the Capitol Rotunda—where Trump was surrounded by some of the wealthiest leaders in the world. Elon Musk cheered as Trump discussed colonizing Mars, tech giants celebrated promises of so-called “free speech,” and politicians clapped as Trump promised mass deportations. Lord, have mercy.

Elizabeth of the Visitation is a reminder that God is not glorified in slogans such as “America First.” God is glorified when the vulnerable find refuge, the hungry have enough to eat, and the proud are scattered. God is glorified when we care for one another and treat one another with dignity and respect, no matter one’s race, gender identity, citizenship status, or other marker of identity.

In the latest issue of US Catholic, Jean P. Kelly profiles artist and iconographer Grace Morbitzer, detailing her creative process and her vision for an updated hagiography that can speak meaningfully to our spiritual questions and hopes today. One of my favorite icons cited there is the icon of Elizabeth and Mary hugging one another—eyes closed, serene smiles, a look of calm over them both. As they hold pictures of their ultrasounds, this updated icon invites us to consider the dangers pregnant people face today, and to consider what we can do to live in solidarity, practice hospitality, and foster reproductive justice.

St. Elizabeth invites us to discern how we might open our lives, our hearts, even our homes, to those who need refuge. The friendship between Elizabeth and Mary can teach us the importance of building strong support systems in our lives and of checking in on our loved ones in times of acute distress. Would your home be a destination for Mary today? What might we need to do to be sure that we are practicing hospitality in the way that Elizabeth models? Our churches, too, can be places of sanctuary and food distribution, if only Catholic communities had the will to follow the gospel instead of Trump.

St. Elizabeth of the Visitation, pray for us.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

Frances Xavier Cabrini—or Mother Cabrini, as she was called—founded the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who are committed “to bringing the reign of God’s love, compassion and reconciliation wherever we live and minister.” Their website explains that Frances Cabrini was born in a small village in Italy in 1850. In 1880 when she founded the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, she obtained an audience with Pope Leo XIII, who instructed her to travel to New York to help the population of Italian immigrants who struggled in the midst of poverty and other barriers.

In Quam Aerumnosa, the pope had written, in 1888:

“How sad and fraught with trouble is the state of those who yearly emigrate in bodies to America for the means of living is so well known to you that there is no need of us to speak of it at length… It is, indeed, piteous that so many unhappy sons of Italy, driven by want to seek another land, should encounter ills greater than those from which they would fly.”

What a startling description – and so relevant to the plight of migrants in Tijuana this morning and undocumented workers on US soil, in fear of threatened deportation and family separation. Lord, have mercy.

Mother Cabrini founded schools and orphanages to meet the needs of those most vulnerable. As her notoriety grew, she established schools, orphanages, and hospitals. When Columbus Hospital opened in Chicago in 1905, according to biographer Nick Ripatrazone, the featured speaker pointed to Mother Cabrini and said “And to whom do we owe this great work? To a little woman!”

In 1950, Pope Pius XII formally proclaimed St. Frances Xavier Cabrini as the “Patroness of Immigrants.” In his homily, Pope Pius XII said:

“She gathered endangered youth in safe houses, and taught them holy and rightful principles.   She consoled the spirit of the imprisoned, giving them the comfort of life eternal, and urging them to resume the right path and to remake an honest life. She consoled the sick and the infirm gathered in hospitals, and cared for them assiduously. Especially towards immigrants, who had left their own homes… did she extend a friendly hand, a sheltering refuge, relief and help.”

The contrast between President Trump and Mother Cabrini could not be more stark. On his road to reclaim the White House, Trump routinely called for mass deportations of undocumented persons, and instead of finding this a disqualifying and unethical stance—ethically, legally, politically—his base cheered. In his inaugural address yesterday, Trump complained that the US government “provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals” and “refuses to defend American borders.” In an executive order, Trump suspended the CPB One app, leading to greater confusion and chaos in an already unjust system. As my friend and colleague Meaghan Clark noted on social media, “this is cruel and cruelty is the point.”

In contrast, Pope Francis, in a letter to Sr. Barbara Staley, MSC, General Superior of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, affirmed care for immigrants as central to Christian discipleship when he wrote, “Catholics today cannot forget that [this] is the vocation of every Christian and of every community of the disciples of Jesus.”

Mother Cabrini’s life reminds us that living out the biblical commands to welcome the stranger (Deut 10:19, Lev 19:34, Rom 12:13, Mt 25; 1 Pet 4:9; Hb 13:2) are not hyperbole or peripheral/optional to Christian discipleship. Instead, we can and must collaborate to build institutions that foster justice and that refuse to exploit migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers. In fact, many amazing people are already doing this work—at Instituto Madre Asunta, Casa Del Migrante, Annunciation House, Kino Border Initiative, and more. To learn more about the theological claims that undergird this social justice work, see the recently published article by Kristin Heyer in America.

Mother Cabrini, pray for us.

In the next installment, I’ll focus on saints who challenge a gender binary and manifest destiny. But until then, may we be inspired by the leadership of St. Elizabeth and Mother Cabrini, asking the Spirit to illumine for us a way to live out our faith with hope and determination despite the many difficult challenges ahead.

All the readings for this Sunday deal with transformation in one way or another, and specifically the transformation God desires to bring about in his people and in all humanity. The dominant image is that of marriage, of authentic spousal love. In today’s world, the claim that “God loves us” can often seem like a pious cliché, or an empty tautology. Yet most in the ancient world would likely find the idea that God loves human beings either ridiculous or downright scandalous. “It seems almost blasphemous to say that God can love his creature,” writes Dominique Barthélemy in his book God and His Image. “How could such a crazy idea ever come forth from a human brain – that God loves his creature? We can imagine that his mercy should be poured out without limit, but that he loves…?”

Genesis seems to depict God as exhibiting a kind of parental or lordly love toward human beings, one capable of heartbreak and delight, but certainly nothing like passionate desire. Exodus, however, introduces the notion that Israel’s God is a jealous God, alongside the related comparison of idolatry to prostitution. This comparison of idolatry to prostitution is carried through the rest of the Torah and appears occasionally in the subsequent historical books, but it is left to the prophets of the kingdom period to fully develop the positive side of this negative image, and to flesh out its shocking implications for the nature of God's covenantal relationship with Israel.  

If infidelity to the covenant is like a form of prostitution, then fidelity must correlate to another form of erotic relationship, namely that of marriage. Marriage has certain similarities to the ancient “suzerain-vassal” covenant to which the Sinai covenant is most often compared by biblical scholars: they are both permanent, and establish an ongoing relationship that affects each party’s whole identity and self-understanding. Yet it is curious that at Sinai, the Lord characterizes the breaking of the covenant not as treason, but as prostitution. Taken in isolation, one could perhaps write off the choice of metaphor as merely a mode of expression, but prophets such as Jeremiah, Hosea, and Isaiah take it much more seriously than that, and so make it clear that it is much more than a literary device. Indeed, the erotic analogy points to the central mystery of the covenant, and for Christians to the very nature of who God is in himself: that while “God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being… this universal principle of creation—the Logos, primordial reason—is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love” (Deus Caritas Est 10).

And not only is this Being who encompasses all being a lover, but he seeks to become the spouse of the people he created. This metaphysical mystery begins to emerge with the prophet’s realization that the Lord is not content to let Israel prostitute itself to other gods and thereby settle for transactional, self-serving, and ultimately objectifying relationships to false gods. “For Zion’s sake I will not be silent,” we hear the Lord say in the first reading from Isaiah, “for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her vindication shines forth like the dawn.” The Lord seeks to save Israel from the self-destructive consequences of abandoning the true source of life-giving love, pursuing her in the desert as a spurned husband searches for his unfaithful bride, with a love he can neither forget nor renounce. He sees her wasting away in the impoverished and exploitative hovels of prostitution, and yet assures her she shall one day be “a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem held by your God.” She who is now called “Forsaken” and “Desolate” will be called “My Delight” and “Espoused.” “For the Lord delights in you and makes your land his spouse. As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.”

The spousal motif only intensifies throughout salvation history, culminating in the marriage of heaven and earth at the end of time. It is no coincidence, then, that Jesus begins his public ministry in John at a wedding. The public inauguration of the Kingdom of God in John is not the unveiling of a campaign slogan or political platform, but the facilitation of a wedding feast. And while it is all too easy to portray the transformation of the water into wine at Cana as simply an awe-inspiring miracle performed as a favor to help some friends who were at risk of social embarrassment, its character as a “sign” in John reminds us that it is meant to point beyond itself to a much greater reality. Just as the Lord sought to transform Israel from a desolate prostitute into a royal bride, so now he appears in human form to transform the water meant for ceremonial washing into the wine that can truly purify us from within and enable us to enter into the cosmic wedding feast God intended from the beginning. At this ordinary Jewish wedding between two human beings – whose names we are never told – Jesus begins to reveal himself as the true bridegroom of all humanity. And just as he provides the couple with the wine that will allow the celebration of their nuptial union to continue, so also will he provide the wine that points to – and indeed becomes – the self-offering of his body and blood consummating his spousal love for the human race.  

The transformation of the water into wine thus points to our own transformation in baptism into creatures who, through being conformed to Christ by participation in his death and resurrection, are made capable of receiving and sharing God’s own life - and not as mere vessels, but as spouses. Without effacing or distorting our humanity, the grace opened up to us through the opening of Christ’s body on the cross makes us into fundamentally different creatures, creatures with the capacity to be united to God in a way infinitely surpassing our material nature alone. In receiving this grace, we receive God’s own Spirit, and with this Spirit come “spiritual gifts” we could have never anticipated nor secured by our own efforts. The transformation of water into wine at Cana is therefore the first glimmer of that far more stark and marvelous transformation which occurs in us in the life of grace. That the first faint sign of this new way of life should involve wine at a wedding feast recalls us to the ultimate point and purpose of God's work in us: to transform us into spouses, into creatures who can enter in to that nuptial friendship which was God's intention from the beginning and which remains creation's ultimate goal.

Suzanne Mulligan situates reproductive justice in the context of violence against women and girls and the Church response. A key theme is that gendered violence is a structural issue, with traditional Church discourse falling short in addressing it; instead supporting and perpetuating existing unequal gendered systems that enable violence to flourish. There are various angles that Mulligan takes.

First, she addresses gendered stereotypes. Mulligan notes that ‘Cultural and religious norms often reinforce harmful gender stereotypes’ (20204: 149) including discourses that promote the idea of male sexual entitlement and not adequately penalising those committing acts of sexual violence. While men are deemed entitled to enact dominant roles, women instead are constructed in terms of subservience and marginality. This is mirrored in Catholic Church structures where women are not allowed to be ordained, with their participation constrained to supportive roles. A deeper focus on the explicit links between the reproduction of gendered stereotypes within the Church hierarchy would allow Mulligan to further the argument about the gendered power dynamics that she highlights. Tracy McEwan’s (2025) research on Catholic lay women indicates that those who work in Church contexts experience numerous gender injustices including abuse and harassment. Mulligan notes that a powerful policing mechanism is the esteemed value that is placed on virtues such as ‘obedience, docility and submissiveness’ (2024: 155) in the Church, which also mirrors McEwan’s latest research. This must be connected to the ways in which women’s roles are typically narrowly defined in terms of being good wives and mothers, often through the valorisation of conservative interpretations of the Virgin Mary. In our research, Pam Lowe and I coin the term ultra-sacrificial motherhood to depict a form of sacrificial motherhood that takes a more intense form in conservative Church contexts. We argue that:

[W]hen [ultra-sacrificial motherhood] takes Catholic forms, it manifests in particular ways, drawing on pertinent elements of Catholic theology—namely, the way the Virgin Mary is used as the emblem of goodness, yet her maternity is assured through no sexual contact. Furthermore, theological emphasis is placed on suffering and the gendering of suffering is connected to essentialised assumptions about women.

Page and Lowe 2024:252

Second, the Church often uphold gendered expectations within the female role models that they promote. Mulligan gives the example of Marie Clementine Anwarite who was murdered by soldiers in Zaire’s civil war, rather than being raped and revoking her virginity. It was her prioritisation of her virginity that was given as justification by Pope John Paul II for her canonization. Indeed, there are other examples connected to reproductive justice which mirrors this example, such as Gianna Beretta Molla who was canonised for prioritising the life of her prenate (Peters 2018) over her own, thereby endorsing tropes of ultra sacrificial motherhood. This indicates how the valorisation of stereotyped feminine behaviour constitutes a pattern in Church approaches.

Third, is the issue that Mulligan raises regarding how the Church does not promote the voices of survivors and lacks knowledge regarding the specifics of violence such as gynaecological injury, pregnancy and STIs. Indeed, more broadly, HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa is a gendered issue and Mulligan points out that most new HIV infections between those aged 15 to 19 occur among girls. This also needs to be analysed in relation to explicit Church policies – including the eschewal of barrier contraceptives such as condoms – that contribute to these gendered outcomes. A core issue that Mulligan raises is that there is a “culture of silence” (2024: 161) that minimises survivors’ voices, with the Church needing to do far more work to really listen to women’s lived experience. As Tina Beattie, Tracy McEwan and Kath McPhillips (2022: 4) found in their worldwide study of 17,200 Catholic women from 104 countries, “many women struggle to see the relevance of some church teachings to the complex realities of their lives” and that most survey participants are seeking reform within the Church.

Mulligan uses the example of Ireland, and the regimes of punishment enacted in the 20^th century for perceived sexual sin. The state and Church colluded in the implementation of Magdalene Laundries. This emphasises the important structural power imbalances when religious discourses and state priorities combine to create an all-encompassing culture of gendered control. Constructing the women in the Magdalene Laundries as “sinful” and “fallen” ensured that they were denied a public voice. As Chloe Gott’s (2022) research on the Magdalene Laundries indicates, even long after women left the Laundries, the way they had been constructed as fallen and sinful ensured that they often remained silenced, in some cases, not even disclosing their experience to their partners and children. The Magdalene Laundries offer an exemplar case of the Church and State regulation and control of women’s bodies, enabled, as Mulligan notes, with the complicity of broader society, including other women.

A way forward that Mulligan outlines is to envisage a new virtue ethics, which promotes various values including resistance, resilience and autonomy. Through resistance, “women can reclaim their agency, their subjectivity, and their sense of self” (2024: 164). A key element of this is for the Church authorities to take responsibility in creating a critical consciousness that considers the lived perspectives of women and girls, with the aim of rejecting “narratives of domination” (2024: 164). Furthermore, resilience enables those who have suffered abuse “to respond effectively to and cope with trauma, adversity, and failure” (2024: 165). It needs to be questioned regarding how far Church systems would be willing to adopt a position of critical consciousness. For example, the Church’s response to their culpability in child sexual abuse cases does nothing to indicate that authorities are supporting survivors’ journeys of resistance, resilience and autonomy and are instead retraumatising those who have been abused. Kath McPhillips (2021:11), focusing on the Australian Catholic context, discusses the “multiple strategies” that the Catholic Church deployed to protect is reputation, “including moving perpetrators from parish to parish, denying or disbelieving accounts of abuse by victims,  stigmatising survivors, failing to keep organisational records and using canon law to silence the sharing of information”. Examples such as this highlight the Church has a long way to go to address fundamental issues at a structural level. This is brought home in Mulligan’s final section on implications for Catholic teaching, where she argues that the “Church leadership ought to address the complexity of reproductive health in a more nuanced and integrated way” (2024: 167), and how magisterial teaching typically “fail(s) to recognize the difficult realities of many women’s lives” (2024: 168). This resonates with our recent work on abortion and Catholic attitudes in Britain (Page and Lowe 2024). While Catholic parishioners typically understand abortion contextually and draw on their own experience of reproductive health, often indicating that in some instances, abortion would be permissible, Catholic priests – who are keen to demonstrate their adherence to Church teaching – instead understand abortion only in terms of always being a sin, with forgiveness as the only way forward. This creates a barrier in fully appreciating the circumstances women face and entails an underpinning judgement of women who have an abortion, even when priests want to express compassion. While the Church upholds outdated perspectives on women’s roles including the continued exclusion of women from ordained roles, alongside the perpetuation of strict Church teachings on women’s reproductive lives which ban artificial forms of contraception and condemn abortion, there is little to suggest that Catholic authorities are willing and ready to embrace a new ethics which prioritises the perspectives of women and girls.

References

Beattie, T., McEwan, T. and McPhillips, K. (2022) International Survey of Catholic Women. Catholic Women Speak.

Gott, C. (2022) Experience, Identity and Epistemic Injustice within Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, London: Bloomsbury.

McEwan, T. (2025) Women and the Catholic Church, London: Bloomsbury.

McPhillips, K. (2021) Mobilising for Justice: The Contribution of Organised Survivor Groups in Australia to Addressing Sexual Violence against Children in Christian Churches. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 34(1): 3-28.

Page, S-J. and Lowe, P. (2024) Abortion and Catholicism in Britain, Palgrave MacMillan.

Peters, R. T. (2018) Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice, Beacon Press: Boston

Responsorial Psalm – 29:1-2, 3-4, 3, 9-10

Second Reading – Acts 10:34-38

Gospel Reading – Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

The stories of Jesus’s baptism are an intriguing part of the Gospel witness, as they raise some thorny theological questions. If, for instance, the chief purpose of baptism is the forgiveness of sins (see: Nicene Creed), then why exactly is Jesus, whom Christians profess to be sinless, baptized? And, if Jesus is clearly “mightier” than John the Baptist, why does John baptize him and not the other way around?

Biblical scholars and theologians have a host of answers to these questions, but the thing that stands out to me—and that helps to reveal the significance of this week’s readings—is that baptism is not just for the forgiveness of sins in the Catholic understanding of the sacrament.

Yes, baptism does cleanse one from original sin and provide forgiveness from all forms of sin, according to Catholic teaching, but even more fundamentally, “Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life.” As such, it is the sacrament through which “we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1213).

This last part, “and made sharers in [the Church’s] mission,” is especially revelatory. Baptism marks the start of a new life with a new purpose, as the Christian is brought into the Church and tasked with the responsibility of sharing the good news and enacting the Kingdom.

Without getting bogged down in the theological disputes about the meaning of Jesus’s baptism, it is at least safe to say that there are clear parallels to these aspects of baptism in the way Jesus’s baptism led to the declaration of his identity (“my beloved Son”) and the start of his public ministry. Baptism kick-started Jesus’s mission in much the same way it is designed to kick-start ours.

Viewed from this missional lens, the readings for this week help us recognize how we can and should go about answering the call to share the Good News as baptized believers. Specifically, the readings indicate that humility must be at the heart of our work on behalf of the Kingdom in this world.

First, humility, in the sense of “humbly regard[ing] others as more important than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3), is emphatically—if implicitly—promoted through the Gospel reading. John refuses to indulge the lofty expectations the crowds wish to put upon him and instead proclaims, “one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.” And, of course, Jesus humbly submits himself to John for baptism. There is a model of selflessness in both these figures' witness today.

Second, Peter’s counsel in Acts of the Apostles reminds us that humility should triumph over self-righteousness, because “God shows no partiality” and is not boxed-in by our false certainty. “Rather,” Peter insists, “in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.” In a world where we are quick to pick sides and even quicker to put the people who do not perfectly align with our views on our enemies list, the capaciousness of God’s love asks us to overcome our suspicions about others and to hold our own assumptions more lightly. It is an invitation to an epistemic form of humility that will free us to engage the world more fully.

Finally, note how the first reading explains the arrival of the servant of God. He comes “not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street” but nevertheless “establish[ing] justice on the earth.” The contrast suggests that we should be less concerned about attracting attention to the good work we are called to do and more dedicated to buckling down and doing that work in the first place. Bucking the trend to bring “more heat than light,” this embrace of humility will help us focus on enacting the mission in reality rather than pontificating about it in theory.

As we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord this weekend, then, perhaps we can think about the ways the sacrament of baptism sets all who receive it on a missionary path toward, and we can then search for the humility we need to follow that path in faith.

The Mass readings for Epiphany Sunday can be found here.

The Nativity of Christ celebrated at Christmas does excellent work reminding us of Jesus's humanity. He is born of a woman in Bethlehem, the city of David, where his parents went for the Roman census. His parents are human and bound by the circumstances of their time. So much of those scenes convey Christ's humanity as humility; the birth in a stable among animals and the fact of shepherds being the first to honor him. Here is truly one like us, except in sin. He begins his life on earth in a familiar way, birthed of a woman.

Of course, what makes the humility of his humanity pronounced is that this is God. Yes, Jesus is born fully human in humble circumstances. But he is also born fully divine. Our Feast of Epiphany today fits naturally with the Christmas season, and yet it draws our attention to the divine. We may say Christmas is about God made MAN, living among us as a man. We may say Epiphany is about GOD made man; God living among us in Jesus.

Herod is informed that there is a new king of the Jews; this is concerning information for him given that Herod is king of the Jews. But what we see in our readings today reveals Jesus's kingship goes far beyond the Jews. He is a king for all; every nation will adore him. The magi are not Jews, but rather they come from the east.

As a human, Jesus may seem relatable to us. He is someone we can talk to as a friend, sharing struggles. We know the suffering and death he endured and can unite our own sufferings to his cross by offering our times of difficulty. Today, however, we might reflect on Jesus as God, deserving of our honor and respect, able to give us the grace and strength we need in our attempts to grow in virtue.

What threatens Herod is the idea that Jesus might somehow have greater authority than him or necessitate a change in his way of life. We all have this Herodian tendency. We want control of our situation, assuming that our God-given free will somehow means we are meant to be in complete charge of our daily lives.

When we honor Jesus as God, it will change our lives. We see the magi with their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These gifts show Jesus is King; Jesus is God; Jesus will die and be buried before he rises again. Epiphany reminds us that God among us is God here to challenge us, and the challenge is to recognize our dependence, to relate to Jesus as one of us...but with full realization that he is the only one among us who can save us.

At times, we fall into complacency in the Christian life. We try to live a good life, and we go to Mass on Sundays, and we believe we are covering our bases. Epiphany - like Christmas - has the potential to startle us. This Jesus born among us is worthy of all adoration and love, of every sacrifice we can imagine. Simply put, we cannot live this Christian life without God. We need the grace of the sacraments; we rely on the sustenance of the body and blood, soul and divinity given us in the Eucharist, the forgiveness given us in the sacrament of Confession, and the graces of other sacraments as well.

As we continue to celebrate this Christmas season, we can truly revel in the Epiphany. GOD came among us as man, in his great love for us, and we respond with the adoration deserving of our divine king.

Any single understanding risks flattening out the complexity. However, one could do worse than promise and fulfillment. Such a claim underscores continuity, rather than differences. Such a claim rests on an insistence that the basic dynamic of Scripture, of a covenant between God and God’s people, is continuous. And such a claim denies any supposed ethical binary (though of course Jesus does engage in some interesting and significant interpretations of Law). On the eve of Christmas, this week’s readings surely bring out the great continuities. 

The first reading stirs us by its mention of Bethlehem, but more importantly points out what is promised for Bethlehem: Israel’s new king, whose rule will be everlasting and will extend to all the nations. Such a rule will ultimately result in “peace” - a promise that is yearned for in the Holy Land no less in the prophet’s time than it does today. That this peace comes about through the establishment of rule is very much fulfilled in Christ. Christ does rule over all the nations, as we recalled a few weeks ago in the feast of Christ the King. The baby who is coming is not simply about some kind of interiorized peace. It is meant to make peace in the world. 

Interestingly, the reading from Hebrews might suggest much more discontinuity - until one realizes that the author is not really quoting Jesus, but rather Psalm 40. The idea that God desires “mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea), and that sacrifices are an unpalatable alternative to actually doing God’s will (Isaiah), are all over the Old Testament. Certainly, whatever the mysterious historical context for this letter, Hebrews is interested in a certain discontinuity with one understanding of God’s will in relation to the temple system. But this dissatisfaction is hardly a novel concept; it permeates the Hebrew Bible itself. Christ’s sacrifice is the one God truly wants: to do the will of the Father. 

Thus, the first two readings promise Israel its ultimate king and high priest. And what does that look like as it comes? We can think about Luke’s gospel as the very unexpected, very humble context in which the promise is going to be fulfilled. It comes about through the Baptist and the son of Mary. This may be unexpected, but it is not at all discontinuous. For what sections of Israel’s history would lead us to think that the fulfillment of all of God’s promises would come about in exactly the people and places we imagined? Quite the contrary. From Abraham onward, the story is one unexpected emergence after another. That’s not a sign of God’s incoherence, but a lesson for our own. As we approach Christmas, we may think we know exactly what to expect. And in one overall sense, we do: God’s promise will reach fulfillment. But what this will look like? We don’t know. Not what we expect. Except maybe one thing: it’s about peace.

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6

Second Reading – Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11

Gospel – Luke 3:1-6

Advent is a time of longing. We are called to anticipate the arrival of Christ at Christmas and to prepare our hearts for the celebration of the Incarnation.

Children seem to understand this task intuitively. No one builds up more anticipation for Christmas than the child eagerly opening an advent calendar to count down the days until the Nativity is here.

Today’s readings invite us all to recapture that same sense of longing, in two slightly different ways.

First, the readings harken to the generations of Israelites who longed for the transformative arrival of the Messiah. The first reading, from the prophet Baruch, captures the longings of the Israelites in exile, when they hoped for the restoration of their land and the reunification of their people.

The account of John the Baptist in the Gospel appeals to the same deep sense of longing. Luke describes John’s ministry in the words of the prophet Isaiah, who insisted that God would free the Israelites from their captivity in exile and “make straight” the path back to Jerusalem for God’s people.

If we can imagine the years of longing that simultaneously pained and sustained the Israelites during their exile, we can appreciate the sense of longing we are called to embrace during this season of Advent. The prophetic texts of the Old Testament suggest that the yearning for restoration was constant for the Israelites during this period. Can we say the same during our Advent? As the busyness of Christmas preparations—the gifts, the food, the travel, the hosting, and more—descend upon us, do we keep a constant longing for the arrival of God at the forefront of our minds?

By appealing to the heartfelt longings of the Israelites over the centuries, the readings remind us to put the longing for God at the center of our lives.

Second, the readings also encourage us to deepen these longings by attending to the promises of God. In essence, they ask us to appreciate what we are longing for.

Throughout the readings for this Sunday, we see numerous ways to characterize the object of our longing. Baruch lifts up “the peace of justice” as a promise from God that awaits the faithful. In a world torn by conflict, both the literally violent (as in wars in Ukraine and the Middle East) and the perennially divisive (as in the polarized domestic politics of the United States), surely we can recognize a longing for genuine peace deep within our hearts.

The responsorial psalm depicts a vision of “laughter” and “rejoicing” when God “restore[s] our fortunes.” In a world inevitably marred by the imperfections of sin and the problem of evil, we all carry burdens that give us reasons to weep, whether that be the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, feelings of insecurity, struggles with mental illness, or something else altogether. By knowing those pains, we also know how profound the desire for genuine reasons to laugh and rejoice can be. We can find our longing in this promise too.

The second reading, meanwhile, offers the prayer “that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” Here is the longing to be free from sin, to be part of the Gospel’s desire that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” If we loved with the purity of perfect perception, we would be saved from our judgmental tendencies and our temptations to dismiss others as not worth our time. We could see with the eyes of God and encounter the world as a gift, worthy of love even in the midst of its imperfections. Surely we can imagine the happiness this approach would inspire and can long for this transformation in our own lives.

By spelling out all these possible futures that God can bring about, the readings for this Second Sunday of Advent help to refine our longings so that we can see how our deepest desires turn us back to God. As St. Augustine famously insisted, “our hearts are restless until they rest in You,” reminding us that our ultimate longing is something that only God can fulfill.

Perhaps this Sunday, when we light the candle that symbolizes peace, we can pause to recognize our longings and turn in anticipation to the Christmas that is to come, when the God who promises to fulfill our longings dwells among us and gives us a newfound peace once again.