New Years, the Brown Scapula, and the Poison Ps
New Years, the Brown Scapular, and the Poison Ps!
by Robert Fontana
It is the New Year, and my thoughts turn to being raised Catholic at a time when Catholics knew how to practice their faith. We were good at it. We knew how to fast from meat on Fridays – ALL FRIDAYS, receive ashes in Lent, attend May crownings, pray the stations of the cross, make the sign of the cross while passing Catholic churches (not Protestant ones), bless our new homes, new babies, and, in Louisiana, the shrimp boats, with holy water.
We did not necessarily understand Catholicism; it was all a mystery anyway, but we knew how to practice the religion of our ancestors, even from the time we were very young. For example, when I was a child, probably at my first communion, I was given a brown scapular; two pieces of cloth, generally about an inch square, each with an image of Mary on one side, connected by cords and worn around the neck.
Wearing a scapular was serious business. The one spiritual truth I remember about it was that no person wearing one at the moment of his or her death could ever be sent to hell.
Honest! My brother Francis, who is a year older than me, and I had an intense conversation one day, about how this was possible.
Francis – I never take my scapular off. NEVER!
Robert – You mean you even take a bath with it? Ain’t that a sin, I mean getting a holy scapular wet?
Francis – No, stupid, not with a scapular. If you drown in the tub, or a hurricane knocks down a tree on the house, smashing the bathroom with you in the tub, you want to be wearing the scapular. It’ll keep you out of hell when you die, so wear it even when you take a bath.
Robert – Wow!
I had thought it was a sin to get a scapular wet, like it was a sin to chew the communion host. But a scapular’s having the power to save me from the torment of hell, that was something else.
But I was confused about one thing.
Robert – What if you have a mortal sin on your soul, will you still go to heaven if you die wearing the scapular?
Francis paused. He was stumped. That was a theological issue that he had not considered, and no sister of Mt. Carmel, who taught at the school which we and every child in a 10-mile radius attended, had yet explained.
Francis – I don’t know what happens then. Maybe it just falls off if you are dying and have a mortal sin on your soul. Mother Petronella did say that we have to be good when we wear the scapular. (She was our first grade teacher.)
As I said, we Catholics were pretty good at practicing our religion even though we did not fully understand why we were doing what we were doing. That may have worked in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s when Catholic culture was intact and the pressing issue was keeping immigrant Catholics from becoming Protestant, but it will not work today. The world has changed. The fundamental challenge to Catholic
Christianity is not Protestantism, even in its Evangelical variety. These Christians are our allies. The challenge is greed and selfishness that has run amok as men and women of all ages pursue what Franciscan Father Richard Rohr calls the “Poison Ps – Position, Power, and Possessions.”
POSITION, POWER, AND POSSESSIONS swallow one up in a never-ending game of status-seeking, wielding influence, and acquiring things.
POSITION, POWER, AND POSSESSIONS suck the life from one’s soul and leave one looking like what Jesus described as “white-washed tombs on the outside, but deadmen’s bones on the inside” (Mt 23:27) or perhaps like Donald Trump.
POSITION, POWER, AND POSSESSIONS blind entire communities to the needs of the unborn and poor, to the desecration of the earth, and to the demands of justice.
BUT REMEMBER THIS! We cannot avoid the Poison Ps.
We are immersed in them because the pursuit of position, power, and possessions is a foundation of the dominant American culture. They are the “water we drink, the air we breathe.” We cannot avoid them, BUT we can transform them!
Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2
How are we to do this? This is what I think:
1. Remember, Jesus came to bring heaven to earth, not just get us to heaven.
2. Wear the scapular and anything else that reminds you that you are a child of God, but also read the Gospels, and stay close to Jesus.
3. Join a Cenacle or small community of faith. Doing church on Sunday is not enough to transform the “Poison Ps.” We need the wisdom and example of others to help us.
4. Talk with any person of good will who is dissatisfied with the madness of pursuing position, power, and possessions, and learn from them as well. God (and the Reign of God) is much bigger than any church can contain. Learn from all men and women of good will.
Have a great 2012 and send us your prayer intentions!
