On the Solemnity of All Saints

The following is an excerpt from my book Surviving Catholic Ministry, pgs. 10-11.

I often reflect on Joseph Ratzinger’s teaching about sainthood. By “sainthood,” Ratzinger means something like St. Paul’s reference to the Christians of the early church. For Paul, the word did not denote only those canonized, or even canonizable Christians. The word “saint” does not refer to “a headlong leap into heroism,” or “adventurous achievements of virtue.”1 Instead, the word refers to Christ’s own sanctifying initiative and action that sanctifies the church and her members. It refers to those “saints” who “with Jesus receive a ray of his brightness” and who are “called to use their experience of the risen Lord to become a point of reference for others that could bring them into contact with Jesus’ vision of the living God.”2 The saints are witnesses; they are reference points or living windows that allow the light of Christ, the living God, to reach others. We are all called to be saints. I am called to be one. You are, too. You and I are called to radical transformation in Christ, such that when we encounter others, they encounter Christ.

The image of a stained-glass window captures all of this magnificently. Stained glass consists of thousands of fragments fitted together. Without light illuminating it, stained glass is unintelligible. When you’re in a church at night, the jet-black panels are portals of darkness. Hard. Cold.

But, in the morning, the sunlight touches each of those pieces of glass—suddenly illuminating the whole of it and fitting each piece into a mosaic of color. Suddenly the window makes sense. The stained-glass window itself is a testimony to the light that illuminates it—it refers to the light, so to speak. So it is for the saint. So it is with us. We need the light of Christ to touch the fragments of our lives and make us whole. We need the light to bring the whole thing into focus. When this happens, we become capable of being reference points to that light everywhere we go. This is what it means to live our identity (as sons and daughters of God) and to allow the source of it to shine for all to see (cf. Matt 5:16).

What the game taught me about virtue and life.

I had no business playing football. My slender, ectomorphic frame couldn’t wait to offload any weight gained. I metabolized food almost as fast as I took it in. But, I did play football and looked like a coat rack with a helmet and shoulder pads. My freshman year, I earned the nickname the “hundred pounder,” because my coach rounded up on my official 95 pound weight. (I heard through the grapevine he didn’t want any double digit weights published in the football program.)

I was decent at form-tackling the dummy, but when it came to the real game and everyone was twice my size, the physics didn’t work in my favor. I became the dummy. I did innovate in the process, however. Watch the film. It never lies. And I’m sure it’s lying in a vault somewhere in my high school. There, you will see me holding onto the ball carrier with every sinew of my ripped muscles tearing, fingers clawing into flesh, while sliding further and further down, down, down the running back’s legs, dragged for seven or eight yards before he tripped over my carcass and I rose again victorious. First down? Not over my dead body.

I had no business playing football, except that I played for the fourth smallest football-playing school in the state of Ohio. So, if you were a male with a pulse, you could put on pads and likely earn a varsity letter. (I earned two.)

These days, hastily “healed” injures haunt me. They are specters in my bones and a few joints. My body reminds me I had no business playing football. But, I did play, and the game became my teacher. The game taught me about life. The game taught me virtue.

Industriousness

When I was a spindly eighth grader, in the Spring, we could start working out with the football team. I’d leave my elementary school most days and walk the half-mile to the high school munching on a Twinkie I bought at the Circle K. I remember walking into the weight room the first day. I had no idea how to lift weights. I had no idea how to work the machines. I needed help and I found it in Russell.

Russell was four years older than me. He was a junior, heading into his senior year. Probably a foot taller and 125 pounds heavier than me at the time. Maybe more. Russell was a team captain, star defensive end, and he knew what was up. To this day, I’m not exactly sure how we got acquainted, but he took me under his wing during that offseason and taught me the game from the inside.

Apart from learning how our team’s system worked, I learned virtues that make someone a good football player. Through his mentorship and modeling, I learned industriousness, for example. Russell was a diligent worker. He was steady and faithful. I got the sense from him that he could outwork anyone because he did outwork everyone. When it comes to hard work, my parents had already provided the kindling in this regard and Russell lit the match. After that offseason, I knew I could outwork anyone on the football team (except Russell). First in the weight room. Last one out. Stadium workouts all summer long in the hottest part of the day. Focus. Intense focus. Hours spent watching film, becoming a student of the game. Football brain. I would never be as big as most of the guys, nor would I have the technical skill, but I could raise the bar when it came to work.

Courage

Sometime during that same spring (of my 8th grade year), the varsity coach pulled all the wideouts up to the gym to run some routes. When we got upstairs, Nate Keller was standing there with a football in his hand. Nate was about to graduate. The previous Fall, he was the first team Division VI quarterback for the state of Ohio, and the offensive player of the year for Division VI. I spent every Fall weekend during Jr. High watching this guy put up ridiculous numbers, and now I was lining up to try to handle his fastball on a slant route.

Nate took great pride in whipping the ball at us with tremendous speed and precision. The smirk on his face made it clear that as the 8th graders stepped up he was going to try to take one of our heads off. I watched as guys barely deflected the ball away before it wedged itself in their faces, or as they let the ball get to their body only to see it bounce off and away. I think I probably closed my eyes as the ball reached my hands, but I held on. “Okay.” I thought to myself. “I can do this.” It was a huge moment in my life. Putting myself out there, stepping into the arena, and succeeding.

Football is a violent, brutal sport. It’s interesting in that you go into every game (really, every practice, in a sense), knowing you are going to get hurt. Football hurts. You can’t play a football game, really play a football game, and wake up the next morning feeling fine. You’re going to feel the game somewhere deep in your bones.

I learned what courage is from football. I learned how to feel intimidated, how to feel afraid, and to move through it and try to win the game anyway.

Resiliency

I didn’t always succeed in football. In fact, more often than not, I didn’t succeed. I had to fight through constant injuries. Something was wrong with my thumb ligaments, so I’d sprain both thumbs within about one hour of the season starting. Next came jammed and broken fingers. I think I tore something in my shoulder lifting weights heading into my senior year.1 Ah, yes, the broken ribs and struggling to breathe. I remember having goosebumps and shivering on the field once. I bet it was 105°on the turf and I was dehydrated. The field was melting to my cleats. I remember getting hit, over and over — collisions reverberating throughout my skeleton. I remember scraping my body off the ground and smelling the rough combination of sweat, dirt, and blood.

I got clipped a few times in games. Those were the most painful hits. Once, I’m pretty sure I blacked out, because this brute smashed his helmet into the back of mine and drove me into the ground. Another time, I got hit by some lineman. Knocked my ear pad out. I think my body formed an upside down V or worse. I nearly snapped in half. I actually swore the side of my head hit the side of my own knee and knocked the ear pad out. I can remember the sting of taking a face mask to the elbow. Turf burn and cuts were the worst. They wouldn’t heal. You’d use gauze and tape to stop the bleeding, just to rip it open again at the end of each practice as you’d pry the gauze out of your flesh and release a fresh stream of blood. Guys would get staff infection. You’d try to keep everything clean, but in that environment, it was just so hard.

But I kept fighting. I knew my only shot at getting on the field would come through effort and and physical and mental toughness. So, I’d battle. And keep battling. Keep going. Keep fighting. I’ve always taken pride in being scrappy and in never giving up. That’s a lesson that came from my dad and football challenged that decision every day.

Resiliency spills over, too. I saw this firsthand as a guy a year younger than me fought for his life after a failed suicide attempt. Then, surrounded by the support of his family, friends, and our team, he recovered a sense of purpose and rehabbed his way back to the football field.

Community

I often wonder why I played football. My frame is well-suited for soccer or cross country. Soccer was barely on the radar in my small town and cross country garnered little attention. The Friday night lights were where it was at. As a little boy, the atmosphere was electric. It seemed like the whole town was at the games. To be part of that was a decisive factor for me.

But more than that, I found the community that formed within the team something unmatched in my life. Feed-the-team followed by a few hands of poker. Strangely hilarious superstitions. Guys fighting each other for starting spots, and then fighting side-by-side against the next opponent. The locker room talks. The highs and lows. Learning how to win with class and how to lose without being sore. Learning how to get back up again, as individuals and together. Learning how to take commands from adults (and peers). Learning how to respond when your coach chews you out. Or how to respond to your teammate after your coach chewed him out — grateful it wasn’t you this time, and knowing he needed some pick-me-up to regain the confidence to try again. To this day, I can’t recall a single egoist on the team in all the years I played.

As a team, we were after one thing: a state championship. My high school hadn’t brought home a title in over 20 years and like every other team in the state of Ohio, we were determined to make this year our year. League was just a step in the process. So were districts and regionals. We came closest my junior year when we lost 10-6 in the regional final. We fought hard for our goal, which existed somewhere outside the confines of our weight room and practice facility. And I found myself totally captivated by being part of something way bigger than myself, and in a long tradition of boys trying to learn how to become men together, and through a game.

Tradition

Football showed me that tradition is not something you understand by reading about it, but by experiencing it, living in it, and living through it. Rarely, if ever, were the traditions of our football program explained to me. They were not told. They were shown. And while the lore of the program rippled out into the community, only the guys in the locker room really knew the tradition from the inside.

Inside the locker room, for example, I’m fairly certain we listened to the same CDs all four years I was in there. The seniors were always the disc jockeys. It’s not that we couldn’t burn some new ones, I just don’t think anyone wanted to. To us, this was what football sounded like. It was Jimi, Bob, CCR, AC/DC, Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Eminem, and Al Pacino’s Every Given Sunday speech (on game days only). To this day, all of this music conjures up memories etched deep in my subconscious — sweat-wet pads, aching muscles, and the boys.

A tradition is made up of many doctrines and disciplines, I suppose. It’s a kind of intangible thing that’s rendered tangible through ritual actions, language, and symbols. On my team, one of the most impactful disciplines was a deeply symbolic action conducted on game days in complete silence. Upon arriving at the stadium (home or away), we would enter the locker room in silence and set down our carefully packed gear. Then, we would leave in silence and walk the length of the field. It was a meditation. A chance to smell the earth and feel it, without all the fanfare, cheerleaders, and marching band — and without the opponent. You would walk in silence and try to visualize the game and calm your nerves. You would touch one goalpost and then turn around and walk the length of the field to the other. I don’t know if anyone ever made eye contact with anyone else. It was like the moment was too sacred and you wouldn’t want to disrupt it for anyone else. But we all did it together. To this day, I still go back to the memory of that silent procession when I need to retreat to my interior cell.

Humility

I suppose the greatest lesson football taught me was undoubtedly the most painful. My growth spurt came at the worst time. I think I grew about six inches over the span of a few months, all leading into to my senior year. Suddenly, I couldn’t get my body and my brain to connect. I went from being decently agile to unbelievably clumsy. It was terrible. Armed with levels of incoordination hitherto unseen, I started the season as a starting wide receiver for the first time (the class ahead of me was filled with a bunch of studs who took us to the regional finals).

It didn’t last long.

After making it to the regional finals the year before, we lost our first two games of the season. Pressure was on. In game three, we were the definite underdog but we were in the fight. I dropped a crucial pass on a deep route that was a sure touchdown and I lost my starting spot. Complete and utter humiliation. Disappointment radiated through my being. I had disappointed myself, my coaches, my teammates, my family, and my whole town.

I had fought and clawed for years for that spot and in one play, it was gone. I lost my starting spot after that game.

My seventeen-year-old brain realized at that low point that I had a decision to make. I could complain about the coaching staff and unfair treatment, I could make excuses, or I could shut up and figure out how I’m going to make the team better. I chose the latter. I ate my humble pie and got back out there on the scout team.

By this point in my illustrious career, I had more or less cemented myself in the scout team hall of fame. For those who don’t know, every week you have to prepare for the opponent. This means you essentially have to run the opponent’s offensive plays and defensive schemes against the first team. In other words, you have to learn the opponent inside and out and replicate it for the first team. It has to be decent enough to give them a good look. I was fairly smart and caught onto football strategy quickly. This made me rather helpful on the scout team. So during my sophomore and junior year, I was the first team’s tackling dummy. Now, as a senior, I assumed the role again — the first team’s rag doll.

We went 1-9 that season. The whole thing was a disappointment. But, I learned two important lessons. First, I learned that just because you work and outwork everyone, it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to succeed. Bad timing and bad breaks happen. It’s humiliating. How you endure the humiliation and respond accordingly matters. Second, I learned in the hardest way I could at the time, what it means to put others first, to put the team first. For me, it meant shutting up and taking licks for yet another (and final) season. It meant watching sophomores take over my starting spot while working my tail off at practice to make them better and to mentor them. I had a chance to put the team first and I took the high road, which is often not the most glamorous one and certainly the one most don’t notice.

In the end, my brief football career would be considered forgettable by most. But, its lessons for my life have been unforgettable. And though I would have likely been far more successful in other sporting ventures, I don’t regret playing football. The game offered me far more than I brought to it.

The following is an excerpt from my new book Surviving Catholic Ministry, pgs. 64–65.

Though they are to be places of prayer, parishes are noisy things. There is a lot of chatter. It’s easy to participate in it and for this noise to sweep us away. The world is noisy enough as it is. The computers we carry in our pockets are constant reminders of that. There’s no need for the parish to contribute to the cacophony.

Often, parish staff members add to the din. I suppose it’s because we’re frustrated or dissatisfied. We grumble. This is decently hard work, after all. But that discontent breeds noise. “From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). We are prone to grumble. In his Rule, a rather short book, St. Benedict discourages grumbling eight times! Constant whining is destructive in the life of a community. It’s cancerous. Commenting on St. Benedict’s disdain for grumbling, Benedictine monk J. Augustine Wetta explains that “if you think about it, an outright fight is easier on a community than that ceaseless, cowardly, whining gossip that comes from a grumbler who ‘spreads strife’ and ‘separates close friends’ (Prov 16:28) . . . Grumbling makes everyone restless and angry—including the grumbler himself.”1

The discontent that fills the heart does need an outlet, so to speak. That first outlet needs to be prayer, which also includes listening. Blaise Pascal basically said the same thing once: “I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”2 Parishes need agents of silence. Those who, at the core, quiet themselves (internally and externally) and in humble silence seek the God who is silent. Parish staffs need members who embrace silence and so become prophets of silence.

Silence leads to the discovery of God who, though Other, dwells within. Robert Cardinal Sarah comments on this: “At the heart of man there is an innate silence, for God abides in the innermost part of every person. God is silence, and this divine silence dwells in man.”3 Parishes need people, staff people, who are capable of silence and who discover God in it—then show that way of silence and presence to others.

Quick takes from Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI

Recently, a few passages from Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI have been floating through my head. They all have to do with the triple-theme of humility, resiliency, and courage.1

Regarding humility, he says that we need humiliations. This appears in his Last Testament, as he recounts a certain academic trial pertaining to his post-doctoral thesis. Regarding this trial — a negative report by his second examiner and a need for revision — he says:

I believe that it is dangerous for a young person simply to go from achieving goal after goal, generally being praised along the way. So it is good for a young person to experience his limit, occasionally to be dealt with critically, to suffer his way through a period of negativity, to recognize his own limits himself, not simply to win victory after victory. A human being needs to endure something in order to learn to assess himself correctly, and not least to learn to think with others. Then he will not simply judge others hastily and stay aloof, but rather accept them positively, in his labours and his weaknesses.2

I believe I may tattoo this on the foreheads of my children, given the entitled and self-absorbed world in which they live, move, and have their being. I mean, the lack of resiliency and critical thinking, the waiting for Internet mommy to come along and fix problems and provide answers, etc…

The next tidbit comes from Fr. Vincent Twomey, one of Ratzinger’s doctoral students (and one of the examiners of my own doctoral dissertation — the most challenging to be sure, given his pages and pages of commentary and proposed revisions to my work). Twomey recounts Ratzinger’s attack on his perfectionism:

Once he asked me gently about the progress of my thesis. It was about time, as I had been working on it for some seven years. I told him that I thought there was still some work to be done. He turned to me with those piercing but kindly eyes, saying with a smile: “Nur Mut zur LŸcke” (Have the courage to leave some gaps). In other words, be courageous enough to be imperfect.3

Today, we might say something like, “the best dissertation is a done dissertation,” or “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” or Chesterton’s “if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” The point is this: have the courage to put something out there (i.e., to put yourself out there), knowing your limits and knowing it’s imperfect.

And, to round this out, I return to a thought from Pope Benedict XVI that I recall almost on a daily basis. I think it balances the previous point. Putting oneself out there means opening to correction and revision. The very nature of the pencil captures this:

As a young lad I wrote in pencil and then stayed with it. The pencil has an advantage in that one can erase things. If I write with ink, it is written.4

I think about this daily because I always carry a pen in my pocket, but I wish it were a pencil. A pencil is a humbler implement. However, when I tried carrying a mechanical pencil in my pocket, the sharp tip of the thing tore a hole in my pocket and it slid down my leg and wound up in my shoe. It’s hard to play it cool when something like that happens. Humiliations. Carrying a normal #2 in my pocket just seems strange, so I keep going back to the pen. Maybe I just need to have the courage to have gaps in my papers and holes in my pockets.

On Recovering a Sacramental Worldview

I am speaking at a high school youth ministry event in the near future. In this post, I’m attempting to convert my talk notes into an essay. In the talk itself, I will likely say what follows or something similar. I never really know until it’s happening.

I once heard a story about two men standing on the shore of a lake. They were at a party on the beach and the air was filled with the sounds of laughter, chatter, and music. It was night. In an instant, the lake became completely still, like a huge pane of glass. As a natural mirror, it reflected perfectly the night sky. The one man turned to the other, and in hushed voice said: “This is what it means to be Christian. We see what they see, but we see more.” The rest of partygoers just saw a lake — water in a big hole, a home for fish, a source of occasional entertainment, and a nice backdrop for the party they were having on the beach. But, in that instant, the two men saw it for what it was: a mirror for the heavens — reflecting or pointing to something beyond itself, yet of which it is a part.

In many ways, this story encapsulates the difference made by being Catholic, being Christian. Being Christian has to do with a new way of seeing all of reality — seeing what everyone else sees, but seeing more.

Let’s try to unpack this with a thought exercise.1

Pull out your phone and hold it in your hands (unless it’s already in your hands as you read this post). The iPhone, for example. Is this device the result of some unintentional act? Is it some random collection of parts that just so happen to have come together and work together? No one in their right might would consent to that. A mind, or many minds, really, designed the thing and put it together. And they did not design and assemble it for no good reason, but with a clear purpose in mind. The phone (at the most basic level) exists to connect people, to facilitate their relating to one another — to support their relationships.

Now, go pick up a leaf (they’re starting to fall off trees in Ohio). Hold it in your hands and look at it. Think for a bit. From where did this leaf come? What is it designed to do? What’s its purpose now that it’s dead and laying on the ground?

[I’ll have to see what the teens say here.]

Think about you. How did you get here tonight? What happened that got you here? Who all was involved in getting you here? Besides that, where did you come from in the first place? Were you a randomly assembled bunch of body parts on a table that just so happened to join together? Why did you even exist at all? What happened in the lives of your parents such that they even met in the first place? What are you designed to do?

[And here.]

The results of this exercise grate against how we normally see things in life as…

• Just happening

• Just entertainment

• Just stuff

• Just boring

• Just meaningless

We often see thing shallowly and dimly. We can engage the world in a self-centered and entitled kind of way, as if it’s all just about us, and our tastes, and our wants. We tend to engage with the world mindlessly and recklessly.

But what did we just see through the thought exercises? What did we consider with an iPhone (or Android), a leaf, and our own lives? We saw a world full of design, meaning, intentionality, purpose. We saw things with a “why,” a reason.

Like how an iPhone is not random, but intentional and points to a designer, a mind — the universe, the earth, every part of it, from a leaf to a person, is ordered and fits together. Each part is intentional and points beyond itself to the Designer, the Mind, the Creator.

This idea of created things pointing beyond themselves to their Creator is the basis of a sacramental view of reality. With a sacramental worldview, we see all around us a meaningful world that points to the Author of meaning.

It’s interesting. That adjective “sacramental/sacrament” refers to a sacred thing which lies concealed or beyond. It’s a reference to what you don’t see with your eyeballs. In the created world, you don’t see God directly, but you see through creation to the creative mind and hand of God. There’s a Designer behind the design, there’s a Mind behind how everything fits together. Everything isn’t random and life isn’t meaningless. A sacramental worldview means you see more — you see everything everyone else sees, but you see more. Go back to the original lake image, for a moment. In that instant, the lake wasn’t just water in a big hole or the backdrop of a beach party, but that which reflected the heavens. So too, our world isn’t just a meaningless collection of stuff for our use and exploitation, but the manifestation of God’s handiwork. The created order shows us something of who God is through every aspect of his creation — from the tiniest grain of sand to the soaring heights of Mt. Everest, from the atom to Adam.

In fact, that biblical description of human beings that lies at the core of the Christian understanding of the human person, namely that we are the “image and likeness” of God, is wrapped entirely in this notion of a sacramental vision. “Image and likeness” means we are that part of God’s creation capable of most perfectly reflecting him, of re-presenting him. By saying the human’s very being points to God, means the person has a sacramental (lowercase s) character. This is part of the reason why Pope St. Leo the Great cried out, “Christian Remember your dignity!” The person is not merely another part of creation like all the other parts, but its crown jewel — that part of creation capable of communicating with God on behalf of all creation. Again, we see what they see, but we see more.

So far, we’ve seen that the world is full of order and bears the marks of a design. It is a meaningful, intentional world. And we’ve seen that this meaningfulness points to a source of that meaning, to an Author of that meaning, a Creator. But, what else can we determine through our thought exercises? Just two quick points. We see:

• A world in which God’s providence is at play — God doesn’t just create and let the thing go, but he is involved

• A world that is gift — we see that everything is gift (yet so often we act like entitled brats)

• A world that is inherently relational — a reflection of the communion of divine persons that is the Trinity

Surely we could go on. But we can stop there. The bottom line is this: having a sacramental vision of reality allows us to see beyond mere things all the way to their Source. It is a new way of seeing (that’s really very old) that sees everything as a meaningful gift — intended by the Designer, the Creator — that he continuously gives. Everything ultimately points back to a mind that made it and that Mind is God — if we are willing to look, to really see.

Okay, so we have reestablished that we live in a meaningful world that reveals something about the Creator — that points to the Creator. This is the foundation on which stand the seven Sacraments of the Church. So, how do we understand the seven Sacraments? Where did they come from?

Briefly, the logic flows like this: Jesus enters into his creation. The Creator enters his creation in the person of Jesus Christ. This breaks our brains a little bit. It’s as if the painter painted himself into his design and from within, he can exercise his will fully and freely to alter or impact or change the painting. So too with Jesus. Now, from inside creation itself, the Creator can give new meaning, or deeper meaning to things.

So Jesus (who is God), establishes the seven Sacraments and entrusts them to the Church. Each Sacrament reveals a new meaning, deeper meaning behind the already meaningful things of this world. It’s like a further unveiling of the original design plans that take us to depths and heights previously unimaginable.

Take Baptism for example. We’ve already established that a lake isn’t just water in a big hole, but a kind of mirror reflecting its heavenly creator. But Baptism reveals more. The lake is more than mere water and more than a mirror, its deepest meaning is unveiled as the place of encounter — it is holy water into which one is immersed into the death and life of Christ, and is reborn as a son or daughter of God.

Or, let’s look at the Eucharist. Bread isn’t just food we eat, but it is a sign of God’s providence for us that allows to live for a bit on the face of the earth. But in the Eucharist, bread is given a new meaning. Ordinary bread becomes the Body of Christ — the living Bread of Life, the only food that gives us eternal life.

In the person of Jesus, who took flesh — the Creator who became creature — God establishes the Sacraments to make us new. The Sacraments are transformative encounters with Christ, mediated by the Church, through visible, concrete realities. God establishes the Sacraments to restore us to who we are — to help us become who we are as his children, his beloved sons and daughters who are never alone. God establishes the Sacraments to help us see him more.

Therefore, in light of Christ, the saying we’ve been playing with changes. Now it’s not, “we see what they see but we see more.” Now it’s, “we see what they see, but we see even more of the more.”

As a final note, I plan to use this song as a way of leading into and out of the talk. Enjoy!

On the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows — September 15

Love righteousness, you rulers of the earth,
think of the Lord with uprightness,
and seek him with sincerity of heart;
because he is found by those who do not put him to the test,
and manifests himself to those who do not distrust him.
For perverse thoughts separate men from God,
and when his power is tested, it convicts the foolish;
because wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul,
nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin.
For a holy and disciplined spirit will flee from deceit,
and will rise and depart from foolish thoughts,
and will be ashamed at the approach of unrighteousness.

For wisdom is a kindly spirit
and will not free a blasphemer from the guilt of his words;
because God is witness of his inmost feelings,
and a true observer of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue.
Because the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world,
and that which holds all things together knows what is said;
therefore no one who utters unrighteous things will escape notice,
and justice, when it punishes, will not pass him by.
For inquiry will be made into the counsels of an ungodly man,
and a report of his words will come to the Lord,
to convict him of his lawless deeds;
because a jealous ear hears all things,
and the sound of murmurings does not go unheard.
Beware then of useless murmuring,
and keep your tongue from slander;
because no secret word is without result,
and a lying mouth destroys the soul.

Do not invite death by the error of your life,
nor bring on destruction by the works of your hands;
because God did not make death,
and he does not delight in the death of the living.
For he created all things that they might exist,
and the generative forces of the world are wholesome,
and there is no destructive poison in them;
and the dominion of Hades is not on earth.
For righteousness is immortal.

Life as the Ungodly See It

But ungodly men by their words and deeds summoned death;
considering him a friend, they pined away,
and they made a covenant with him,
because they are fit to belong to his party.

For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
“Short and sorrowful is our life,
and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.
Because we were born by mere chance,
and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been;
because the breath in our nostrils is smoke,
and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts.
When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes,
and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.
Our name will be forgotten in time,
and no one will remember our works;
our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud,
and be scattered like mist
that is chased by the rays of the sun
and overcome by its heat.
For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,
and there is no return from our death,
because it is sealed up and no one turns back.

“Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist,
and make use of the creation to the full as in youth.
Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes,
and let no flower of spring pass by us.
Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
Let none of us fail to share in our revelry,
everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment,
because this is our portion, and this our lot.
Let us oppress the righteous poor man;
let us not spare the widow
nor regard the gray hairs of the aged.
But let our might be our law of right,
for what is weak proves itself to be useless.

“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture,
that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”

Error of the Wicked

Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hope for the wages of holiness,
nor discern the prize for blameless souls;
for God created man for incorruption,
and made him in the image of his own eternity,
but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his party experience it.

The Destiny of the Righteous

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be an affliction,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
For though in the sight of men they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will reign over them for ever.
Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will abide with him in love,
because grace and mercy are upon his elect,
and he watches over his holy ones.

The Destiny of the Ungodly

But the ungodly will be punished as their reasoning deserves,
who disregarded the righteous man and rebelled against the Lord;
for whoever despises wisdom and instruction is miserable.
Their hope is vain, their labors are unprofitable,
and their works are useless.
Their wives are foolish, and their children evil;
their offspring are accursed.

— Wisdom 1:1–3:13